326: Matthew Elder

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.

Hey, what's going on?

Automotive World!

Welcome to another episode of the Automotive Diagnostic Podcast.

My name is Sean Dipping.

I will be your host once again for today's episode.

We haven't had a guest on the show for a little while, but Tommy's back.

He'll be joining us as well, along with Matthew Elder.

Matthew is from Texas.

He is a technician who just recently finished up with tech school down there.

He is looking to get out into the field and mainly pursuing the diagnostic path.

We're going to have a chat with him and run through some advice that Tommy and I both

have in regards to diagnostics themselves, but then also looking for a potential employer

and the sort of things that he's looking at as he starts his career.

He's a really nice guy, really smart, very nice to get to chat with him, but with that

out of the way, let's jump into the episode.

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All right, good evening gentlemen.

We got Tommy and Matt here tonight.

Hey, hey, hey.

Been a little while since we did one interview with people.

How long has it been, Tommy?

Shit, man, like a couple months, man.

Yeah.

It's been a crazy summer for me, man.

And then fucking Sean wants to go on vacation.

Fucking white people vacation.

Where are you going, bro?

I'm thinking like, you know, I always, uh, it behooves me, right?

It's a new word that I got in my arsenal.

It behooves me when I hear people saying, where are you going on vacation?

Oh, I'm going to Florida.

I'm going to fucking Alabama, going to Montana, like a fuck.

That's not a fucking vacation to me, man.

And then what are you going to do?

I'll hike.

Hey, fuck you.

Yeah.

When I'm going on vacation, I don't want to do shit, like, I don't even want to get up

to take a shit.

Like I just want to just lie there with my phone off and just watch, watch some water,

whatever.

Like out of the country.

You can do that with water.

Your phone didn't have reception.

I need, I need activities.

That's, that's my, you know, me getting traced by a grizzly is not a fucking

activity for me.

Me and nature do not mix.

We didn't, we didn't see any, but like the, the fear was there for sure.

Cause you'd see people and be like, yeah, we just saw one, you know, down that

path. And so like, I'm like this is my bear spray.

And yeah, it was, it was cool though.

I would, I'd recommend it if you're into nature and all that stuff.

Negatory.

So, uh, Matt's joining us this evening.

Matt, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and where you're from?

Yeah. So, uh, actually, I did want to say before I want to say this right at the

beginning, cause I want to make sure I don't forget it.

And then I'll tell a little bit about myself, but I wanted to thank you guys

for doing this podcast.

And I wanted to extend that to obviously, and including my, my individual

instructors, but this industry in general, like as a student, cause I'm,

I just graduated school and I'm now transitioning into the industry as a

working professional.

And everybody that's in it understands how difficult it is, like how hard it

is, the volume of information that so many different areas of things you

need to, to know about.

And, you know, it, as someone once said, we choose to do these things,

not because they are easy, but because they are hard, but they are

so much harder if we don't have the people that are helping us that

are coming up behind you guys and eventually working alongside you guys,

to be able to, to do that.

So I feel like that probably doesn't get said enough.

I think that I've tried to get in the habit of thanking my instructors

at the end of every class and stuff because I know how difficult it is to

try and learn these things on your own.

And so having resources like, like this podcast where people are just

kind of willingly helping you and taking time out of their own lives to

do so, I think it's really important.

So I wanted to say that upfront to make sure I didn't forget to say that at

some point.

So thank y'all for, for doing that.

And again, everyone that helps to, to educate those of us in this field.

Well, it's, I mean, it's only, people reaching out like you,

the podcast is the only reason I keep doing it.

Um, if it wasn't for the people that have genuinely expressed the

value they got out of something I put out there, guest I had or

whatever, um, like, yeah, I would have, I would have stopped doing it.

Um, but yeah, I appreciate it.

Um, the, that, that's very kind.

And, uh, yeah, we'll, uh, we'll keep doing it as long as we can.

So that's, that's great.

Um, but yeah, so a little bit about me.

Um, I'm obviously, uh, I guess that if you can see the video,

like people know this, but mostly I think I listen to audio, but

I'm a little bit older than probably what we think of as most people

coming into the industry at this point.

I'm 44.

Um, and I actually didn't start, so I just graduated from ACC,

Austin Community College in Austin, Texas.

Um, had a cup, you've had a couple of people on this podcast, uh, that I

know from ACC and or have been my instructors.

Um, Zach Schief was one of them that was on the podcast.

Uh, and then Malcolm Tramell, uh, who was one of my instructors

also was on the podcast.

And I originally started taking the classes just for my own edification

cause I've always been interested in cars.

Uh, and so if I actually worked at a shop for sort of an embarrassingly

long amount of time, but not as a tech whatsoever, I just worked in the office.

Um, because at the time my thinking was, is that I can work on my own car.

Okay.

But you couldn't pay me enough to work on other people's all day, every day.

Uh, and it turns out neither of those things I think were quite accurate.

I probably did not know as much.

Uh, in fact, I know I didn't know.

As much as I, as I do now and hope to continue to learn more in the future,

uh, going forward and apparently you can pay me enough to, to do this.

Uh, who's got a number?

Right.

Exactly.

And so, but so I just started taking the classes again, just because

I was interested in it.

And as I took more of the classes, my interest really started to, to grow.

And specifically it was, there was a sequence of events that happened

around when I took like engine performance.

Um, which was one of the classes on our program.

And I started to kind of put the pieces together.

And I think that's the class where a lot of people as students that go

through like a two year program, like I did, I, I've heard also start to put,

you know, like you have these kind of different areas of knowledge.

And you start to understand how these systems are working together

and integrating and understanding.

Oh, you can get from here to here because this is doing this.

And then this does this based on that, et cetera.

Uh, and I got really interested in it.

Especially the diagnostic side of things.

Um, and I had some interesting things happen with my own vehicle around

the same time that forced me to get better at it and learn more about it.

And so what started out is just, I'm kind of interested.

This almost is like for my own hobby to, to know about, to, to be

able to do my own car stuff and to that like, no, I'm, this is what

I want to do as a career at this point.

Um, so that's how I've ended up where I am at this point.

Prior to that, I actually went to ACC and graduated from their radiology program.

So I was in X-ray tech for actually a very short period of time because it

wasn't long that I was in that where I was like, okay, this is, I, I, they

trained me to do exactly what I, they've said they would train you to do,

but it wasn't, I wasn't passionate about it the same way.

I'm about automotive at this point where I'm studying on my own outside

of class and kind of always trying to improve my knowledge and learning

because there is just so much to, to learn in this industry.

So, so just graduated this, this past summer, uh, and, oh, and now

transitioning into the, the actual workforce at this point.

I don't, I haven't gotten a job yet.

I haven't, I've really kind of been putting it off for, I have other

things that I'm trying to get done before I start working.

Cause I feel like once I actually start working, that's when it's

going to go into overdrive because it's like, you see so much during the

day that you have to go home at night and really, okay, what did I see

today?

You know, like what, what happened today so that I can be better at it

tomorrow, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

I mean, it definitely depends on the role in the shop that you're

going to go into, um, you know, what it's going to be like at, at the

beginning, um, but just out of curiosity, cause I know literally

nothing about it, what kind of money does a person make being a, like

an x-ray technician?

Like I saw the program at the college, but I don't, I don't know

what, what's the career path on that?

So it, it was a little bit tougher.

So this would have been, I graduated in 2012 from the, the

radiology program.

So it was pre COVID.

So I'm curious myself at this point, like, cause obviously

COVID had a huge impact on everything, uh, in terms of the

pay scales on a lot of things got rearranged, uh, post COVID.

And I think, you know, healthcare in particular did that,

but how much I don't know, um, Austin is also a weird market

because it's desirable.

There's a lot of people that want to move to Austin.

So they didn't have a hard time attracting workers and they were

putting out a new cohort for, cause we have ACC here that was

putting out, you know, x-ray techs every year.

Uh, so there was always a new cohort coming out, um, to, to

fill it.

And there's only so many hospitals and clinics in the area.

But when I came out, I was PRN, which means basically like you

weren't full time is just as needed, you know, so if somebody

was taking vacation for a week, you would go in for a week or

cover shifts for people.

Um, so I didn't have a set schedule, but as PRN at that

point, and this was 2012, and again, Austin is, you can

make more money going outside of Austin.

It was like $20 an hour is, is what it was at that

point.

Um, so I don't know how that is now, but I do know if you went to

communities outside, like even smaller communities outside of

Austin, they paid more because they had a harder time getting

people sort of the downside of being in a desirable, uh, location

is that lots of people want to, to work there.

Sure.

Yeah.

Then you have, uh, you're, you're in competition.

Whereas I don't know, at least around here, as long as

I've been in the industry, if you're going to apply for a

job at a shop as a technician, you're probably the only

person applying for that job, or maybe there's two or three

people as all, all the interviews I've had, at least in

my career, it's like, I was one of very few people applying for

the job.

I would show up in shorts and a T-shirt and it was like,

okay, do you got tools?

Okay.

When can you start?

Cool.

And that was pretty much it.

Yeah.

And I don't know how that is in the industry as a whole at

this point, because you know, there's been talk about

the, that we don't have enough tax.

There was the whole big thing with, you know, the Ford

CEO saying we have so many empty bays and there's been a

lot of conversation about why that is and what, you

know, the industry's role is in that.

And people's kind of, I think a lot, there's a lot of

critique about why are we in this scenario and what

can we do differently to attract more people so that

we're not as deficient as they are with tax.

Um, is that, because I know Tommy's in Chicago.

What is it like in Chicago for, for fine and tax?

We're definitely in a weird situation.

And honestly, like, I mean, see, there's just like a

conundrum of stuff when it comes to the industry,

right?

I'm a little jaded, but I'm also like, I love what I

do and I'm, and I feel fortunate and blessed to

be able to do what I do.

But I'm also a realist.

And I also know that it's, it's not perfect, man.

Like there's a lot wrong in our industry that, but a

lot of it is like, I call it the chicken and the

egg stuff, man.

Like who, who, who, who's fault is it?

Right?

Like, I mean, people buying cars, they can't afford

because we're a consumer minded, we're consumerisms.

Like we were, we were programmed from children

that, you know, in order to actually be happy, you

need to buy shit, right?

Like, and then like, you know, you go to Guatemala,

right?

And I say it a lot, but it's just, I'm familiar with

it, but you buy a car and do it.

That car is yours until it's fucking dead.

And at that point, you're putting a boat engine in it

and it keeps going.

Like people don't change cars because they feel

like it, it's, it's, it's a tool.

People use cars to get to work because they

need to provide for their families because job

market is competitive.

So, you know, people, they don't have the money

like, like here for investing in vehicles, but

they invest in their vehicles.

Um, I mean, up until now you were, it, it was

really hard for us to find somebody to put a

transmission, an engine in a vehicle, um, because

it was just like, oh, I just go buy another

car, right?

Like we've all heard, we've, I mean, you

Sean, you've heard that, you know, plenty of

times, right?

At least as author.

Yeah, or whatever.

And then we go back to like the ease of

honoring of getting a vehicle, um, makes

people not have a concrete value behind what

they're driving.

People really just don't understand.

And I don't, I don't know if people just

can't process it, right?

But right now, like I, I have a, you

know, I'm, I'm a, I'm a GM guy.

I've had four escalades and I want, I want the

V that's like a, that's like a dream car on

my, it is $195,000.

So you mean to tell me that somebody who

buys a, uh, uh, uh, over $100,000 vehicle

still thinks the oil change to be 20 bucks?

Now I really want you to think about that.

Like, no, there's, it's, uh, it's from

10 years from now, that escalate V is

still a $200,000 vehicle with $200,000 for parts.

That's one problem.

Right.

Yep.

And then we have the manufacturers who

think we're stupid and they don't want us

working on their cars, but at the same token,

we need more technicians.

No, you need more technicians because you

keep shortchanging people on warranty time.

Yeah.

So it's like here in Chicago, the, the, the

industry is in a weird spot.

Like, aside from the political climate that

we're suffering here right now, me as

an independent, I, I have a bit of a challenge.

Um, probably finding some of a higher level

technician because, um, the majority of the,

the dealer shops in Chicago are union and

also like, uh, Chicago employs a lot of fleet.

So like, there's a, there's huge fleets here.

Uh, people's gas, uh, Comed, um, the

city of Chicago park district.

Like we have fleets everywhere.

So like, if you're not having a dealer,

you'll get a job at a fleet easily.

So then the little guys like me are just

going to be hard pressed to be able to

compete with the benefits and, you know,

though, the type of environment that you're

going to get, we have to, we have to

figure out how to compete with that way.

So that's my, um, perspective.

I have, you know, thankfully a bunch of

people who want to work with me, but I

just, I didn't want to grow another technician.

It's, it gets hard, you know, you, you

think, you know, obviously, like there's a

given to take, but you know, the last

technician I had, it was with me for on

and off for about three years.

And you know, I, I grew them and then,

you know, unfortunately things, things

just went sideways and he parted ways.

Well, it's never easy.

So like, again, it's, it's very, it's

a very unique situation in Chicago.

Um, but I see a, I see an uptick in, um, I

see an uptick in, in the industry for

the next few years, because anybody

who bought a car during COVID, it's out

of warranty right now.

And people are under water on their

loans, ugly, you have to fix it.

There is no way around it.

And then you're, and, and you're not

buying another car.

Like there's just nothing for you to buy.

Like, are you, you're going to, you

know, we, we put a transmission in the

customer's vehicle, 60, 500 bucks.

And they didn't have a choice.

My writer was like, listen, you can,

you can do this or buy somebody else's

problem unless you're buying a new vehicle.

But then this same vehicle brand new is

now $35,000.

Yeah.

I've run into that myself and I'll, I'm

going to use the term customers, uh, just

because that's how I think of the, the

people that I do work for, they're

not actually like nobody pays me at this

point.

Um, but there's no customers.

I mean, yeah.

And they're talking about my pop

processes at the, yeah, they're

still your clients.

Like, yeah, exactly.

So I don't, I don't think of it any

differently just cause I'm not getting

the paid for it.

Like I treated the exact same way as if

I was.

Um, but same thing.

I think it's a 20, it was a 2019.

I want to say it's a Buick Encore and

175,000 miles and it's got that 1.4

Ecotech engine in it, which is not

the best.

Uh, and there's just so many things

that it needs and are wrong with it.

But she is in, it was, she's a

nursing student, she's a nursing

school and needs it to be able to

have transportation to get to and

from school, but she's kind of upside

down where it's like what she has to

pay it off.

But like the same sort of situation,

what she owes on it is more than

you could essentially get for it at

this point.

And so she can't afford another car.

Uh, and so it's like, we've got to

do what we can to, to keep this

vehicle at least somewhat reliable to

get her through nursing school so

she can start making some money to

buy a non, you know, uh, non

domestic passenger vehicle of

that particular type because I was

like, if you had Toyota or Honda, we

wouldn't be here right now.

But a lot of people end up in that

situation where they have to put

money into a vehicle that

unfortunately you'd rather

not, but it's kind of the only

option you have.

Yeah, but, but, but respectfully,

man, that doesn't even matter

anymore.

Like let's just call it what it is.

And we, you know, obviously we know

the Honda and Toyota have been like

the, the, the gold standard and

automotive quality, but I

don't, I just don't see it anymore.

I don't.

And, you know, I have really breaks.

I have an example, right?

Like, I had a poor, I had a poor

customer with a Chevy, the Buick

version of the tracks.

I forgot to think in vision on

core, this Korean SUVs that are

just absolute junk.

And yeah, I mean, this poor

lady, like it was within a month

timeframe, dude, like within three,

two months, she poured over six

grain into this car.

And I mean, and nothing we did,

you know, like we would fix was

like, these things just leak.

The last leak was actually, we

had to remove the turbo and then

the turbo had a crack in it.

So we're just like, it's already

here, you need a turbo.

And, and, and again, she's like,

you think it's going to be fine?

I said, ma'am, I, I,

what am I, I'm not going to tell

her, you know, sorry, you're

driving a piece of shit, but I'm

like, you know, hopefully after

this, like this is the, so I'll

say stuff like, well, right now,

this is kind of like the most

common failures for this vehicle.

So, you know, keep taking care

of it and it'll, it'll serve you

well for the next few years.

You know, I can't, I'm not going

to say, hey, get rid of this

piece of shit because what are

you going to buy a bigger piece

of shit for twice the amount

of money? Yeah, I'm sure

both of you guys have had

people outside the industry ask

you like, what car should I

buy? Like I'm looking for a

real reliable, you know, nice

car. Get a fucking time machine

go, go find it with 2,000

camera.

I think all the 98

Buickle Savers are rusted out

around here.

It's just so, it's so bad.

And and people like, oh, Honda

Toyota, dude, I had a twin, I

had a 2020 Accord.

We put a turbo in it from the

dealer.

Um, the car came in, and

you know, I didn't really feel

bad, but the car came in

misfires and under boost.

The turbo was bad.

All right. So I'm like, okay,

I'm not going to chase misfire

codes, but I, you know, I, I

revised it afterwards.

Car was fine, drove it, car was

fine. What the customer omitted

to tell me was it only

misfired on at a cruising

speeds like 60, 70 miles per

hour. But I found it weird

that I found this, you know,

going after like my

diagnostic process to see

what I could have done better

because, you know, the

customer was a little irate

because he comes back, he's

like, amen, like car feels

a lot better, but it's

still misfiring. I said, okay,

we'll bring it by. Let me

take a look. I saw freeze

frame and I'm just like, okay,

this doesn't make sense to me.

And dude, I, I, I checked

and I checked and I actually

ended up driving it.

I checked back pressure.

I drove it on the, on the

E way. And lo and behold,

between 60 to 70 miles per

hour, it's misfiring,

cylinder number three, dude,

guess what was wrong with

it? Fucking head gasket.

Geez. Yeah, it was, it

was leaking cooling and

cylinder number three.

And I'm just like, and

only at it will only produce

a misfire at that speed.

And I'm just, so I tell him,

dude, he, I mean, all

the research, you know, the

mileage that you have on this

thing, we either, we either

rebuilt the head or you just

get, I can find you a low

cost, like low mileage

engine. And he's just like,

dude, I wish I would have

known this. I would have

never, I would have told

you, but we didn't, we had

no way of knowing how am I

going to sit here and

diagnose a misfire with a

bad turbo. I can't.

I just, I physically can't.

And so he understood and, you

know, we put an engine in it

and so you see what I'm

saying, like in this car is

what, five years old needs

an engine in the turbo.

Right. So like, no, like

it's just the same junk.

Yeah, the Honda, so

because my sister and brother

in law are actually looking

for a new vehicle right now.

So I've been having these

conversations with them and

trying to, you know, guide

them down to this is what

I would do. But, you know,

with your money, you get to

decide. But it used to be

Honda because I helped my

mom pick out and buy a Honda.

It was a 2006 Honda Accord.

And that thing was great, you

know, it had that K series

engine. That's what we sold

it with 190,000 miles on it

and it still ran just fine

and, you know, in hindsight

should have hung on to it.

But I think I don't

recommend Honda's like I

haven't recommended a Honda

to them at this point

because Honda has moved

completely to the to the

turbos, which, you know, a

lot of manufacturers have

and CVTs, which the CVTs, I

think some of them they've

got they've gotten better.

You know, I have I have a

Nissan Versa like a 2007

Nissan Versa and so that

it's got that CVT that we're

just that one has a CVT.

Most of them had hydraulic

transmissions.

No, it's a CVT. Yeah.

So, you know, not really

one. Yeah, knock on wood

when I say that. But so

I've been trying to guide

them towards if you have

the option shoes, I would go

with the non turbo option.

I would go with a traditional

transmission, like a non CVT

transmission and trying to go

with what at least what Toyota

has the combination of port

injection and direct injection,

which that's the car

my I help my mom pick out

and replace what that

accord with was a 2019

RAV4, which luckily got

right before COVID.

So really good timing on that one.

But the least amount of extra

stuff that you can have

on a car is the way you want to go

and I tell people it's like all

the fancy stuff.

Just if you're going to keep that

car for 10, 15 years,

I don't know.

Like that's just that much

more stuff to break.

And if you want to fix it all

cool. But if you're looking

to have something that's low

maintenance that you don't have

to fix all the time, find

like the base model.

Like and that's the things

like everybody everything has,

you know, you know, eight

different eight ass modules now

in addition to everything else

and like that's just going to

break right up here.

We're going to get salt

corrosion and all that stuff

is going to you get an

offender bender.

Obviously way more expensive

to fix all that stuff.

It's just yeah.

So I'm always in that

time machine mode of like

what old car can I find

for myself so that I

don't have to worry about

any of that stuff.

We're finding up here though.

Although no, it's all

a rest of doubt.

There is a good friend

of mine, her kid,

good kid, but just like

fucking I was watching

that 70 show over the weekend.

Just a fucking kettlehead,

man.

He has a 2004

Camry that he blew the engine

on. Right.

Like it had a leaking and he

didn't care he forgot to put

oil in it.

And

so he he told it to me

for a no start.

I'm like, I'll check it out.

And then, you know, I hear

it and I'm just like, it goes

it goes.

I was like,

so I started looking for the

hole in the side of the block

and, you know, lo and behold,

number number one left

the chat.

So I call him like, dude, he's

an engine. I quoted him one

from JDM and, you know, blah,

blah, blah. I was like 3,500

something, you know, not not

just slap an engine in and

call it a day. I don't care.

And he just absolutely refused

like, no, no, no.

There's no way I'm not thinking

that much money to that car.

I'm not saying I'm like,

dude,

this is a this is a Toyota

Camry, dude. This is like the

best car you can have.

You did this.

It's not the car's fault.

Put an engine in it.

I called his mom and she was

kind of like, well, it is older.

It is going to. I'm just like,

all right, man, I'll buy the car.

I bought it for scrap just for

like, I don't know.

I said I figured I'll fix

it, slap a block in it.

I don't know. I was just like

whatever. I just I'll buy a car

like that every so often.

I had my guy lifted up because

I was like, all right, let me see

how rusty it is. It was super

rusty. Then I'll just, you know,

I'll send it to scrap, pull

some stuff off of it.

My guy comes back to do that car

is fucking clean.

I'm like, no way.

He's like, it's clean.

I was like, no, you're kidding

me. He's like, no, look, come

look, dude, this car was

fucking pristine.

So I'm like, I ran the venue

as a California car.

It was a damn California car.

I'm like, man, this kid was

a real fucking

knucklehead.

So, yeah, so now I have a

clean Toyota Camry.

We're like, you know, all

hondas.

We're spoiled here in Texas,

because yeah, we don't see the

rust that you guys do.

In fact, I was working with some

students that were like

intro students, and they were

under the very mistaken

impression. They're like that

rust makes things easier to get

off like, oh, it just falls

off because of the rust.

Things. And I was like, you

do not.

Eventually it rusts away, but

I was like, yeah, I guess if

you wait long enough, maybe

that's true.

You guys have no idea how lucky

I watch enough videos, you know,

from places that are up north.

I feel like like South

Maine auto.

You know what my funny story

about rust was?

You don't know what you don't

know, right? Like I grew up

wrenching in Chicago.

So it was just common practice

and like, um,

I was in Florida.

Some some chick that I was

seeing wanted me to change

her axle on her on

her Honda. And I'm like, dude,

I'm not going to do this.

I'm like, it was the older

Honda with the wishbone.

So you had to you had to pop

the the lower, uh,

the the strut tower

bolt to get it out.

We'll get stuck in the bushing.

Oh, do you know how bad those

things used to get stuck?

And I'm just like, lady, man,

I don't want to do this job.

Take it to a shop because I

don't even have a torch here.

I don't have nothing.

I'm going to do it on your

garage sitting there with a ball

of maps gas.

Yeah, man, just praying that

this bushing doesn't cease.

And then if it does, you got

to bang it out and then get

it out. I'm like, nah, I told her

I don't even have a press here.

I'm not doing it.

And finally, she like convinced

me to do it.

And I'm just like, all right.

So I went to go get some map gas

and I went to prepare myself

as meant as as much as a

possible. I was done in 20

minutes.

I'm like, what's going on here?

I've never seen a sway bar

link fucking actually come out.

Everything came off like butter.

I was just like, what is this

sorcery? Where am I?

And then and that's when they hit

me like, well, there's no salt here.

Like they don't, you know, they don't

salt the roads.

So I was like, wow, that was

dope. I just had Noah put

a wheel bearing in my van, which is

a press in style.

And mine is all rusted the hell

because it's from Minnesota.

And I was watching him do it.

And I haven't done a press in

wheel bearing.

I'm probably about five, six years

now. And I'm like, I don't

miss that at all.

Like no part of that is

something I want.

I actually paid somebody to do

something. Or is it like one of

those things where you're like, it's

easier to pay?

I I dyag the car for him and he

put a wheel bearing in mine.

And I was very happy.

Nice.

For that surface.

Somebody coming in like, I

have to pay my dues.

Like they're I

diagnostics is ultimately where I

think I'll end up.

But I know that I have to

spend my time in the trenches

before that because I want

to be able to say

because at least you

are like, I've done this before.

I know how to do this.

I just don't want to, you know,

I'd rather have some mechanical

understanding of the stuff is

important. And, you know, we

have I've run into that

you know, trying to grow the

team.

And, you know, some people are

more they have more experience

with the actual mechanical side

of thing. They were technicians

had taken all this stuff apart

and then some haven't or at

least not as much.

And it shows like there are

definitely deficiencies when

you're trying to figure out what's

going on with the car if you never

had the parts apart in your

hands. And I'm even finding that

now where

like four years ago

coming into this, I'd had most of

the stuff apart.

And so I could say, yeah, you're

going to take this apart and you're

going to find that thing.

And it comes out like this.

That's your problem.

And now I'm dealing with stuff

that never had a part.

And so I'm like, I'm reading

the service info.

It's probably works like this, but

you guys get to take it apart and

see what's going on because I've

I've never got timing

on engines.

If I've done timing on an engine,

like if it's all five four or

something, I can tell them exactly

like what they're going to find

and how they're going to find it.

But if it's on something new that

I've never had a part, I'm like,

I'm just kind of guessing.

Like, I know it's off.

Take it apart, see what you find.

So there there's this, I think,

a definite advantage to

to do in that stuff, at very

least just understanding, you know,

the the physical, how the physical

parts work together, lining up

camshafts and crankshafts.

Because if you're trying to diagnose it

without that reference,

you're at a loss for sure.

Yeah, that's I feel that way.

And that's been my experience that

and that's what, again, sort of

makes this industry, I think

so difficult.

And again, I don't mean that in

a in a bad way necessarily,

just it is what it is.

But you just have to have

so many sort of different areas of

knowledge. And like I said, you

can have people that are really

good at sort of the sort of

the mental side of things

and understanding how that works.

But then the actual physical side

is a whole nother thing that you

have to get good at.

And like you have to have

a certain proficiency just working

with your hands to do it.

And I think, like you said, to be

really good, you need to be able

to do both.

And they're not exactly

the same, but both are important

for each. They help each other

be better at both, if that makes

sense. You got to have a mental

image of what you're working

with when you're trying to work

through something.

I mean, even even with

electrical, like I feel like you

have to have a mental

idea of what's happening, even

if it's not like, you know,

physics, correct.

But like if you can picture

what's happening in that circuit

in your head, that's like the

basis to trying to get through it

and trying to figure it out.

But the same thing is true for

mechanical. If you have no idea

how the suspension components

work together and you're trying

to diagnose a clunk.

Good luck.

Like it's not going to happen.

And the best way to do that is to

take it apart and put it back

together a hundred times.

And then you know exactly all

the parts that are moving and

why that clunk happens over that

bump and it sounds that way.

And oh, if I turn this way, it's

lighter because that's

that's all part of it.

Yeah. No, I agree.

And I think that's something

that I think I see.

And again, I'm still new

myself, but I'm now seeing

newer students that the ones

that like intro and the taking

the classes behind that coming

behind me.

And I think that's something that

kind of gets missed a lot of

times. And this is probably true.

I think of the industry as a whole

even for people that are working as

techs at this point where I

feel like a lot of times there is

too much just doing

something like just

taking something apart or just

like a replacing brakes, but not

actually stopping and knowing

what you're looking at and like

spinning that a little bit of time

to be like, does this look right?

Like, is this even

should this thing be in the center

here? First, like compare to the

other side, things like that.

I feel like there's in a lot of

times that they're just not

really sure exactly what they're

looking at. They're just kind of

like, I know I just do this, this

and this and not taking a little

bit of extra time to really

understand how does

this work?

And I'm like constantly doing that.

Every time I see something

I got my flashlight

and I'm looking and trying to think

through. So if this does this

will do that. And like, and it's

helped me. I've been able to

catch problems because I was like,

that doesn't look right to me.

And it turns out sometimes it's

not right because something

was doing something it wasn't

supposed to. And so

do y'all see that from the

shops that you that you go to

and see your own texts where

people are just kind of like

not really diagnosing

the what's the underlying

fault because they're just doing

all the all the time

with decades

decades of experience texts.

So yeah, every day, all

the time, everywhere.

So yes, I

can see it like and I see it in

the students too. And I always

try and stop and be like, no,

I want you to stop and what

understand what is happening

like what you're looking at.

Don't just less just

doing a little bit more

thinking about what it is.

Well, if people call us up

like, hey, my car doesn't

start when you come out and

check the PCM for updates.

Like that's that's a very, very,

very common call that we get.

And we're like, dude,

like that's not how this

works. And I get it.

Like if you're not in the

programming, like, OK, you don't

understand all the ins and outs

of it. But like, like just a

little bit of like, what's

the software update?

What's the purpose of it?

Like, how does that interact

with my car?

You know, it doesn't crank.

Do you really think like they

just released a software update

fix it? I don't know.

That's true. But, like,

so much of the time, no, it's

like you need to put, you know,

some effort into it.

So yeah, like you say, ramp it.

It's very common.

Mostly laziness.

That's it, you know.

And I think I think a lot of it

is a lot of people don't really

care that much about their job.

They're just trying to get through

and make a couple bucks.

I think obviously you're somebody

who is very interested in cares

about this and you'll do very

well for yourself.

I hope so. I mean, I think that's

important, like having dealt

with people like my customers

that have had bad experiences

with other shops or had shops that

where it's like, they'll start

telling me what their sort of

order was for like what they

were checking and what order.

And I'm like, why why

did they start there?

Like why would you do do all

that for like for what this

problem is that doesn't make

like logical sense to me.

And so the problem is somebody's

going to pay for that.

You know, like it were

like I guess sort of best case

that are in those cases is the

shop is eating that time.

But a lot of times I'm not what

happens. They end up charging

the customer for not

really knowing what they're

doing.

And the customer

suffers because of it.

And we all know what it's

like to I think of this

industry almost as like going

to the to the dentist.

Like nobody really loves

going to the dentist.

You know, a lot of times

you're going either for

regular checkup like an oil

change sort of thing and you're

just hoping they don't find

something expensive while

they're in there doing your

cleaning or whatever.

Or worst case scenario, you

have a problem and you go

to them and you're like sort

of afraid.

Yeah, what is that going to

what is this going to be?

But what helps is if you

have a good dentist that you

know, like I trust my

dentist, I know that he

knows what he's doing.

If he says I need this,

then I need this, you know,

I know that he charges a

fair amount for for what

he does. He's not trying

to, you know, sell me on

things that I don't need.

And that just helps

put on a daily

like basis that helps

people just have

better lives.

Like just being able to shed

some of that anxiety

and know that I have this

problem. I can go to this

person and they can fix this

problem for me.

But you it takes effort

to to to get to the point

where you can do that

because again, as we

this is hard, there's a lot

to know, and it's only getting

more complicated.

And so I think

for me, I've had

experiences with my customer

where I get really personal

satisfaction out of being able

to fix something that they've

struggled with or that

they haven't whatever

they've taken it to other places

and they haven't been able to

figure it out.

And so I'm sure you probably

see that a lot where it's like

we've done this, this and this

and we can't figure this out

and then you can come in

and it's like, oh my god, thank

you. I'm so glad you can do

this for me.

Yeah, I mean, there's there's

definitely those moments where

people are just fricking pumped

because you found a connector

that was loose that, you know,

has had the thousand dollars

thrown at it.

Yeah, definitely good feeling

and they're they're super

static about it.

So OK, what is

what are your expectations for

where you're heading this

industry? What's your dream

position? What are you shooting

for? I'm just curious, as

somebody looking at this from

the start, you're excited about

it.

Where do you think you're going

to end up?

What's that going to look like

for you ideally?

That is a good question.

I'm not sure because this is

again, for this is pretty

still new to me.

This isn't something that was

like, oh, I've spent,

you know, I had thought for

a long time, this is what I'm

just going to do and go to

school for that. It's within

the past, certainly

within the past two years and

probably even less time than

that, that it's kind of like, oh,

this is this is what I'm going

to do and stuff.

But I feel really fortunate

because I've spent a lot of

time trying to find something

that I that really

stimulates me the to

learn and to grow and

to challenge myself to fail

a lot, but to actually

not be afraid of that because

I'm like, OK, that just means

I have something to learn and

I'll be better at this

tomorrow.

So I think

that starting

out, like I said, I

want to go work somewhere

that is a shop where I'm going

to see a variety of things

because as we talked about, I

think that's really important,

even the stuff that I think

lots of texts have seen a

hundred times before, it's like,

I haven't seen I haven't done

a hundred break jobs, you

know, I haven't done a

hundred oil changes at

this point.

And so there's things

I can learn from every job

that I that I do.

I would say in an employer,

what I would look for at

this point starting out in this,

but I was going to ask you what

y'all's thoughts on this was

is that I would say

for me personally, anybody

and any any

shop or dealership that I

went to that would want to

start me out on flat rate is

all automatically like that

I'm not interested in working

there.

I think that a

shop that understands when you

bring in a new tech and is

willing to grow a new

tech understands that

no, you need to start off

hourly first because

you're they're

throwing you into the deep end

sink or swim is not

the the recipe for

success.

And I think unfortunately, I

think that's what happens a

lot in the industry because

it's like, oh, if it works

out for you, great.

If it doesn't, well, it

doesn't cost us anything

because you were flat rate.

So you just got paid what

we would pay anybody else

for those jobs that

pays two hours but took you

five hours because you're a new

tech.

So for me, that's

what I am looking for, because

I feel like the

shop and

a dealership that is willing

to invest in you,

you should be willing to

invest in them as an employee.

I feel like that's a two way

street.

I feel like the same way with

people, you know, you should

invest your time and

effort in the people that are

willing to invest their time

and effort in you.

So I would say starting out

that is what I am

I'm looking for is

that's a good sign that OK,

that they're willing to grow

a tech and

let me

improve so that I

can be better for them and

for myself.

What are your thoughts on

when bringing it into it?

Because I know Tommy said that

he had somebody that grew and

feels a little like got burned

maybe on that

at one point.

When I say I got thrown to the

wolves, man, I got I got

thrown into the fucking ocean

full of sharks, man.

I am.

I went from hourly oil change

Lube Tech to a full blown

technician.

And

very first job they gave me

was a heater core on a brand new

Nissan Pathfinder.

Took me out the whole dash.

Yeah.

I'm sorry, it took me like three.

No, it was a five hour job

or warranty paid five hours.

It took me three days.

I can.

Yeah, because, you know, again,

very scared brand new car,

very unknown.

But

I don't know, man, truth be told,

I ate it.

It, um.

You know, I have mixed feelings

because.

Although I do agree with you.

The problem is the industry

itself is not conducive to

what you're asking for, right?

Like it can be.

But then to pay you hourly

a decent living wage,

you're going to have to do a lot of

monotonous shit.

Like, like you're going to have to

do oil changes.

You're going to have to do great

jobs and, you know, a lot of entry

level stuff because

that's the majority

of like high profit

part of our industry is the C

level stuff because it

it takes a non

not very skilled technician.

It's very quick.

There's a lot of parts markup.

And then there's a lot of

there's a lot of repetition, right?

Like you don't really have to worry

about somebody doing time.

I mean, yes, there's there's obviously

there's professionalism and everything

that you're going to do in a vehicle,

right? Everything is dangerous.

You know, oil change can cost an engine.

Tires can cost somebody their life.

Brakes.

But if you really want to

hone your skill sets, man,

I don't know, man.

I was I was forged by fire like

I just I got thrown

into it. And I don't know.

I don't know how I think Sean kind of

went through the same thing.

And actually, man, when I moved to

flat rate, I don't know, man,

it served me well.

A lot of people don't like it.

A lot of people don't like don't

agree with it. And that's fine, man.

I mean, what's what I feel

for me is more important for you

is to find a shop culture

that matches with you.

It doesn't matter if it's independent

or or or or or or a dealer,

you know, find a culture that fits

for you and then you and you'll be

more successful that way.

Like I would be more concerned about

that, in my opinion,

then worried about somebody's

pay scale.

Because, dude, I know some killers

that are due there in the double

digits.

During the upper during the upper

hundreds on flat rates,

pure flat rate.

So yeah, I think ultimately

you could make more money on flat.

Like I'm not.

This is, you know, if you're a

hustler, yeah, everybody.

No, it's not good for everybody.

Because I and

you know, because I know a lot of

shop owners, I had a shop owner

who they begged their technician

to go on flat rate because they

were constantly booking over

hours and they just

didn't want to.

They they just they they didn't

want to. They were just happy

getting us out. And that's fine.

They didn't see that. And that's

the beautiful part about

communicating. So you're on a

right path because you know what

you want.

I'm just saying keep an open mind

and I feel for me

culture is more important than

anything. Like my shop culture

is more important. Like so my

my technician left again.

Nothing, you know, I don't

think there's anything I could

have done there. He just he

moved. He moved states.

So he left.

I had a roster of guys who

wanted to work with me.

But I just I was looking for a

particular person

and

I got tired, man.

You know, I'm busy like I have

module stuff. I got like mobile

programming. I take a site.

I'm growing this business

from scratch basically again.

I'm learning how to run a

business.

And so then

I just I made a decision to

hire somebody after a month

because I just I couldn't do it

no more.

And

before I hired them, I

actually paid them for a

day. I paid his wages for

paid his wages for a day.

I'm like, how much do you make

now this much? OK, I'm going to

pay you to come come work here

for a day.

And, you know,

I wanted to see how he worked,

how efficient he was, how good

he was at certain things.

But very important for me was

how he fit in with us.

Like we we all eat lunch

together, like, hey, man,

come eat here.

Here's some food.

Hey, just grab whatever you want.

There's drinks there. There's here.

There's that. And, you know, just,

you know, we were just all chitchatting.

I have my to my nephew

and my my apprentice.

And then, you know, I have my

writers.

And, you know, at the end

of the day, before I told

him anything, I talked to the guys

and just like, hey, what do you guys think?

He's like, hey, we like

him. Think he's cool.

Then I talked to him, gave us

expectations and I gave him an offer

and he took it.

So culture

is just king for me because, dude,

you're in there more.

You're going to spend more time

working with your family.

Yeah.

So I don't know what you think, Sean.

Hey, have you ever been faced with

the challenge of sourcing,

installing and programming

a used control module and

vehicle? I know a lot of us

have. It seems to be happening

more and more often today with

the volume of control modules on

vehicles, the cost of some new ones

or even the availability of

new control modules. In some cases

used may be the only option.

So what do you do here?

I strongly recommend checking out

SJ auto solutions and Tommy

Oliva. Tommy offers

a cloning service for

use control modules to make

these things plug and play

for the vehicle that you're working on.

In a lot of cases, he is also

able to source the control modules

if you're unable to

locate one for the vehicle that you're

working on. But once you get connected

with Tommy, he's going to offer

fantastic support from

start to finish to make sure that

that control module is going to work in

your application.

He's also got tech support that he offers

through his website, along

with some free resources there as well

on information about

used control module

programming. So make sure to check

out SJ auto solutions.

I can't recommend that enough.

Yeah, I mean

I agree with you that

starting off flat rate

sucks because you're going to be

terribly inefficient. You're learning stuff.

And if you're on strictly on flat rate

at that point, that is pretty shitty.

And so there should be at least

some, you know, entry

period. Let's get you up to speed

on hourly before we transition you

or let's have a guarantee or something.

A lot of places have that.

But depending on your style

and what you're able to do

eventually

you'll get to a point where if

you're doing repair work, I would

say diagnostics may be different. But if you're

doing repair work, you'll eventually get to a point where

like, okay, I could be making more on flat rate.

And I went too long because I

my first job was like hourly plus

commission and I wasn't good enough to really

make any money off of that. But then I went to a shop

and I was just hourly and I was there for five years

and I grew a lot during that

period of time. But I lost

a lot of money because when I went

to flat rate, I doubled what I was making

in that next year. I'm like, oh, I should have been on this

a long time ago because

I could I could crank out some work.

So yeah, again, it's

for the it's for the right person. If you

understand efficiencies, you know, like

you can, you can

my life was in tenths

of an hour. Like that's how I thought

about everything was tenths of an hour.

Like everything I did is like, okay, how

many tenths of an hour is this costing

me? You know, and

you know, you really

you put in the time you put in the

work, you get to it and then that's how

you're making, you know, 100 hours in a week or whatever.

But

it does depend on, you know

what your ultimate goal is because

diagnostics not suited for Diag.

We've talked about that plenty of

time or I'm sorry.

Flat rate not suited for

diagnostics.

That's that's not going to work out. So

yeah, I would I would ask, you know, if

you're interested in the diagnostics side

of thing, you want that to, you know, be

all a part of your job.

Then I would talk to the people there, like what is your

what do you what do you guys

do for diagnostics? Like how do you handle

that? How do you pay your guys for

diet? Do you see yourself or have

a role for somebody who is

you know, handling most of the

diagnostics

and and see, do they even

have an idea? Is there a role

for that?

If that's what you're shooting for again, just

talking with you, it kind of sounds like it is

because

that that changes things and everybody kind of

does that, you know, differently.

I'll explain it the way I do

it and think about

this too. When you're talking to a potential

employer, just understand from their

perspective, it's just a math

problem really like

I'm bringing you on. I'm paying you this

much. I

need to make this much.

You need to make this much for me and I would

like you to make this much for me.

It's just it's a math problem. So how much

value can you bring

to to the company and you have to

bring at least this much value or

at least somebody else has got to be really

crushing it within that

that system to make up for you, but

that's that's not long term.

But anyways, it's a math

problem. So what value can you

bring to that that system

and really think about that before you

go in because you can express that

to the potential employer be like, here's

what I can bring to the table.

Maybe it's a year down the road. Maybe I need

some training, but I'm willing to get there

and willing to do this.

That's going to be very attractive, but

the way we do it is we have a guarantee

my guys are salary like

you are going to make this much money

every single week

regardless as long as you show up for work

and then we have a bonus. So if we

hit our numbers

at the end of the month as a group

we have certain numbers that we're shooting for

if we hit those then everybody

gets a bonus. And so it's

it's a team based thing there

so everybody, you know, it's got to

pull their weight, but hey, sometimes

I have a shitty week. Sometimes you have

a shitty week.

Yes, yes it's

it plays

into the overall amount that we make that month

but one one person

having a shitty week doesn't kill the month

and so we can still get there as a team

and so at least that small scale

that's worked out really, really well for us is to

have kind of there's an incentive

because, you know, everybody can say

what they do, but people are incentivized

by money

and you make that incentive right and people

are

definitely willing to work towards it or put in

the effort to get there

but the guarantee in

at least in my opinion, I don't know my

colleagues can tell me if I'm full of bullshit, but

I feel like it's a very livable wage

that I'm offering as a guarantee and then

hey, if we all kick ass then we get

something on top of it.

And that's how I have it set up to work pretty

well for us.

So there's still like an understanding

that you have to be efficient. We want

you to crank out work. We want you to make money

but you're not going to be high and dry

if it's January and it's super

slow and there's nothing to do.

I'm still going to pay you. I like that.

Sort of that building that

team feel to it

because it really is a team sort of

thing and I think that's

important because this can be such a

and it's one of my concerns honestly

and the more I work

sort of

the less I get concerned about it but one of my initial

concerns was that this can be a very like

isolated profession

where you're working like even

you obviously mobile diagnosis very

much so but even working in a shop it's like you got your

bay, you've got your jobs, you're doing your

things and you're not really working.

Well it can be a lone ranger thing.

If everybody else

is just trying to get theirs

why stop and help you.

Again going back to what Tommy said

that's culture.

I can tell you that

that's culture and now

I will tell you this just keep this in mind

I'll give you some advice

and Sean can correct me if I'm wrong

but in my humble opinion

there's three paths to this industry

path number one

you want to work on

newer shit

and potentially be able to make

some good

decent money

I'd probably do dealer

you're going to learn

how to master one vehicle

the master repetition

and you're going to

have access to a lot of training a lot of

new stuff

and potentially depending on your area

maybe higher up in terms of pay

like I said potentially

hear me out

downfalls would be

it's very lonely and the majority

of dealership cultures they suck

I'm pretty sure there's some good ones

but the majority of them are not conducive

to people who really enjoy what they do

most of them again it's just people who want to

come in do their work and get the fuck out

then there's the fleet

approach

if you want security stability

hourly

decent hourly rate

and not want to do a lot of work

want to do easy work

it's just the truth it's just fleet

right like especially

it's a very different pace especially if you're in

like a major municipality

dude those guys have it

they have it sweet and then they still don't

do a lot of major work

so fleets fleets are good

for that for security

stability

and ease of work

but the downfall

is not a lot of training

and it's

me Tommy for me

I can't say I can't stay still man

I'm I need to feel

like I earn my money I am not

a

not speaking bad about the unions

at all but I am not a union guy

I do not want somebody saying me okay

you this is how much

you're gonna make and this is as much as I can pay

you know

I need to decide how much

I'm getting paid my work is gonna

provide you the ability to pay me what I want

that's me personally

um

if you're really thinking about doing

dyag man

I strongly suggest

find a very very

very high-paced

um

very well run independent facility

not all of them are good

but there are some rocks like some

really really really kick ass

um

independent shops look at your

what are your students John

he's doing great

um he was able to sharpen his diagnostic skills

he found a good shop that was able to mold him

he started as a

sea level tech now he's their shop foreman

um

so I think if you're trying to do

dyag and then also like

let's let's just be realistic here like

I what I hated about the dealer

was I'm

limited to to honing my craft

on one brand

and then again obviously it's all nuts and bolts

but then when you take a jump to another dealership

or that dealer closes something happens

and you're like dude now I gotta do all these certifications

and learn a whole new different vehicle

you go into the

into the independent world you'll

get this kind of like

I'm not I'm not a master of anything

but I can fix anything

and with diagnostics

that really helps you because you get tunnel vision

like I know some really good like

you know like technique dealer

technicians who are

the exception but I don't know a lot of them

who are just kind of like yeah I own

what I work on because I don't know

how to fix anything else

I have a GM buddy

and I fix his wife's car she drives a palisade

because he just doesn't want to deal with it

so

in my humble opinion

that's kind of like

your your your pathways

in this industry

I think that really kind of jives with

what I've heard from talking

to some of my instructors

I know one of my instructors

got mentioned

not by name but in both

Zach Sheaf's podcast

and in Malcolm Tramell's

he was mentioned in both

and I said not by name

but when they were talking about him

like I know who they're talking about

and so his name is King it's Henry King

and he's one of the instructors

that's been really influential on me

and so he does at Mobile Diag

for a living

he actually owns a shop too

but at this point the shop kind of runs

itself and he does the mobile

because that's what he likes doing

and that's what he's really good at

and so I had

a thing I don't really want to say where

but that I did have one dealership

that I went to

because I had a question about one of their vehicles

I'd seen something online somebody

was like I wonder what this is and I was like

I wonder what that is too and so I looked online

I couldn't find the answer and so I was like

well I can just go down there and ask

so I did and I ended up talking

to their to their lead tech

and shop foreman

and I because this is

I'll say it's like a it's very specialized

it's a it's a dealership but it's very

specialized

I think I had some preconceived notions

about what it would be like to work there I hadn't really

thought like I had not considered it all

working at a place like that

but even without really thinking about it

I had some preconceived notions but in

talking to their lead tech

who took the time it really took time of his day

to just talk with me about stuff

and stuff which I really appreciated obviously when people do that

I think I

was probably wrong and about some of the things

that I thought about what it would be

like to work there and it seems

like the work environment

would be like Tommy was saying

sort of the culture that I think I would be

be looking for because

because it is a specialized dealership it's a lot smaller

it's not like one of the giant dealerships

where you're just a sort of a number

but I remember

so I was talking to King about this

because I was like hey I had this I

hadn't really considered working at a place like this before

but I liked

the person that I talked to he took his time

with me

and he expressed say with the same

concerns though that Tommy had he's like

the downside to that is

it's a dealership and you're doing

something very specialized

and whereas if you go and work at

like an independent shop

you're going to see a lot more variety

like what y'all see in a day

like there's a huge variety

of the type of vehicles

type of problems and stuff like that

and that was his concern

the same way like the Tommy says

if you're interested in Diag

you know that's

sort of the downside of going with a dealership

and even a non-specialized dealership

you're still kind of specializing in that

that make

of

of vehicle

and I think there's concern about

that kind of stunting

my growth I think as a

diagnostically because of only

not seeing the variety that

you guys see as like independent shops

the variety

can be daunting and especially

early on because you're

learning like something fresh

like each car that pulls in

and you know a

2002 Camry and then

a

2022 Chevrolet pulls in

those are very different things obviously

yeah okay there's some similarities but the systems

and the scan tools and the

you know you're learning

something new every single time

which I still am

every single day I write something down that

I learned it's brand new to me

I've been doing this for a long time

but when you're first starting out

and like you don't have like a

a base and a reference for most

of this stuff it is a very daunting

challenge so

I guess if I'm you know a new tech

starting out today I would sure hope

that there's someone there to support me and help me through

you know somebody I can lean on

that it's not just

hey Sean's coming in

at you know four o'clock

and then he's by himself until

close which that was

the case when I was at one of my first

shops is I was just I was just there

I was there by myself to handle whatever

came in and good luck and

it you know it did not go well some days

um like Tommy

said I mean jump you know getting thrown in the deep

end it's not the worst thing for

your experience but it's it's

daunting it's challenging and

you know cause a lot of people to just say

screw this I don't want to do this

yeah that's I think

definitely uh understandable

to do that and that's what I

am not looking for

I think that and again that's why

that this this dealership that I went

to was not like that

like I think I kind of expected that they

in particular would especially be like

that but it was sort of the opposite that

they were much more like they had hired

somebody out of UTI a couple

years ago and had really good luck with them

and training them up and stuff like that and working

under the the other texts

there and like that was

really attractive to to me is

that the that thing

and I know I probably maybe gave though Tommy

the wrong idea when I mentioned like pay at

first but to me the sort of the pay is it

in that way is sort of indicative

of the culture of how they're going to

treat somebody new like if they're going to

start you off on flat rate

right off the bat to me that's somewhat indicative

of are they willing

to invest in you and help you grow like

let you work under a master

tech and stuff to to grow your

skills at least initially starting

out because I think that is super important

and the idea that you're kind of new and

they're just going to leave you to figure it out yourself

I think is not a recipe for

success for I mean like

it is trial by fire I'm not going to act like

that there isn't some benefit to that sometimes

like forcing you to

figure it out but you have to screw so much

stuff up in that period of time

that's kind of why I'm torn because

I feel like it made me who I am

yeah I mean I can see both sides

yeah so it's kind of like

um

and then people talk about money and then tooling

and yes it's like it's it's hard man

like no matter what this is a hard industry

to start off at man I mean I

I didn't have shit

I didn't have

anything I

I actually ended up financing

my first scan tool because I was broke

man I didn't have any money and

um

when I first when I started like wrenching out of my

dad's shop like on the side

I didn't have any tools man

um there's a couple things

that my dad had lying around

and um a cheap little box

from from craftsman a

220 piece set

and uh

because I said you know I'll

buy a scan tool first because nobody will borrow

me one but I can probably you know

one of the shops or somebody down the street

will borrow me something

dude nobody borrowed me shit man

like

for a while I was renting tools from from az

until I finally paid off my scan

tool and then after that I

took out another

another loan

to buy more tools and then like my

money my uti gave

they gave us like some money to buy tools with

and I did and I calculated

that and that's how I got my

start um

but I just

you know I I feel like

for me I invested wisely

um

I knew what I needed and I went after it

and I think

a lot of technicians who start off

with are more concerned about how

things look and then you get

here a lot of guys buying

uh

toolboxes and whatnot when they're first starting

on them just like dude you don't even know if you're going to like this

shit man to be buying a

$7000 box

and another thing too like like

for tooling and stuff man like

I feel like it's

easier now because man those craftsman tools

people will swore by them but dude

they sucked

I don't care what anybody said they were not

they were not a professional line of tools

and now you can get some halfway

decent stuff at Harbor Free for like cheap

oh for sure I

I try and

tell people and you know again this is

somewhat speaking from a little bit of experience

but obviously not the level of experience that you guys

have and what the

listeners have is that but

even from my experience I was like

let the work kind of tell you what you need

um like a lot of people want

to go out and buy all this stuff right off the bat

and I was like have you had a job that required

you to have that yet

you know and it's like have you seen it more than once

uh and even then

like you said do you have to buy

Snap-On right like no

like you you can

there's better

there's less expensive options

that will do the thing but

you'll get to a point where I feel like

it

the work kind of tells you what you're going to need

uh for this at a certain

point you can do that so I'm curious what your thoughts

are on but specifically

scopes and scan tools

and because I have my thoughts on that but I'm curious

what y'all's thoughts on for a new tech coming in

like should they have their own scope

and or scan tool

yes or no and what are your thoughts on that

I mean if you want to buy a Uscope

it's $150

I think that's a good idea for

anybody to have

um but what I would do

is and around the scan tool stuff we can talk

more about that but

you know whatever shop you're in

go to the lead tech

or the tech that's making the most money

or the most successful tech

or there's probably a few of them in a given shop

and just ask them be like what tools

specifically make you the most money

like what is the best return

on investment specific tools

right and as a tech doing repair work

I probably would have said something like these

um impact swivel sockets

I'm pulling them out you know these

specific tools make me a

boatload of money my three ace electric

impact makes me a boatload

of money compared to what it cost me like

those those are the things that you should be

investing in for repair work right now

diagnostics um

different it dude

in today's world okay

so everybody listening to this

if you have a hundred

dollars that you can spend

on a tool go buy

a top scan and you even have to buy

it for me this isn't a sales pitch but I can

sell them to you if you want but it's

a hundred dollars

and this thing will do just

about everything that a

full-fledged freakin

you know flagship

top-down scan tool do with your phone

um like your

ability to do stuff

scan tool wise you have so

many more options yes there's going to be

a lot more things to deal with

there's a lot more problems out there

but you can get scan tool for cheap

just to get started easy stuff

there um and then you can go from there

so don't buy a big expensive

crazy thing right off the bat that's not

that doesn't make sense

I remember like my first scan tool

cost me five thousand dollars man

back in back in two thousand

it was a macro not even

I always went against the grain on

stuff so I actually bought a

basically um OTC

Genesis yeah it was a

macro determinator that was

that was a great tool back in the day

you could do GM programming with that tool

yeah and um

so I um

I have a different

approach man

alright yes I

believe you should have your own tools 100%

um

and I believe if you want to invest in yourself

you need to buy your own your own shit

but

starting out I just I

don't see it man I feel like

I feel like there's an order of

things and I may be

wrong but

I think you should

I think people should I mean I think

newcomers should focus on like

like what what are you

gonna do right like again

if you're if you're gonna work independent

and you want to get into scoping

but you're still trying to wrestle with

like um

learning how to be a tech

so which one is it right so I think

that's gonna be the the

I think it's more of a case by case

basis of what you're actually doing but if

you're gonna go work at an independent

shop as a sea level technician

um

I'd say just wait until you have

a little bit more experience to

like actually maneuver

and these are the type of questions you need to ask the

shop hey what kind of tools do you have

what kind of tooling do you have what

do I have access to

I'm so sorry yeah what do you

expect of me coming in to a wise

yeah yeah yeah I have that

that's I have that question for sure

because

I'm used to the school

um because at the school

I have my set of tools that I bring

and I can do 95

percent with what I have at this point

but it's nice to

always have this the school has

like if I don't have something

I can borrow it from there

uh and so

I know I'm

going into a shop's a different environment than that

they don't have a central tool check out

you know like I know some independent

shops who will refuse to have

their sea level guys buy tools

they buy them tools

they you can use they have cards

stuff that you're gonna need so again I'm

not preventing you from

or anybody right to not buy stuff

I'm just saying that

you know just as well as

as they're interviewing

you you need to interview them

oh for sure

right like that's a lot of people get hung up on

like oh what are they gonna think we know what do you think of them

like yeah are you happy

with the with their selection of tooling are you happy

with like um

how they operate with their belief systems

are like do they align with you

like that's

that's more critical than anything

the tooling

and again like

there has to be an ROI for tooling

on the owner standpoint but any

any shop worth their assault should

have a should

should have a scope and a

and a scan tool that you can that you

should have at your disposal that's kind of where I'm getting

a man like that's that's true

that's that's that's kind of where I'm like

like you're right John like $150

for a use scope is fine but like

you see my my thing is like

I work

mentally man anytime that I've gone cheap

to learn because it was

cheap I ended up I ended up getting frustrated

and not and not learning anything

like

like my scope and career started late because

I didn't know what a good scope was I just

bought hunks of crap that were cheap and I just always

thought I was too stupid to understand what I was doing

and I finally just said

screw this I'm buying a Pico because I had the opportunity

to buy one at a good price

I'm like hey I'm not dumb it's just I had

some crappy scan tools some crappy scopes

so that's kind of like

the use scope is good don't get me wrong that's a great scope

but like the grand scheme

of things like

I always feel like and I get this question

on offer e-prom stuff like oh what would you do

I'm like dude I spent

thousands of dollars on cheap Chinese

fucking tools

that I shouldn't have and if I

would have just been smarter about it I should have just bought

one good tool because when you're beginning

something you're also fighting the tool

right yeah this is there's a reason

why the tool is cheap

and so now it's like you're it's a variable

like is it you or is it the tool

yeah well I know exactly

or is it you know or is it

like something that that you're

your equipment right that that's another thing too

so it was very

unpopular because I've said this before plenty of times

I'm like dude if I like oh if you if

you can pick any of the cheapest tools to start

right now which one you pick none

buy a good one like if not

then just you know

fumble your way through it like everybody else but

you know I'm at a point in my life

where I value my time more than

then

then forging fire but ultimately

it's that's gonna be that's gonna be

up to everybody because I I've had

disagreements with other top guys they're like oh no I'm

glad I did it that way because

I learned a little bit more awesome

but for me where I stand no

I don't have it anymore I'm

way too busy

yeah it's yeah

it's too short anyway to be fighting your tool

to get done what you need to

get done for sure

I probably will I'm gonna push back

just a little bit on the things

so for one so I have a

you scope and it's actually Malcolm

who was on the podcast before it I

actually won it in his

class like it's like out of his

out of his own money he

put these like kind of like prize

packages to together and

so he did a raffle at the end where

it's like you got so many entries based on like if you

took the ASC the A8

exam the engine performance exam you

got this many entries into it and stuff and

that's what actually encouraged me to start taking the ASC

exams that was the first one I ever took the A8

was the first ASC I

did

and I did it because I did the math and I was like

okay so it costs this much to take the

exam and his prize packages

are worth this much and my odds are this much

winning so I figured I would come

out okay anyway and I did so it worked out

really well all the way around because it started

getting me to take the ASC exams

but so

I would say because I've had other people

recommend like the you scope

as

like a first scope and I've people have asked

me a lot of times when I have mine when I'm

using it about it I would say

I would absolutely and this is my personal

opinion of course I would absolutely not

recommend the you scope

as your first scope

because

I think there is a thought that

because it's kind of small and

simple that that makes it

simpler to use and easier

and I think it's just

the exact opposite compared

to like Pico especially Pico 7

like when you go to Pico 7 it's like oh if I

want to change my set I just click here and here to do all this

where it's like on the you scope

you have to know where to go to

get to whatever it is that you're trying

to change and stuff it's just and obviously

it's not like you can zoom in

you know where it's like you can have your capture

and just take a zoom in on it like you can

Pico and I think that the barrier

to Pico for most people obviously the expense

because that like any of your four channel

Pico's are expensive

but what I found

after the what I found

sort of more recently is I use

a 2204a at this

point which is a

two channel Pico that you can get for

it's like 150 bucks

and because the power in Pico

really is I mean they make good scopes too

but it's the software and that's where

I think that when you're

fighting cheaper scopes and stuff

you're really fighting cheaper software

that that's not as well designed

and laid out as that and Pico

is kind of the standard at this point like

when you see people doing demonstrations a lot of times

they're using Pico

for that reason because

what comes with it but you can

I've found that you can pretty much do

almost everything with the 2204a

that is the basic level

stuff that you would be wanting to do anyway

you know like relative compression

just capturing you know voltages

whatever it is like I've got that

I have a Hantec amp clamp

that was like $65 that works

just fine for for capturing

amperage on waveforms and stuff and so

I think I've probably got

$250

total into the scope plus

my leads

and I'm able to

do 95%

of what I would like to do obviously you're limited

to two channels as opposed to four

but

I think it makes the learning curve a lot

better

compared to like using a user scope because

it's just easier to

have a full-size screen to click on

what you want to do because once you

kind of learn a little bit how to use the menu system

it is pretty straightforward but again

even Pico 7 is to me

easier for somebody new

than Pico 6 was

and that would be my

and I understand a lot of people because

I hate Pico 7 man

I hate that thing

my laptops hate Pico 7

all of my laptops hate Pico 7

if I run a math channel

it freaking just

slows that computer down

it's so terrible man

it makes me want to throw it

across the room

but if you know how to use Pico 6

I've used Pico 6

as well

you can pretty much do all the same things

in Pico 6 for the most part

I think that you can do in Pico 7

the layout is a little bit

easier for somebody that's new

on Pico 7

there is a really big

learning piece

that you can gain from using Pico

so we would do that in the college

where we just run the demo software too

of like

time based here is voltage scale

and yeah you can learn

the ins and outs of the scope and what's happening

quite a bit more

and then you can use that to work

I don't know backwards or down to a

use scope and then changing those settings

makes a lot more sense

so I agree with you in that stance

but like Tommy was saying

if I'm a new tech

I would find it very difficult

to justify buying the big

full fledged Pico

that might be a great option

but as the shop

like hey do you have a scope that

I can use as Tommy was saying

it's like

if this is a place

you're shooting for that place where you can

grow and you can do diagnostics

and hopefully

they've already invested some money in it

they've got something that you can use

oh hey okay I can see what a WPS

can do but I don't have to buy it myself

that would be

that would be ideal obviously harder to find

it's not it could be every shop

but questions ask

100%

I agree with that for sure

because I think that a good shop

should have a four channel scope

that's like a Pico to be

able to use to do

the diagnostics that you need to do

with it I just know

from having worked with other students

the problem

is that

obviously when we're learning scope stuff

one of the first questions that comes up

for students is okay how much does that cost

and it's like well a full

Pico kit

with the four channel scope and the leads

and everything like that is I don't know what like four grand

something like that

and I can see there

as soon as you say that

they just shut off they just stop because they're like

oh I can't afford this

it's hard to learn to use anyway

I couldn't afford it even if I did

learn how to use it so why am I even

expanding the brain energy on this

and so that's why I think it's important

for people to know that there are

starting out like

when you get to the point where you need that and want that

like it 100% will

pay for itself

and make sense to do so

and ideally like I said a shop that you're working at

should have something like that for you to use but

there are cheaper options

available to learn on that are really

again

powerful than a lot of people realize

they are

that I just I don't

want people like especially younger

people that are coming in just

not even trying to learn the scope

stuff because the cost

side of it just immediately makes them

shut off if that makes sense

yeah

don't go all by a full on

Pico set if you're

brand new tech that

do what I do man

looking for stuff used man

all my first J devices were used

so

you have any issues with that with any of like

the I mean obviously like hand

tools I'm not afraid to buy used but sort of

like if anything like a scan tool

or a scope for some reason a little bit

more reticent what are

scan tools are funny

because

you have to buy it at the right

price because typically

speaking you're going to buy it outdated

until then you have to update it

and then at that point it's like

was it worth it

so that's kind of was kind of tricky

especially how some of these Chinese tools

are just so cheap man better off just buying

you know a decent

mid grade one and

call it a day

but in terms of like J devices

I've been I've been fine

you know I've I've you know like

I've had tons of luck over the years

and then you know for a while like right now

I pulled a bunch of them when I

my guy quit because I'm like dude I don't

have time for a lot of mobile stuff anymore

so I'm going to condense my tooling

and um and yeah so

I got rid of a lot of stuff because I had like

man I had four VCM

threes

I have four MDI twos

I'm just like what the hell I need all this for

I'm like I

how many can you use at once

well I mean at one point I just

you know I pick them up on deals

yeah but yeah um no

I've never had like somebody sell me a bad tool

one of my one of my VCM

has had a bad USB port but I changed it

myself

but he told me I bought it cheap for that particular

reason so no I mean I

I don't you know I don't

I don't see anything wrong with it

but Sean I did want to ask you guys

sorry go ahead I didn't mean to interrupt

I was just saying I had pretty good luck with the you

stuff too and I mean you can

yeah you got to do your due diligence

there's some scam artists out there that's probably

the the bigger danger

if you're going to be buying stuff online

as people scam and yeah

not even sending you a tool yeah that or selling

knockoffs so yeah

yeah yeah Chinese phones

stuff yeah I

did want to ask you because you mentioned that the

top-down what at the top scan I think

it was it's like a hundred bucks

and I've when I've looked into that one

because I have a scanto it's not a top-down

um but

I think the when I

looked into that one the only issue with it

was so like yeah it's super powerful like it's

bi-directional and will do

a ton of stuff but I think

you only

you have to re-up it like

you have to do the

the yearly subscription or whatever

for it to maintain those

features right like it's not like

my understanding because I yeah I've

I've emailed top-down about it

and they were like yeah if you don't

continue to pay for the subscription whatever I

I don't know if it's $50 a year

$100 a year that

is like a hundred yeah that it will then revert

to where it's basically like the

generic tool like it won't do

any of the bi-directional stuff and stuff

which is yep yeah it was all functions

but I mean that's that's all

that's pretty much all of them man you can't

you can't unlike you can't unlock gateway

vehicles if your your subscriptions

not up to date

um auto for example um

you know the tool is half

useless like

you know if you have an ultra for example

it does a lot of like BMW coding

and Mercedes programming stuff like that

on board it doesn't work

or like Kia Hyundai

right it used to it would do

like a lot of stuff for Kia Hyundai

it doesn't work so at the

same point that the base tool is still there so it's

the same it's the same stuff man

we're going to a subscription based model

in every aspect of our lives

yeah I

I'm using I have a

it's AutoFix, OTO, FIX

yeah that's just a good tool

the D1 light yeah

it's Autel, you know it's what it is

it is an Autel, it's Autel's way of

it's the same VCI

yeah and so it's just orange

and it was nice because

yeah that's exactly what I have

and so but I paid

about like 250 for it

and it comes with two years

of update so it's good

you don't have to pay anything after those

two years and then

after the two years though

I think you it doesn't up like it's

not going to update to newer models and stuff

and it sounds like but I don't use it

for I just use it for

you know for a basic scan

tool to do some

you know to scan for codes do live data

stuff like that and so my

understanding is that after two years it'll

still do that

is it

they're not on like a gateway car

like any tool doesn't matter what it is

you have to have an active subscription

either to be able to use auto off

so like do you want to you know

and that's becoming a lot of cars now

and the thing of it is

is like if you're working on cars

like the scan tool should be one of

the easiest things that you're just

okay spending money with because it's going to

make you that money back so fast

like it's not even a thought now granted

I'm in a particular I got a bias

on what I do but like

if it's a tool that we need to diagnose the car

just okay just just buy it

spend the freaking money it's going to make us that

money back on one job

and then I'm done thinking about it you know

yeah I can see that I'm just

again coming from we're poor college

didn't if you know

but in two years

in two years you can

get somewhere and you can be making

a lot more money and you don't have to worry

so much about it so

I think looking at subscription

cost is worth it and weighing that

against other tools because there are a lot of

tools out there and what is it going to cost

me when I have to update

and I guess that's the way I would look at it

I'm going to have to update the tool eventually

if I want it to use it for XYZ

what does that look like

what does that cost me and there is

a difference between that right snap on

and topped on and I'll tell

they're all going to be different so look

into that before you drop the dough

on something yeah but like I said

when with what you guys do I know

it's like yeah wait whatever it costs is what

it costs because it's a different world

yeah it more than pays for itself for sure

yep

so yeah I

I've really been happy with

what I've gotten out of mind for the money

that I have into it

yep it's good little tool we got a couple of those

I like them

yeah and I think that the subscription

yearly subscription I think is 120

after it expires but I'm sort of like

I'll probably just buy another I would just buy

another new one at that point that's two years

and there's tools where that's a good argument

and it's like okay I guess

I could update this otherwise you know

they're so cheap some of these tools just

get the newest version yeah I think I'm gonna

how do you even give this one or I don't

know but yeah my new

guy I want to give him a tool

um because I have

a an ultra

and I have a d1

max and then I got

this light here at the house I use this for like

calming to modules on the bench

just like just a I don't really

have any particular use for it so

I don't know

we'll see

we uh we call them

the top scam we call them baby dons and

I gave everybody

there's a baby don his baby don

I mean

and I don't even know how to

I did want to ask you about something

because I know you had done some recent

um episodes

on using like AI

and in your business

and so I've kind of

explored with trying to use it as a student

as a learning tool and had some

uh I guess mixed

success is what I'll call it on that

uh and so

I am curious sometimes like how much of that

is me and the way that I'm interacting with it need to

change the way that I'm interacting with it but I actually

had a use case recently that I was like

oh I wonder if it'll do this because if it'll do this

this would be really helpful

have you used it for

because the one of the things I need

to for sure get better at

is and I know you mentioned it even just

earlier on this podcast about

having a way to like

save information from a job

that you do so that when you work on another

similar car you can

be like oh this is I saw this same

thing before and this is kind of what

I was like so are you using it to help

organize that at all and if so how

like what is your organization system in general

um so that storage

for everything is Google Drive

that's where I started and

um

I uh that's where we've been

putting stuff long before I was using

that but now the way I'm integrating

AI is so that

I have a

project set up to tell it

exactly what I want like I want this output

like don't give me any BS

I'm just having you reformat what I'm saying

in a usable manner

that is structured and grammatically correct

and then I take

that and I put it but I just do the talk

the text so I'll be at the

car I'll be driving away from the car

whatever I open up the project

say I got a

2000 and

13 whatever

here's the problem here's the details

that I noticed and I will give it specific

things that I'm like hey if I knew

that

going into this I would have gotten that

car diagnosed much quicker

right or this was an obstacle that

I hit as a technician

that if I knew that it was an obstacle

then it would have made my life

a lot easier and and my mindset

now is really employees employees

employees like they run into

this I want them to get through it

faster and with less problem

so I'm I'm giving it those details

and it has specific instructions

to like put those into a

searchable format and so then

it reformats it it doesn't

add any BS I told it don't put

any fluff in there don't add anything

just reformat it I just wanted

in a nice easy to read structured format

copy paste

into my drive

but then the other

thing that I did in this took an incredible

amount of work mainly because I'm

kind of slow so

it it it was

really tough for me to get this figured out but

I got chat

GPT to natively

integrate with our Google

Drive so now my employees

can just ask it hey can you

pull from the drive anything about

2

dd 6 in a mini Cooper and

we have any info and it goes

finds it the drive pulls it up gives you

the link to where it is in the drive so

that's that's the organizational format

that we're using right now with that and

it's it's growing it's like

it's like small right

now but we're it's getting better and better all the

time the more we add to it the more we

figure out how to use it and that's

I maybe we can circle back to what you

were saying is like is it the way I'm using it

this is just another tool that you

got to learn how to use

it's not turnkey

in my opinion at least not right now

you have to figure out

the nuances and the ins and outs of it and

where it can be useful and where it's gonna

lead you astray and be full of shit because

it is sometimes and you gotta

be careful

but there's

some really powerful

potential behind it but you gotta

you gotta put the work in and figure it out

it's still just another thing that you gotta put work

into if you want to get the most out of

yeah that's

it sounds like you're using it in a way that

as I just realized

just recently I was like oh man if I can do this

it'll be helpful because what I've run into sometimes

and I think this is a new tech

thing and I don't know if it changes

as you get more experience whatever but

I there's a lot of times where I'm going

through something and I want to be

like if there was somebody there I want to

be able to tell hey remind me to do

this before I'm done you know like at

the end of the job like it I've even little

things like remind me I need to put this

client back on and not leave it

loose things like that

and I've learned that yeah chat

gbt because I've tested it before

to try and look at like torque specs on

something large I haven't even with surface info

having a little difficult time finding torque specs

on something and so I was like well let's

test it out let's check it out and it was very wrong

you know it was the sort of like you do that

you're gonna break something and so but I

like the idea of like

no you only only take

what I'm telling you like don't go looking

for other information somewhere else like

only what I tell you is the only info

that you have because it'd be really nice to

even I would like to find a way where you

can interact with it pretty quickly

like through your phone like almost like

where you would do the thing like oh my phone

doesn't do I don't know if it set up for that

not where you say like hey Siri and then

it you know hopefully that messes me up and it

then it will listen to you because

there are so many times where I'd be like

oh the firing order is something and I could

have another service info tell it and even

when I'm looking at torque specs on

something that I know I'm not using right now

but I'm going through I'm gonna need it

so I can just tell it that and then

somebody's probably already

working on this if they're not they

can send me a check once they hear

this idea and I said this

years ago that

an all data or an identification

needs to get it integrated

and functional

so that you have a large

model tied in with the service information

so you have that option you log in all data

that you can just pull up

the chat bot and it's gonna have

it's gonna if I figured it out

just some dumb mechanic

that I can link it to my google drive

and it has immediate

access to all of our information I'm sure

they can do it with all data or

identification they probably are

but that's gonna be

that's gonna be what you're talking about and I

gotta imagine it'll eventually be out if it's not already

and

now again the accuracy of it is gonna be

very important and maybe that's the reason

it isn't out today

but once they figure that out

that that be huge

you just say hey yeah what's the

what's the firing order on this thing

okay yeah you can search something like that

in identifix or whatever

but there's there's stuff that's tough to find

right there's stuff that is

difficult to

to find I don't know

there is a value in finding yourself though

too I found that it's like knowing

how to actually get to it but sometimes I just

give up and go to the search bar too so

yeah I was trained like my

instructors like both king and

and Malcolm

trained us initially partially because we do the

skills USA competition

and they're sometimes

in the past at the skills USA competition

they don't let you use the search

like to look up service information

but

what I learned from the get go

to how to use the menu

system to try and get where you were and I

will say it's definitely helpful to do

that because a lot of times

you know you don't know what it's called

in the whatever this manufacturer is calling

whatever you look for and I've seen people

dick around for too long

search to not find what they're looking for

was like if you just went here here and here

like through the new how to use the menu system

so I think there's definitely value in both

to being able to

sometimes yes if I can't find it through that I was like well let me just search

and see if it'll find what I need

but I'm like you I don't really

my experience with GBT

is even if it had access to like all data

at this point I don't necessarily

trust it to

always pull the correct information

and you shouldn't and that's

dangerous to take something like this

and put 100%

confidence in it it's

in my opinion

if you know somebody's interested in it right now

experiment with it use it alongside

you know when is it successful

when does it blow smoke up my ass

on stuff and check it

like double check it against stuff

but I can say

you know just trying to build

a little tiny thing that I have

it's definitely

sped up productivity in a number of areas

and you find something like again

I didn't think the reformatting

of voice to

text would be such a

powerful thing that AI could do

for me but dude it's a killer

we do it for invoices too

that I'll go to bat against

anybody on that that is

so much more efficient

than me typing stuff out and it's

better it's faster it's

way better like

no question I pay the $20

a month alone just

for that and we got that

dialed we made the project with the specific

instructions like we get

beautiful in voice descriptions

for stuff that in my opinion

adds a lot of value but also covers our

ass because we can just give it all the detail

and then we come back and be like yeah

we said there was a vibration on

the test drive of this one after

we calibrated the

around a view like

that's there you can include all that stuff

it's not any extra work

so anyways there's uses

you just got to find them

I'm going to try that

everything I run to a lot of times I just

if I had a person there

that I could just be like talking to

like okay I'm looking at

you know wiring diagram and the wire

I once you know yellow with the red stripe

for this and blah blah blah and then

in a minute or two when I'm

under you know crawled up under the

dash and I don't have it right

in front of me if I could just be like hey what

was that wire color for such and such

you know like if it can do that

to me that is for me would be

helpful

so I'm going to try that now

you've convinced me to give it

a shot and see if it can do that because

I'm I'm bad about like

I tell people to remind me

to do this remind me to do that because

I will I get busy and then

forgetting there's things that are

obviously really important not to

forget you're putting cars

I have a list so that I

don't forget stuff because I have a

million things to remember and I won't

remember all of them so

that's when yeah

that I can I can see that being really

good use case for

it so I'm excited to see if I can get it

to to work for me because

that would be great I will say

use use the projects

if you're using chat gpt I'm sure it's similar

with other but utilize the projects

and give it specific

instructions for what you want it to do

that is so

it's just focusing it in it's this

it's this giant engine there's

so much potential and if you're just

asking it like just random questions

and it's pulling stuff from the internet

in whatever format it chooses

it's it's not at its full

potential you're you're taking that

magnifying glass to the sun

and burn in that ant right like

you're focusing it in on a specific

task with very specific guidelines

and you got to flesh that out

and figure out what you want

it to do and how to tell it to do

what you want it to do but man once you get

that dialed on a particular thing

I think it amplifies it quite a bit

yeah I can see it because it's

it's honestly

my experience I was I would not say that it's

smart because for one it

doesn't ever ask you

questions on yeah

internet yeah that's like

I always have to say if lots of people are wrong

about something on the internet it's going to be wrong

and I've seen that and some of the

things that I've asked it like automotive

wise and it's like you get it wrong

because you're read lots of people get it wrong

and how do you know any better you don't

because you're not actually smart you know

so so you're

right it's not in a lot

of cases you're like well this is this is a ridiculous

answer this is way off base it's giving me

you know BS but

here's something if you're again

if you're working with the projects you're

you're giving the instructions what to do or not to do

it's going to remember what you tell

it and it's going to do those

things which

there's a lot of people

myself included that probably are not

you can't say that about right

you're going to tell me something 10 times and I'm

still going to screw it up you give it specific

instructions do this don't do this

it changes its behavior and it's

it's going to change

that out porter look at something differently or not

do this and again

that that's been really powerful

to build some stuff with it

but you got to play around with it and I'm not

saying everybody has to go do this and spend a

bunch of time on it I'm really interested

it interests me

and I've found some uses for it but

I think it's worthwhile

yeah and I think especially now

like it's

pretty cheap at this point

and I think they're at that I think

they're at that stage where they're trying to

like as most kind

of startups do where they're

trying to onboard as many people as they

can and draw you in with that

low initial price

and you know in the future it's going to get

more expensive and so but right

now it's maybe not a bad time it

cost wise versus what you can do with it

yeah but the other

version is like 200 a month

mm-hmm yes

I don't know anything about the different like what

you get necessarily for the different levels

I don't either

hey yeah there's

the enterprise one is you get you know more

processing power and

you can do the deep research is more

that I did the business version mainly

because it doesn't at least they say it

doesn't train on your data and

I guess I'm taking them at their word on

that I was

concerned about all the data that I was putting in

there I'm like okay well if this is getting

trained and you know Joe Schmo

acts asks about this problem that we

put a lot of work into I don't want that

you know having it in that database

again says they don't train

on your data I don't know yeah

you gotta test it you can put

something in there that it will definitely

see if it'll out you when you

put something in there

you guys go ask about a Jaguar

with a headlight stuck on

it comes back

I have a question for you like because

I run into this a lot with people that are

and I'm obviously one of them too that's

needed to diagnostics

is there ever

and I have my

thoughts on it that I've tried to share with other people

but like is there ever sort of like

an order that you

kind of go in or stick to

or is it completely dependent on

the vehicle

in the situation like how do you

make the determination of sort of

what the order is

yeah I mean

I have a process

and I generally follow the rules

I mean those obvious things like

you know get all the information

verify the concern

that sort of stuff I'm going to follow

in an order but

beyond that

I think

just personally I'm at the

point in my career where I just take every car

as what it is and I just let

the process happen

like I feel like I know like

okay I need to check spark

on this car or I need to check

the timing data

on this you know this situation

and there's a lot of

feel to it but

that is I think only just because

you're putting in the reps and doing it over

and over and over and over again

but starting out I think a process is pretty important

to

stick to that until you really

build that sense of like oh okay

I can skip ahead to this because I have

a feeling this is where this is going right

but you don't have that at the beginning

so process very important

do you have a process

that you could share for

somebody new

yeah I mean

exactly they said

you're getting all the information on that

particular car like why is it there

it's there for a reason like you said

people don't go into the dentist to get their teeth drilled

like for fun

right they have the car there because

they want you to fix something something's wrong

it's not doing what it's supposed to outside of

regular maintenance so know what that is

and that sounds really obvious but it's not

always obvious we go to

shops and we're like why do the customer bring the car

here we don't know

what do you want me to do

yeah um and

um okay

so then yeah you verify the concern

you're doing a full scan on everything

yeah right if you're doing a diagnostic

I don't care if cars you shop do a freaking full scan

on it get all the codes

you're doing a visual inspection of the system

I don't care what it is look at it

because

one out of three problems you'll find

by looking at the system that has

the problem or the thing that's not working

um it's just

crawl under there lift it up open the hood

you know get a flashlight whatever it takes

look at it

um you do your pinpoint testing

that'll you know start general

get down to your pinpoint testing

do the whole funnel thing

um and then if you can

you know simulate

there if you can bypass the component

you can simulate the repair you can make it

work right you can be the part

to be the switch be the relay whatever

okay verify that that fixes it

or at least find a

second way to confirm that the thing you think

it is is what it is right find another way

to test it and then if you can

verify the repair after the fact

and that's that's generally it

um that's that's pretty much it very general

steps but I'm gonna follow that through

through everything and

you know the stuff like the visual inspection

the stuff about asking the information

the information is so huge

if you can ask the right questions you can get that

out of there man like

it's it it really

will I'll say it save you a lot

of time but it will burn

up a lot of time if you don't do that

like just make that part of your

process to like and

it sucks as a tech because you don't get always

get talk to the customers yeah yeah

you know find a way to talk to the customer

or train your server strategy so you know

the whole thing we've been through it too

like there's a medium

for you know between my

guy who answers the phone and the shop and me

and I have these questions and like oh why didn't

you ask this you know

okay well then I gotta train him on that

every one of these you gotta

ask is it a use module if we're

doing a blind spot monitor calibration

was there damage did they check the

angle of the sensor before they put the bumper

back on because they never do

anytime somebody wants you to do a blind spot

calibration and it goes fine it wasn't

bent at all it's just a little tap on the bumper

no the things

in here but I know there's a technician

so I know to ask that the guy

on the phone might not so yeah yeah

that's that's the sort of stuff that

if you're not the person dealing directly

with them find a way to train

them to build a script whatever you gotta

do because it's gonna just that's

such a big time suck when you don't

have the information it only

miss fires on you know cold

starts right but they don't

tell you that you just you gotta lie down

with the 300 okay

well if you don't know what you're doing

how much time you're gonna waste on that

freaking car so yeah

yeah that makes a lot of sense

I think

I think when you get to a certain

point like you said it's

you

you have to have enough experience

with different models

of vehicles but I can't skip that stuff

you know that like getting the information

I'll still get burned if I'm

if I'm just walking into a blind

or if I don't do my visual inspection

if I'm it's cold out and I'm too lazy

to get out and look underneath there

I've been there

I'm like oh it's just a open wire

I can see the freaking thing hanging there

like yeah

yeah build build your process and then

work to like you know not not

skip the steps yeah I think that's

not skipping the steps

is especially starting out

important because I think as

King likes that I mentioned him a few times

he kind of draws it as like

there's which way do you go

well you can't tell which way

is a lot of you know do you check fuel

first versus spark first whatever well

it's it's easy to say

after the fact oh if I had gone this

way I could have gotten here faster but he's like

what's important is when you pick a direction

keep working it and don't then have

to re go back over steps that you

already did because

you didn't do it thoroughly or you did it

in a way where you're having you're re checking

something a different way that if you had done it this way

to begin with you wouldn't have to he's like the good thing is like

you need a logical like you're

continually moving forward

to process and then yeah it's

not a lot of times it's not

obvious which way would have been the faster way

until you get to the end

but what's important is not

being wasteful with your time by having

to redo stuff in a way that you should

have already picked up the information for

that you've skipped over and now you have

a giant hole that you're like a lot and I

have to fill this hole in information that I

left because I skipped over

what I should have been doing

so yeah it'll always happen to a certain

extent you'll get there be like man

why didn't I do it this way or how did I

miss that oh I swear to God

I tested that and it was blank

I would say it's not for me

that's like every every car I work

on at this point there is

a is

I have learned to lean

into failure like it is

constant failure and it's

been really good for me because you learn

to just get over it and not be

like a lot of times I'll be like oh

I bet it's I would think it's this this and

this but I'm probably wrong

and if I'm wrong that's good because I'm gonna learn something

but

I am not afraid to

fail at this point like I have to

lean into it because you're gonna fail

so much like I feel like I fail

you're in the right industry then

oh my god like I just

can't imagine that there's another

I'm sure that there is I'm sure lots of people

feel this way about the their chosen profession

but we talked about this before

like just humbled on

a regular basis

and especially when you're new

you know like there is so much

you don't know and there's so many things where

like you learn you feel like

everything is learned the hard way

when you're starting out and it's almost like I wonder

it's like is it this way for everybody and I think

yeah it probably is that way for

everybody and at a certain point

it depends on

how far you take it

you can get to a point where you just cruise

and you just say no to stuff that's challenging

and that that's fine for some people

but

if you

I don't know if you want to keep going with it

and keep getting better than yeah

they're they're gonna freaking humble you every day

yeah and so what it's been

like I said it's been good for me overall

because I've really developed a lot of confidence

which seems sort of counterintuitive that

through failure I've gained confidence but I really

have because I'm like

I don't it doesn't

I'm like okay I feel this way now

I'm gonna go home and sleep on it and I'll get up tomorrow and I'll hit it again

you know and I'll

if I have to watch a video online

I was like if I have to watch five videos online

if I have to dig through service information

what did I miss

so that I can be better at this the next time

like it takes a lot of effort

and work but I

at least have confidence that I'll

do that

I'm not gonna let it beat me

I don't feel

I don't know how you survive any other way

because it does it is

it's pretty constant at this point

and I just have to take it it's like alright let's

let's go this none this is a new

this is another one that's gonna kick my butt let's go

you know

yep

well cool guys

in almost two hours

yeah sorry I didn't chat it on so much

it's all good

good

I'm always good to

I was happy to talk to somebody who's excited about it

because there's lots of reasons to not be

because they're new

give me a little see where I'm at in a couple of years

right like how I feel

we should do it

I am very curious

myself what it's gonna feel like because like I said

they're they're a day like we were just talking about

there are days where I'm like oh man I feel I'm getting good at this

and then the next I'm like oh my god

like I am the worst at this

you know

that won't stop and that's why I'm curious

how I'll hold up over a few years

with it

but we'll see I'm curious

myself to see how it ends up

all right

that is gonna do it for today's episode

thank you Matt

for spending some time with us this evening

definitely appreciated it

and like thank everybody else out there

for listening to the show

all the feedback like mentioned during the episode

the reason I keep doing this

is because

you know continue to get positive feedback

and I hear from people listening that

you know how it's benefiting them

or if they're getting something out of the show

so as long as that's the case

we'll keep rolling with this so

thank you again and with all that out of the way

let's get out there start fixing the world

one card at a time

326: Matthew Elder

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Cadillac Escalade

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