Tim's Mobile Mechanix

Tim's Mobile Mechanix

As I sat in the waiting room of a national tire store repair facility clutching my lukewarm cup of instant coffee, trying to make sense of the daytime TV which was just loud enough to be faintly heard the man from behind the counter called my name. In his hands were three pages of papers and a black marker.   As he was talking I raced down to the bottom line which was $2000.  "We can do a little at a time, I am here to help you save money."  He said it with a well practiced look of sincerity.  Really? Is that what his resume said?  His specialty was helping his employer not make money?  I had better ideas of how to save money, and they started by me burning rubber out of the driveway and never looking back.

The problem I have with repair facilities  where "customer service reps" are the middle man is that they get between me and the mechanic.  I want to know who is working on my car, and what they are doing to it.  I have done a lot of automotive repair work in the past, and though today's cars are far more complicated than the classic 65 Mustang I owned as a teenager I do understand quite a bit about cars. Which is exactly why I am picky about who works on my cars.

The problem with auto repair facilities is that they have huge. prime retail spaces with overhead, and mechanics who are getting paid the going rates along with commissioned sales reps inside.  This is why the streamlined auto shops where the owner answers the phone and does most of the work himself has become more popular.  Often they are in out of the way places where rent is  significantly cheaper.  Let't take it one step further.  What if there was no overhead?  What if instead the auto shop came to you?  Instead of drinking instant coffee watching TV shows you don't care about what if you were at home and the work was done in your driveway?   Meet Tim and Johny of Tim's Mobile Mechanix.

The first thing you are probably saying to yourself is "What the hell? Are these a couple of teenage boys with cheap tools working for extra spending money?"  They show up in jump suits with the ASE logo on the side of them.   This is part of the National Institute for Automobile Service Excellence.    This means they are trained and certified.  They even worked on the floors in major garages before going out on their own.  Thus you can relax, they are qualified to get under your hood.  The next question is "Don't you need a garage to lift the car in order to work on it?" The short answer is often no, you don't.

My experience with Tim and Johny was when I had a dying power steering pump.  I used to ignore festering problems until the came back to bite me. Having been stranded in Norwalk around 10 PM waiting for AAA to pick me up a couple of years ago I changed my tactics.  Let's face it, there are a lot of worse places to break down than Norwalk around here and I don't want to ever be in that position again.  I am more about proactive measures now to keep cars running.  The power steering pump was close enough to a major tune up that I decided to do it all.  My car which had always been reliable was starting to scream out for attention, and this time I wanted to get ahead of the problems.

My driving patterns mean that I drive more in the summer months.  The summer blend of gas as dictated by C.A.R.B. (Clean Air Resources Board)  contains ethanol which is a form of alcohol.  Perhaps it's better for the environment but its bad for you car.  Part of my research into treating my car better I came across Lucas Engine Oil Treatment. I pour  a few ounces in at every fill up and it helps clean out the tank and injectors. Long story short some of depots that was in the tank got loosened up and ended up clogging two fuel injectors.  Johny and Tim were confused.  But the kept at it until they diagnosed and repaired the problem.   The problem occurred when they were working on the car not because they were working on the car.  But they were not going to hand the car back to me with problems persisting.  So, they fixed it.

Looking at the previous reviews the people who called Johny and Tim to work on their cars seem to be people who had problems where the car couldn't move from the driveway and called them instead of a tow truck.  That is fine, but the work they did on my car was far more elaborate than what most people would consider a couple of mobile mechanics could do.  The reality is that most of the work was done leaning over the hood so there really isn't a point of having a garage lift.  Thus, they were able to cut a better deal than someone working in a garage  The end results were stellar!

My environmentalist friends won't like this statement but the lower cost of gas these days has pushed the cost/benefit ratio toward the side of keeping your older less fuel efficient car.  I did the math on gas at $2.50 a gallon and $4.50 a gallon, assuming you drive 80,000 miles over three year (which is a hell of a lot of driving).  At $4.50 a gallon you were closer to break even on buying a new more fuel efficient car if you could pick up 15 miles per gallon. But cars these days are made much better than cars of your father's era.  The first tuneup is often at 120K miles which was far longer than the life expectancy of a car back in the 1960s.   Looking at Edmunds.com  you can get a glimpse of what your future has in store for your car.  If it looks like expensive valve jobs and rebuilt transmissions are likely then yes, time to move on.  But in today's world even run of the mill American cars are making it to 200K miles.  Just keeping your car a few years longer can help you save many thousands of dollars.  That is, if you can keep it running.  After 120,000 miles you need to switch from a mindset of "Fix problems as the occur" to preventative maintenance.   This is where having a relationship with a mechanic comes into play.

If you have a company car, or are having service under warranty then by all means go to the dealership or major tire center if you dare.  But, before you go, check out the YELP! reviews of where you are heading.  The word is getting out about places that are intent on sticking it to it's customers.  If you are seeking mechanics who are on your side and have your best interests in mind these are the guys.  They didn't gouge me on parts they put in and they selected high quality products.  They explained the logic behind the parts they ordered. In short, they were things I would have ordered for myself had I done the job myself.

They are very nice guys, the type of guys you want to give more business to because you like them.  They were also very nice to my wife and answered her questions  In my book, how you treat people is equally important as to how you fix cars.  In the past the national tire company repair stores have shown a tremendous amount of disrespect to our citizens and now we are finding other means to getting our cars fixed.  The end result for my car is that it runs significantly better.  Performance was getting eaten away little by little over the past few years.  Now it's all back, and I am a happy camper!

909-680-8256

(Johnny-Left, Tim-Right)