The machine stays put. The shop comes to it.
A dead excavator in the middle of a dig is not one machine down. It is the crew standing around it, the trucks waiting on it, and a day of schedule you cannot buy back. We bring the welder, the hydraulic kit and the diagnostic laptop to the site instead.
- Open 24 hours, seven days
- No hourly minimum
- A real number before we roll
- Excavators, loaders, skid steers, dozers
Why hauling it out is usually the expensive answer
Work out the real cost of moving a broken machine before you call a lowboy. There is the transport itself, both directions. There is the permit if the load is wide. There is the dealer’s queue, which on a working week in this valley is rarely same day. And there is the crew you are still paying while the hole sits half dug. Put those together and the haul frequently costs more than whatever failed on the machine.
A large share of what stops heavy equipment does not need a shop at all. Burst hydraulic lines, failed sensors, fuel starvation, batteries and charging faults, seized pins, cracked brackets, blown seals on a cylinder, alternators, starters. Those are field repairs when someone shows up with the right gear. The machine never moves and the crew goes back to work the same day.
What genuinely belongs in a shop is heavy internal work: a pulled engine, a split for a transmission, a complete final drive rebuild on a bench. We say which of the two you have before we quote anything, because sending you a bill for a diagnosis that ends in a tow truck helps nobody. If the machine has to go somewhere, you will hear that on the phone.
Machines we work onExcavators and mini excavators, skid steers, backhoes, wheel loaders, dozers, telehandlers, compactors and the light towers and generators that live alongside them.
What it costsA real number before we roll, covering the visit and the work together. No hourly minimum, so a twenty minute fix is billed like a twenty minute fix.
Where we runNapa and Solano, the I-80 and Highway 12 corridors, out to Sonoma, Contra Costa and Alameda when the job makes sense. Check the coverage map.
A shop that fits on a flatbed
Mobile heavy equipment work lives or dies on what the service truck carries. Every trip back for a part is an hour of your day. This is what is on board before the first call of the morning.
- Welding and cuttingA welder, a torch, and stock to build with. Cracked buckets, snapped brackets, torn quick couplers and worn bucket ears get repaired where they failed.
- Hydraulic hose and fittingsHose stock, a crimper and a fitting assortment, so a blown line is made up on the spot rather than measured today and fixed tomorrow.
- Diesel diagnosticsA laptop and adapters that speak to engine and machine controllers. Fault codes, live data, injector and sensor testing before any part gets ordered.
- Jacking and blockingBottle jacks rated for the weight, cribbing and stands. A machine that cannot be driven onto anything still has to be lifted safely to get under it.
- Fluids, filters and consumablesHydraulic oil, engine oil, coolant, grease, filters and a pump, so a repair that opens a system can also refill and prime it.
Iron earns nothing on a trailer. The cheapest repair is almost always the one that happens where the machine already sits.
Why field service exists
The work that keeps iron running
These overlap constantly. A hydraulic leak that gets topped off instead of fixed becomes a pump. A charging fault that gets a jump every morning becomes a no-start on the one day you need the machine.
Excavator repair
Undercarriage, final drives, swing motors and hydraulic circuits on mini and full size machines, diagnosed under load.
Hydraulic hose replacement
Measured, matched and made up on site. The most common reason a machine stops mid shift and the fastest thing to put right.
Mobile welding
Cracked buckets, broken brackets, torn couplers and worn pin bosses. Structural repair without a trip to a fabrication shop.
Diesel engine repair
Hard starting, low power, overheating, smoke and fault codes traced to a cause before parts get bought.
Battery and charging faults
Dead batteries, corroded cables and alternators that stopped charging. The cheapest failure on any machine and the most common.
Preventive maintenance
Service intervals done at your yard on your schedule, so oil, filters and greasing stop being the thing nobody got to.
Working safely around something that cannot move
A disabled machine is a different hazard from a running one. The hydraulics may still hold pressure with the engine off, so a boom that looks parked can drop when a line is cracked open. Attachments get lowered to the ground before anything else happens, and stored pressure is bled off deliberately rather than discovered by a fitting letting go in somebody’s face.
Then there is the ground itself. Fill that has not been compacted, a slope, a trench edge, rain from the night before: all of it decides whether a jack stays where you put it. We block on cribbing rather than on whatever is lying around, and if a machine cannot be made stable where it sits, we say so and we deal with that first. Nothing about a repair is worth working under a load that is not properly supported.
The last piece is the site around us. On an active job there are other machines, spotters, trucks backing in and a schedule everybody is chasing. We coordinate with whoever is running the site, work inside their traffic plan, and keep the repair area clear. If the fix is going to take a stretch of time, you will hear the realistic length of it up front so the rest of the day can be planned around it.
How a breakdown call actually runs
There is no dispatcher taking a message. The phone goes to the mechanic, which is why the first conversation is already about the machine rather than about scheduling a conversation.
- The callMake, model, hours if you know them, and what happened. A machine that died under load tells a different story from one that would not start cold.
- The siteWhere it sits, what the ground is like, whether a service truck can get next to it, and who is on site to let us in.
- The numberYou hear what the job runs before anything is loaded, plus an honest arrival window rather than an optimistic one.
- The diagnosisCodes read, pressures tested, circuits checked. Guessing at parts on heavy equipment gets expensive faster than it does on a pickup.
- The repairFixed on site where it can be, or clearly explained if it cannot, including what a shop would have to do and why.
What contractors ask before booking a field call
If the machine is down right now, calling beats reading. Somebody answers at any hour.
How big a machine can you work on in the field?
Most of what runs on a job site around here: mini excavators through mid size machines, skid steers, backhoes, wheel loaders, dozers, telehandlers and compactors. Size matters less than access and ground condition. A big machine sitting on firm level ground is often easier to work on than a small one wedged in a trench line.
Can you weld a cracked bucket on site?
Yes. The truck carries welding and cutting gear plus stock to build with, so cracked buckets, broken brackets, torn quick couplers and worn pin bosses get repaired where the machine sits. Structural repair on a working attachment is one of the best arguments for field service, because the alternative is trucking the machine or pulling the attachment and hauling that instead.
What if the machine has to go to a shop anyway?
We tell you before we start, not after. Pulled engines, transmission splits and full final drive rebuilds want a bench and a hoist. In that case the useful thing we can do is confirm what is actually wrong so you are not paying a shop to rediscover it, and so you can decide about transport with real information.
Do you carry parts, or does everything get ordered?
Hose, fittings, filters, fluids, belts and common electrical parts are on board. Model specific components such as a particular sensor, pump or final drive get sourced first and the repair gets scheduled once they are in hand, so the machine is not sitting open while we wait on a parts counter.
Will you come out at night or on a weekend?
The phone is answered every hour of every day, including weekends. Equipment failures cluster at the worst times because that is when machines are being worked hardest, and a repair that happens overnight means the crew starts on schedule instead of standing around at seven in the morning.
How do you charge for a field call?
One number covers the trip and the work, and you hear it before the truck leaves. There is no hourly minimum and no separate call out fee stacked on top. The reason the business runs this way is that the owner spent years watching customers get quoted one figure and billed a larger one.
Down machine? Start with the phone.
One number reaches the mechanic directly, at any hour, on any day. Tell us the machine, what it was doing when it stopped, and where it is sitting, and you will have a price and an arrival window before the call ends.
HoursMonday to Sunday, 24 hours
Based inAmerican Canyon, CA
On this machineExcavator repair · Hydraulic hoses · Gallery