Broken down in Glen Ellen? We come to the vehicle.
Over the hills; 101 is the spine. Calls come off Highway 101, Highway 12 and the streets either side of them. This is wine country, so the faults have a pattern to them. One call and Patrick is on the road.
- Over the hills
- Open 24 hours, seven days
- No hourly minimum
- Cars, trucks, farm and heavy equipment
Glen Ellen sits where it sits relative to American Canyon, and that is the whole story on timing: over the hills; 101 is the spine. We come in on Highway 101, which is why we can tell you a window on the phone instead of asking you to wait and see. Cars, trucks, trailers, farm machinery and heavy equipment all get worked on where they sit in Glen Ellen, which spares you the cost of moving something that was never going to need a workshop in the first place. We are not routed through a call center in another state, and nobody in Glen Ellen is quoted a time by somebody who has never driven Highway 101. The van is loaded before it leaves, so a Glen Ellen call is usually one visit rather than a diagnosis today and a repair on Thursday.
From your call to a working vehicle
You call
Straight to Patrick. Where in Glen Ellen, what the vehicle is, what changed.
Agreed up front
Cost and timing settled before we move. Where the repair is not worth the money we will tell you that instead of driving out.
On the road
Usually Highway 101, which is the fastest approach at most hours.
Found, not guessed
Measured on the spot. Guessing at parts is how a small bill becomes a large one.
It gets fixed or it gets a plan
The majority are done and driving within the hour. The rest leave with a clear diagnosis and a real plan.
Straight answers
Before it strands you
Not all of this is roadside. A good share of what we do in Glen Ellen is arranged in advance.
Servicing, brake work, pre-trip inspections and the jobs that are simple until they are ignored. We come to the vehicle, so nobody loses a morning sitting in a waiting room.
Why Glen Ellen vehicles fail the way they do
What a town does for work decides what breaks in it. In Glen Ellen that means wine country, and the failures follow from it.
Add dairy and ranch equipment to that and you get vehicles that work hard on a schedule somebody else set, which is exactly the situation where a breakdown costs more than the repair.
That is why we ask what the vehicle does for a living before we set off, because a truck that runs loaded every day fails differently from one that sits five days a week.
Not sure it is worth a call?
People in Glen Ellen apologize for calling about something small more often than you would think.
There is no charge for the conversation. Describing the noise to somebody who works on these every day usually settles it in a minute.
Equipment, not just vehicles
A lot of shops will not touch farm machinery. We will, and in Glen Ellen that is most of the reason the phone rings.
That covers tractors, gators, sprayers and the implements behind them, diagnosed and repaired on site.
Highway 101 and the streets either side
Most Glen Ellen work begins on Highway 101. That is the approach from our end and it carries the traffic that generates the calls.
Highway 12 and Highway 116 carry the remainder, and at certain hours they are the faster way in even when they look longer on a map.
A shoulder is a bad place to do anything slowly, so the first thing we sort out on arrival is whether the vehicle can be made safe where it is or needs to move first.
Where Glen Ellen sits
Nearby, and just as quick
Same trip, different exit. These towns sit alongside Glen Ellen on our map.
The drive from Glen Ellen to any of these is short enough that one call usually covers a second vehicle at the same yard.
Wider still, the whole of Sonoma County and the full service area.
The usual Glen Ellen questions
Short answers. The phone is faster if yours is not here.
How quickly can you get to Glen Ellen?
It depends on the hour, and we will tell you honestly. Over the hills; 101 is the spine. That window is what we plan around, not a promise made to end the call.
Do you charge a minimum to come out to Glen Ellen?
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?
All of them. The phone goes to the mechanic at two in the morning the same as it does at two in the afternoon, and that is not a voicemail promising a call back. The people who need a mobile mechanic most are rarely the ones calling during business hours, which is the entire reason the number is answered around the clock.
Can you work on wine equipment?
Yes, and it is a large part of the work here. Wine country means machinery that cannot easily be moved, which is the case a mobile mechanic exists for.
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 Glen Ellen at night?
Same rate, whatever the hour. We would rather you called at three in the morning than sat on a shoulder until sunrise trying to avoid a fee.
Is there work you will not attempt on site?
It happens, and you will hear it as soon as we know. A diagnosis you can trust is worth having even when the repair has to move indoors.
Glen Ellen, day or night.
The phone goes straight to the mechanic, whatever time it is. Tell us where in Glen Ellen you are parked and what the vehicle is doing, and you will have a price and an arrival window before we hang up.