Hudson Auto Care

Quick, professional, and friendly service. I highly recommend for any automotive service.

Another great experience today) as usual).
Took my Touareg for a «check your engine» light on that need to be fixed before a smog check, and an oil change. Chris and his team performed a full check and suggested em to drive the car for 90 – 100 miles to see if it was fixed, before engaging in much deeper repair (remove of gas tank, which I am sure my VW dealer would have done immediately!).
Everything was completed in 2 hours while I was waiting at the Pete’s coffee next door.
They are very knowledgeable in European cars (used to take my 911 there adter having been ripped off at the Porsche dealer), and very pleasant and patient.
A great place.

Just had to take my car to Hudson Auto Care to get the battery replaced. While I can’t offer any insight into whether this garage is a good choice for a more serious auto issue than that, I will say that Steve was extremely helpful, knowledgeable and efficient. I would definitely consider returning here for future car services.

Unfriendly place which will refused to give you approx. estimate on repair which was already diagnosed. You till you will spend another $ 150 for their diagnostic before they will tell you their prices for repair.

I have been taking my cars here for years. Bottom line: I trust these guys and they are competent and efficient and fair. Rich for many years and now for past 4 or 5 Chris seems to be in charge and he is cut from the same cloth. recommend.

They’re efficient, affordable, honest and reliable… which is an extremely rare combination.
Steve is awesome! He’s very kind and communicative and was very flexible with my schedule.
I don’t live in the area but will continue to come here for the people and quality of work.
I highly recommend them!

I’ve been taking various cars to Hudson Shell for over 10 years. I think they are great. Both Chris and Rich are fabulous with customer care. They do what they say they will do; give timely quotes; perform the work. i’m not a bargain hunter. I want good service; communication; and fulfillment of job. That’s what they do!

Although the people at Hudson Auto care were nice to me, I do not recommend to do a smog test at Hudson Auto Care. I brought my car for a smog test and Chris told me the car did not pass because the rpm was a little too high and there were problems with the vacuum system and he could diagnose and fix the things needed to pass for about $ 250. I had just been to our preferred garage the day before to check the vacuum system, so I decided to go back there, since they had just fixed it and checked the rpm. My garage adjusted the rpm a little (5 min of work), checked the vacuum system again, and found nothing was wrong with it and sent me to a different smog tester. The car passed easily this second time. No vacuum issues indeed. That is very strange! Did these issues suddenly disappear or were they not there to begin with? I feel misled and wasted a smog test fee at Hudson Auto Care. I will not go to Hudson Auto Care again, since I feel like I cannot trust their diagnosis and recommend others to find another smog tester.

Super quick and painless. Called at 2pm today for an oil change and was seen right away. Fast, friendly service — not much more I could ask for!
* Notes: If you go to the Safeway across the street there is a coupon on the back of the receipt for this place. Also — they do not vacuum the carpet, not a deal breaker, but worth mentioning.

Wrote a scathing review about 3 yrs ago after moving to Tucson from Menlo Pk while in the middle of a nervous breakdown because of movers-​from-​hell. Went to Hudson’s the 10 yrs I lived there. Always friendly & trustworthy. They did a «road trip» checkup. No problems at all on a wk long journey. Long story short — I ended up doing a great disservice to the shop. They most certainly did not deserve my actions — they most certainly deserve more than 5 stars…

I’ve lived in the area for 3 years now and have been searching for an honest, reliable «old school» auto repair shop. You know, one of those places that you see in the movie, where you pull up, talk to an affable repair guy, and he tells you what he thinks, no BS. Fix it now, fix it later, something to worry about or not worry about, etc.
After getting money stolen from my car at Palo Alto Bimmer and having Mario at the Shell up the street straight up lie to me that my simple burned out headlight was an «electrical problem» that would cost ~$ 200 just to diagnose, I’ve found the place I was looking for.
Chris, who runs this place, has helped me out with problems big and small, always giving me straight advice, even where it wouldn’t yield him the biggest immediate payoff. For example, he helped me explore a bunch of options related to my tires when there was a nail in one and it wasn’t clear that it could be patched. He fixed a more serious water pump problem and made me feel that we had explored all the options. This is the sort of place I can just roll into and they’ll at least give me the quick rundown.
All the employees are really professional and efficient.
In short: I highly recommend this place.

We’ve been customers of Hudson’s Shell Service for 22 years (that’s many different cars, old and new), and have only good things to say about it. Quality of work, integrity, professionalism, and courtesy sum it up. Note that he gas station is not owned or operated by Hudson’s Shell Service. It’s unfortunate that bad reviews for that business bring the rating down, as Hudson’s Shell Service definitely deserves 5 stars.

I have been taking my cars to Hudson Shell for years. Rich Hudson, who knows me by my first name, runs a very skilled, honest repair business. Louie, one of the mechanics, is wonderful and I know him also on a first name basis.
I try to take my car to AAA Diagnostic Center on Saratoga Ave. Santa Clara on a yearly basis for a complete assessment of my car. I want to know the problems and get them fixed early. When I have brought my car to Hudson they look at AAA’s evaluation. They often find things that AAA thought weren’t right were actually not a big problem and they have picked up important things that AAA didn’t detect that do need fixing.
When they repair a problem I can tell that my car runs better and lasts for a long time.
Menlo Park is an affluent community and their residents expect good work. They are always busy which is a testament to the quality of their work.
And as Jennie said there are several places across the street (Peet’s, Starbucks in Safeway where I can get coffee, a donut and sit and read the newspaper) while you wait for repairs. They also will drive you home and pick you up if it’s an all day repair job.
I can’t recommend them enough!
Lynn Huidekoper

Review/​rating is only for the gas station…
They have the «tvs» at the pumps playing loud and annoying ads and «programming». The only reason reason we consistently stop here is because the location is so convenient. But the loud pump-​side advertising makes me always think twice.

When you’re by yourself and need a smog check, where can you go that’s near a coffee shop? Hudson’s Shell was perfect, as it’s right across the street from Safeway (and more importantly, Peet’s). I went to Hudson’s this morning without an appointment, and there was only one car in front of me in line. Took about an hour total, and I hung out at Peet’s while I waited. Not only that, but I was originally going to go to Menlo Atherton Shell because I had a $ 34.95 coupon, and Hudson’s honored it without me even asking! Loved that. Total was $ 43.20 ($ 8.25 for the smog certificate). Recommended!

I knocked the heavy plastic under my car loose, and it was dragging. I took my car to Shell, and I will definitely be coming back with any problems I have in the future.
They were quick, friendly, and overall wonderful.

First time I went there is was great, I was very happy. The second and third time I went it started going downhill. and over priced. I won’t get into specifics but the work was done on the car half finished and when I called to have the guy finish the job he said it would cost a few hours of labor. Well he should have done it right to begin with or told me so, terrible folks! Typical chop shop with a bunch of monkeys, not a great way to run a business in this economy.

I was recommended to go to Hudson’s from a friend of mine when my car overheated. The radiator, distributor and thermostat needed to needed to be replaced. I sent in my car on a Saturday morning and I got my car back on Monday afternoon (cos they’re closed from Sat 2pm till Monday morning).
The radiator, distributor and thermostat were replaced promptly and I was pretty satisfied with their service. However, the same evening when I was driving my car, the engine started to vibrate strongly. While I was checking the engine, I realized that my engine was overheating again (it was glowing red hot) because the fans weren’t spinning and I popped open the radiator cap only to see that the coolant wasn’t even flowing into the radiator.
Upon realizing this, I brought my car to another mechanic and he found out that my distributor was wired in the wrong sequence, which was the cause of the strong engine vibrations (because it wasn’t firing in the right order). He also took out the thermostat and found out that the thermostat (which was supposedly new) was faulty, therefore the engine was unable to tell that it was overheating & didn’t start the proper cooling procedures.
UPDATE (DEC 01 2010):
Rich, the owner of Hudson’s, called me after reading my review and informed me that I actually had a one year warranty on their parts and services. After speaking to him on the phone, he arranged to replace my thermostat with no charge as it was still under warranty. I sent my car in the following morning and it was promptly installed. I now have a functioning heating system in my car again! Kudos to them for their excellent customer service and taking Unilocal reviews very seriously. I will definitely be doing business with them again in the future.

I live a few blocks away from Hudson’s and have been about 5 times in the past two years. I *always* go to them when something is going on with my car, from flat tires to oil changes to general tune-​up needs.
I’m not very familiar with most things automotive, but I always feel like I get a good deal without getting ripped off or pressured. Mark and Rick, the guys who run the show, are always friendly and professional, and I never have trouble getting quick service, even day-​of. They provide thorough explanations of what’s going on, will find you the best price (on things like tires), and follow-​up with phone calls and status reports throughout the day. An honest, reliable service station… you can’t go wrong.

The service here is terrible and so very slow! I had my car towed here and needed a mechanic to take a look at it to diagnose my troubles. It took forever for the mechanic to print out paperwork to get me started. No, this wasn’t a long wait just to talk to him, but this was a long wait while I was standing at the counter. This long wait turned out to be just paperwork stating my diagnostic fee. Diagnostic fee? They wanted to charge me just over $ 100 up front as a diagnostic fee. I thought to myself, «this can’t be right.» I mean the $ 100 wasn’t a down payment on service, but it was just to tell me what was wrong with my car. I went on Unilocal and am sure glad I did because I found a mechanic that was more honest than this place who was able to diagnose my car troubles for free.