In a fixed shop, the car comes to you. The bay, the lift, the parts room and the next customer are all inside one building. A mobile mechanic gives that up. The van is the shop, the customer's driveway or office parking lot is the bay, and the parts counter is somewhere across town.
That changes what a schedule has to account for. A brake job that takes 90 minutes in a shop still takes 90 minutes in a driveway. What's new is everything around it: the drive to the customer, the drive to pick up the pads and rotors you didn't carry, and the drive back. If your schedule only knows the 90 minutes, it is planning a shop day for a van.
The three legs of a mobile repair
Most mobile repair jobs have up to three kinds of travel attached:
- The drive to the customer. From wherever the van was last, which is usually the previous job, not your home base.
- The parts leg. A stop at a parts supplier or dealer on the way, or a round trip in the middle of the job when the diagnosis turns up something you didn't expect.
- The return leg. When a part has to be ordered and the job finishes on a second visit.
A shop absorbs legs 2 and 3 inside its walls. A mobile operation pays for them in drive time, fuel and lost job slots. The scheduling mistake is treating them as overhead that "just happens" instead of as legs that belong on the board next to the job.
Parts runs are travel legs, so schedule them like one
Know which jobs need a pickup before the day starts
A battery or a set of wiper blades lives in the van. A specific water pump or a set of brake pads for an uncommon model probably doesn't. When the job is booked, decide whether the part comes from van stock or from a supplier. If it comes from a supplier, the job really starts at the supplier, and the drive from the supplier to the customer is the leg that matters. See truck stock for how to decide what lives in the van.
Put the pickup where it costs least
If the supplier is between the previous job and this one, the pickup costs a few minutes. If it is in the opposite direction, it can cost the better part of an hour. Two jobs on the same day that both need parts from the same supplier are worth placing back to back with one pickup before both.
Leave room for the surprise run
Diagnosis is uncertain. You go out for a no-start, find a failed starter, and now you need one. Every mobile mechanic has a feel for which job types tend to turn into a parts run. Leave slack after those jobs, not after the predictable ones. Your first-time fix rate by job type tells you where that slack belongs.
A worked example: the mid-day parts run
This is an illustrative day. The numbers are made up to show the arithmetic.
A mechanic has four jobs booked: two oil-and-filter services at 45 minutes, a brake job at 90 minutes and a diagnostic at 60 minutes. Drives between them average 20 minutes. The diagnostic turns up a failed sensor that is not in the van, and the nearest supplier is 25 minutes away in a different direction from the next customer.
The parts run alone cost almost as much as two of the planned drive legs. If the day had been booked tight to an 8-hour shift with no slack, the last customer would be late. If the diagnostic had been booked last, the run would only push the end of the day rather than every job after it. That is a simple rule: put the jobs most likely to need an unplanned part at the end of a run, or next to a supplier.
Who you're driving to changes the schedule
Residential customers
Residential customers want a time. They are usually at home or at work, and they want to know when the van will arrive. A tight, honest arrival window depends on knowing where the mechanic is coming from. If the 1:00 job could run long because it is a diagnostic, the 2:30 promise behind it is shaky.
Fleet customers
Fleet work looks different. A company may want five vans serviced at one yard. The drive is one leg, the time on site is long, and the customer cares more about vehicles back in service than a precise arrival time. Book these as blocks and fill the rest of the day with residential jobs near the yard.
How to schedule mobile mechanics
- Estimate each job type from your own history. Use your actual times for brakes, batteries, diagnostics and so on, not book hours alone, because mobile work includes setup in a driveway. Job duration estimates covers how to build these.
- Book the drive from the previous job. The van's start point for the 2:00 job is the 12:30 job's address, not the shop or your house.
- Treat known parts pickups as a leg. Add the supplier stop to the route when you book, so the slot you offer already includes it.
- Cluster by area when customers are flexible. Many customers will take "Tuesday morning" if you offer it. Use that flexibility to keep a mechanic in one part of town.
- Count the return visits. Each second visit for an ordered part is a truck roll a shop never makes.
Where CrewLink fits
CrewLink is scheduling and dispatch, built around the drive. It builds live travel time into availability, so the slots it offers are ones a mechanic can physically reach, with travel computed from the previous job. It checks feasibility before the slot is offered, which is where most late arrivals start. On the dispatch board, drive time sits next to each job rather than buried in it, so a cross-town parts run shows up as the cost it is.
CrewLink does not stock parts, look up parts, order parts, write estimates, take payments or track vans by GPS. If you need a shop management system for repair orders and parts, you'll run that alongside. It is built for companies running 5 to 50 trucks. The same scheduling issues show up in other van-based trades, such as mobile detailing and appliance repair.
What to take away
- The van is the shop, so every job carries up to three legs: to the customer, to the parts supplier, and back for a return visit.
- Decide when booking whether the part comes from van stock or a supplier, and route the pickup as a leg.
- Put diagnostic and parts-risky jobs at the end of a run or near a supplier.
- Book fleet days as blocks and fill around them with nearby residential work.
- Count return visits; each one is a truck roll a fixed shop never makes.
Common questions
How many jobs can a mobile mechanic do in a day?
Add up the estimated time for each job type you typically book, plus the drive between them and any planned parts stops, and compare that with the shift. Use your own records for both. Clustering jobs by area and placing parts pickups on the way usually adds more jobs than rushing the work does.
How do mobile mechanics handle parts?
They keep common, fast-moving parts in the van and pick up the rest from suppliers. The scheduling question is when that pickup happens. Decide it at booking time, put it on the route as a stop, and place jobs that share a supplier back to back.
How should I schedule diagnostic appointments?
Diagnostics are the least predictable mobile job because the outcome decides whether a parts run follows. Book them where an overrun hurts least: at the end of a run, or close to a supplier, with slack after them. Measure how often each diagnostic type turns into a second leg and adjust the slack from that.
What's the difference between mobile mechanic scheduling and shop scheduling?
A shop schedules bays and technicians, and travel is zero. A mobile operation schedules vans, so the drive to each job, the parts legs and the return visits all become part of the day. Software built for a shop usually has no place to put those legs.