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Challenges vs Rewards in Mobile Diagnostics | Sean Tipping
Challenges vs Rewards in Mobile Diagnostics | Sean Tipping
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About this episode
Sean Tipping joins the Jaded Mechanic Podcast to discuss the challenges and rewards of mobile diagnostics in the automotive industry. He shares his journey from teaching automotive technology to running a mobile diagnostic business, emphasizing the importance of effective communication and understanding vehicle systems. The conversation touches on the difficulties of diagnosing intermittent issues, the impact of cold weather on work, and the value of experience in troubleshooting. Sean also reflects on the podcasting experience and the connections made within the automotive community, hinting at future plans for his own podcast.
Topics:
mobile diagnostics
intermittent issues
cold weather challenges
automotive teaching
podcasting experience
diagnostic pricing
pin fitment issues
network problems
customer communication
automotive community connections
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In this episode, Jeff Compton is joined by fellow podcaster Sean Tipping. Sean talks about his journey in the automotive industry and how he got to where he is today. He highlights the challenges and rewards of working on complex automotive diagnostics, such as parasitic draws and network-related issues. Sean also addresses the balancing act of time management and discusses his decision to take a break from podcasting.
00:00 Simplifying Concepts for Teaching
05:54 Industry Engagement and Mobile Shift
15:37 "Call Sean for Network Issues"
16:57 Parasitic Draw Challenges in Auto Repair
25:43 Therapeutic Reflections in Business Interviews
28:32 Taking a Break from Routine
35:57 Revealing Industry Secrets to Laymen
40:16 Finding Career Fulfillment
45:51 "Mobile Diagnostics Challenges"
47:56 Car Repair Value Debate
55:08 Diagnostic Challenges in Car Repairs
59:09 Tiered Diagnostic Pricing System
01:04:41 Faulty Scan Tool Misleads Diagnosis
01:11:02 "Podcast Promotion and Gratitude"
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Filter:
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Kia Sportage
"... be a pattern failure. Like I had a, it was a Kia Sportage this One. This one really kicked the shop's ass. ..."
Car
Toyota Corolla
"...rough it, but it's not going to be cheap. I got a Corolla right now that's a flood car. Oh, water was up to..."
Car
Volkswagen Rabbit
"...t's what I enjoy doing. Don't. Don't send me down rabbit holes of really weird stuff. That's like, we get ..."
Car
Volkswagen Jetta
"...et attached to those vehicles. They want their O2 Jetta to run forever. You know, it's like why go buy. A..."
Car
Ford Fusion
"... do. We will document stuff like it's a 2014 Ford Fusion. We had an open Lin bus wire here above the headl..."
Car
Lucid Air
"... hardest part about it though was one of the rear air springs for the air suspension. The, the way thos..."
Simplifying Concepts for Teaching
Industry Engagement and Mobile Shift
"Call Sean for Network Issues"
Parasitic Draw Challenges in Auto Repair
Therapeutic Reflections in Business Interviews
Taking a Break from Routine
Revealing Industry Secrets to Laymen
Finding Career Fulfillment
"Mobile Diagnostics Challenges"
Car Repair Value Debate
Diagnostic Challenges in Car Repairs
Tiered Diagnostic Pricing System
Faulty Scan Tool Misleads Diagnosis
"Podcast Promotion and Gratitude"
Select text to request an explanation
If you're in a crappy situation, just leave, go somewhere else. And like that alone is the message that a lot of people texts and even just anybody in this industry needs to hear at one point or another in their life or in their career. And I know I did when I was younger, too.
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another exciting episode of the Jade Mechanic podcast. I'm sitting here tonight with a fellow podcaster, which is not the first time that I've done that, but this is kind of a special person. This is somebody that kind of. I picked up little things on how to do it and what I wanted my podcast to sound like. So I'm sitting here with Sean Tipping, ladies and gentlemen. So, Sean, how are you tonight, man?
I'm doing really good, thank you, Jeff. A lot of people call me special, but it's usually not in a good way. So thank you. But yeah, thanks for having me me on. I have been a listener of your show for, for a while now and you, you got some good stuff. I, I've really enjoyed talking about.
I mean, sometimes I just wing it, right? Like, I mean, I don't. And, and I mean, like I've, I've talked with, I've had Matt on, right. And I've talked with Matt where like, I'm not at your guys level in terms of the technical stuff. I don't have enough interesting case studies and stuff to talk about every week or lessons or whatever or going down, you know, the rabbit hole on this type of theory or whatever. So people would like not. I'm not their guy for that. You guys are. I've got that.
Unlock the technical stuff. It's, it's great to listen to, you know.
Well, and that's the thing is like, it's definitely not the best medium for like a technical case study, particularly the ones that don't have any visuals. So that does make it, that makes it challenging and I don't know maybe why most people avoid doing it that way, but it was kind of an interesting challenge in order to explain something without pictures or videos or whatever. Not always possible sometimes. Hey, you got to see it. Look, look at this little thing. It does this when it moves, right. And, but trying to go through it and get, get the information across to the listener makes you think a little bit more, which I've enjoyed kind of thinking through the vehicles that way.
Yeah. And so for people that maybe aren't aware, Sean's been a teacher at one point for actually teaching automotive to people kind of AKA kind of like Same idea as Paul Danner and did. So I was gonna ask Sean, is, was it tough to transition from doing that in a classroom with a bunch of teaching aids to trying to just do this medium?
Yeah. Yes and no. I will say the experience being in front of people and talking and trying to help people understand something that maybe they're brand new to, they don't understand very well helps with. Exactly what I was referencing is like, how do I explain this thing? Maybe within a limited capacity. Right. Again, you got to remember, these students, they. A lot of them have never done any of it before. So you got to back off of your 20 years of experience a little bit and really step it down to, like, let's.
Let's get these basic building blocks. And somebody had said to me, you know, along the way, like, you don't really understand a concept unless you can explain it as simply as possible or in its simplest context, possible. And that is, you know, teaching with. With students. That's quite true. So that helped me with the podcast to be able to break stuff down that way. But, yes, being able to use a PowerPoint or hold a part in your hand or bring somebody out to the car, you have much more of an advantage there to get the point across. And I guess what I had kind of hoped or relied on is a lot of the listeners of the show had some working experience to pull from, like, if you're.
If you're fresh. I think I actually had a review on the podcast that said exactly this. Like, if you're not in the industry, you're not doing this. Good luck. Listening to this is going to be gibberish to you, which, hey, I fully understand. It is what it is. It's a niche thing that, you know, is for specific people that want to listen to that nerd stuff. So for sure, sure.
So kind of give us a little background on. On yourself. Because, I mean, I. I kind of know it, and people that follow you for a long time know it. But just bring us kind of up to speed on, because it's been an interesting adventure for you to get to kind of where you are, right?
It sure has. Yeah. Life. Life is never short of surprises and twists and turns. That's. That's definitely true. Yeah. I been in the automotive field my whole career.
Went to tech school, got out in the independent. I tried a dealership six months. Hated it. Went back to the independent dealership. Toyota.
Okay.
Nothing against Toyota. It was just like, hey, man, you're gonna be on the lube rack for, you know, Two years and then you can do brakes and then another two years maybe coolant flushes. I'm like, no, I want to go pull engines tomorrow. So I went to an independent shop that just let me get in there, break stuff. And that's what I wanted to do. I was a Firestone for seven, eight years before I started teaching. And then I taught at the tech school that I attended for five years. And while I was teaching, I started up a mobile diagnostic programming gig during the summer because we get the summers off and.
Which is nice at first, but then I got bored and I wanted to stay attuned with the industry. Right. Like I'm trying to teach this stuff and we've all had teachers that haven't touched a car in 10, 20 years. And you can tell even if you can't, it's not good for your learning experience. So I wanted to stay in it. I want to stay fresh and at least like, kind of have my finger on the pulse of like, what's out there, what are texts facing? So, you know, I'm watching guys on YouTube and Facebook do the mobile thing. I'm like, I'm going to give it a try. And over the course of the four years or so while I was doing both, the, the mobile thing took off and I kind of just had to make a choice between the two because I couldn't keep doing both.
Yeah, not well. Not well. It's too much getting pulled in too many different directions. And so I chose the mobile. And it was tough. It was not an easy decision. I sat down with a giant pros and cons list and went back and forth. I, I could have gone either way.
Like different life circumstances. I probably would have chose the teaching, but I was in a, I was in a spot where like rolling the dice was available to me. Right. I didn't, I could, I could risk a little bit. And hey, you know, it is what it is because a business is definitely a little riskier than working for the state of Minnesota.
I was just gonna ask, so can I. I don't want to be really nosy, but was the financial about equal or was it like, you know, really helping you make a decision based on. Because I don't know what it's like to be a teacher in the States, but like up here it's, it's, it's like a six figure gig, you know, once you get about six years in, but I mean, down, I've heard in the States it's not like that.
It is definitely not like that. Take a. It's like six. You're making like 60,000 at where we were at. So here's the thing. If you take the benefits into account of what you get in addition to the pay, probably about equal, but it's not exactly monetary. Right. So it's not in your bank account.
But like, the, the. The health benefits and the like, all of that is amazing. Like, it was the cheapest health insurance that I've ever had. You get three months off in the summer. And that alone, I think that was like, the biggest thing where I'm like, am I really sure that I want to give this up? But I was working anyways during the summer, so. But that flexibility is absolutely fantastic. And then you get pension too, which I don't know how it is in Canada, but you can't find too many places that still have, like, a pension intact that you can actually get at the end of your career. So I think if you added all that stuff up and then you maybe you did work a little bit in the summer.
Yeah, you're gonna make. You're gonna do all right as a teacher. So it definitely wasn't the only. The only factor. But I think back to what I was mentioning, you know, is a little bit like, the teacher was definitely the safe route. Like, I had the technical tenure for the college that I was teaching at. And, you know, you got a career until you want to be done or you do something really stupid, but you just kind of, you, you can do your thing at whatever level, you know, meets that minimum bar, and nothing's gonna happen. Yeah, but the business is a little different.
You got to show up every single day and hope for the best. But that's kind of. And that's what drew me in, honestly. It's that, like, that thing that gives you a little bit of butterflies in your stomach. Like, I've always kind of been drawn to that.
Yeah, you seem like the person that likes to be challenged, for sure.
Yeah.
Right. So I can totally get that. What. So you go out on the, on the. On the mobile route programming diag. You know, you. You start to go to these shops that we all talk about, right? These shops that you show up and sometimes you're like, wow, you know, they're. They're fixing cars here, they're doing diagonal.
I mean, was it like you kind of hit the ground running and had a good reputation, or did you really have to struggle to build that up.
The way that I did? It really benefited that initial growth period of the business where I was still teaching. So I had a full time gig to keep me busy and occupied and you know, my finances flowing. And so it was slow going but I, I wasn't really pushing it super hard either. You know, I would go to the, the shops by my house and I drop off my card and here's what I can do and you get a few calls here and there. But it was, it was about a couple years of that and then all of a sudden I'm like, oh, I could be doing this full time now. And it was, it was pretty organic. Um, and I think, you know, really it's just quality work. You gotta be able to get out there and deliver results.
Especially when it comes to diagnostic. Right. I mean obviously programming, but especially when it comes to diagnostic. Like you gotta show up and be able to give them an answer. And, but if you can do that, like you're gonna have more work than you know what to do with. And that's, that's what's has worked out for me in that realm so far.
Now what's it like in the winter? Time to do to go. Because you're in Minnesota. I'm here. We were just talking before we started hit recording. We were talking about our lack of snow, which is unseasonably light, but yet it's frigid cold where you are. Cold where I am too. And you're actually a little farther north than me. That's the weird part.
Everybody thinks like Canada, but there are. Minnesota is actually higher up above the, you know, equator where I am in, in Ontario. So I mean I'm, it's. I can certainly relate to how cold you are. So does it like are they good about letting you into the shop and you kind of get. Or are they making you work in the parking lot?
Yes. Now that doesn't mean that we don't have to press the issue a little bit sometimes. And like I, there's one today they were not able to get this car inside for XYZ reason, which is whatever. But I was like, call me when it's inside. Because today was brutally cold and windy and no way not doing it. I, I messed around with that when I was first going with it. Like, oh, this one will be quick and easy. I'll just, you know, whatever.
And sometimes they are, but then, then that's the expectation. So we drew a line in the sand the last couple years of like once it's below freezing, like once that once it's. It will snow and stay snow. We're not doing diagnostics. Outside programming can be different. We do request that they're inside, but, like, we have ways we can be in our van and program a vehicle. So that's not the end. It's not optimal, but it's not the end of the world.
But no, no diagnostics unless they're in the shop. And the easy thing is just ask them, like, hey, are you making your guys work outside in the cold? And for 99 of the shops, they say no, there are. I. I do have a shop or know of a shop that their guys work outside when the shop's full, which is absurd. But there's. There's all kinds of places out there, as I'm sure you know.
Yeah, it's. And it's crazy. We were talking about how somebody was mentioning how they. They don't have the thermostat above 32. Right. Like, it's. It's cold.
There's a shop that didn't have heat. They were using pane Sunflower heaters on the floor of this place. I'm like, what are you guys doing?
Trying to make a buck. Yeah, it's one thing, like, you know, to. To run over and swap a battery or something like that, but, I mean, when we're talking about having to, like, lay underneath there and look at the fuel pump driver module. Right. Or start to go back and try and try. It's. I find it really hard, Sean, to even concentrate when it's cold. Like, it's one thing.
Fingers work and do what it is. But it's like, as soon as my brain starts to go down the logical process of, what am I looking at here? The cold just seems to kick me right in the head and go, hey, it's cold. And then my concentration is gone. Yeah.
It's like trying to do it when you really got to take a piss. Your brain cannot focus. You're like, okay, I got to go do this. Because sometimes I'll just be like, oh, I'm real close. I gotta go. No, no, just go take care of it. But, yeah, when you can't feel your fingers, I. Like, I.
I did. I was on a intermittent no start on a Ford the other day, and it would only act up when it was out in the cold.
Yeah.
And so we got to look at it when it's in its state of being cold. But it was so cold that, like, my equipment wasn't working correctly. My leads for my U scope were not making proper contact because it was so stupid cold out there. So I can't wait for March or April to roll around.
So what, what seems to be the one thing when you, when you're going like. And I'm not looking for the answer to be like fundamentals because I mean that's so broad scoping. But I mean, what's tripping up a lot of the shops that are, you're having to get called in for, you.
Know, I mean I've got parasitic draws coming out of my ass right now. But any, anything network related, a lot of guys will just, they don't even try. They just, hey, it's a U code. Just call Sean, he'll come take care of it. Those are the big things. But we have, we have quite a range of different stuff and a lot of the shops we go to, it's, you know, the, a few parts maybe have been thrown at it and that didn't fix it. And hey, we've got a pile of other vehicles that need to be fixed. It's just have them solve it instead of, you know, spending X amount of time on it.
But yeah, lots, lots and lots of electrical. That's, that's the majority. I mean we don't, we don't take on like you know, cooling system or suspension noise. Right. Like we just. No thanks, we're good on that. But the stuff that is challenging shops I think is and has been for quite a while, electrical and network.
I can see the parasitic drain one being a common thing too, right. Because I mean they all seem to have an attachment of a horror story to it, right? So even if it's like, because you know, some of the ones are pretty common now, you know what I mean? Like rear wipers, you know, how many different cars now can you look at it? If it doesn't function, start there.
You know what's interesting about parasitic draws is I don't know if you've used identifix before. A lot of our shops do and we have it as a service info too. And so like if you have a car and you type in a P0442 you'll get like, you know, three or four different common hits, right? And one will be like, oh, there's 42 purge valves or whatever. But if you type in parasitic draw on a lot of these vehicles, the list is like, yes, because so many different things can cause a battery draw. And maybe it's because of the work that we're taking on, but we see a lot of one offs too. Things that would not be a pattern failure. Like I had a, it was a Kia Sportage this One. This one really kicked the shop's ass.
And I get. I get kind of why. Until we found what it was, and they were like, oh, boy, it would. It wouldn't draw. When they'd bring it into the shop for testing. Like, they had their testing methods for this. So they'd get it in the shop, and this thing was at a used car lot, so it sit out on the lot and it would die. Just they.
They had thrown thousands of dollars into this thing. Batteries and alternators and radios and door handles and you name it. Trying to get this thing still dies. Still dies, still dies. And so they get it in. They're like, there's no draw on there. Are we measuring this right? Are we doing it right? And they eventually called us to take a look at it, and I did it. I'm finding the same thing that when it was in the shop, it wasn't drying.
It goes down to, like, 30 milliamps, but sweet. Okay, cool. I waited for a while. I'm like, we'll figure this out. Because they were adamant that it was dying, and, you know, they have proof. I was like, get it to our shop. And because we have. We have a little shop, we don't do repair, but it's home base for adas, and we can do intermittent stuff.
And I just have a setup where I can hook the pico up and the laptop's on, connected to shop Internet, and I can just remote into the thing throughout the day or night and see, hey, did this thing. Is there a draw? Did the network wake up? Did the battery voltage drop? And we'll just set it up and wait. And we set it up, and we waited and we waited and we waited. And I think it was there for, like, four days and nothing like it. It didn't even drop, like, a tenth of a volt. I was like, okay, well, all right. So we messed around with a little bit more. Ended up finding out you had to lock the vehicle in order to get it to draw.
Like, it had to be in that armed state. Yep. And that got us on to, like, digging through. Okay, what is. That's the trigger to get it to happen. But why is. There was. A body can stay in awake at that point.
And we went through it, and there's a. There's a hood switch there that has a little rubber stopper on it. And the little rubber stopper was gone. So when the hood closes, it didn't move this hood switch. Now if the vehicle's unlocked, it doesn't care, and it Will go to sleep. But if it's locked, then it looks to see is the hood closed. And if it's not, it stays awake. And so when they had it in the shop, number one, they had the hood open and they had the hood switch depressed.
So even if that hadn't been the case, they would have defeated the reason it was staying awake. But then they never locked it. Neither did I at first. You know, like I closed, I flipped the door latch, but it didn't lock the vehicle. And so it took a little bit of messing around to figure that out. But when I told him, I'm like, yeah, it's just missing this little rubber stopper in the hood. And there's thousands of dollars of parts in this thing. But they were happy to get it fixed.
So, yeah, that's, that's the sort of fun stuff we get to do that would.
Oh, it make you cry when you think about just the cost of a radio versus a. Yeah, yeah, one example, right, like, of what, $100 switch for a hood? Like, yeah. Wow.
There's a lot of wasted money in this industry, especially when it comes to parts. For sure. It's crazy.
I just wonder what's your take on the idea that that's most of the time the reason that that car ended up at the auction in the first place? Like, that they didn't probably make that problem right. At the used car lot, like.
Right. Probably not. Somebody maybe did a hood, maybe it was in a collision, just didn't put the little bumper in. Yeah, we see stuff that comes through the auction and you can see, okay, this is definitely the reason that it came through the auction. This is a, you know, an unsolvable problem or something that's at least very challenging or difficult to, to get through. Yeah. Auction cars, flood cars. We, we prep people up front like, hey, get ready to drop some, drop some dough.
We'll help you work through it, but it's not going to be cheap. I got a Corolla right now that's a flood car. Oh, water was up to the dash and it's been, it's been worked on and slash sitting for two years. I gotta, I got a stack of paperwork like this from the Toyota dealer. I opened the trunk and there's like eight different modules in there that have been swapped out. I was like, all right, what's your, what's your wallet look like on this one?
That's hard for me to even grasp the idea. Like, it's, I understand it's a two year old Corolla but like it's still just a two year old Corolla. Right. Like, what is the. What's the thinking that there's ever going to be the just to be justifiable means to an end at that? Like for the time and money expended on it, it'll be year old Corolla by the time it's all said and done, maybe. And then for what? To still have a car that was underwater. Like. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah.
And I mean, it's going to be just a disaster for its entire life. Like, what if we get it running? The shop's going to be happy, but like you're going to have nothing but problems on that thing for its entire existence. And I mean, is there mold under the carpeting and stuff like that too?
Like, oh, now you and I met this year at Apex sema, which is. We met, which was surprising because, I mean, you know, I think you've been at Aston in the past, but we just didn't bump into each other. But, you know.
Yeah, I saw you down at Asta. Yeah, you were, you were busy at that nice little booth going on and everything.
Is that your first time at Apex this year?
That was. That was my first time at Apex, yeah.
Yeah.
I had not been to that one before. I've been down to Vegas a couple times, but not for that show. So that was fun. It was a good experience.
That was my first time to Vegas. That's. Yeah.
Okay.
It's definitely a city I'm gonna go back to for sure.
Yeah. Yeah, we used to go down back in the day and hang out Fremont street and stuff. It was a good time. I don't know, I. I might be. I might be past my Vegas days now, but it's some good memories for sure. And it's quite the spectacle if you've never been. That, that sphere thing that he got, it's just absolutely wild.
You saw that. That was our last night there. We went and saw pretty amazing show Lucas took us all to see, which was incredible. There.
Oh, oh, you got to go inside.
Of there and then.
Nice.
See the big. I want to say it's imax, but it's beyond imax. Right. Like a movie on. Essentially, the world comes to an end and then is all reborn. And it was really cool. Really? Okay. Yeah, very.
I think it was $9 for a bottle of water. It's not cheap, but it was, it was like. It was easily the most amazing movie I've ever seen, you know, in terms of the whole experience. Because all around you, right. Like, it's beyond imax. It's. Everything's behind you, in front of you. Like, it's incredible.
That's cool to see Fremont street, you know.
Okay.
Or like Mike Allen said, go there at like two in the morning and then like.
Yeah, you'll see some stuff. That's for sure.
I was asleep long, long before that. But what. So I guess kind of what I wanted to ask you about. You're kind of taken. You announced you're going to take a little sabbatical from your, from your podcast. So. And are you comfortable talking about why and just.
Sure, you know. Yeah, we can definitely get into that.
Because, I mean, I think about it sometimes, like, not that I. Mine has become very much therapy for me. You know what I mean? Like, this is sometimes when the shop is busy or the shop is like, you know, I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall sometimes on like what it could be. And again, it's not my business. Right. It's not my business. To come on and do these kind of interviews is very therapeutic because it's like you start to reach out and connect with people that are feeling similar things and stuff. But, you know, I also know that it is sometimes it is a demand on me, you know, and it's demand on yours.
So you, you just kind of. You're going to take a break from it.
Yeah, it's so. It's funny, there's a meme that I saw several years ago that said why. Why do guys start podcasts instead of just going to therapy? And so brought that up when you mentioned that. But I 100% agree. The. The connection that I made with people and the. I wouldn't say being forced to, but you're. You're locked into, you know, an hour plus conversation, direct one on one with someone, which for a lot of people, myself included, that's just not a.
A regular thing outside of your immediate family, maybe even that might be tough to just one on one with no distractions for an hour. Like, how often do you do that with people? And you get to do that weekly. And I guess that's maybe where I'll start is like, I am so grateful. I feel so lucky for the, you know, the opportunity that I've had with the podcast to be able to meet and connect with all the professionals and awesome people that I have. And I've made so many cool friendships and relationships with people and gotten to go to really cool places like freaking Australia. Like, that's could Never imagine, like, that would, you know, come from doing a podcast. So extremely grateful for all of it. And I, I definitely don't want it to come across as, like, oh, it's, you know, it's so tough.
I just don't want to do it anymore. It's really not that it's. It. I always said when I first started, if it felt like it was a job to do it, that I would really consider. Okay, well, do you want to keep doing this? Because for the, the vast majority of the time that I, if the five years that I did the podcast was like, this is awesome. I can't wait to talk, to fill in the blank, or I can't wait to share this case study. I'm excited about it. I'm pumped.
I'm thinking about it while I'm driving around in the van, and it's excite. But over the last year or so, it, it wasn't so much. It would be Sunday morning. I'm like, what am I going to talk about today? I don't have, you know, I, I didn't have the motivation to reach out to someone to get a guest on. I didn't have anything I was really excited to talk about. And so it was kind of getting forced, and I noticed that. And I don't know if the listeners did or not very possible, but I, I really felt that way. And so come to the, you know, the flip of the year, and I'm just like, you know, I, I think I just want to step back for a little bit and just kind of see, you know, how it feels, if for nothing else, just get a reset or, you know, to, again, just kind of like, what's it like to not do this? Because I've done it for the last five years, every week.
It's part of my routine. Let's just see, like, do I miss it? Do, you know, do I start thinking about, you know, oh, I should talk to this person, or, oh, I really want to share this thing about this car. Does that start to start to come back? And that was kind of the, the reasoning behind taking a break in the first of the years. Just, it's a really good time to do it. I was kind of, you know, sitting down, you know, with my, with my goals and reflecting on the year and stuff like that. Yeah, that's, that's pretty much it. I mean, there's, there's part of it, too, where, like, I, I, I work a lot, right? I run the business. I was doing teaching and business and then podcasts and this and that.
I. I definitely tend to, you know, fill my time with a lot of stuff. And one of the other things. Oh, go ahead.
Kind of guy. That spreads yourself pretty thin, you know?
Right, right. When whenever there's another opportunity or something to do, I managed to fill my free time. And, you know, one of the other things I was kind of asking myself in the last year is like, why are you doing that? Right. And I think it's a good thing for anybody to ask themselves if. If you do. If you find yourself, like, you're just always busy with, you know, something, and if as soon as you have free time, you find something else to fill that free time, like, why are. And it might be a good reason. Like, maybe you.
Maybe you have to. Maybe you got to provide for your family. Maybe you absolutely do love everything that you're doing, but you should at least ask yourself, like, why am I doing that? Why am I filling every single aspect of my free time with more work or more projects or more things that require my commitment and effort and energy? And you might find some interesting answers to that. And there's a little bit of that, you know, kind of mixed in there for me, too. That.
Yeah, it's because if you look, some of the really driven people that we talk about in. In society, they're. They're trying to fill a hole, you know what I mean? They're not making any kind of, like, qualms about it. They're very much going out there, going, like, there's things lacking in my psyche, and I fill it up with this. You know, I'm not judging them. It's just like, I'm not on here looking for, you know, affirmation or anything like that. I just genuinely enjoy having the kind of conversations that I have. But the thera.
The therapy side of it became just a. An absolutely unexpected byproduct of it, and it's been great. You know, I can understand where you're coming from, too, though, because I don't traditionally spend myself as thin, you know, Like, I mean, I'm not. I don't have the. All the other polls on me that you guys that are in business do, right? All the extra hours that that goes to. Like, Mike Allen's just started one. Like, I don't know where that guy's gonna find time, you know? So it's like, for me, I look at it as, like, when winter's here, I want to record a bunch of episodes, and then when summer comes, I want to be like, we're two months where I've got two months worth in the bank. And then I can not even think about it.
Right. And then I can kind of take my own little vacation from it. But I'm like you, I. Some cuss. Some guests are tough. Some topics that you think are going to go like, killer don't. And then you're just like, like, you know, and then like we've talked about, sometimes you go and record one and. And you can't use it.
The sound quality sucks. I don't know how many times I've gotten on. And then somebody else either doesn't log in. They just forget. And then they call you like, you know, they text you and they're an hour later, they're two hours running.
Oh, yeah, that's the worst.
That's like just, you know, like it's the most frustrating thing because I'm doing it on weekends. I don't normally do it on weeknights because I normally fall asleep pretty damn early and I wake up pretty damn early. So weeknights are not my, not my jam. But you know, when the, when the people are. When it really starts to hit. Well, is when it feels like it's not even work at all, you know, but that's again, is. It takes a good guess to do that. Right.
Like, it really does, you know.
Oh, for sure. Yeah. When you, you connect with, you know, the guest or the content, you know, whatever subject you're talking about. Yeah. All of a sudden you look down, you're like, oh, man, we've been talking for almost two hours, you know. Yeah. It just, it just flies by. That's the thing is, like, you want to have someone on that you really do want to explore something with or share or ask questions about.
It's not just having somebody on to have somebody on. And I don't know, like, I get a bunch of emails from these companies that like, hey, have so and so CEO on from business payment systems. And I'm like, like, sorry, that's just. I'm sure he's a nice guy. I just, I don't. I'm not going to be interested in talking to you about that. Like, I want to talk to, you know, Tommy or Keith Perkins or, you know, somebody who's out there, like, doing really cool stuff in this space that I want to hear stuff about. So that's, that's what I've tried to do as far as the guests go.
But like I said, I just, I was finding myself not having a lot of motivation to reach out to people and that. I like that batching idea though. And I thought about doing something like that. Or it's like, okay, well what if I just get a pile episodes and then. Yeah, then you could take a. Take a break on a regular basis, which might be the way to go.
And that's the thing. Like I, I keep saying, I'll do that. And then it was like last summer. I'm like, okay, I'm not going to record it all from like July till the end of August. But then life happens and really interesting people come into your life and they're like, they want to talk and it's like, okay, well, let's record something. So before I knew it, I had like, I'd done five episodes over the course of like July, you know, and it's like, well, and then, you know, they build into other things. And you understand too the amazing thing that the networking, as soon as you start to meet with one person, right. There's a common, always a common person that you know and they know and, and yeah, you know, you get to know them better and it's just like, it's just circle keeps getting bigger and bigger.
I, I love it, but it's. I've had some guests that have been tough, you know, and it's like this, the CEO thing too is like, because it's cool, you can sit down with them and they're like, you know, they might be the CEO of, I don't know, Schumacher or something like that. Right. And it's like not really tax, you know.
Yeah.
So you're talking to somebody and so when you start sharing things with the, the industry that maybe they're not familiar with, they're looking at you like, wow, I had no idea that that's going on behind the curtain when I take my car in. Yeah, totally. And that's nice sometimes too, to be able to back up and just kind of show the. What our day to day reality is to complete layman. Right. That's, that's nice. And then other times it's nice to get in there with people that have been through the quagmire and the muck and in the trenches the same as you and share, you know that that's where I get the therapy from is, is, you know, you, sometimes you want to just throw the tools down and go, you know, no, I want to do something different. And then you talk to somebody or like, I'm sure yours is the same too.
It's the phone blows up with people that are like, man, you know, what you talked about helped me so much. Like, I was able to fix a car by something I heard you say or, you know, that's. That's what gets addictive to this whole thing, you know?
Yeah. I've had a couple people over the last couple years reach out through like, they do it through like a proxy, like a contact, but that are incarcerated. And by no effort of mine, like, I didn't. I don't even know how it happened exactly, but my podcast got put on the list for the, like, prison library systems so that they can listen to educational podcasts. Mine's on there. And so a handful of guys have reached out to me just as. Yeah. Like, basically a thank you of like, hey, I've really enjoyed your content.
You know, once I, you know, get out of here, get on a work release or whatever it is, I'm really going to be pursuing stuff in the automotive this and that. And that absolutely just floored me. Like, I had no idea when I'm recording an episode, talking about a, you know, network issue. That's not what I'm thinking. The, the listening audience is going to be. But it's like, oh, wow, okay. So this stuff, the. That I'm just sharing part of my world, but it actually is benefiting someone in some way.
And it's a really cool feeling, really. And again, I have a lot of gratitude for being able to do that well.
And Sean, think about that. Like, in that particular moment, maybe of fixing that car, it's kicking your butt and it's. You're struggling and you're. And you're like. And to you, it's not necessarily a completely positive place. And yet listener. That's looking like a goal. You know what I mean? Like, it's looking like, yeah, yeah, that's.
Wow, I'm getting goosebumps thinking about that. Like, that's really.
Someday I can get my ass kicked just like Sean, you can, because let's.
Look at their reality. You know, a little time to sell somewhere, right? Like a Days off on a calendar waiting to. Yeah, no. Wow, that's. That's pretty cool, man. That's. You know, I get a lot of people that are like, you know, thanks to your talks, I. I quit the dealership and I'm going to work in an independent.
Like, I get a lot of those messages and that's pretty cool, but, you know, sorry. But yours, that, that trumps it for sure because there's somebody at a really. In a. In a crappy place.
The message I've Heard from your show, from listening to it is like, if you're in a crappy situation, just leave, go somewhere else. And like, that alone is the, the message that a lot of people texts and even just anybody in this industry needs to hear at one point or another in their life or in their career. And I know I did when I was younger too. I stayed in a situation in a shop that was terrible for way too long because there was no podcast or YouTube back then. But like, I didn't know what was out there. I just assumed it was all the same or even worse. And that's what the automotive industry was. And my gosh, the resources and transparency that's available for people in the field right now is fantastic.
Yeah, it's so good. So it is really cool that you're able to put stuff like that out there for people.
Well, because, I mean, it's worked for me. You know what I mean? I've not the ton. I have not stayed in a long term employment. But you know, like, I look at these guys that have worked in the same shop for 20 years, right? Like, I have friends that have done it and part of me is envious of that. And then part of me is like, God, there had to be like, how did you do it? How did you do it? You know, and because I'm not saying everybody should constantly move, but it's just like you have to go in every day, excited to go, and if you don't, it's not the place for you. And there's other places to be. There's so many jobs out there right now, it's, it's ridiculous. And you just kind of have to just, you know, decide where you fit.
I keep saying, you know, I'd never go back to a dealer. That's, that's a stretch for me because, you know, if the right one called and threw a bunch of money at it, I might be like, sure, why not? Let's try it, you know, work on some brand new stuff, you know, again, like learn a new product. Like, like, why not try it out, you know?
Where are you working right now?
I'm working on a little four bay shop. It's just myself, the owner and one other tech. And it's a little four bay. It was, it's an old shop. It was built in 1981. So like the floors are, it's, it's built like an old shop. It's built like they didn't realize that toolboxes were going to go bigger and people, all the flooring Sean used to have the in ground hoist and like they came in and of one still left and like, so the floor has been all filled in and it's like crooked and, you know.
Yeah.
Not the brightest thing, you know, but well tooled up. He has a lot of customers with European cars. So it's like I haven't hardly touched them, and now it's like I'm touching Mercedes BMWs, like Volkswagen. So it's like I'm like, oh, man. And you know what? It's good. It is. It is good. It's.
It's more exposure. It is more exposure. I like it. I like the independent side of things, of being able to, like, people are not coming in and saying, you know, fix my WI fi. You know what I mean? Like, they're like, my car's broke. I need my car fixed. That's what I enjoy doing. Don't.
Don't send me down rabbit holes of really weird stuff. That's like, we get to work today. Yeah. Okay. So your WI fi on the car, it's hard for me to relate to that, you know. It really is.
Yeah.
But it's, it's. It's one of those old shops. Old shops are hard to work in. They are. They're small. They're. You know, when I. When I look at Zeb's facility or I look at like, if you ever see Lucas's, like, it's so cool when they're, when they're built with room and, and, well, and big and, you know, but we all.
My shop that I'm in now is probably typical of what a lot of shops you go to and see or a lot of us work in, you know, small, old, and it's just. You make the best of it. So, you know, I'm excited for what he's been able to teach me. Not teach, but the exposure I've got to other brands that I haven't been working on. I. I spent, you know, it was kind of a make work project on a 2006 Smart, you know, four two. Putting it back together for like this guy. It's sat for three years and it's like, you know, he wants to decide you have to safety it.
So I mean, it's like brake suspension, shift motor underneath, it shifts it back, an oil pan, like all these kind of just. I never worked on one of them in my life, you know, and I'm looking at this going, what the hell?
Like, you know, we. We just did a TCM on one the other day and I, I hadn't yet to program anything and I knew there were Mercedes, you know, tied or base or whatever and they're like can you do a used tcm because a new one does not exist on the, in the country. And I was like, well I don't know, but we'll try. And we were able to, we were able to make it work and get it going. He was pretty pumped. But yeah, those things were absolutely.
There's no parts left hardly available for this at all. Like we were looking for just to do struts on the front. Struts like trying to piece together like you can get coils but you can't. And you can get struts but you can't get the, the bushings on the top. Like all this weird stuff. And then like the little shift motor that shifts it in the. Because it's like a, it's like a standard but it's not. You know what I mean?
It's like a Ford Focus.
Yeah. It's, it's obsolete. So we're trying to find a used one and the customer's trying to find one. And it's like we've put, put you know, five grand into this car for safety wise and we're still waiting to get to where can we get it to, you know, shift. What people have attachments to these cars. I don't understand. You know, that's, that's the weird thing but you know, Mercedes or BMW. But a smart is like you find.
That with the old European stuff is people really do get attached to those vehicles. They want their O2 Jetta to run forever. You know, it's like why go buy.
A new one, go get a 2010 Jetta. Like if you really want to step up, you know, like what's, what's the cars when you, when somebody calls you and they say I have this. What's the ones that make you like wince and, and, and you know, roll your eyes and rethink life intermittence.
That's the, the bane of my existence. Just because of the way like we have it structured with mobile and time and they suck. They really do. And depending on how intermittent it is or the conditions, like we could be there for three hours and not get it to happen. And if it's like a, A module talking, you're screwing up a bus and there's 20 modules on there and we can't just guess at something. But what do we do with that three hours of our time? Like, well we really should be charging them and I. I agree with that as a business owner, but guess what? Now we own that freaking vehicle, right? As long as it has problems, guess who's getting a call wanting us back? So we. We try to avoid them as often as we can, or we tell the shop, hey, once you can duplicate it on a consistent basis and you don't have an answer to, then just call us.
We'll come figure it out. And we do have some. Some pricing for them. If they want to drop it at our shop and say, hey, we'll get to it when we get to it, be patient, and we'll see what we can do. But, yeah, those are the ones that I. It can definitely screw the day up.
Or we're just like, it's not a brand for you. It's a symptom.
Yes. Yes. 100. Yeah. As far as brands go. Yeah. Some of the European stuff can be. Can be a pain.
The. The newer Mercedes, like, I don't have. I don't have Sentry. So some of the newer stuff we can't do. But, yeah, other than that, nothing. Nothing stands out as a problem. It's intermittent or it's really old stuff. Like if I got a call in a 95 Riviera the other day, which, actually, I don't mind that car.
I got a soft spark for the supercharged 3 8. But it's like when we get a call on something from the 90s, you're like, okay, how many people have been through this before we touched it?
Yeah, right. What's. You kind of heard the recent conversation that popped up last week, and I wanted to reach out and get as many people's opinions on this as possible. When Mike Allen was talking about, you know, somebody and Brian Pollock, and $3,000 have been spent on this car, and it didn't get fixed, and, you know, somebody fixes it in a half an hour, finds it, it's the ground. You know, what's that value? What's the value worth. What's the value of that repair? What's your take on that? Because I kind of said, well, you know, Dutch had. Dutch has his opinion. But Brian and I have talked for years about those kind of scenarios because we've been sharing back and forth, and I always.
I said, well, it's a lot closer to $3,001 than it really is to $300 in my opinion of the. The value of that. Like, what do you think about that? Because you're on both sides, right? Like, you see.
Sure. I mean, I think that depends. There's some context there that's important because it depends on who was spending that $3,000 on what. Because like, I could give my. I could give my service writer Mike, who, no offense, Mike, he's fantastic, he's awesome. But like, I could give him one of the cars and say, hey, diagnose it and fix it, and he could spend three grand in a hurry with parts. Right. That Kia that I mentioned, they easily had $3,000 into that one.
Maybe that one's a different scenario. But someone who's inexperienced or not really trying or insert reason X, that is not a. Not doing it professionally, not really putting an effort into it, or just doesn't have the skill set, that wasted money doesn't necessarily equal the value of the fix, in my mind. But. But if it's a situation where people really genuinely have been putting hours of time into it and can't solve it, okay, well, now the value of that fix goes way up, even if it's quick. Right. And we have internal documentation. Right.
We keep all the stuff for the diagnostics, even the programming and the keys that we do. We will document stuff like it's a 2014 Ford Fusion. We had an open Lin bus wire here above the headliner. It looks like a common wear point. We put that in there. It's like a built in identifix for us so that in the future we can have one of those. We can show up and just be like, pull the headliner down. Oh, there's that, that open wire.
Okay. And we are definitely charging the full, you know, diagnostic fee, even if it's, you know, five minutes to do it. We have, we have plenty of those. And I have no qualms about charging a full price just because it was, I don't know, easy or simple because the effort's been. Been put in beforehand. Yeah. And there's. And the thing is, it's like, it's.
It's all about the situation too. There are situations where it's like, okay, we don't need the, the full diagnostic price for, you know, this particular one. Maybe I'm more of like a judgment call kind of guy when it comes to that sort of stuff. And I probably could do better by having some like, hard lines in the sand. But like, what did I have the other day? Oh, it was the, the PTO was on on this truck. Okay. And I don't know if you're familiar limit acceleration on these Chevy trucks when the PTO switch is on. And that's normal operation.
Right. Because you're not. It wants to keep the engine limited in some way. A shop didn't realize it or didn't know that that was the thing and they had like throttle bodies on it and they're doing this and they're doing that. They had all kinds of money in there. And I kind of knew, like I had a feeling when they called me on the phone and when I got there I just looked in on the PTO switch and flip it and you know, I bet. But I've been through it before, but.
Right.
I, I talked with him and I. We didn't do our full price. I basically just did my show up fee for that one. Now, hey, an argument could probably be made that like, yeah, you should have charged your, your full fee on that. But in that situation I just like click. I don't know, what are your thoughts on it?
So it's funny, right. Brian and I talk about this because a lot of the time you'll see the customer will bounce from shop to shop and it winds up say at the fourth one and they spent 500 at each one. Right. And they've never gone back to even get the money that they've spent back. Right. So for whatever reason, their money is not the, the. I'm sure nobody wants to go spending money that doesn't fix things, but it almost seems like in their head, I think sometimes the customers just think that's part of the process. Right.
Like it's not uncommon to have to go around and try. So when Brian and I talk about this and it's like they've spent 500 here and 500 there and 500 there. Well, if I go and fix it in an hour and. But I have a $500 retainer. Why, why is it people look at that and go, that's crazy to charge them $500 or $300 or whatever it is to do an hour and a half worth of work. Because when they've. And he always says, well, they've spent fifteen hundred dollars, that didn't fix it.
Sure.
And yeah, you know, so is he a unicorn? Sort of. Yes, very much so. Right. Like there isn't one of him in every shop. Unfortunately, the industry would be a lot better. But you know, when you think about what he, he made a great point with Dutch. You know, I could do this job, I could do ball joints and I could do four ball joints. Would pay six hours.
I could have it done in three hours. Right. My time in half, plus I build parts. What he's going to do Most of the time is not really build parts. Right. It's going to be clean the ground, run an overlay, find the pin fitment issue, whatever. Why does that mean that he can't charge $500 that to, to fix it when somebody else would have only charged them 500 and didn't fix it? And I see both sides and I'm, I'm really stuck with it because it's like we know the customer's not going to go back most of the time and take them to court or get their money back or, you know, even try. They just go.
It's, it's, it's. The ship sailed. I'm not going to get it. That's where I think sometimes we can charge a whole lot more for our diag than what we are because I feel like I want to feel most of us out there can get through a lot more diag than we're getting through. We're just running out of time, you know what I mean? And I was going to ask you, like, do you see when you go to some of these and you look at them like, I know some of them like we're talking the intermittents or whatever or the parasitrains and stuff, but like, do you see their, like, do you go to some of them and like they were on the right track, they just pulled the plug on them too soon?
Yeah, I mean, well, here's one thing that, I mean, it's like every day is they made the right call, but then they got a shitty part. Right? That happens all the time. And, and maybe it's a different system, maybe, or a symptom, but maybe it's the same symptom as the other part. I mean, that'll make me second guess myself. And, and a lot of times, you know, it's just, they need that like, confirmation, like, hey, did I make the right call? I couldn't talk to this steering angle sensor and then I can't talk to this one. Sorry, man, it's just a bad sensor. But yeah, to your point about the charging for diagnostics, it is tough and I think a lot of people get their stuff fixed at places where parts have been thrown at it. And you know, 75% of the time that works out good.
And well, I didn't, I didn't pay for diagnostics or the diagnostics were free, that whole thing. And so, yeah, a lot of people don't quite understand. I don't know how else to, you know, get it across to, to people, you know, individual customers I don't work with them too often because I'm just working with the shops. But a situation where bouncing around from shop to shop to shop and spending a bunch of money before you finally find somebody, okay, this guy can just tell me what's wrong. That usually will be. They're not going back after that. They're. They're going to.
They're gonna. They're gonna come to you. They're not gonna go back to the parts cannon too often.
So Brian and I had a conversation about that. What about when it becomes a distance thing, Sean? Like when. So, like, for instance, at his shop, they could be two counties away, you know, and they what? Hey, like they're in the state. Like, they get over there. Or you see Ivan on Pine Hollow. Like, they bring him. They bring cars from Virginia, for God's sakes. You know what I mean? Like, and.
And I get, like, it. It's. The guy's a genius. But I mean, part of that I think too is it's like he's. He's managed to get this Such a people. He's managed to get his name out there to where people think he's the only guy that could fix this. And then I watch it and I'm like, man, they told that past 10 other shops that, like, I'm sure they do it. No, that have a guy that could have figured that out, you know, for.
But Brian and I talk about, like, if it becomes a certain distance, they're not going to drive. Like Brian said, I'm not going to be able to sell them tires. They're two hours away from me. You know, I'm not gonna. They're not gonna drive two hours from my break, when their brakes start to make noise, they're gonna wind back up at that shop again, you know, that. That they maybe now have learned the lesson. Like, I gotta check engine light. Like, okay, I can go to Firestone for my whatever, but like, I might have to go to Wilco for, you know, anything that's.
But yeah, because I made the good. The. The. The assertion with him that it's like the. The word retainer. Nobody liked that word. But when you think about it, the labor guide always then is a retainer in some form. Like, they're saying ball joints are going to be six hours.
So you're at least retained six hours labor for that job. And then matrix and everything else. We get into this diagnostic stuff, there is no guide about how long it should take to troubleshoot this. This problem. And no two are going to go exactly the same way. Like we can all have a similar process but like intuition and instinct and, and like you said, you know, you might know that I've had a fusion with a headliner rubbed there and I pull that down and I check that first. Ten other people maybe don't have never seen that. You may go there first for the ten minutes it takes.
It was a no go, you know, no fish bit. Okay, go on to the next thing. But if we add all that up, that's how we get our different amounts of time that some of us take to get to the same result, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, that's where I think we sometimes unfairly judge a lot of people that are doing diag because it's like, oh, I'd have found that so much faster.
You know, so we've struggled with that too. Having now they have multiple technicians and, and we're all different and we've all got different skill sets and different process and experience and so on and so forth. So yeah, there's going to be a different speed, there'll be a lot of different stuff, but one of them is definitely the speed of it and it'll depend on what we're working. It's not always one person faster than the other. Always. It depends on what we're doing. And so instead of billing by the hour for the diagnostics, we made a tiered system where, which you could say, I guess is kind of like that retainer is we got three levels and the price at each level is this. And based off of the type of problem that you're describing to us, it's probably going to fit into one of these tiers.
Right. If it's a parasitic draw, it's here. If it's a network problem, it's here. If it's basic electrical, you know, this. And so we have that broken down and we've shared that with our customers and it's not perfect. And there's always, well, what if it's this situation and we leave room to, to go up or down in the tiers too? Right. We get into it. We thought it was going to be some complex network problem.
It was just pin fitment at the dlc. So that. Does that need to be a tier two? Probably not necessarily, but the opposite is true as well, you know, oh, we've got a, you know, tire pressure warning light on and all of a sudden it turns into a can bus network issue. Right. So, so we, and, but communication's key there of like, hey, we've got to step it up to this, this level. Are you guys okay with that? If not, we'll give you the information we've found so far. It's X amount and we'll, we'll head out or we can continue for, for X amount and most of our customers are okay with that. Again, we're dealing with shops, we're dealing with other business owners and yeah, most of, most of them, you know, get it.
I can, I can sympathize on the public customer side of things only from you know, my experience when I was still in Firestone and doing that. But the, the diagnostic stuff, it is, it is really tough. Unfortunately. Fortunately or unfortunately, it's not going anywhere and it's only going to get more. These cars are absolutely wild that are coming out. I was just working on a 22 wagon year. Good freaking luck to the independent world trying to fix these things. Man.
They are going to be. It's, it's crazy. It's crazy. I, I don't know. I see a lot of cars just gonna be getting thrown away because people don't want to deal with them anymore.
Yeah, the guys in the dealerships. I know. Curse those things. Wagon.
This one was a frame off restoration job where harnesses were spliced together and oh my gosh, it was absolutely wild. Actually the hardest part about it though was one of the rear air springs for the air suspension. The, the way those work, you probably are familiar. They've got like a brass fitting on the, on the top of the spring that's like a valve and the, the line goes in and depresses the valve. Once the line's tight it opens up this one way check valve to the air spring. But only if the little airline is deep enough into that valve does it depress the valve. It had gotten pushed up. It's just like a little compression fitting that actually threads on this airline.
And so although the line was tight, you tighten the fitting, it was never depressing the check valve and air could go in. But air never came out of this spring and it was just absolute nightmare trying to get this thing to calibrate after we had gotten all the other problems solved. But yeah, you just had to move the line down a little bit and it opened up the valve and something simple.
So I gotta ask and I don't, I won't keep a ton of your time because I mean we could talk for hours but it's. I know you're busy when you talk about bringing younger people in and Other people are coming in now to work with you and kind of stuff. The guys that are doing diagnostics, what still seems to be the one thing that trips them up or where they kind of go, oh, I didn't. I know for me, I still get bit on pin fitness, right. I think that that's a lot of guys, like, they do their circuit checks and it's like, but why is it still not working? You know, Jack Horn, go back and check your pin fit. Like, that's. Is that. Am I the only one? Or is that kind of.
Where are you seeing other guys?
I mean, pin fitment is a. Is a tough one, especially if it's a really solid connector. Meaning that I could wiggle that thing all day and it will never change the open or not open status of that circuit. It is just. Is a pin fitment issue. And so, yeah, I'll send you a link if you don't have them. It's like a $20 ring of, of pins that you can get and all the different sizes. What was really nice is that they're solid.
Like, I have the AAC wave test kit, and they're flexible. And you can do your pin drag with those. No, no reason you can't. But these are solid, so you can really get a good feel for if there's drag or not. Anyways, that's. That's besides the point as far as what guys are getting tripped up with or like what we see our guys get tripped up with. Honestly, a lot of the time it's. Maybe it plays into like an unfamiliar.
Unfamiliarity on a vehicle platform or scan tool platform, but like little stuff like a scan tool glitch of some sort leading someone down the complete wrong path, meaning that it's giving you an inaccurate piece of data. And you've relied on the scan tool for a lot of stuff, and it's been great for a lot of stuff, but it is showing you a wrong data PID in this situation and sending you on a wild goose chase or not clearing codes when there really is no code. If you would have used another tool or the factory tool would have cleared the code out of there, fine. But this tool just doesn't. For whatever reason, that sort of stuff. For us, you can waste a lot of time because there's not really a problem. Right. Or the problem isn't what you think it is and you're chasing ghosts.
That's. That's definitely been a tough one because. And I can't predict that. Right. I can tell you electrical theory and I can build a process for finding an open or a short or resistance, whatever, but I can't prepare you for every single software glitch that every scan tool is going to have or not have. A lot of times I'll just be like, hey, is it a scan tool thing? And okay, let's, that's what I do. I'm like, something just seems weird here, let me grab the other one and put it on here and see if it does the same thing. But that's just experience and getting your butt kicked on something like that school.
Of hard knocks, right? That, that's sometimes how it's. You're able to have that tidbit for somebody else later on and go, hey, oh, you're running into that. Yeah, you know, use the auto on it this time. Tommy Markham, my friend talked about he hooked up to a 2014 equinox last week with a snap on. And I didn't catch the gist at whole what he was talking about, but it didn't ping all the modules in the car. And he was like infuriated because it's like this is a 10 year old GMC with a snap on. If they could do it right, they would have that done, you know.
But I, I pick on snap on a lot. And the thing is like every tool has their, has their holes. I had old Mitsubishi a month or so ago. I have a lot of scan tools. Like I have a stupid amount of scan tools. Not a single scan tool I had could program a key into this thing. It was like a, like a 2003 or something, like nothing. You want to know what tool program the key into this thing.
It's a flipping snap on scant tool. I had to borrow it from one of my shops. I felt like an idiot. He was laughing at me. He's like, oh, you can borrow my scan tool, huh? Yeah, the snap on is the one that did it out of all the tools. So yeah, there's, that's. The other thing is like you gotta have so much if you wanna, if you want to try tackling multiple makes and models. It's just the equipment side of things is.
It's crazy.
Well, I don't want to keep you all night. I appreciate you. I just wanted to, I want to thank you for being on. I do miss you. I do miss every week and I, you know, I, I just want to put it out there that you know, if you, you're missed and you know, if for whatever reason that you, you don't make time to come back or if you don't come back in the same capacity. We completely understand. And I totally get where you're coming from. It is a lot.
And the people that you know, don't do this, don't podcast like you and I, I don't think you truly appreciate it. What it is, the, the, the time constraint. And I say it all the time. I'm blessed. Like, I, I have a fantastic editing team behind me. I don't have to edit my stuff. You know, Braxton Lucas, take care of that for me. Like, I just have to literally set up the, the stuff and go.
And it's still a big, big time complaint or constraint. So I want to thank you for everything that you've brought to us and to me, you know, through. Because like I said, I've been listening to you for a long time and it was kind of like, you know, could I do a podcast? Well, not. I can't do one like Sean because I'm not that smart, but, you know, I can.
Here you are.
But I can get out there and have the conversation. So I hope to see you back, you know, in some regard, in some way. And we miss you out there. So. But thank you.
Thank you. I appreciate that. And, and same to you. Thank you for the, the effort that you put in here. I know it means a lot to a lot of people, but as a, as a small teaser, I do, I do have some plans coming up. I don't. I'm not going to put out too much. You'll probably see some stuff over the next month or so as to what my plans are.
So I am, I'm not dropping it completely. And to my earlier point about just seeing how it feels, I definitely, there's definitely part of it, I'm like, okay, I do miss it. I, I do enjoy doing it. So you'll, you'll see me around again out there.
Awesome. Are you going to Vision?
I'm not gonna be a Vision this year. My tech, Andrew is going to be there, though.
Sweet. I'm not, I'm not going either. I'm. We thought maybe for 2025, but maybe for 2026 we'll go. It's just, you know, with this new job, it's harder too as well to get time away because it's a smaller operation, so.
Well, there's so many events too, and it's like I, I have to ration which one I'm going to go to because, you know, my girlfriend doesn't want all of my time off of work to be more work, so I. I have to, like. Okay, well, I can go to a couple this year. These are. These are the ones that I'm gonna do this year. And then, yeah, probably back at Vision next year.
Awesome. Well, people, that's. That's it from Sean. He's. He's giving you a little bit of a tidbit of we. We're gonna have him back in some capacity, which is awesome. So excellent. Sean, thank you for giving me an hour of your time tonight.
I appreciate you, and thank you, Jeff. Yeah, we'll. We'll keep in touch. I'm. I'm dying to see what's coming up next, so everybody, thank you. We'll talk to you soon. Take it easy. Bye.
Hey, if you could do me a favor real quick and, like, comment on and share this episode, I'd really appreciate it. And please, most importantly, set the podcast to automatically download. Download every Tuesday morning. As always, I'd like to thank our amazing guests for their perspectives and expertise, and I hope that you'll please join us again next week on this journey of change. Thank you to my partners in the ASA group and to the Changing the Industry podcast. Remember what I always say, in this industry, you get what you pay for. Here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10 millimeter, and we'll see you all again next time.
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