Uptown Service Salt Lake City, Honest Mechanics

I am usually of a mind to trust people who are experts in their field because people usually trust me as an expert in mine. This simple maxim seems to fall apart when it comes to cars, however. I have never had a good experience with a car salesman, I only got a good deal on my 1993 Ford Escort because my Uncle John managed a Mazda dealership that was owned by the same organization as the Ford dealership, and though we love our new Civic, we totally did not get a good deal, and in fact were outright lied to by the salesman.

Along the same vein, I have always found it difficult to trust mechanics when I have had car trouble. I don't know anything about cars. At least when I go to the doctor or the vet, I have some knowledge that helps me get down to the technical details of what is going on, but with cars, I mostly have to believe what the mechanics tell me and hope that they are not taking too much advantage. For the most part, think I have been lucky, the Escort was a champ, it is still running, in fact, my father-in-law still uses it for short trips. It required very little maintenance and is still on its original clutch.

I am also lucky because about 7 years ago my husband introduced me to a great, honest mechanic, Dale Aramaki, owner and operator of Uptown Service (2276 E 2100 S) here in Salt Lake City. He has been working on our cars ever since and I think he is just the best. He has fixed the Escort a number of times for fairly minor problems, like a new thermostat, or when the clips for the battery wire needed to be replaced, and more major problems, like when something went wrong with the starter and the car would try to "start" every time I depressed the clutch, even if there was no key in the ignition, or if the car was already running.

A couple of years ago, the Escort started smoking one hot summer day. It turned out the compressor seized up, and the smoking was because the belt wasn't turning anymore. I thought the car was history, but he just popped out the compressor and fitted it with a smaller belt.

The true sign of an honest mechanic, however, is not taking advantage of you when you bring your apparently broken car in, and he tells you that there is nothing wrong with it, even when he could probably get you for something convincing. We have a 2002 Chevy Tahoe (The Unit) that we bought used a couple of years ago, mostly for recreational purposes. We don't drive it much. My husband took it to the airport this past week instead of his 1993 Corolla because we had some friends arriving in town to ski this weekend who were arriving at about the same time he was returning, and it would be convenient for skis and luggage.

I am sure you can see where this is going. After a pretty horrendous travel day for him, they finally arrived at the Unit at about midnight Friday evening/Saturday morning, and the car wouldn't start. It made starting noises, but it just didn't catch. They called airport security, and they couldn't help, so at about 1 AM I got in the Civic and went and picked up our friends and all of the luggage (which did fit in the car), while he waited for the tow truck, (thank goodness for AAA Plus). I dropped our friends off at the house and then went and picked him up at Uptown Service. We arrived home at about 4 AM. We were a little worried about the car because we know that repairing SUVs can be expensive to repair.

Dale called the next day to tell us what the problem was with the car. The fact that he was laughing his ass off told us that it wasn't serious. "I just rolled it to the gas tank and put 10 bucks worth of gas in it and it started." Yep. It was OUT OF GAS. Brilliant.

We had him do an oil change and replace the battery since it was 5 years old and we don't drive it a lot and called it good. It feels so nice to have a honest mechanic! He also has places to recommend to send cars for more serious repairs that he doesn't handle. I recommend them to anyone in the Salt Lake valley.