Monday morning emergency that started out as what I thought was me running out of gas (wtF does that?! - I don't) turned out to be a mystery problem that left me stuck in Lakeville (LEFT lane of course, during rush hour). A nice cop got me and my truck outta the middle of the street (thank you, officer!!) and my Verizon Roadside Assistance got a tow truck to me within 45 minutes and told me about three shops in the area within 3 miles. I randomly chose the name Empire Automotive from the names she read off (I'm not familiar with Petaluma like that) and asked the tow driver what he knew about them He stated that it was one of the more requested drop-off destinations for his tow jobs in the area - a good sign that. I was pleasantly surprised to get 2 of the owners (Scott and Chris? Father and son, I believe) coming out to greet me and the tow guy. The next pleasant surprise came when I went into the office looking like somebody's well-loved living room with real coffee and tea (AND MUGS, not styrofoam?!), snacks, a widescreen TV unobtrusively on the back wall playing local morning news, and get this - a shop CAT and a shop DOG (living very harmoniously I might add). Truth be told, even without the final fix of the problem and the pleasant interactions with everyone there, the animals would have garnered about 3 stars from me, just on GP....anyway. Moving on. Patti who runs the office and is the mom in this family run business was chatting and finishing up paperwork with 2 obviously regular customers - a 60+ y/o woman and a 40ish man (also a good sign - diverse clientele) so I made myself comfortable. When my turn came she explained that they have no minimum but because the problem seemed like it might end up being weird (it was) she was going to ask me to sign off on just 2 hours labor. She even offered their drop off service (they were gonna take me to work!) but I had a co-worker on the way. I have another vehicle and told them to take the time they needed. Long story short, I touched base with Chris (son, head mechanic and co-owner I believe) a few times over the next few days as he tried to figure out what the what was going on with my truck. Turned out to be the previous owner's obvious jimmyrigging of the wiring in one of the sensors that fried something else. They, of course, showed me the fried part and seemed really happy to have solved the mystery. I got a bill totaling about $20 less than was estimated during our conversations and they allowed me to store the vehicle over the weekend after the work was done at no charge. All in all, I am very happy that a Monday morning mess, turned into an opportunity to meet a mechanic I can trust. The bonus is that I get to support an honest family run, small business in the North bay. So there's that.