What can a mobile mechanic do in a Cairns driveway?
Batteries, routine servicing and plenty of no-start faults usually suit. RAC WA says its mobile mechanics can do the same logbook service items as a service centre, with one catch: wheel rotation and balancing need a hoist at a fixed workshop. Clutches, gearboxes and anything that means lifting the car high usually end up at a workshop too.
Not sure which yours is? Describe what the car's doing in the note. The mechanic who calls can tell you whether it's a driveway job or a trip to the workshop before anyone drives out.
Where a mobile mechanic helps most in Cairns
About 52 km end to end
Cairns runs in a line from Edmonton in the south to the Northern Beaches. A car that won't start up at Ellis Beach shouldn't need towing past half the city if a mechanic nearby can come to it. The postcode decides who's close, so give the one where the car is, not your home address.
Heat and flat batteries
Heat shortens a battery's life, and RACV's hot-weather advice is to park in shade or a garage where you can. A mobile mechanic can test the battery and the charging system right where the car sits, and fit a new one if it needs it. More on that at car battery in Cairns.
Working around the wet
From November to May, monsoonal downpours can stop work in an open driveway. A carport, a garage or a covered car park at work makes a mobile job far more likely to go ahead on the day. Ask the mechanic what they need when they call.
After a long trip north
If the car came back from the Cape or the Tableland with a new rattle or a warning light, a mobile mechanic can often take a first look at home and tell you whether it needs a workshop.
Stopped on the highway?
If the car stops on the Bruce Highway or the Captain Cook Highway, get everyone out and away from the traffic, put the hazard lights on, and call roadside assistance if you have it. A mobile mechanic is for the next step, once the car is somewhere safe. If anyone is hurt or in danger, call 000.
Before the mechanic arrives
- A flat spot off the road, with room to work beside the car. RAA asks for a flat location that isn't on a public roadway, with room for a trolley jack, for its own mobile inspections.
- Shade or cover if you've got it, for the mechanic and for the car.
- The keys, the service book and the locking wheel nut key if the car has one.
- A note of what the car did before it stopped, and a photo of any warning light.
What we'd do
We'd go mobile for the battery, the routine service and the no-start in the driveway, and use a workshop for anything that needs the car up on a hoist. If you're not sure which you've got, put the symptoms in the note and let the mechanic say which it is before they head out.