When there’s an issue with your vehicle, you want to be back on the road fast. After all, you’ve got places to go and people to see. Obviously, you can’t just put your busy life on hold to have your vehicle serviced when an issue pops up.
However, one caveat of owning a vehicle that contains a hybrid system is that you can’t necessarily bring your vehicle to any old quick lube to have it repaired.
Achieve peace of mind by bringing your hybrid to a specialty shop
Hybrid systems are complex. As such, it is paramount that you only have your car serviced by hybrid vehicle professionals. In visiting a repair shop that is specifically for HEVs and EVs, you’re ensuring that your vehicle is in good hands. Specialty auto repair shops have the right tools and diagnostic equipment to properly and accurately get your hybrid back in tip-top shape because they’re familiar with common issues in hybrid vehicles and know tricks of the trade that will optimize your hybrid’s performance.
Tricks that an auto mechanic who works primarily on standard vehicles may not be familiar with.
By contrast, having your HEV or EV serviced by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing can prove to be a costly mistake. One common issue that you’ll see in bringing your hybrid to a standard auto shop is a lack of certification. This isn’t a knock on your everyday auto mechanic – and it is true that they may be able to perform minor repairs on a hybrid. But this doesn’t change the fact that by not having your hybrid looked at by a certified hybrid expert, you are essentially rolling the dice on an extremely high-priced investment.
Visiting a specialty shop like The Hybrid Shop can save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in the long run.
Why hybrid vehicles are so sensitive
The battery of a hybrid, along with other parts of an EV or HEV, such as the motor controller, are extremely complex pieces of equipment, much like the brain or the heart of an organism. It’s very important to remember that these devices within hybrid vehicles depend heavily on computer systems for operation purposes.
This means that when you allow a mechanic who may not be familiar with the complex inner-workings of your vehicle, you’re gambling with the life of your hybrid. Important factors that are absent in repairing a standard vehicle, such as voltage control, may be overlooked and can lead to costly repairs for you in the long run.
You simply wouldn’t outsource heart surgery to a podiatrist, or a mechanic of any kind, for that matter. And if you hope to maintain the life of your hybrid, you should only allow a certified expert to perform repairs on it.
Why the Hybrid Shop?
The Hybrid Shop is the ultimate, one-stop shop for all things HEV and EV-related. It’s unlikely that our certified technicians have not encountered the issue you’re experiencing with your vehicle when you bring it to us. All of our technicians are skilled with the knowledge and expertise required to perform repairs on all makes and models of hybrids, which include but are not limited to battery cable repair and replacement, comprehensive diagnostics, hybrid battery conditioning and testing, and high-voltage battery conditioning.
Outside of working with the aforementioned complexities inherent in working on hybrid vehicles on a day-to-day basis, our mechanics are also equipped with the know-how to operate on your hybrid’s brakes or suspension (like all mechanics), so you can rest assured that no matter what the issue is with your vehicle, our technicians will have a solution.
We also back all of our work up with a 3-year nationwide warranty, so in the unlikely event that our technicians were mistaken in assessing your vehicle – you won’t be left holding the bag.
If you’re still skeptical about our qualifications, you should know that earlier this year, The Hybrid Shop hosted a 4-day dealer training session in which we taught dealer technicians how to diagnose and repair hybrid vehicles safely and discussed the nuances of different hybrid models.
This is only scratching the surface of the topics discussed at the 4-day summit, but it demonstrates that at The Hybrid Shop, we aren’t only interested in the vehicles we repair each day. We have a vested interest in informing the world about the benefits of hybrid ownership and how to properly service them.
The bottom-line: don’t forget why you purchased a hybrid!
While it may be true that owning an HEV or EV may not be as convenient as a standard vehicle in the sense that you can’t necessarily rely on any vehicle repair shop to get the job done when there’s an issue, it’s important to keep things in perspective and remember why you purchased a hybrid in the first place.
You purchased a hybrid because you know that they greatly reduce the impact of our carbon footprint on the earth, they are more fuel efficient than standard vehicles, and they are all-around awesome vehicles to drive.
These facts are all reasons why it’s important that you only allow certified hybrid technicians to perform repairs on your hybrid vehicle. The longevity of your HEV or EV depends on it and will ensure that you aren’t faced with costly repairs just to keep it running in the future.