Back Shop & Flex Capacity in Austin, TX

For large fleets that run their own shop

Most of what we publish is aimed at businesses that need their maintenance handled. This is the opposite case. You have a shop, you have people, and you are not looking for a program or a partner to take over. You need somewhere to put the work that will not fit inside your own operation — either because of what it needs, or because of when it landed.

The three reasons fleets call us

1. The work is past what your team is set up for. Plenty of in-house shops are built around preventive maintenance — oil, filters, tires, brakes, basic service — and that is the right way to run one. Intermittent electrical faults, aftertreatment diagnosis, transmissions, and alignment were never part of the brief. That work goes out somewhere.
2. Your people are out. A vacancy nobody can fill, someone on extended leave, or one technician short through the worst possible stretch. The queue grows faster than the shop can work it down and nothing about that is fixable from inside.
3. The volume spiked. The season arrived, a storm rolled through, or the whole fleet came due in the same six weeks.

None of these mean the shop is run badly. Diagnostic depth comes from seeing the same failure repeatedly, and a fleet shop maintaining its own trucks will never see any one fault often enough to build it. Specialist equipment has the same arithmetic — an alignment rack or aftertreatment tooling cannot be justified at in-house volume. Both gaps are structural, and neither is a reflection on your technicians.

Who this is usually for

• Refuse and solid waste fleets — municipal departments and private haulers, where the duty cycle is brutal and the route runs whether the shop is caught up or not
• City, county, and state agencies — public works, road & bridge, water and wastewater, and parks shops working against a capped headcount
• Construction and utility fleets with their own mechanics but no room for a rack
• Large private fleets running an in-house maintenance operation

The common thread is that somebody competent is already running maintenance, and the constraint is structural — headcount, equipment, or calendar — rather than a problem with how the shop is run.

What in-house teams send us

• Diagnostics — intermittent faults, electrical and wiring problems, derates, and the truck that has already been apart twice
• DPF cleaning and aftertreatment — plus DEF and SCR faults, specialized and easy to get wrong
• Transmission work — diagnosis before teardown, on units most in-house shops would rather not open
• Heavy-duty alignment — the rack almost nobody can justify in-house, on trucks that eat steer tires without it
• DOT/FMCSA inspections — coverage when your inspector is out or the whole fleet comes due at once
• Trailers — the units that get skipped until an inspection catches them
• Jobs nobody wants — MaxxForce emissions work, surplus military trucks, Unimogs
• Bay-size and lift limits — when the truck simply will not fit where you are

The seasons that break a shop's back

Nearly every in-house shop is sized for its average week rather than its worst one, because staffing for the peak means carrying idle technicians for ten months. That is a sensible way to run a budget, and it is exactly why overflow capacity exists.

• Brush, bulk, and storm debris cycles — refuse fleets running extra routes on the same trucks
• Freeze events and storm response — public works fleets working while the shop queue keeps growing
• Fiscal year-end — deferred work that has to land before the budget closes
• Paving and construction season — equipment and haul trucks that cannot sit
• A vacancy you cannot fill — the least seasonal and most common of all

We're not going to go over your head. The risk in calling an outside shop is that they use the opening to pitch your director or your council on outsourcing the whole operation. We don't do that. We work on what you send us, we report to you, and we have no interest in making your team look replaceable — this only works if your shop stays strong.

Working with a public procurement process

Public fleet shops rarely stall on whether a vendor can do the work. They stall on paperwork. We would rather sort that out before there is a truck on our lift than during.

• Written quotes before work starts, in whatever form your process needs
• Purchase orders — we will not start work that needs a PO without one
• Vendor registration, insurance certificates, and W-9 handled up front
• Invoicing that matches how your entity actually pays, not how we would prefer to bill

Tell fleet sales what your process requires on the first call. If a competitive bid or a cooperative contract is the only route for the dollar amount involved, we would rather know at the start than find out at the invoice.

How it usually works

1. Tell us the gap — the job, the vacancy, or the season
2. We scope it — what we can take, what our schedule realistically looks like, and rates in writing
3. You send work as it comes — no minimum, no exclusivity, no commitment to volume
4. We invoice you — on agreed terms, so it stays between your operation and ours

Where it fits

This is the third of three ways to work with us, and the lightest. If you have no one running maintenance at all, that's fleet management as a service. If you have a fleet manager but no technicians, that's fleet maintenance support. If you have your own shop and just need capacity or capability, you're in the right place.

Worth knowing either way: we also do on-site work at your location and pickup and delivery, so moving a unit between your yard and our bays doesn't have to cost you a technician for half a day.

Start the conversation

Call fleet sales at 512-273-7351 or the shop at 512-717-2777. Tell us what you're trying to offload — the job, the vacancy, or the season — and we'll be straight about whether we're the right shop for it, including when the honest answer is that someone else is better set up for that particular work.

Common questions

We already have our own shop and technicians. What would we use you for?

Most often, the work your team was never set up to do. Plenty of in-house shops are built around preventive maintenance — oil changes, filters, tires, brakes, basic service — which is exactly the right way to run an in-house operation. What they are not built for is intermittent electrical faults, aftertreatment diagnosis, transmissions, or heavy-duty alignment. That work goes out somewhere. We would like it to come here.

Our technicians handle routine work but get stuck on the hard stuff. Is that normal?

It is the standard shape of an in-house fleet shop, and it is not a criticism of anyone. Diagnostic depth comes from seeing a fault repeatedly, and a fleet shop that maintains its own trucks will not see a given failure often enough to build that. Specialist equipment has the same problem — an alignment rack or aftertreatment tooling cannot be justified at in-house volume. Neither gap means the shop is run badly.

Can you cover when our techs are out?

Yes, and it is one of the most common reasons a fleet calls. A vacancy you have been trying to fill for months, someone on extended leave, or one technician short through your busiest stretch all produce the same result: a queue that grows faster than the shop can work it down. We can take the overflow without anyone restructuring anything.

Do you work with city, county, and state fleet shops?

Yes, and public fleet shops fit this particularly well because their constraints are structural rather than temporary. Headcount is capped, specialist equipment competes with every other line in the budget, and the trucks still have to run. Overflow and specialty capacity solve that without a reorganization or a new program.

Will you go over our heads and pitch outsourcing our shop?

No, and this is the promise that matters most to an in-house team. We are not going to approach your director, your city manager, or your council to sell a program that makes your shop look replaceable. We are a vendor to your shop, working on what you send us and reporting to you. The arrangement only works if your operation stays strong.

How does this work for a public agency with a procurement process?

We work through your process rather than around it — written quotes before work, purchase orders, vendor registration, insurance certificates, W-9, and invoicing that matches how your entity actually pays. Tell fleet sales what your process requires on the first call, because finding out mid-repair that a PO was needed helps nobody.

Can you handle our busy season?

That is the third common reason fleets call. Rather than promise a turnaround we cannot guarantee, we will tell you honestly what our schedule looks like when you call, and a fleet arrangement can include priority so your overflow is not queued behind retail work. The single best thing you can do is talk to us before your season instead of during it.

What specifically can you do that our in-house shop cannot?

It depends on your equipment and your people, and we would rather find that out than assume. The gaps we see most often are diagnostics on intermittent and electrical faults, DPF and aftertreatment work, transmission diagnosis and repair, and heavy-duty alignment. Some fleets also send the jobs nobody wants — the MaxxForce, the one-off surplus unit, the truck that has already been apart twice.

Do you work on refuse and solid waste trucks?

Yes, on the chassis and drivetrain — engines, transmissions, brakes, suspension, hydraulics, PTO, aftertreatment, tires, and DOT inspections. Packer and compactor body work is outside what we do and we will say so rather than take it on. Refuse is one of the hardest duty cycles there is, and the wear shows up early and predictably.

How does billing work?

We invoice your agency or business directly on terms set in the agreement. Rates are set per arrangement based on volume and the kind of work, and put in writing before anything starts. Call fleet sales at 512-273-7351 to scope it.