Shops/ mechanics in DFW, TX area

Hello! Did you end up finding a mechanic in the DFW? I need a head gasket replaced and am considering a full engine swap from my gen 3 to gen 4. The dealership in FW quoted me $4650 just to replace the gasket lol

 

call matt at texas hybrid batteries. i think they do everything

 

I left him a detailed VM and email and haven't received a call back I've heard great things about him from a neighbor of his. I hope he'll call me back soon. Thank you!

 

I found A1 auto out of Arlington and will probably go with them for the swap. One of the mechanics there quoted me $1800 for labor and said the owner can source me an engine but it'll be an additional $300 on top of the engine price for him to put a warranty on it, which sounds worth it to me. I've been talking to Dallas JDM as well, and they have an engine for sale that'd be $1800 plus tax. The gentleman on the phone told me it'd be $650 for the labor for them to install it over a day or two, which is kind of suspicious because that seems way too low, but what do I know. I'll let you know after I've finished the whole process!

 

update: finally got a chance to take the car to another mechanic and he ran tests and found that nothings actually wrong with my head gasket. i was about to go to JDM dallas on monday for an engine swap but I think the dealership just wanted to buy my car from under me. my mechanic is gonna replace my spark plugs and another part i can't remember the name of for $400 plus $50 for diagnostics, and I'm going to strictly take it for oil changes every 5k miles.

this wasn't the first time i had a toyota service mechanic completely exaggerate or make up an issue with my car that an honest mechanic couldn't deal with for a fraction of the cost lol. they got the last $165 from me for the bogus diagnostic of my engine light even though I still have some work left on a maintenance package I got last year.

as far as doing a gen 3 to gen 4 swap goes, I was told by JDM dallas and Sasha at leksfixit it can't be done. Matt from texas hybrid told me to use JDM if i want a swap, who told me they can't do the gen 3 to 4 and referred me to sasha, who said he's tried and failed at it a few years ago. I'm not sure how other people managed to do it or who was able to do it for them, but I'd love to talk to a mechanic in Texas that's been successful if anyone knows of one.

Sasha at Leksfixit is a mechanic for a fleet of 600 prius cabs in Plano and he was extremely knowledgeable. He told me people who take theirs in every 5k miles don't really see many issues. My dad used to do that with this car but when I got it toyota told me 10k miles and I was naive and didn't think they'd encourage their service mechanics to plan obsolescence for perfectly good cars.

 

there were some issues early on, but they were ironed out successfully buy a few people here.

one is that you should use the gen 3 egr, although there is a method for using gen 4.

the other is the coolant ties to the exhaust, which is an easy work around.