315: Clayton Olive & Vasko Serovski

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 L1Training.com 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 L1Training.com.

The link is in the show notes.

I mean, I'll just let you kind of take the lead and we'll see where this goes.

I'll jump in whenever.

I'm going to lead you guys to the promised land.

Stay with me, guys.

Click it to your bricket.

I love it.

Mash it until you crash it.

Mash it until you pass it.

What's up, everybody?

Not too much.

Doing well.

How about yourself?

Good.

So, I'm going to cut straight to the point because I think these gentlemen have to get

to work because it's, uh, what time is it for you guys?

Five in the morning?

No, 8.30.

8.30.

Yeah.

Oh, 8.30.

Hey, are you guys supposed to be working?

Yeah.

We're about four hours.

And so, you know, I, um, I had the pleasure of meeting these two gentlemen.

Um, as you guys will know, I just came back from my trip to, to down under Australia and

New Zealand.

And I was, uh, it was, I was honored to be invited to teach at the double, the Auto

Care Expo in Brisbane, Australia.

And, uh, Voss has been in my class and I think he messaged me before a bunch of dumb shit

about be careful with the drop airs and all this other bullshit that the Australians

tell Americans to come visit and fuck up their country for them.

So he has been in my classes and I didn't know anything about Mr. Clayton, but because

I was doing a lot of research in programming for Australia and their new right to repair

it, um, their access to right to repair it in a nutshell, um, Clayton and amongst others

were added to a group that I was in and we all kind of, they all kind of helped

me out in, in presenting my classes to, to their market.

And when I got down there, I was pretty, pretty floored to see the amount of, uh, it's gonna

sound pretty messed up, but I didn't know what to, what to expect, especially going

out of the country.

I don't know anybody, but, um, I met a lot of highly skilled technicians, man, and

a lot of highly skilled technicians who, who you can tell love training.

And that was, that, that for me was actually my, um, kind of my aha moment, um, a lot of

the times when you go to training events here, when you teach, it just, it almost feels

like this, the usual suspects, I don't know if you've noticed that Sean, when you go

to like, you're going to go to A.S.T.A. or you can go to, you know, um, A.T.E.

or you can go to, um,

Vision.

Super Saturday.

But typically speaking, you see the usual suspects and then you see a whole bunch of

people who, their boss paid them to go and they're treating it as a, as a mini

vacation away from work, but I didn't, you know, you'll see a little bit of that,

of course, but I didn't see a lot of it, or I just saw a lot of people who

really wanted to do some training and, um, it got me curious as to why,

right? And so I decided to invite these two fine gentlemen here, um, to give me

their stories and their perspectives of how they evolved in the industry being

that they had so many disadvantages that we don't see here in the States.

So I'll start with Mr. Clayton. How'd you get started in the industry and how'd you

get to your school?

Uh, well, I guess from a young age, I, um, I wrote BMX when I was a kid and my mom

didn't have a lot of money. So if my bike broke, I had to fix it. I had to upset

my granddad by messing up his ratchets, trying to cut my stunt pegs, you know.

Um, after that, it was kind of bikes to cars was what seems like a natural

progression. Um, and then, yeah, I just started pestering an apprenticeship, right?

Here we have like a thing called an apprenticeship board. It's usually for

like more of the building trades where people will move around a bit more. Um,

that there's not as much investment in a person when you have an apprentice.

Um, but I started pestering them to get me a job. Um, while I was working

in a kitchen, I'd go in there like every second day. And, uh, I ended up the guy

who ran the apprenticeship board, his next door neighbor was a mechanic and

he was looking for someone. So I ended up sort of going around it and just

working for him. Um, and yeah, that was on the Sunshine Coast, which is

about an hour north of Brisbane. And once I, I did my apprenticeship there,

the shop was a little bit slow, not really very like progressive or super

successful. Um, my partner was looking to do something different.

And she decided that she wanted to do a course down here in Brisbane.

And she wanted to move here and she applied for a job for me because I'm

not a big, uh, changed person. And, uh, yeah, she replied for a job and they

called me. I did a phone interview. Um, and then I did an in person interview,

got the job, started there in 20, it's like late 2011, I think. And I've

been at the same shop ever since. And, uh, over time we sort of went from a

general repair shop to more Euro cars and then started to specialize in

Euro cars. And yeah, now I sort of almost just do Volkswagen Audi on

group cars. Like I said, stock home syndrome, you know, I'm

comfortable. I like how they work. So, um, yeah. And after that point,

yeah, I just started doing more of that stuff. We had to move

premises to about nine years ago. Um, and I got given a share of the

business by my boss come business partner. And yeah, that's pretty much

it. Just yeah, work through it and learned from you guys on YouTube and

on the internet and on forums and Facebook groups. Um, before we were

able to get the real information for ourselves.

Yeah. And European no less without the factory service information

tooling is that's that's a whole nother struggle. You guys have a big

percentage of European cars down there, right? Like what would you say?

Yeah. Uh, well, it's kind of hard for me to say because that's what I

see all day. Right. I feel like it's probably like it's not 5050,

but it's a like you can drive around the street and you'll see

like, it'll get kind of even at least like around the city where I

work and where I live. Okay. So obviously you go more rural

similar to like you guys, if you go more rural, you have, you

know, more domestics, we have more Asian Asian and probably what's

left without domestic before we start manufacturing anyway.

Do you guys consider Holden's domestic or forward?

Oh, that was domestic to me. They felt domestic. Yeah, that

over here. I don't, we don't, we don't really, I don't think we

have like that whole domestic like class kind of thing like you

guys, the way you guys explain it. It was like always just

like, you know, Ford and Holden and then the Japanese

manufacturers were kind of in that same market sector, I guess,

and then the European, but then also there's like, you know, the

French and the Italians, they have their own little slice and

they can just stay away.

Yeah, please.

Yeah, oh yeah. And how do you pronounce your name? Vasco?

Vasco. Vasco. Vasco. So Vas makes it easy, right? Yeah,

sort of.

So if I recall, you are mobile and you're an instructor,

correct?

Yeah, I, oh God, it goes back a long time, right? Do we have

cars? No, we had Horton Buggy, jeez. Sean, where do we get

these two from? Geez, they're still playing in the sandpit.

Clayton actually said something, we're talking about BMW

programming. And I remember saying a date and Clayton's

like, yes, you know, I was still in school and like, go away.

Vasco's programming BMWs on Easter when I was still in high

school.

Scary. No.

Yeah, no, I think I'm pretty confident I'm the second oldest

one here.

Hold me, Tommy. I'm 41.

Okay, yeah, I'm 38.

Me too.

Yeah, 38.

We won't talk about it then.

You know, up until a couple of months ago when I was having

dinner with my mom, I thought I was 36.

Oh, yeah, I have to think about it sometimes.

She ruined my whole weekend.

Yeah, you know, God damn it.

Yeah, the count how old you are.

Oh, you just stop it. At some point, you just stop

her, right? I'm not going to mention it, but you just

stop and roll.

I'll give it the decades and as long as I'm in there, it's

close enough.

Try to stay at 25.

Yes, I think we all do.

Vasco's fucking programming is done the same computer that

was fucking playing Oregon.

We won't talk about disks from internet and all sorts of fun

stuff that used to come through.

That was for it. I remember the first time I did forward

and it was like five disks from some source somewhere

and a clone VCI and fun, fun, fun.

I need to find out that that program made it stall and

thought I had an update for it.

You couldn't go backwards and all sorts of fun stuff.

When I started fucking programming, I came across

this guy's fucking supercomputer that had like dirty

partitions in it.

Bro, this guy had TIS 2000, IDS, Nissan

Consult and it all worked with Jay.

I don't know what the fuck this guy did and he

disappeared off the face of the earth.

But the shit worked for years.

There's a will, there's a way, right?

Yeah, I was just being cheap and I was just like, man,

I wish I could have those prices back because, man,

they are fucking raping us.

Jesus Christ, these fees are terrible.

But how did you get your start, Vasco?

Me? Well, no, we can go back a long time ago,

once upon a time.

No, I think originally

it was actually an uncle or a relative said, hey,

I've got someone looking for a young guy.

See, we here, we split our trades a little bit.

So I'm an auto-lec, auto-electrical.

So we have mechanical and we have auto-lec.

Mind you, if you're playing the auto game,

I pretty much think these days they fall into each other,

a lot of it.

So my first thing, I signed up as an apprentice.

I think I spent a year standing on about 100

altmeters and making them new again,

re-going them and I used to watch the pile go down

and there'll be a new pile come back.

And that was the beginning.

So I was quite, in a way, I say, I was quite lucky.

I had a very knowledgeable guy.

He used to love the drink, though.

And I think that's what stopped it all in the end.

And he pretty much taught me when I say basics

or the foundations really well.

I always thank him for that, no matter how I went.

And then we went off and I worked for another mob,

which was the opposition at the time.

Ended up staying there for about 20 years.

I have a habit of, like, Clayton, change is no good.

Change is scary.

And that was when I say business-wise,

that was an absolute goldmine of a business.

We had a thing where if something came in,

it didn't leave without being fixed.

And hence, the whole send the back to the dealer and all that.

You just couldn't, you had to fix it.

You wanted to fix it.

I couldn't, you know, I couldn't bear watching something.

Oh, yeah, I diagnosed this.

Now off you go to somewhere else, you know.

And I think business-wise,

I don't know if that's always a good decision, right?

Because you could spend too many hours

trying to change something up and not get nothing for it.

True.

Learning-wise, learning-wise.

Oh, yeah, you learn, right?

Because you're stuck in the hole and you can't give it up.

That, unfortunately, the owner of that shop

had some issues and ended pretty much,

ended up being the sheriff walking in

and taking over the premises.

So it was a good kick up the backside for me to say,

hey, you should have done this long time ago.

There were other opportunities, but that's not for now.

And I pretty much thought, well, I've got to do something.

Got a family to feed, got mortgages to pay.

So went out mobile and pretty much just do,

sounds very familiar to Sean, just do workshops,

essentially, do Diag and stuff for other workshops.

And I'm fairly lucky that my customer base is pretty good.

I don't think I've got any customers

that give me a hard time about anything.

Yeah, in that way, I'm really fortunate on that side.

So that's where we've ended up and difference being like,

I think Clayton touched on it a little bit earlier.

A lot of this was on your own.

You worked it out.

You had no network.

You maybe had a friend or two that you'd ring,

that you knew around the trap or something like that.

Or it was the guys that you worked with.

And we had a really good crew.

Look, I could say there's two guys, Johnny Donnelly

and Justin Watt that are amazing.

One's a diesel tech, one's a mechanic mechanic.

And between the three of us, it was a really,

when you have that good team with you,

you all grow together, if that makes sense.

And when that sort of split apart and the other business went,

going out mobile and on your own is quite tough, right?

And I think, you know, you're talking to yourself,

you're arguing with yourself.

You got, yeah, where do I go with this?

Even sometimes just yapping about a problem.

You'll get the answer, just talking about it.

You don't have to see, you know.

You see it all out and you're like, that doesn't make sense.

Yeah, yeah, you know.

And then I got on to, obviously, legends like yourselves,

online stuff like that.

And then I got on to, I think it was the garage network.

I think you guys have probably heard of it.

I actually bought, topped on from Jeff,

good old Jeff Taylor and become really good mates.

And that sort of evolved into a lot more stuff.

That opened up a lot more doors.

People around like Clayton, I would have met Clayton

if it wasn't for stuff like that.

And that networking thing that you've missed so much

being on your own mobile sort of comes back a little bit,

you know, and just having associations like this

where we can talk and Sean's had emails from me

when I started doing the training stuff

and God, am I doing the right thing?

How do I do here and all sorts of fun stuff

and just having, you wouldn't have that, you know,

if it wasn't for these platforms that are out there.

So we've got to thank you guys for doing what you do as well.

So yeah, so pretty much now,

I just run around like a headless truck.

The phone's always ringing between that and the training.

So lately, someone signed me up to said,

oh, Vas, you'd be a good trainer for our TAFE.

So yeah, to, I don't know what sort of thing

you have over there with it.

So once a week, apprentices come in

and you're supposed to assess them and train them.

And that's been a big change, mentally, you name it,

that's a whole different kettle of fish.

So yeah, we're still working on that one.

That's working with the students

in the college setting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

It's a technical college.

So yeah, that's a, it's very different.

I walked in there thinking,

hey, I'm going to change the world.

Look, I enjoy what I do

and I'm a little bit passionate about what we do.

I think it's great, the challenges, the winds,

even the kicks in the nuts,

they're the ones that make you learn the most.

And then I thought I'd go in and change the world.

Hey, I've got something,

maybe I can give back a little bit,

but boy, it's not easy.

I could say that at times, definitely.

But yeah, that's me in a nutshell at the moment.

So we're still running the mobile business.

It's getting hard to do both, I'll be honest, time-wise,

but I cannot not do it, if that makes sense.

It's what you do, yeah.

That sounds very familiar.

Yeah.

When I was down in last year for the event,

I got to see the Kangan Institute,

am I saying that right in Melbourne?

The college there, that was outstanding.

That place was so cool.

I couldn't believe the technology and the equipment

that they had in there and all the different courses.

It was wild.

Even the building is constructed like a computer chip.

Like it's got little legs that you'd see

soldered to the board and stuff.

Absolutely wild.

It was so cool.

That's dope.

Yeah, now I've got all the good toys.

I wish all the training institutes did, but yeah.

That's a topic for another day, but yeah.

I've walked in there and I've said,

I've got more in the boot of my car that's relevant

than what you people have here and you're trying to pull it through.

So yeah, slightly changing stuff, but again,

I come from a dyag, really.

Well, all I like that we used to do wiring,

all the alternator starter motors,

all the wiring problems used to make harnesses,

do a whole bunch of ECU work and more and more.

The dyag stuff is what I do.

I don't have the time to do the really big rewires

and all that sort of stuff anymore.

So, and I don't really want to, to be honest with you,

they're too long.

And they're not the same challenge.

Yes, you get that joy of saying,

hey, I've done that and you see something driving down the road

and you say, I put that together.

But it's a very different field now.

So pretty much across all, all brands, all forts,

you know, you got something in, you had to fix it, you know,

and it didn't matter what it was.

You know, be it a Fiat or Ferrari, at the end of the day,

they work the same, right?

They are the same, aren't they?

Yeah, I told a customer that with a Ferrari one day

when I fixed the problem

because it was stuck in the driveway, I wanted him gone

and he got annoyed because I fixed it.

And I said, well, why are you so annoyed?

He goes, well, Ferrari could have fixed it.

Why should you be able to fix it?

And the way he came across,

the way he came across was just a little bit arrogant.

So I turned around and said, mate, Fiat, Ferrari, OK,

you know, they came from the same place

and he just didn't like it at all, he said, yeah.

So didn't you say you're instructing now too?

That I am, that I am.

So technically full time,

I am a trainer for New South Wales TAFE, new, fresh trainer.

Auto electrical.

But like I said, it's very different.

I honestly thought I'd walk in there and say,

everyone will be hanging on every word you say.

And it's different, different.

There's some really, there's some really great students.

There is, and I think they all pretty much are,

it's just you've got to make it relevant for them.

And that's the hard part, you know, it really is.

And we're all young.

And I'm sure when I was doing my apprenticeship,

I was no angel, you know, by any means.

So it's probably one of the worst headaches ever.

But it's a very different,

mate, I've never been so tired in my life.

Yeah, full slot, just every day.

But, you know, there is moments, you know,

they had their wall skills comps

and one of the students ended up going up there.

And you know, he was happy with the experience.

So, you know, you like to think that you do

a thing or two for him.

Yeah, but I do think it pretty much does come down

to who's around you, you know, all day, every day.

If you've got a good mentor around you

or people that you work with, you know,

are good people and interested in helping you and showing,

they'll go places.

But you've got to have that drive as well.

And not everyone does, and that's understandable.

Everyone's got their own little where they want to go

or where they think they want to go

and it will change as it moves along.

Yeah, we always said, like, it's not for everybody.

I mean, it's just the way it is.

And it's probably best for you to find out,

like, at that point, right?

Like, you're just starting out in school and like,

okay, hey, this isn't for me

rather than doing it for, you know, 15 years.

And then being like, oh, this is not,

this is not the thing I should be doing.

So, like, just, yeah, figure it out.

And yeah, some people just, it's not the thing.

Yeah, 100%.

Man, I wish, like, when I was doing my apprenticeship

that more teachers were doing what you guys are doing now

where, or, well, what Sean was,

you're not doing, you're not teaching anymore, are you?

Not at the college level, no.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, because most of the teachers that I had,

like, I've had NTAQ as my TAFE assessment

and they used to come out to the workshop once a month

and do, like, a one-on-one afternoon with you.

And I was looking back on it now,

it's frustrating to think what I missed out on

because, you know, it used to be

those who couldn't do the job,

they went and taught at TAFE

or the ones that were burnt out and, you know, washed up.

They went and became a TAFE teacher

and it's so, like, I don't know,

it's good to see people actually going into TAFE

and being passionate about what they do

and hopefully it comes through

and the students that come out of there as well

because, yeah, we have a skill shortage in Australia.

We do.

Yeah, so do we.

Hopefully it's,

Do you guys find that the kids or the children

who actually want to get into a trade

are picking other trades?

Do you guys see a lot of that or?

Well, the money, it comes down to dollars over here, really.

You could go in our trade and I didn't even,

okay, so I'm self-employed and do my own thing

so I don't have an apprentice around these days

but when I saw what the money that they're getting

and I'm like, you can't survive on it

and why wouldn't I go be a heck, become a plumber

or a high-voltage eletrician and be pulling in

without blinking two grand a week, without trying.

Whereas, look at the equipment, look at the tooling,

look at the knowledge, look at the training

that we've all got to do to keep up with everything

and you're like, investment versus reward sort of thing.

It is a very, to me, it's a very,

I still think it's one of the most underpaid trades

that we've got over here for what you need to be able to do

and the knowledge that you need

and the equipment that you need, definitely something

but I think the way I'm seeing it, especially as,

because I get to go around the workshops

and see who's going and who's doing what

and sort of stuff like that

and more and more, some workshops are keeping up

more and more are falling off

which means they'll start disappearing.

I'm getting a lot of them now,

older people and Clayton gets this all the time,

I'm sure, Volkswagen's,

oh, we changed the gearbox colors and stuff.

What do you mean we can't?

We can't just put a gearbox in it anymore.

Stuff like that or they'll be changing multiple parts,

spending thousands and thousands and not getting a result.

So they're slowly starting to,

I think they're slowly starting to disappear

which means, hey, there's not going to be

that many running around that can

and those that can obviously can charge

but then you got the other,

you got the dealer side that's another kettle of fish

that's coming through, but yeah.

What I find so interesting is that

getting to know a bunch of people down there

in another part of the world,

halfway across the planet

and the stuff you guys are talking about,

it's like the exact same here,

like the labor shortage

and the challenges that we're up against

and the pay, it's exactly the same here.

We might as well be talking about the same place.

So it's very interesting.

I don't know that it's good,

but it's interesting to see that it's not just here,

it's everywhere in this industry.

So explain to me something,

what is this apprenticeship do you guys keep talking about?

Like it's an official apprenticeship through the government

or how does that work?

Yeah, yeah.

So I guess you guys have your trade colleges

or trade school or the technical colleges

that you call them, where people will go and pay.

Like Lincoln Tech.

Yeah, like for profit trade school.

Yeah, so there's there's like there's colleges that have

trade like, you know, community college, for example,

you can get automotive degree there.

Yeah. Yeah.

So here we have an apprenticeship.

So you sign up, you're signed up for a minute

or a maximum.

Well, I don't know, you signed up for a four year apprenticeship

and it's all based on competency.

So there's units that are set out by the the TAFE

and the government.

You know, these are the theory units you need to complete.

You need to prove your competent

and then you become a second year and a third year

and a fourth year apprentice.

And then once you get to your competency,

then you get signed off as like a qualified technician.

That's yeah, you get a certificate three

in light vehicle repair, basically.

Whether you come out of that apprenticeship

actually knowing what you're doing is another story.

I know I didn't.

And it was it was a big learning curve.

You kind of got told like, here's a car.

This is what the steering does.

This is what suspension does.

And then here's a light bulb.

If you put power on one side and ground on the other,

it makes the circuit, the light lights up.

You know, how about it?

Go out into the world and see what you can do.

And when I left, when I left my shop

that I did my apprenticeship at because it's kind of

I'm sure it's not like that everywhere,

but I think I was about a year out of my apprenticeship.

But I was still treated like a second year apprentice

because that's the way the boss saw me.

So when I walked out of there and started

where I am now, you know, I kind of just got like,

oh, OK, cool. You know what you're doing?

Let's go and like just got expected to do

what was expected and just a big learning curve.

Now, yes, I'm sorry.

But just to be clear, when you say apprentice,

you actually go to a school and learn or you or it's.

Yeah. Oh, my job and it's a job.

Yeah. Yeah. So what it is.

Yeah, there the way we work at you end up getting a job, right?

So you work for someone.

It's virtually without getting too techy.

It's like it comes like a freeway contract between the employee,

the employer and their training people that all three will help each other

and do the things and so on.

And so the employer these days gets a few government incentives

to bring on someone young or someone sorry,

doesn't always to be on someone untrained and help train them up.

So it's usually over about three years.

Oh, four. It's four years, technically, but it's about three years of of,

let's say I say one day a week, because that's what I'm doing.

So one day a week, they go off to their their college or their training

thing and they do get their assessments done and some extra training.

But the whole idea is that together, all three of them bring

this person up to a stage where they by the time they finish their fourth

year because they get a year of not school and just continue on still learning.

By the time they finish their fourth year, they become virtually certified to be.

And this is across all industries, not just across ours.

They become plumbers do the same thing.

Electricians, builders, so on, that they actually get some qualifications.

And by then they've learned they say that you're qualified enough

to to start doing this on your own.

You don't need someone watching over you all the time.

The thing is in the way I look at it.

And I say you you start learning after your apprenticeship if I think

the apprenticeship sets you up to understand how to learn about what you're doing.

It's a very weird way of saying it.

But all those little I keep saying foundation skills or little you can't

say basics because to us, they're basic, but to a lot of people they're not.

They all those little steps and all those little bricks that you've laid

over the last four years have actually just taught you how to learn

and understand what you're doing.

And that's that's where the growth comes in.

So but four years, technically, you can go out on your own.

You don't need someone watching over you.

You can go do the work.

You can go charge for it in a way you go.

But hilariously here in New South Wales,

you can be for a fully qualified whatever mechanic or I like someone.

But to actually charge for a job,

you have to have what you call a repairer's license.

And the repairer's license, you don't have to be a qualified person

as long as you're employing a qualified person.

So it's really like the place.

Yeah. But then again, you've got places.

I don't know, I don't know if it was Victoria or other states

where you don't need a qualification.

No, OK, technically to work on them.

Yeah. Yeah.

In Queensland, there's as far as I know, you don't need a license.

You don't even have a qualification.

There's nothing. There's nothing around here.

You could somebody find you on the street, hand your wrench.

Congratulations. You're in a panic now.

You don't have anything like that.

And the majority of it's kind of a mixed bag

of how people end up, you know, in this industry.

I see a lot of second generation children in this industry,

much like our first generation children.

Um, most of the schools, like the big trade schools

and for profit trade school, most of their students

end up going to like chain repair shops

or like even the dealer network, just like the local Votech.

That's what they call a vocational technology schools, Votech.

Like they'll funnel to dealers or also chain spots.

So like not most of the aftermarket

independence are just kind of like on their own.

Yeah, really don't do much to.

But they also don't do much to promote, you know, the industry as well.

So it's kind of like it's kind of a mixed bag a little bit.

Like it's it's it's kind of interesting the way you guys do it.

I definitely feel that we we need we could use a little bit

of structure like that and some incentivizing to get

youth involved in especially in our trade.

But it's not it's just it's just too underpaid here, man.

Like it's it's it's ridiculously underpaid here as well.

I mean, we got, you know, I said before on the show, we have,

you know, I know kids who went to welding school

and they're making 40 bucks an hour to start

plus benefits and they get to get to start on their 401k.

I mean, yeah, in the city of Chicago, the last union strike,

I'm probably going to get bagged for this.

I should look it up.

But if I recall, the union

apprentices for the trade, I think they're now at like 17 or 18

dollars an hour to start city of Chicago, minimum wage is 16

and some change right now.

You're better working on it.

Yeah, it's the same here.

That's right. It's the same here.

It's the same here.

I heard stories of $12 an hour and I think minimum wage is 16.

I'm like, really? Yeah.

But yeah, but the idea is the idea is you you can do the hard yards

because you don't know when then, as you know, your dollars will come with it.

But yeah, we all know our industry.

I've got photos of, you know, $40,000 of equipment sitting on a seat.

And I said, I charge four hundred dollars. Thanks.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yep. Yeah.

But yeah, apprenticeship wages, I don't know.

Like if it's we have a apprentice, I looked it up.

Just out of 2017 an hour is what a union

apprentice technician makes in Chicago.

Chicago. Yeah.

What can you make go and work at Amazon?

It is 1625.

That's so yeah, even yeah, it's a pretty decent increase.

But like, is it really?

It's tough to aspire to the point.

Yeah, I mean, where are you going to have a more proper career?

I mean, that's, you know, it's it's that's a funny conversation to have, right?

But the sad reality is, you know, I don't I don't know how,

if or when this industry is going to catch up to the amount of work

that you have to put it to stay relevant and stay productive in this industry.

I don't I don't know. Yeah.

But where where does it like if we went out and said, OK,

let's relatively speaking, let's raise the industry as a whole,

raise their prices to compensate for what we have to learn

and how much money we have to put into tooling.

People wouldn't be able to afford to drive anymore.

It'd be crazy, you know, like it is to a point.

So what are they going to do?

Fly to work? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

But we walk in here.

I mean, my problem is like there's there's so much more to to that.

Just just charge more.

No, you're right.

Like you are going to be able to afford to drive or maybe they'll stop

buying fucking junk that they can't afford. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. But say what?

I see the different third owner Mercedes Benz. Oh, wow.

He's got a chain and they got it for 10 grand.

What do you mean, a Windows 4 grand fix? Yeah, good.

But the way I look at it. Someone else's problems.

Yes. Yes, it's how I want it.

What I see a lot of it is with the other trades, especially,

especially that anything to do with like house or homes and all that.

People, the customer sees their house as an investment.

So they're happy to pay whatever the plumber wants or whatever.

Whereas a motor vehicle is a cost.

And that's where they start going, oh, this is just costing and costing.

But yeah, everybody, everybody says that, right?

That a car isn't expensive.

Not an investment. Right.

Because the but here's the thing.

Is it or isn't it?

Depends on what you do with it.

Exactly. No, no, no, no.

No, because at the end of the day. Exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

That's kind of that's kind of how I, I, you know,

but I don't know if you guys have this issue in Australia.

But here I think one of the biggest downfalls is our credit.

Well, you do.

You can have no credit and find somebody who will give you credit.

For a car

And the interest alone, yeah, we have those but you'll you'll you'll get your car and this is like yeah

Yeah, no that's and then you don't put any value behind it because

Oh, my car needs five grand off screw that i'll just go trade this keep in and a compound another 10 grand and get

Somebody will give me a loan for that

Yeah, the amount of value that you've put forward for it is so little that

Yeah, like you don't put the value into the repair of it. Yeah, we we definitely definitely see that for especially now

We're a Chevy truck is like 80 thousand dollars

You know six seven grand on a transmission eight ten grand on an engine

because it's

You know, it's a you know, 10-year-old vehicle or you're gonna go buy a 90 thousand dollar, you know gm 6.2 liter that

Is on a national recall

Yeah, they're gonna put a different oil cap on

True and true and i'm like, yeah, that's that's

That's fucked up man

That's fucking these all of these manufacturers are in a sorry state right now, man

It's disgusting how bad all of them are i don't give a fuck

If it's if it's japanese european american korean whatever man, they're all junk honestly, there's just they're all

They're all together these days anyway

I mean, yeah, man. I mean shit. We um, I saw

I saw Mazda twos out there and and Toyota sells them

We're selling them here for a little bit like why the fuck does Toyota need to buy a Mazda two and sell it as a Toyota

Exactly

Exactly, you have a fucking echo or a yaris everywhere like yeah

Yeah, the the shit that manufacturers do and and the reason why I was asking you about holding is because I didn't see a lot of them

In Australia. I saw a shit ton in new zealand

Like I saw a ton in new zealand

And I saw Chevy colorados

I I ended I ended up finally seeing somebody with a Monero

With uh what and I heard it. I'm like dad. That thing's that's an LS engine. I can hear that thing from a mile away

So I finally seen a what we call the Panier GTO

um

I saw

What looked like a fucking captivity

With a manero wouldn't badge on it. I'm like, oh jeez you guys have this junk here too

Yes, we do

Or domestic for you

That just garbage, what do they call a GTO down there?

That's the manero manero, okay

See I knew that from a while ago because I I always wanted a

Like I said, I was a GM fan since I can remember and I always wanted a GTO until I started working on them. Just like

Yeah, I've had a few cars like that

With an LS with an LS 2. I think it was they came with 6.2 year LS twos. Yeah, I was like, no

Yeah, I think the uh, you probably didn't see so many here because a they

I don't know when they stopped producing but

They weren't really uh, I don't know. They kind of have the uh white trash tag

We call them tokens, but yeah, like they're not not exactly like a highly respected vehicle

Especially like the VE Commodore was uh, yeah, they've gone. Oh come on

That was the billion dollar baby when GM did all that

Yeah, and it dated it dated so fast

Then we're sold here as the Pontiac g8

Yeah

And then eventually you got the Chevy ss, which was our later one. Did you have the caprice the caprice as well?

Yeah, that's uh

That ugly-ass two door roaster thing

Did you guys? No, no, there was a lighter one. There was a

I thought it was a Chevy ss the lighter ones they bring the Commodore

Clay who's talking about the caprice

Caprice and they were basically just holding. As a matter of fact, they sell holding kits here for those

If you want to slap the whole

You know what's crazy is we have those for

We have Chevy kits for Commodore's everyone used to buy like drills with a Chevy band on them for a vz

Oh, yeah, we always want what we can't like what we can't get

Yeah, it's always

It's literally the same fucking trash like it's

You know, one of the things that stood out to me the most um is how

You know, like I'll I'll say this and I'll get a lot of flag for it

But like I was really really impressed by

The appreciation for training man

Like I I felt I felt appreciated man

I really did and you don't really see that in a lot of training events here

And I don't know it's because what we're just talking about right now about because

Because it's like there's events here everywhere

Like like for you guys do a lot of small scale events, correct?

Like little like one day event at a garage or something like that. Is that correct?

But training events like like I don't care how many of you guys actually have

Just one

Yeah, I mean it's just the auto care every two years is your biggest event or no

Well, there's auto care

And then it's like a bi yearly thing and then next year will be the AA AA expert

Which is in melbourne. Yeah, I was told the expo was more like apex

Where it was just like isn't that where you taught Sean? Yep. That's the one I went to

Mm-hmm. I I mean it definitely felt like it was about the show which the

The conference center that we were in was massive. It was like a city block or it was so cool

There's so much stuff there, but yeah, we had the we had the training as well

Okay

Yeah, because uh, the auto care event was in brisbane and

It was at a beautiful convention center and we're in these big ass rooms and i'm looking at this room

I'm like, oh, fuck

Like were you guys in Tommy's class either you?

Yeah

How many times did he swear?

Uh, well, I wanted to just uh, you know, my pop box a little different to yours

He wanted to keep training on your old trash

He had no business with the peasants like me impossible

The peasant hackery but um

You know, and um

Like like just just the just the event itself man. Like I had an ap guy. I was like, what the hell is this dude here?

Like

We can't I had had people bringing me bottles of water and shit. I was just like, oh shit

This is pretty dope. Like now all these events here back home look like dumps

Very well put together the expo was nice. Yeah, you can think you can just really tell the care man

And we can we can actually learn

a lot about

about the cohesiveness between

the trainers and the event and

and the quality of the show like like I think I think here we've forgotten that

um

It's still a product right like

You know, like I I'm very vocal about

about

training events

It's not because I'm an asshole. It's because I care

You know, like I want I I want to go to try I want to look forward to training events

I just don't anymore like I really I really don't I love teaching. I love reaching out to people. I like

Being the one that can help you

You know

Change your pay right like I want to help you become more

More valuable to your establishment or even in your in your business if you're self-employed

I want you to be able to to make more money. That's my goal

and

A lot of these events have now become about money

And it's just like I think you lost track of your product

Again, you know, like if you go to a restaurant and you have a and you ask for a steak medium rare

And you get it well done. You're gonna say hey, man. I don't want this shit because I'm paying for

Well, isn't it the same thing? Why can't I complain about this event? I want it better. I don't want it worse

And I will say the steaks here are better. Sorry

Not not believe it

Now

Yeah, but you know what your steaks are probably they probably come from here anyway, or at least before the tariffs

Now yeah, the training thing is interesting because

Like when I've been over the last couple of years for vision, everyone's like, oh, you came all the way from Australia

Why'd you come from Australia? I'm like

We don't have this

And it's a it's a huge a huge value to be able to

go to a class that is

specific to something

and and spend four hours doing

Something very specific rather than you know

Going to

something where it might be

Something that's put on by a local part supplier

Where it's you know a two hour or a few hours of a night time after work

and it's kind of more

As much as I'm not saying it's a bad thing and the fact that anybody puts on something

That's designed to help you

Is not a bad thing, but

A lot of it's you know if a part supplier is putting on a training

It's from a company who sells parts through them

And that's what it's designed to do

um

Whereas like going to vision and it's sort of

You know, nothing nothing is really about selling you something. You know the classes might be sponsored by

Whoever

But they're about

Learning they're not about selling which is yeah, what kind of really became a thing to me and

I think it was

Not this auto care, but the previous auto care

A lot of the classes felt like that

but this year, I mean

It was it was different, which was good. I think they heard a lot of the criticisms

From the last one and they changed a lot, which was good

so

Yeah

Yeah, nothing worse than walking into a sales pitch. Definitely. Yeah

Someone trying to learn something and it's getting a product push. Yeah, I get it. I totally get it as a business wise. Yeah

Give me a morsel. Give me a nugget, man

Yeah

For fuck's sake. I'm um, I'm tired. I drove like I went to I won't mention any names because shon already yelled at me

I went to a local event not an event, but like a one day like it's just a class here

And it's a class. I was just like, all right, I'll get something out of it, dude

I was there for like 45 minutes. I was so fucking mad

It was so garbage and I drove an hour to get there in chicago traffic, man

And then I had to drive another hour back and I was

Walked in infuriated man. I was just I do what a waste of time like

Yeah, I was just just trashed same. I went to an ac. Uh, never mind. I went to another

And man that thing was brutal

Matter of fact, that's actually where I got the idea to hand out business cards at training events

Love it. That's that's really the only reason why I actually went like I would actually go to some of these, you know

little training uh seminars or whatever

But yeah, it's the same here man. Like a lot of training has kind of fallen by the wayside in terms of like profitability and

It's kind of like one of those things where like I think I still think it can be both

But yeah, 100 percent again like the appreciation that you guys have is uh

And the fact that you know that the double a double a heard you guys was awesome, man

And I know they spent a shit load of money to get us down there, man. So I I felt I spent

Probably double the amount of time

on my class is just to make sure that I

Uh, that it was worth the investment right like I I I truly believe I truly enjoy earning my earning my money

and

I wanted to make sure that I

I gave I gave you guys the best that I could

Yeah, the fact that they're willing to fly you guys halfway around the world

The to teach their shows the care but it's but it seemed that they were more

Excited that we were actually willing to go out there

Instead of like sure down there. You know, I'm saying and I'm just like

I I fucking it's a dude. I'm fucking from the west side of Chicago, man. Like I said, I'm just

Yeah

It was such an opportunity like

Yeah, yeah, it was such a uh, uh

It's a beautiful city, man. Brisbane was beautiful. Sydney was absolutely beautiful

Um, I got to meet a shop owner in Auckland. That was pretty cool too. Um

Louisiana was kind of weird

um

Like it was just it kind of seemed like a kind of ghetto version of australia

And then I went to we tried to go do some laundry

And we went to we found that we googled a laundry man by the hotel and we drive there and we're like in the

You could tell you're in the ghetto. Like I don't care where I'm at

We go into the laundry man and the little hole in the wall and they have a sign up says go to the liquor store

There's no attendance

Okay, I'm sorry go to the barber shop next door if there's no

You go to the barber shop. There's a sign saying if you need laundry service go across the street

So we go across the street, right? Like I'm like, maybe that's how they do it here. I don't fucking know

Shady ass dude was just like, yes, my friend. I hope you and he starts punching in all these numbers on this

On his cash and on his he's like, oh, this is how much it's gonna cost you

It's like, do you know how much he weighs? I said, no, man. I don't fucking know how much this weighs

I'll give you a praise

It's funny because we go to another one and we drove another 10 minutes somewhere else and in a nicer area

And there was a there was a kid. This is gonna sound fucked up. There's a chinese guy there and I told my wife, all right

I will leave our clothes here

But it was just it was like

You know, if I get the opportunity to visit again

Um, I think I'm gonna spend more time in australia. I didn't spend much time there

I lost the day my flight got cancelled in los angeles during the riots out of all days, too

It was uh, it was a late night. It was like a red eye. Not red. I don't know if they're considered red

I but the flight was leaving like at 11 o'clock

um

All right, los angeles pacific time

Is this funny right because I knew something was wrong

Well, I first walked in and I seen like three or four technicians

With their with their, you know, with their like their their vest sounds from boeing and I'm just like, okay

Something's not right here, but whatever. Um, they board us on the plane

Um, and I'm sitting there

And then like 30 minutes passes and then the pilot comes on. It's like, oh, you know, we're having some difficulties

Just please bear with us. We're gonna run some tests and make sure that the plane is safe

I'm like, all right, whatever man

Like we'll we'll update you within the next 30 minutes do it to the t 30 minutes and she comes back on

Oh, we're gonna have to be uh, deplane because f a a states if the plane doesn't have power

We can have people on

And our mechanics want to power down the airplane to run an engine test

I told my wife and my brother cancelling this fucking flight and then my my wife's like, oh, no, why are you always so negative?

I'm just like

That's that's not

Biting their time. I don't know what the fuck you're doing

And then yeah, so we we deplane and I we find seats by the gate agent and I told her I'm like, all right, man

When they cancel this flight, we're gonna go up there and she's just like you're so negative

An hour due to the t one fucking hour and

I this is the hardest part of my job and I was just like, yep

Straight straight to the gate agent, dude. They cancel our fucking flight. It's mechanical

So they so there's there's rules that they have to follow

They have to give us a lot. They have to give us lodgings. They have to do this

So then the wife's like, you know what? It makes sense now why they kept, you know

Post voting us. I think they already knew there was an issue with the with the with the plane

But they were trying to find those accommodations and like they gave us food passes food vouchers and stuff and

the um

The gentleman at the gate was kind of like it was really cool and he put us on a on a contest flight

The next the but it was 24 hours, man. So we're just like, dude, this sucks, man

because now we got to spend

And the the only part that kind of irritated me was we

We only we check out at 11 our flight leaves at 11 o'clock at night

What am I supposed to do with all my luggage? Like, what am I going to do?

Just hang around in the hotel lobby all day or hang around at the airport all day

So luckily my former employee he lives in in Los Angeles. He picked me up. We rode around with him all day

It worked out, but I lost a day in sydney and

We were there basically

Flight took off was supposed to be friday. So we get there sunday, but it left saturday and I got there monday

um

We went straight to do some things and then monday tuesday wednesday we're flying to brisman

And you know brisman, we already had our itinerary. We had an events and I I pissed off some some gentlemen

Because I couldn't make it to the shop and he was just like

How did I do it? I don't know. I don't know who that was the cafe. It's not a shop. It's a cafe

Yeah, I'm just busy like and I don't like one of the things well

I think that I have is like if I'm a guest somewhere. I try to like follow what

Yeah, man, oh

Yeah, so then

When when we decided to do the new zealand trip, I figured we would have more

Free time to explore. I didn't really think about staying. I don't know why I really don't but we just decided to go from

brisman to

To Auckland and it's funny because my wife had said we should fly back to australia because it's cheaper to fly to

Australia to the united states and it is from zealand

Even though like it's closer, but there must be more more flights or whatever

And yeah, I was like, dude, we're gonna fly two and a half hours back

To then fly those two hours back going going west

Fucking want to do that's five more hours on a plane

Well, look looking back at it. We should have done that because

The the new zealand trip was a bit of a bust man

Like the weather just didn't didn't cooperate. I know it's winter

But man, it was just dreary and gloomy and rainy

Um, we went up. Oh, that's just what new zealand is. I mean that's just how new zealand is

And um

We go up to bay of islands. That's supposedly beautiful bro. It's stormed that entire weekend. We had

a cruise to

a cruise of bay of islands like uh

There's a couple of like like features that I wanted to check out

and

They canceled the they they postponed it. They're like, oh, no, we're gonna do it sunday

I'm like how we leave sunday, but you know, yeah, whatever

It's stormed friday saturday

Airbnb that we got but I was by the ocean

Sunday came along and like, yeah, we have like two and a half meter swells, man. We're like, we're not going anywhere

I was like, fuck

Yeah, so like yeah, and then we got back to Auckland and

Again, just dreary weather. We we checked out the museum

Turns out that they closed it because of asbestos or half of its clothes

Oh

damn

Yeah, we we went to an island

What what hiki island or something?

And my wife's the one that was that one of the guys from australia told her to go check that out

So she's like, oh, so I looked into it. I'm like, dude, I don't think there's anything from I don't drink

So it's like, uh, there's a lot of wineries and stuff like that

So I'm like, well, you know, we can just ferry it over and just explore it

It sucks we'll come back like it's where at this point I told her we're just wasting time. We're just we're just biting our time

There's nothing to do

We get there and we were like, so did you figure out what to do? She's like, no, did you I'm like, no

In the wharf like, okay now

now what

Just go walk to a cab to just I was gonna ask the cabby. Look man, just take me fucking summer, dude. I don't know

So we get there and we just googled like

And we go and like, can you take us here? He's like, yeah, sure we get there. I'm like, hey man, what the hell is there to do here?

He's like right now nothing

I was like

Like half the people are gone like bad the businesses are closed because there's just not enough people here

I was like, well, fuck me. So I'm like, or you can go do a wine tour. I'm like, well, I don't drink

He's like, well, you can get some good food

So

Yes, we had lunch and then we just cab the back to to the wharf and just took the ferry back to the Auckland

And that was what we did in the morning

And then we did some touristy stuff the next day and then we just and we load out the next day

Like it was just it was just relaxing at least like I didn't do anything

I didn't have to worry about nothing and the beautiful

The part about the time zone change when I wake up. It's already like one o'clock

So, you know the first few hours I do so I did some work or whatever and then I have the whole day to just not do anything

So that's kind of that was the the good part

But no, yeah, sometimes that's needed. Yeah. Yeah, no

The wife was just like, oh, you know, we're in the other country and we should be exploring. I'm like an explorer. What?

There's nothing to do

Like I like the Lord of the Rings. That's why I wanted to go

But then I I did it before I got there. I knew that it's winter

So mostly the stuff that I wanted to check out like it's in the south island. It's snowing. I'm like, nah, man, I'm not

Oh, damn. Yeah, that's that's that's Sean tipping territory dude. He can do that

But no, we we we definitely like if the opportunity arises to go back

I'm down and I'm gonna I want to spend some time there and go hang out with you guys and see what you guys do and

It was really

Like I said, man, I just I there's really a lot of words about, you know, how beautiful it was

Yeah, Katie and I are talking about maybe just planning a trip. Like I told that to the wife, man

Like like, um, I would I would love to actually go. Um

This show is brought to you by automotive seminars

If you're looking to stay up on the cutting edge diagnostic strategies and techniques, this is the place

You've got

live

four-hour seminars that are put online that you can join in ask questions

Interact with the instructors with some of the best the best they've got Keith Perkins and John Thornton

putting on classes like network diagnostics

mechanical engine testing

advanced electrical testing

And gdi diagnostics and a ton more and once you

Purchase one of these training seminars

You can access this at any time that you want through your account at automotive seminars.com

You can rewatch the training a year two years later, which makes this training even more valuable

So I highly recommend you check this out. The link is in the show notes

For our winner, like I really want to see fireworks in Sydney harbor

I don't know how many that might be touristy for you guys, but I know

That's something I wanted to always check out

We kind of want to do some exploring out of the city because

For when I was down there, we just had so much going on that we stayed within the city of city of melbourne

And

I

Dropped best what's on me, but yeah, there's lots to see but then again

The quaint and when you said you said you came up here for visions. You do any exploring or

visiting up here in the states

Yeah

He went to new york's trash can

And you went to the

Well, the first time I went Danino's was closed. So but second time. Yeah, definitely got some of that shit pizza

But

I'm uh, I'm down to try some chicago pizza next time though. Oh, yeah, you better make it over here

Yeah, I'm I'm planning on it. I'm planning on it

But yeah, no, um, we're hoping

We're hoping that clayton is able to go to stx and I don't know maybe vasco. Maybe

Maybe I'm not sure. Maybe

Yeah, and um

Brendan hayward as well is uh, maybe

Yeah, I was actually gonna start a group chat and see if some people wanted to

Do some planning the three amigos

What is stx? That's next year. Do you know what time of year? August?

Okay

In dc. Yeah, okay. Yeah

That's actually one of them. I've never been to but I had a I mean I

I had a I had a actually had a blast man teaching it at uh at stx and uh

Yeah, it was I mean, I don't I don't know the schedule's not out yet. So I mean, I don't know if I'm teaching or not

I hope so, but even if I'm not I'll I'll I'll make the trip out there. I'll uh

I'll act like the like the fucking valet guy or something

Yeah, no, um, the first the first time I came over I went to uh, san francisco for a few days

and then came to

Uh

Came to uh came to vision and then uh went out to new york for it. This is like four or five days

and uh

similar to uh, new zealand it rained almost the whole time and it was crap

And we went out to uh governor's island and you couldn't even see the statue of liberty from there

Uh, like it was just like a blanket of fog

So, but yeah the first

Yeah, yeah straight up like the wake off division. You got it. You got it

If you ever come up to the northern part of the united states man

June

Yeah, right now. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Don't don't like

October october the crapshoot

Um march april may it's like you'll have one or two nice days and they're all just gloomy and crappy like I

Yeah, yeah, it's just june

Through september. That's it. Yeah. Well, I didn't get a choice. It's weird

Like I have to come over for vision and then come back just to take a holiday. So I just kind of did it all at the same time

But yeah, no, I went uh went over and spent a day with quarry when I was over the first time and uh

Yeah, just he's just a barrel of laughs. It's like yeah, he's a good time

so

Yeah, this year when I came over I spent

Uh, 10 days there

I'm sorry. I uh, I stayed um, I stayed at a bed and breakfast that was

Uh, right on the narrows like facing brooklyn from satin island

and uh

Yeah, the first day I said to him before I booked i'm like, hey

Tell me where to stay that's convenient for you so you can you know, so you don't have to go too far

And he's like, oh, no, no, no, don't just stay anywhere. Stay anywhere. It's fine. I'll pick you up

the first day

um, I got the

Checked in to my bed and breakfast and I was waiting for him to pick me up. He's like

Dude, it was a 45 minute drive to get here. You picked the worst place

And I'm like, yeah, stay stay do it

Stay anywhere

Shit like

No, I was

No, it was good though. I um, I ended up like

Where I stayed it was probably like five minutes from the train station

So I just get up in the morning walk to the train station

Catch the train across the island get off go dunking donuts get a donut and a coffee and then he'd pick me up from there

So I got to see a lot of you know, just a lot of local stuff, which was cool

And yeah, fun time got to go out to uh, you saw a bunch of rats on the train

Homeless people

I definitely saw homeless people sleeping on the train, but um, welcome to miracle

Uh

Nah, I did see though the first day I was there was awesome

I was outside the dunk at donuts just like drinking my coffee waiting

There was a garbage can absolutely stacked with garbage

Pit like falling out of it and someone had put a coffee cup right on the top of it

The garbage truck pulls up the guy jumps off the back of the garbage truck looks at all the trash on the ground

Picks up the coffee cup throws it in the back of the truck and goes fuck this and then just hop back on the track and they just drove off

And then couple that with like about four near collisions with people like doing like

Random full u-turns on a four lane road

People driving up the gutter to get into the dunk and donuts. It was uh, geez

It was a good time

But no, it was it was really cool. And uh, I really enjoyed it

Yeah, I hope you can I don't think the island's that bad

No, I I yeah, I'm definitely gonna make it happen

Give me the yeah, please maybe some I've only been there once man. I just I like giving for you a lot of shit

It's uh, it's like a yeah in New York. It's it's always. Oh, yeah, we always give each other a bunch of shit

especially it's a

It's a it's an everyone everyone thing. I think like New Zealand's an okay place, but I'll give him shit. Yo, man

Yeah, Brisbane's okay, but yeah

I gotta say this to all my all my australian fans. I had no idea what the fuck I was wearing man

everywhere and people started yelling at me and shit and

We went to see uh, may you rest in peace, uh, steven, uh, how do you pronounce this last name capsis?

Yeah, we went to go see see even capsis before he he passed and uh

We're wearing these jerseys all of us and we walk into the hospital and they're basically we're just like get out

I don't even know what the fuck I'm like, man. I don't even know what the fuck I'm wearing like

Like a sports jersey or what was it? Yes, I got them right at the perfect time

So he came right around the time that they do, uh

A rugby series called

And it's kind of the best explanation I have for us americans. It's kind of like an all-star game

Okay, instead of like picking teams that you're currently like for example like the mlb, right?

It's the national league all stars and americans

Or the nba is the west coast and the east the eastern conference and the western conference. Well

For them, it's where you started your career

Oh, okay, Queensland or new south wales. All right. Is that is that correct?

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, sort of

Well, then then of course, you know, the team that that I'm representing is new south wales and they suck

They got their ass kicked twice

Yeah, but I think this fucking jersey, man, and I'm like, dude, this team sucks

Yeah, but the jersey in in enemy territory, that's the problem though. You're winning the jersey

He definitely knew what they knew what they were doing sending you up here with those jerseys. Yeah, and like it's like, you know, we can't

We can't do the whole veggie mic thing anymore. The internet ruined that

So now we have to give you like random sports jerseys

It wasn't half bad

Yeah, no, it's it's not bad in the right situation. It's like I try to

Regularly, honestly, it just tasted a dehydrated sauce. It's always asked to me

Yeah, it's just like eating like tar with salt in it. Yeah. Yeah

No, you just gotta you just gotta do butter and like

Not a lot of veggie mine and then some cheese on like a piece of toast

And that's like that's the only way I'll eat it. I brought some home for my dad and he loved it. He was all about it. I like

Mike which another awesome thing man him they they

Not that they not only treated us well, but they treated our significant others like Keith brought Liz

Brandon brought amber and then

And they all had care packages for everybody jerseys, you know, I say talking shit, but I do greatly appreciate it

I don't care the team stuff or not

He also gave me a bottle of match veggie might and then one of my wife's friends was like, oh

He gave him a year a lifetime supply of veggie

And yo, he gave me a a a box of Tim Tams. Holy shit

Those things didn't make the night

Those things are fucking delicious, man

Yeah, I know I actually um

No, I actually live like three blocks from the aren't one of the aren't its factories here

And like if you go

Down the road that I live on on the right day and they're cooking biscuits. It's uh, yeah, it's hard to not want a biscuit after that

It's like fresh baked cookies on crack

Delicious man, and uh, you know, it was uh, it was really it was really uh

The rivalry stuff was funny to me because I'm like, so I'm like, hey man

Are we gonna get into a fucking bar fight or something because I'm too old to be fucking fighting because here

Here's the rivalries get when when when I finally figured out

Well, I kind of started getting the gist of it and then finally like somebody told me like oh

It's because you know about with the maroons and all this shit

I'm like, okay. So it's like, you know, we have rivalries too

Like even in chicago we have what we call the crosstown classic

Which is you know the north side team the clubs go

No, they play against the white socks and when I was younger we used to go to these games doing

And we used to just throw shit at each other man, and we used to fucking fight

So I thought it was gonna be kind of like that. I know who was just it was just shit talking really

You know, so I was like, okay, I was not not bad little disappointed

But you know, I think uh, I don't think Australian is like jail too much. I wonder why

Pass for all that pass for all that

Dude, I walked into a shop when I was on Staten Island and I had a red socks hat on

and the dude goes

You're gonna have to take that hat off and I'm like, oh, what's wrong? He goes get out of my shop

And I'm like, oh, okay

And then he's like, no, I hate the red socks. So I'm like, oh, okay

I'll uh, yeah, I'll I'll take it off. Lucky it was too cold. Anyways, no passion is good. Passion is good, right?

The rivalry the cubs and the white socks cubs and cardinals. Yeah, um

There's also been rivalries. They're just they're not as pronounced as before

But yeah, the fan base can get kind of the college is a fucking worse

Yeah, those guys they bleed their college cutters for some stupid as reason here

Yeah, that's in that's a really interesting thing

Yeah, I don't get it, man

But these people will like fucking spend dumb money on college games and going to college and

And you know buying tickets and you know these college stadiums are bigger than most of our

It's fucking nuts

Yeah

Yeah, big money. Yeah, big money. Yeah

I don't have time to follow any of that stuff like once at least professional sports like I barely

Barely keep track any of that then college of that

Yeah, no, I don't have time for jack shit. I'm watching basketball and I would follow baseball and now it's just like dude

I don't know jack shit, man. I barely have time to fucking breathe

Yeah, but that's just that's just because clayton's posting on facebook all the time about some silly job

That he's got going on over there. So

Some Chinese hukery which is which is

Like it's I've never

You know, like my my experience with hack stuff came out of

A form of necessity

But not a necessary one

You know, like I grew um my area in Chicago was kind of poor and so everybody everything was used modules

Everything was used because it was cheaper

But the reality was

You know, a lot of the times it was just a guess

Right, the majority of shops didn't want to buy a new module because yeah, they weren't sure sure

So that's how I really got my

My start in the used module game was because I it was just the only thing I had available

Like I I didn't do new stuff at all

But we always had the capabilities to do it, you know, we just

We just don't it and then like

Going to Guatemala where it's kind of like there's nothing

Like I can't even access my service information out there. Like it's IP. It's you know, obviously because of the IP addresses

Um, you can't access it

They got all types of shit just kind of like like like Australia, New Zealand

They have a lot of Chinese car companies don't wiring diagrams. These guys

They're just figuring it the hell out, man. I don't even know how they do it, man

These guys are rebuilding engines without service information, man

I have no idea, huh? Yeah. Well once upon a time you had to you had to sit there and

For us anyway, because information wise we couldn't grab everywhere

You you were virtually building the wiring diagrams in your head as you went along you were

Making them up and saying, okay, this does that that's got to go there. That's got to do that

You can't do that anymore. The cars are too

Too involved too

Too complex to to picturing that you could have a diagram in your hands and you'll be oh god

What's that supposed to do? You know and you're you're seeing it

whereas before you had to sit there and work it out and I think that's where

A lot of the difference is in

I don't know. Would you say the skill set of the techs around I don't know

Clayton's young. He's still playing in the sandpit, but you always surprises me about

How much knowledge like there is around like not just Clayton

There's a lot of smart cookies around you guys. There's people here as well

Yeah

But but you you've got to be able to put that together and getting that info and stuff like that

And that's that's a biggie. It really is it really is when it comes to this sort of stuff

So I get like Tommy because even before you couldn't you couldn't program anything legit

You couldn't say you'd go chase the use modules. You'll go try and make it work the rest of it. Yeah

100% is there and then some of it some of it came down to

A bit of necessity from COVID man

I made my bones actually during COVID because there was no new modules available and no new stuff

Locked everything out. Yeah, the dealers are looking for do use modules at that point. Oh, yes. I he's short. I had a

Man, I had a guy out of New York who

Who was fucking like he had 20 amazon vans down?

Oh, jeez 20 amazon vans with

Nibb issues and because you know that that generation of PCM was notorious for issues pro masters

And so, you know, I have my game and this is my price. He's like

They're half of that brand new

I said, yeah

Got boss on

like

He's like

So he's like, no, no, it needs to be this much and i'm gonna buy 20 of them. I'm like, dude

It's the same price whether you buy one or a hundred man. So

Stop wasting my time or find him somewhere else

He's like, oh, i'm gonna get him from another rep reputable source two weeks later

What's your final price if I buy 20 of them? I'm like, dude

I wheel and deal man. So I would have done it cheaper

But he just he just kept getting on my fucking nerves, man

So I didn't but I didn't really believe him and then next thing, you know, I get 20 fucking modules at my door

You should have you should the second time he came back

You should have said you should have like raised the price by 20%

I should have because you know, he went elsewhere

like

Yeah, I know exactly what it was, but I just I let people waste their time, man

I I really like I've never really been one to

To sit there and argue or or try to inform you. I had a

When I so you guys will all have autologic down there, right opus autologic

But before they got out by opus. It was just plain autologic. Anybody ever seen a blue box?

Yeah

I've never I've never played with one. I've seen them and

They are phenomenal for, you know

It's the the early four Jaguar cars the early BMWs Mercedes. I do. They're just phenomenal tools for those older

drills like the 2000 early 2000 modules

And they do a lot of functions like I was able to program a bcm on a 99 disco

Like nothing doesn't like and um, so when I bust that thing out

I just charge accordingly

So this guy from the body shop who the owner was out of town. It's his brother

And long story short. He wants me to go and program this

Uh, this cluster on the jaguar

a four jack

And I gave him my price and this guy

Ape shit. He said that's ridiculous

Um, I can tow it to the dealer pay them and then tow it back

And it'll still be cheaper

I'm like, okay do it. I got no problem, man

You know, but I know for a fact that

Jaguar doesn't cover legacy vehicles anymore. They just they don't

So he tows it there

He tows it there and they charge him an hour to tell him to fuck off, dude

So my my friend who was the owner so he calls me

For an unrelated car and tells me to come in

And then so I go I show up to the shop and he's like, dude

What the hell happened with this jaguar blah blah blah? I'm like, what are you talking about?

He's like, yeah

You know this one here, you know, he he said that you know this and that and then he had to take it to the dealer

And I'm like, dude, I don't know what the hell you said. Oh

No, you're you're you're whatever he is

He said that it was cheaper to tow it to the dealer and tow it back from the pay me when I was asked for

Then why are you asking so much money as a dude because the tool is expensive as shit. Nobody has one

He's like

He's like, so if you knew why didn't you tell him anything? I said

He didn't ask nicely. He just told me I was ripping off

I know

He's like, man. Hey this big mom

Lock he took care of it right now. He's like, I'll pay you whatever man. We just gotta get the car out of here

I say, all right. Yeah, so my program is clustered. I didn't fix shit

I was fucking

So typically speaking man, there's there's there's always been

I I always kind of like, um, I play I play chess not checkers typically

You know, but you know, it does

Sometimes you do have to be a little bit more like no, fuck that. This is how it's gonna be

But no, I'm always more I always try to be as calculated as possible

Yeah

I think Shawn is like, fuck you

Yeah, that's why I heard somebody do the phones because

That's not my thing

Do you want it? No, okay. Bye. Yeah, I'm so terrible on the phones, man

I um, I I dread when I have to answer now because because my guy's pretty good at it

Um, but there's been times where he's just like, dude, I can't talk to this guy

I need you to talk to him and I'm just like, oh, that's pretty easy

But I don't know is a certain I have certain keywords that just raise my guard up and I'm just like, no

Like like f off like, uh, no, but and the reality is like you just

In retail side of things, man, you just have to be patient. Unfortunately

Well, you do you're dealing with people and everyone's different, right? But yeah

That does reach a point where key keywords and I would very quickly lose interest in

Any sort of assistance and I'm happy to help

And the cloud and the cloud is the same we go out of go out of your way

You're happy to lose time to help people but

It's there's a line that yeah

It's funny

Yeah, some people are just there to waste your time and oh, yeah, you know

We we've we've changed the rear diff. We've changed changed the front diff

The noise is in the middle of the car. Can't you just press your button and make it go away and save the world?

What do you mean you want to charge? Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah

Yeah, that would always be

Right that people are okay with spending money as long as they see it

Yeah, yeah

Yeah, I had a um

I had a good one recently

Yeah, I had a customer the other week. He had a mark five golf

two-liter fsi the non-turbo first generation gdi car and he'd been to

the dealer

Another workshop a friend who's a mechanic and a transmission shop the dealer said it was the transmission

it had the o9g

um auto in it, which is a horrendous piece of crap

and

The dealer said it was a gearbox the gearbox shop said it was the engine

And he'd already had the gearbox service twice. He paid the dealer. He paid the other place diagnostic fees and

Ra ra ra, so he brings the car in I checked it out

I couldn't get the car to fail. I couldn't get it to play up

Um and do what he said it was doing

but it had a

early code

and something else

Um, it's a speed density engine

so

I did some inspections on it the dipstick tube was it had the top half of the dipstick tube where it goes through the intake manifold

And the bottom half of the dipstick tube and nothing in between

And I said look man, we need to sort this out

Um to get rid of this early code

Um, you know, I can't I'm not going to go wasting my time driving the car around without fixing this

I pulled the spark plugs out. It had three spark plugs that were completely incorrect

And one spark plug

that was maybe the correct one

and uh

So I changed the spark plugs changed the um

Yeah changed the dipstick tube which meant taking the manifold off

But then he complained that he shouldn't have to pay the diagnostic fee because he told me that, you know, the dipstick tube was broken

And he didn't want to spend any more because he'd already paid all these other diagrams. He paid someone else

It's just like me

You paid someone else. This is my time not their time. Like I'm not doing this

Uh-oh

You agreed to a price

And that's that's Brisbane. So if you're in New South Wales, it'd be different, right? If you're in Sydney

You'll be back. You don't always make the smartest decisions when emotions or money's involved

Yeah, all the stuff happens here, but you you get that off and I'm sure you guys get it too that

I've I've paid someone else. I don't want to pay any more and I've said in the past

Well, why'd you bring it here? Well, they couldn't fix it, you know

Well

You got to pay for your time and like Tommy said

If people see you spending time, this is a really weird thing about people and especially doing

Thankfully, I do mostly most the other workshops. So most of them understand, but they still want to see you

spending the time to, you know

Three hours and it's just a it's a human mentality thing. You know, it's that whole

Hammer everyone said the hammer and the boat, you know, the guy walks up and wax the boiler with a hammer and gives them a 10

grand bill and they query it and

You know $5 for the hammer 9,900 to know where to hit and I think that's a lot of it because your knowledge has come

It's come from those headaches. Um, yeah, you know, yeah

We're charging for outcomes not not for the

The time spent on it because you don't know how much time there was in the background before we got to that car

So, yeah, we we tried to pitch it that way to our customers too because

That's that's been a struggle for us, especially as we're growing with different people

everybody kind of works at a different pace

so charging the time just it wasn't working because

We have people like oh, we want Sean to come out because he'll do it faster

Um, then this guy that's you know, just starting out. I'm like, well, that's that's not that's not what this is about

We're we're charging you for the outcome like it's fixed. Okay. If we diagnosed it this programs or whatever

Then that's we'll deal with the time on our side of things

So we'll adjust if there's a problem, but you're you're paying for the outcome and this is the outcome. Did we do it?

Okay, let's pay us

Yeah, I totally agree with that approach because people said I um

I don't know if use have ever had so I don't know late or early teens Mazda freeze

Um, have a problem with a voltage drain the odometer starts flashing on and off

and

And the fault with it is free globes the glovebox light

Shift the light and that's straight light. It gets a back feed through it. So so so it takes you

Literally 15 minutes and two hours worth of globes to fix it

The first one I did took me about 15 hours. Mm-hmm

So just because someone sees you throw two globes in then it's not a 20 dollar fix

Yeah, you know 100 percent you're giving them that outcome. Um, there's lots of it that happened

And I think and I'm guessing that you see the same sort of thing over there where

You know, oh, you know an hour

I keep saying well if someone doesn't know when they spend 10 hours

Is that worth more than me spending 15 minutes? I don't know. It's the outcome of the job at the end of the day

There's been many a job. I've spent 10 hours in charge too

Yeah

Oh, yep been there. Yeah

Yeah

No

Especially we even with outside the diagnostics like the module stuff. Yeah

Like spending four or five hours on something

You know, I'll charge for it, but it's the first one and I'm learning on it

It's like i'm not recouping that time in the moment. It's hopefully in the future

Oh, yeah, it's a totally used one

Yeah

Well, that's that's where I'm I'm gonna do a gearbox today. Yeah, that's where I got my my heck out shift from was from

You know, I used to just replace mechatronics and ship the car and then uh one day we called and we couldn't get one

and uh

That's yeah, that's where I started exploring that kind of stuff and I'm definitely nowhere near on tommy's level, but

You know, I mainly just fix gearboxes really for dsg's so

but yeah, it's just

That was my my think tool prog was just the one that was available at the time that's worked with what I had so

and it does

All the dsg modules are not a problem at all dl 501 500

250s

but I think all dsg modules must be super simple because

everything can do then these days so

But yeah

Necessity and also I couldn't program either so up until

You know, was it 2022?

So before that, you know, if we bought a mech unit from the dealer it was either

Book it with the dealer take it back

Wait, you know, however long they wanted to wait for a booking and then, you know, get the component protection lifted and all that stuff or

Plug in my Chinese Hakari and clone it

Yeah, that's what I did

Sometimes that's the way to go

Yeah, now if I buy a new mech unit, I do it with Otis, but

That one that I had yesterday was just making sure that I would be able to clone it

if they decided to go with a

new

aftermarket Chineseium module, which

I don't really recommend so much

But if they want to go that way, they want to go that way. It's their decision to make a uh

Cheap call or a proper call

So

Oh my gosh dsg's per se, but they're they're still junk. Yes. Yes p6

Power shift. Yeah

Yeah, another would

I'm gonna need 9 000 units on backorder. Oh, no 90 thousand. Yeah. Yeah. It was it was close to a hundred thousand

So people

Anyway, people were like we're and then ebay you can find them on ebay all day long, but dude

It was so drunk

It got so bad that I would took us to where'd you get it from ebay?

I'm palm charging no matter what

Yep, it works on a problem because I hooked up to one of those

Like I was doing it on the bench like power and ground and smoke literally came out of the module as soon as I hooked up power

That's not gonna work

Yeah, it was it was so bad and this time of year with the heat would take them out like crazy

Um, everybody was scrambling for junkyard ones. I tried fixing them for a while. That was a a lot of wasted time there

We need a hundred thousand dollar soldering station for that. Yeah. Yeah

Yeah, it's all one one printed like metal board or I forgot what material it is, man

It's almost impossible to solder it

Yeah vibrations are they break up the little right. Yeah where they put them was the

So terrible

You know, what's worse than uh, one of those, uh, I was just dealing with one of these recently as an smg

Out of a bmw. Oh my god. I was my first experience in one of those. What a nightmare

Uh, the sequential manual gearbox

Oh my god, I am it's just a nightmare just a nightmare and this guy's you know

Or what

Well, you put in a used one and then

a combination of wiring problems and internal problems and

It's just not fun to do the learns on those anyways, even if everything is right

Um, so I just get my ass kicked on that thing, but

Yeah, I would I would take a forward, uh

Transmission over one of those any days or that's sign something the ones in the pro masters. Those are awful too

The

Yeah, where it has the hydraulic pump and you got to bleed them and that's just miserable miserable

Because those are those are based off like finger, right the cell is like

Oh

Yeah, yeah with an accumulator and everything or yeah, I got the pump and the accumulator. Yeah

Mm-hmm

It was a joke some shit like that that engine designer or some shit

Yeah, I don't know like there's oh and science from some dealers don't work on them, dude. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's a

thank you

Fiat uh

Fiat jacada. Yeah, I think that's what those pro masters are based off hence the stilance

thing

Yeah, that's exactly what it is

Yep

Yeah, they just uh, yeah nah yuck. Oh, yeah, we have a couple of those uh

SMGs and a couple of e46s that we look after and I just

Uh, I dread I dread the day that something's gonna go wrong with them. I've done a clutch in a m5 once

on an SMG

and uh

It came in because it had it was a crank no start with uh crank sensor codes

And the workshop manager at the time ordered a crank sensor and he's like, yeah, I just put it in

I'm like, do you want me to check it first? No, no, no, no. I just put it in

Okay

I pulled the crank sensor out and bits of the clutch assembly just fell out of the hole and the crank sensor was all

mutilated

Come to find out the car stalled after the guy had launched the car on launch control like three times in like

You know a 10 minute period and just destroyed the clutch and exploded it

And yeah, I remember relearning relearning the transmission after doing the clutch was not fun

Even yeah, it was still yeah. Yeah, if you even if trying to do it the right way

It's finicky as hell and so I'm trying to fight with is this a

Just that it's this difficult to do this or do I have problems on top of it and turns out I I did I like um

So the position sensor

Was having issues um with it at the same time as I'm trying to do these things and so

It just gross. Yeah as an m6

v10 just

monstrosity, but

Oh, yeah, those are a cool engine though. They do sound good. It's it's a cool-looking car. Yeah

Yeah

Yeah, but yeah

I

Yeah, they use gearboxes at all, right

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly how many how many treat how many black black trees or black ice trees were hanging off the uh mirror

You know what?

I don't know I don't think they had them in this one, but that's that's definitely definitely a bmw

Volkswagen thing for sure. It's funny, you know, like I don't a while back

You guys are talking about how people are willing to drop money on cars

and it's so crazy a lot of the stuff that I do is mainly like the

The dq 200 dsg that's in all the small engine golfs

and polos and

A3s and all that kind of stuff

And I see a lot of a lot of the time people will spend

Three four five grand on those cars to fix the gearbox

yet

I'll have a

four-year-old q5

q7

And you're like, oh, you need

Brakes you need this you need that and the bill might be four grand and they go

Oh, oh, we're thinking about trading it

Oh, we're gonna we're gonna get rid of it

And then next year it comes back for another service

And they've had like the brakes done elsewhere where it's cheaper

And they've put some Chinese tires on it

And it's still got the same oil leaks and it's still, you know, got that that led

DRL that's out that they don't want to buy a new headlight

And he just boggles the mind that these people will take a

$100,000 car

Shit man, I had a customer with a q5 with

3.0 32 some shit

The one that has the chain that the timing chain covers in the back puke oil the diesel

It looks like yeah, it's kind of similar to the vr6 and that in that sense where it's I don't know exactly which engine this will forgive me

Yeah, was it and a supercharged or non-supercharged?

Not

So it was leaking from the back and it wasn't the main seal. So we knew we had it from that the timing cover

Yeah, but if I'm gonna pull in and pull an engine dude, it's getting changed

So I explained to the customer. He's like, oh, yeah, that's a good idea. Let me know how much dude

The money the labor time parts and

Chain sets and

And you know, I always get like an extra grand for a wiggle room in case, you know hoses and shit like that

Yeah, I was like 14 and some changes and I presented the ticket bro. That guy looked like he wanted to punch me

Yeah, I've um, I've done a couple of torags with the v6 diesel. Oh the diesel one. Yeah, I think

But that thing doesn't have chains. I thought it had gears. No, that's chains chains on the back

Which is that? Oh the v never mind. I think the v10 has has as gears

Yeah, they yeah, they do the v10s. Yeah, they're like two five-cylinder pds like stuck together with blu-tac and jb weld

Yeah, I've done a couple of torags with the v6 diesel and I think the first one I did

um, it got diagnosed while I wasn't there and

I got told to pull the gearbox out and I was like, no

No, and then oh, we've already quoted it. Okay, pull the gearbox out remains not leaking. It was the upper sump

And we ended up having to go back and the guy ended up wanting to do it anyway

and I think that bill was about 10

and then

The next one I did I quoted properly

And it came out a bit over 14

And it's just not worth it. Hey, it is it's honestly not worth it

um

I see him all day every day

And you just go you have a small leak from your upper sump and rear timing cover

Either sell the car now

trade it in or be aware that in six months time

If you decide to sell it then there's every chance that it's going to fail for an oil leak

So you make the decision and I've had people where we've serviced their car for five years with that leak

And you tell them every time and then they come to sell it and you go

It's a fail because of the oil leak. What do you mean you service this car? It's like, yeah

Here's all your invoices. Notice how I've said this has an oil leak every time and you don't want to fix it

Yeah, well now you can't get a road worthy because it's

It's that bad. Sorry the amuroch the v6

V6 amuroch they are like, I don't know why or for what reason but

They've been using this engine since

Like way way way way way back, but the amurochs just leak worse than everything else now

And the valve covers for some reason have started leaking as well. I don't know if they change manufacturer about jesus

Dude, I had just reminded me of a customer I had with a with a Honda Civic, right?

And we have now we have like

We have some euro owners that know they drive piles of shit and they're

They want to pay the money

But then we get Honda and Toyota owners that feel like they never should put money into these damn cars because it's a Honda or a Toyota

Yeah, yeah, I get that. It's a Honda Civic in 300,000 miles

Engine still was running good. But dude, it's puking from the spool valve puking from the oil pan

puking from the

Puga from the time from the from the front front from the front seal

Puga from the power steering pump puga from the power steering line the pressure

You know when I told him this that he needs to dress these leaks

I told him three and a half years ago

Yeah

Then didn't do anything shows up. He is I know his I'm friends with his girlfriend

She texts me like a my boyfriend's having an issue with the Honda is making a noise. Can you check it out?

Oh, no knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock

I'm running on one or the oil

Yeah

So I top it off for and I'm like, dude

It's not getting quieter, man. He's like, so what do I do fix it like you need an engine?

Oh

He drove with no oil. Why is it leaking? I said, dude, it's been leaking for three fucking years

Oh, thanks most of your leaks for an engine and you've been looking after it

So I thought he was fucking around with me, right? So I just I kind of just blurted out like, dude, what did you think was going to go away?

Nobody he was being serious. He's like

I just thought I had more time. I said, dude, it's been three and a half years

He's like, so what do I do now? I said, you need an engine like I don't uh, he's like, you can't fix this one

I said, dude, let's still be cheaper to get you another engine like like

What do you want me to say?

He's like, but

Well, that fixed I'm like, no, dude, you still have power steering leaks. You still need

a lot and once we pull the engine out if your clutch is kind of shitty

We're gonna replace your clutch because it was a manual one

Yeah, and he's like, oh, I got the worst luck

You fail to maintain a car

Yep

But that happens a lot. They ignore they ignore that issues too. It's it just stops them

Like I don't I just don't understand it like what did you think?

Like

Yeah, I just I was speechless because I really thought he was joking like I thought he was fucking wrong because like I said

I know I know them personally

And I was like, wow

Yeah

Sorry

Yeah, I'm sure that's lots of lots of stuff where people aren't educated. I had a friend that um

Oil light came on and could only put a teaspoon of oil in it

And had 50 000 k's on it a little Hyundai and when's the last time you serviced it?

I bought a brand new when's the last time you serviced it?

This paints a picture

My mum my mum is like possibly one of the worst

offenders of that not the bought it new didn't service it ever but like

She bought a corolla brand new in 2010 things got close to 300 k on it

and it burns

Fair amount of oil. So she's topping it up pretty regularly

So, you know, it's it's doing its own oil change as it goes

Yeah, she'll do she'll do 30 40 000 k's before I get seen the car and I'm like

Oh

Why why did you not service it where I put the sticker and she's like well

It got to the the mileage and then you were busy and I was busy

And then and then I kind of forgot

And then I had to top up my oil the other day and and I remembered so then I contacted you and then you were busy and

and I had to go to work and

Just like man, I don't know how this forecast are going, but it's a Toyota. So

It's how you know what it is, man. It's the fact that her son's a mechanic, man

Fuck that you wouldn't be doing this nonsense if you had to

Yeah, but it uh, it's had tires

Front brakes and rear shocks and that's it

You know, all this parole is a fucking bulletproof, man. It's indestructible

Somehow but yeah

I don't know about the new ones

2010

Like a ZZ any my my homegirl bought a 2010

Parola and that thing is still we put chains on it like not too long ago and that thing

she were she refuses to

to

She's like no, she's like I'll never get rid of this car. She's like

Yeah, it's such it's such a good car

Yeah, you got a good one. You can keep it from rusting. Just keep rolling with it. Oh, that's easy here. That's fine

No problems like that. Oh, yeah, I just um

Yeah, I pulled the engine out of a mark seven not yesterday the day before in

two hours

Mark seven goals 1.4

Subframe bolts no problem. Everything. No problem drive shafts popped them right out

Now ours is the worst here is the sun the sun kills cars paint and interior

Just destroys stuff like my mom's corolla. The paint is it's like a metallic blue

Paint is absolutely destroyed clear coat falling off everywhere. She paid for the paint protection and everything

Oh good completely ruined

so

Oh, yeah, no, it's the yeah, the sun is bad

Yeah, I upset so many people on Staten Island when I walk under a car and I'm like, oh my god

What is this? It's like a five-year-old car

Yeah, it's it's gross

Yeah, I don't miss doing the mechanical side of things because of that reason specifically

It's just a nightmare

Yeah, I think the week after I got back. I uh, I had a mark four gti golf come in for a service

I've been looking after the car since 2010

And I said Corey some photos from underneath it and he's just like

Fuck

This is like it's perfect because nothing wrong with it

We don't get them we don't get that

We still get corroded wiring and stuff which is really surprising on a lot of it

But not to the levels. I see you guys get

Yeah up up here, man. They're just they're

All modules full of it Audi q3

Her lower her rear lower control arms there. I can stick my four fingers through it

Yeah

Yeah, the subframes are like

Rod away the bushings will rod away and the subframe will just freaking drop on the ground

I just saw a car the other day

The whole subframe is just on the concrete. You're done. You're not going anywhere

Did you just patch it up? Yeah

I've seen some people try

With uh, get creative with some angle iron and some welder and I've seen some people try

Yeah

Oh

Well, cool guys, do you guys got I got to get to work or what's uh, I want to keep your

Now they're leaving messages at the moment. I'll have to get back to them

Yeah, no, I just said the sun's out the sun's out today the down here

Quite nice outside. Yeah, I'm sitting in my mind you I'm sitting. I'm sitting inside with the heater on so

Yeah, yeah

Dude, wait, I'm in my I'm in my laundry, which is an after addition to my house

I got a blanket on

What's the temperature man, oh

My phone says it's 18 outside

But that doesn't that doesn't mean it's 18 in here. It's probably like maybe 10

So it's like a tin roof with some uh, yeah, yeah, we're colder inside our houses than outside

Yeah

Yeah, yeah, it's 18 outside but inside the

Um, fibro and tin laundry addition on my house. It's probably still 10 because the concrete is freezing through my slippers

Like it's cold

Yeah, man

That's only 50 degrees. Yeah, I'm a tropical people

Tropical we don't we don't do that. Yeah. No, you know that white that white stuff that you have you can keep it

Yeah, you can keep that

Yeah

Yep, no, we're not we're not built for this. We are not built for the cold

And it's been progressively in the last probably five years

Winter just feels like it goes for longer and is colder

Nah, Clayton's just getting older. That's what

I'm right there with you, man. The winter's

We used to play football in the snow. I put a snow we didn't care

Now

You know

Why do I live in a place where my

Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't even snowing when I was in New York and

Man, some of those mornings walking like at 5 a.m. And the in the wind

You'd walk out of the bed and breakfast onto the street

And I think the street's called edge water and it's literally street footpath

like the

New York narrows and

Oh my lord

Wind that came down the street your eyes would just start watering face burning

Not built for it

Well, August will at least not be so horrible, right?

August will be nice. Yeah

Obviously we we dope and maybe I'll take it to the depending on what weekend you get out of here, man

I'll take you to the air water show. You just have to

Other people. Oh, yeah, I don't mind

There's our folks and the people there

Yeah, nice. I'm the after that

I don't I don't mind people because usually if something's good, there's going to be a lot of people, you know

So here's what it is

But yeah, no, I definitely I definitely want to try and spend like

A decent amount of time

Because even even last time felt rushed like I got got to Kansas City like the day before vision and

Just sort of like scooted through and then yeah, even 10 days felt rushed

but

you know

Try and get some decent time depends on everyone else if they want to come as well

You may

That's next, I guess

Yeah, okay

Yeah, okay, I'm going to wait like another six months for a holiday because like, you know

visions in February, but

You know, that's all right

Are you going to vision again?

Uh, I probably won't if I come over for stx. Oh, that's right. It's hard hard to justify two trips

Yeah

It'd be nice. It'd be nice, but it's oh, you guys know it's it becomes a big mission definitely

Definitely and and xy

Yeah, the cost is it. I mean, I'm man if if I could

I would like to be over there for every event probably

I'd probably live there, but we'll just go a nice one all the time, right?

We'll just go knock on their doors

And I can't we can't even get people from our own fucking neighborhoods to come to

Yeah, but that's everywhere. Tommy. Tommy. I don't think it's just a you guys thing here like

Yeah, the people that you're seeing out here. Okay example. Yeah a garage network or all the rest of them

Um, there there are very different bunch of tech if that makes sense

And yeah, because I get to go around a lot of shops and see who does what and even

We're talking about before as road and the information stuff a lot of

Normal everyday mechanical shops don't know anything about it

They got no idea about it. It's a very

The one the guys that yous are seeing are probably the ones that are more investing in their growth if that makes sense

Compared to a lot of that's out there and so I think it's the same work. We have our little

small

Workshoppy things where there might be you know, 15 20 people going to a boss training event that someone's put on or

But we definitely don't have the same amount as you guys over there. I could say that for sure, you know

The training opportunities, but yeah, it's tough. I don't I don't think it's just a you guys thing where people don't show up

I think it's everywhere. Yeah, it's a lot of people don't justify or don't realize

That investment in themselves is a growth thing for their business and their longevity and

Going again into different things and earning more and

You know, they all see it as a cost there. What am I going to get? You know, I've spent a thousand dollars

What am what am I going to possibly get out of that thousand dollars? Well, you know

You know one one new thing learn is a new thing learn. Is it enough for you? I don't know, but you know

That's the way I've always looked at it definitely

But I don't think it's just an America. I think I think here especially

And especially without information that we don't

You don't a lot of people don't even know how to start getting

Service info or the rest of it, you know, and then you just learn from experience, you know

Look, Tommy was saying before what another pull up put a pilot engine block and hopefully someone's given us talk specs somewhere

Which you can find but that's about as far as most of the shops get to they get to talk specs and that's about it

Yeah, they open up auto data and it doesn't have the talk spec for this so they go ask facebook

Yeah, and uh, that's as far as it goes, but I think if you had of um, probably spent some time in the actual trade show

um

There there would have been a lot of people that

You know the boss goes oh, we're going to this trade show on saturday

And you know, they just go to the free the free trade show part

um

And you know they run around and they take all the goodie bags from all the stands and they stack up with pens

And they think it's a great time and and that's as far as most people will go into that kind of stuff

Definitely that the people that that are in the classes

Probably it's probably a 50 50 mix of people who

Pested their boss or actively went out and found it knew about it

Booked it and then the other 50 percent would probably be like

Oh, you guys are going to this thing. Here's you know, here's the tickets you go on friday and saturday

We'll pay you for friday, but saturday is your own time

You probably find that some of those people they went to the friday classes and didn't turn up for saturday because

They weren't getting paid

So

That's just kind of the way it is everywhere. I think

Some people, you know, the the boss is the one who's interested in, you know, making the business better

but

They don't half the time don't go to the event either

Because oh, well, I just work in the office, you know, I'm just going to send the people who actually work on the cars

And the people who work on the cars, they're not

Invested in the business. So they're like, oh well, whatever, you know, I'm still going to go to work and do my job

Yeah, they just don't care so much

So

And that's uh, yeah, but that's the way the world is I think and

As much as it sucks. It's kind of good for

the

Amount of us that want to be better because not everybody's better. So

Yeah, yeah, if you're in the top, you know

10 5% whatever there's a reason you're there and

obviously, you know, you care and you're the one doing that stuff and

You're gonna hopefully get you know, rewarded for that in one way or another. So

Yeah, I don't know. Let's see it. I don't know if I'm in the top five or 10%

Maybe like

Clayton's up there

I'll give him credit. He's he's a he's a smart cookie even though he's got a beard and he looks like a

Bear grills look alike or something

He does all right

He does all right the other day

He was bragging about some shift sensors and look at the data and I'm like, well, so what if it's got metal filings and

Oh, no wonder

Oh, they changed the numbers. Oh, yeah

So that makes sense. Oh, that was a good one. Actually. I like that actually made me happy. Yeah

It was cool. I had a um

Another gulf with another dsg that two other places it said it needed a mechatronic and

Oh, the other place said, oh, we don't know until we pull it out and strip it completely and it's gonna cost $5,000 to pull the gearbox out

And I went for a road test and within the first like

Block I went. Oh, that's not right

Huh and the the data from one of the gear position sensors was just bouncing up and down like a yo-yo

I pulled the mechatronic out and the

magnet on the shift fork

looked like

You know when you go to the beach and you put a magnet in the sand

And it comes up and it's just like a furry like afro

That's what the shifts don't look like like the magnet looks like and I cleaned it all

I cleaned all the metal off and went for another drive and it was perfect

And I said to the guy I went well, you know

It's fixed for now

And he's like, oh, I've bought a new power. I'm gonna sell this one. I'm like, well don't sell it to anyone you like

I said, we could really fix the gearbox, but whatever

And uh, yeah off you off you went

It was fun though

Yeah, that's pretty cool

Furries furries

Yeah, we are so much metal

But I see it with the young guys coming through as well and you're like

Some of them want the world some of them want all the information

They could possibly get out of you. They'll ask they'll chase

Um, or others just want to finish their certificate get their trade. That's all I want to do. I just want to get my tick

You know get me out of here. I'm never you know

I've got some really great students and they're all good in their own way

And I've got some that specialize in certain fields and like they're like, but why do I need to know this?

I'm like because you might need to use a diode once upon a time in your life

Yeah, you'll come in handy. Oh, but I don't touch it. Maybe one day you will and then last week hilariously I had a

um

Holy sniper problem with it. I was getting a signal from the dizzy the car was turned off

And I was sitting there and I scoped it up and it's

There's my 120 volts turning the call on and off the car's not running

But it's there. It's got a mixture module problem

And I threw in a diode and it killed the whole bottom 60 volts and the sniper didn't see it again

So I didn't I didn't trigger it

Um, but there but there I don't need to know this and um, but everyone's different, right? So we all

I don't know invest in

Uh, it's hard to say. I watch you guys and you know, you get excited when you learn something new, you know

I guess

Yeah, not everyone is that way

I suppose we can't expect people to think that way as well

I make many many all my all my learnings been through had mess ups and stuff ups and

You know that five-minute job that turn takes 10 hours because that's just how I work

um

But yeah, but yeah, I suppose not all of us can have that interest in in the training and the rest of it

But there is a lot that comes from it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly

We need those people though, too

Where they just want to hang parts because I don't want to hang parts

I don't want to

Otherwise nothing you'd ever get fixed. So I guess, you know, courses for courses, right? Yeah

Yeah, I mean when I started all I wanted to do was

You know

Make my ir7 faster and build race powers and

You know, I still kind of like that stuff, but I definitely would never want to do it as a job

Um, I I liked it when I was a uti then

I sort of realized that the majority of people who want to go fast don't got fast money

Yes

Yeah, yeah, everyone, you know, everyone who wants a fast car, they're always on the internet and they know how much everything costs and

Yeah, and and the cheaper version works just the same, but it doesn't

Yeah, yes

buddy of mine, uh, wanted me to

tune

Something or help him tune something

Or to something he's like, oh, you know, do you know about this blah blah blah

I see that on the internet every tune that you can do this and that we can give me some more horsepower

I'm like, what kind of car you got

Fucking eco boost 2.7 liter f-150

What the hell do you think I'm gonna do that if the Ford engineer hasn't done real like

Have you done any modification? No, no, I'm sorry. I started off with all right

What mods have you done to it? He's like nothing is stock. I'm like

What do you want me to do to the stock engine?

Dude, you give me any more horsepower something's gonna give dude. There's a reason why it's tuned to where it's at

He's like, oh, no, I saw it

But they're getting an extra 50 horsepower from just tuning it. I'm like, all right, man

We'll find somebody dude. I'm not gonna fucking help you blow up your transmission, dude

The reason why is rated the way it is it's a piece of shit

Fucking 2.7 liter v6 or some shit like that. This is not even the good

Yeah, the best is the better. That's the good one. That's the good one

There's a better one, right? Yeah, exactly

Actually, the

The three what is it a three five the three five? They're not horrible

They're not great. They're they're not

They're not like

They're not I mean look look at Toyota

Oh, yeah

It's that little garbage there. They recall they're they're basically replacing all of them from certain red numbers

Yeah, I saw that. That's pretty rough

Yeah, Toyota

Yeah, since they started trying to

be a little bit more in the

emissions market

Rather than just doing Toyota things. I think they've like they've lost that stamp of reliability a lot of the time with that

It's like especially here with their diesels not so much like we have the land cruiser that has a v8 diesel

I think they still had dpf problems, but the four cylinder versions were pretty bad for a lot of stuff

and

I think they they lost a big market share there, but

Yeah, it's uh

kind of

I guess how the the industry with regards to manufacturers is where

They're all trying to keep up with something

And we just all end up

sending things out too quickly and having a lot of problems

beta testing

Which makes it fun when you were looking at a problem on a vehicle and it's um

Just scratching your head and blah blah. Oh, it's a software update. Really?

Really? Like what do you mean? It's been fine for six months. What are you?

How can it be software related? Yeah, it's something cheaper to update the software

Yeah, like the uh

alloy tech timing chains

Oh

I did one the other day remotely for someone. It was actually quite fun

online

All the way taking the first thing up there was chain stretch as a software thing. I was like, oh, okay

We'll press that one. We'll be good in the parameter. That'll save us some points

No, we're a good thing. No, we're good friend. Come on

Oh, I don't know. I taught you how to use tech line. Come on. No, not me. No

No, actually. Yeah. Clayton. Clayton doesn't play with bogan cars. Yeah, it's no

That wasn't my high end only I actually bought high end 1.4 litre golf. So I don't know about that, but

No, I worked on a couple of alloy techs. I did some chains back in the day

but uh

Yeah, no, you can keep those

Uh, the Holden the Commodore they had the 3.6 litre

uh

Yeah, what in the captain you guys have him in the captain is that 3.6 litre?

Yeah, yeah

If you change this oil every two months, it'll last forever

Yeah, most people don't do that though. It just burns more oil. That's that's as big

The biggest issue with that engine is it just burns oil and then

The tensioner collapses and then the chains it stretches and then it just

The tension that we're in and then it their engine grenades because all the plastic in the fucking sump

But if you changed I got a guy who was running almost 300 k on the on the traverse original chains

But he changed his oil religiously every three every like two and a half months religiously. Yeah

I mean not saying we're supposed to write but

You know

That's what we do in our transits. It's every 3 000 on the dot you get fresh oil change and I mean

knock on wood like we've had

Zero engine problems in all the vans I've had. Are those the wet belt wet belt engines?

No, these are old. Oh

Yeah, this is like fixed cam chain. No no frills at all, but best

Yep, there you go. They rust out. That's the that's my biggest problem with them is a

They run like no other. It's funny. Yep. I think ford got sued because of those trucks

Yeah, the subframes will go and no not even because of that. So like the united states has a weird tax

So the reason why we don't see the high looks here is because in the 80s the um

We started getting stiff competition from the japanese truck market

So it's never making their cars better. They just taxed the fuck out of the cars coming in

So it's called the chicken tax for some reason

So they said there's a 25 tax on japanese or any basically any vehicle any like do not us

Well, those trains those transits are considered like duty vehicles

So what they were doing is they were loading up they were putting interiors in them

And shipping them here interiors from turkey and then in the docks once they pass customs

They would fucking rip the fucking interiors

Rinse and repeat

Wow

Cut it works it works right small business

Oh, yeah, fuck yeah, but yeah, I think uh, I think we'll call it man

I gotta get some other stuff done and

Honestly, I'm fucking it's cool. They need lunch. Yeah

Um, I'm gonna

I'm gonna stop the recording but then stay on the

Browser until it uploads it shouldn't take long because they're all it. Oh, yeah, we'll we'll do that

But thank you guys for joining really appreciate it

No, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you

Yeah, I appreciate it

You

315: Clayton Olive & Vasko Serovski

Toyota A90

Pontiac G8

Holden Caprice

Ford Explorer

BMW E46S

BMW M5

BMW M6

Honda Civic

Toyota Corolla

Volkswagen Gti Golf

Audi Q3

Ford F150

Toyota Land Cruiser

About this episode

Original notes