SMITH TOWING & RECOVERY Contact Us
Diagnostic laptop showing live engine and aftertreatment data plugged into a heavy truck for mobile roadside diesel diagnostics

MOBILE DIESEL DIAGNOSTICS

We bring the diagnostic gear to your truck — find the real fault on-site, then get you rolling or tow you to our shop in one move.

We Come to You

DIESEL DIAGNOSTICS, BROUGHT TO YOUR TRUCK

A diesel that throws a derate, a DEF light, or a no-start on the side of the road doesn’t always need a tow — it needs an accurate diagnosis first. We bring that to you. We roll to your truck on the shoulder or in your yard, scan the active and stored codes, test the actual components, and tell you what’s really wrong before anyone hooks a chain or turns a wrench.

It’s the same all-makes heavy-diesel workup we do at our Crosby shop — engine, aftertreatment, brakes and air, and the electronics that tie them together — just brought to where the truck is sitting. A huge share of the calls we run are a fault that clears on-site: a reset, a forced regen, a diagnosis that gets you moving again instead of paying for a tow you didn’t need.

And when it is more than a roadside fix, nothing is wasted. The same Crosby yard runs our recovery gear, so we tow the truck straight to our own diesel shop — one vendor, one move, no second call. You get a straight answer either way, and a price before the work starts.

Capabilities

WHAT WE DIAGNOSE ON-SITE

  • Roadside fault-code scans — active & stored
  • Derate & limp-mode diagnosis
  • DEF, DEF-quality & SCR fault diagnosis
  • DPF & forced (parked) regen service
  • Hard-start & no-start diagnosis
  • SPN / FMI code diagnosis
  • All-makes heavy diesel: Cummins, Detroit, Paccar
  • Light-duty diesel: Power Stroke, Cummins, Duramax

A TRUCK DOWN DOESN’T ALWAYS NEED A TOW

The reflex when a rig quits is to call for a tow. Sometimes that’s the right move — but often it isn’t. A truck stepped into a derate, stuck in limp mode, or refusing to start is frequently a fault that can be read and cleared where it sits. Towing a truck that only needed a scan and a reset is money and hours you didn’t have to spend.

So we diagnose first. We come to the truck, plug in, and find out whether you’re looking at a five-minute reset, a forced regen, or a real repair — before you commit to a tow bill or a parts order. That single step, done on-site, is what saves an owner-operator a night and a fleet a day of downtime.

WHAT WE HANDLE ON THE SHOULDER

We bring the same diagnostic tooling to the roadside that we use in the shop, so we read the whole truck, not just the one light on the dash. On-site we scan and interpret the active and stored codes, diagnose derates and limp-mode, work the DEF, DEF-quality, and SCR side, chase no-starts across the electrical and fuel systems, and run a forced (parked) regen when the truck needs one and it’s safe to do it.

We’re also straight about what the roadside can and can’t fix. A soot-loaded filter that will take a regen, a fault that resets, a battery or a lost prime — those get you rolling on the spot. An injector, a high-pressure pump, or an aftertreatment part that has to come off is a shop job, and we’ll tell you that instead of burning your time pretending otherwise.

GET YOU ROLLING, OR TOW YOU IN — ONE CALL

The honest fork is the whole point of calling us first. If the truck can be fixed where it sits, you’re moving again without a tow. If it can’t, the same yard that just diagnosed it runs the recovery equipment, so we bring it to our Crosby diesel shop in one move — no second vendor, no second dispatch, no re-explaining the problem to a new shop.

That’s the difference between a mobile mechanic who leaves you with a diagnosis and a tow company that leaves you with a bill. We do both, out of one Crosby yard, so the breakdown call, the diagnosis, and the repair are one continuous handoff. Our shop diagnostics and diesel repair pages cover what happens once the truck is in.

FLEETS & OWNER-OPERATORS

For a fleet, downtime is the real cost of a breakdown, and a truck diagnosed in your yard or on the shoulder is a truck that gets back to earning faster. We come to your location, read the fault, and either clear it on-site or bring the unit in on our own gear — with a real dispatcher answering 24/7/365, priority scheduling, and Net-30 billing on commercial accounts so the work isn’t waiting on a purchase order. See our fleet accounts page.

For an owner-operator, it’s the same promise scaled down: one number to call, a straight diagnosis brought to you, and a price before the work starts — from a shop that’s run towing, recovery, and diesel repair out of Crosby since 2001.

WE’LL TRAVEL TO WHERE YOU’RE DOWN

Our base is Crosby, and greater Houston — the I-10, US-90, and Ship Channel corridors — is home turf. But a truck doesn’t break down on a schedule or inside a tidy service radius, so we don’t draw one. If you need mobile diesel diagnostics, we’ll travel to wherever your truck is sitting — distance is just part of the quote, not a wall.

That’s the whole point of a real dispatcher answering 24/7: tell us where you are and what the truck is doing, and you’ll get a straight answer on what we can do on-site, when we can be there, and what it runs — before we roll, so there’s no surprise. For heavy repairs once the truck is in, our semi truck repair shop handles the Class 8 work.

Local coverage

SERVING CROSBY & GREATER HOUSTON

We provide this service 24/7 across Crosby and the greater Houston area, including:

Crosby • Highlands • Channelview • Baytown • Mont Belvieu • La Porte • Deer Park • Pasadena • Huffman • Humble • Atascocita • Kingwood • Dayton • Liberty • Cleveland

Common Questions

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

We come to you. We roll to your truck on the roadside or in your yard, scan it, test the components, and diagnose the fault on-site. If it’s something we can clear there, you’re moving again without a tow. If it needs the shop, we tow it in on our own gear.
On-site we handle fault-code scans, derate and DEF/SCR diagnosis, no-start diagnosis, resets, and forced regens — the things that get a truck rolling again. Bigger jobs like injectors, a high-pressure pump, or aftertreatment parts that have to come off are shop work, and we’ll tell you that straight and tow you to our Crosby shop.
Yes, when the truck actually needs one and it’s safe to run where it’s parked. If a regen keeps aborting, that’s usually a doser, DOC, or sensor fault rather than just soot — so we diagnose why it won’t regen instead of forcing it over and over.
Yes. Derates, DEF and regen faults, and no-starts are the most common mobile calls we run. We come out, read what’s actually causing it, and either get you rolling on-site or bring the truck to our shop — so you’re not paying to replace a part the truck didn’t need.
Yes. We bring diagnostics to your yard or the roadside, with a real dispatcher answering 24/7/365, priority scheduling, and Net-30 billing on commercial accounts. Diagnosing a unit where it sits keeps your trucks earning instead of waiting on a tow and a second shop.
No hard limit. Crosby and greater Houston are home, but a breakdown doesn’t care about a service radius, so we don’t draw one — if you need mobile diesel diagnostics, we’ll travel to where your truck is sitting. The distance just factors into the quote you get before we roll.
You get a straight answer and a price before any work starts. Because we come to you, where you are is part of it — so tell the dispatcher your location and what the truck is doing, and we’ll quote it before we roll. No surprise at the end, and no wasted trip if it turns out you just need a tow.

STRANDED WITH A DIESEL PROBLEM?

We bring the diagnostics to you — call 24/7 or request service online.