Traditional car repairs involve dropping off your car at the mechanic, waiting around for a few hours, then picking it back up. RepairSmith is looking to change up car repairs by modernizing the whole system. Advertised as the “Uber of car repairs,” the company lets you book a repair online so they can come to you and fix your car at your home or office.
Right now, the company is operating in California, Nevada, and Arizona and can complete 90% of repairs using supplies from their mobile repair vans. In rare cases when they can’t fix your car on the spot, they will take your car to their workshop and return it when fixed.
Although growing a business during the pandemic is no easy task, RepairSmith is finding ways to give back to those in need nonetheless. The company started by donating $125,000 worth of repair services to essential workers and those who lost their income during the pandemic. After seeing how needed these services were, the company expanded its free services with an additional $250,000 worth of repairs to nonprofits around the country.
These lucky nonprofits include Project Angel Food, which uses vans to deliver daily meals to homebound people fighting serious illnesses. Cahoots program, based in Eugene, Oregon, also received some essential free repairs. Cahoots is an alternative policing solution which dispatches mental health counselors and medics in vans to answer non-criminal 911 calls.
The company’s next steps include expanding its fleet to 70 technicians and 100 vans on the road by the end of the year. They are also focusing on hiring full-time mechanics, rather than contracted workers, in order to offer their employees all the worker benefits of a full-time position.
RepairSmith founder Joel Milne thinks his company is the future of maintenance and repair in the 21st century and once people have experienced the convenience of car repairs that come to you, they won’t go back. Milne told Inc, “You don’t take your toilet to the plumber; once you’ve had the plumber come to you, that’s pretty much how you want to do it from then on.”
Image source: RepairSmith
