A written estimate with photographs before any work 000-000-0000
Woodside Car Service Independent auto repair & tire service · since 2004
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The people

The six people who actually work on your car

All employees, all salaried, and nobody on this floor has been here less than eight years. If Danilo diagnosed it, Danilo signs off on the fix. If Grace ordered the part, Grace knows exactly when it lands.

Marco Ferraro, Founder & Master Technician at Woodside Car Service

Marco Ferraro

Founder & Master Technician

ASE Master Technician, L1 Advanced Engine Performance · with us since 2004

Marco opened the 61st Street shop in 2004 after eleven years in a franchised dealer service department, largely because he was tired of being told what to sell rather than asked what a car needed. He still takes the difficult diagnostic jobs himself, and he still calls customers personally when the news is expensive.

  • Advanced engine performance diagnosis
  • German and Japanese drivetrains
  • Estimating and second opinions

English, Italian, Spanish

Elena Vargas, Service Manager at Woodside Car Service

Elena Vargas

Service Manager

ASE Service Consultant, NY State Inspector · with us since 2009

Elena runs the front of the shop and the diary, which means she is the person who decides whether your car goes out today or tomorrow. She writes the estimates that go to customers and has a standing rule that any line item she cannot explain in plain English does not get sent.

  • Estimates and approvals
  • Warranty and insurance liaison
  • Fleet scheduling

English, Spanish

Danilo Reyes, Lead Diagnostic Technician at Woodside Car Service

Danilo Reyes

Lead Diagnostic Technician

ASE Master Technician, High-Voltage Safety Level 3 · with us since 2013

Danilo takes the cars that other shops have already had a go at — the intermittent faults, the warning lights that come back, the electrical problems nobody has pinned down. He runs our hybrid and electric bay and is the reason we take that work in-house rather than sending it away.

  • Intermittent electrical faults
  • Hybrid and EV high-voltage systems
  • Marque diagnostic software

English, Tagalog

Aoife Brennan, Body & Paint Lead at Woodside Car Service

Aoife Brennan

Body & Paint Lead

I-CAR Platinum, refinishing and colour matching · with us since 2016

Aoife came to us from a high-end restoration shop and brought its standards with her, which is why our booth is cleaner than most people's kitchens. She matches colour with a spectrophotometer and then checks it by eye in daylight anyway, because a camera has never had to look at a car in the rain.

  • Colour matching and blending
  • Paintless dent removal
  • Paint correction and ceramic coating

English

Rajib Hossain, Tire & Alignment Specialist at Woodside Car Service

Rajib Hossain

Tire & Alignment Specialist

TIA Certified Automotive Tire Service, alignment specialist · with us since 2011

Rajib runs the tire and alignment lane and has a genuinely unreasonable enthusiasm for road-force balancing. If you have a steering wheel vibration that three shops have failed to cure, he is the person who will find it, usually within twenty minutes.

  • Road-force balancing
  • Four-wheel alignment and geometry
  • TPMS and seasonal changeover

English, Bengali, Hindi

Grace Okoro, Parts & Warranty Coordinator at Woodside Car Service

Grace Okoro

Parts & Warranty Coordinator

Parts specialist, warranty and recall administration · with us since 2018

Grace sources every part that comes through the door and is the reason we can usually tell you the real wait rather than a hopeful one. She also checks every car that arrives against open factory recalls, which is free, takes her two minutes, and has saved our customers a great deal of money.

  • Parts sourcing and lead times
  • Open recall checks
  • Warranty claims and returns

English, Igbo

How we hire

Salaried technicians, in a trade that runs on commission

A lot of repair shops pay a technician or an advisor a percentage of what they sell that day. It is a normal, legal way to run a business, and it also means that every recommendation you hear comes from somebody with a direct financial stake in your answer being yes.

Everyone on our floor is a salaried employee. Nobody earns more for finding more wrong with your car, and nobody's month is better because you said yes to the fourth line on the estimate instead of the second. We hire for two things: whether somebody can actually find a fault rather than guess at it, and whether they will tell a customer the truth when the truth is that the work is not needed yet. Neither of those shows up on a commission sheet.

  • Salaried pay, with no commission on parts, labour or add-on sales.
  • Hired and reviewed on diagnostic accuracy, not on the size of the invoice.
  • Every technician's ASE certification and its expiry posted at the service desk on request.
A technician working in an engine bay at Woodside Car Service, Woodside, Queens, NY

Credentials

What each of these credentials actually means

Worth knowing wherever you take a car, not only here.

  • ASE Master Technician

    The senior credential from the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence, requiring a technician to pass examinations across every major system on a vehicle and to recertify on a schedule to keep it current. Marco and Danilo both hold it.

  • ASE Service Consultant

    The examination covers estimating, service writing and the ability to translate a technical finding into a plain explanation a customer can actually use to make a decision. Elena writes every estimate that leaves this building and holds it.

  • NY State Inspector

    A separate state certification required to legally perform New York's safety and OBD-II emissions inspection, on top of any ASE credential. Elena holds this too, which is why the inspection lane never waits on somebody else's schedule.

  • High-Voltage Safety Level 3

    A specific, separate qualification for working on hybrid and electric drive systems, which carry a real electrical risk that a standard automotive certification does not cover. Danilo holds it and runs our high-voltage bay.

  • I-CAR Platinum

    A senior individual credential in collision repair and refinishing training, covering structural repair, welding and colour matching to a standard insurers and manufacturers both recognise. Aoife holds it and leads our body shop.

  • TIA Certified Automotive Tire Service

    A tire-industry credential covering mounting, balancing and the judgment calls around what is and is not safely repairable. Rajib holds it and runs the tire and alignment lane.

A written estimate with photographs, before any work

Book your car in

Every car that comes in goes on a lift and gets a documented inspection before anything is priced, and that inspection is free. You get photographs of what we found and a line-by-line estimate on your phone, and nothing happens until you reply.

Book your car in Call 000-000-0000