A Better Alternative
I feel safe in assuming that you do most of your maintenance yourself if you read this site with any regularity. There’s a garage full of tools, a family or significant other who understands why you do these things, and a host of manuals in the garage and websites bookmarked to help you keep your vehicle road worthy. But what if you encounter a problem with your vehicle that you can’t handle yourself? It’s not a catastrophic failure, but it’s not as simple as fetching the correct size socket out of the drawer and adjusting. What do you do? Go to the dealer and get it coming and going? Trust your pride and joy to a “specialist” shop that specializes in 47 different makes? Oh if only there was a dealer alternative!
We’ve featured some good shops in the past, and we still highly recommend them. But say you’re cruising around in your GTi and it does a VW thing and stops working properly. It still works, albeit in limp mode, and you can’t figure out what happened. The internet has no useful answers and your friends are stumped. What do you do? Dealer? Viking funeral? Hope it goes away on its own? No. You limp that thing up to Layton and get it to Makes & Models. Why? Because you’re getting factory trained techs and service without having to go to the dealership and pay those ridiculous prices.
Their bread and butter is the VAG makes: Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche, but they also service Mercedes-Benz and BMW vehicles. And if you’re thinking about joining the uber-affluent set by getting a Lamborghini or Ferrari, then you’re in luck! They already service some bulls and horseys, and they’re working on becoming a full blown Lamborghini service center. Doing that requires acquiring all sorts of specialized tools and sending the techs off to get the necessary deutschetalian training. However, if you prefer your mid-engine supercar to sport rings on the nose instead of livestock, you’re set.
Not only do many a R8 come in for service, but members of the staff own them and even race an R8 LMS in NASA Utah region competition! Technically TW Racing campaigns the R8, but if you wander in to the shop you might be able to see it tucked away in a corner of the show room. You might even get to meet on of the drivers! But back to your non-functional Golf for a moment. You get it there, and the techs work their magic and voila! IT LIVES! And for cheaper than what you budgeted for. The more sensible amongst us would pocket the money and go about their day, but not us. No no no, we see the massive list of companies they’re authorized dealers and installers for and suddenly that extra money is gone. Who is on the list?
- Akrapovic
- 034 Motorsports
- Global Motorsports Group
- Integrated Engineering
- APR
- AWE Tuning
- VF Engineering
- and more
But what if they told you that the car was toast? OH GOD WHY??? Well you’re in luck! They are also a dealership! Yes, you can buy a car from them, have them service it, AND have them modify it! It’s a one stop shop for all of your Euro needs!
Thankfully there is an alternative to dropping your baby off at the dealership, and waiting to see how many 80 hour weeks you will need to work to pay off the bill. It’s up in Layton, and they have a racecar hanging out in the showroom.
Makes & Models
1620 W Hill Field Road
Layton, Utah
(801) 546-2277
