How Much Does a Mobile Mechanic Cost?
Short answer: less than the stress of pretending the noise isn't happening. Honest answer: it depends — and here's exactly what it depends on, with no mystery surcharges.
What actually affects the price
Six things move the number. None of them are “how posh your driveway looks.”
The job itself
A diagnostic scan, a brake pad swap and a clutch replacement are three very different conversations. Labour time is the biggest single driver of price.
Your car
Parts for a Ford Focus and parts for a Range Rover are not in the same postcode. Make, model and engine all move the number.
Parts quality
OE, OE-equivalent or budget — we'll tell you the options and the trade-offs, rather than quietly fitting the cheapest and charging for the best.
Diagnosis vs guesswork
We test before we replace. Buying parts off a fault code without testing is how a £40 sensor turns into a £400 misadventure.
Access & time on site
Some jobs are a 20-minute job in plain sight; others are buried behind half the engine bay. Honest labour time, not padded.
Where you are
We're mobile across Kent & the South East. Call-out is built into the quote — no mystery surcharge bolted on at the end.
Where mobile saves you money
- Lower overheads than a high-street garage — no showroom to fund
- No taxi or lift home, no second trip to collect the car
- No day booked off work — we come to your home or office
- No recovery truck if it won't start — we come to it
- One clear quote, parts and labour, before we start
When a garage may be cheaper
- • Heavy jobs needing a four-post ramp or specialist rig
- • Engine-out or gearbox-out work that wants a workshop
- • Bodywork, welding and paint (not our thing — and we'll say so)
- • Anything we honestly can't do safely on a driveway
We'd rather point you to the right place than take on a job that needs a workshop. Honesty's cheaper than a redo.
Cost questions, answered straight
Is a mobile mechanic cheaper than a garage?+
Often, yes — we've no showroom, no reception, no courtesy-car fleet to fund, and that overhead saving lands in your quote rather than ours. You also save the hidden costs: no taxi home, no day off work, no recovery truck if the car won't start. For very heavy jobs that need a ramp or specialist rig, a garage can be the better call, and we'll say so.
Do you charge a call-out fee?+
Our quotes are upfront and include coming to you — you won't get a separate surprise call-out charge stapled on at the end. For a pure diagnostic visit there's a fixed charge that covers the full multi-module scan and a plain-English report. If you go ahead with the repair, we tell you the all-in cost before we start.
Will you tell me the price before starting?+
Always. We diagnose, we explain what we found in normal human words, and we quote the work clearly before a single spanner turns. No 'we'll see how we get on' open-ended invoices. If we find something extra mid-job, we stop and talk to you first.
Why won't you just give me a price over the phone?+
We can give honest ballpark ranges for common jobs, but a firm price needs to know your exact car and what's actually wrong — and half the time the thing people think is broken isn't the thing that's broken. A proper quote after a quick look beats a made-up number that changes later.
Do you take card payments?+
Yes — card on the driveway, no problem. We'll confirm accepted methods when we book you in.
Want a real number for your car?
Tell us the car and the problem. We'll give you an honest quote — not a number we make up and change later.