Spring break season is here. If you’re planning to take a road trip, is your ride ready to go the distance? If you need auto service, choose a shop carefully. Nonprofit Consumers’ Checkbook finds many shops disappoint their customers; they do lousy work, impose long delays, sell unnecessary repairs, overcharge. But not all shops are lemons: Plenty almost always perform top-quality work quickly and for a fair price.

Prices among local shops vary widely. For example, to replace the water pump for a 2016 Ford Focus SE in the Philadelphia area, Checkbook’s undercover shoppers found prices ranging from $275 to $816. In the Seattle area, to replace the alternator for a 2017 Honda HR-V EX, prices ranged from $778 to $1,407.

Shopping around will help you get a good price. If you know what repairs you need, you can compare prices on your own by calling a handful of shops. If you don’t know what work is needed, call one or more shops and describe the symptoms—what the car is doing or not doing. Shops might be able to tell you over the phone what’s likely to be wrong and quote a price. When shops can’t determine what’s wrong with your car based on your description, you’ll have to take it in for a diagnosis and estimate. Then, with estimate in hand—and assuming that the diagnosis is correct—check with other shops to see if the shop’s price is fair.

You don’t have to pay more for good service: Checkbook found no relationship between the prices shops charge and the quality of their work. In fact, low-priced shops were more likely to receive high marks from their surveyed customers than high-priced shops.

Many consumers believe dealers offer better repair service due to access to proprietary knowledge, sophisticated diagnostic software, and high-tech tools, not available at independent garages. Checkbook found the opposite: On average, shops operated by non-dealers were far more likely to satisfy their customers than dealerships—and offered lower prices. If the work you need is not covered by a new-car warranty, Checkbook recommends using an independent shop.

With any shop, communication is critical. You should:

• Give the shop a detailed written description of your car’s symptoms. But distinguish between what you know and what you think you know. If you know what needs to be repaired, tell the shop, but don’t guess. If you mention a specific problem—say, a bad alternator—the shop may replace a perfectly good alternator (and charge you for it), before fixing what is wrong.
• If possible, speak with the repair technician who will be working on your car. Service write-up personnel at large shops often know very little about car repair, and those who do know car repair may not be able to describe your car’s symptoms to a repair technician as well as you can.
• Either get a written estimate in advance or write on the repair ticket that no work is to be done without your approval based on a written estimate.
• Get a written, dated invoice that details charges for parts and labor, and the vehicle’s odometer reading.
• Pay by credit card—you can dispute the charges if things go wrong and the shop isn’t responsive.
• If the car is still not right when you get it back, immediately inform the shop, preferably in writing.

About Consumers’ Checkbook

Consumers’ Checkbook is a nonprofit organization with a mission to educate and help consumers make smarter choices. It offers advice, price comparisons, and in select markets, unbiased ratings of local service providers. It is supported by consumers and takes no money from the companies it evaluates. You can learn more about Checkbook and keep up with its latest reports by visiting Checkbook.org/NFCC.