555 Auto Repair & Body

Once again went to 555 and had my car worked on. Juan is great. Just wish he had more help and someone to work in the office.

I purchased a groupon, do I need to really say more? Then I look at their reputation on the internet and I find that the BBB has flagged their account with a warning, apparently they are using the BBB logo without permission to make themselves look better. I don’t know if these people are legit, with the occasional and typical problems or whether they are seriously a shady business. There is rarely a business, especially a mechanic, that doesn’t have it’s share of unreasonable customers that want things for nothing, perhaps this is the case with the groupon. They do seem to have an attitude and what appears to be a systematic issue with getting people in the door with a super cheap brake pad price, and then up charging them for turning rotors and other fees. Maybe most of these people really needed rotors turned. Either way, if I were them I would find another approach and stop the bleeding of their reputation, and adjust the groupon to maybe offering a discount on the rotors and offer the brake pads free (with each rotor turned). I mean brake pads are relatively cheap. At a parts store they are about 20 – 25 per axel and I’m sure they buy wholesale and get them less.

DO NOT GO TO THIS PLACE!!!
I showed up and they wouldn’t take the Groupon. I still had them do the breaks because they had to be done. They messed up the rotors and now I have to buy new ones. At the end, he said the credit card machine was broke and I had to pay in cash.
Super shady!!! Don’t even consider this place as an option.

Don’t trust this place!!! You’re just gonna waste money and time for sure!!!
Trust me, they got me on the «groupon scam» as well. After a day after install, bad squeaking and I took my car back to them — they said «one of your rims are bent is the reason» (even though my brakes didn’t squeak before I brought it to them the first time). Ended up bringing my car to the dealer a week later because it got so loud. The dealer told me I am lucky my brakes didn’t fail as these incompetent people (wouldn’t call mechanics) put my pads in backwards and didn’t put in the hardware to keep the pads in place. It’s time that better business bureau looks into this shameful place and shuts them down.

Got the groupon deal, said brakes are fine, I need rotors (read other reviews, you’ll see a pattern). Said he needed to order rotors, but his credit card machine is broken, he needs a deposit of $ 300 cash. I told him to put my tires back on and I’ll go to my bank and get cash. Of course, I drove home. Letting groupon know, but from what others say doesn’t sound like that’s going to go well…
Edit: Groupon issued a refund.

If I could give zero stars I would. Put brakes in backwards, left out the necessary hardware that is needed as well as put in the cheapest pads ever! Ended up taking my car a week later to the dealer who laughed at me for taking my car to a unlicensed shop. Avoid at all cost! They are crooks — just like you would expect in city heights.

Wow. I see this guy is on a roll the past few weeks.
I had an appt for front and rear brakes on ⁵⁄₂₉ at 9am (Groupon). I get there about 15 min early (2011 Corolla) and there is a guy in the garage that sees me come in but says nothing — he’s busy with his phone and pays no attention to me. A half hour later (first guy still playing with phone) an older gentleman comes in and I tell him I have a groupon and an appt for a brake job. He doesn’t seem happy to see me and mumbles something about ‘showing me first’ and right away I get a bad vibe and I’m so not trusting this guy. I’m confused because nobody has touched my car at this point so what does he need to show me and how could he possibly already know that there is something to show me? I give him the key and the phone guy pulls the tires and he proceeds to tell me that my rotors need to be turned because there are grooves and they’re hot. Well, my rotors are only a year old. I figure this is an upsell so I ask how much and he tells me $ 40 per rotor. I tell him to just replace pads and I’ll take care of the rotors because they’re probably still under warranty. He refused because he says they will squeak and I’ll blame him. I tell him to just put my wheels back on and I leave.
I write to Groupon and tell him that this guy refused service when I refused the upsell and I want a credit. After some back and forth they tell me my Groupon is marked ‘redeemed’ and they have to check with the business. They got back to me today and told me that the business confirmed that I DID have service on ⁵⁄₂₉!
I cannot even believe that a company would lie about that — who would ever go to this place after reading the reviews from the past several weeks?!?

Terrible workmanship, I wish I had just thrown the groupon away. My brakes started speaking about a week after they replaced the pads only to find out that they ground my rotors below spec without telling me. Owner claimed he was «trying to save me money». I took my car to a reputable shop to replace the rotors only to be informed the pads 555 uses are the cheapest pieces of c*#p on the market. Do yourself a favor and go ANYPLACE else. They are worthless and the customer service is lousy

HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE JOB!!! Worse experience, waste of money and time. I bought the Brake Service for Both Axles deal from Groupon. Brought in my car, the mechanic took a look the brakes and suggested that I resurface rotors, otherwise it would make noise. To resurface the two front brakes will be additional $ 80. The two back rotors are bad, need replacement, cost $ 150.
Since the Groupon value worth $ 249, I asked to provide me a detail itemizes. He took out his phone and did some calculation and gave me a total of $ 275. I told him that I should only be paying the difference of $ 26. He said no, the Groupon only cover brake and nothing else. Resurfacing and rotors replacement are extra.
The fear of go to an auto shop and get rid off is starting to creep back on me. Not sure, if I should pay for the extra service or not. But I needed to get my brake change. After about 30mins back and forth negotiating and contemplating, the mechanic said would resurface the front brake with no charge. But for safety, he strongly suggested I change the back rotors. I thought about it and agreed for him to do the service, resurface two front brakes and replace two rotors in the back with additional $ 150. Still a good deal, I thought.
2 hours later, my car finally finished. I drove home and notice the squeaky and rusty noise. Thinking to myself, it’s new brakes… I checked on the internet and it also said normally new brake makes a bit of noise, it should be ok after 300 miles or so. A week went by, the noises remain the same, I got nervous and worried. So, I called 555 Auto Shop, Jorge answered the call and I told him what I am experiencing. He said, no problem just brings it back and they will take a look at it, the service should still be under warranty. It was Monday when I called; I told him I have to work so I will not be able to bring it back until the weekend. He said that’s fine, they open on the weekend.
On Sat, I arrived at 9:35 AM… but the gate was closed… I called Jorge, I asked if the shop is open today. He said «YES». I said «hmmm…but the gate is still closed and I don’t see anyone inside.» 10 mins later he called me back and said the mechanic should be arriving soon. I looked over and there he is, the mechanic just arrived, the same one worked on my car previously. I asked if he has any other mechanic, obviously this one didn’t do a good job last time. He only has that one mechanic, Juan, his «master mechanic».
I pulled in and told Juan the symptom of my car, he took a look and went for a spin. He came back and said he will have to resurface my front brake again. It will take about 2 hours. He suggested for me to come back later, but I told him I don’t have a ride so I will just wait. An hour went by Juan was still on the phone talking… another customer arrived; he’s on the phone talking… after he’s done with his phone call he went and inspected the other customer car. He finally finish diagnosed the other customer car and work on mine. After another hour went by, he asked me to come over and look at the brake. He test it out and said… there’s nothing wrong with the brake it’s working fine, he shows me how it works and that it’s not the brake the makes the noise. He said, it’s the axles that make the noises and needs replacement, it’s unsafe to drive. Additional cost $ 175.99 for parts and $ 150 labor fees. Thinking to myself… WT*!! What’s wrong with my car, it was working fine before, how come all of these issues starting to appear after I brought my car in for a simple brake work. Juan gave me his card and said to call him directly once I decided to change the axels, but suggested to get it done asap.
Went home, my instinct tell me that I need a second opinion, a couple days later I took my car to Nissan dealership to get an estimate on axles replacement. They inspected and there was nothing wrong with my axles, it’s perfectly fine. They said the noise is from the brake, the auto shop didn’t resurface it correctly, it’s not straight that’s why the brake make noise. They redo the whole thing and noise is gone!
This place is a joke!!! Miss diagnose so they can charge customer for additional service that’s not necessary. I will not recommend this place to any customer, stay away from this place unless you have extra cash and time to waste, then come.

This old man just tried to play me I called before I got the groupon and told the man what I wanted done what kind of car I had. So make sure I can use the Groupon I then drive on 1 hours to the place and without even looking at my car he tells me its going to be $ 90 more for my car on top on the $ 50 I just paid for the Groupon and he told me that was all I needed .I can’t believe this I’m so mad that I wasted my gas time in money .I wouldn’t go to the shop over charging people and bad customer service

DO NOT GO HERE PEOPLE! I have a 2004 525i BMW. I went in to to change out my brakes and an oil change. The price was great to get changed out on all 4. I was happy, and told me to come back at 4. I was there at 4 and they barely had touched my car. I was understanding and waited patiently. They got done with my car and when I went to leave my car didn’t start. I had to make last minute arrangements to have my kids picked up and get a ride. The man was sweet enough to lend me a loaner car till he worked on it the next day. Saturday morning I arrived, he said that he was having someone from L.A. come down to do a diagnosis on my car and let me use the loaner for the weekend. Monday morning, at work, I get a text from the electrician telling me that he needs to talk to me face to face to talk about my damages. I leave work early, to talk to this electrician, whom was unprofessional, and tell me that my fuel pump is damaged and reason why my car won’t run. It didn’t make sense as to how brakes turned into a damaged fuel pump. So the mechanic recommended to get a used fuel pump and test it. He was very sweet about doing research into finding a cheap one. I picked it up and dropped it off and he said that he’d work on it. Tuesday comes around, I get off work and head straight over to the shop and he tells me there’s not electricity on my right side of my car that needs to go to the fuel pump and suggests to take it to someone else. I called a mobile mechanic to have them come look at it but he flaked because it was so late in the day. On top of that I missed my night class and he tells me that I need to return the loaner on Thursday morning. I have three kids that go to school/​daycare and cannot be without a car. So I had to pay for a tow truck and have it looked at by a professional who actually knows what he’s doing. Btw, there were a father and daughter there fighting with the same mechanic because he hadn’t fixed their car in about 3 weeks. Then when they saw my car being towed it made matters worse on him. DO NOT GO HERE PEOPLE.

This place is a disaster. Do not get any work done here. I had to take my car back more than once because they didn’t fix the brakes properly. I still was willing to use them again because they corrected the problem. I called them at a later date when I needed more work done and they never returned my call!!! How are you going to run a successful business if you wont call back your customers? Just skip this place there are way too many others to go to.

If there were 0 stars that would be my review. Our brakes were not installed correctly. A bolt fell out damaging our car making us unable to drive it. Our car was further damaged after the loose piece made our alignment off which we had to fix ourselves. We were told we would be reimbursed for the inconvenience but only get the run around, its been 4 weeks and this issue is still not resolved. Stay clear, we could have been seriously injured due to the incompetence of the workers. I’m very disappointed and advise everyone to take your business somewhere else.

I’d give zero stars for the service if I could but it’s deserving of at least 1 overall. All I needed was an oil change. Jorge asked if I could leave it for a few hours and come back at 5:30(closing time). I agreed because I had things to do anyway. I dropped my truck off at 2:30, giving them 3 hours to complete such a simple task. I came back at 5:15 (would rather be early than late) and the gate was closed, locked, and all the lights were out. I tried calling. Nothing. Called probably 10 times in a span of 30min. Gave the gate a little tug then finally left around 6. I gave up and went home assuming I had to get it in the morning.
I get a call around 6:15 that Jorge is back at the shop and has my truck ready. So we hop in the car and head back to get my vehicle. He had some weird excuse about his phone line being down and didn’t charge me for the oil change. I insisted I pay but he was adamant that I didn’t. This is deserving of the overall one star for his offer to not charge me for the inconvenience. Well, let me finish with this. He wouldn’t give me a print out because apparently his printer was down too. He said once it was all back up and running he’d email it to me. Over a week later and still no receipt. I’ve contacted him a number of times and he’s agreed to send me a copy for my records but I’ve yet to receive anything. I felt this was sketchy so I checked my oil and IT’S DIRTY!!! They never changed it. Way to go 555, you’ll never have my business again.

Like many of the other reviewers here I took my car in for the Groupon brake deal after getting quoted an outrageous $ 660 from Griffins in Little Italy, who also charged me $ 100 for a break inspection and oil change (!!!).
Back to 555. I purchased the two axel deal and had resurfacing done on all the disks as well as new ceramic pads. I dropped my car off at 9 am and had it back by 6pm, which I would like to add is after their business hours.
Jorge is totally cool, personable, and had no issue coming in after hours. Even for a guy they’re not really making a whole lot of money off of due to the Groupon. Cheers Jorge.
With the groupon all the work came out to $ 271.
Before the groupon they quoted me at $ 400-​$ 450, over $ 200 less than Griffins.
Eat shit Griffins.

My car was getting slow to stop. Since stopping for pedestrians is required by law, I feared for their safety. I bought the groupon for a front brake service and paid a little extra for rotor work. It was still cheaper than another local store offering front brake service. The lone mechanic took about 3 hours. But so far, it seems like the job was done right. I can stop for pedestrians again and those annoying cyclists that keep getting in my way…

Worst experience ever. I’ll never come back.
I brought in my car for repair when my driver side window wasn’t working.
Short version: they took over a week to repair the driver side window, but when the car was returned to me not only was the «airbag error» light on, but BOTH passenger windows were not working when they had been fine before I dropped it off (and they did not take responsibility for these errors, stating «we didn’t check before working on the car»).
Long version: I called to drop off my car, and the owner stated «bring it in this afternoon, we can get to it.» When I took an hour off work to get there early, the owner stated «the part you need wont be able to be obtained today.» Really? Then why did you say it was OK to come in today? I was asked to put a deposit for the part so that it would be «ready to be worked on this Saturday.» I put a deposit down and returned Saturday morning. I was then told the part still wasn’t in. When I mentioned the deposit, they said, «oh, we have the part but we are slammed today and can’t work in it.» At this point if I wasn’t stuck with a deposit for the part, I would have left for somewhere else. So I returned yet again on Monday (All the while having an inoperable window which was stuck on down making the car a prime break-​in target… which happened twice!). On Monday, they could finally look at my car, but after spending most of the day working on my car, they stated that it was still not working and they would have to order additional parts — «it was misdiagnosed» they said — but isn’t their job to diagnose the problem first? So I just left my car there, and got a ride home. I was given the false promise that the car would be ready «the next day» but it took 1 WHOLE WEEK from this point. This would have been fine if the story ended here… BUT when I finally picked up my car, it was IN WORSE SHAPE then when I brought it in. yes, the driver side window was now working but BOTH PASSENGER windows were NOT working. These windows were ABSOLUTELY positively working when I dropped my car off, but the mechanic played dumb and said «we never inspected them.» Additionally, my «airbag light» was permanently on, which it wasn’t before.
To their benefit, I don’t think they intentionally f*ed up my car — they were just completely incompetent and the repair was above their expertise. At this point I just wanted my car out of their care, as it was clear they didn’t know what they were doing. They offered a «free inspection» to take a look at the damage THEY CAUSED (gee thanks.) I obviously declined to spend more time/​money with them, I’m gonna take it somewhere else to fix. So in summary: after 1 week of wasted time they turned my broken driver side window into two broken passenger windows (and apparently a faulty airbag in the driver side window) — and charged me $ 500 for the privilege!

We searched reviews, then bought a groupon for brakes. The work was done in a timely manner and the owner Jorge sent progress pictures via text throughout the day.

Bought Groupon and didn’t realized it expired and called the shop. Mgr graciously honored it. We dropped the car while I did my business out if town and got back in time before shop closed. Staff was friendly and efficient. Definitely taking my other vehicles to this shop! Thank you for such relief knowing my son is safe driving his car.

They asked me to come at 8am on Saturday, so I was on time. But, the manager/​owner wasn’t there till 8:15am to open. I got a Groupon deal for rear break pad replacement, and asked them to do the job. After the job done, I sensed there is something wrong with my car while I was driving. A week later, I had to visit another car repair place to see what is going on. They said that break pad resurfacing hasn’t done well, so the surface on pad is too rough. I had to pay extra money to RE-​DO the job.
Please watch out and be away from there!!!