As we all know, the hardest thing to find is a good, honest mechanic. I moved to the area from Los Angeles a few years back where I'd had my 1986 Alfa Romeo worked on by a shop that has serviced Alfas exclusively since the 1960s. When I stumbled upon Jesse in Sarasota, I saw right away that he was a cool, worldy guy who spoke 3 or 4 languages and had interests that extended beyond cars. The main photo on his website at the time was an Alfa Romeo, and I was thrilled to have come across him right away in an area where these cars are scarce. When my original clutch finally went with @90,000 miles on it, I took the car to Jesse and told him to take as long as he needed. When it was done, the bill was close to double the original quote. I fully understand that older cars are problematic to say the least, but this was a garage-kept, rust-free California car that had never seen a day of winter but I was confused as to why he seemed to have turned on me. When I went back a few weeks later to ask why the car was still leaving puddles of oil on the garage floor even though he'd changed all the rubber seals, he did to his credit offer a price adjustment, but he told me that the new shop policy was no more work on Alfa Romeos; he basically threw me out of the shop. Though Jesse is no doubt an honest and ethical guy, I still don't quite get what happened. By all the excellent reviews he is obviously conscientious and does great work; maybe I happened to go in during a bad week. Further confounding is that 2 or 3 months later, someone followed me to my driveway to compliment me on my Alfa, and to say that I should join the local Alfa club. I told him that I'd first like to find an Alfa mechanic in the area, and he said that he knew just the guy: Jesse on Vilas St in Sarasota...
Hey Ivan, nice talking to you on the Phone. I'm around Alfa's since the 70's, and owned always one since 79 till 2016, the time and afford to repair them is getting more and more pricey, and I have a feeling that the parts are getting worse in Quality. The Recambi Originali parts are not available, and the after market parts often fails after short time, not that those car were falling apart while sitting anyway. Sometimes it's hard to give an exact number before working on a transmission or Clutch, without opening, when everything is apart, than I can see what else is bad, and that sometimes get the repair cost more than what it was quoted,. Every time I work on a 30 years old car, will see surprises like that. Thanks for the kind words again. Jesse Yuvali Owner Mechanical Engineer
- Jesse's Garage European Auto Repair