Your fleet moved again. We will find it.
Contractor fleets do not live anywhere. Pickups, service trucks, trailers and small equipment scatter across active jobs and come home at different hours, if they come home at all. We service them at the yard before the crews roll, or at whichever site the unit is standing on today.
- Open 24 hours, seven days
- No hourly minimum
- Yard or jobsite
- Trucks, trailers, small equipment
The hardest part is knowing where the truck is
Ask a contractor for his fleet list and you will get it in about ten seconds. Ask him where each unit is standing right now and he has to think, then call somebody. That is not disorganization. It is the nature of the work. A one ton with a welder in the bed was at a pad pour in Napa on Monday, went to a tenant improvement in Fairfield on Wednesday, and is parked at a foreman’s house tonight because tomorrow starts early somewhere else.
Every maintenance vendor who has failed a construction outfit failed on that fact rather than on mechanical skill. A shop appointment assumes a vehicle can be delivered to a fixed point at a fixed time. Half the time it cannot, and the appointment slides, and it slides again, and eventually the truck is nine thousand miles past due and nobody decided that on purpose.
We work the other way. We ask where units actually sleep and where they actually stand during the day, and then we plan around that instead of against it. Some fleets are easiest caught at the yard at six in the morning while the crews are loading. Some are easiest caught on site at lunch. Some have three trucks that never come back to the yard at all, and those get serviced where they are.
Who callsGeneral contractors, grading and excavation outfits, concrete crews, framers, roofers, landscape contractors and specialty subs running anything from four trucks to thirty.
The figureThe cost is agreed while we are still on the phone with you, and half an hour of work bills as half an hour, because this shop has no minimum to fill.
Where we goNapa, Solano and across into the East Bay, at a yard or on an active site. Send an address and a gate contact and we handle the rest.
Servicing on an active site without becoming a problem
A jobsite is not a parking lot with extra dirt. There is a traffic pattern, a superintendent who owns it, a place you may stage and several places you may not, and usually a delivery or a pour happening that everything else has to work around. Turning up unannounced with a service truck and picking a spot is how a vendor gets told not to come back.
So we call ahead and ask the boring questions. Who do we check in with, where can we set up, is there a window when the unit is not needed, and is there anything happening today that means we should come tomorrow instead. Five minutes of that on the phone prevents the version where we are blocking the only route a concrete truck can take.
The work itself is unremarkable, which is the point: oil and filter, the rest of the fluids checked and topped, filters, belts and hoses, tires and brakes measured, battery and charging tested, and a scan for stored codes. Used oil and old filters go back in our truck. Nothing gets left in a drum next to a fence for somebody else to deal with.
There is one more thing an active site gives us that a shop never will, which is the operator. The man who drives that truck every day knows it makes a noise on a cold start, or that the brakes feel long when the bed is loaded, or that a gauge has been reading strange for a fortnight. None of that reaches a service writer at a shop counter, because the operator is not the one who drops it off. Standing next to the unit with the person who runs it turns up more real information in two minutes than a scan tool does in twenty.
If a machine on the site is already down rather than due, that is a different visit: jobsite equipment repair covers work on an active site, and mobile heavy equipment repair covers the bigger iron.
What tends to get bundled into a contractor visit
Separate pages, because plenty of outfits buy exactly one of them. On a yard morning they usually happen together in one pass.
Work truck repair
The one tons and three quarter tons that carry the welders, the compressors and everything else that makes the truck heavy.
Trailer maintenance
Bearings, brakes, lights and couplers on the equipment trailers, which get looked at least and towed loaded most.
Skid steer repair
The machine that goes everywhere and takes the most abuse. Service and repair at the site it is currently working.
Hydraulic hose replacement
A burst hose stops an attachment cold. Replaced on site so the machine finishes the day.
Fleet uptime management
How many units you can afford to have down at once, and how to schedule so it is never two at the same time.
Mobile fleet maintenance
Where the whole idea of servicing vehicles where they park is laid out from scratch.
A truck that is due for service on paper and a hundred miles away in real life is still a truck that is going to break on somebody.
Patrick Freeman, owner
What contractors want settled before they book
Most of these come up on the first call. Ringing is quicker than typing, and the phone gets answered at any hour.
Can you service units at the jobsite instead of our yard?
Yes, and for some fleets that is the only practical option. We need an address, a gate or check-in contact, and somewhere flat to set up beside the unit. What we cannot do is turn up cold on an active site and start looking for a spot, because that puts us in somebody’s way on their own job. One phone call to the superintendent the day before solves it.
We are in the middle of a push and cannot spare a single truck. What then?
Then we work in the gaps rather than asking for a truck. Early mornings before crews load, evenings once units are back, and weekends when the yard is full are all normal for us. Nothing has to come off the schedule. The only thing that genuinely cannot wait is a unit that is already showing a problem, and that is a different call from routine service.
Do you service the trailers and small equipment too, or only the trucks?
Both. Equipment trailers get wheel bearings, brakes, lights and coupler condition looked at, which is the gear most likely to be overlooked until something drags. Small equipment that lives on the trailer, like compactors and skid steers, can be serviced in the same visit while we are already on your lot. Larger machines have their own pages.
How do you keep track of which units are due when they keep moving?
By writing down what we did to each unit and at what reading, then working from that rather than from memory. Over two or three passes through a fleet it turns into a genuine history per truck. If you want that record formalized and sent back to your office, fleet maintenance reporting is the page describing exactly what it holds.
Our trucks run mixed miles and idle hours. Which interval applies?
Depends on the unit and how it earns. A crew truck running highway miles goes on an odometer interval. A service truck that idles half the day with a compressor or a welder running is being worn by hours, not miles, and its interval should reflect that. We will tell you which one we are using and why, rather than putting the whole fleet on one number because it is simpler to track.
What if you find something serious while you are out there?
We tell you standing next to the unit, put a figure on it, and the call is yours: today or on a later visit. Small items usually get finished right then because the parts are already in the truck. Larger ones go in the write-up with a measurement attached so you can work them into a slow week. No repair starts on your iron until somebody with authority says go.
Give us the yard and the gate contact.
Tell us what you run, where it stands, and what hours your crews load. We will lay out how a first sweep of the fleet would go and price it, with no obligation attached to the conversation. One number, and it reaches the mechanic.
HoursMonday to Sunday, 24 hours
Based inAmerican Canyon, CA
Nearby pagesExcavator repair · Heavy equipment maintenance · Gallery