Hey enthusiasts... I am looking for a good shop to check out a car I am going to buy in Orlando. It is a 1985 300D with low mileage. Anyone know of any good mechanics?

E-mail me Trbodslboy@aol.com

Thanks a lot!

Since I'm in Orlando working for a while, I've been to some shops in the neighborhood.. College Park/Winter Park area. One of the shops had an extremely nice person that "helped" me.. and I would tend to trust him/them. I'll have to go back to find out the name since I just spotted it one day on the way back from the bank. It might take me a few days if you can wait that long.. or someone else might have better ideas. Even though I "liked" them, I'm still taking mine to Steve Brotherton in Gainesville to do the work on my axle... I like/trust him more :D But, for just "checking out" a car, these people might be good.. when I get the name, address, phone number.. I'll email you.

nello tare,

thanks a lot id appreciate that!

cheers
eric

I'm posting this to the group because I really don't know anything about these people.. I just had "good vibes" while talking to one of these guys about my car. He was nice, amiable, and extremely knowledgeable. I had stopped in becuse they also sell cars and I saw a 450SL that looked interesting. In fact, the guy was helpful by telling me there was another lot of theirs down the street and they had a 450SL, but he didn't think the car was worth what the asking price was. So if anyone has any comments about them, please submit.

Eurotech
659 Nicolet Ave.
Winter Park, FL 32789

ph: 407-647-4757

you can call and see what they say about "checking out cars".. best of luck!

Nello,

I am familiar with Eurotech in Winter Park, they are a good shop my brother use to work for them for 8 years he specializes in European cars. My brother started his own shop located in Orange blossom trail and Michigan called Jay's Quality Auto it's a state of the art shop. Check out their website http://www.jaysqualityauto.com/. Check them out and tell them Don sent you.

There is another shop around the corner from Eurotech, called Performance Tech (on Jackson Ave) off of Fairbanks. I don't know that they do inspections, but they do quality repair work, fairly priced and they are friendly.

Performance Tech
720 Jackson Ave.
Winter Park, Fl 32789
407.647.8324

I went in to Rudi's Mercedes in Winter Park (on Fairbanks, a bit west of Rollins College) and the 1 guy they had on staff there at the time was a real dick when I simply asked their labor rate ($90/hr) and as such, I'm disinclined to ever go back.

Eurotech, I'm probably going to take my car there just on your recommendations for engine mount/shock replacement, timing chain, engine rebuild when those come due. (I bet that'd set me back like $2k or something
but eh...)

edit: I've got my car going to Eurotech on Friday for an estimate for trans. problem, we'll see from there.

Okay so some feedback on my recent visit to Eurotech. I plan to bring the car back there again for some services, so I'm not dissatisfied with them, but for all of the good stuff they did, it was colored by the dubious a little bit.

+: Fair prices. They didn't overcharge on parts at all, and labor is labor.
+: They cleaned off a lot of grease on my engine, probably necessary for the work they did but it was nice.
+: Replaced a driveshaft mount of some kind no charge when I had them do the flex discs. Or something like that.
+: Nicely cleaned up inside of the car.
+: Replaced pretty much every vacuum line in the engine bay including all couplers and switches for no parts charge, including (as near as I can tell) the master vacuum line going to the break booster.
+: I left my check card in the car while they had it for 4 days and they didn't misuse it.
+: Gentleman behind the counter, I guess the floor manager or something, was very amiable and complimented my GF and I on our bikes we rode to the shop to pick the car up. Our service rep was also very good-natured and helpful.

-: Didn't return the cover for the 3:2 valve that sends vacuum down to the transmission. (That's okay, I like it off anyway, it looks neater.)
-: Air cleaner vibrates A TON, the car is a good deal louder and vibrates more than when it went in. ($17 from DieselGiant later and I've got new mounting bolts coming.) I also think it smokes more, but I can't be sure.
-: Manual CCU top/bottom vent selection no longer works...the levers used to redirect air from top vents to bottom vents only redirect between "strong from the top" and "slightly weaker from the top", nothing measurable comes out the bottom. Could be something they knocked, could be it just happened to die while they had it, who knows. Needs a couple of pipes replaced anyway, "climate control" works only on COLDEST or WARMEST with nothing in between.
-: Replaced all my glow plugs and told me that the preglow relay was "just fine", turns out the relay is bad also when I called them on there still being no glow plug light. I had them change the plugs because they were already going to be in there, but if I'd known the relay was bad also, I'd have done the whole thing myself and saved about $100 on labor.

I'd give them about a 6.5/10 as far as dealerships go. The people in there seem to be pretty decent, and on top of their game, but there are a couple things that make me scratch my head a bit. (In contrast, my experience with Honda dealerships back when I owned Hondas was about a 1.5/10, so I'm actually "slightly happy" with these guys.)

I used Rudi's on Fairbanks in the past when I owned my 300d...

Not sure who the other poster from earlier thread dealt with there, but I dealt with Francisco, and no problems what so ever.

The even installed parts that I had purchsed from other members of this forum with out a problem.

Although I am not in Orlando anymore, I would not hesitate to recommend them.