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March 2024 by Henry Borntraeger (Henry)
Luis and his team are amazing. Fixed something that took an incredible amount of creativity, patience and problem solving. Highly recommend. They are also very friendly.
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November 2023 by Jesus Escamilla
Great thank you for your service, totally appreciate
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April 2022 by Dominic Gazzoli
Bruce is the man. Ive seen many examples of his work over the years with my previous employer and had him recondition one of my own cylinder heads very recently. Highly recommended
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August 2021 by Kevin Tweed
Had a rush job and they made it happen
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August 2021 by Matthew R.
Ignore the whiner reviews. A local machinist that is competent is an asset that most of the community will neither see nor value. What they do is dirty and feels like it is from a different century. But for those of us who want to repair rather than replace, who care about how things are done, and who respect those with competence, folks like these are priceless. I brought in a head to have a valve job. He was clear that they were busy and it would take time, yet he also spent time answering questions and making me smarter. Two weeks later I got the head back and they did a great job. There is a corruption in our community and society where we don't value expertise, only assets. When we pay money for a service, we are making an even trade. This means the money is exactly equal in value to the services rendered. Yet for some reason some folks believe that the guy with the money is somehow superior. That somehow the trade is a gift. That is b******** Not every professional is going to be cheery and glib like Verizon Lily. Some folks will go into trades because they love it, or they feel connected with being skilled. When you trade your cash for their services, you do not have a right to have your b*** cradled because you are paying. You have a right to enter into an agreement for their services. There used to be auto parts stores and mechanics everywhere, because people fixed things. Now there are almost none. Lots of Marin folks have money. Nothing special about that. But this guy is special, because he can do something useful that virtually nobody in Marin has the tools or skills to do. Shut your cake hole, act respectfully, ask questions, and you will get good work for a fair price. Or be a douche and publish your insecurity on Yelp. Your call
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April 2021 by Tamas L.
I should have grabbed my cylinder heads and walked out the minute this guy roughly tumbled one of them over onto the ALUMINUM cam towers so that he could look at one of the valves on his dirty steel shop table. The cam towers are a precision machined surface where any imperfection is a Big Deal but according to his mouth, "it won't hurt anything". Unfortunately, the shops with race proven engine machining and building quality either didn't call me back, where months out or are located hundreds or thousands of miles away so I mostly let it go with a gentle objection and the experience devolved on its own with Mr Best Machine telling me that he's done, he can't work with an "internet expert" know-it-all like me asking too many questions and wasting his time when I expressed my preference for a name brand replacement valve not whatever his go-to supplier has on hand. Our total interaction consisted of 4-5 quick prior phone calls to see if he could do heads that use MLS head gaskets, get his preferences on how far I should I tear them down, how many of the components I should bring and to make sure that he was there on the day that I was able to run down to his shop plus maybe 15 minutes face to face. Generously call it 30 minutes of "wasted time" (which is part of running a service business and is priced into the hourly rate) for what would have been a $500+ job with little or no parts that he would have banged out in I'm guessing under 3 hours. He did offer me a discount that amounted to 1/2 of the price of the labor that he would have billed me for reconditioning my valves if I bought new ones. HTF does that add up? He'll charge me x to recondition my valves but x/2 if he doesn't recondition them and uses new one that he'll mark up from his cost to retail? I spent 45 minutes carefully boxing up and transporting my heads to his shop and within 15 minutes he's insulting me for asking questions. Maybe he's insecure and misunderstood that I was hoping to learn something while he was multitasking not that I was quizzing him on his knowledge. This "internet expert" has kept every vehicle that I've owned running well from a 5 year old with a bicycle to 46 years old through at least 8 motorcycles, 5 cars, a truck and a van and few racing seasons with karts and motorcycles plus our current household with 6 four wheeled vehicles and two motorcycles currently in my care and my two most regularly used personal vehicles with a combined age of 58 years and almost 500,000 miles on their original engines and most of that time and distance in my hands. The only shops that I have ever paid to do work for me are machine shops, smog check, tire mounting/balancing and exhaust fabrication because I don't own the equipment to do it myself. Yes, I read the book "How to Build Max Performance 4.6 Liter Ford Engines" by Sean Hyland who has built hundreds of them, mostly for competition and also found some good, proven and knowledgeable sources on the web. With my reading comprehension, mechanical and mathematical aptitude, real life experience and vested interest in my Ford 4.6 Modular V8 engine, I almost certainly do know more than Mr Best Machine does about my engine and its cylinder heads. That this glorified machine operator couldn't put two and two together when I walked in with heads stripped down to the valves from an engine that I removed from a full sized Ford van (which has to be one of the worst automotive repair tasks) in my residential garage plus all of the relevant pages copied from the factory service manual is illustrative. I've worked for and have seen the work of well regarded companies in my own profession and the truth is that it's mostly smoke and mirrors, marketing, whatever you want to call it. The great majority of people and companies are average at what they do rated on a bell curve and strive to provide the minimum for the maximum price. Average is mediocre by my standards. It's really hard fi
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February 2021 by Keith Pelzman
Great service
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January 2021 by Jake E.
I brought my cylinder head there from a c230 Mercedes for repair because the head gasket was leaking. Bruce was ok but a little stressed because his wife had just had a minor accident, understandable. Everything seemed to go as planned, he said the head was within tolerances and not warped so he cleaned it all up and replaced the valve guides and such. I brought the head back to my mechanic and he put it all back together. Ran ok for a couple of commutes across the bridge but then I had transmission problems and had to put it back into the shop to fix it. I decided to have a couple of other little things fixed while it was in there like the oil sensor. The mechanic found that the head gasket was leaking again so that was a bummer. I ended up buying a new engine and swapping it out. The engine cost the same as the cylinder head repair and had half as many miles as the old one. Should have done that in the first place. I did not talk to Bruce about this because I didn't have the time and figured that he wouldn't have been able to do anything about it. I don't know what happened and I can't say that it was the fault of best machine entirely because there are too many variables but if I had to do it over I would just get a new engine. The money doesn't bum me out as much as the time I lost. Lesson: Don't buy a used Mercedes! Too many sensors in those cars.
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October 2020 by D Brown
Great machine shop, if Bruce can't help, he will know who you need to talk to. Great for rebuilt heads.
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October 2020 by Cody Bam
This shop is a rare find. Quality work.
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July 2020 by Brett P.
Bruce was so helpful!! I'm new to automotive work and he gave me some great tips and advice and even showed me around the shop to help me understand about the work he was doing and why. If I didnt move I would definitely only come here for future help with my garage projects!
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June 2020 by wally h.
My experienced and license boat mechanic took our boat cylinder heads for rebuilt at an estimate $550. It was clear to the shop the heads off 1996 mercruiser Baylinear. The shop convinced ourmechanic to exchange it for rebuilt heads at a cost of $729.00. After that my mechanic realized we also need a short block. While shopping for one at another shop, it was discovered by the new shop the cylinder heads sold by Best Machine are from the 1960's and will not hold on a boat. When my mechanic went to return the heads, Best machine blamed my mechanic for the return. Deducted $97 and asked my mechanic not to shop again at their shop. This is a text book example of a bad deal. Keep your 60's parts to yourself. No one should need that. Rather than apologizing for wasting our times do gas, $97 was deducted.
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January 2020 by Nicholas Shilzony
Hes the man!
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November 2019 by Erik Sandell
Great machine shop with all the right tools! I came late in the day after damaging one of my tools on the job. Bruce was able to quickly fix the damaged threads on my part and had me up and running by 8am the next morning. The service was quick, easy, and friendly!
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November 2019 by jorge nogueiro
Good work. on time. Bruce is very knowledgeable
