looking for car repairs

After I got my brakes fixed I was thinking that many people have no idea where to even start to look for a good mechanic or how to find out how much the repairs should cost. I was looking around the web again and found this site. I found it first as Chicago auto repair It is really good about both! Not only do they show you what it should cost for your area but even recommends mechanics to you. You can in put your car year make and model like say you have a 2001 Toyota Corolla and other info and what you need done and it can estimate the work for you.
I say estimate because there are many things that can go into a lot of different things. Just because your need thermostat changed doesn't mean that your hoses are good or you could still need a water pump to fix an over heating problem or you could have a worse problem that the estimator wont catch and requires a mechanic to look at the car and diagnose it. I think that the estimator is pretty accurate though taking into consideration the area you are in and the type of vehicle and the repairs you need. I even put in what work is needed on a car we were just given and it gave me an estimate of what it would cost to fix it properly. I can say that if it was more to fix the car then it was worth I would have made $200 by scraping it!!
I would definitely take some time and go to this site before you go to get your car fixed! I know that if I am in need of a shop to do repairs that I can not do myself or my husband can not do I am going to check them out myself!