Four miles straight down Broad Street, about fifteen minutes outside the peaks. Center City cars are mostly garage cars, and garage cars come to us with expressway damage rather than break-ins: a stone off I-76 that starred the glass in November and cracked it in February. Chip fills are $60 to $130 and 30 minutes; windshields are $250 to $450 fitted. We are at 2640 Snyder Avenue, 215-608-1108.
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A Center City car costs money to keep before it ever costs money to fix. It lives in a garage or on a permit block, it is not how anyone gets to work, and it comes out for the weekend, the shore, the trip to see family. The consequence is that damage sits unnoticed. A chip picked up on the Schuylkill Expressway in October is invisible in a dark garage, and the first anybody thinks about it is a cold morning in January when there is suddenly a line across the glass.
The second consequence is that the mobile van is often the wrong answer downtown, and we would rather say so than turn up and fail. Most Center City garages have a clearance bar, no room to work alongside a car, and no appetite for a contractor doing adhesive work on their deck; some will not let us in at all. Fifteen minutes down Broad Street with a known price at the other end is usually the better plan: $60 to $130 for a chip, $250 to $450 for a fitted windshield, $200 to $500 for side or back glass. Drop the car and the Broad Street Line puts you back at Walnut-Locust in about ten minutes.
The downtown grid is one-way and metered, with garage entrances mid-block and ramps built for smaller cars than people drive now. Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce and Pine each run one way, with Broad and Market crossing them. The Vine Street Expressway trenches along the northern edge and the Schuylkill Expressway ramps hang off the western side around 30th and South Street, so a car leaving Center City is on patched concrete within two minutes of the garage door. East of Fifth Street, Old City and Society Hill keep their block paving and granite kerbs, which is where a downtown resident tends to discover what a stable chip sounds like when it stops being stable.
“They were able to install a new drivers side rear window for me the same day I called, when all the other shops were saying it could take a few days. They did a wonderful job and even cleaned up all the glass that was in my car (even folded a blanket I had in there that got glass on it) from my window being busted in.”
One: expressway miles. Nearly all the damage we see on Center City cars was collected on I-76, I-676 or the bridges, off patched concrete, behind trucks in the right lane, from stone that leaves a tyre with the force of a hammer. Two: delay. A car kept in a dark garage hides a chip for months, and every one of those months contains freezing nights and hot defroster mornings. Three: garage architecture. Tight helical ramps and concrete columns take out mirror glass and quarter lights, which people assume is a body shop job and is often ours. Four: construction. There is always a site downtown, and grit off a hoarding, a scaffold or a dump truck lands on whatever is parked and gets ground in by the wipers.
Broad Street south from City Hall is the simple version: about four miles, straight, and Snyder Avenue crosses it. Turn west at Snyder and go about a mile to 26th; we are on the north side. If Broad is shut for an event or a game, take Washington Avenue west to 25th Street and drop south to Snyder instead. Coming off the Schuylkill Expressway, use the Passyunk Avenue exit and work north-east to 26th. Fifteen minutes outside the peaks and rather more at five o'clock. If you are leaving the car with us, the 79 bus runs along Snyder to the Broad Street Line.
Russell's Auto Repair works across South Philadelphia and the surrounding towns — pick your neighborhood:
Sometimes, and often not, so ask before you assume. The obstacles are practical: clearance bars that a van will not pass, no room to open a door fully and stand beside the glass, ventilation, temperature, and garage management who do not want adhesive work happening on their deck. Ask your garage first whether they permit it. If the answer is no, or the space is tight, the drive down Broad Street is fifteen minutes and the job gets done properly indoors.
A chip fill is about 30 minutes and you can wait for it. A windshield is roughly an hour of work plus safe drive-away time before the urethane will hold the glass in a hard stop, which we give you as a specific figure on the day. Most people drop the car in the morning and collect it in the afternoon. Weekday hours are 8:30 to 5:30, Saturday is 8:30 to 4:00, and we are closed on Sunday.
We are on Snyder Avenue between 26th and 27th, which is a working street rather than a lot, so the practical answer is that you hand the car over rather than park it and wander off. Tell us roughly when you are arriving and we will be expecting you. If you are coming back for it later the same day, say so when you call 215-608-1108 and we will have it ready rather than closing on you.
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| Monday – Friday | 08:30 – 17:30 |
| Saturday | 08:30 – 16:00 |