Six J’s Union 76

Was a bystander (read: butt in passenger seat) as this occurred:
Passed by this place on the way to an appointment. They have a sign outside that says $ 18.95 for an oil change*.
*= most cars.
A Buick is apparently not most cars. Final bill was over $ 40 for an oil change only.
Confused & wandered into the lobby. Asking why the bill was higher resulted in getting condescending remarks and a thorough yelling. Ok. Pay to get the eff out.
Oil change light still lighting up the dashboard despite paying 2x the quoted price. Got yelled at for not having the car manual and was asked to come back 5 hours later during the shift change to have someone else look at it. NOPED outta there.
After the appointment, went to the usual family mechanic that fixed the dash (on the house) in a couple of minutes. Apparently they’d done the previous oil change for only $ 20. Hmm.
As a bystander I’ve learned:
1. Stick to places you trust, it’s worth the wait.
2. This place charged 2x the quoted price, yelled instead of calmly explaining (maybe the energy needed to yell warrants the extra cost?), and couldn’t fix a simple dash.
Tl;dr: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

This saddens me to write this because I used to bring my cars to Jim when I lived in Glenview for over ten years. Three months ago my husband and I purchased a used car from dealership in Northbrook. I wanted to bring it to a mechanic I trusted to be looked over and to make sure it was worth what we were paying for it.
We paid Jim to look at the car. After 10 min, Jim assured us that the car looked great and we were getting a good deal. «This car can run up to 250,000» was his exact reaction to the car. We purchased the car.
A week later the engine started smoking. We now have to replace a $ 2,500 engine. When we brought it to a new mechanic he was shocked that Jim could not find anything wrong with it. He said that Jim did a very lazy job «looking» the car over. The fact that we paid Jim to «look over» the car is a joke. He said any decent mechanic could tell there was major issues with this car.
Jim’s mistake cost our family a lot of money. Not fair!

After being away for a few years and now coming back, I now appreciate how great of a service station this is. Jim, the owner and main mechanic, is as honest as they come. While the station is certainly not pristine, Jim certainly knows how to take care of cars.
When you go in for a problem, you won’t get a laundry list of other things you ‘should take care of’ like you normally would with a Firestone-​type service center. Jim is also quite brilliant in the way he addresses a problem — he won’t necessarily replace a part if there is a different solution that will last as long as you wish your car to last. This saves hundreds of dollars.
I honestly can’t speak highly enough of this station and the service I have always received. Don’t let the exterior fool you. This is good quality and honest work — a rarity in the business.