Car is due for a service and I am depending on an honest and reliable mechanic to do a good job and charge me a fair price.
Are there any mechanics near or in this area that you swear by and would recommend to me?
I don't mind driving up to about a 15-20 minute drive to get this car serviced.
AAC in Moorebank.
No fancy workshop, the Malay bloke smells like an ashtray but decent work. He was trained dealing with British Leyland stuff so he's used to oil leaks. Lots of it.
Charged me $60 to change a starter motor, others would've charged me 3-4x more easily. Oh my other car overheated and we panicked, I was thinking oh shit it must've done a head gasket. This bloke assured me oh it's nothing let's flush the radiator and change the thermostat. Unscrupulous operators could've taken advantage of my misdiagnosis and say yep you've done a head gasket $1k kthxbai.
Well I can personally attest to one that we used for the decade or so we lived in Canley Vale and then Harris Park - now live in Coffs Harbour.
Near Canley Vale there is a small mechanical workshop attached to a service station, it trades as Tyreworld:
http://www.truelocal.com.au/business/tyreworld/fairfield
As far as I know is still owned and operated by Michael Spillane and personally I found him to have the most important thing in a mechanic (apart from mechanical nous!) but thats integrity and a willingness to do the right thing by the customer RATHER than himself.
On several occasions he gave us advise on selling/do certain things with our vehicles where if he'd just shutup and done what we'd naively asked he'd have made a LOT MORE $$$.
We found him so good that my wife's entire extended family and friends began to use him and as far as I know none of them have switched in many years of use. We still get our car serviced by him when we drive back to SYD - I don't pretend that they're the cheapest or anything special BUT they're well priced and have fantastic communication and common sense with things.
But his integrity and openness were the real winner for us. Suffice to say I've no affiliation with him but just really found him a nice bloke to deal with who did a very good job and a very fair price, something I didn't feel with a lot of his competitors. Hope that helps.