What Can a Mobile Mechanic Actually Do? (And What Needs a Garage)

People ring and ask: "You'll probably say no, but can you do brake discs on a driveway?"

Brake discs can be done on a driveway. I used to do them that way.

I don't any more, and the reason behind that is the whole point of this article.

"Mobile mechanic" makes people picture a bloke on his back on wet tarmac with a set of leads and a shrug. So here is the honest version: what any mobile mechanic can and can't do, where the line sits and why, and what mobile actually means when you ring us.

Most car repairs can physically be done on a driveway. The limiting factor is not skill or equipment, it is whether the car needs to be properly lifted.

If a job can be done with the car on the ground or on axle stands, a mobile mechanic can do it. If it needs a two-post ramp, an engine crane, or the subframe supported, it needs a workshop.

That is the general trade answer. Ours goes further. We take the work to the ramp, because a job done on a ramp is a better job. What we take off you is the travelling.

Three ways of getting the car sorted, and you pick.

1. Drop it off at the workshop. Unit 6, Turner Street, Dudley DY1 1TX.
2. Free collection and return. From your home or your work, anywhere in our service areas. No radius rules and no minimum spend.
3. Callout and recovery. If the car won't start or can't be driven, we come out to it. Diagnosis on the spot is £45 and there is no call-out fee. If it needs to come in, we recover it to the workshop.

There is one more thing we do away from the workshop. If you are buying a used car, we come to the seller and check it there, on their driveway or on the forecourt. That is a pre-purchase inspection, a fixed £95 inside our service areas. Further out, ring and ask.

What we don't do is brakes, servicing, suspension or any other repair on your drive.

Three reasons, and none of them are about money.

Safety. A car on axle stands is fine for a short job on flat, solid ground. A car that needs to sit at chest height for two hours while an engine is supported is not something to be doing on a sloped tarmac drive.

Torque and access. Some fasteners have to be tightened to a figure, in a sequence, from a position you can only reach with the car properly up. Guessing at that on your back is how bolts come loose later.

Contamination and weather. Anything where the engine is open, or a clutch surface is exposed, wants to be clean and out of the weather. A driveway in the Black Country in February is neither.

Put plainly: a car on a ramp with the right tools gets fixed properly, in the dry, without a job stopping halfway because a bolt needs more than a trolley jack. A car on a wet drive gets a temporary fix and a second visit. So we bring the car to the ramp, and we bring it back.

This is the general picture, because it is a fair question and it is what most people are actually asking.

Diagnostics. The tools are the same tools. Plugging in, reading every module and watching live data does not need a building. It is the repair that follows which usually does.

Servicing. Oil and filter, spark plugs, air filter, pollen filter, levels and checks.

Brake pads and discs. Front and rear, on axle stands.

Batteries. Supply, fit, and code to the car where it demands it. Plenty of modern cars need the new battery registering or the charging system will cook it.

Alternators and starter motors. Access varies by car, but on plenty of them, yes.

Sensors and electrical faults. ABS sensors, lambda sensors, airflow sensors, coil packs, wiring repairs.

Wipers, bulbs, filters and belts. All the small stuff that fails MOTs and irritates people.

So if anybody tells you those jobs can only happen inside a garage, that isn't true. Our position is not that they can't be done outside one. It is that they come out better on a ramp, and free collection means you lose nothing by letting us do them there.

Nobody honest will argue about this list.

Clutches. The gearbox has to come out and the engine has to be supported. That's a ramp job, always.

Gearbox work generally, including DSG and dual-clutch boxes. Same reason.

Timing belts and wet belts. Precision jobs where getting it wrong destroys an engine, and you want the car held properly.

Anything needing the engine or subframe supported.

Serious exhaust work. A section, sometimes. A full system, no.

Head gaskets, injectors on some engines, anything deep into the engine.

Bodywork, paint and accident damage. That's a different trade entirely.

If somebody offers you any of that on your drive, be careful.

You will read that mobile work is cheaper because there is no building to pay for. Treat that with some suspicion. A mechanic with no workshop can only finish the jobs that don't need one, and a job that stops halfway is the most expensive job there is.

Judge it on the quote for your actual job, in writing, with the split between parts and labour. Then ask what happens if it turns out to be something bigger.

The saving that matters most never appears on an invoice anyway. With collection and return you don't take a morning off work, you don't arrange a lift, and you don't sit in a waiting room drinking bad coffee for three hours. The car goes, the car comes back.

Some are excellent. Some are a bloke with a socket set and a Facebook page. The trade has no barrier to entry, so the honest answer is that it varies enormously, and you have to check.

What to look for:

• ▸A real qualification, not "20 years experience" on its own. City & Guilds, IMI, or main dealer training.
• ▸A business, not just a mobile number. Registered company, an address, a website that says who they are.
• ▸Public liability insurance. Ask what the cover is. If they can't answer, that tells you something.
• ▸A warranty on parts and labour, in writing.
• ▸Reviews on somewhere they can't edit. Google, Trustpilot. Not just testimonials typed onto their own site.
• ▸They'll tell you what they can't do. This is the big one. Anyone who says yes to everything is either exceptional or lying, and the odds aren't in your favour.

Reasonable worry, and worth asking whoever you use.

We fit quality parts and everything comes with a 12 month parts warranty. If a part fails inside that, it gets sorted.

If you'd rather supply your own parts, plenty of people will fit them, including us, but understand what changes. Nobody can warranty a part they didn't supply, and if the wrong part turns up, the job stops. It usually works out easier to let the mechanic source it.

No. Nobody can.

The official MOT has to be carried out at a DVSA-approved test centre, on approved equipment, by an approved tester. There is no mobile version and there is no way round it. If someone offers to MOT your car at your house, they're not offering you an MOT.

What we can do is take the travelling out of it. We collect the car, put it through the test, fix anything that fails and bring it back. Details on our MOT service, and if you want to pass first time, Keith's MOT checklist covers the whole walk round.

Yes, as long as the service is done to the manufacturer's schedule with parts of matching quality, and it's recorded.

Block exemption rules mean you don't have to use a main dealer to keep a manufacturer's warranty valid. What matters is that the right work was done at the right intervals with the right specification parts, and that there's a record of it.

More on that in how often you should service your car.

Practical stuff that saves a wasted trip.

For a collection. The keys, the address, and where the car is parked. Tell us if it's behind a gate, in a communal car park, or somewhere a driver won't find it easily.

For a callout. Where the car is, what it does when you turn the key, and whether it's somewhere safe to work. A driveway, a quiet residential street or a private car park is fine. A busy main road is a recovery job rather than a callout.

Permission, if it's not your land. Work car parks are usually fine but check. Communal parking at a flat, have a word with whoever manages it.

If the car can't be moved at all, say so on the phone. That changes the plan but it doesn't end it.

Four questions. They take a minute and they'll tell you most of what you need to know.

1. What's your qualification? A straight answer comes quickly.
2. Where will the work actually happen? If the answer is "on your drive" for a clutch or a timing belt, walk away.
3. What's the price, and what's the split between parts and labour? Vague answers now become surprises later.
4. What happens if it turns out to be something bigger? Everybody's honest when the job is simple. What matters is what happens when it isn't.

The reason I do this is the ten minutes where somebody gets told what was actually wrong with their car.

Most people have never been told properly. They've been given a number and left to decide whether to trust it. That's the bit of this trade that puts people off, and it has nothing to do with whether the car is on a drive or on a ramp.

So ring or message and describe what it's doing. It's a thirty-second conversation and it costs nothing. Either we book a collection, or, if it won't start, we come out to it. We cover Dudley, Stourbridge, Halesowen, Brierley Hill and the rest of the Black Country, and the full detail is on our mobile mechanic page.