Donelson Auto Clinic

Let's be real - car repairs blow. No matter how necessary they are or even if you can afford them, we'd all rather spend our hard earned money on something else. So when I recently had to drop $1100 on repairs for my car that just rolled over the dreaded 100K mark, the only thing that made it a little more tolerable were the guys at Donelson Auto Clinic. From my first phone call to their after-hours help, it was customer service you just don't often find. The guys here were super friendly and honest. As someone who plans to keep her car until the wheels fall off, I'm glad to have found a place I can rely on for all my repair needs. more

This is a great shop! I thought I had a serious transmission problem and was prepared to shell out upwards of $1000 for repairs to my daughter's AWD suv. I did not want to go to a ""transmission specialty"" shop because I just expect to get screwed so, I decided to take a chance and get an estimate from someplace new. The owner called me about two hours after dropping off the car and said the problem was in the steering column. Just needed some lok-tite on a couple of gear shifter linkage bolts that had worked loose. I got out of there for $90 bucks (labor+tax), and a new-found auto repair shop. They will definitely be getting ALL of my future auto repair business! more

This may sound too ""glowing"" of a review, but let me assure you it's not. I'm including my email information as well if anyone wants to talk more about my experience with Donelson Auto Clinic. \r \r About me: I'm a 33 year old software engineer, so I'm definitely not a 'car guy'. I own a 1996 Pontiac Trans AM WS6; lots of power, lots of fun, but it's a 10 year old vehicle and it's had its share of problems. \r \r I tried four different mechanics, and at each I got the feeling I was getting either ripped off or the mechanic didn't really care about me or my car. Since this thing is my ""baby"", I didn't like that feeling, so I kept searching. \r \r I have a friend at work who I knew was pretty particular about his vehicles, so I asked him where he took his cars. He immediately mentioned Donelson Auto Clinic, which happens to be close to both my work and home. I went in on his recommendation; the task was to figure out why my car was leaking so much oil. \r \r After hearing Mike's (the owner) plans on how to tackle the problem, I called my brother in Iowa (who's also what I would call an 'ace' mechanic); I relayed what Mike had told me, and how much the quote was. Not only did Rod (my brother) give the plan 2 thumbs up, but he noted the quoted price was what he would charge in a much smaller market in Iowa. \r \r The car has been in there many times since then; like I said, it's given me my share of problems. The last time, my registration was up for renewal, which of course means I had to get the thing through emissions. Well, it decided to start throwing random misfire codes. This guy identified the core problem (burnt wires due to the headers), but I didn't have enough $$$ at the time to get it ALL done. So, he did what he could, got the light to shut off, and DROVE IT TO THE EMISSIONS PLACE to get it through while the codes were off. Now I have time to make the repairs right!\r \r Running out of space here...\r \r Cheers! Pros: The owner is right there, his reputation and business is on the line with every repair. Cons: A little hard to find, hard to know it's there more