Fixed Ops Journal - October 2019 - F17

FIXED OPS JOURNAL

MOBILE

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started offering mobile tire replacement last
year and will expand its service by year end to
include a variety of mobile repairs, says David
Bergamotto, the dealership's service manager.
"Before I designed the tire van, I surveyed
people of all ages, asking, 'What if you needed
tires or some small repair but you couldn't get
to the dealer? If we could do it at your office,
would you want that?' " Bergamotto says. "Of
course the answer was yes."
Bergamotto says the dealership's mobile
service will perform mostly smaller jobs such
as trim repair and oil changes. It also will handle recall repairs - including airbags - and
vehicle programming tasks that independent
mobile services can't perform, he adds.
Labor rates for mobile jobs will be the same
as standard rates the dealership charges for
work in its service bays, Bergamotto says. Mobile customers may not need to be with the
vehicle while it's being fixed and can pay online, he says. The mobile service also should
reduce the dealership's reliance on loaner vehicles for service customers while their cars
and trucks are in the shop, he adds.
Bergamotto says the mobile initiatives are
vital for BMW and its dealerships.
"If dealers don't wake up and get out on the
road," he says, competitors "are going to take
your repair business, just like Safelite did with
glass business."

New market entry
RepairSmith is backed directly by Daimler,
which CEO Joel Milne cites as his company's
sole investor. Despite that relationship, Milne
says his company is not partnering with Mercedes-Benz dealers.
But Milne adds: "Daimler is our backer, and
you know there will be more opportunities to
work with them down the road."
The company's focus, Milne says, is on providing mobile service for out-of-warranty vehicles typically repaired by independent
shops. "Ten to 12 years old is our median," he
adds. Milne declined to say how many customers the company has.
RepairSmith's average repair bill, he says, is
around $400. That's slightly higher than the
average $348 that franchised dealerships
charged last year for customer-pay repair
jobs, according to Xtime data. But David
Foutz, vice president of sales for Cox Automotive's Xtime, Dealertrack and Kelley Blue Book
brands, notes that the $348 does not reflect
the time required to bring a vehicle to the
dealership for repairs.

A day with a mobile mechanic

NOHOMISH, Wash. - David Gingrass worked in several auto repair
shops, both dealership and independent, before he joined Mobile
Car Dr, a mobile mechanic business in
Phoenix. After the mobile provider Wrench
acquired the company in 2017, Gingrass became a full-time service technician for
Wrench in the Seattle area.
Gingrass likes his job. It pays him an hourly wage he declined to disclose, rather than
compensate him under the flat-rate system
that most franchised dealerships use, despite its unpopularity with many techs. He
gets health insurance, a 401(k) retirement
plan and profit sharing.
He gets to work on a variety of vehicles and
appreciates that his hours are flexible: "Some
days you'll be doing 10 hours, but other days
you're home by 3 p.m.," he says. He adds that
he prefers to deal directly with customers,
rather than through a service adviser.
Fixed Ops Journal accompanied Gingrass
on a workday last month. His jobs included
full service on a 2012 Toyota Prius C. During
his shift, he changed two types of coolant,

Milne says RepairSmith makes 85 to 95 percent of repairs on-site. For larger repairs that
can't be completed in the field, the Sprinter
vans the company uses can tow vehicles to
one of about 200 independent repair shops it
works with, he adds.
RepairSmith employs its service technicians directly, in contrast to YourMechanic,
which provides a platform and support for
mechanics who are independent contractors.
Although RepairSmith now serves markets
only in California, Milne says the company
will announce expansion plans by year end.

Turning the wrench
The mobile provider Wrench operates in 20
markets across 10 states - primarily in the
West but also including Georgia, Florida,
North Carolina and Illinois - says Chief Technology Officer Doug Stevens. The company
dispatches 80 to 100 full-time mechanics every day, he adds. Company officials declined
to discuss revenue or customer numbers.
Like RepairSmith, Wrench works with independent repair shops for jobs that cannot be
completed in the field. "It takes time" to
maintain that network, Stevens says, adding:
"You have to vet each one to make sure that
you know they're performing the kind of service you want."
YourMechanic remains the largest U.S. mobile mechanic provider, with almost 1,000
mechanics serving 11,000 ZIP codes in about

ALEX KWANTEN

Wrench tech David Gingrass in the field

motor oil and an oil filter, spark plugs and
brake pads.
Although this day was uneventful, Gingrass says he always needs to be prepared to
tell customers just what's wrong with their
vehicles, even if that may not be what they
expect or understand.
"Oftentimes if a customer thinks they
know what a problem is, it's not that problem," he says. "You'll have to explain that it
isn't a bad key or a bad alternator, but a fuse
or a [powertrain module] controller."
----- Alex Kwanten
3,000 communities. The company's biggest
markets are on the East and West coasts and
in the Sun Belt, says Rob Francis, YourMechanic's vice president of consumer growth.
The company says its fleet business has risen nearly 500 percent this year over the same
period in 2018, although it did not provide
revenue figures. Francis says YourMechanic is
"doing some pilot programs" with unidentified automakers on fleet and other services.
YourMechanic also seeks to expand its relations with franchised dealerships, Francis
says; the company is working with 10 dealerships, including used-car stores. Initiatives
with new-vehicle dealerships include recall
repairs and prepaid maintenance plans using
work done by YourMechanic.
"It's very expensive and difficult for a dealer
to buy the trucks, figure out how to schedule
mobile mechanics and service customers" in
the field, Francis says. "We give dealers an asset-light way to try that out."
Wrench also is pursuing fleet maintenance
work and is open to dealer partnerships, Stevens says.
For a dealership, the economics of mobile
work might be more cost-effective than valet
service, he notes.
Stevens says, "If you ran the numbers, the
cost of sending somebody out twice to pick up
and drop off, plus the cost of the equipment
and the loaner - that's a big outlay compared
to one trip with a mechanic." 

OCTOBER 2019

PAGE 17

Fixed Ops Journal - October 2019

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