East Texas Mobile Automotive Repair
Mobile auto repair that comes to you.
Professional diagnostics, maintenance, inspections, repairs and performance services throughout East Texas.
- Based
- Tyler, Texas
- Coverage
- East Texas
- Where we work
- Your driveway
What we do
Most of what a shop does, done where the vehicle is.
Diagnostics through performance work. If a job genuinely needs a lift or a machine shop, we'll tell you that instead of starting it.
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Diagnostics
Find the actual fault before anyone buys a part.
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Electrical Troubleshooting
Parasitic draws, bad grounds, and wiring nobody wants to trace.
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Brake Service
Pads, rotors, calipers, hoses and hydraulics — done in your driveway.
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Oil Changes
The right spec oil and a real filter, at your house or your office.
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Routine Maintenance
Filters, fluids, plugs, belts — the service list that keeps its promises.
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Vehicle Inspections
Pre-purchase and pre-trip inspections, with photos of what we find.
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Performance Work
Bolt-ons, tuning support, upgrades and classic driveability.
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Why Critter
Straight answers, and the paperwork to back them up.
01
Mobile convenience
No tow bill, no ride to arrange, no vehicle left overnight for a two-hour job. We work where it sits.
02
Transparent pricing
A written estimate before work starts, itemised into parts and labor, with book hours shown. Nothing gets added without a call first.
03
Professional diagnostics
Scan tools, live data and a meter — not a code read and a guess. We find the fault before anyone buys a part.
04
Experienced technicians
Domestic and import, modern and classic, daily drivers and performance builds.
05
Honest communication
You get told what we found, what it needs, and what can wait. Including when the answer is that you don't need the repair.
06
East Texas service
Tyler-based, working across the region. We know the roads, the heat, and what they do to a vehicle.
How it works
Three steps, and you approve the middle one.
- 01
Request service
Fill in the form or call. Tell us the vehicle, where it is, and what it's doing. Photos help more than people expect.
- 02
We diagnose
We come to the vehicle, find the actual fault, and send you a written estimate with parts and labor itemised. You approve before anything else happens.
- 03
We repair
The work gets done where the vehicle sits. You get the invoice, the old parts if you want them, and an honest note of anything to watch.
On the job
This is what "we come to you" actually looks like.
A driveway, a yard, a parking space. Jack stands rated past the weight, wiring labelled before it comes apart, and the old parts still there when you come out to look.
A Ram 1500 with the front end apart, in the customer's yard. No tow bill, no shop appointment — the hub, axle and dust shield came off where it sat. 
The hub and wheel bearing off that truck. Pine needles come with the territory when the shop is wherever the vehicle stopped. 
Rear wheel off a dually, on stands rated well past what the truck weighs. Setup is not the part of a driveway job to rush. 
Every wire labelled before anything comes apart. Ten minutes here saves an hour of guessing later.
Service area
Tyler, and a good way out from it.
We work across East Texas — from Tyler, Flint, Whitehouse in close, out to Lindale, Bullard, Kilgore, Henderson, Longview, Athens, Gilmer, Mabank and Paris. Plenty of the work we do is in towns that aren't on this list.
- Tyler
- Flint
- Whitehouse
- Lindale
- Bullard
- Kilgore
- Henderson
- Longview
- Athens
- Gilmer
- Mabank
- Paris
Reservation fee
Appointments beyond 15 miles from Downtown Tyler may require a non-refundable Service Area Reservation Fee. If repairs are completed, the reservation fee is fully credited toward the final repair invoice.
Anything inside the 15-mile ring on the map — Tyler, Flint, Whitehouse — is unaffected.
In their words
The reviews are on Facebook, where customers left them.
- 3
- Reviews
- 141
- Following
We'd rather point you at the real page than paraphrase people here. Read what customers have actually written, then judge for yourself.
Read reviews on FacebookWhat is Critter Performance & Automotive?
A mobile automotive repair business based in Tyler, Texas, serving East Texas. We bring diagnostic equipment and tools to wherever your vehicle is — your driveway, your workplace parking lot, or the shoulder where it stopped — and do the repair there.
My vehicle won't make it to a shop. Can you still help?
That is exactly the situation mobile service exists for. A no-start, a dead battery, a brake problem you don't want to drive on — tell us where it is and whether it is driveable when you submit the request, and we plan around it.
How do I book an appointment?
Submit the service request form on any page, or call or text 903-491-7331. The form takes about two minutes and gets us the vehicle details, the location and the symptoms, which means the first call back is about scheduling rather than twenty questions.
What is book labor time?
Book labor is a published, standardised estimate of how long a specific repair takes on a specific vehicle. It comes from labor guides that the whole industry uses, built from manufacturer data and time studies. When you get a quote for '2.4 hours' on a water pump, that 2.4 is the book time for your year, make, model and engine — not a guess, and not a stopwatch reading.
Why don't labor hours equal clock hours?
Because you are paying for the job, not for the minutes. Book time is the same number whether the technician is fast or slow, whether a bolt snaps, or whether it takes three trips to get to the part. Sometimes a job beats book time. Sometimes a seized bolt turns a two-hour job into four. Billing by the clock would mean you pay more when things go badly and pay for someone else's inexperience — book time is what makes a quote a quote.
How does pricing work?
Parts plus labor, with labor based on published book time for your vehicle. You receive a written estimate before repair work begins, itemised into parts and labor with the applicable tax shown separately. No work beyond what you approved happens without a call.
The parts store read my codes for free. Isn't that the same thing?
No, and this is where a lot of money gets wasted. A code identifies a circuit or a symptom the computer noticed — P0171 means the engine is running lean, not 'replace the oxygen sensor'. That lean condition could be a vacuum leak, a fuel pump, a dirty mass airflow sensor or a cracked intake boot. Diagnosis is the work of finding out which.
Why do routine oil changes matter so much?
Oil does four jobs — lubricates, cools, cleans and seals — and it loses the ability to do all four as it breaks down and fills with combustion by-products. Modern engines have tight tolerances, variable valve timing solenoids and turbochargers that all depend on clean oil moving through small passages. Neglected oil turns to sludge, blocks those passages, and turns a routine service into an engine repair.
What is the Service Area Reservation Fee?
Appointments beyond 15 miles from Downtown Tyler may require a non-refundable Service Area Reservation Fee. If repairs are completed, the reservation fee is fully credited toward the final repair invoice.
Where do you travel?
Across East Texas, centred on Tyler — including Flint, Whitehouse, Lindale, Bullard, Longview, Kilgore, Henderson, Gilmer, Athens, Mabank and Paris.
Service request
Request service
Two minutes now saves twenty on the phone. The more you tell us about the symptoms, the better prepared we arrive.