Before I start this review, let me begin by saying I am very very conflicted about this place and I'm not writing this to hurt their business, I just want customers to know of my experience so they can do what's right for them. So to start, I will say David in the maintenance office at Hillside is the nicest guy ever. Everyone there actually is quite nice but David was the one taking care of me so I'll only talk about him. I was recommended to Hillside by my dad who takes his Toyota Prius there. I have a 2003 Mitsubishi Lancer and I was having issues with the heater, it just wasn't working. My AC was excellent, but the heater simply wouldn't produce heat. I called and David was able to get me in the next week, I dropped of my car for inspection and left. Upon drop off David informed me that the fee would be $130 for them to check it out and diagnose the problem, then whatever the cost of the part needing to be replaced is will be added to that. I agreed because I figured if it's only $130 to get my heater fixed I'm in. When I returned to pick it up later that day, David told me that he had found the problem. My blend door cable wasn't acting correctly. Cool, so they ordered the part and a week later I dropped my car off again. Upon pickup this time David told me that they were wrong and it still wasn't working despite the part being replaced. I was bummed but David ensured me that they would continue to work till they fixed it. I brought my car in a 3rd time to get it looked at and when I returned still no dice, the problem was "not fixable unless we remove the transition and replace the blend door box". He informed me this would cost around $1,800. I opted not to do this because in the end I live in California and the cold really isn't that bad and I could live with it because I don't have $1,800 to throw around for something small like that. David understood and sent me on my way. I was satisfied with their attempt though a bit bummed that $130 later and my heater still wasn't fixed. (I will add that at this point David did suggest a few other things on my car that "needed work" but none of it was super urgent and all of the work was a couple hundred dollars each, So I opted out."
Fast forward about 3 weeks. I was driving around town when my AC started acting up. It was going in and out while I was driving, confused, I took it to my friend who is a mechanic. While he didn't know the exact problem because he didn't have time to take apart the dash, he said it appeared that my tubes were leaking and the AC wasn't making it all the way into the cab. I was pretty bummed out and kind of weary about going back to hillside so I decided to just sit on it for a bit as I lacked time and money to fix the issue immediately. A few weeks about that, the AC got even more fussy, it now only works while the car is in motion. If I'm at a light, it blows warm air, but once I move again, cold air! So confusing! I've been living with this for awhile because like I said above, no time or money to fix. I wasn't going to write this review because I knew that there could be other factors besides hillside that could have caused this and I really don't want to hurt their business. BUT, yesterday my AC started making a clicking sound that is so annoying you can't even have the ac on without it driving you nuts. Sigh, my trip to hillside to get my heater fixed cost me $130, and my ac is no longer working. Safe to say I am pretty upset. I understand stuff happens, but I find it a pretty big coincidence that right after I go to hillside, I start having all these issues.
The guys at hillside really are the best and I hope that they can fix your needs, but just be very clear with them and make all the clarifications you can about issues or else you may end up in my situation.
UPDATE:
Well, Dave from hillside has gone and written probably the nicest yelp reply I've ever read. Well said Dave, I appreciate your empathy and want to acknowledge your dedication and kindness. You sir are a very good business man and a good person. Five stars.