Hi Star Auto Center / Pacific Palisades, California

Rating: ★

29 years in Business

Auto Repair & Service, Automobile Body Repairing & Painting

Address: 4478 W Pico Blvd, Pacific-Palisades

Postal code: 90019

Phone: (866) 595-6470

Great people, great products, great prices!

CARQUEST Auto Parts is the premier supplier of replacement products, accessories, supplies and equipment for virtually all makes of automobiles, as well as light and heavy-duty trucks, off-road equipment, buses, recreational vehicles and agricultural equipment. Additionally, we distribute and sell tools, equipment, chemicals, paint and accessories. At CARQUEST Auto Parts we provide unparalleled customer service, innovation and industry leadership at our more than 3,000 stores located throughout North America.

Categories:

Automobile Body Repairing & Painting, Auto Repair & Service

Neighborhoods:

Central LA, West Adams

Open hours:

Mon. - Fri. 9am - 5pm;Sat. - Sun. CLOSED

Reviews:

Pretty shady but car came out ok

I was towed here by a tow truck driver who recommended them and I was a little in shock from the crash so I didn`t feel like finding another place. Red flag #1: They are really pushy about not letting my insurance move my car to another shop, like used car salesmen or something. They started warning me not to before I had even talked to my insurance. Frankly, if insurance companies don`t want to deal with them, t... view morehere is probably good reason. Red flag #2: They then would not agree to the standard per-hour rate paid by insurance company, causing further delay and annoyingness. Red flag #3: They ONLY TAKE CASH. This is not a fantastic area of LA, so I don`t really want to carry thousands of dollars of cash on me. What if people wait nearby to rob you, knowing this policy and therefore knowing people going into it are probably carrying huge amounts of money? They then tried to charge me a bogus credit card fee since the credit card company ""charges them 2% per transaction."" Every merchant in America is required to pay this percentage to credit card companies and it is ILLEGAL for them to pass the fee onto you... they probably just want to avoid paying taxes so they pressure you into paying cash. My car came out ok, but there are tons of other shops in LA that could do an equally ok job, so in retrospect I would have saved myself some grief and taken it somewhere else.

snarky9484 / 6/6/2010

Total crooks - do not go here!

After an accident, I had my car towed here after a reccommendation from my much-loved mechanic. I brought everything out of my car with me that I could (things I needed for work), but had to leave some items behind. It took the insurance (Mercury and Allstate) agents a few days to get out to see my car, and when they saw it and where it was, they told me rather candidly that they`ve had some bad experiences with this... view more place and that they suggested I take it somewhere (anywhere) else. I decided that was probably best, picked out another shop to have the car towed to, and let both shops and both insurance companies know what I was doing. When I told Hi Star, they freaked out and said, ""No no no no no! Allstate cannot do this! You call Allstate and tell them they cannot do this!"" I told them that it was not Allstate`s decision, it was my decision, and he said that they couldn`t move the car. I eventually had Allstate, Mercury, AND the second body shop on the phone with Hi Star, and between the four of us, we realized that Hi Star was lying over and over, telling the others that I had changed my mind and decided to keep the car with them. The second body shop said that they were illegally holding my car hostage (to jack up the storage fees) and told me to call the Bureau of Automotive Repairs and the police, which I did. When I told Hi Star I was going to show up the following day with the police to get my car, they said they would release it to me as long as I signed some paperwork. I showed up with a tow truck, ready to sign the paperwork and get my car back . . . only to discover that the ""paperwork"" they wanted me to do was write a hand-written note on scratch paper saying I released my car to another body shop, and sign it (which is more proof that they were just trying to increase the storage fees as much as possible). When I finally took a look at my car, it was missing a cosmetic piece on the dash, and my CDs were missing from the car as well. When I confronted them about it, they repeated - in a practiced way that lead me to believe they`re used to this - that they`re not responsible for items left in the car.

I wouldn`t come back here, for any reason, ever. I complained to the mechanic who reccommended them to me and he said they`ve gone through some ownership changes and will not reccommend them again.

himym10 / 5/32/2010

Money Stealers

So my car was crashed on a Thursday night and a tow guy (Mark) pulled up and said he would tow my car for free to his body shop and not charge me anything until the following week. When I called Monday the following week my car was not at the original body shop but at HI-STAR. After a week the insurance people finally came to look at the car and pronounced it totaled. Since it was totaled, of course I was not goin... view moreg to get my car fixed there. When I went to have it moved to another storage facility Leon the owner was being unreasonable with me. He tried to charge me for the days that tow guy said would be free, and I had already confirmed they would be free with another employee. Then the tow guy had added a 15 in front of the 0 on the reciept that I had signed. When the tow guy told him to remove the 150 tow, and not the ""free"" tow Leon happened to add 150 to my bill for ""administration fees"". Not only do they charge $40 a day, but the ""administrative fee"" was for the cost of my recipt and the ink to write on it. Another plus is that they only take cash...now, correct me if I`m wrong, but they estimated my cars damages to be $8800...where do people get cash like that? I was dissatisfied with their customer service, their attitudes, and they are liars and theifs pretty much. All in all I spent $600 to have my car stored there for two weeks...now where else in LA can you find that kind of service?

bcheese / 9/21/2007