Martinez’s mobile mechanic, answering at three in the morning.
From American Canyon, straight over the Carquinez. Calls come off I-80, I-680 and the streets either side of them. With refinery row at Rodeo/Martinez around town, the same handful of failures come up again and again. One call and Patrick is on the road.
- Straight over the Carquinez
- Open 24 hours, seven days
- No hourly minimum
- Cars, trucks, farm and heavy equipment
Everything we do starts from American Canyon. For Martinez that means straight over the Carquinez. Because the approach is I-80, we can read the traffic before we commit to a time. Cars, trucks, trailers, farm machinery and heavy equipment all get worked on where they sit in Martinez, which spares you the cost of moving something that was never going to need a workshop in the first place. Patrick has been doing this long enough to know which faults in Martinez are a ten minute fix and which are somebody selling you a tow. Most Martinez jobs are finished in a single stop, because guessing at the fault from a phone description is how people end up paying twice.
What we get called out for in Martinez
If you want to know what we spend our time on in Martinez, it is this.
Commute-hour breakdowns
Vehicles that fail on the way to work, where the priority is getting the driver moving rather than a perfect repair at the roadside. Most of them reach us from I-80 or the streets feeding it.
Contractor and plant vehicles
The trucks and equipment working refinery sites, where access and timing get planned before we roll. With refinery row at Rodeo/Martinez in the mix, this one repeats more here than it should.
Lockouts and keys shut inside
A short call that gets you moving again, and no reason to pay for a tow truck to do it. Most of them reach us from I-80 or the streets feeding it.
Warning lights nobody can read
We pull the codes on site and tell you plainly whether it is drive-it-home or stop-now. Nothing exotic, and it is finished at the roadside most times.
Trailers that will not roll
Bearings, lights, brakes and couplings, including on a shoulder when the load still has somewhere to be. Most of them reach us from I-80 or the streets feeding it.
Martinez and the roads around it
Most Martinez work begins on I-80. That is the approach from our end and it carries the traffic that generates the calls.
We also work I-680 and Highway 4 regularly, and we pick between them by time of day rather than distance.
Before a tool comes out we deal with position and visibility, because most of the danger on a call like this is other drivers.
Getting to Martinez
What Martinez does, and what that breaks
You can predict a lot about Martinez repairs from one fact: this is refinery row at Rodeo/Martinez country.
With delta agriculture east on top, the vehicles here rarely get an easy week, and the wear shows up in predictable places.
So the van is packed for what this area actually breaks, rather than for an average that fits nowhere and leaves you waiting on a second trip.
The work that is not an emergency
Not all of this is roadside. A good share of what we do in Martinez is arranged in advance.
Oil and filter services, brakes, batteries before they die, inspections, and the small faults that are cheap now and expensive later. Done at your house or your yard, at a time that does not cost you a day.
Ask before it gets expensive
If you are weighing whether it is worth a call, that hesitation is worth addressing.
The call costs nothing. If it is something you can safely drive on, we will tell you that and you can get on with your day. If it is not, you have found out before it became a tow and a much larger repair.
Farm, fleet and heavy work
Beyond cars, Martinez work means farm machinery, seen where it stands.
In practice that means tractors, gators, sprayers and the implements behind them, diagnosed where the machine is standing rather than after somebody has paid to move it.Which in this area means tractors, gators, sprayers and the implements behind them, and the awkward part is almost never the repair itself but getting a working mechanic to where the machine actually is.
Martinez and its neighbors
The neighboring towns
If you are just outside Martinez, one of these is probably nearer to you.
If you are between towns, call anyway and describe the nearest junction. We would rather work it out on the phone than have you guess which page to read.
There is also the whole of Contra Costa County and the full service area.
Questions we get from Martinez
Short answers. The phone is faster if yours is not here.
How quickly can you get to Martinez?
Straight over the Carquinez. You get a real window on the phone before we set out, based on what I-80 is doing at that hour rather than a number that sounds good.
Do you charge a minimum to come out to Martinez?
No hourly minimum. A ten minute fix is billed as a ten minute fix, which is the whole point of the way we work. The alternative, charging a block of time regardless, teaches people to wait until something is genuinely broken before they pick up the phone.
What hours do you answer?
Day and night, all week. A breakdown does not check the time first, so neither do we.
Can you work on refinery equipment?
Yes. Martinez being refinery row at Rodeo/Martinez country is exactly why we carry what we carry. Cars and trucks are the baseline; farm machinery, heavy equipment and fleet vehicles are the rest of the week.
Do I need to get the vehicle somewhere first?
Usually not. We would rather come to the vehicle than have you pay a tow truck to move something we could have fixed where it sat.
Do you charge more to come out to Martinez at night?
There is no night surcharge. A two in the morning call is billed like any other, which is the only arrangement that makes sense when the whole promise is that somebody picks up.
What if the vehicle needs a workshop after all?
Then we say so plainly and tell you what the real options are. You are not charged for a repair that was never going to work, and you will have a clear diagnosis to take wherever it goes next.
Get somebody out to Martinez.
You will speak to the person who does the work. Describe where you are in Martinez and what happened, and we will tell you what it costs and when we will be there.