Kerouac

Anybody had experience with Corvette Mike's? Located in Anaheim, California. Thanks.

jtranger

Parts or service? I have bought parts from them and had no issues. Never had my car serviced there.

Here is a yelp link. Maybe others will chime in.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/corvette-mik...ervice-anaheim

Kerouac

Thanks, jtranger. This would be for service. Nothing needed right now, but looking ahead. The car is a 1965 Coupe (327/365 L76). Might want some restoration stuff done to a car that is pretty close to restored. I'll check the thread. Thanks again.

Edited: Thanks, man. After looking at the thread, I may have all the info I need. Horrible reviews. Anybody want to weigh in on the positive side?

TCracingCA

I honestly can't give an endorsement to any of them shops in Socal (the big named ones) from Coast to Guldstrand, Corvette Corrections to JD, and on and on for various reasons, but mainly listening to other Corvette Owners locally. That is unfortunate that I have to say that! I guess that is why I work on them myself!

Gary's '66

If it's something you can do yourself, do it. While I have hired various shops for various reasons to work on my car I prefer to do as much of my own work as possible. It saves tons of $, I know it's being done with care and correctly (plus I learn something) and it doesn't come out of the shop with something else f'd up.

jtranger

Automotive Expertise in Huntington Beach and Mcjacks Corvette in Santa Ana have good reputations.

xztau

No experience with Corvette Mike myself, but you may want to try Mike Bradley's Automotive in Chatsworth, a little closer to South Pasadena than Anaheim (though not by much). I've taken my '66 there for various things (clutch, trans, radiator etc). I've seen a couple of C2 restorations being done there, though it's not a restoration shop specifically.

TCracingCA

They aren't the big boys, so maybe worth checking out those recommendations from fellow forum members.

But as the PM I replied to:

In the past I had rear end work done by Toms Differential

I had a Tranny rebuilt by a guy in the Valley that used to do M22 and such for people. I would have to dig that one out.

I have had Valley Head Services do work for me.

Hank the Crank do work for me.

Jongbloed Rims do work for me.

Sent stuff back to Stainless Steel Brakes

Had to send some gauges back east for some work.

I had a muffler shop do some welding for me.

I have had a few components rebuild (alternator, starters, or headlight motors) by non-Corvette outfits.

Etc..

cv67

Theres an older mechanic there cant recall his name but hes been there forever. Pretty decent
Sure if you let him know you want it right with attention to detail they can do it. These cars are pretty straightforward

Had a friend send his LT4 there for some work. Heads were sent somewhere else, overported wasnt thrilled wiht the job coulda done way better myself, decided to do the intake myself.
The assy work was decent, not top notch but not bad. He was charged a TON for the work too much imo. Think they eventually took care of him though and made things right. The cars they sell appear to be pretty nice.
Wouldnt go back to Guldstrands ever.

Know of a few good machinist locally, Dougs Customs in Chatsworth does fantastic body and paint work does a lot of Vettes. Fair quick and no hassles.

Sal at North Hollywood auto upholstery..cant say enough good things about him.

Bob Jennings is still around in North Hills, fantastic carb/dist guy still uses the old Sun machines. Google him
Think hes moving but his # is still good. I remember when cars were lined up down the street to see him.Now lucky to see a random car in there poor guys a dinosaur these days.
Done right by me many a time

Joe Sherman is in Santa Ana you probably know about him.

Joe Inama

I traded two vettes for one a few years back. Mike is a Pro and a man of his word. No problems with him. Bought a few sets of wheels from the Midwest store also. Would buy from him again.

Bowlerdude

I bought a 67 Vette from Corvette Mike around 1985 when he was located by Disneyland.

Overall it was a decent experience, I paid a little more than the car was worth at the time but it was exactly as advertised and presented. (a one owner original car)

Back then there wasn't any internet or Ebay so it was a little tougher to find a car than it is today. I'd been looking for a long time and was unable to find what I wanted through the normal channels and it turned out he had what I was looking for.

ymmv

toddalin

I've had bad experience with Corvette Mike as have many others I know. And don't get me started on how he "botched" my '70 NCRS restoration by installing the wrong radio even though he holds himself out as an NCRS pro.

The only person mentioned above that I would totally trust my cars to is Steve LuVisi at Automotive Expertise. He is by far the best, cheapest, and most honest of the lot.

Kerouac

Swamped at work today and can't respond individually to everyone, but I appreciate all the feedback and the leads on good mechanics in the area. Thank you one and all!

5thvet

Another for Steve Luvisi at Auto Expertise in Huntington Beach.

lawdawg

I can also attest for luvisi's work. Top notch

Boyan

Also Jeff Reade in Culver City....American Motoring Memories . Outstanding shop. NCRS knowledge. Everything he does will be top notch.
Boyan

vintagecorvette

The Corvette Shop in Costa Mesa does good work.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-corvette-shop-costa-mesa

CorvetteBoy130

I have been a customer of Corvette Mikes for many years now and cannot say enough good things about the work they do. They do take time to get bigger jobs done, as they seem very busy. I also think their rate is something like $98 an hour and this is lower than the other places I have been to.

sub006

Guldstrand has done work on my car a few times over the past 30 years, always first-class.

TCRacing, Tom always did fine C2 Posi rear end work for me before he retired to Idaho. I heard a rumor his son died (motorcycle?) and he moved back, working in the original shop? Don't know for sure.

TCracingCA

They were local in Paramount for years and took over the guys operation that was building the 12 bolt Corvette Diffs. They relocated to Idaho and still have a website and catalog. Also in 2007 when I was at Carlisles, I spoke at length to the Van Steel guy about all of the products that I was using on my car to include the Toms Differential stuff and what I did to their parts like converting their trailing arms to take stock sized type bushings (I put Guldstrands spherical bearings back there) and such. Then they picked up his product line in their catalog and changed their arms which was cool! I love when a Company actually takes and uses customer feedback. Back to Tom's, I have been waiting on their aluminum rear diff to put the car completely back together, so what happened to his son might have been what happened and why that new product is two years late being released. I am going to call in a month or so and get another new 30 spline posi and inquire about that custom unit (aluminum diff) and if no update, I am going to take an 1968 L-88 HD diff housing that I have laying around and build that out.

For Guldstrand, he had an old creepy bull crap artist Shop Foreman there for awhile who is long gone. I took my rear spindle and hubs in to get them set up for perfect runout, even marked the widths on both sides of all shims to help them out. The guy said that to get it perfect, they may have to shave or plane a shim etc..I said great. I also was enlarging to 1/2" wheel studs on the 4340 axles in the rear. So I get the call that the work is done and take it home to find that someone must have hand drilled the stud holes, because they were all crooked and I mean crooked. I even popped all of the studs out, and tried to pull them all back in with the rims as a guide using a long lug, but still won't straighten that mess out. Thus a set of axles worthless! And I check the run out and it was on the high end of the factory recommendations, so I took those apart and not one of my markings on those shims was missing, in other words no shaving or hand fitting or effort was made to set up those axles, so I had to do it myself. The bill was expensive for crap work and it should have taken about half of the time that they claimed it took or that I was billed. I should have just found a lathe in hindsight!

That guy isn't their anymore-- long gone-- but that caused me to never consider going back except to just buy parts. I still have the axles on the garage art wall as a reminder.

Moral of the story, I just don't trust any of them and to have someone work on my cars, I would really have to check them out.