204: Is Entrepreneurship Right For You? With Ben Varnadoe

Welcome to the Automotive Diagnostic Podcast.

We're going to explore ways to sharpen our diagnostic skills, find learning resources and hear from experts in the automotive field.

This episode is brought to you by L1 Automotive Training and Keith Perkins.

If you're looking for education on module programming, j2534, eprom work, key and immobilizer, electrical diagnostics or drivability diagnostics, keith has a website, l1trainingcom that's got over 60 hours of training videos on all those subjects and more.

When I first started out doing mobile, I utilized Keith's videos on module programming and J2534 in order to get my head wrapped around what I would need for the tooling, the computers, the software setups, what kind of obstacles I would be up against when I'm out there programming modules on cars, and it was a huge benefit to me.

I continue to use the training videos that he has on his website.

I strongly recommend checking out L1trainingcom.

We have got Auto Rescue Tools and Isaac Rodel as a sponsor for this podcast.

Hey guys, if you're looking for programming laptops, you want the laptop setup ready to go for programming control modules on vehicles.

You need key cutting equipment.

You need diagnostic tools.

Isaac is your guy.

There's all that stuff available for purchase and the support that he offers, along with the purchase, has been outstanding.

I bought some stuff from him in the past.

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Help me out along the way with anything additional I needed to make it work for me, so make sure to check that out as well.

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The link will be in the show notes.

Hey, what's going on?

Automotive World.

Welcome to another episode of the Automotive Diagnostic Podcast.

My name is Sean Tipping and I'll be your host once again for today's episode.

Thank you for joining me on the show.

This week.

I've got Ben Varnado joining me again.

He's been on the show a couple of times before, but recently he has ventured out on his own to do some mobile work, and that's going to be.

The main focus of our discussion is his experience leading up to that and so far doing the mobile thing, and we'll talk about the ups and downs, the pros and cons, and point out the fact that, hey, this isn't for everybody.

It's definitely not the right move, whether it be entrepreneurship in general, but mobile life as well, it's not for everybody, and so if you're somebody out there that's maybe considered it or looked at it like, hey, that might be something that I like to do.

This will be a great conversation to listen to, to see if some of the behind the scenes stuff is really what you want for a day to day and maybe it is, but that's going to be the focus of our conversation, so always good to get to talk to Ben.

With that out of the way, let's jump in.

Yeah, oh, that's.

The thing is, you don't want to tell them to put on two aftermarket sensors.

This is a really good shop.

They're actually their lead tech is on vacation right now, which is probably why I was called out for it in the first place.

I usually just do programming for them.

But, yeah, putting aftermarket on there or if they just put one aftermarket and the other one's OE.

But the thing that I just kind of left with was I didn't know or I still don't because I haven't spent the time to read up on it how the engine computer registers the two math sensors.

Is it the Christmas of Bank one and a bank two?

And, for everybody listening, it's a 2015 Infinity Q50 with 3.7

liter dual throttle body, dual mass airflow sensor.

It's naturally aspirated.

It's running super lean, fuel terms are maxed out positive and I went through a bunch of tests and really wasn't able to come up with anything today.

But the dual mass airflow thing, does it use bank one math just for bank two or, I'm sorry, bank one and then bank two math for bank two?

I don't see that being the case, because it all goes into the same intake and so my guess is it probably adds them together.

And that's what I was doing with my calculations.

I ran a VE test on it past the flying colors, above 90%.

Tons of power, o2s, peg rich when you accelerate, but the fuel trims max out at 30%.

You reset them.

It actually runs like garbage.

At first it's like missing and everything, and at that point the O2s are lean, they're showing a lean condition until comes back up to 30% and at 30% long term and like 12% short term, it has fuel control.

So then the O2s, their air-fuel ratios, they don't switch but like the downstreams are sitting at 0.7

and it's in fuel control and it runs good, as far as I'm aware of with this Infinity, all kinds of power, but the trims are max out and it does set a 171, 174 if you let it run long enough.

So yeah, let's do one of those cars, where I got to think about it, I got to figure out what tests I didn't do.

Fuel pressure's good, fuel quality is good.

It's not E85.

All the other data pits.

Actually, this is interesting.

I didn't mention this in the chat and I don't think it's relevant, but it's interesting.

So there's a map MAP sensor on this thing and I thought I found the problem right away.

In the data pad it reads 2KPA, that's it.

I was like, oh well, I found my problem.

There's no code for it or anything.

So I started looking at this map sensor which is on top of the intake, and I use a sensor simulator and I brought it to the correct level that I thought for, like idle Didn't change anything, like it still was exactly where it was.

And so I was talking to the shop.

I was like I think we need a map sensor and they actually ordered one up and we were going to try it.

It's a dummy map sensor on that engine.

It's not used.

It's there.

There's a plug-in, there's a data pad that you can alter, but it's not used.

The other one's a dummy sensor too.

It doesn't actually go anywhere or do anything, it's just bolted up on top of the intake, and that I did find very strange.

But, like I said, I put it at the level where the vacuum actually was in the manifold and it made no difference.

And the fact that it's at 2KPA and it's not coding.

Maybe it's there for some other application, I don't know.

It's very strange, very strange vehicle.

So I was just getting ready to say I mean, they use that 3.7

.

And so many vehicles.

You've got the 350Z I believe it's the same motor or, I'm sorry, the 370Z, right.

And I think some of those are turbocharged, aren't they?

I was just getting ready to say they would probably run off a map if it was a turbocharged yeah or at least utilize that for, you know, in manifold pressure, under boost and stuff like that.

So that might be why that's even there, because I was like, why would they have a harness run with a plug-in and all this stuff?

But yeah, it's probably for that application.

And so that gets me thinking too, like what if somebody put the wrong computer, wrong calibration in it?

As far as the shop tells me, this is a daily driver of an average customer in a small town and this just started happening.

So that doesn't mean that shady, weird stuff didn't happen to the car.

It was very possible, but I don't have anything point me in that direction yet.

So PJ sent me that TSB that I didn't see that before about engine calibration pertaining to a lean condition.

So I'll have to verify that and see where that's at, and that's kids.

That's why and that kids is why you need two forms of service information.

When it doesn't show up in one, it shows up in another.

Yeah, yeah, no pain, oh I hate that.

Yeah, I've known that for a while.

People go there's no service, there's no TSB for it, and I'm like, okay, which service information did you use?

Oh, all data.

Okay, I'm going to go look at identification.

Yeah, do it all the time.

Nobody ever says Mitchell.

I wonder why?

Yeah, we actually.

We had Keith Perkins here in Austin over the weekend teaching a class and I noticed he was using a lot of motor logic.

But it was kind of nice taking his class because there was some real dummy moments.

It's like, dude, why didn't I think of that and kind of, when I said something about swapping the mass air flows on that infinity to see what, just to see what happens.

That was one of the things Keith taught a lot in that class.

He was talking about looking at ignition wave forms on coils and he's like well, you've got a bad cylinder.

You know what that pattern looks like on that coil.

Well, on the VA you got seven more to check compared to.

So it just sometimes you don't think, hey, could I just swap the sensor to the other bank or could I do?

I have another known good on this car, I can compare it.

Yeah, that's a great thing about anything that you have.

Yeah, multiple components on the engine.

You got known goods right there.

Oh yeah, and if it's a mobile job at a pretty danky shop, don't worry, you might even have some known goods laying in the floorboard.

Yeah, that's very true.

There's some of these shops I go to that do a lot of a lot of Chevy truck stuff and, yeah, just about any part that you want is there, and sometimes that's to their detriment because they'll just start throwing injectors and rails on these these truck motors.

And they're all different, like every single RPO code for those GM V8 engines are different flow rates for the injectors.

So you can't even.

And they will.

They'll bolt up, they'll fit, they'll plug in, they'll go in the rail, they'll run.

But you're either way rich or way lean, depending on which direction wrong you went.

So it took one shop like two or three times before I realized like stop, you just just get the right part.

You can't, it doesn't work, just because it bolts in.

But that's kind of the mindset for some people.

I got one shop tomorrow.

I got to go do a follow up diag on one.

I've actually finally trained that shop to.

If you put the first part on it and it doesn't fix it, yeah, just stop and call me at that point because one of their one of my first diags for them it had had it was a Jeep Wrangler.

They had thrown every ref sensor at it.

They had now overlaid wires on the harness and like when I say overlay, there was like six, seven overlays and I was like, dude, where do I even start on this?

And actually what it was?

There was a harness issue going down the backside of the engine block and I told him at that point I was like, yeah, you need a harness, they're like there's no more money left in the budget.

I'm like, well, you probably should have stopped.

After the first, I was like your other option is to pull this engine out.

I can tell you at least five circuits are damaged in about a one foot area.

It's up to you, but I would recommend you at this point either put a harness in it or be prepared to pull that engine to where you could open up that harness and inspect every wire in it?

What year was that?

By chance?

That was a JK, so that was probably about a 13, maybe a 14.

It had a three, six in it Really funny.

But it's the big, the big harness going off the passenger side behind the valve covered where it drops down towards the bell.

Okay.

So the way, the way I figured it out was I went to the five volt ref on the crank sensor, which was all the way at the bottom, and as I started wiggling harness, I started getting code changes, I started getting dropouts.

I'm like how many volts did you have on the five volts, or did you have any?

I could make it, I could wiggle it to see Okay.

Okay, super funny.

So 16,.

We had one today with the almost exact same problem.

It was pulling it down to about three volts, but that was enough to code it, but it was the same area of harness that was causing it.

So there's the plug in over on the passenger side valve cover and then it goes down below the valley to the oil pressure sensor and then the crank sensor, and the exact same thing.

And they had replaced every sensor that was on the five volt reference thing.

They did oil pressure sensor, they also did throttle, accelerator, crank sensor, everything that had a five volt reference.

And it's still in it.

This was intermittent, which was frustrating, because at first when they called me I was like I don't really get in with intermittent.

They're like it'll happen like once a week.

I'm like, well, when it happens more, call me.

But it did.

It was a hard fault.

And so my guy went out there and it took him a little while to track down the area that it was at.

But it's exact same thing and I was reading something about oil from the oil pressure sensor getting into the harness and destroying the installation.

So I'm suspecting that.

But they're getting that sub harness.

Or even like where this was.

I even made the comment about possibly a valve cover leak.

I mean you could wiggle this harness, and I mean codes would just start changing like crazy.

Like I even at one point got it to set an alternator code.

I haven't seen that yet.

But I mean, when I say they overlaid, they overlaid, it was interesting Overlaid.

They just had overlaid so much stuff.

I'm like you've now brought this whole harness integrity into question.

Yeah, yeah.

That's the worst, when they start making way more problems than the original problem.

I had a 19 to Rango the other day with that.

This was at the dealership and it was there for like six months because they were waiting for a ABS control module which they put in and it didn't fix it.

And then finally the customer had enough and brought it to one of my shops and they just had this thing just tore apart Like 19 to Rango it's still a fairly new vehicle and they just tore the crap out of this thing.

And I had to.

I had to solve four or five man made electrical problems before I could even get back to the original problem, which was just an open wire and ended up being from some rodent damage.

By the way, these new Durango's and I don't know what year they started doing this style, but the body harness inside the vehicle kind of comes down.

One end of the dash goes, you know, near the rocker panel and it goes into this plastic conduit underneath the carpet and it goes back and it runs across the vehicle under the rear seat and then back up the same conduit on the passenger side rocker panel, and it's in this like very spacey conduit, like it's not tightly enclosed over the harness.

There's a lot of room around the harness.

Well, this is an absolutely perfect place.

If I was a mouse, that's where I would go.

I go under the carpet and in this little channel here, which is just a perfect little mouse home.

And so they chewed up a bunch of wires, including one, the ground wire to the brake pedal position sensor, which is why they replaced the ABS unit, because it didn't have a ground to the sensor and so it couldn't see that you were pressing the pedal so it wouldn't crank.

But yeah, hungry little critters.

Oh boy, the fun stuff we see every day.

Yeah, yes, you're mobile now.

Yes, I am full time as a problem.

I mean, I guess the original opening day was May 1st but I was already doing some programming on the side before that happened.

It just it kind of.

I think I've heard for over a year now from some of our friends.

They're like you need to make the leap.

You need to make the leap.

I honestly had quite a few things happen in like the last six months that just made it a now or never.

Now or never experience.

Let's give it a shot.

A few people knew about this, but whenever I went to vision, about a week before I went to vision, my wife was having abdominal pain to the point we took her to the ER.

They found a mass in her lower abdomen and I was supposed to fly out on Wednesday to go to vision.

Well, her surgery was Thursday morning so I moved my flight to Thursday, was there for her when they rolled her into the operating room and I was sitting at Austin Airport when I got the text message not cancer and I walked right over to Salt Lake in order to big ol' celebratory showerbock at 10 o'clock in the morning.

Oh, that's great news so yeah, it just kind of made.

I've been saying, well, I'll do it in a year, I'll do it in a year, I still want to buy more tools and I'll do it in a year.

And my wife had been on my butt like, no, not a year, maybe six months.

But everything changed at that moment I realized that I'm planning on a year, she's planning on six months and as of a week before that I was wondering are we going to have six weeks or six days still together?

So it just made me think, don't put off till tomorrow which you can get done today.

I also some things changed at my job, so it kind of made it a little less family friendly and I just, finally, walt didn't work one day and I was like here's my two weeks notice, I'm out.

And yeah, and there was somebody I spoke to at Vision Me and you had this conversation in private the other night about the guy with the.

That was the parent, that was the breadwinner for the whole house and he had four kids and he just went out on his own.

I met him at Vision and after he told me that story I was like, man, I'm sitting here with a wife with a great job, full benefit.

I mean, what am I waiting for?

And I made the leap.

What were you waiting for, at least in your mind?

What was?

I wanted to be at that point that I thought I was ready, and everybody kept telling me, if you wait for that moment, you'll never regret it.

Right right.

There's never a perfect moment for so many things like this, especially big decisions.

You're just, you're waiting for everything to the planets to align and, yeah, it might not ever happen the way that you think it will.

Yeah, and it's been an interesting ride for these few months.

I was telling you about Keith's class over the weekend.

There was four of us mobile guys on the very front row so I felt bad for Keith about that.

But some guy Keith was telling us about some of the stuff his guys deal with as mobile guys and some young guy in the class.

He saw the romantic side of it, like I did in the beginning here in the stories of.

So you just walked in and cleared a coat and charged a shot and they heard that side of it and I was like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

And one of the young guys goes well, it must be nice to get to pick whatever you want to work on and only work on what you want to work on.

And I was like guys, it's not that easy.

That time you say no might be the last time you ever say no to that shot.

Yep, yep.

So you got to pick and choose your path.

Yeah, exactly, and yeah, you definitely don't know what's coming at you that particular day.

It might be gravy work, it might be the easy stuff Sometimes you do get that but, man, you get the complete opposite end of the scale and a lot of times, especially after you've been doing this for a while, like in a shop.

When I worked in an independent shop, you had the option of saying yeah we'll send it to the dealer.

Just recommend the customer goes to the dealer right.

Well, you end up being the person who deals with that.

Sometimes, even when it does go to the dealer, you're the guy that's ended up on that car.

You know, or at least presented with that vehicle, and so you get the.

You get the buckhickers 100%.

But I think and you can tell me what your feelings are on this is I kind of like that A little bit.

I like those cars.

I don't want them every single day, but it sure does keep it interesting.

Oh, it definitely does.

I mean you're dealing with a fuel trim vehicle.

Three weeks ago I was dealing with a fuel trim vehicle and here it was.

I sat here and I mean drivability was my thing.

I came from an independent shop and to just get my butt handed to me on a fuel trim vehicle.

I'm like, come on, this can't be that hard.

This really can't.

It's fuel trim.

Isn't that interesting how dealing with if you're at one shop, one location and you're just seeing average vehicles like it's.

I worked at a firestone, oh would you say you worked at like Christian Brothers or something.

I work for Christian Brothers yeah, so you just see average vehicles in there.

It's not necessarily a diagnostic specialty shop At least ours wasn't and so you're knocking out those fuel trim issues because they're all kind of the same oh another math sensor, oh another vacuum leak, right.

But now when you get a fuel trim issue, maybe it is one of those simple ones and those are just a breeze.

But then you get these ones that are just like this infinity that have them like huh, I'm out of tests, don't have anything else to check, where am I going with this thing?

And yeah, you get those, and so your confidence and your skills kind of rode sometimes.

Well, I bet you've kind of played the same game I play at a shop.

Is I couldn't you got to the point where you could look at the?

Car kind of almost look at the customer symptoms and you've got it probably 50% dyag before you even put the key in the door.

Yeah, up, up, up.

Chevy Cruze check engine lights on no dropability complaint.

Okay, yeah, it's gonna need a valve cover.

It's got a 171 code.

Might need the intake to Perl stuff like that.

I had an F-150 the other day and I will say in this shop's defense that

I was telling somebody the other day so where the Christian brothers I worked that it was in Austin Metro, so we had emissions and if that check engine light was on.

I used to tell people this all time.

But that check engine lights on and it's got four codes in it.

Probably two or three of those codes are related.

The other one's just a strange oddball when now I'm doing my mobile stuff in a county that doesn't have emissions.

So now I'm getting to that car that has 12 codes in it and their complaint is a lack of acceleration.

And you're going when, where do I start?

I mean the fuel trim.

When I had the other day, one of my friends from Austin came to help me because I'm like you, I'd ran out of time, I had no more direction and it was like a oh, five, two, fifty with a five, four and their only complaint was lack of power when accelerating.

So while they're moving cars because we've partnered on the back 40, I Just scan the codes and I'm like, okay, lean bank one, lean bank two.

Okay, wait a minute.

Now I got like six transmission speed sensor codes.

I'm going all right, oh, and then now we have a throttle body Correlation with mass airflow sensor code and I'm like where are we starting with this?

Are we starting a transmission issue?

We have an engine issue.

Where do where are we going with this?

And um, then you get into the next problem, me and you run into and that's the man induced or apart problems.

And that was when I I remember that one because it had a V.

It's alone the same lines of what you're dealing with, except I had a VE of like 77, but you know, two sensors max out their wide open acceleration just lacks power.

I know just brand new cats, brand new o2 sensors.

I thought was a new throttle body and a new mass air flow system.

Okay so I told him at this point I said why'd you put the cats on it?

Well, the customer wanted them.

Okay, do we do we test them or anything?

No, we just put them on, okay.

So that's what we're dealing with here.

And I told him I was like well, do me a favor, do the back pressure test and give Me the results.

I Get a call back a couple days later.

We took the, we took the o2 sensors out.

It ran better.

So we put a muffler on and now we put o2 sensors back in, it runs back.

I'm like what a back pressure test.

And to this I Mean this truck.

The timing chain was slapping.

You were scared to do wide open throttles, because I was like to we're going to holes in the valve and I think in the end we told them look, we don't really have much direction, but we do know you have a foundational timing issue and we need to start there before we can continue testing.

And that's kind of where we left it at and, honestly, I had no more direction to go into.

Yeah, I'm not yeah, it's, it's tough to to polish some of these turrets, man.

And yeah, you know the state of the used car market right now.

I think you're seeing a lot more people that are desperate to keep their their turd going right and they let all these problems pile up for one reason or another.

Or they buy it that way or whatever it is, and now they want it, you know, fixed or drivable.

And yeah, you got to kind of sort through the the weeds of all of these different problems that have accumulated over several years, if not decade, plus what the shop or a customer has built into it.

And so that's a whole skill in itself is just trying to identify Exactly what the customer is after and what's causing it, and communication can be a big deal there too.

It was just like knowing why exactly did the customer bring this car in and what exactly did they want fixed on this o2 view eccentric, because it's not, I guarantee it's not everything.

Go buy a new car if they want everything fixed.

So what Specifically are we after on this vehicle to to make them happy and get them out the door?

So that that communication piece is huge.

But I Don't want yeah, and I guess I know I see what you mean.

And that and that was my biggest issue with that shop was Expectations and being new to the business.

You're trying not to burn bridges, you're not.

You're trying not to piss people off and At the end the first mistake I learned was on the very first I ag I went on for that shop.

I didn't set the X, I didn't set the ground rules and expectations correctly and I feel like if you don't set that early on, you're gonna pay for it later it's tough way, tougher to backpedal.

Yeah, and in the end I mean I don't.

I don't think I've went back to that shop personally.

I actually had their number programmed in my phone, so when I see it I probably won't go back, because that new, that new throttle body turned out to be an electronic throttle body rebuild kit and I'm going a what no like you've never heard of that.

What what is that?

I mean they're like oh, it comes with new motors and sensors, and I'm like, oh, that's not asking for a problem.

Yeah, that's okay if you want to.

You want to do that on your own personal vehicle.

You know that's something I would do, but boy, boy, yeah, that's like the old school, the Universal oxygen sensors that didn't have a connector everyone's.

So I get one of those from the parts, guy, what are what?

Yeah, I used to get so frustrated when I'd have that newer service rider and they would order one of those in.

I'm like what do you want me to do with?

this.

I mean I didn't write up labor time for splicing and I sure didn't write up the labor time to change it back out.

Yeah, yeah right, it's just an oxygen sensor.

It'll work on anything, yeah yeah, oh gosh, and that's.

You know, that's the other issue we I run into out here as part qualities, and you know when you Tell people you really should get that part specifically from the dealer.

I had finished up a truck here at the house for for kind of a retail customer that I know and I get done doing time and chains on this brand new from O'Reilly's motor.

It's out of time.

I get it done, I'm so excited, I'm so happy for myself, and about mile eight it starts misfiring and I'm like it's weird, why is it misfiring, though?

And it just gets worse and worse, and it felt like an ignition misfiring.

You know like how when the coils get hot, they start breaking down.

Had that feel to it, so I'm freaking out a little bit.

It's 108 degrees outside, so I just quickly swap cool swap plugs and it stayed on that socket.

I did relative compression, so I knew we didn't have an engine mechanical and You're gonna laugh at me about this, but this is the first time I've ever seen this.

All four of the injectors on that bank were clicking, even the one that was setting the code.

The misfire on cylinder Four or three, I think it was a cylinder four Injector was clicking with the stethoscope but when you put a scope on it you saw no panel action.

I Never seen that before.

Like I had to reach out to Brandon's deck work like dude.

I've never seen this before.

I can hear it clicking, yeah, but I see no panel movement.

And I kind of described to him and he goes what you have going on is most likely a Mechanical binding of the injector.

So the injector is actually it's the Ferris.

Metal is moving so slowly through the magnetic coil winding that it's not actually causing the disruption that we would see as a pencil home.

Oh, okay, okay.

And, and I'm guessing, the hotter it got, the more it bound up.

And a cleave was binding up, sure, but that was the first time I'd heard one click with the stethoscope but could not see action with a scope.

Yeah, I can't say that I've run into that and, to be totally honest, like once I got a scope, I Don't know how much I listened to them anymore.

I mean I did back in the day that was a definite, definite test, mm-hmm, but I don't.

Next one I get off to try and see, because I don't think I've done both.

I think it's always just been either listen or once I got a scope, it's been scoped.

So I'll have to try the next one I get and see.

Yeah, it blew my mind.

I mean the quick and dirty was just grabbed the stethoscope real quick and go down on, because I knew it was probably an injector issue.

So let's just go down the rail real quick and see.

You know, I guess this goes back to the diesel Injector buzz test.

It's like, okay, let's see if they're all making the same sure yeah yeah, that I was kind of what I went through, and it's funny because I actually have an injector waveform on my business logo.

Uh-huh, and my, my aunt trying to lay out the logo.

She, she's not automotive, she's, she's graphic design.

She wanted to make them symmetrical.

Oh, okay, and I was like please don't do that.

So you got one going the right way and one the other way, please.

Don't do that.

I was like Things are not working well in that engine.

If that's what's happening, it kind of jokingly with her, but I was serious.

I was like you do realize just all the ground side wave pattern.

There are people that can teach a one to two hour class Just on that wave form and she was like, really there's not that much going on.

And I was like, oh gosh, yes, there's a ton going on in that pattern that you have to pay attention to.

So it was just kind of funny her.

She just saw it as squiggly.

Yeah, I was thinking, man, I'm gonna get a vision with the backwards.

It'd be a never live that one conversation piece, because the people that picked it out, you know, those are your people.

Yeah, you know.

Well, I made.

I made enough mistakes in the beginning of starting this business and one of them was with my printing.

Okay, I had handed out 50 business cards and 50 flyers and the reason I kept track of all my shops and I want to say it was about number 47.

The guy started nitpicking my prices and he's was a thing on GM.

He goes well, you're $25 higher than the guy down the street.

I'm like well, does he come to you?

Oh no, yeah.

Okay, well, is that?

Where?

Is that worth 25 bucks?

And then he did the same thing on for and I just kind of looked at my go same answer.

And the last comment he made was he's looking at my business card, he looks at the flyer and he goes.

So which number do I call to get a hold of you?

And I go what, what do you mean?

Which number?

And he goes, was the one on the business card or the one in the flyer.

Oops, I was like whoops, yeah, the one, the one in the flyer, was wrong.

The phone number was wrong.

I guess I was so focused on Proofing and making sure the wording and the prices were right that I totally missed the phone number was wrong.

Dang.

So that's, that's mistake number three.

Yeah, I, um, I made the mistake of when I started this.

I started a part-time back in 2018 and for the first what would that have been?

Let's see once four years that I was doing it I used my personal number because I was only doing a handful of them.

You know that's that's like five or five or six shops.

I don't need a separate phone for that.

Well, now that it's full-time and I do have a work phone and I've Really tried to get out hey, this is my new number.

Please text this new number.

It's four years of People not only with my number, but giving my number out to other people.

I still.

I still I'm getting them on my personal phone.

So if anybody is starting out on their own, like even if it's part-time, get a work number.

I think there's ways you can do it through, like Google, where it changes your number, just do do it.

Don't use your personal number, because these Lovely customers will text and call you on, you know, sunday at eight o'clock at night to ask you about something, or you know mid-night on the Tuesday, you know, and I block those people, but that does happen.

So it's nice to be able to just Put away the work phone, shut it off, and so you got to get everybody on that one number.

Well, I didn't, you're right.

I mean, one of the first things we got once the EIN was kicked in, you know, once we had that part taken and care of, we did go get another cell phone and I did get You'll laugh about this.

So since I was Verizon business, they gave me basically like a whole home router modem.

Okay and I know Don and them looked at it.

When I showed it to them I said I'm a picture, and they looked at me and they go, that's what I got in my house.

I was like, yeah, I, I carry that box around, nice, but yeah, it's, it works.

But you're right, I had one shop that I do programming for I actually worked for.

Actually there's three shops they're that way I used to work for that do programming for, but one of them in particular he calls my personal number.

Now I have not laid, I've not set out some ground rules and been like dude, I only want you to call my business line, because he does have a service riders only calling my business line.

But he calls my personal and I'm okay with it.

We were on good terms.

But then, yes, I did get a phone call on my personal number from a retail customer About programming some keys and I was like, how did you get my number?

and when she told me, I Just I gently explained it to the business.

My business name is 4b automotive resources.

I want to be a resource for your business, not a competitor to your business.

So by me taking on retail customers, I appreciate you giving out my number, but by me taking on a retail customer, that's not helping your business.

Yeah, that's now putting me in direct competition.

And I just explained.

You know, from now on, just have them come to you, call me, give me the details, I'll give you the price.

You can then mark it up and make money.

Yeah, so what I have found is, a large percentage of the time, when a shop gives out your number to an individual, it's an individual that they don't want to deal with for a Lot of the times, legitimate reasons and they're like I don't want to handle this guy here.

Call this guy, he'll fix your problem, he'll make your key, he'll program your module.

And those are the types of people that have called me and I've Done my best to make it very clear.

Like, again, you don't want to come off as a huge dickhead.

Like don't send out my number but hey, I appreciate that you're Trying to help me with my business, but I am a business to business only Because of X amount of reasons, and usually you can tell pretty quickly If it's a shop or a person, and so I will ask that my first question after they call hey, I'm blah, blah, I need a key made.

I'm like, cool, where's your shop?

And that that's the like for sure.

Answer so like, oh well, it's like outside in the driveway at my house.

Oh sorry, yeah, you know, I'm only insured to do business.

Business had bring it to a shop and we can help you out there.

But yeah, doing individual work For whatever reason, just the particular stuff that we're doing.

There's only been a handful of people that it's been, you know, lucrative to even entertain that option, but the majority of it is just like I'd rather just deal with the shop it's.

It makes miss sense for so many more Reasons.

So that's another piece of advice for anybody who wants to do this.

No, don't think.

Hey, I'm so desperate for work that I'm gonna start taking on Individual stuff.

I, I just I wouldn't recommend it.

No.

So I'm fortunate that I actually do have a shop on my property and in the beginning I've got a diesel shop down the street.

They get a lot of gas, motor stuff and in the beginning they were just farming it out to me and it was nice.

Well, you know, when you know you didn't get that call today, so, but don't worry, I got a dodge out here to put time and chains on.

You know something, something like that.

And and I actually had to have a talk with him over the this past weekend I finished up a job for him and I just told him, hey, I need to not, I Need to scale back what I'm doing here so I can focus more on my mobile side.

And you know, it's nice when you have people that like that and want to help you out in the beginning.

But at the same time, I've had some great guys say, okay, well, which one are you gonna do?

Are you gonna be a auto repair shop or are you gonna be a mobile program?

Yeah, take your pick.

Great Many have tried to do both.

Yeah, it's really hard to do it as one person and I just had to think about that and you know.

So this week is mostly Building the business more.

I still have about 200 shops to get Flyers and business cards out to and that are in my area.

So that's that's my number one focus this week is to Get to try and increase the clientele base.

Okay.

And that's part of business and you know.

You brought up a good point about asking of you know a retail customer when their shop is.

I have to word that slightly differently out here in Texas because everybody has a shop.

Mmm Okay and I've already had one Is incident where I said where's your shop at?

He told me I got to it and I'm looking around going, well, where's the cars?

And he's like, oh, we actually own a transport business.

We usually have semi trucks in here.

This was his own personal truck.

He had put a, he had put a new Allison transmission in it and it needed to be programed.

And um, this goes back to finding out where is their shop, maybe even doing a Google on it real quick yeah.

Because I had to tap into their Wi-Fi my internet.

I had no internet whatsoever where I was at and I had to tap into it, ended up costing me a pair of Oakley sunglasses.

I'll probably never get those back.

So leave them in the truck or something.

I think so.

I.

Yeah, I've always said the best lessons in life cost me cash or blood.

I Got back in the car and went to put my Oakley's on and I'm like crap.

And I got out, walked around and I asked them and they're like no, we can't find it and I was like, oh well, they're gone.

But that also the other thing I've found that's been more beneficial dealing with shops versus retail customers is when you're talking to a shop, they maybe understand 50% of what you're telling me if you're doing good.

When you're dealing with a retail customer, you're if you're lucky, they, they understand 10% of what you're guys glaze over I.

I know that feeling very well.

I'm like, why am I even still talking?

And it's not like a hey, you're a dumbass sort of thing, it's just they're so far removed from our world that the basic concepts aren't even there.

So, explain, you get in the detail that we're going into.

There's no point, right?

I could be spitting nonsense and they just like, oh okay, cool, yeah.

So yeah, I know I know exactly what you mean there.

But if that, the scare, the scary part is when that's the shop, that's when I'm just like you shouldn't be doing this as a career.

No, and you know, as Tommy Tommy, I think mentioned on one of your podcasts that You're gonna start to feel bad because you look at some of the shops that you're like these, this place should go out of business, but I'm probably the reason why their doors stay and open.

Yep, and I've got a couple of them that are that way that I'm just like y'all.

Y'all really need to just go out of business and let them make room for somebody else.

And I Hear the same term in all of those shops, and I can think of at least five that I go to there that way.

And then one term I always hear is well, we're just helping the customer on this one.

Yeah right and usually what that, to me, is the code word for.

Either we're not charging them or we're not marking up what your bill is.

And it's like you know, in a real business sense, you buy the product for a dollar, you sell it for two, and that's how you keep the doors open.

And, yeah, I have, I'm starting to have that feeling now on some of the shops I go to.

Yes, should I just, should I just let you die in peace?

Or?

You know it's eye-opening and sometimes you have to make that decision and not with the Intent of I'm gonna screw this shop over, but there are just some situations where.

You know what you are doing or trying to do for that shop isn't helping anyone.

It's not helping you, it's not helping their customers, even though the shop might think it's helping them, it's not, and I did.

I had a fire shop recently that I've been, I've been working with for a while, but it just you know.

Yeah, I try my best to encourage them to like you know, hey, you should get some service information, or you know it, because they don't have any or hey, you should get an AC machine, because they keep calling me for AC diags.

And they had.

They don't even have a gauge set like, I'm like.

Why are you even, why?

Why are you even attempting, yeah, to do this?

But again, they're so far removed from the level where they need to be and that shouldn't be a professional repair shop that's charging people.

I am obsessed.

It shouldn't be, and there was a number of reasons why I was just tired of dealing with it.

I have.

I have so many other, more lucrative opportunities to help legitimate repair shops really genuinely help their customers in an honest and professional Professional manner that I want to go that direction rather than the opposite.

And so, yeah, and it's tough, because, at least for myself, I don't consider most of these places like these aren't complete assholes.

I Don't feel like the bad people oh, yes, those are out there but it makes me feel bad to just turn somebody down and say, you know, almost like I'm arrogant about it, like no, you don't deserve my help, but that's, that's.

It's not what it is.

It's just sometimes there's a business owner, you got to make those decisions.

Yeah well, yeah, at Christian brothers we had a term that you know, sometimes somebody is not your customer and I'm having to learn and do that is a oh my gosh.

That is a tough and hard decision, especially early on when you're like you know there's been plenty of shops up all into that.

I'm like I don't want to be in this shop.

But you know, you power through it.

One of stuff because when you're new it can be like a proving ground for you.

I had a couple shops like that where I'm like, okay, I can come in here, like I'm still figuring stuff out.

Hey, maybe if I screw something up it ain't that big of a deal, because they're screwing up stuff left and right, like this is my like when I'm gonna cut my teeth, sort of thing.

But then the problem becomes is yeah, now that's part of your, your business is serving, serving that shop and as you want to grow you you're severely limited if that's your customer base there.

So you have to kind of think big picture when you're making those calls.

I Was gonna say one up.

So when I first started handing out business cards and pliers, I got really, really happy about the shops call.

Oh man, I got a call yeah it's good feeling.

Um, yeah, yeah.

It's a great feeling and I will say we all, we have this one friend that he's very Straight and blunt on his comments and he thinks about it afterwards and he's worried.

He hurts your feeling.

But you really need those blunt comments, but he made the comment.

He's like be prepared, some of these shops that you have in the beginning, in 60, 90, 180 days they might not be your customer anymore and I've had to keep that in mind.

Like you know some of these shops that you know I'm super stoked to get a call from them.

They might not be my customers in a few months.

Either we just don't see eye to eye on something or I'm too busy doing programming and helping these other people and they're not calling me as much.

Customers come and customers go.

It's a scary feeling in the beginning because you're like man, that one time I say no might be the last time I say no.

So you got to take them as a comment.

I just thought it was real funny, somebody at that class making the comment well, it must be nice to get to pick and choose whatever you work on.

Yeah, okay, yeah, you're looking at the romantic cowboy side of this.

Not always.

Okay.

So in your decision this is something I was curious about asking you about in your decision to go full-time mobile, to not be an employee somewhere at a shop what were some of the biggest factors that drove you to that point?

Honestly, it was time with family.

We had had something that changed at the shop where, basically, I'd been told I no longer had personal time.

I was now a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week employee.

I was like, not really, Not when I'm working.

Yeah, I will take those hours when it's my name on the check, Not the other way around.

Like I said in my previous podcast, I've been working in shops since 96.

I started realizing I was working for someone else's dream.

They had delegated all their personal responsibilities on to me for their dream.

So if I'm going to take on these responsibilities, why not it be my dream?

Somebody told me in the beginning they thought mobile only had 10 more years to go.

They thought they hurt my feelings when they said that and I just said I look at it this way.

I got a 50-50 chance.

I mean, are they going to make it or not?

And my drive, my networking, my skill set, my determination will skew those odds more my favor.

And last time I checked it was better than playing a lot.

So you know, and I would much rather look back and say I tried, I didn't succeed.

I won't say fail, I'll say I didn't succeed and I learned the lesson versus looking back and saying, damn, wish I would have tried.

So that's the other main thing.

Now the selfish reason behind it was I've gotten tired of putting in engines and transmissions.

I got tired of doing that kind of work, and you can only do so many 5.3-liter

engines before it just becomes monotonous like factory style work.

And the programming was still new to me.

So it still quenched that thirst.

For I want to know why.

I want to do something new and I honestly I've learned more about programming in the last three months than I probably have in the last two years.

Yeah Well, just because of doing a, the diagnostic thing too is yeah, you're learning on steroids 100%.

Oh, oh yeah, and it just, it was one of those things.

I had already started acquiring equipment for this decision, but, like I said, I wanted to be able to get off at 5 o'clock, at least see my kids, and then okay, well, they go to bed.

All right, now I got to go back out and work.

I've got to brush up on my skills.

I got to make sure my software is up to date.

Good Lord, which server crashed today?

Stuff like that.

Yeah, stuff like that.

But that was honestly, it was personal, it was family.

I felt like it was time All those things went into the decision making to go mobile on my own.

My wife was adamant.

She goes I do not want you to open an auto repair shop.

Personally, my heart wasn't in opening an auto repair shop, but at least with the programming it was still new, it was still fresh.

It was still that thing I wanted to learn.

You probably had times like that in your career where you're like gosh, another break job.

I could do this with one hand behind my back and an eye closed and possibly even the flip.

But man, this dyag over here, I haven't done one of these in a while.

This is kind of fun and challenging.

That's how it every day is.

That's literally how every day for me is.

Yeah.

The part-sanging did get that same way.

For me it was just like a factory worker when you're doing wheel bearing some breaks and ball joints yeah, good money, but it's not stimulating me in any way.

I could pop in my headphones and listen to a YouTube video or a podcast or something and be completely focused on that.

My hands just do the thing and get the break thing safely.

I wasn't leaving bolts loose, it was just literally that much autopilot because I'd done it hundreds and hundreds of times.

You're not engaged with that.

You're not challenged.

Yeah, you're not challenged.

No, I mean, maybe a bolt breaks every once in a while, but I don't know.

That's not the kind of challenge I want.

This side of things, yeah, it changes that dramatically.

No, two days for me doing this.

I don't think I've ever been the same.

The programming can become that If you've done 106.080s

, the next one ain't going to be that much different.

Well, gm server might not work, but the programming, okay, we'll click here, click there.

Even with that, it's changing all the time.

They change your setup.

You have to figure out this new software.

This browser doesn't work today.

Oh, it doesn't see my VCI today.

Oh, I can't have this software on this computer.

Even with that, there's obstacles, there's challenges.

I think for me it's important for me to offer various services too.

Ados is that new exciting thing for me right now that I'm learning as I go.

I remember the first time I did an Ados calibration I bought my equipment this spring.

I had that feeling.

I was actually like my hands were shaking a little bit when I did it going into a shop and doing it.

That was how I felt the first time programming.

I remember the very first time I programmed a control module for a shop it was a GM fuel pump control module on a Chevy truck.

I had that same feeling.

I was just jacked about doing something completely outside of my normal thing.

I was like, yeah, I want to do this, I want more of this.

I totally understand what you're saying.

Chase in that feeling.

Yeah, in the way of thinking, it's funny to me because from the outside, looking at the other mobile guys, I saw that romantic freedom like oh, that's a cool, sexy thing to do.

You tell the shop exactly how it goes and you just walk out with a check.

And now that I'm actually doing it, I do want people who are on the fence to realize.

I mean, it's not all rainbows and unicorns every day of the week.

You have days that everything goes as smooth as glass and then sometimes guys will call me and go how's your day going?

The only way I can respond to them is smooth like sandpaper.

Yeah, yeah, I mean it's not going good today.

That's the problem is, you can have a day like that where every single thing you touch and some things that even you didn't touch are going to go to crap and there's nothing you can do about it except for push through and grind through and figure out how to get to the next day.

That's an important point to bring up too.

Yes, the image of the mobile program or diagnostician, whatever it is, is, like you say, a sexy.

It's romanticized when we look at it in a YouTube video or a Facebook post or whatever.

I remember watching Keith DeFazio's videos.

I'm just like that dude is so goddamn cool.

I want to do that this isn't just credit, keith.

He's an incredibly smart person so he probably didn't have too many moments where he at least at the point of his career he was making those videos.

He was able to slam through those cars.

But you don't necessarily see all of the ass kickings that you're going to get and the failures that you're going to have and the shortcomings that you definitely have that I definitely have when I get out there.

You're just going to have to work through that.

I think you got to be honest with yourself to say, hey, can I look at the big picture and actually appreciate those things too?

Right, the things that challenge me and things that are difficult for me?

Can I be honest and say, yeah, these are good for me in the long run?

If I can push through them, then even that is a good part.

I welcome it to a point.

I don't want all my days to be shitty, but the ass kickings are good in the long run because they make me better down the road.

Well, I will tell you the one stereotype about the mobile guys that I didn't understand in the beginning, but now I'm starting to understand.

It was a lot of the mobile guys.

You realize that they only sleep about four hours a night, yeah, no kidding.

I was always wondering.

I would hear my private chat going off at two in the morning.

Like, dude, it's a Wednesday night.

What are y'all doing?

Talking about fuel trims?

I now know what two o'clock in the morning on a Wednesday night looks like.

I mean because, yeah, I joked with my wife about it I call it the programmer's sleep schedule, because there are nights where you're up to 11, 12, 1, 2 in the morning.

Man, I just got to try and power through this module.

I got to figure this out.

Yeah, get that software set up on it?

Why won't this thing you know this software work on this laptop?

Why can't I download this file?

Yeah, yeah, and see that's also been.

My biggest problem is I never was a PC guy Me neither.

I just never was a laptop guy and I'll never forget battling for three days and just being so frustrated with Chrysler why can't you release this laptop it's already preloaded, ready to go and then loading it all onto a new laptop and three days later I'm still going.

Why is this not working?

And you know, a buddy team views in.

10 minutes later we think we got it and a week later we find out we don't got it.

You know it's.

You have those challenges like that.

Did you get your files downloaded the other day?

Yes, I did get them taken care of.

Yes, thank you to Matt Wallace.

Absolutely Dude.

That guy's awesome.

He spent quite a while working and if you asked me tomorrow and said, look, I'll give you a million dollars to redo exactly what he did, I'll be like I got yeah just going, it's not always both of our times.

But yeah it's.

I mean I've got a membership to L1.

So I've watched the videos in fact I've watched the videos while I was trying to set it up but it's just that unknown variable.

We run into it as mobile guys.

We run into it out in the field.

I tell before I program any module for somebody, I always tell them there is a risk of something happening.

And I just want you to be aware of this risk before we proceed further.

And I heard myself say that to a shop today when I programmed a fuel pump control module on a GM.

I told them that and it made me think back to about 10 years ago.

I used to enjoy doing window regulators.

I don't know why, I just did.

I like doing window regulators back before.

They were the ones that attached to the big door panels, you know, while they were still easy.

You know good stuff like that.

And I remember an old guy saying well, how many windows have you broken?

And I go I haven't broken any.

Well, you haven't done enough yet.

That's the way I feel about modules.

It's like how many have you broken?

You haven't done enough yet.

Yeah, so I still have that fear on a.

I still have that weird feeling on a few of them, like should I hit?

enter Should.

I hit enter.

Yeah, don't cycle the key back.

Right, right, well, I mean, yeah, you've got a good network of people, so that's a good feeling to have is like, okay, something screws up.

I got some people I can call some people that will help me some ideas, maybe just someone to say, hey, it's not the end of the world, it's you got to pay for a way to go get another one, it'll be fine.

And I'm going to.

I'm going to tell anybody listening to this a mobile guy is only as good as his friends.

Yeah.

Make friends, make good friends.

Um, you know we always talk about in the automotive repair side.

It's getting to the point where one person can't know everything.

I think in the mobile and the programming and the diag stuff I can only think of probably one or two people I would consider close to knowing everything, uh, like the Google Um.

But the rest of you know, and we have a small network of friends that I'm in in a private chat and it's funny because one of the guys has never worked in auto repair shop, never worked on cars before in that style setting, but yet dude is a master of module.

Okay.

But yet when it comes to drivability usually like he's calling me or one of the other guys in the car because that's what I bring to the table and that's kind of how this works.

If you're thinking about doing this, find out who your friends are and start building that network around you, Because I can tell you right now it's as awesome as I could have bragged about myself.

I wouldn't be.

I wouldn't be 75% of where I am without my network.

I really wouldn't say is it same here?

having Having that network around.

I mean I hope the one day to be able to contribute as much as they're contributing to me.

But at the same time, dude, these guys have been doing this a while.

It's ever changing.

It's fast moving.

I mean, by the time you think you got it, a server crashes.

Right and well, yes, some of these guys been doing it for like 10 years and you think about again like what we're doing and how much we're learning on a daily basis compared to what you were outside of this and you just extrapolated that out over a decade and they're just light years ahead of you when you're starting out.

And so, yeah, it is tough sometimes to be like boy, what can I actually contribute to these people?

But yeah, you just got to keep pushing along and even if you know you just one little thing here or there, you know that's helpful and then kind of pay it back to the you know people coming up behind you too.

I guess it's the way that I look at it.

Yeah, and what's crazy is I can tell by how much the Facebook message ping goes off.

I can usually start to judge how fast and how quick it is.

I need to look at that.

I think a server just crashed.

Yeah, because when it starts pinging about every three seconds it's like, oh crap, what server just went down.

And a funny story one of my first shops, I it was a nice shop out in the middle of nowhere.

I introduced myself to him and the guy asked me how much do you charge for GM transmissions to program them?

And I gave him a price and he goes.

Well, I got three of them out there and I looked at him I go three, you got three, and he goes.

Yeah, I got three of them to go in three Jasper units and I kind of made him a deal if he would have all three of them ready to go at one time.

But a week later he called me.

He had all three of them ready to go and I get out there.

I programmed the first one, I unhooked my stuff, I walked to the next day in the GM servers crash.

I was like me and my first time coming to the shop.

This is amateur hour.

And I actually gave him the option and this goes back to your networking.

I had people in Austin that had aftermarket tooling where we could have cloned the modules and I gave him that option.

I said, if you want, I'll make a rundown in Austin, borrow one of the tools from one of my friends and come back and and I'll clone them for you.

And he just said, now, let's just wait till tomorrow.

Maybe the server will be back up tomorrow.

So he understood.

But that also goes into having your network.

I mean, it's really if you thought having that triple bank snap on toolbox full of tools in a shop that going mobile, you wouldn't have to have that much.

Oh contrary, or my prayer, that's why these guys drive me yeah, yeah.

I mean like, yeah, I mean you've seen the picture of my 2001 Honda Accord.

I have to organize the trunk, just right, so to call it.

Even then.

I haven't even started getting into the module cloning yet that's.

That's been my other thing this week.

We had a, we had a good week last week and this week we're gonna start purchasing some cloning tools just to have for backup when servers go down, or you know, those people are trying to use module route like I got a call for doing a computer in a 08 sob, a PCM that I think I'm going to end up just cloning it to the new.

Okay okay, so was that an E module?

That on that one.

I think.

I think one of the guys told me it's a E 55 okay and I think I can use a PC tuner or PCM tuner or, if you really want to hit the lottery, we could buy.

I think it's K tag, does it?

Or?

Okay or no, I'm sorry.

Yeah, one of them does it that's the tough part, is like either tool does what I have?

no clue, oh so are you having the same issue?

I'm having, like, coming out of a shop, if somebody says, well, that's a E 59 GM computer, I'm like, okay, yeah, I'll go with you on that.

But I'm looking at, I'm going, okay, what computer is going to go in?

this 05 GM with a 5.3

liter to you will sure that I'm used to ordering parts by the model of the vehicle.

So when I'm looking at these cloning tools, I'm seeing these list of modules and I'm going.

I have no clue what these modules are yeah, like you get a few that's the hard part, yeah it is.

You got a few for it.

More as you do it, google is your friend there.

Obviously the on for those, specifically the GM engine controllers.

If you look between the aluminum fins, the E number will be there.

It'll also be on the tag on the back.

But sometimes the tag on the back is gone.

So you look between the fins they'll say E 78 or E 87 or whatever it is for that for those in particular.

But yeah, the the number correlations, and which number am I using to match to this one?

it's it's crazy, but that, yeah, we deal with that all the time.

Repair repair link shop is your friend.

That's huge and figuring out a lot of the stuff.

I'll use car dash parts sometimes to try to sort through.

They actually have a pretty good organization of part numbers when you're looking stuff up and what application goes to what it's, it's not half bad.

I wouldn't rely on it a hundred percent but for a quick look up it can kind of help you gauge what parts you might need for what application and, and you know, the tricky part about going from a shop into the mobile world is there is stuff that I'm doing now that we would have never thought about doing in a shop like.

The other day I got called out to a shop.

He understood it was going to be a less try, but it was a 98 Silverado 1500 with the Vortech motor.

The VATS module had failed and it was obsolete.

Yeah, and he's like truck won't run and I said, well, let me see what I can do.

I think I might be able to put it on the bench and get rid of the get rid of the security system in the PC.

Yeah, and sure enough, I brought the black box you see the black box PCM home and benched it and I actually put it on my Facebook page, just kind of a joke.

You know how much do you bench bro, that would be a great t-shirt you got to make that.

That is fantastic.

That was that, honestly, was the.

I had done one module before on the bench just read it and see if I could do it, but that was the first module I'd actually read, altered and pushed back in on the bench nice, so it was kind of exciting.

They just whipped out that go-diag that I've owned for like three months now and hooked it up and yeah use the little HP tuner action and made it work yeah, when people call me for BMW footwell modules and then I asked Michael, did it fail after a battery disconnect?

Because they asked me, can you program one, a new one?

I'm like, well, I can, but how did it fail?

I was like I can fix that old one for you, you can fix it, and that's the thing.

Like people had myself included like go back like three years ago, I didn't know that was the thing.

Of course it doesn't communicate module, but some of this stuff now, yeah, there's all are you know different methods, and that that again is credited to the incredibly intelligent people that met along the way, because otherwise how would you know about something like that?

I don't think, if you give me a hundred years, I don't think I'd figure out how to fix a BMW footwell module on my own, but somebody did and now I can utilize that, as you know, a tool of my business.

So having those people in your corner is massive and it's yeah, it's that that brings up another point about going mobile is knowing your market area.

You know, I know a lot of my mobile guys were talking to me about building up my euro packages and I know my market area.

I actually work as a tech in this market area.

I might do the few, the few and far between euros that are here in the area are third and fourth owner clapped out seven series BMWs, so I haven't started tooling up much for the euros yet I just and honestly, I think the only one I've turned down was somebody called me about doing it at FRM module on a Volvo mm-hmm okay yeah.

But I was like, look, I don't have Vita, I don't have any of that stuff set up yet, and I just kind of graciously bowed out.

But you have an eye scan just, I do not have an eye scan, put it on your list, though you don't need to buy it tomorrow but that needs to be on your list.

That is such a phenomenal tool.

For the guy who doesn't own every euro tool, which is me, mm-hmm, it fills the gaps and is quite impressive.

And then you have some support on demand programming it's.

It belongs in every mobile guys fan, in my opinion oh dude, I was actually talking to a shop today about the eye scan.

They were the shop I did the GM programming for.

He said, you know, he wasn't this, he does his own Ford and GM programming but his, his, a snap-on pass through pro bit dust okay so that's why I got the GM programming from him today, nice.

But um, he was.

He was talking to me about euro stuff and I'm like, look, there's only two euro shops, if you don't count the dealerships, and we're on a military base, you know.

So they're, they're clapped out.

But you're right, I do need to look into the eye scan.

I just haven't had that many calls for me.

My top three list is an Nissan vi 3 is number one.

Sure, a Pico is going to be my number two, which I've got the all-till 4 channel okay so it kind of feels that goal there, that little hole.

Yeah, you can get by the number.

Yeah, the number three is going to be probably the MDP from Christ yeah okay, because I'm I'm still J 25, 34 and the Chrysler yes.

I know there's going to come a time yeah, yeah.

There's going to come a time where it's not going to work and stuff like that so but that brings up the next point, going mobile.

Yeah, I probably came loaded more than some of our predecessors, but still it's hard to have every tool.

Yeah, and there's always another tool, awesome new.

Yeah like oh, give it time, hey, bottom all.

Oh well, this new one now are we just phase this version to work?

Yeah, you can't transfer your licenses oh, I'm seriously waiting on about a year or two, and then Chrysler is gonna go.

Yeah, my car pod to get there yep, yep, or in the up, just whatever manufacturer makes something new.

Nissan for like.

It's a separate thousand plus dollar subscription for console for you know, mm-hmm, what are you gonna do?

What they need?

yeah, but I ran into this one today and I don't know if you've had to deal with it much at a shop, call me about programming a transmission on a Honda and I was like, yeah, no problem.

He told me he had had two CVT transmission jobs from Nissan that he had turned away because the local dealer had said had been telling people when they bought brand new CVTs from them it had to go back to the dealer to be programmed mm-hmm so that was part of my calm.

One of my phone calls today was talking with the service manager, and the parts manager at that, at the local Nissan dealership, going is this a Nissan USA policy or is this your dealership policy?

And come to find out.

It was just the way they were, quote unquote, advising customers yeah, great, well, thanks.

You're taking a lot of money off of my table right, right, yeah, that's.

There's a few dealerships like that that they're trying to keep some stuff in house.

There's a local Ford place if maybe I shouldn't even say this in case people are listening but if you buy a Ford part from them, like a control module, they will drive to your shop within a certain range and program it for free.

So I miss out instantly on any of those Ford programings.

But you know, yeah, well, I guess it's.

Everybody has a right to, you know, try to capitalize on a market the way that they will, and and we just have to find.

It's up to us as business owners to kind of be savvy and not just rely on one thing, I think.

I think we should always be looking towards what's the next.

You avoid that we're able to fill with our services right, because there is always going to be a next thing that's needed, that there's a gap in skill or parts or whatever.

It might be that, hey, we're intelligent, we're crafty, we can figure out how to take care of this problem.

But you have to kind of look towards the future and see, you do your best to see what's coming and what's the next thing that I can provide a service for, like.

For me, one of the things that I'm thinking about in the future it's a big investment, so that's why I'm not jumping on it right away is having a rescue charger for these hybrid battery packs, because I'm seeing I'm dealing with the hybrid specialty shop now, so slightly slightly bias, because I'm seeing a lot, though, where these things get cranked down to the point where the battery drops below the usable percentage

, and it's either you have a rescue charger, which are like 10 grand with the special connections for that particular manufacturer, or you buy a new battery or you rebuild it, and that's it, like you don't have another option.

And in a lot of these cases, the battery wasn't even the problem.

They had a motor that wouldn't start, they ran it out of gas, that that happens, and they drain that battery down to the point where we won't crank anymore right, and so what are you doing?

That case?

So my thought is okay, I'll make the investment 10 grand or whatever it is for rescue charger and get the connections, and now I charge you X amount of dollars to come out and charge this battery back up, just so that we can get to the point to actually diagnose the problem, but that's, I don't know five, six hundred dollars.

I'm just coming up with a number.

But you'd be able to charge a premium rate because that's a hell of a lot cheaper than replacing the battery.

So just just an example, and feel free to steal that if you want to go ask your charger.

But no that sort of thing is like what?

What is going to be an obstacle for customers and shops in the future?

And am I able to provide that service?

Because, hey, does over the air programming take away, you know, my business there?

Does remote programming take away my business there?

It very well could, or at least, take a big chunk of it.

So am I just gonna like sit back and, okay, I'm not gonna do anything?

No, let's try to try to look ahead and try to add some services.

That's why I'm doing keys, that's why I'm doing Ados.

It's like I can.

I can pivot in different directions to keep my my you know, stay busy and is the base.

Well, like you said, you know, like we said, you got to kind of know your market, know your clientele, and that goes back to going mobile is also knowing the laws of your areas.

You know us down here in Texas we're we're dealing with key cutting laws and, you know, trying to figure out a way to get around though I shouldn't say get around those, but you know, work, work in the gray, as I should say um, and figure out situations that way.

Um, I do know.

This is actually kind of funny.

I live on a country road about five doors down.

I was pulling out one day and here comes one of those protect fans pulling out of a driveway and my dude, my competitor, lives five doors down.

Um, but this goes to not be an asshole.

I've already gotten calls.

He's already handed out my number to some shops on jobs.

He couldn't do so yeah yeah you gotta.

Just because, coming from a shop mentality, a lot of shops I worked in they wanted to see every shop around them fail.

Well, you in the mobile world, you almost need to hope a little bit that your competitor is going to succeed and that y'all can work together.

Um, now, I'm not saying you should be buddy buddy with your competitor and maybe not try and take some of his customers, but you you shouldn't just be a jerk and like run the guy off the road either no competition as long as, yeah, you're not doing anything um, you know, spiteful or shady, I don't think competition is a bad thing.

I think done right where both parties are trying to provide the best service possible it can, if it's going to force you to improve what you offer.

Because hey, look at John's mobile service over there.

They're really making people happy with their service, they're doing a good job and they're making a lot of money.

How can I do it at equal or better than John?

What can I provide?

And had John not been there?

Well, you don't necessarily have the motivation to improve, you're just like, well, this is what I do for them and that's it.

So I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing.

Now, of course there's you know there's assholes out there, oh yeah that that's.

That's tough to deal with if you have one of those people, or you have people driving the price down.

Yeah, things like that um.

When I went mobile I knew there was a shop in the next townover that did a lot of programming for the other shops and I'd say half the people I gave out business cards to said this one shop does their programming for them.

I'm like oh okay.

Well, you know, I just kind of was like well, do they come to you or do, or how does that work?

I just had to sell the value and what I'm bringing to the table, you know the fact they're not having to transport it over to them.

And honestly, I thought that shop would get kind of mad at me until I started talking to them and they just they kind of said, yeah, we've been doing the programming.

We haven't had any competition in the area, we haven't had anybody else doing what you do.

But, honestly, we don't necessarily like doing programming because by the time we get to that one, you know, is our stuff up to date?

What has changed?

And next thing, you know, I started getting a few phone calls from shops and I would ask them hey, where'd you get my number from?

Oh well, that shop gave them my number.

I was like wow.

And so I actually started sharing some information with them.

Like when the Ford servers went down, I called them up and just kind of said, hey, little FYI, the Ford servers are down today.

So if you see your technician out there trying to program a Ford, it looks like he's about to off himself.

Don't worry, it's not him.

And it's not your equipment, it's the servers.

Right.

And next thing, you know, I think I've gotten a couple of phone calls from them about one of them was programming a Ford AAPM.

I was like, yeah, I'll take it on.

I hate to tell you this but there's a very risky modules to program.

They tend to break easy and I can't give you a set price because I've seen them take two to four hours to program.

So, and then they called me on a hunt.

They called me on a Honda also, but then I've had other shops I'd be like so where'd you get my number from?

Oh well, that shop gave it to us.

So I really need to go.

I really need to go take them a couple of dozen donuts one day.

Yeah, for sure, I try to take care of the good shops like that, but yeah, I can't tell you there's been specific shops.

It's a smaller world than you think that we live in.

You know there's so many people in so many shops, but so many people know each other and run in the same circles and shops talk to each other, shop owners and people move from one place to another, and so if you do a good job and you're not a complete dickhead, your name will get passed around a lot, way more than you think.

I mean, I've done a little bit of marketing, like I've handed out some flyers in attempts recently to like get some 8-O stuff and at the beginning, but the majority of my work has just been word of mouth.

That's how I get more shops and more business is doing a good job at one place and they recommend you to another, and so that that would be the key for anybody who's just looking to spread the word is yeah, you got to go shake some hands, you got to pound the pavement to get out there when you start, but the key is is okay, once I get into a place, I do the best job that you can and you know, be professional and friendly as much as it

is reasonable, and you'll get your your name spread around to different shops.

That's the way to do it.

Well, and at the same time I mean you look at the variables you can control.

Nice, I don't consider that a variable you can control, because you have certain overheads, you have certain expenses, you have certain things you got to cover.

So your price is your price.

But what can I control?

I can control the quality of the product I turn out and I can control the timely manner I do it in.

So the number one things I try and advocate the shops is you know, yes, you can take it to the dealer.

You know, spend that time doing that.

Yes, you can take it to that shop that does all the programming for everybody.

But the difference between me and them is I'm in and out in 24 hours.

I do tell them.

Eventually, one day it's going to become 48, you know.

But for right now, if you call me today, I'm scheduling you for tomorrow and I try and control the variables you can control.

And somebody told me one time before you don't let outside influences affect your feelings.

Who's?

You are the ones that can control your own feelings.

I just use that same mantra when it came to business.

It's like okay, what variables can I control?

Well, I can control the product.

You know I can do a shitty job or I can do a good job.

That's all on me.

And what's the other thing I can control?

The time, the convenience and time factor.

So try and focus, if you're true.

If you're new and you're just wanting to go out on this, control what you can control.

Yep, you can't control GM server, unfortunately.

No gosh no.

And I still, to this day, I mean okay, I use Google every day.

I've never once had to uninstall and reinstall Google.

I use Microsoft, I use QuickBooks.

Never once have I had to uninstall and reinstall it.

Why is it?

every manufacturer software.

When it doesn't work, it's uninstall and reinstall.

Oh man, that's a fantastic point and I agree.

Yeah, I've never had to take PowerPoint off of my computer before.

No, I came to that realization a few months ago whenever I forgot I was something I was doing at Christian Brothers, and it was.

I had to uninstall IDS and reinstall it.

And I'm sitting there thinking man, in all the computer program, even the computer games I played as a kid, I never had to uninstall and reinstall why is it no?

E-manufacturing software.

It's always uninstall, reinstall and try again.

How about?

today one of my laptops went down and I had to program a GM, but I didn't have everything set up on that one, so I just had to go to the old school.

I couldn't remember the password either, so I had to go in and just buy one VIN slot and I was going through it and I was like this sure does feel a lot different.

I even had to send a picture to my friends and I'm like wait a minute, why is it doing this?

And they're like dude, close it and open it again.

It might take you about four or five tries, it'll eventually go through.

And I'm just like, oh, why is I mean?

What's the GM?

Hokey, chrysler has a rolling pin, gm has a daily Hokey Pokey of what you got to do.

Yeah, yeah, trust me.

And what's funny is, depending on who you talk to, I'll just do it this way, maybe do it in this order and do this with a computer, and it'll work just fine.

And like no dude, I tried that.

I tried the four other things and it still doesn't work.

How about the other day in our private chat somebody was having a GM problem and I think I saw at least five or six guys chime in with how they do it and all, five or six of them were different.

Oh, just do this, it'll be fine.

Yeah, it's like, why does standing on your left foot touching?

Your right ear before you hit or work on your laptop, but on mine I have to stand on my head.

No, no, no you, and then you're a whistle dixie at the same time.

Yeah.

It's like.

It's like my MDI too.

Occasionally I will get that thing to boot up and work just fine, and I will do the exact same thing on the next vehicle and it won't work.

And I'm going everybody's like, oh, I always do it like this on mine and it's always work.

And I'm like, well, great, I just did it that way on mine and it won't do it now, you know you're an old priest and a young priest.

It.

Just it makes me laugh.

But I mean I think the other part that is kind of funny is I told you I wasn't ever a PC guy and yet everywhere I go I got three laptops, a tablet, stuff like that.

It's like yeah, I took a crash course in computers when I took on this job, because I was pretty base level.

I could do a Google search and use Microsoft Word and that was about it, and so now I'm like, not that I'm an expert on it, but I know so much more about it than I used to prior to this.

Well, I think so.

About the VCM, the VCM three from Isaac, and I was just getting my IDS and a FDRS setup and I kept getting a JRE error.

Like I'm searching, I got people trying to help and finally I just had to throw in the towel and reach out to somebody in particular and he's like, oh, that's a Java error.

And then, when you know, like a week or two later, I saw somebody post the picture.

I'm getting this weird errors.

I'm trying to I'm like, oh, I know exactly what that is.

It's a Java error.

Well, how do you fix that?

I don't know, but it's a Java error.

That's what it means.

I don't know I had to get somebody else to help me too.

I saw your friend.

Yeah, what it ended up turning was I had downloaded the wrong version of Java and that's you know.

Aimless plug, the Keith Perkins at L1 Diagnostics.

You won't get into programming and you have never done it by the membership, because I mean what you would.

I like it.

When people go, it's just like loading, it's just like downloading any other program.

What?

are.

These are like downloading any other program.

You install Otis on your computer and tell me that you will disagree.

And you know and knowing ahead of time, I'll never forget.

I got a call to do a Chrysler.

I didn't have my Chrysler set up Of all things Chrysler.

Everybody kept telling me it's going to be about 48 hours.

I'm going, everything was done in 12 on everything else, and now this one's 48 and they're like, oh, wait till you get to Otis or Istha.

And I'm like, okay, so just be prepared for that kind of stuff.

The fun never ends.

No, no, I guess I used to tell people one of the things I loved about working on cars was once you figured out everything there is to know next year model come out.

Well, that works, except in programming, because in two weeks the new version will come out of the software and you got to download it with fingers crossed that it's going to work and pray to God you have another laptop that has the old version on it, because the new one that just came out sucks.

Yeah yeah, oh, don told me in the beginning he goes you're going to learn to have backups to backups to backups and I have since learned that you know three different laptops.

you know, even my business laptop has some programming stuff on it ready to go, just in case something happens to the other laptop or things like that.

And the different programs that are out there, they never, they never end.

Once you understand the OE, well, guess what?

There's these other aftermarket ones that can do stuff that the OEs can't do, and you're going to need this one for that job.

So it's a never ending battle, like you said.

Yes, sir.

I bought a used Isaac laptop and I had to beg him one night to go spend two hours going through it telling me what all the programs were.

I think I only knew what maybe 25% of the programs were on that laptop.

I was like, what's this?

Orange five?

Yeah, stuff like that.

Yeah, good stuff, good stuff.

The last tip I'll give any person thinking about doing this is do not get caught up in the romantic, sexy idea that a mobile guy sets his own rules and does whatever he wants.

No, no, no, about the time you think you're your own boss.

Gm.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, gm owns you.

GM or Nissan.

Yeah, yeah, like you said, it is not all unicorns and rainbows, and so you got to be willing to embrace that and, if you can, I think it's worth it, but it's not for everybody, so definitely don't everybody listening to this in a shop quit your job tomorrow.

It is not for everybody, just like working in a shop is not for everybody.

This is the right job for some people, and so hopefully some of the stuff that we discussed tonight for somebody who's even thought about this can hear and say, yeah, that sounds like something that I would be willing to take on, or like that all sounds terrible.

Why do you guys do that every day?

Okay, well, the role in the shops probably more suited for you and there's a spot for everybody.

So thanks for sharing your experiences.

I'm excited to see where you go with this.

Thank you, sean, and thank you for being part of my network.

Yes, sir.

All right, that's going to do for today's episode.

Thank you, ben, for joining me.

I really appreciate it.

Also like to thank everybody out there for listening and all the feedback I've been getting about the show.

Hey, if you got an idea for something you'd like to see on the podcast or you would like to be on the podcast, feel free to reach out to me.

I'm on Facebook, shoot me a message through Messenger the best way to get a hold of me there.

Otherwise, my email is also in the show notes and, hey, we'll figure it out.

I'm always down to talk to interesting and passionate people in the industry.

But with that all out of the way, let's get out there and start fixing the world, one car at a time.

204: Is Entrepreneurship Right For You? With Ben Varnadoe

Infiniti Q50

Nissan 370Z

Jeep Wrangler

Chevrolet Cruze

Ford F150

Metro Austin Metro

Tesla Semi

Honda Accord

Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG

BMW E87

Chevrolet Silverado

Dodge Charger

About this episode

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