Toyota engine partially disassembled

Toyota mechanic Berkeley, CA – Toyota specialist Since 1980

When looking for a Toyota mechanic, it makes sense to look for a Toyota specialist. Over 50% of the cars we repair are Toyota, so of the makes we service, Toyota is what we’re most comfortable with. We have three Toyota Techstream scanners and subscribe to Toyota’s Technical Information System (TIS). Anything Toyota of Berkeley can do, we can do too, usually for a lot less money.

We offer the following services for Toyota vehicles:

Why should Art’s be your Toyota mechanic?

If you searched for “best Toyota mechanic near me”, I’m glad you found us. Let me try to talk you into bringing your Toyota to our repair shop.

One reason you might want to choose us is that we do just about everything. We’re a true Toyota dealer alternative. Certified technicians who know Toyota. You won’t need to coordinate repairs between multiple Toyota shops with different capabilities or pay markups on work that your shop needs to sublet.

But obviously that’s not all there is. If it were, many people might just stay with a Toyota dealer.

Toyota of Berkeley can offer most of the automotive services we do, with the exception of tires and engine repairs involving machine work. However, there are reasons you may want to choose us for your next Toyota service if you live in the SF East Bay. Our culture is very different from the Toyota dealerships near us.

Art’s original motto when he opened Art’s Automotive in 1980 was “Thorough, Competent, Caring, and Honest”. After a struggle with a particularly difficult car he once joked, “One day I hope to be all four”.

Most people want more from their Toyota mechanic than just one or two of those attributes. Some Toyota dealers are indeed competent but lack the other attributes entirely. That’s why most people don’t have their Toyotas serviced at the dealer, other than warranty repairs and recalls.

Honest

At Art’s Automotive, our aim is to give you our honest assessment of what your car needs. There can be differences of opinion here; not all mechanics agree on what service your Toyota should get.

But we’re open to discussion, and our customers are grownups and can make their own decisions. We’ll tell you what we think and why, then you make up your own mind. No pressure or judgement.

All of our mechanics and service writers are paid hourly. There are no performance bonuses. In short, there’s no incentive to recommend any unneeded repairs.

Having said that, I know many Toyota mechanics who work flat-rate or with production pay that are honest as the day is long, so I don’t want to imply that everyone with that type of pay structure is corrupt. It’s just not how we do it. Anyway, a good culture is something a shop either has or doesn’t.

We’re always busy. This is mostly a bad thing for our customers; nobody likes waiting for an appointment.

But here’s a silver lining: if you don’t need or want a repair, it’s not a big deal for us. We have plenty of work to do all the time. We’ll never pressure you to do repairs, and we’ll be absolutely fine if your scheduled appointment turns out to be just a minor adjustment, or you decide you’d rather not do a repair.

In contrast, some Toyota dealers are deliberately over-staffed. They can see your car the same day you call because they have hungry technicians working commission waiting for something to do which raises the question – Does your car need the work, or does the shop need the work?

Are you Toyota Certified?

“Certification” warrants a page of its own. Here it is. A better question is are we competent, and the answer is yes.

We specialize in Toyota repair, we have all the same special tools as the local Toyota dealerships in Berkeley and Oakland, and we’ve had 43 years of experience in Toyota automotive repair.

We have 7 ASE certified Master Technicians. We have two certified hybrid technicians, one of whom was an SME (subject matter expert) for the ASE L3 hybrid-competency test. Very few Toyota mechanics can claim that.

Two technicians also do tech writing for both Toyota and Nissan publications. And we have a tech who teaches a Toyota hybrid class at Contra Costa College in San Pablo CA (near Richmond). As a group of Toyota mechanics, we’re a little older, but we’re also very experienced and at the top of our game.

Thorough and caring

There’s not much to say about the remaining items of Art’s founding principles. Whether we live up to these ideals is a judgement you’ll have to make after some experience at our repair shop. We’re certainly trying, but we’re not always perfect. We do the best we can and some days we’re better than others.

Toyota hybrid mechanics

Whether you need something as simple as a hybrid battery replacement or repair, or a diagnosis of a more difficult hybrid malfunction, we have you covered. We are hybrid specialists. Check our website of numerous case studies of hybrid repair case studies. Many of our Toyota hybrid diagnostic conquests have appeared in other publications, such as TOYOTAtech magazine.