Throughout my career as a Mobile Technician I have gained keen eyesight into the mysterious world of auto repair. These are my stories. 504-723-2996 to schedule an appointment.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Friday, April 27, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
Jake's Mobile Auto Repair finding the correct solution for your automotive repair.
Jake's Mobile Auto Repair finding the correct solution for your automotive repair.
Since the inception of this business in 1987, we set out to help the public, to show them a new way. To give them a break from those standard brick and mortar shop bills running from $600 to $1100 to do what seems like simple repairs. Some examples are, water pumps, timing belts, brake jobs, auto air conditioning repairs or even a simple oil change that somehow leads to a $400 repair bill. We’ve been in business for many years and still to this day we can't figure out how those simple jobs can exceed those figures or how people allow it to happen. Our customers are frightened, they call us and tell us things like, "Well I got a wheel bearing online on sale for my car because a friend of mine told me it has to be my wheel bearing making the noise under my car. Can you give me a price for what you would charge to put a wheel bearing on my car? So what happens is, being the friendly people that we are, we give him a price on replacing one wheel bearing on his particular vehicle but we have somewhere in the back of our minds that that’s not the problem but we'll play along for now.
As mobile mechanics we like to get our diagnostics right the first time but we have to do just that, a full diagnostics. Without a physical inspection of the problem there is really no telling what the cause of the customer's concern is. We've worked on 50,000+ cars before this one and our customers are happy and know the difference between what they thought was wrong and what we discovered was really the problem. This just happened last week with a new customer of ours.
He actually waited 2 weeks to get his part in before calling us and stopped driving the car too. Well within 10 minutes of being on site and setting up this vehicle to be tested we discovered he has a loose exhaust. Yea we had a choice there, we could’ve not told this customer about his loose exhaust, replaced his wheel bearing anyway like he asked us to do, not used any of our skill set or ethics, put that wheel bearing in charged him and got paid for what we discussed prior to us coming out there. But, Jake’s Mobile Auto did not do that. In fact we never do that.
When we go out to a job, whether the customer wants a diagnosis or not we have to inspect the vehicle. For our own safety, their liability and ours and our reputation, we always do a full diagnosis and inspection. We explain these things afterwards and usually the customer is so great full they don’t know what to say. They know just as well that we could’ve changed that part, charged them hundreds of dollars and then told them that they have another problem. So what we did in this case was we called a friend of ours who works in a local muffler shop to set up a meeting between him and our customer, charged him our service call for going out there and correctly diagnosing his problem and he’s taking the car to a muffler shop to get his exhaust fixed.
We saved this guy a huge headache but he still has an expensive part to return out-of-town. All of this could've been avoided if he would have just called us in the first place. We are here to help you, to save you money, to get the job done that you need and get it done right the first time.
Call Jakes Mobile Auto. Why call anyone else?
Jacob Foto
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Increase you gas mileage and save money each week.
Increase you gas mileage and save money each week.
Simple ways to save gas on any vehicle. You've heard of the 2 step right? Well we're gona call this the 4 step method.
- Step No 1 - For maximum gas mileage pressurize your tires to maximum tire pressure. Your door sticker will say one thing your tires on the car will say another. Go with your tires for max fuel economy or some happy medium between the two.
- Step No 2 - Use the recommended oil for your car such as 10w30 oil. For example if your car recommends... 5w30 oil and you put 20w50, which is a thicker oil, you will cost yourself up to a mile and a half per gallon in fuel economy.
- Step No 3 - Change your air filter, it’s probably dirty.
- Step No 4 - Make sure your engine is properly tuned. Do you feel excessive vibration in your seat and steering wheel when you’re at a red light? If so there’s a good chance you have a clogged fuel filter or need some spark plugs, have a vacuum leak or your engine is misfiring(plugs, coil, wires, or combination of these things could be worn out.)
For more uncommon ways to improve fuel economy please contact me on Facebook, Twitter or Youtube. I'd love to help you.
Jake Foto
Friday, April 20, 2012
Saving Money on auto repairs. Call 504-723-2996
Saving Money on auto repairs.
Getting your car repaired these days can be a complex task considering all the electronics, computer devices, technology and knowledge an auto technician must have in order to get the job done properly. The report you give to your auto repair shop or personal mechanic about the problem can weigh heavily on how well and costly your repair will be. One thing I suggest to my customers at www.LaMobileAuto.VpWeb.com to never say to their mechanics when it comes to car repair is, "Just fix the problem; I don't care what it is I just need my car fixed!" This statement alone can almost guarantee that a repair bill that would normally be around $300.00 will be more like $700.00.
Most people that I have dealt with, as a mobile auto technician, do not understand that the technician doing their car repairs is actually getting very little of the money that was charged for that repair in his pocket. Auto technicians are being paid a small percentage on the FLAT RATE system that is being used for most auto repair shops. So that $189.00 brake job you paid for on your vehicle, maybe $32.00 of that went in the mechanics pocket, and that would be alot. The auto mechanics only get a small % of that repair job; the majority of the labor goes to the shop owner, as in any other business. For anyone who does not know what this is, this is a system by which every single job you can imagine to be done on a vehicle, whether it's a brake job, electrical system repair, suspension issue, or just diagnostic's, there is a designated labor time for this job. You probably have heard of or seen this symbol (ASE) at the current repair shops you go to. It's called ASE which stands for Automobile Service Excellence an organization formed in the 1970's which has set many standards for the automobile industry today including labor rates and times.
This is an issue that I personally deal with when it comes to pricing out repair jobs, because most people believe they are being charged by a time hour rather than a job hour that the automobile industry operates off of. This is why it would be in the customer’s best interest to be as informed as possible about the type of car problem they are having and instruct their mechanic to preform those specific repairs ONLY but give the car a general checkup or recommendation for future reference.
So never tell you mechanic to FIX EVERYTHING! If you are dealing with a reputable repair shop, they will usually not take advantage of someone who does not understand car repairs. None the less it never hurts to keep up with maintenance on your vehicle and stay as informed as possible as you can about these repairs. The more you know about your car repairs that eventually will have to be performed, the more you will be able to save hundreds or even thousands of dollars in repairs over the life of your vehicle by getting informed about the problem you are having which can be found on line in automotive forums, sometimes you can Google the problem, or even go to Just Answers. Other good sources are friends in the business, library, schools, and magazines.
Jacob J. Foto
Owner/Operator
WWW. LaMobileAuto.VpWeb.Com
504-723-2996
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Funny Cat Responds to Hypnosis
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