A R A Of Madison

I took my 1992 Evinrude 25 hp 2 stroke and attached boat in because of cooling issues. Work was done completely and correctly and boat runs like a champ. Labor cost is a little steep but the work was correctly and the motor has run well ever since. Work was completed on schedule and this was before a holiday weekend.

This is a great place to get quality work done on your vehicle. It doesn’t matter if it is a boat, domestic car, truck, or import. Anything can be worked on and ready for you soon. I do believe they even have storage. It is conveniently located on East Washington Ave. too.

ARA is sort of a hidden gem of a automotive and marine repair shop that I have passed many times and wondered what exactly they do here. You see food carts parked at one end of the lot and cars of all vintages parked at odd angles in front of three bays. At one time years ago there was a small breakfast and lunch restaurant where the office is now. I needed some work done on a ten year old, 50HP two stroke Mercury outboard and a friend recommend ARA. I have had it in to the local marine dealer that specializes in Mercury and after three return visits the problem still wasn’t fixed. It starts hard and idels rough. ADA has a guy that specializes in marine engines, especially older ones like mine, and so I had him take a shot at fixing it. They aren’t cheap here but either was the other place that did not fix my problem. I was told right out that it might take a return visit after the initial fix to do some fine tuning and it did. Since most of the marine dealers do not do on the water repairs its up to the customers to take it on a shake down cruise to check it out after the initial repair. My carburetors needed rebuilding and the tech took it upon himself to get the right manual for this engine and correctly adjust the linkages to the three carbs to make my problems go away. I was not charged for the second visit or for the manual. It became a shop manual.
There is a yard here to the left of the building with a locking gate but there are no fences surrounding it and it is open air, so if you drop something off have a cover for it and remove any valuables. This is true of the other repair shops as well but thought I would mention it. All in all if you have a boat or car that you like and want running correctly ARA would be a good place to call. Judging by my visits here you might see a big ski boat next to a BMW one day and a Corvette and a boat like mine the next. Pay up and give them a shot. They have been here a long time and and seem to keep busy by word of mouth alone. Google did not bring them up for marine repair but I believe it may in the future.

I am very happy with the quality of brake work done on my car last month. They were down to metal-​on-​metal, This place is conveniently close to my work, and I was able to drop my car off in the morning and pick it up again by early afternoon. The price was steep, but I believe you get what you pay for. I’m about to have them replace my water pump, so I’m hoping the quality work continues!

This place is horrible. They ripped me off so bad on an oil change and filter service. They left the old filter in there and just said they swapped it out. How can you trust a mechanic like this? Stay away…