A tech I worked with years ago set up his own mobile mechanic business in a farming area. Called it Tech with a Truck. Tire or diesel repair. Farm equipment ect. He could handle most anything from the truck. He had a compressor, MIG welder, gas bottles and a plasma cutter as well as a hoist and hand tools. Farmers break stuff and want it repaired right now! During the season he was on-call 24-7.
He was a great tech, heckuva welder, very talented guy. I hope his business was successful.
I got to where I wouldn’t even work on a farm vehicle. No matter how much you charge it was always twice as much as it should be according to the farmers.
The last farm vehicle I worked on was a Toyota truck that the clutch grenaded in. Disc, pressure plate, throwout bearing, TO bearing arm; all scrap metal. He was insisting I piece the pressure plate back together and there was simply no way of doing it. After several days of back and forth his son called me and wanted to know what the deal was. The son then approved fixing it right after being informed of the situation.
That wasn’t the end of it. Two years later one of the farmer’s farm hands overheated it and blew a head gasket. The farmer then sent the farm hand to my house around 10:30 at night to insist that I “redo the head gasket job that I had done several years before”. Nope; never touched a head gasket ever. That was the last straw in the bale for me.
I knew a guy like that in PA, back in '78. He welded a tow hitch for my new Mazda GLC. Nearly done, he backed his truck to my car, hooked his arc welder lead to the car’s new clamps, and welded on the brackets, to get the angle just right.
About that time, the phone rang. He jumped in his truck and dashed off… about 15 feet, taking part of the front front fender with him. We settled, no charge for the job, no bill for the car. As it worked out, I overpaid.
It’s not the same comparison. The mechanic going from job to jobs is linear (one at time). But he’ll get multiple people to his shop at the same time (non-linear).
There’s a lot more to then the mechanic showing up and then pulling out his tools to repair a vehicle.
Working in a controlled environment is far better.
Here’s some things to consider?
. Safe level ground to work on?
. Enough lighting?
. Too much light (aka - out doors).
. Working inside our outside?
. If outside - Weather? Rain, Snow (if applicable).
. How hot or cool is it?
. Easy access to vehicle?
. How safe is the area (crime).
I still can’t see how this business approach is nothing but a fad.
I hire junior software consultants at $50/hr. But they don’t have the overhead a mechanic will. 40hour work week at the same place every day. It’s OK if you’re single and get cheap high deductible ins. But if you’re married with kids and spouse doesn’t work and have good health insurance to cover both of you, then it’s not a good deal. Higher (more experienced consultants) make $75+/hr. Still better to get a full time job with benefits if you don’t have a spouse that works with benefits.
Some of the big Tech employers in the Bay Area have deals with service companies to do certain maintenance and repairs on employee cars in company parking lots. They do oil changes and routine services, and detailing. My neighbor had a bunch of little dents pushed out by a paintless body repair shop in the lot while he was at work. I suspect the worker spends all day within a few mile radius because these are very big employers. Facebook has at least 15,000 employees in Menlo Park, California, as an example.
There’s a AAA jump start truck that never leaves the San Francisco airport long term lots.
We have that too here in the Boston area. But it’s mainly just oil changes and tuneups. Nothing elaborate…and of course we have the mobile wind shield repair/replace vans.
I would suspect that in certain cases a mobile mechanic would not be allowed to work in the parking lot of a business and in a fairly decent 'hood I would also suspect the HOA or even city statutes may prevent this from being done legally and without friction.
If I was a business owner I would take exception to someone working on a car in the parking lot if for no other reason than liability. Parking lot not level, car falls and crushes someone, and the surviving kin decide that the owner of that parking lot is liable for whatever reason.
It depends. I live in Seattle, and at first food trucks were described a threat to the dine in restaurants. Guess what, the dine-ins started their own trucks. I think if local shops offered this service, especially my regular shops, I would gladly call them in to help. Instead, in a pinch, I called Wrench dot com. Costly call. Here’s my story to spare fellow members some pain. They are branching out, I’m hoping to stop it before it picks more pockets. There’s one other review on Yelp, and they had the same experience.
My research determined that the alternator needed replacing. Fee was $240 plus the cost of the part. Three days later their mechanic drove up in their branded Ford service van. He replaced the part and the idle engine seemed to be running fine.
Two days later we drove the car half a block to repark it closer to our house. In the process we smelled gas and the engine shook and ran rough. I called them to come back and deal with it. I made it very clear to them that we had not had these issues before the repair and I considered it part of their warranty to address it.
The same mechanic came a second time and ran the engine on idle while he checked the battery voltage and looked around. Mysteriously the engine ran very well after that and there was no longer a gas smell. This company—rather than including this return visit as part of their warranty—charged me $110 more! To try to slip it past me, they said they took $50 off their normal diagnostic service call fee.
I immediately protested that this should be included as part of their warranty. They said, no, it wasn’t, because their mechanic reported the literal alternator or install proved to not be the issue. They would not budge. A day later I got a phone message repeating their position.
This is BS and they know it. They have me because I can’t prove anything to a third party. But I don’t need a third party to know when I’m being hustled.
This is my first, last, and only time using wrench . com.
This Review on Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/wrench-seattle-3?osq=wrench There’s one other one star review with the same bogus extra charges.
Posted to Google Reviews on 6/8. Waiting to see if it’s allowed on.
Only a well trained, experienced and talented mechanic could offer a worthwhile service on the side of the road and it would be very expensive. A local AAA contract shop has a quick service van that can bring gasoline, check and add coolant, oil, etc or change a tire or battery but it ain’t cheap. Beyond such simple remedies the car must get to the shop. Can’t we all imagine just how much time a mobile mechanic would spend picking up every part that could conceivably be causing a problem as diagnosed over the phone then returning all of them because the customer insisted the engine wouldn’t crank when actually it cranked perfectly but would not start and only needed gasoline.
Some oddities in your story. You said you drove it home rather than risk not making it to a shop but later you said the car was half a block from your house. (Translation; don’t wanna pay a shop…)
So I ask this question. Are you saying this mobile guy did the alternator repair on the side of the street and you waited 2 days to even start it up again with the car half a block from your house? Then you found the new problem?
I have no idea what the second problem was and if you allowed your car to sit for 2 days after the repair then neither do you. An unrelated problem should be billed separately. You are accusing them without even knowing what is going on.
The one problem I see is their changing an alternator based on someone’s “research”. Tests should be done; not research which may or may not be correct. What if this outfit had installed an alternator based on your research and recommendation and that was not the problem? Would you balk at paying them?