NORTHBROOK (847) 849.1898

WESTMONT (630) 570.0204

   

Nurses and Doctors Need our Support

Here at Midwest Performance Cars, we want to help our local medical community through this difficult time, while keeping your vehicle in top operating condition. We will donate 5% of our entire month of April sales to the local medical community via Project C.U.R.E.

Due to COVID-19, Project C.U.R.E. is actively donating and distributing masks and protective equipment to our Chicagoland local healthcare facilities, first responders and government agencies. If you’d like to make a contribution directly, please visit projectcure.org for further information.

In addition, if you or someone you know is on the front lines as a nurse in the vicinity of our West Loop location —1385 West Lake St.– please accept our free oil service for the month of April.

We offer free pickup, sanitizing, and return delivery of your vehicle for any service appointment. We abide by CDC guidelines for handling of vehicles, steam-sanitize all control surfaces and keys, and offer no-touch service as well as pay-by-phone.

Please call or visit our website to schedule your appointment, and stay safe.

How our Shop is dealing with COVID-19

As an essential service provider, we are continuing to operate our regular Monday through Friday business hours. We employ all of the CDC-recommended guidelines for safely conducting business including, but not limited to:

  • Steam sanitizing disinfection of control surfaces, door handles and keys
  • All personnel using protective gloves and eliminating interpersonal contact
  • Vehicle pickup and delivery from home or office (subject to availability)
  • Communication through text, email, or phone..no need to be physically present
  • Ability to collect remote payment
  • Digital inspection of your vehicle with online report

Please watch the brief video at the link below for additional detail on our vehicle service procedures.

Regarding Forums

Here at MPC, we love cars. We love working on them, talking and reading about them, and just being surrounded by great automotive work every day. In fact, we are in continuously in learning mode, it would be foolish not to be. So it naturally follows that in addition to our many professional sources of technical information, we also read, refer to, and occasionally contribute to several of the specialized forums that are aimed at the German auto enthusiast. We’ve gained and given valuable knowledge through the forum venue, and we have gained many new customers through forum-user generated referrals.

Having said that, forum-derived material has its limitations, which is the subject of this post. About half a dozen times per year, we will have a customer come to us who has spent a lot of time reading forum posts pertaining to their particular vehicle, and with that homework comes everything from “suggestions” to outright demands as to how their repair, service, or modification should be performed.  Since we do always want to be gaining new knowledge and information, we will go ahead and review the link or thread that the customer references, and a majority of the time, there is a substantial difference between what the forum is referring to and what is actually going on with the customer’s vehicle, which we will proceed to explain in detail.

Occasionally, we will come across a truly unique, ingenious, or otherwise novel procedure to address a repair that might either save us time, or actually solve some Gordian-knot-type riddle we had been wrestling with. The latest example of this is the replacement of captured nuts in the no-access windshield channel of Porsche Boxsters. When even our trusted body shop couldn’t come up with a solution, we found a great procedure using steel nut-serts that will clearly last the lifetime of the vehicle.

Other times, there will be anywhere from one to a few posters who will detail how they changed out an alternator, installed a new cat-back system, or replaced, refurbished, or otherwise performed some fix or mod, all in a fraction of the time that “the shop” said it would take to do “the exact same thing”. It is this particular situation that I call attention to, because it puts us as professionals, behind the proverbial eight ball. As a business, rather than a friend’s garage or enthusiast’s backyard, we warranty the work that we do on customer cars. If something doesn’t function correctly, or worse yet, causes follow-on problems in other areas of the vehicle, we have to, and we will make it right. Also, we have seen many multiple numbers of vehicles over what an individual sees, and as such, we’re closer to having “seen it all” with regards to what can trip up, slow down, or otherwise complicate a procedure. For example, there is a popular manufacturers of beautiful aftermarket exhaust systems, (who we really like working with BTW), who routinely understates installation times for its systems. Their product is top-quality, and they are a great company to deal with, but the installs never go in as smoothly as they claim, there is always tweaking needed to ensure that the system doesn’t interfere with suspension or other underbody areas, even on brand new vehicles. If the vehicle is a few years old and particularly corroded, install time can double, as we need torch-time to loosen fittings and fasteners.

Here’s the point: While we belong and contribute to several forums, and recognize their value in the experience of an auto enthusiast’s pursuit of that passion, we have a repair process that has been developed through experience, training, and ingenuity. That process cannot be sidelined due to a forum article. The writer or hobbyist has no skin in the game when it comes to our customer’s ownership experience and enjoyment of their vehicle, but we do.

Vote for Midwest Performance Cars

Midwest Performance Cars was selected as one of ten finalists in the AT&T Agility Challenge. Please visit the link below where you can view our brief presentation and vote once per day, every day until July 26th.

Help us in getting the highest vote tally! We are very proud to be the only business in Chicago to have made the final cut.

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Cost Comparison: Should I keep my existing BMW or should I buy new?

We have more than the occasional customer who, when faced with a significant repair bill, will ask us if they should keep their current, paid-off car or just trade in and go with a new vehicle – and all of the car payments that come with it. This question comes up so often, in fact, that we decided to run the numbers ourselves and produce a fact-based comparison so that people could make a rational decision rather than an emotional one.

We perform vehicle repairs and maintenance every day, and the results are still surprising. Going the new-car-route in pursuit of that factory warranty coverage is much more expensive than you might think. Take a look at the following video and see for yourself, and please feel free to contact us with any questions or to set up an appointment for your vehicle.

Click on this YouTube video link

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