Hi everyone. I had discussed this place online earlier and wanted to review my experience.

I have a couple good local repair guys for my cars but recently I became frustrated when they didn't want to make the effort for certain fixes on my 2006 Lincoln Town Car. Like I would need a trim piece or even a headlight assembly and they suggested I look online to find my own parts (isn't that their job?).

Anyway, over the years a couple of airport limo drivers had told me there was a specialty Town Car repair place near the Toronto airport where you drive in with no appointment and they work on the cars while you wait. For those who don't know, there are hundreds of black town cars near YYZ and many of them have over 1,000,000kms and look great.

I could not find anything online so instead I just drove to the area, stopped a limo guy at the gas station, and asked him if he knew where it was. He directed me around the corner to E&S Automotive and said it was a great repair shop.

So I drive over to this nondescript building and take a little narrow driveway around to the back, then wait in front of a long garage with about 10 diagonal bays along the left. Sign says they are open until 2am. About 40% of the vehicles are Town Cars, the rest are other livery cars such as Suburbans, Navigators, and FWD Caddies. There are no branded taxis just shiny airport cars.

A guy named Eli, probably in his 30s, asks me what I need. I tell him I need a headlight assembly because my driver's side is fogged up. And also 3 of the little goldish clips beside my door straps have broken off. He waves me in.

After a quick look he is impressed by my clean looking 155,000km Town Car, as most in his shop have triple or quadruple the mileage. Headlamp is no problem, it's in stock. For the goldish clips he says he can give me new door handles plus clips, also in stock! Unfortunately they are all black and my interior is grey. So we decide to just glue them back on (something that my two local techs have both refused to do!). They seem like good guys so I say please do an oil change while you're at it.

So I'm waiting around and it's not quite as fast as a drive-thru restaurant, but they do the work while I wait. There are limo drivers everywhere in suits watching their cars too. I had a few good conversations and a couple of them swore by the place and said they were the best. (Advice from people with 900,000km cars should always be considered)

Eli brings me to see my car on the hoist and says I need new ball joints and that my gas filter is original and should be replaced. None of my other techs had ever suggested this and I was hesitant, but figured car is 9 years old and a keeper so why not. Then a little while later he comes back and says I also need new upper control arms. Again I was hesitant - after all I just came in for a headlight! But he had a great line: "Trust me... I don't need to sell you things you don't need... there is a line of cars outside waiting to get in." Good point so I approved that too.

In the end the bill was as follows. Bear in mind I'm not a DIY guy and this seemed way cheaper than my usual places. Especially since there was no nickel and diming for fluids, disposal, welding fuel, etc. All prices include parts and labour and are $CDN.

$35 replace gas filter
$300 2 Upper control arms
$175 replace front headlight (not bulb - whole assembly)
$240 2 ball joints
$35 oil change
$785 TOTAL plus tax

Anyway not sure if I paid too much but the convenience and the fact that they had the parts in stock was all the difference to me. And the car drives super-nice with those new front end parts. Here is the place and some pics:

E&S Automotive Inc
951 Martin Grove Rd.
Etobicoke, Ontario
905-672-0404

Wow, nice clean shop! I was expecting something more along the lines of a busy, chaotic looking shop (but the guys know where every bit is).

Prices I would call fair. Considering it is Toronto, and not London, I'd have expected higher prices. You can price the parts yourself from Napa or wherever and see what it breaks down (very roughly) to parts cost vs labor. That said, considering that all they do is fleet cars, they probably have it down to a science and know that the average upper control arm is $X, takes Y minutes to do, and it will be $150 each, no matter what it takes for a particular vehicle.

One thing about million mile livery cars: I am starting to believe it is a case of million mile guage cluster, unknown mileage car. Crown vic guage clusters seem to go on a merry go round here. If your taxi odometer fails, heres a working one, swap it out and repair it later and stick it in the next taxi.

Alex.

Thanks for sharing, that place looks pretty cool. Wish they had something like that around my area. Although you also dont see many million mile town cars running around our airport; mostly just yellow toyota camrys.

I think you did very well with the repairs you had done. I recently paid ~$180 just for a fuel filter re&re at my favourite shop. They charged me 1.25 hours (the filter may have been original to my 08 MGM and it was a bear to remove), plus the parts, plus HST. They charge $105/hr shop rate which is about $30/hr less than the dealers around here and they know what they're doing. I can't imagine shop rates in Toronto are much different than here, so I would say this shop you found is a keeper.

BTW, the fogged headlight is easy to fix with some sandpaper and clear urethane. It takes about an hour to do both covers.

^$105/hr?! 0.o

How do you guys afford to drive over there?

My Ford dealer is $90 while most shops with a good rep are around $55-65 here then privates about $30-35.

Not very cheap here in Alberta either.

1.25 hours to do a fuel filter? It shouldn't take more than 15 minutes.

@ the OP: You definitely found a keeper!

That looks like a place to keep in mind for when I run into an issue I can't do myself, and my go to guy is backed up. Nice find!