Levittown brothers are mechanics on the move

Frank LeCrichia and his brother, Robert, have been self-employed all of their lives.

They owned a landscaping business and a sound production company, and now they are on to their latest venture: repairing and servicing cars outside each customer's front door.

Frank is 23, and Robert is 20.

"We basically had to work for everything we ever got," Robert said. "When we wanted stuff, we went out and worked" to get it.

A year ago they started Mobile Auto Mechanics Inc. in Levittown. They drive a van loaded with tools and equipment and service or repair five to seven cars a day, right outside the home of the auto's owner. Prices are fairly standard. An oil change is $30, labor for a brake job is $85 an hour. It's convenience they are selling.

Susan Voronin of Levittown has called on the brothers to do oil changes as well as tire and brake replacements on her Lexus 350. She also had more work done on an older car.

"I work at home," Voronin said. With the LeCrichias' service she need not take time to drive to a service station, wait for her car or a lift back home.

Frank said there are some similar businesses he has heard of on Long Island's East End. But otherwise, he believes, he is a sole practitioner in Nassau and much of Suffolk.

The brothers were landscapers when Frank was 15 and Robert 12. They did sound production when both were in their early to mid-teens.

Frank has a suggestion for would-be entrepreneurs: "If you have an idea, try it. The worst that can happen is it won't work. Then you try something else."