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Customer Trust and Honesty in the Auto Repair Industry with Oscar Gomez, Part 1
Customer Trust and Honesty in the Auto Repair Industry with Oscar Gomez, Part 1
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About this episode
Oscar Gomez joins the Jaded Mechanic Podcast to discuss the challenges of customer trust and honesty in the auto repair industry. He shares his experiences with regulatory agencies, the importance of educating customers, and the complexities of emissions testing in California. The conversation dives into the hypocrisy of regulations, the pressure on shops to meet customer expectations, and the consequences of cutting corners in repairs. Oscar emphasizes the need for integrity in the industry, especially when it comes to safety and proper maintenance practices.
Topics:
customer trust
emissions testing
auto repair regulations
safety inspections
shop integrity
educating customers
industry hypocrisy
repair ethics
diagnostic challenges
service pricing
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Jeff Compton is joined by Oscar Gomez, who shares his concerns as a shop owner dealing with the complexities of maximizing profits while maintaining vehicle safety. Jeff discusses a frustrating encounter with a customer who questioned necessary repairs, emphasizing the importance of thorough assessments to prevent dissatisfaction. Oscar highlights the challenges posed by the extreme heat in California and the difficulties of running a shop without air conditioning.
00:00 Thriving in automotive testing and case studies.
09:06 Disbelief over targeting program proponents for non-compliance.
14:01 New safety inspections linked to a government program.
20:03 Seller misleads buyer, car inspection process changes.
23:09 Unmaintained car may fail emission inspection.
29:03 I relate to unfairness in expert consulting.
32:27 Evaluating technicians' performance and suggesting further training.
41:23 Debate over car belt repair at dealership.
47:02 Hyundai Kia check engine, low oil, burning 4 quarts.
49:38 Customers ignoring oil change leads to issues.
56:23 She's upset about other shops' service.
01:00:57 AC maintenance and environmental impact in the industry.
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Filter:
|
Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Nissan Murano
"...ing safe. Sorry. Right. Like, and we had a Nissan Murano in that needs a transmission, and there's a. You ..."
Car
Chevrolet Spark
"...r going, Oscar, because you quoted, you know, six spark plug wires and six spark plugs because it had a f..."
Car
Chevrolet Malibu
"...uck, I don't want to work on it. We had a 20 2010 Malibu yesterday, towed in, like, engines at a time. Eco..."
Thriving in automotive testing and case studies.
Disbelief over targeting program proponents for non-compliance.
New safety inspections linked to a government program.
Seller misleads buyer, car inspection process changes.
Unmaintained car may fail emission inspection.
I relate to unfairness in expert consulting.
Evaluating technicians' performance and suggesting further training.
Debate over car belt repair at dealership.
Hyundai Kia check engine, low oil, burning 4 quarts.
Customers ignoring oil change leads to issues.
She's upset about other shops' service.
AC maintenance and environmental impact in the industry.
Select text to request an explanation
Here we have a governing agency that handles everything automotive. They don't tell the customer any of this?
No, of course not.
We're the ones that have to tell them. And it's written in their manuals. The shop is responsible for educating the customer. Well. No shit. And then if the customer files a complaint, that bureau or that agency comes out to the shop and acts as if the shop is the bad guy. Like, come on, man.
Welcome back to another exciting episode of the JD Mechanic podcast. I'm here with a good friend of mine. We all love him, Oscar Gomez. Oscar, it's good to see you again, buddy.
Likewise, man. I appreciate you guys having me. And like you were saying, bro, the heat here in this hellhole of California is fricking crazy, man.
What's it like right there, right now?
Right now it's 102. Yesterday we hit 110. Um, nice and dry. So no matter where you go, you're just dying.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, man. So, uh, our. And then the funny part is that we hit summer, so our utility bills usually go up by like three times. So, you know, probably be expecting like a $6700 electricity bill this month.
See, and my shop, like, you know, we forget because a lot of shops still don't have air conditioning. Right, right. You. You probably. It's. It's standard. I to think in California, right. That most of them by now have some form of, you know, like, really.
Man, some of the better places. Yeah, I know a lot of the dealerships do, but. Independents? Mm, not at all. That's something that I'm actually working on with my landlord to get the approval to get AC unit put in the back because. Yeah, man, it's. It's brutal. You know, you got a car that's on inside the shop.
Yes.
And plus the heat inside this, it's just freaking crazy.
Yeah, we. We had no. The way our building is set up, we have no airflow really coming in at most of the time. And, like, in the afternoon when the sun goes over the building and starts to shine into the bays, it gets really hot. And no. No airflow, no breeze and no air. Now you can go sit out. He doesn't mind.
My boss is awesome. You want to go sit in the office for 510 minutes? Cool. Back off. That's cool, right? Like, that's fine in the waiting room, but the shop. So, I mean, the last couple weeks, it's been. It's been pretty hard to function. Harder than I can ever remember. And again.
Yeah, you know, I don't care what anybody says as you get older, you feel it more, for sure.
Oh, hell yeah, man. Definitely.
And because you look and you get a climate to us, too, because the guys that are doing construction just down the road from us, they're out there. They got pants on and, you know, like, they're like. And heavy work boots, and I'm working. I haven't had. I haven't worn work pants since May. Like, I've been in shorts.
Yeah.
It's like, you know, so. But they're out there at the job site doing construction and pants and, you know, and I'm just like, how do y'all do that? Like, it's just. And standing still in dirt and dust and traffic going by on asphalt. No, thank you.
Yeah, bro.
So I'm glad it's. It's, you know, nice there. It's calling for rain here for the weekend, so. Which is going to put a damper on my plans, obviously. Efficient. But if I go out and starts to rain, I'll stay out. If I. If it's raining when I wake up, I don't go.
But if I go, I gotcha. Yeah. Cause then once you're wet, you're wet. Right. But if you're. It's just like, oh, I don't want to get wet if, you know, I don't have to. But if you're out there and it's raining, you just stay out. It's just the way it goes, so.
Definitely.
Yeah. So you've been kind of. I don't want to say, mia, because you and I have talked a little bit and, you know, I've seen you around, but you kind of, you didn't have a vacation. That wouldn't be the right word to say, but kind of fill everybody in on what's new with you. Where you been? What's happening?
Been lurking in the shadows, man. Well, I mean, you know, automotive wise, man, everything's going fantastic. Been having a lot of extra time to work on case studies and testing, testing different scan tools. I'm blessed, you know, a couple of companies sent out some scan tools for me to work with and play around with, so that's definitely giving me some, some beneficial time to educate, learn my. Learn for myself. And then I'm also working on two new classes that hopefully next year I can present somewhere. Yeah. That I get an opportunity to do so.
Yeah.
But everything was going fantastic, man. I was having a great. Obviously, I'm nowhere near some of the top trainers that we all know. And, you know, I was, I was at that bot, at that first step, man, of getting up, going up that ladder, and I. April 9, everything kind of came collapsing down.
Yeah.
And, you know, as I was mentioning, a little bit of. Sorry. As I was mentioning earlier, man, this is something that I would never want anybody, even my worst enemy, to go through. The impact that it has on you as a person, on your family, it's just freaking crazy.
Yeah.
And, you know, for me, just being an educator, and one side of me that a lot of people don't know is, you know, I'm an expert consultant and witness for a lot of automotive cases here in the state of California. Yeah. So, you know, I remember one time being told that sooner or later, I was gonna have a target on my back and didn't think it was gonna really happen or happen that soon. And what. What ended up happening is, you know, my name got involved with this whole situation, which, unfortunately, I can't really get into many details.
Right.
One, because it's still ongoing, and two, because there really isn't any. I was actually speaking to my legal team this morning because, you know, I got two. I have two attorneys and an investigator on it, and evidence has been trickled down so small, and such small increments over these last four or five months, and what has been has zero relevance to me. Yeah. So, whatever. As they've all been saying, it's, you know, pretty soon, you will be exonerated from everything. And once all. Once that does happen, my biggest thing is I want to educate others on being careful about it.
I know some guys are doing a lot of stuff that, in our industry, it seems normal, but unfortunately, to a lot of government agencies, it's not. Yeah. So, you know, there's. There's a lot of educators out there that are fantastic geniuses, way smarter than I am, but unfortunately, some of the stuff they do is, look. Is frowned upon by the government, by big brother. So.
So to put it in perspective for people that might not be as familiar with who. Who and what Oscar is about. Oscar is a. An emissions inspector in the state of California. Right. And Oscar gets a little bit of ribbon for being from California because, you know, it's. It's. To some people, it's the greatest state, you know, in the world, a place in the world.
And other people, we, you know, we don't necessarily align with a lot of what California is about. Oscar has always been an outstanding professional in, you know, because you hear people will make. You'll have the detractors about, you know, smog testing, you know, is both, like, is useless, doesn't do anything. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right, right. All that kind of stuff. And Oscar, I've never heard him ever once say such a thing. I have said such things.
Oscar has never been so. Oscar is a. An upstanding standout of, like, the program and an instructor of how. What it all means, how to do it. Like, oscar, how many, how many people have you trained now, do you think, to, like, do you know, state emissions testing, repairs, all that kind of stuff. How many students have passed through?
Ten, man. Almost tens of thousands by now. Yeah. And, you know, some of them have came back. I've actually done some posts on some of them who came, gone through my program and then came back, worked for me as educators. Now they're training out, you know, throughout the US. So it's. That's the reason why I love what I do, because I'm able to see these guys come in on day one, and then progressively we roll them into becoming a badass technician.
And then afterwards, man, you just see them start scaling up, and it's just freaking amazing. And, you know, some of the things that I always talk about, like, five gas analyze. Analysis. A lot of people say, well, I'm not an emission states. Like, well, luckily we are, and we're able to use that. So it's not just because you're not in a mission state not to use it, but it's a great freaking diagnostic tool, man.
100%. Yeah, for sure. So, I mean, the idea that, you know, they would put a target on the back of somebody that's actually a, you know, what's the word? I'm trying to think a proponent of the system, a proponent of the program, somebody who educates people and trains them on how to follow the program, to me, is just bunk. Like, what is it with people where, you know, we see guys that, like, do modifications and sell, you know, stuff that's not carb compliant. Right. And they ship it all over the continent, and nobody, not nobody gets, like. Because there has been some cases and people have been cracked down. But, I mean, that stuff is like, doesn't.
Nobody seems to blink an eye at that. So when they told me about, you know, it started to trickle down with Oscar. I'm like, there's no way he's out there, you know, rigging the system so the cars that shouldn't be out there driving around would be. That's not what Oscar would be about, right?
Not at all.
So can you. And, like, you. You know, I. Before we got on, I could tell you you know, it's. It's something that's really, really. It's weighed on you. Right? Like, the. It's your reputation.
It's somewhat of your business of going to the next step of not just, like, working for this, but, like, it's an obstacle for sure.
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It affects everything, man. Yeah.
Can you kind of tell us, without going into details details. Can you kind of tell us what it's. What it's all based on?
We don't know.
We don't know.
I I don't know. Neither one of my two attorneys know. The investigator doesn't know. Um, and it's. We're still. We're still in the same spot that we were after April 9. We're still waiting on evidence. Their.
Their usual statement is, it's in the evidence. Look at the evidence. We've looked at the evidence.
Right.
There's no evidence. So. Sorry. And it's just. We just keep going around in that circle like, okay, well, where is it? What is it? And, um, we. It's just not there, so, you know, it's a big burden, man. You know, I have two. Two daughters, and originally, when all this happened, you know, if I would just go outside, go to the store, they would go berserk.
You know, it's not every day that you have to walk out of your home protecting your two kids when there's assault rifles pointing at your children, and then they forcefully, you know, arrest you in front of your children.
Yeah.
And they take your children without you being present to a different room and begin to interrogate your kids. If you've never been through that, I hope you never have to.
Right.
Worst part about it is there's nothing that can be done about it.
Yeah.
So, you know, it's. It's terrifying. It's terrible. And I just hope that once all this is done and over with, that everybody understands that there's a. There's bigger people above us that can definitely make your life what they want to be. So we all just got to be careful, do what we do our best to follow whatever we're doing. Especially in my case, where I had two legal representatives who were guiding me even before any of this stuff happened, and they're even jaw dropped, saying, I don't understand why this is going on.
The thing with the daughters, like, your daughters are not old enough that they would know anything.
Not at all.
Like, that's just. I could almost see it if we're talking, like, in a shop situation. It's like, okay, so you know, your father and there's a son and they, you know, sequester and what did your dad do? Or that kind of stuff. That's not this what's going on here at all?
No, not at all.
Like, your daughters don't. I mean, what they really understand, like, they're not going to understand emissions testing and stuff. It's just dad works on cars, you.
Know, that's exactly what they say, man. It's like, why? If I knew, babe, I would definitely tell you.
All of this has happened and they can't even show you a case or, you know, of an example of what you might have done. That's just. That's just ridiculous. It's so our new to kind of draw a comparison now we have. We're bringing in, like we've always had to do. When you buy a car up here, you have to do a safety inspection on the car right now. Buy from the dealer. It's assumed, it's done, so on and so forth.
So our new safety inspections now are literally hooked up to a government program. Like the cars on the rack, pictures are being taken with your tablet that goes directly to, you know, the government office and all that good stuff gets recorded and everything. By God, does that ever slow down the process? And then it's just like. Because when we did e testing, so when we did drive clean up here in Ontario, and I was not an inspector, I didn't. It was. I didn't bother. We had a camera that would look over the car, okay, that was hooked up, the same thing to the mainframe or whatever, and they would watch. So they want to see the license plate, want to see the VIN number, you know, but.
And then you put it on a dyno, you did, through a two step idle and then a loaded test against the dyno wheels. And that was it. That's all they're measuring, right?
Okay.
And like, yeah, there was some. Some stuff got done trickery wise, for sure, you know, because sometimes the camera didn't catch that. Maybe they put. Supposedly I didn't see it firsthand, but guys would joke about it, go, oh, you just put the wand in the car running the bay next to you. Right. Or stuff like that. Like.
Yeah, yeah.
And I'm not. Listen, I'm not condoning it, but I mean, it was. It was such a. Because we would see cars that would like, came in barely running, right. Misfiring like crazy. I can remember there was an old entrepreneur, the 3.5 and the intake gaskets blown right out sitting there surging everything. I'm like, this thing will never pass. And the guy pulls it in, runs it through.
Sure enough, it passes. And he touched nothing under the hood to make it run better. He just did the test as he was supposed to, right? So it didn't do a lick to try and eliminate, you know, because the way it would work is if it failed, everybody hung a cat on it, right? And what the, what that did is shoot the price of cats up. So all of a sudden it was like, okay, the cats, $1,000. They were letting everybody go with a $500 conditional. That was the government way of saying, so everybody, you just write it up for $500. Everybody would get their conditional and they would go. And that what that meant is in two more years, you couldn't test that car again.
That meant that that car had to either be fixed to pass in two years or you brought in a different car. But it never really solved the problem, right, of emissions cars, emitting cars, polluting cars, being still on the road. They still were on the road. You know, it is people, it's like, you know, if all of a sudden you say the proper repair is $1500, but for 500 I'll allow you to keep driving, what's everybody going to do?
They can't you for the $500, right?
Like, why would you not? So the system had holes they brought back. Now it feels, what I'm trying to say is this new way of doing safety inspections feels eerily similar to that. Okay, take pictures of the brake pads to show the thickness and if they pass or fail, and it, we normally be doing a really good safety inspection in about 90 minutes. Now it's taken 3 hours.
Holy cow, that sounds similar to our program. Just change a transition. So here in California we have what's called a break and lamp inspection. And it's funny because I teach that class, I have that license, and the way it's outlined in the state manual, it's a three hour inspection. And it's funny because I've had students that come in because they're like, dude, I can't pass the state test with that license. We're required to retake both exams every four years, which we thought was terrible. So they just finally made some changes on that. But when the guys were coming in, you know, they were saying like, dude, I can't pass this test.
And then when I, when they would go to my class and they're like, dude, why is it a three hour inspection? It's like, hahaha, that is because you've been doing this wrong the whole time.
Yeah.
You know, it's car needs to be racked. You got a microtors. If it has run out, you got to measure run out. And. And, you know, just doing it by myself, it takes me 2 hours, 2 hours, 45 minutes or so. And people then call and like $300 for an inspection. Yeah. You know what it entails.
And the reason why that reaction was there's shops everywhere that are charging $80 because they don't even take wheels off, you know, so. And then you get a shop who's actually doing the inspection, and people trip out on you because you're actually doing it correctly, because you're not trying to get in trouble and you're charging for that. And then people get freaking pissed off, which is crazy. And the worst part about it is here we have a governing agency that handles everything automotive. They don't tell the customer any of this. No, of course, we're the ones that have to tell them. And it's written in their manuals.
Yeah.
The shop is responsible for educating the customer. Well, no shit. And then if the customer files a complaint, that bureau or that agency comes out to the shop and access is. The shop is the bad guy. Like, come on, man, you know, you, you gotta, you gotta pick sides here. You know, you're having us educate the customer. That's your responsibility. Yet we're the ones responsible if the customer gets upset for your policies.
Like, that doesn't make any sense. Yeah, but I know you guys have that issue up there.
Well, it's. It's very similar, because. And what makes it worse is. So I'll give you what. The scenario that plays out a lot of the time is that somebody goes and buys a car as is not safety. Right? And then they go, okay, the guy, of course, the seller told me it only needed three things, x, y, and z.
Right?
It needed four tires, and, uh, you know, it needed four tires and a front brake job. And, uh, and, you know, uh, there was a license plate, ball boat. Okay. You rack the car, you go through. There's a control arm bushing. That's shot. There's a ball joint. That's bad.
There's a tie rod. All the stuff that other people don't know about when they sell the car, because they just. Those are the three things they know for sure when they're driving it or got told on the last inspection, when they decide to get rid of this heap that, you know, I need, and that's it. Then the poor person never, ever spends $200 to get an inspection done. A pre purchase. No way. That would be ridiculous. It's $200.
I'm not paying you guys that to tell me the same thing this seller told me. And then we get the car, and it's like, it needs three $4,000 worth of work, and then we're the bad guy, right? And that's doing our inspections. If you want to do the inspection now to make it legal to, like, plate it, put it on the road, that's when this three hour inspection comes into play. And now, you know, which before, we just followed the same process we'd always done, but now with the camera coming in, it slows because you can't just take a bunch of pictures, a bunch of video, and then upload. Literally, when you go through the inspection, you go to the checklist until you get your video loaded for the ball joint that's got loose, you stick the, you know, dial indicator on. You can't go to the next part of the inspection.
No way.
So it almost takes two people and a lot, like. And then the tablet's big and bulky, and you're trying to hold a brake pad and this big tablet and push on the button, and, you know, I'm waiting for the day we drop the $1000 tablet. It's gonna happen.
Oh, yeah. Hell yeah. Damn.
So a lot of shops, from what I've heard around me, Oscar, immediately are like, they've doubled and tripled the price of what they're doing. These safeties, cost wise, which is just people. And then some other shops are going to be like, I'm just not going to bother doing it.
Yeah.
Like, I'll give you. I'll check your car, tell you what it needs to pass the safety. But as in terms of, like, getting signed up to for the government to allow me to write you it, not worth it. Not much. Not gonna do it.
Well, let me ask you guys this. If you pass it today, what happens if it fails the next inspection? Does that affect you as a technician?
So right now, we had one where we pass. Well, we didn't pass it. We inspected it, and the guy says, okay, I'm gonna go do that all myself. Cool story, bro. You've got ten days to bring it back.
Damn. So the reason I asked you that is because here in California, we have a thing called the Star program. And what the star program is is it holds me accountable as a technician for your car two years later.
Yeah.
So if I do your emissions inspection today and it passes it doesn't pass two years later.
Right.
That means that I did something to make your car pass two years later. Yes, sir.
Yeah. Cuz cars never develop a failure with.
Not at all. You know, people keep them pristine. They do all their proper maintenance and all that fun stuff. Oh, yeah, man.
It's not looking real inviting for me to want to move to California. Not even.
Not at all, bro. Yeah, that. That program, that was actually something that I was working with a law firm on prior to all of this occurring. And then we were going to file some. Some legal documentation to try to get that program either removed or updated. Because, you know, the way that I presented it was, if you go to a cardiologist and get an EKG and then you die in the. In the frickin parking lot, how the hell is the cardiologist responsible for that?
Right?
You know, how am I responsible for whatever the person does to their car after they leave my shop? That doesn't make any. Any logical sense. What's.
Even if they don't do anything to it, even if the. If the oxygen sensor, the next morning, the heater element fails and the o two tomorrow is not working properly, guess what? The car passed yesterday and today it might not pass. You're not responsible. You didn't make that. Like we used to say with the safety inspections, we used to tell the customers, so this is good for 30 days, and then if you don't safety the car, inspect it, whatever, within 30 days, you're gonna have to get another inspection done. And then we would. So the way we kind of always approached it was if it was right on the borderline. Right, right.
Fail it, because, like, you don't know how that person's gonna drive in 30 days. So, like, tread depths and brake pads, there are brake thicknesses. Whatever was two key things for me. I didn't care if the brakes were minimal. I'm calling them regardless of whatever the spec says for this passes. And I would say, because if you bring it in and if you end up in a court of law.
Yeah.
What the spec is, they're gonna say to you, you're the expert, not the customer. Did you feel that it was as safe as it could be? No, I didn't, but it was, within the eyes of the law, was legal. Okay. Did you feel like it was safe, as good? Nope. Then you are liable. Thank you. Sign here, go off to jail, get your bracelets put on. Done.
So I've had a lot of issues with some former employers because I'm like, I'm not signing that. Safety. The tires are dry rotted. The tires are, you know, 330 seconds. You can pass a tire with 330 seconds. I don't care that. That's just stupid to me. In Canada in winter, a tire with 330 seconds at its is not a safe tire.
I'm sorry, it's just not. So I'm not passing that car. And they would always say, you have to pass it. I don't have to pass it. Somebody else can sign it. You sign right here, then you put your name on the bottom. That's saying you think it's safe. Cool.
It's you that's got all the risk. Because if I lose. If something happens to me and we lose our license up here, you're unemployable. Nobody will hire you now to do anything but change oil, right? Or put tires on. That's it. That's the two things, right? People that want to. It's not to get too far away from the emissions testing thing, but we can kind of. It's the same thing.
I don't have to sign it. There's other techs out there, there's other shops out there. Sign. I'm not putting my butt on the line. And people never understood it. They didn't get it. It's like I got. Employers get.
So, because I've sat through, after I did one at the dealership and it was a used car and everything passed, but it had some play in the tie rod end. It had. The tires were allowable, and we had just gotten a new used car manager, and he was like, use every used car manager. Just a slime ball.
Get it, get it through. We got to make money, right?
So the car, the lady bought it. She went to her mechanic. Her mechanic racks the car, shows her everything that should have been done before the car was sold to her. So, of course she contacts the dealer. The dealer then brings, you know, me into the office. MTO, which is Ministry transport of Ontario, right? A governing body comes in, vault, gets involved. I sit through the whole meeting with him, go through the whole inspection of the car. They can't find anything that is not within the allowable amount, right? So nothing.
There was nothing. I'm free and clear. But he keeps saying to me, the thing that stuck in my mind is he said, well, you could have failed that tie rod and we'd have backed you, but we can't. You can't fail that tie rod because it's not above, whatever, three thousandths of deflection, right? It was a hypothetical number so what they're saying is, in a roundabout way, it's still on you.
Right.
And I was just like, this is the stupidest thing in the world. I don't ever want to go through this again. So I became, like, a hard ass about it. I'm not signing that customer's car as being safe. Sorry. Right. Like, and we had a Nissan Murano in that needs a transmission, and there's a. You could just about put your fist through the subframe.
I'm sorry. That subframe has to be removed for the tranny to come out in that particular cardinal. Right.
Right.
The customer wants it welded. Can I weld it so that it'll be secure? Yeah, you bet I can. Am I going to hell? No.
I don't know.
No. I'll put my. My career, my ability to earn a living. I'm not putting it on the line.
Yeah.
For this rust bucket old piece of trash. I'm not doing it. Sorry. And people get so like, oh, you're not a mechanic anymore. You don't want to fix anything. It's got nothing to do with that. I can cobble and Jerryrig and whatever you want to call it to get stuff by. I mean, I made my living doing that on the side of the road, getting trucks running again so they could get to where they were going.
I know how to make things work. You're not going to tell me that. Something that should be in the junkyard and you want to put a tranny in it. The other work that needs to get done. You're not going to con me, I'm sorry. Into patching a subframe? Because just my luck, if there's an accident and something happens. Yeah. Oh, I just put it.
Jesus. You know, him talking to the cop. Here it is on the side of the road, upside down. Right? Because the rest of the thing isn't safe. I just put a tranny in that, and they go, hmm. I wonder if I should walk over and look at that training job. And then they walk over and see somebody sees my welding on a subframe, hypothetically. Like, I know we're reaching, but scenario wise, but I mean, look at where the situation you're in.
Yeah, that's reaching pretty far, right?
Oh, yeah, bro. Hell, yeah.
It's. It's not a situation of, I need to put my career on the line for one particular car. And I feel like you're the same way.
Yeah, man, I'm on the same boat. You know, one of the reasons why I think that way is when I started doing a lot of this expert consulting. I would see the unfairnesses. So just like you were mentioning, one situation that comes to mind was early on in my career as an expert, and I had just actually got licensed as an instructor here in the state of California. I was helping with a case where a very, very reputable transmission shop got an undercover vehicle from the state of California. The vehicle came into the shop, and they induced a failure of a spark plug wire. Right? Shop checks it. Shop sells plugs and wires.
State says, no, it needed one wire, no plugs, one wire. We show up to trial, and I get presented this, and I'm like, are you fucking. I'm sorry, my. Excuse, my language. Fucking kidding me. So I start looking over all the stuff, and I'm speaking to the attorney. I was like, dude, this is standard procedure in any shop. I'm all, I don't care who the hell you are or where the hell you are.
You call any auto parts, they will not sell you one. Yeah. And I told them, what is like a shop supposed to do? Replace the one and then hand the rest over to the customer. They, hey, when you need these, you can put them on your car. Like, what? That does not make any sense. So he quickly, you know, he kind of thought on his feet. We put some stuff together in the actual witness room. We go into the court, and he speaks to the other side, the other, the state's party.
And we got that dismissed actually, on the spot. It's like, how the hell are you gonna hold a shop accountable? Because they replaced not one, but the whole set of wires and plugs. I was like, that's general maintenance. If we had one wire that was bad, I'm gonna replace them all. If I'm already there, I'm gonna replace your plugs.
Right?
Oh, and as you were mentioning earlier, they'll say, oh, we're the, you know, we're, we're the state. We'll back you up. No, they won't. You know, on our state, if you read their manual, it says their mission statement is to protect the consumer of the state of California. You know, we're not consumers there. We have zero protection. I actually worked on another case also, where a body shop replaced a radiator support, and they marked it incorrectly on the work order. So they were coming after that shop, taking both licenses and the shops livelihood simply because they didn't put that it was a used unit.
They've marked it as new. It's an oversight, you know, and, and they had a hard on for it. The worst part about that one is they actually sent the car to that shop's competition across the street to have them tear it down. And then the state went over to that shop to then look at the information or the report, and then they use that report to go after them legally. It's like, come on, dude, like, you so really?
Across the streets, just gonna be rubbing their hands together, going, I can't wait. Yeah, in this case, right? Because watch what I'm gonna be able to do. Like, if there's ever a chance you're gonna step on the competition's neck, it's right there.
Exactly. You know, it's like, holy cow. And, like, with everything, there has been somewhere, you know, when I looked at it, I would tell the attorney, like, yeah, you know, these guys deserve it. And then there's some where I'd be like, yeah, they kind of screwed up, but these guys just need some training, you know? And so I I was on that boat, you know, sometimes the attorneys would be like, what do you think on this one? I'd read it over and then call them. This guy's done, like, base, you know? I I wouldn't want that guy working on my car, and he shouldn't be working on people in the community's cars, you know? I think it's time for him to find another career, right? And then I had one where I worked on, and. And the tech misdiagnosed a bad fuel injector. It's like, that guy just needs more training. It's.
You know, it's not like, hey, that's. He's done. Get him out of this industry. He's like, no, he just needs some training. And the shop and the on the tech actually agreed to it. We did some training for them and judged liked that and actually just gave them some probation time and let them continue, you know? So it's. It's one of those fine lines, but the government just really sees it more as like, you did something wrong, you're done. Like, dude, you know, people need sometimes need chances.
These guys that work for the state, they need training, because sometimes the stuff they say, right is like, dude, are you freaking serious? Each one of them has their own rules, their own laws, their own regulations, no matter what's written. That's not what it means. Well, it means what I say, and it's like, come on, man. So, yeah, it's a tough one, especially here. You know, we have to. We have the customer. We got to keep happy. We got the state of California we got to keep happy, and then we got to keep both of them happy to keep running.
And then everybody gets a piece of the pie. State, county, city, they all get a piece of whatever you make. So you're just fingers crossed at the end of the day, you can at least have a profit.
And I'm sure these people, this is going to lead into my next rant that's going to talk about hypocrisy within people that actually enforce this shit. Because you know for sure that those people, when they go home to their own vehicles, their own vehicles are not pristine. Absolutely picture perfect, you know, emissions compliant. Like, they never drove to work with a check engine light on in their life, right. They immediately parked it and had it towed in case, you know, that's b's. Cars go around with a check engine light on, you know, when the ambulances go around with a check engine lane on or safety. Don't give me that crap. I got to tell you, this is a story that just kind of.
So at my last place of employment, Ministry of Transport, MTO, because it was a bus line, inspected all the buses, right? Once a year, they would come in and they would go through. They would pick, like, not all the buses, but they'd pick normally the four oldest ones off the lot. And we would do an inspection with them, stand by. And they would come in and they used it as the shop because we were one of the only shops around that actually could lift a motor coach off the ground in our area. So they didn't have to walk under a pit, didn't have to get on a creeper. I'll tell you this, and this is no flak. If anybody from MTO, if you want to listen, you want to get upset, please don't. They're all old, white hair, right? It's their bulletproof vests on and gone at the belt.
And I'm thinking, you're MTO infraction officers now. You know, when you go to the bigger city, there's a reason for that. But here, where I live. Cool, whatever. So they show up in the morning, they show up in two vehicles, the trainee and the trainer, right. And they get out. They park the vehicles in the parking lot. They run all day long, air conditioning running.
Nobody in them.
Yep.
That's good for the emissions environment, right. And MTO and everything else, but whatever, it's not their money, right? I mean, it's all our taxpayers. So anyway, and they come in and we go through the inspections on the buses, and he's kind of, like, showing them and asking questions, all that kind of stuff. And I'm not. Anything I worked on was not part of what they were inspecting. Different weight class, different certification. But at the end of the day, the idea of it all is just. There's so much hypocrisy there because it's like they go home and they take their uniform off and they are just like you and I, just citizens and their car, I'm sure, probably, you know, needs brakes or needs some tires or needs, you know, probably a tune up.
They're not doing it, you know, but they're going out every day and pulling people over and saying, now I'm not against safety inspections. LUcAS and I have had a conversation about that. When they talk about in some of the states how they're a joke, right? I'm for them. I think it should be. When you see some rolls around up here where rust is such a factor. Brian Pollock talks about all the time, we should be inspecting cars every two years. No, but no doubt about it. Just to make sure that they're safe, because otherwise people won't do it.
They will not put tires on, they will not fix the brakes until the car is unsafe. It's just the way it is.
Yep. Now my family's on the road.
Yeah. Unfortunately, our industry's got such a bad rap and it's full of enough shady characters that we probably can't, like we couldn't be tasked with organizing and doing that ourselves as an industry. So the government has to be involved in that. Right. And it sucks because somebody. And it. They'll say, well, I'm not just like my rant. I'm not going to sign that.
Right. But we know we see the stuff and it's like. I mean, I've driven lots of cars. I had one the other day at a Ford 500. I drove it for. It was there for a different complaint. Drove it, did the inspection, it drove fine. No problems.
Pull the wheels off to do the inspection. The left rear brakes, there's no pad left. The caliper had locked up at some point. Burnt the pads right off it like it didn't have a brake issue. So if I ever been looking at that car, I'd have never known that there was something wrong. It didn't squeal, it didn't pull, it didn't pulsate, nothing. Zero. Now, we sold the guy brakes.
Cool, right. We got the thing resolved. But my point is, is that, like, these people that bring cars in and just check them over, nobody road tests the cardinal beforehand and then says, immediately comes out to the customer with, like, I'm sorry, your brakes are at, you know, five mil. You really should get brakes done. Did you road test the car? How does your car perform? Does it, like, that's the part that just drives me nuts, is like, trying to sell just based off of how something looks. Like, if it. I get it, the customer might. What's normal to them could be ghastly unsafe.
But if nobody's doing the proper inspections and the proper, you know, actually using the car the way it's meant to be used, you can't really go out to the customer now and start to tell them that, like, we're the experts and their car is definitely unsafe. I don't have. I'm not good with that. I have a problem with us handling ourselves, but this industry is full of people that do that, you know?
Yeah, they're everywhere. A lot of times, sadly, manufacturers are the big ones that tend to do that. And, you know, I get it. They got to make their money, but we got to be honest, man. And being honest with customers, they can smell B's from a mile away. And as long as we can, we can show them evidence, pictures and measurements and then give them our recommendation and then, you know, guide them into what needs to be done. People would be a lot happier. And, you know, a lot of times, too, what ends up happening that starts creating that problem is like.
Like you were saying, they'll come out right away, hey, you need this, this and this and this. You're looking at 1800 bucks, right? Then they go to Joe's garage down the way. Joe's like, ah, I don't know how to really charge. I'll do it for $600. Right? And. And then that's what that dealership was trying to take advantage of me. So then that starts creating that whole, whole scenario down the way. You know, we.
We service shop that's down the. Down the street from us. We do all his drivability diagnostics and. And electrical stuff, and we'll get cars that come in, and he even complains, like, dude, you guys are expensive for diets. Like, yeah, but you can't even fix it, brother. So $250 for us to check it, but you can't even fix it. Or if I say the word circuit, you're shaking in your pants, man. So it's like, you know, some of these shops that are definitely around, and.
And what I wanted to say about that guy is his mindset is, if I can get ten to 15 cars in the shop a day and make a profit of eight to 500, 500, $800 a day. I'm golden. It's like, damn, man, I could do that with two or three cars and go home with a $2,000 profit. Like, as long as you know how to properly charge, you won't have that issue. But, you know, again, it's just every shop owner or tech becoming a shop owner.
Mm hmm.
Typically goes into that. That spinning wheel of let me call around, see what everybody else is charging, and I'm gonna charge less. I can get more work.
Yeah, well, there was a post there. It was about a belt, you know, and it was like somebody, the belt just sheared off the car, and dealer quoted, like, the tensioner and said that the tensioner pulley was locked up, and somebody else just put a belt on it and called the dealership a crook and said, you know, like, it only needed a belt. Firstly, since we've seen EPDM belts come in, right. We don't see them cracked the way that the old belts used to do. So, yes, I've seen, I can remember writing up lots of belts and having not pictures, but I'd show the advisor and say, hey, this thing is, like, cracked all over. Looks like a checkerboard. Now it needs a new belt. Customer does.
I can totally see how when that keeps driving down the road, eventually that belt just breaks apart.
Yeah, definitely.
This new EPDM stuff. If you're telling me that, like, nothing seized up and the car in question, this was like, I don't even think it was a five year old car. If you're telling me that that belt just broke without being contaminated by anything or attention or not working or pulley were. Come on. And here's the thing. If we go and put the belt on it and just the belt, and in six months time, if you work at a dealer and it. There's something wrong, a squeal, the compressor locks up. Whatever it is, guess what? They want the whole damn job for free.
Yep.
Right. So it's like, well, it didn't need attention or, I'm sorry. There's lots of people in the. In the parts to business, and I understand the parts business is meant to sell parts, but they used to recommend, like, when you do a belt, you do the tensioners, two tensioners, all the idlers, all the pulleys. You change everything except for the AC compressor, water pump, all those big stuff, because you don't want to come back. Right.
Exactly.
As soon as we start to actually price jobs where we're trying to prevent comebacks. And we always, in this industry have somebody going, you're ripping the customer off. You don't need to change that part. I just, that mindset to me is like, so we're not even discussing now the right way to fix something, because you can have multiple ways to fix something. It's whatever. I need the truck to get home. I need a truck to get to the next delivery, that it has to do whatever. That's a different scenario.
But everybody is immediately pointing the finger going, Oscar, because you quoted, you know, six spark plug wires and six spark plugs because it had a failed wire. You're a crook. That's what's wrong with this industry is because it's like your customers maybe don't want to see you every three months for a repair. Right? Lots of shops is like, I only want to come here twice a year. If you think it's going to be to my best interest, my most reliable for the car, that we do that now, do it now. That's great. But other people look at it and go, you're ripping a customer off. I just, it makes me shake my head.
We've for too long have just assumed that the customer doesn't want to spend any money, doesn't have any money, that we've never made money. And now this new talk that we're trying to have, these conversations, everybody's just jumping down one another's throat, and then I know they all do it because they still do it. It's like, what's the quote? Oh, 1200 bucks. I can do that for. I'll do it for a thousand. They didn't even look up parts. They didn't even look up labor. They're just like, whatever it is, I'm gonna make it work at a $1,000.
Yeah, that's got where we are. That's why we're in the mess.
We're in a, like, oh, absolutely, man.
She's at home with a broken car, calling shops. I don't want that customer. I don't want it. I want that. I don't even want a lot of the customers that if a tow truck was like that rig that we've seen, where they tow it into different, I don't want them half the stuff that shows up at my lot on the tow truck, I don't want to work on it. We had a 20 2010 Malibu yesterday, towed in, like, engines at a time. Ecotech engines at a time. Shocking, right?
Yeah.
And I screwed the diag up on it. So that's another time. But I go through. It's got a failed timing solenoid. Cool. It's got one I tested. It's like time solenoid fault. Okay.
It needs time solenoid. The sticker in the window. It's 3000 km overdue for an oil change. Needs an oil change. Normally when we do the timing solenoids on an ecotech, because of the way the rings are, the metal that you always find on the screens recommend a hot oil flush. Customer wouldn't buy any of it except for the solenoids. Put the solenoid in, fixes one code. The engine's still not right.
So then we pull the valve cover off. It's just like we thought. It's a neglected turd. We take the oil filter out of it. It's full of metal. It's supposed to have five liters oil in the engine. We drain out 3.8. Like, I mean, it was just, and this is a customer that we're trying to do our due diligence with the DVI and the multipoint and.
And they won't pay for a flipping oil change. I'm sorry. I would have just rather collected the diag. Even though it would have been wrong. I would have rather said, this is the inspection, this is a diag. This is where we go and then not done the repairs.
Yeah, absolutely.
I can't.
Absolutely.
How do I stand behind an engine repair if you won't pay me to do an oil change?
Exactly.
And our oil changes are not any more expensive than, than anyone else.
Yeah, it's just a lot of people, managers lack that, that knowledge of maintenance or they're just too, too much of a tight ass to actually get it done. Or they listen to the wrong people. There's a lot of stuff we've been.
Seeing and what's going on with this car. It's got news in it, new brakes on it, like, yeah, gee, yeah.
We had a Hyundai Kia that came in with the check engine light and it was for knock sensor codes. So first thing we do is check the oil thing had no oil in it. We drained about half a quart out of it, topped it off, and then we did the oil change on it. We rechecked it, retested nothing there. So we let the customer know, you gotta, you know, do your top offs and keep it going. We see him about three months later, comes, he says, this car is burning way too much oils. Like, well, first of all, you didn't even know it was burning oil last time we told you about it. Second of all, how much? Right? And he's like, well, the last month I killed about four quarts.
Like, yeah, so it's time for an engine buddy. So we helped them kind of look it up and he, his VIN number did fall into that warranty. So we just connected him to a local Kia dealership. They took care of the engine for him. But you know, it's one of those things where again, these people are sold that you need an oil change every 10,000 miles. He's like, dude, by the time you get to 10,000, that shit has no oil. So, you know, it's like.
Equinox Ecotex, right? Equally equinox with Eco Tex. And the guy laid it out and he said it's allowable to build, to burn one liter of oil every thousand miles. It's allowable within the spec from GM. The car holds 5000 or five liters. So in the 5000 window, it will have consumed all the oil within the engine that you put in and still not be due by the oil life monitor to change the oil. And you think that oil life is what you should follow. People get so cranked up, like my buddy, you know, four boss, me, rich, right, our friend, he does great breaking this stuff down and it's like. But you know, he's only reaching like 2% of the people out there and then everybody wants to argue with him anyway and go, he did, he got, I only change mine every 10,000.
I've had great success. Cool story, bro.
Cool.
You're lucky, right? Yeah, it went 100,000k, you know, kilometers, thousand. I keep going to the metric thing because I'm canadian and I traded in and I had no issues. Fantastic.
Yeah, you got one of the good ones, buddy.
Right? The next person that goes and buys that lump, right. We'll be putting an engine in it within the first year and they'll have no, no remorse for them. There'll be no, maybe they get an extended warranty sold with them that isn't going to be worth the paper that is printed on. Like, that's just the part that drives me nuts about this whole industry.
And yeah, man, this year, like this year, sorry to interrupt you, but this year we've done so many timing chain jobs, it's unreal. And you know, after the, after the fact, we always talk to the customers like, dude, you need to change your oil change intervals. And like you were saying, you know, you got all these keyboard experts and all these keyboard warriors all over online and that's what these people are kind of turning to because they feel that mechanics are thieves. But in reality, when you go check out some of these forums or a Google or Reddit or whatever, some of these guys have zero freaking clue about what they're talking about. You know, a lot of these older, you know, some, we call them old farts. I consider myself an old fart, you know, still talk about, well, as a car gets older, you want to go into a heavier weight oil. You fucking don't. Especially with like, VVT or variable valve timing, man.
But some of these guys still live by that. It's freaking crazy.
But it. I call it the. The grandpa analogies, right. It's the grandpa's advice of what they used to do, you know?
Yeah.
I remember a long time ago, God bless him, when my mom and my stepdad first got together, my mom was driving like, a 1989 Buick sentry with like, a v six a long time ago. I'm old too, right? Like, I'm damn near 50, so. And it was like it needed a radiator. Cool. So I tell mom it needs a radiator, and I get a radiator for it. And I put it in the car. And he said to me, well, did you put a new rate rad cap on? I said, of course I put a new rad cap on it, like it comes with the radiator. Oh, you should never put a brand new rad cap on a recondition or any new rad, like, because when they used to recall rads back in the day, if the rad cap was new, they would just start to leak.
They couldn't keep them. And I'm like. And it drove me nuts because here I was, I was already working in the industry, and my mom was taking the advice of this person, you know, versus me.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Because something in 1940 that might have had a grain of truth to it, you know, now still is relevant in 19, you know, almost 2000, he was the same person that, you know, oh, it's leaking coolant. Put an egg in the radiator, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
And it would work. But there's still people on the Internet that are saying this. Here's another story that will make you laugh. So three weeks ago, this girl posts on my local community forum, and she's like, her car will only run for about ten minutes, and then it stalls out and she has to boost it again. Right? We know what's going on. It's probably an alternator, whatever. Problem. Cool story.
Somebody puts her opens their big mouth online, and it says, well, when it's running, just disconnect the battery. And if it stays running, the battery is okay. If it doesn't, you know, or whatever that old analogy, what we used to do, the alternator. And I'm like, please do not do that. Do not do that under any situation. That is like, that's not advice you'd give to anybody on anything built after points were around. Like, come on. And this guy gets in there and he just like, listen, I've been doing it for years, son.
Like, I've worked on the farm my whole, like, he's literally typing this bullshit out to me. I've been doing it since I was a kid. I'm older than you. And I said to him, so me being the jerk that I am, I go creep his profile. He's got, like, a 2019 Chevy truck in the driveway. And I said, all right, hot shot, here's what I want you to do. You go out to do that to your truck right now and film it. And I said, I'll pay you $100 to do it.
Yeah.
And he would not do it. And he would not. And I kept I Oscar for two days. I went at this guy hard, hard. Go ahead. Where's this video? Let me see it. And he wouldn't do it.
Yeah, of course.
Next time, if you don't know what you're talking about online, shut your mouth and don't say anything because they said the misinformation that's out there. I'm getting worked up now just talking about this. The misinformation thing is what is the biggest part of our obstacle in the industry, bar none, right? We see the guys, social media creators, contents, guys, like, in your position, my position. We're seeing it all the time. We're seeing it with wrenches discussing right now. Like, I mean, that's a good one, is the. We should all be doing more to try and get ahead of that. You know, we see.
And it's. I keep talking all the time. When people make content for the sake of content and not actually, like, you know, good, accurate stuff, I have a big problem with. It doesn't matter if Paul Danner put a video out tomorrow. God bless Paul. And it was like I would. And it was like a complete false thing. I'd be the first to call him out and I'd think, is this April fools? Paul, what are you doing? Right.
That type of guy where when he's. He would pull it. He was. If he was. If it was something wrong? He would pull it up there because of the algorithm thing. That just drives me. Oh, I get mad when I just start to think about it. Like, it just.
You're not helping the industry by leaving the misinformation out there is my point.
Absolutely, man. It's actually hurting him even more. And hurting it not only from a technical standpoint, from a shop standpoint, shop owner standpoint. Like, it hurts it as an entire. As entire whole, because that's gonna affect everything, and it's gonna trickle all the way down. And it. It's. It sucks.
But as you were saying, you know, us as shop owners, we pick and choose our battles, right? We pick which customer. We. We try our best to make sure we pre qualify them, to make sure that they're our type of client before we put our foot in our mouth. Unlike some shops that, you know, you got a car with some wheels, bring it in, we'll take it. It's like, that's not how it should be. But, you know, it's one of those deals. We had a car that was in here, in the shop, maybe about two weeks ago. It went to two separate shops before us.
First shop, all they did was recharge, refrigerant, ac work for two days, left, didn't work again. They went to another shop. Second shop, did the same thing, just recharged it and shipped it. And then it ended up in our lap. Car gets there, and we pressure check, found it, you know, evaporator was leaking. We call the customer. Sure. The video, show the pictures.
And the craziest part, man, is she got mad at us.
Yeah.
And she's like, how can it be that the other guys just put refrigerant and it works like it worked for two days? Like, this is a sealed system. If there's no refrigerant in it, there's a leak, you know? And finally, we were able to actually get through to her where she understood where we were coming from. It was more that she was upset that these other two shops just kind of took advantage of her. And, you know, I got to the point where I was like, what you should they call them and try to get your money back, you know, for that service, because, one, that's your. That's illegal according to, you know, our regulations here. And then, two, in California, we have to follow a 16 point checklist anytime we service an air conditioning system.
Same here.
And what's funny is, you know, I've taught classes all throughout us. And here in California, particularly when I teach in California, I bring this stuff up because most people don't know about it. And I taught a class up north last year, and when I talked about it, everybody's like, no. Like, yeah, if you don't follow this procedure, you're violating California business and profession code simply because you did not follow the 16 point checklist before you service the vehicle. And, you know, that's one of the reasons why we charge more when we do that, because we go through it, and that's how we usually find the leaks anyway.
Yeah.
So, you know, then we show that to the customer, and they. A lot of times over there. All right. That. That makes more sense of why you're charging more. Right, versus all these guys. I'm just gonna do a top off. A top off of what? You know, if you need to top off your refrigerant, you got a leak, buddy.
You know, and people, it's just mind boggling, man. Like, how some of these guys just are okay with that. Or you see the guy that's posting on Facebook marketplace with his little can that he bought.
Yeah, I was just gonna say that. Or the guys all over the mobile guys all over social media.
Yeah.
They're run over there with cans from the zone and, you know, hook it up to the thing and turn the can upside down and, you know, collect. A customer's happy.
Yep.
Yeah. As a business, if you're actually going to use the real refrigerant, look at the leaps and hurdles we have to go over to. It's the same up here. It's like, you know, I. The whole idea that we even have to, like, put our machines at risk to suck some of these systems down because you don't know what's in them. Right. It's ridiculous because that stuff can legally be sold to be used as that. Some propane blend with whatever else.
They still call it 134. But it's not 134. It says it's 134 in the can. Yeah, I know that's closer to part number than what it is chemically, but whatever. Right. But the fact that we have to just you or I, like, don't bother. For us, when we do a repair, there's supposed to be then a tag that you put in a little bag and tape it somewhere under the hood of the car. That shows that the record that if somebody wanted to go and go, oh, what was the last AC repair? They should be able to open up that little sealed bag, slid it open.
Look at it. There's my registration number. My name then shows in a little three sentences. What did I do to the car last time? Leak check. You know, put. That's all supposed to be done. I'd be lying if I said that, like, every shop ever worked at, we did that, right? Bother to do that. You go to the parts counter at the dealership, and they go, I don't have any of them.
What are you gonna do? Go put. Shannon, go, I can't do this evap job because I don't have a sticker to put. No, you have job.
Hell, yeah.
But that's by. By law. They can come in and go, you didn't tag that with your. Your certification showing that you're legally allowed to touch it. Even though I can call the part store and I can buy refrigerant, the actual real refrigerant, and they never asked me for my number or really, it's on file, but they never asked. So I can buy it, and then whatever I do with it after the fact is nobody cares. Yeah, right. The shop down the street that doesn't have anybody to buy it from.
And let's be real. Like, they. If I walk into the shop tomorrow, I want to buy it, and I just walk in and I don't work for a shop. I just like, yeah, I got an AC job. I'd like to actually buy, like, a, you know, cylinder to charge my own car. They'll sell it to me, no problem.
Yeah. It's all about who you know. Yeah.
AC is one of those things that's another one of those thing in the industry where I just shake my head and go, we're so missing the boat on what we really should be doing to look after our customers, the leaps. And do I think that AC should be pumped into a system that we know is leaking? No, it shouldn't. It should be fixed. In the greater scheme of things, do I think it actually has an effect on ice floes and polar bears and penguins, you know, from the global war? I'm not sure. I'm not smart enough to say. If you told me all of a sudden that, you know, it probably doesn't, I probably would agree with you. It probably doesn't. But we're more regulated with how we treat air conditioning and emissions than we are and what can legally drive up and down the roads in terms of brakes and tires.
That's such. That's been so stupid to me for the 25 years that I've been turning wrenches. It's been so dumb. I have to go and certify on air conditioning. And yet you know, nobody has ever sat me down and said, this is how you have to do a brake job. And it has to be done this way before you can actually start to call yourself a mechanic. It's so ridiculous to me. So ridiculous.
Yeah. Yeah, man. Like, here with us, since I'm a braking lamp adjuster, I've only had to do it once. But if the car fall is so bad, out of shape and they don't want to fix it, then the customer has to tow it, or I have to call it into our. It's called California Highway Patrol, which is kind of like our troopers. So we have to call it in, and then they get stopped, picked up, and the car gets impounded for being unsafe. That's a violation of vehicle code. And, dude, some of the cars we get in here, there was one car in particular that we were fucking pissed, man.
So this lady rolls up in a minivan. She has her daughter in the back in a car seat. This. This baby's maybe one or two years old, Max. And airbags are still hanging from the dash steering column. Like, the car was literally, like, in an accident. They just put some mascara on it and sold it to her. She's driving around with her kid in there with it like that.
Once we do the inspection, this thing needs brakes, suspension, all kinds of stuff. And when I will tell her about it, she gets furious, right? And we're like, well, first of all, whoever sold this to you, like, took you. It took advantage of you. It's not me. Second of all, there's no way in hell I would have let you if you were my daughter, granddaughter, whoever you are, drive with this car with that child in the back. Yeah, because you're putting both of yourselves in danger. Plus, everybody around you in danger based off how this cardinal is in. In its current state.
And she's like, well, I'm gonna drive like that. No, you're not. You're either gonna tow it out of here on a dolly, or I gotta call it in and I'm taking it. Nope, she's all signed. Something that won't hold up in court. I'm the expert. I can't let you leave. And so, sure enough, she said, oh, I'm gonna take it.
Cool. I'm sorry, but I have to do this. I called it in, and I don't know what ended up happening afterwards, but I did my part. You know, if something were to happen to her, her kid down the way where the brakes failed or that ball joint popped out, loses control and smacks into a wall and something happens to her and the baby. I'm responsible because I'm the last one who touched it. And it's just crazy, man, how some shops would much rather just collect that hundred bucks, $200 for that inspection, sign it off, and then send it down its way. That. That's mind boggling.
That's Oscar Gomez on the jaded mechanic podcast, wrapping up this week's episode. We'll put a pin in the conversation and wrap it up next week. Much more to come from Oscar and Jeff. Great, great stuff. Next week. Be sure to check out that podcast when it comes out. That's next week on the jaded mechanic. 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 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 ten. Mm. And we'll see you all again next time. Time.
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