Advanced Automotive

I’ve used Advanced Automotive for automotive body work and mechanical work for over 20 years. It’s hard to find an automotive repair shop which does both. Excellent work and very fair prices. ’
I also had my John Deere tractor repaired and the workmanship was excellent.

We had Advance Automotive rebuild the transmission on our 1998 Dodge Caravan several years ago and it ran fine until we sold it with 145,000 on it.

I recently purchased a used snow blower here. They took the time to help me decide which one was best. Good price and excellent knowledge of product. I had a very good experience with them.

Had a transmission rebuilt here I believe around Dec 2005/​Jan 2006. Worst mistake ever. Two days after getting the car back from them, we traveled to Iowa (which is home for us). Guess what Transmission failed, went to leave a store and the car lunged forward, then started making this horrible banging noise from the transmission. The shop owner’s response not my problem to get the car back here, that’s not covered by the warranty. They thought it was acceptable to leave a customer stranded well over 200 miles from home after their poor quality work caused a problem. We finally got them to agree to let us take the car to a shop in Des Moines that we trusted. The shop in DSM wasn’t allowed to opened the transmission up, but were able to confirm that it was definently an internal transmission failure. To this day I’m not sure what my trusted shop said to the owner of Adance Automotive, but he ended up towing the car back to Batavia from Des Moines. After about two weeks we called and they said yeah it’s done come and get it whenever you want, they didn’t even tell us what the problem was I had to call the shop in Des Moines to find out, and guess what they had even found out what the problem was.
About a month later, had the car at the local dealership for a repair and guess what they called and said, «Your transmission is leaking». I of course declined to have them touch it since it was still under warranty with Advance, asked the dealership to call Advance and advise of the problem (specifically where the leak was coming from) and to expect the car back, a third time. Again, Advance had the car for another two weeks, and again, did not call to advise repairs were completed.
We thought ok, surely this the end right? Wrong. About a month later another trip to Iowa, went to leave my parents house and guess what, a puddle of transmission fluid on the ground. Not sure what happened this time as I couldn’t get the car up off the ground to check to see where the fluid was coming from, but oddly the transmission and power steering fluid (both took ATX fluid) were full and by the time we returned home to Aurora there was no more leak, so I didn’t contact Advance Automotive as the transmission was shifting fine, not leaking. I’m wondering if a technician didn’t overfill the fluid and as it heated up during the trip didn’t start to overflow.
Needless to say I’m very disappointed with my experience and will never take another vehicle or small engine there again (note they do small engine work also) due to the following factors:
1. Poor workmanship
2. Unwillingness to work with customer’s to correct problems
3. Poor communications
4. Length of time to complete repairs (they had the car for a total of 6 weeks at minimum)