Cranbury Service Station

Great service! Owners are super friendly. If you live or work in the area, bring your car to get serviced here. They have self-serve gas pumps, too.

Nov 10, 2024 · Taku Shimura

I sent the below communication to the station and never received a response, so I'll leave my thoughts here. I came to you guys saying I was brand new in town and that you came recommended, I must say the experience couldn't have been worse. I brought in a car with 225,000 miles on it. It's nearly 20 years old and of course there will always be things to find on a car of that nature, but I asked for an estimate and was told $882. From there it was a few more hundreds of dollars for a switch that brought us up to about $1100 and then it was a pipe for $125. The next call the estimate was up to $1800 or so because the pipe was in a hard spot to reach. So the $125 pipe was now going to cost about $800 ($675 to install the pipe). Eventually we were over $2200 after more hoses were going to be needed and then finally we were going to need another $1400 before labor to install a new throttle body-which my mechanic says was damaged during the work. Regardless of whether he is correct or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that we were now approaching $4000. That's when I said no more. In my last conversation with Ken, he asked if I would be proceeding or not. I informed him that I would have the car taken away. Ken informed me that no parts could be returned and that my bill was $1550.82 ($743 for parts and $697 for labor). After I have just put $743 of brand new parts into the car, Ken offers to junk the car for me. How insulting can you be? You have been advising me to put these parts in, and in one single phone call you're telling me that you'll get rid of the car and all the brand new parts? I never said anyone was being dishonest or nefarious in this entire process where I was without the vehicle for over a week and I still do not believe it was a matter of honesty, but a lack of professionalism. If we proceeded the final cost would have landed somewhere around 5x the original estimate. Will you find things when you dig into a car that old? Of course you will. But when you give an estimate of nearly $900 for a radiator (I can't find a single mechanic who thinks that's reasonable) the customer assumes that the digging has been done. In no way is it reasonable to offer up a transaction at one price and expect the customer to pay 5 x the estimate. You gave me a price, I then agreed to pay nearly double the estimate and in fact did pay nearly double the estimate for a job that wasn't even finished. I have a business and when I give an estimate I come very close to it because I investigate all scenarios before I enter into an agreement and a relationship with the customer. That was not done here. You led me down a path and I trusted you had done your due diligence. I was wrong and that was my mistake. A mistake I will not be making again. You certainly did make me feel like the "New Guy" in town. I hope for your future customers that you give them the respect of not offering an estimate and then asking for a price 5 x that number. I certainly hope you don't offer to "junk" their cars for them after you just advised them to put over $2100 in parts into it.

Jan 28, 2025 · Craig Geraghty

I stopped here on a Sunday afternoon during the recent snowstorm when my windshield wipers stopped working. There were no mechanics on site but the person working there helped me get them back working again. Thank you so much for your help, I wouldn't have been able to drive home without your help!

Jan 09, 2024 · Dan Tascher

The whole team at Cranbury Service Station is excellent, and we have had their help for over a decade! Cannot recommend highly enough, for their standard of service, reasonable pricing, and thoughtfulness.

Jul 07, 2023 · Barbara Meyer-Mitchell

Daughter was on her first road trip visiting a friend in Norwalk - a long way from home when a trouble light was flickering intermittently. They were short handed but worked her in anyway and so pleasant about it! Verified all was well and didn't even charge her. Proof that there are really good people out there.

Oct 16, 2020 · Mark VanDerwater