Do your homework first before you do anything else.
For an expat, servicing a car in Tallinn can be daunting experience if you don’t want to go to a brand dealer - they usually provide good service on par with their workshops elsewhere. Brands aim to standardise their customer experience so where ever you go, you can expect the same level of service - just like in McDonald’s.
But things get considerably more complicated if you choose an independent workshop - then there can be no service level standards at all, although if it’s a chain, there most likely is. Thus, stay safe with brand services, or save some money by going independent? If you choose the latter, read on.
There are good independent workshops in Tallinn, there are ones that often do somewhat decent job but are nothing great so let’s just call them bad... and then there are truly ugly ones which you should always avoid; don’t take even your bicycle there.
Let’s clarify what is what; good is good in all respects, from technical expertise to customer service, warranty and billing - no expat pricing, no hassle refunds if necessary and no vat avoidance. And you can pay with a credit card! Bad can be ok in technical respect but fail in some other respect, or vice versa. And the ugly usually fail in all, they are closer to scams; they have poor know-how, know little about the car they are servicing, sell you services you don’t need, and are definitely not interested in any of the problems their service might have caused.
I’ve been to many independent workshops in Tallinn over the years so I have gained experience and know what level service you can generally expect. Why did I do this, do I love paying workshops for their good or crappy work, am I a masochist? No, I have a hobby car as daily driver that I’ve been fixing over time and it has required several different but mainly minor repairs - it had service backlog so it was in a way a restoration project too. But yeah, having a hobby car as daily driver is probably masochism.
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One thing that I’ve learnt is that the car itself, in fact, was pretty good, but many of the workshops were pretty bad. So this has caused me to go from one workshop to another.
Since you soon realise your are paying the price of learning, you don’t want to spend a huge amount on it, especially since the car is not a Ferrari - it’s a common car but as Rolling Stones said "it's only rock'n roll but I like it".
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Since it’s impossible for any one person to go trough all the workshops in Tallinn, the bulk of information in this blog is collected from hundreds if not thousands of users from Finnish chat sites such as chat24.fi. Now you may wonder why? Because thousands of Finns have brought their cars to service in Tallinn ever since Estonia regained its independence in the early 90’s.
The reasons for this are clear: it’s the economy stupid, like Bill Clinton campaigned against George Bush back in the day. Tallinn is close to Helsinki, it’s easy and cheap to go there by a ferry and at the same time you can enjoy Tallinn. This kind of shopping across the border is common all over the world.
All chats about these experiences, let’s call them reviews, are available on these sites. They are a good source to get info direct from customers on local workshops from an expat perspective who are used to western standards. And over many years.
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If you want the local perspective, you can read auto24.ee forums. There you will find info on workshops expats usually don't go to.
But since you probably didn’t know this, you landed here. And if you are not a Finn either, you probably don’t speak Finnish or Swedish either so here’s something for everyone in today’s lingua franca.
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A note about Google reviews on any workshop; read the bad ones. Why? Because if it's a crappy workshop, the good ones are fakes. Instead see how bad the bad ones are and especially how many there are. Good workshops have of course genuine good reviews but if you know nothing about it, go to the bad ones first.
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A reminder that all brand workshops are excluded from this list, only independent ones are included. The workshops below are not listed in any particular order.
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So, without further ado, here’s the top of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly!
The Good
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Flameko autohooldus
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Forss
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Hõbenool
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Hiteh
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Volrem-Auto
The Bad
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Top Part
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Saksa Auto
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Autoviva
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Viking Motors
The Ugly
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Tespera
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Volta Auto
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Automaatkaast
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Royal Garage
I update this from time to time but if you want info on some workshop, remember to check out their bad reviews, ask friends, google their name and use Google Translate!
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Stay safe and enjoy your car by using good workshops in Tallinn!
