Gabe's Autoworks

Last year on my return golf trip from Rochester New York while traveling on interstate 81, 300 miles from my home. I blew the head gasket on my 1999 Volvo xc70. Had the car towed to the VOLVO dealership in Syracuse that Sunday. I had to take a bus home. Followed up with the dealer that Monday, repair estimate over $4000.00. Did some online research and found Gabe Auto. Had the car towed to them, I couldn't have been more pleased with the choice. I felt at ease after my conversation with Gabe. For further reassurance I had my Volvo mechanic (I've known him for over 25 years) speak with Gabe after speaking with him he confidently assured me that Gabe knows his stuff. Cost $2600. One week later I went to pick up my car, met Gabe for the first time. What an upstanding and gracious person. . A few months later I was heading back to Rochester and stopped by to have my wife meet Gabe, we spent 45 minutes chatting with him. Highly recommended.

My daughter lived in Syracuse for the past 6 years. She drove a 1996 Ford Taurus for 3 of those years. On a recommendation from a local insurance agency, she started taking her car to Gabe. Gabe always took great care of her. She was on a limited budget and Gabe always treated her fairly. He would even tell her when something could be postponed and even let her know when the Taurus just wasn't worth fixing any more. Then she bought a 1996 Camry. Gabe checked the car out for her and helped her feel comfortable about buying it. He then took care of that car, too, never recommending anything unnecessary, no huge bills, or anything. My daughter recently moved away from Syracuse. Gabe gave her car a "final blessing" before she left assuring her it had some good life left in it. She will really miss Gabe. I appreciate that he never treated her like a young girl who didn't know anything. If something needed attention, he would explain it to her fully before doing anything. Thank you so much for the great service, Gabe! My daughter and I recommend you highly!

Gabe is a great guy! My daughter graduated from college in 2011 and did a 1 year stint with AmeriCorp VISTA in Syracuse. She was on a VERY limited budget and had an older car. Gabe was very honest with her and treated her quite fairly. He never tried to "upsell" her on repair or service work but made sure her car was working and operating safely per State of NY inspection standards. He recently told her she was going to have some serious issues down the line due to the age of her car and recommended she look for another rather put a bunch more money in the one she has. He could have just as easily recommended expensive repairs, but didn't. As long as she's in Syracuse, he's our mechanic. I recommend him highly!

Gabe is the 1st honest mechanic I've had the pleasure of working with. No one else is going to touch my car from now on. UPDATE: Still true... still keeping my promise. Everytime I expect it to cost me an arm & a leg.... I only lose a few fingers...LOL.

We took our vehicles to Gabe's several times, on a friend's recommendation. In retrospect, there were aspects of all the service and repairs he did for us that make me raise an eyebrow, but nothing major until the last time. For example, he said my side view mirror "fell off in my hands" and he duct taped it back on. I'm not sure why he was touching the mirror, since it adjusts electronically, and I was a little disappointed he duct taped my car rather than fixing what he broke, or at least asking me first. But I gave him the benefit of the doubt. There were several other things like that, some dodgy communication, and the bills were very high, but Gabe seemed like a nice guy, and I'm not a suspicious person, so I let it all go. The last time I took one of our vehicles to him -- our family minivan -- I told him it had a click in the front end, on the driver's side, when going over bumps. When he called me with his diagnosis, he said both rear springs were bad, and both front wheel bearing assemblies. The total repair would be $2,200. We can't be without our family van, so I told him to go ahead with the repair even though it put us in financial hardship. I picked up the van when it was ready, several days later, and paid for the repair. Soon, I realized it was still making the same noise as when I dropped it off. It was a very obvious clicking/clunking sound in the front left, when I went over bumps. Since I had just paid over two thousand dollars to fix this sound, I was alarmed. I called Gabe and he said to bring it back. Before doing that, I brought it to another mechanic for a second opinion, as I was beginning to get nervous that Gabe hadn't been honest with me. That mechanic correctly diagnosed the problem in ten minutes (he said he was 90% sure, without putting it on a lift, and he ended up being correct), and said it was a $150-$200 repair, not a $2,200 repair. He and several friends who are mechanics told me that if both my front wheel bearings were bad, there's no way I wouldn't have known. Wheel bearings make a specific sound as the wheels turn, which increases as the car's speed increases. This is not even remotely similar to the clicking/clunking noise that was very obviously occurring before and after Gabe's charged me for their repair. When I went back to Gabe's, he brought out his employee who had worked on my car. These guys proceeded to argue with me that I didn't know what I was hearing because I'm not a mechanic, and they can hear things that I wouldn't hear because they are mechanics. They also said my tire noise was so loud, I wouldn't have been able to hear what they heard. I told them they were correct, that I am not an expert, but I know what I heard, and it was still making the same, very obvious sound as it was when I originally brought it to them, and that another mechanic had immediately diagnosed it as a bad tie rod end. The mechanic looked at it again and agreed it had a bad tie rod end. At this point, at the very least I felt uncomfortable with the idea that an (according to them) ignorant non-mechanic such as myself could so clearly hear a sound that such seasoned mechanics had missed. At most, I suspected outright dishonesty. I did ask for the old parts back (the springs and hub assemblies they had removed) because I wondered if they even replaced anything. They gave them to me and I brought them to the other mechanic for inspection. He said the springs were definitely bad, but didn't feel the bearings were terrible -- although he did say it was very hard to tell when they are not on the vehicle. One of them had a little bit of play in it, but the other seemed okay. I'm trying to be thorough about my description of the experience because I understand the damning nature of a bad review, and want to make sure I'm accurately representing the facts. I will never know if Gabe's was purposely dishonest with me, in order to get a busy mom to pay for an expensive repair she didn't need, or if the mistake was simple negligence. But I would recommend skipping Gabe's.