West Seattle Auto Repair

Rats! Or mice...or maybe a squirrel. It's the time of year that rodents are looking for a nice, warm, safe space and your vehicle just might be it! There's just so much to like under your hood - insulation, hoses and plastic for a nest - and it is a dry, safe spot that they can call home. If you drive your vehicle daily, it likely will not be an issue. If, like many people over the last 18 months, you don't drive that often, then the opportunity is there for the little critters to move on in and make themselves comfy! The damage that can happen ranges from annoying smells and pesky "Check Engine" lights to poor running, not starting or even a bio-hazard. The photo is from a vehicle we had in this week. You can see 3 of the 6 spark plug wires are chewed completely through and it had to be towed in. This is after the owner said it sat for a week while he was on vacation. We recently had an Audi in that needed extensive repairs that included a wiring harness and p ... read more

     Your Volvo, Saab, Subaru and Mini Specialists are now your go to for ALL European Vehicles and Subaru too! Swedish Automotive has been a thriving auto repair business in the West Seattle community since 1983 and what started as a Volvo and Saab repair shop only in 1983, grew to include Subaru in 2005 and Mini Cooper in 2010.  With Saab ceasing production and the immense growth of West Seattle and the surrounding areas it was a great opportunity to expand to all European vehicles in 2018.  Much as West Seattle has grown and changed over the years, we have too! We are fortunate to have a spacious repair facility that has allowed us to grow our vehicle line up to include most BMW, Audi, Volkswagen, Porsche ... read more

Since it has been almost three years since we last posted about Saab’s bankruptcy issues and the fear of parts unavailability, we thought you might be curious about what the Saab parts market looks like today. You might assume that it could be difficult, or in some cases impossible, to get a vehicle part. However, Saab Automobile Parts North America (which emerged from the car manufacturer’s bankruptcy) is stable and actually thriving. That’s good news because while the company itself may have struggled, the cars they built are holding strong and we love them. A recent search pulled up almost 400 cars for sale in Washington statealone and there are reportedly more than 450,000 Saab’s in the United States still on the road. Of course, the number of the departed company’s cars on the road will shrink over time but for now, your car will have its needs covered! For more information on the current a ... read more

Clean-Up Crew Holding Oil Clods What do you do for fun? Swedish Automotive owners David Winters & Sandra Wanstall along with their family collect trash off the beach. It starts as a beach walk (with garbage bags just in case) and ends with a trash haul, in this instance almost too heavy to carry. Trash Bags Heavy with Oil Clods The garbage bags in the photo are heavy (at least 70 lbs each) with oil clods picked up along the beaches of southwest Vashon Island. Since the king tides in January many more of these clods have surfaced, remnants of the 1991 600,000-gallon oil spill at Tacoma’s US Oil & Refining. What spilled washed up on the beaches and became these clods, whichrese ... read more