R & D Automotive Bavarian Rocket Science

Can’t speak for there work, they may do the best work in the capital district for all I know but getting back to the customer/​customer service is terrible.
Sent an email early in the week describing the detail of work I was looking to have done and asking for a quote. Never got a response. I called a day or two later and spoke with someone — asked for a quote told them the detail or work, type of car left my name and number — was told they’d look it over and get back to me with a price. 2 days later and I haven’t heard back. Again I can’t speak for there work on the actual vehicles but I won’t chase someone around to take my money, if you want business stay on top of your contacts.

I purchased a 1976 vw bus that was not running and after speaking with and briefly meeting Tom Dobush, I decided to have it towed directly to their shop. They fixed everything that was wrong with it (fixed the rear axles, ball joints, and tuned her up among other things). On top of the great work they did, they are a really friendly group. These guys know what they’re doing and they are the first shop i call when something goes wrong.

Have been here a few times for service after the local Audi dealer messed up. Also after Mavis gave me a faulty alignment causing front inner tires to wear to the steel cord causing one to go flat at 75 MPH on an interstate. R & D checked the issue for no charge, Mavis fixed it at no charge and R & D rechecked at no charge. R & D takes care to do a full point service on my Audi and lets me know of any issues that need to be repaired. They are my go to guys from now on.

I drove my 1998 Mercedes Benz E-​300 Turbodiesel to R&D Automotive after noticing some difficulty with cold starting. In the past this indicated that routine glow plug replacement was needed. I had spoken to Rick Dobush, the owner, beforehand and he assured me that he has done many of these jobs and it should take approximately 4 man hours. This seemed reasonable as my wife’s E-​300 Turbo had the same issue and Keeler Motor Car, our local Mercedes Benz dealer, had changed her glow plugs for about $ 600.00.

I checked on the progress daily and Rick said he was having problems extracting the glow plugs from the head. After three weeks of this news and no progress, I called a tow truck and had the car brought to Keeler. They found that R&D had broken four out of six glow plugs off in the cylinder head. Keeler had to extract the broken glow plugs and re-​bore the head to accommodate the replacement glow plugs. The cost of labor alone to repair the damage was $ 1800.00.
I went to Rick and asked for compensation as the job cost $ 1800-​$ 600=$ 1200 more than it should have. He refused to compensate me for the additional cost.
I would avoid this repair shop as they proved to be incapable of completing fairly simple repair work and were very difficult to deal with.

Pretty un happy with the service here. went in for a muffler, and somehow wound up needing a new starter because mine magically didn’t work anymore. to top everything off they flat out refused to provide me with the ‘faulty’ parts that they replaced. definitely going to pursue ever avenue of recourse i can.

Top workmanship. Always feel good when I leave.

Just moved here from the W Coast, heard great recommendations from the local Porsche club, amongst others. We dropped by unannounced to check them out, and were suitably impressed~!
We plan to do our suspension work [lowering springs, corner balancing], install new wheels/​tires, and intake/​exhaust install with this shop. Can’t wait to see results, :)