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David Carrol on Transparency, Diagnostic Fees, and Building Customer Relationships in Auto Repair, Part 1
David Carrol on Transparency, Diagnostic Fees, and Building Customer Relationships in Auto Repair, Part 1
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About this episode
David Carroll shares his insights on transparency in auto repair, emphasizing the importance of diagnostic fees and building strong customer relationships. He discusses the challenges of working on diesel trucks and the necessity of proper repairs versus budget constraints. Carroll reflects on his journey from technician to shop owner, highlighting the evolution of his business practices and the value of thorough diagnostics. The conversation also touches on the realities of customer expectations and the importance of clear communication in the repair process.
Topics:
transparency in repair
diagnostic fees
customer relationships
diesel truck repairs
proper repairs vs budget
shop ownership journey
importance of diagnostics
customer expectations
communication in repairs
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Jeff Compton and David Carrol discuss Ford's improvements in labor coverage for warranty claims and highlight the necessity of diagnostic fees for maintaining a transparent and sustainable business. Jeff emphasizes the importance of using proper parts and dealing with the frustrations of balancing cost and quality for customers. They also stress the value of honesty and transparency in the diagnostic process, ensuring customers understand and are comfortable with the services provided.
00:00 Reluctant to pay for professional service.
03:29 Small family-owned shop in La Plata, Maryland.
07:48 Confusion about expensive car repairs and popularity.
09:37 Relies on Brian Pollock for diesel expertise.
14:55 Maintaining customer satisfaction and upholding reputation.
17:52 Customers value smooth, professional, and transparent service.
19:41 Documentation is crucial for demonstrating repair value to customers.
22:30 Learning to build value for services provided.
27:32 Disagreement over customer billing and inspection process.
28:46 Honesty about diagnostic fees leads to success.
33:00 Considering fixing the truck again without customer interaction.
36:32 Reluctant about paying for professional services.
40:03 A Friend helped me get a job at a dealership.
41:38 Frustration over flat rate and pay bump.
45:31 An Overwhelming work schedule led to a self-employment decision.
47:27 Striving for quality, led to overwork and burnout.
52:16 Watch how I post in online forums.
55:51 Job offer negotiation with flexible work schedule.
57:44 Follow successful techs and start your own.
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Lincoln Navigator
"Were you open yesterday? It's a 2016 Lincoln navigator. And started off with small stuff, like the one m..."
Car
Dodge Ram
"...nstruction company right next door. They've got a Ram 2500. They've got a 2500 duramax. You know, all f..."
Car
Ford Flex
"...ad a, we had a customer talked about another Ford flex. Right? It's a Ford. He's got the injector fault ..."
Car
Ford Excursion
"...a gentleman on Friday that picked up, that has an excursion, that had an EGR issue, and we charged them for t..."
Reluctant to pay for professional service.
Small family-owned shop in La Plata, Maryland.
Confusion about expensive car repairs and popularity.
Relies on Brian Pollock for diesel expertise.
Maintaining customer satisfaction and upholding reputation.
Customers value smooth, professional, and transparent service.
Documentation is crucial for demonstrating repair value to customers.
Learning to build value for services provided.
Disagreement over customer billing and inspection process.
Honesty about diagnostic fees leads to success.
Considering fixing the truck again without customer interaction.
Reluctant about paying for professional services.
A Friend helped me get a job at a dealership.
Frustration over flat rate and pay bump.
An Overwhelming work schedule led to a self-employment decision.
Striving for quality, led to overwork and burnout.
Watch how I post in online forums.
Job offer negotiation with flexible work schedule.
Follow successful techs and start your own.
Select text to request an explanation
You don't like calling a plumber, you don't like calling an electrician when you have an issue. I don't care how pleasant the experience is and how awesomely you clean my pipes in my house. I am not going to be excited about, you know, shelling over a few hundred or a couple thousand dollars to you about it. I might be glad that you did it with professionalism. I'm going to be glad that you did it correctly. I might get the warm and fuzzies about the way that you interacted with me while you were here, but I'm still not going to be happy about the fact I had to do it. And that's. That's it.
You're not out here to make people love you, which, I mean, it's. Some people will say that you are, but no one's ever gonna. They might like you. They don't like having to come see you. That's gonna be the end all.
And welcome back to another exciting episode of the Jada Mechanic podcast. David Carroll. How are you, David?
I'm doing well. How about yourself?
Very good, man. Very good.
Are.
Were you open yesterday?
No. So I was actually in the shop for a bit yesterday, working on my wife's vehicle, you know, every tech's favorite thing to do.
What. What happened with that?
It's just been a long growing laundry list of, you know, minor maintenance and repairs that need to be done, and now it turned into a full day's worth of work, so it was worth bringing in to get going.
Can we ask what it is?
It's a 2016 Lincoln navigator. And started off with small stuff, like the one mirror didn't power fold, needed control arms. You know, they weren't falling out of it or anything, but it got a little squirrely sometimes, and it turned into, you know, I'm replacing the radiator because partial clog of the radiator, you know, while I'm there, might as put a water pump in it. You know, just the might as well. Things kill you.
Yes. Yes, for sure. And, I mean, that's. That's important when it's, you know, family vehicle, right? Because it's like, you don't want to have to. It'll always. You're trying to avoid the most inappropriate time that they always seem to break. And, I mean, who else do we look after better than family? We should anyway, because, like, they're the ones that are gonna complain the worst, right? It's not about a Google review at that point. It's like, yeah, you know, you never live.
Yeah, yeah. That's kind of what it turned into was, you know, the little, little list from the wife of things that need to be done, or, hey, I noticed this. Hey, I noticed that. And honestly, it's kind of like a shoemaker's kids have the worst shoes deal. You know, she gives me a laundry list of these little small things and I'm like, well, it's not going to leave you stranded. It's not going to break down. It's not going to blow up. We can just put it off until we have a few more things to take care of or I have some more time.
And then, you know, in typical fashion, I start tearing into it, finding more stuff that needs to be addressed. So a project that was supposed to be done yesterday is now sitting in my bay till Monday, which is irritating to me because I don't like to tie up shop things during business week, for sure.
Yeah, I understand. And that's it. Just, we're always, we were just talking about that before we got on. You know, sometimes it's hard to get parts or hard to get, you know, because we were sharing, you know, how many Saturdays I've worked in my career and why I just don't. Won't do it anymore. Right. And it's just because of that always thing. It doesn't matter how, how much inventory you keep or whatever, it always something, something comes up that you just can't get it.
And then it's sitting there Sunday, it's still parked there Monday morning. Right. If you're lucky, maybe you can drive it out or push it out or whatever, but it's still, you know, it's a wrench in the works, right? So tell us a little bit about your shop.
So we're a small, little mom and pop shop in La Plata, Maryland. I opened this shop a little over seven years ago, starting off primarily with just light duty diesel pickup work. And we've pretty much opened up to, you know, as time's going on and customers have us working on their trucks. And then it's, hey, my wife's, you know, Toyota minivan needs some work. Do you guys work on that? And I started off in the independent world and I worked on everything. So, you know, it's one of those deals where to me, it makes, makes sense that we continue to work on everything here, just keep some filler work going and everything. But we haven't ever really pushed it. So it's not too surprising that customers don't really know that we work on a little bit of everything.
So we're trying to get more out there, showing that we work on anything and everything for the most part, just because we don't want to limit our market too much. But we do specialize in diesel pickup trucks. And that is a extremely time consuming task, working on these things most of the time. And you want to talk about vehicles that get tied up on a bay with more things you find wrong with them. That's the definition of light duty diesel pickup work.
Now are you, so do you gear yourself to a lot of fleet or is it. So is it a lot of individuals with one truck?
A lot of individuals with one truck. I'd say probably 70% to 80% of our business is from customers who use their trucks for work. You know, there's a lot of people now starting to use them as kind of a status symbol, driving, you know, f 250 platinum to soccer practice and the church on Sundays, you know, so we get some of those guys, we don't. We get a little more picky when it comes to the private owned vehicles like that, that aren't used for work because they get kind of, they get kind of tight on repairs and maintenance. They don't really always agree with properly maintaining and properly repairing them. So we don't like to. We don't like to entertain them too much.
King Ranch, that just kind of hauls dogs around. Right. And the kids, like you said, the soccer practice is a lot is a, it's a really expensive minivan. It really is what you're using. I get it. I understand the appeal of them. You know, I really do. Every time I.
And we don't are my shop where I'm at, we don't have a lot of customers bringing them in. We have, if they are there people that work them. We have a construction company right next door. They've got a Ram 2500. They've got a 2500 duramax. You know, all four or five years old. We work on them, but we're not known as like, you know, we don't get the phone calls. I got an old 60.
Can you like, do something to it? Like, no, we, and we're not, we don't want to mark ourselves towards that because we don't have, you know, it'd be pushing most of our hoist to the limit. And then we're, we're tight on space. And you know, how that goes is by the time you get one of them coming in. Right. You might have some sentimental attachment to the truck, but really, do you have the budget to, you know.
Exactly.
Yeah. So, I mean, they're, they're cool. I enjoy driving one when I drive it. Like, the performance is fantastic, you know, but it's funny when you see in this dog hair and kid seats in the back and it's like, you know, what do you do with this thing.
Otherwise inside the hitch receiver, it still has paint in it because they've never had a hitch in it, you know, like, it's their money. Do with it what you want, you know? But I'm the kind of guy that unless you're prepared to properly maintain and repair the vehicle, you know, either financially, you know, mentally or physically, like, don't, don't get yourself in over your head just because it's a cool vehicle, you know, but we see it all the time. There are a lot of people, unfortunately, that drive diesel pickup trucks that don't have diesel pickup truck money. Yeah. And it's, it's not trying to be rude, but just, just don't drive them because it makes a problem for you and it makes a problem for us because then you're trying to force us into properly fixing a vehicle within your budget when your budget's not proper fix.
Ready, you know, and that's something that we seem to live by pretty good in the industry, and we've got a lot of the customers trained that. Right. The proper repair and the proper maintenance is going to cost x. But I see it in the truck market all the time in the post and whatnot, about people like, well, I got this 6.0 in and we, you know, we jammed a set of, you know, Amazon injectors in it. Now it's junk. And what do I do? How do I look after the customer? And it's like, well, you never did that. You should have never done that in the first place, first of all, right. And it's, oh, well, it's all the customer can afford, then you shouldn't have that customer.
It's, you know, pretty straightforward. And I don't understand it because it's like you think with the people that are working on them and they know what they're like, like yourself, you know, they're not going to get better, right. They're going to continue to get to be more expensive money pit just like any car is. But, I mean, it's one thing to say to somebody with a Toyota, okay, we're going to put a radiator and a timing belt in this, right? And you go, okay, and then with that diesel truck, it's like, okay, we're going to do injectors in it now. But three months from now that turbo could let go, right? Or, you know, you could. What do you do then? Right? Like it's. And yet everybody seems to just want to jump on that. And I don't know if it's a popularity thing, David, as to why they're looking at, as like, oh, the opportunity right now they're in fad or whether it's just they, I think, do they see the size of the ticket on a lot of these and go, I don't wanna let that $10,000 ticket go?
Yeah, I'm not sure I really. So what I'll say is that in the beginning years of me running the shop, I was running it, you know, with the customer's wallet in mind of, you know, I'm trying to save the money. I'm trying to make sure we do a good repair. But the thing is, over the years, I've learned the proper repair shouldn't be sacrificed to meet their budget. Their budget either meets the proper repair threshold or it doesn't. You know, either I'm going to do it right to where I can put a warranty behind it. And I know that you're not going to call me up in three or four weeks having the same problem or another problem that was caused from said repair. You know, I don't.
I don't want that. And it's. And it's not me trying to get as much money out of you as possible. It's. I'm trying to be able to put, you know, my warranty on it and know that we're not going to have a problem out of it. Or if we do that, we'll be able to take care of it for you.
Exactly. You know, it's. And I mean, I'm not an expert in it, but I know I talk to Brian Pollock all the time. My buddy brought my brother Brian, and he talks all the time. He fills me in on, you know, if I have a question about a Ford diesel or whatever, any diesel for that matter, I contact him and he fills me in on like, these are the parts to get. You know what I mean? Like, if you're going to. If you've got a customer asking, this is the part that you quote and only that part. And I think that's where some of us go wrong, is because in the diesel side of it, it's because we don't have enough experience to know, oh, yeah, I put those injectors in and, you know, I've warranted them out twice now.
Right. And I understand it's scary now because a lot of the OE parts are still. Even Benji Burris sent me a picture of his son's. That's not a diesel, it's a. It's a gas truck. But they put a set of injectors in that, and it was on a tow truck coming back because one of the OE. Right, from General Motors injectors has failed. So I don't want to see that become a situation for.
We can argue then that the aftermarket's just as good because we know that there's probably some. You know, I keep saying we're burning through the COVID parts right now. Right? And that's. And that's what I think is a big thing, is what's happening. Brian tells me all the horror stories from the aftermarket stuff that winds up in some of the diesels, right. And it's just, you know, I would never in my. Let my customer dictate that as an option. You know, some of the worst.
Sorry, it makes it worse now, is that, you know, you mentioned, you know, Benji Burris and his son with the GM parts and all. You know, we try and buy oe as much as possible because we have a great track record with oe parts. Unfortunately, a lot of these oe parts, especially for these older diesels, you know, we work on a ton of six liters. And, you know, I mean, the parts for those are becoming obsolete weekly. And, you know, I think they're at the point now where they're just. They're not wanting to carry these old trucks along anymore. They want you to buy a new truck. You know, the six liter has lived for what, over 20 years now? And, you know, they don't.
They don't want you to keep them on the road anymore. And they're just. They're giving subpar parts now. Like, for example, the Ford OEM oil coolers, which came from international. Anyway, those are fantastic. I rarely ever had a problem out of those. And if I did have a problem, it was usually a vehicle cooling system problem that clogged up the cooler or something like that. It wasn't an actual part failure.
Now they've changed over to Dorman as their supplier for oil coolers. And Dorman had a horrible track record with oil coolers in these trucks previously.
Yeah.
And I'm like, so now you're buying oe stuff, paying oe prices, but you're getting a dormant oil cooler. Did Dorman step their quality up of said cooler to meet oe stuff? Or did they just get you a good deal on 10,000 of them?
That's what they did. They had that, you know, and I, you and I know they had a shipping container full that never, never moved, and they sold them for $5 a unit to the OE, said, that's we're going to put on because we're just putting the warranty on it anyway, right? Like, it doesn't matter. You know, you might as well buy the dorman one then, from your Napa dealer and maybe get two, three years warranty out of, versus buying it from the dealer and paying, not being able to get necessarily your margin on it and then only having, what, a year warranty, 20,000 miles maybe?
Like, yeah, Ford's at a two year warranty now, but you still got it. They've, I haven't had to do a warranty claim with them since they've upped their labor coverage for their warranty. But it used to be like 150 or $250 limit for their warranty, payout for labor. So you could do, you know, an eight hour oil cooler job on a six liter, and they're going to give you $200 for labor to do it. And it's like, yeah, that's a joke. Like, most of the time I had the warranty, I wouldn't even submit the ticket to them because it's just, I'd spend more time doing paperwork than just eating it. Moving on.
Yeah, it's terrible. Terrible. And not to rip on Dorman, because they're, they're getting better. But I mean, I know that that's the, still the running joke in my shop when we talk about, well, we had it with small control valves on an ecotech we put in, you know, well, actually, it wasn't even dormant, I shouldn't say that was Ashland, still Napa brand, right. And they came back and. Same thing. And then it was just. That's frustrating because we can buy the Acdelco ones for the same price, and it's just.
But we have to use the supplier then that, it's not our first call because we're in Napa auto pro, so we napa first. Right. But they don't have a listing. They don't carry the AC Delco or whatever. So I'm just shaking my head when it's just like, how many times do you want to get bid on this stuff before we just, like, realize that there's some parts that I understand. Margins are margins, and it's important, and you want to support the people that support you, your supplier. But come on. Like, thank God the customer's understanding it.
It's an easy repair. You know, it's ten minutes to swap those solenoids at whoop Dee doo doo in the park. But, I mean, when it's, like, something way more, what do you do? Like, it makes me just, you know, I get really squirrely every time somebody says, well, we're going to put that in. I look at the box and say, but it's not, you know, in the day, it's not my business. Right? Like, it's. I can sit here and say, off. I was running things, but there's so much more going on than there is.
There is. And, you know, it's. For me, it's not even so much the time that it takes to correct the issue when you have a part go bad. It's my. My image is what matters to me. You know, the customer. You know, most customers, if they've been with you a while, they're gonna understand, like, stuff happens, you know, but, you know, it seems like it never fails when you have an issue like that. It's always on, like, their first visit or something like that, where you're really trying to build a relationship with them and, you know, build your image up that, you know, you can be the one to service their vehicles without problems, and then you have a problem, and then, you know, we always make it right, but you're always in the back of your mind, like, wow, that made us look like crap.
Like, it's not our part. We didn't do it, but we sold it to them. We installed it. So at the end of the day, we did it. They don't care if that came from echelon or from Ac Delco or anything. They just know, hey, I paid them to fix this, and it broke a week later.
And we are wrong in giving them an option. Like, if we know that in our best interest, maybe I wouldn't put that on my own car, right? We shouldn't even be offering as an option to the customer. Just the one option is the only option, right? That's the. We. We just had another one of vent solenoid on an infinity, you know, and there's a difference in price between buying the one from Napa and buying the one from the dealer. And it was tabled to the customer. Like, this is what the dealer part would cost. Would you like that? And they rolled the dice on putting the aftermarket one in.
But we're still warranting out, you know what I mean? Like, they're not paying for the labor. So it's like, ah, try another one. Well, that, to me all of a sudden is like, no one shot. And that's it, you know, I don't want to try another one. We should have not done it in the first place. There you go. It's a perfect example. The Internet is not full of conspiracy theorists in the industry.
It's, it's, it's, it's based on fact. It's based on experience. Let's not. But it's hard, right? It's so hard to keep your customer satisfied because price is still such a factor for so many of them that it's just like, you want the job, but I say it a lot, you know, sometimes what you might only get is the, the diagnostic car. And then that your price to do the repair is too much and somebody goes somewhere else, at least that, you know, if it doesn't work out for them, maybe they come back to you, get diag again, you know, and that's.
Why it's so important. I see it all the time on ASAG and changing the industry. You know, people talking about rolling diag fees into repairs and this, that and the other. Or their diag fees lower than their standard labor rate.
Yes.
I'm just like, you know, this is why it's so important to charge correctly for that kind of stuff. You know, it's your expertise. It's the most expensive thing you can, that you can do on a vehicle is diet. Between the tooling and the information and the skill and experience of the technician. And, you know, I just don't, I don't understand. Well, I guess I understand because I used to be very afraid to charge diag properly as well. And honestly, in our area, we are probably the most expensive on testing and inspection and diag and stuff like that. But we get stuff from shops around us and dealerships around us all the time.
All the time. And I'd say probably nine out of ten times when a customer comes to us from someone else, you know, they hear our testing fees, but they're so frustrated where they've been. They're like, I don't care how much it costs. I just want it fixed, and I want it fixed right. And then they experience the process and they get it done and they're like, you know what? I totally understand why it costs what it costs now because this was such a smooth experience. You kept me in loop on everything. You had proof for everything. You know, you pay for testing here, I'm giving you pinpoint test results in the description.
You know, if you choose to take that testing out of here and go somewhere else and it happens, they're going to be able to look at my ticket and say, I tested that. This was a result that did this. That was a result. Okay, cool. I can see why they said it needs this. Let me run through these and do these again real quick just to make sure. And then we're going to put that part on. They said that you needed such a.
Powerful tool not to interrupt you because the customer can then if they are going to go back to their guy, you've heard people hear me say that, oh, I'm going to go back to my guy. When you have that pinpoint testing for them, their guy really can't start at the beginning, you know what I mean? Or shouldn't have to in terms of everybody should have their process. Sure. But it's like he can't then table to them and say, oh, I had to go back and check everything that, you know, I started the same spot and I went back and checked it. Why, it's documented what you did. Right. I did a relative compression test. I did a ve test.
Right. I, here's my snapshots from the data on what it's doing when I'm under the wide open pool. Here's, here it is. That, that next shop. And we know that this is sometimes the truth a probably doesn't even get that in depth. So why would he want to go and do his process, right. Like you should be at that point. It's just like, okay, well, you know, I can either probably go with what the better diagnostic guy shop says and give them a better price on labor and part, maybe my margins are less, whatever.
Or, you know, we know the reality is they probably just going to chuck the part at it, right. And that's because, and I didn't understand the whole point of documentation for quite a while in my job that I'm at now until my boss actually starts to show me that. It's like even if they take it out of there and they don't do the repair when you, that's the only thing at that point, if you're giving them still a broken car back, the only thing that they've got value is your testing results. That's the only value that's there. Right. Because they're driving away with a broken car still. But if you, how do you show them that what their $100, $200 got. If you're not putting anything down.
You know, I get. He's way better at it than me. And I'm starting to get a little better where it's like, I take pictures, screenshots of the data, you know, like pictures on my phone. We had. Was just talking yesterday we had a 21 volkswagen come in just before we're closing up on Thursday. And this is what I love about modern technology. She. They complaint was fuel smell, gasoline burner.
And we're like, okay. They bring it in, say all the check engine never been on before. It's got like 120,000 km on it, approximately. So like 70,000 miles thereabouts, right out of warranty. No previous history with the car. They're from out of town, they're driving through on a trip. And we scan it, and it's got a purge fault, and it's got misfires, fuel trim. Right? So we.
But of course, by the time they get there, they're like. They look at us and they're like, sorry, it's running great. Okay, what do we do? You know, you go through and you do your thing, and it's like, okay, probably was the person it stuck. Here's the scenario I think is happening, is that something in the canister is coming apart. Valve might have stuck. They are a known issue on that car. Here's the results. There's a bulletin.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We couldn't get the part. We couldn't. They were in a time constraint. They didn't want to leave the car. But literally, we can take pictures of the part, take pictures of the data, put it in the DVI, show them everything. And they were happy to pay the $80 that we only charged them for the half an hour to look at it real quick, when they came in and said, hey, it's not even doing it now. But what I loved is there's a QR code right on top of the purge solenoid.
So, you know, these young people that are so into the modern tech, there's the purge solenoid, there's the QR code. They can go and find out way more about what that part does by their little. Their phone. Then I bother writing down, you know what I mean? Like, it's fantastic. I love it. It's just training myself at almost 50 years of age to start thinking that way. That's the. That's the Rob skle I run into.
So you're coming off of a career, as, you know, a flat rate technician, where it's you know, I'm not here to give you a to Z pinpoint test. I'm here to fix your vehicle. It's broken. I know what's wrong with it. Here it is. This will fix it. Let me do it. Just let me fix it.
Let me do it. You know, and I'll say, you know, so you're in the point now where you're learning how to build value for the services that you guys are providing. You know, be it a half an hour quick check where you just looked up some documentation. You probably didn't even touch the tool to the car other than to pull a code off of it, you know, and, you know, my wife tells our customers all the time because she actually runs our office. She says, you know, because we do get some pushback from people, especially if it's their first time coming here, because they're not used to what we charge and they're also used to shops around here rolling it into, rolling diag into the repair or saying there's no diag, but really they're inflating it on the back end, you know, but she tells them, you know, when you leave here, you're going to have the steps that David did to test it. You're going to have the results of said tests. You're going to have the reasons why these tests were good and these tests were bad and why this part has failed. You'll be able to take this information.
You own this. This is now in your hand. You own it. You bought this from us and you can do with it what you please. You can take it somewhere else. You can fix it yourself or you can throw it away. It's up to you. But at the end of the day, you're going to own this information that you paid for.
You know, you're not going to give us a couple hundred bucks and let's just say, oh, it needs a part valve. That's, that's not what you're going to get. You're going to get why it needs one. The theory of operation and all that. You're going to know all that.
Yeah, it's, it's a fantastic tool. I struggle, like I said, like you just pointed out so well, I struggle to retrain my brain to do it. I find that I have to tell myself constantly to slow down and document more and put more down, you know, because I'm so used to. You had 36 minutes to figure it out. You know, it was another pattern failure. That's what it is. If somebody wanted to talk to me, it's like, listen, I'm not paid to do paperwork or I'm not paid to walk the customer through why it failed. Like we've, I don't know why.
We did a hundred of them last month, that's why. Yeah, things, shit, you know, like that's, that's the why. And now I realize that the new customer is so much more informed and, you know, it's not a case of distrust. Even we sometimes say, oh, they don't trust us. It's not distrust. They're just, they're such sponges for knowledge, you know, they don't even know how the systems in the car work. So they're like, like, how does it work? What's it doing? I never knew that. Like, the vapors that came out of the gas tank are stored and burned in the engine.
Like they had no idea. You didn't understand. It just, it burns fuel. Yeah, it does burn fuel, but, you know, you talk about the gas can out on a sunny day and you see that, you know, everybody's seen that. And then the light bulb goes off.
And that's got to go somewhere, right?
So do you find a lot of your customers, like you were saying, might do it themselves? Is that, like, do you still see a lot of that with some of the diesel truck owners that they'll tackle something themselves that just want to die.
Four or five years ago? Yes, probably the last three to four years, not so much the last four to six months. As things have gotten tighter, I've noticed people are starting to pay more for diag and leave. And you know, our customers that know upfront, they're just gonna get a diag from us and then do it themselves or have, you know, Uncle Bob do it under the shade tree. You know, they tell us upfront and a lot of them are, you know, we have a great customer base. Even the new customers, you know, they're apologetic up front. Oh, I'm sorry. Like, I'm just going to pay you for the testing and you're going to tell us what you want them. Like, hey, hey, hey, we charge you what we charge you.
Assuming you're not going to do anything. Yeah, you know, regardless of that, the time we put in it, we're going to be compensated appropriately for it. And I don't care if you come take it out of here. Would I like to do the repair? Yes, I would because I'd like to, a, get the work, b, make sure the work's done correctly and c, make sure it's done correctly with the proper parts where it's actually going to last you and it's not going to be a part off of Amazon or something. But, you know, at the end of the day, if all I did was diag all day every day, we'd still make money. You know, it's not a big deal. We don't do it as a loss leader. We're not suckering you in with a cheap cost up front.
You know, what we're charging you is what we need to charge you to stay in business every hour of every day. It doesn't matter.
Yeah. What a, and what a great, what a great step you've gotten to. And where some of the shops are where you say that, that I could just do diag all day long and I would still make money and I would still be able to pay my bills and all that kind of stuff, like we are. So I'll even say it. Probably ten years ago, we weren't there in this industry. Not even close. Right? In terms of that, we had to do the diag in order to get the repair. And now, thank God, the margins are finally moving where they should be, where it's like they want it checked out.
Because I keep saying all the time they're bringing you a problem, you can't always assume that the problem that they're bringing, they're going to fix. So they're bringing you a problem. You got to flush it out, give them the problem, give them the repair. In terms of give them what it is. Excuse me. And then if they don't fix it in your facility, whoop dee doo. I should have made some money on that, right? I should have made enough to cover my tech, cover my expenses, whatever the margin you want to break it down into. That's still such a new concept, and it frustrates me when we talk to people that still don't get that.
Oh, I checked it real quick, and I didn't like, man, what? Why do you want to gamble on that? Or, or if the customer doesn't do the repair, then you give them a bill. But if they had done the repair, there would have been no bill like that to me. So it's out of sequence, it's out of order. Right? Like, you didn't know. You just kind of looked at the customer, made the decision that they're probably going to be stuck fixing this. So I'm going to just, you know, real inspector, real quick because I'm already losing money, and I'll make, I'll roll it in or at least I get the $5,000 pair. That, to me, so stupid, right? You treat everybody like the same. You don't prejudge your customer that on their financial situation based on what they look like.
So the process is the process. I'm going to charge you to check the car out, and then I'm going to proceed with the repair or not. You know, it's up to you at that point. It's your car. Lucas reminds me all the time, you can't force them to do anything. It's not. It's their car, it's not yours. And it's like, yeah, we'd love to have the repairs, right? But we're not.
We shouldn't be giving DIag away or just doing diag to get repairs. We should be just doing Diag because that's what it takes to fix the car. And it's a two part process.
Check it out. You shouldn't be lying about what you're doing with the diag fees either. That's a thing that drives me up the wall. And also, you know, you notice the guys that, you know, oh, I checked it out for him and I gave, I told him what it was, and then they left, you know, and of course, they didn't make any money and they're all pissed off about it. I'm like, you did that to yourself. You didn't. If you don't want to do something for free, you set the expectation upfront and you would be surprised if you explain it correctly how many people you can convert from a I'm not paying for diag to, I will happily pay you for diag because I know what comes with it. I know that I'm getting all the results and I know that it's going to be correct.
Yeah, but see that I know why they do it, or I think I know why is because they, they don't know how long it's going to take for them to flush it out, right? They don't know. They don't have a process. And then it's like if the customer was to ask and they were to just be forthcoming and go, look it, I'm going to take care of the diag. I'll just roll it into the repair. Well, how much, mister, you know, shop owner, you exactly rolling in, right? Because customers think, like, the repair is going to be, this diag should be free. But now you're telling me if I don't repair here, I owe you something? But you haven't even told me what that will be yet, because it's not posted anywhere. I don't, you know, we don't, we didn't hash that out before. I.
You took my keys and worked on my car. So what? Exactly. So then they have all the power and they're negotiating with you, and then it's like, what's the, what's the minimum I can get from them?
Yep.
I'd rather say it's $200 to look at the car and then $200 after that. I give you x, y, and z, whatever. Like you said, you give you all this information and you decide if you want to do the repair or not. I'd rather do that. It's, it's such a more comfortable for me conversation to have, but I guess I'm just. Well, we had a, we had a customer talked about another Ford flex. Right? It's a Ford. He's got the injector fault and the misfire on the same cylinder.
He doesn't want to pay diag. I just want an injector put in. Was he right that it needed an injector? Sure it was, but it wasn't like we could have pulled that intake off and it would have been two chewed wires, right?
Yep.
Possible. Happens all the time. But what do you, what do you do at that point? You chuck the injector in any way and fix the wires and don't talk about, like, don't even tell them the wires are damaged. I always think about, like, well, what happens the next time somebody takes that off of there and for a different repair. And they go, hey, did you know that the wires repaired? Or, or look at how crappy they repaired these wires. And the guys going, what wires? I had an injector done. Well, that customer, no matter what, still feels like you ripped them off. He came into you and said, change an injector.
And you went in and just changed an injector and repaired wires. I'd rather say, like, my boss handled it. Well, no, we don't do that here. Like, I have to flush your car out. I have to check it. I have to check that there's power ground going to the injector. And then, yes, we'll put an injector in if it needs it. And sure enough, it did.
It's an open circuit injector. It happens on fords. Yeah, but I don't understand how these guys just go, I'll roll it in. What do you. Exactly rolling in? Then how do you do it? You know, like, what do you do? Put on an extra 20 minutes that the guy can't find online, like, because that's, you know, some customers in the worst case, like we talked about, yeah. They come in and they got, I know exactly how many, how much labor that should be to do that job. Right. So it should be 1.8 to do the back injector.
I got a bill here for 2 hours. Why am I paying 2 hours to this? Then the shop owner say, oh, well, that extra point, too is the diag. Well, you told me diag was free. Yep.
And then now they found that you've, you've, you've played the shell game. You move, you move the money around and you hit it on the back end and then all of a sudden you're called out on it, you know, and a lot of these people that are, that are doing that is because they're, they, they're either scared to have that conversation or they don't have the time to have that conversation. They think they don't have the time. I see this a lot with small shops, and I was guilty of it in the early days, too, where I was just me, myself and I here. No office person, no parts runner, no nothing. It was just me doing everything. And you're just hustling, just trying to get stuff done. You know, I need to get this truck done.
I need to get that truck done. I'll die like this. I'll see if they want to fix it like I back, you know, seven years ago, I never discussed fees with people up front because I wasn't really pro, I wasn't charging really for diag. It was like, you know, I'll put the estimate together and then whatever time I've got into doing my testing to find it, I'm just going to throw a little bit on top just to make up for the time I've got in it. And then that will be the completed repair cost, you know, and they can decide if they want to do it from there. And, you know, it's just, that's the easy way, that's the least confrontational way. It's the way where you don't have to interact with the customer as much. You don't have to give them an explanation.
You don't have to tell them all the reasons why, you know, the shop down the street isn't doing this. But we are, you know, and we have customers still to this day that actually, we just had a gentleman on Friday that picked up, that has an excursion, that had an EGR issue, and we charged them for testing of that because we wanted to make sure it wasn't wiring, you know, had to make sure the. The cooler wasn't clogged, all that stuff. And, you know, he. He's been here, like, four times, I think, over the last couple years. And he told my wife when she presented the testing fees, you know, they'll drop it off. We'll do a pre scan. We'll see what we're working with.
I'll put a test plan together, and then I'll figure out what we're going to need to do for testing and how much we need to charge for it. And when she called him to present the testing to him, he was like, you know, I still don't like that you guys charge for the testing and all. Like, you can. And she told him. She said, that's fine. Hey, you know what? We haven't started work on it. You don't owe us anything at this point. You come pick it up if you don't want to.
And he was like, no, no, no. Like, you guys do great work, you know, I'm just. I'm just saying I don't like that you charge it. Well, that's fine. You don't have to like it. You either leave or pay us to do what we're supposed to do and know that every time that we do it, we put a guarantee behind it. And that for you, we have not been wrong yet. So, you know, that's right.
And. And I don't. I never got into this business for people to like me. You know what I mean? Like, it's. And I'm not. Again, I'm not a business owner. I'm just a tech. But it never really.
It never really bothered me if somebody went out of there with a fixed car and go, I really didn't like that experience. Now, I understand from a tech standpoint, versus a business owner, it's different because you want them to like the experience. But the end of the day, if I like, they can grumble about, it's expensive.
Yeah.
And I don't like that it's expensive. Cool. Okay. But it's not a personal thing. If they don't like the experience, I don't take it as a personal thing. Nobody really likes to fix anything. I don't. You know, I had to replace my television.
I don't like that. But, I mean, did you. Did you meet the contract? Yeah. They wanted a fixed car. I gave them a fixed car on the agreed price. That's it. It's not about likes, you know, it.
I think I did my job then.
For too many years. I think we tried to chase that, where it's like, oh, I want them to feel better about this experience. And I think we finally have realized they're never going to like this experience to the level that we maybe wish they would because it just. It doesn't excite them. Cars don't excite people. They get excited about a new cell phone, new television. They get excited about spending money on a vacation. A car is a constant money pit right from the minute I drive it off the lot.
It's a depreciating equity. I'm constantly putting fuel and I'm constantly putting tires. I'm constantly putting brakes on. It is always broken in their mind or costing them money. The idea that we could think that they could like to then interact with us is horseshit. They don't like to go to the gas station, right? Yeah, like, you know, I mean, you.
Don'T like calling a plumber, you don't like calling an electrician when you have an issue. I don't care how pleasant the experience is and how awesomely you clean my pipes in my house. I am not going to be excited about, you know, shelling over a few hundred or a couple thousand dollars to you about it. I might be glad that you did it with professionalism. I'm going to be glad that you did it correctly. I might get the warm and fuzzies about the way that you interacted with me while you were here, but I'm still not going to be happy about the fact I had to do it. And that's. That's it.
You're not out here to make people love you, which, I mean, it's. Some people will say that you are, but no one's ever going to. They might like you. They don't like having to come see you. That's going to be the end all.
They'd wish that they could visit for a different reason. We've all heard that. I wish. I wish we met under different circumstances. Yep. So you've been in business for seven years?
Yep.
Okay, what's the backstory? How did you get to, like, were you always like, how does it start out for a guy that wants to go into diesel trucks? Like you, a farm kid or.
So I. I didn't know that I wanted to go into diesel trucks. Um, actually, so if we'll run back when I was a kid, you know, 1213 14, I was that kid that was always taking apart the lawnmower, taking apart the weed eater, putting it back together if something didn't work. I was the one that took it apart to figure it drove my parents crazy. Um, you know, I was the one that took it apart to see how things worked, you know, trying to build crazy stuff, you know. Sounds dumb. I'm out there watching american chopper on, on Disney or Discovery Channel and stuff like that, and I'm building a bicycle that has a motor attached to it, stuff like that. Like I was always with my hands.
That was, that was what I did. I could, I could fix most everything. I could also break most everything. So as a kid, I was really into that stuff. And then I got into high school and needed to get a job and I went to the dealerships and I was like, you know, I want to come on as apprentice. This, that, the other. Well, I wasn't 18 yet. They wouldn't hire me at that point, right? So they said, you know, go to like a quick lube place and get a job for a couple years till you're 18, then come on over and, you know, we'll talk then.
So I went and started working at Jiffy Lube when I was like, I think, just before I turned 16. And I worked there till I was, I think, 20 because by the time I turned 18 and tried to apply to other dealerships, they weren't taking anybody on. So then I worked at Jiffy Lube until I was 20. I hated it because 95% of the people that worked there had no mechanical ability or knowledge. And I'm just like, why do you have these people working on these people's cars, you know? And I ended up getting an in at a independent, small independent sunoco repair shop station. And they were about an hour away from my house. And another buddy of mine worked at the Ford parts department at the local dealer that was like 20 minutes from my house. And I kind of got burned out on driving an hour away to this little Podunk Sunoco station.
Like, it was kind of cool, but kind of not like it was a, you know, kind of a small town feel, but also it was right outside of military base. So the customers that we got were like, you know, people making, you know, 100, 5200 thousand dollars a year as contractors and stuff. And they're bringing in like these really nice cars and they're like really picky and really hoity toity. And that just, it wasn't, wasn't my vibe. And also my old boss, you know, there were times where me and the other guy there, the other tech there, we'd have to race to the bank on Friday afternoon to see whose check went in first, to see who got paid, you know. So I kind of got tired of dealing with that.
Yeah, yeah.
So I called my buddy that was at the local Ford dealer. He had been working there for a while in the parts department. And I was like, look, man, like, are you guys looking for anybody to, you know, come work there? Like, you know, just throw me on lubrack or something for a while, you know, and I'll prove, prove myself there. He said, actually, you know, we just started a truck shop in the back, and it's just, you know, fleet work, you know, diesel pickup trucks, diesel ambulances, stuff like that. And he said, let me get you an interview with the service manager for that portion of the shop. So I went, met with him, and, you know, we hit it off pretty good, and it sounded good. And, you know, he was like, what do you know about diesels? I said, well, I know that they have glow plugs instead of spark plugs, and that's if you put gas in them, it's a big problem. So, you know, that's what you're working with.
I said, you know, basic mechanical wise, I'm good to go. But, you know, the diesel stuff, it's going to be a learning experience for me. But they all suck, bang, blow. So it's, you know, it's all similar in the end. So I started there, and I worked at that dealership for, I want to say, like, three or four years. And I quickly grew into the position there. I mean, it was, it's. I don't want to say it was fake it till you make it, but it was definitely, like, jumped in with both feet and just had to start paddling and, you know, figure it out.
And, you know, I kind of picked up, picked up on it pretty quickly. So it got to the point where I was outpacing some of the other guys that have been doing this for years. And I'm like, hey, you know, I feel like I should probably make more money.
Mm hmm.
And that was a flat rate. You know, it's flat rate and everything. So, you know, it's just frustrating when you see guys out there screwing up every other job they touch and every job of yours that leaves, for the most part, is good to go, doesn't come back. And they were like, well, you know, we're kind of already paying you, like, the most that we can pay you, but what we can do is we can set you up on a bump scale that with each hour. Like, so once you go over 40, we'll pay you like another dollar an hour. If you go over 50, we'll give you 250 extra an hour or stuff like that. So I think the top tier was over 60, and it was like a $5 an hour pay bump. And I hit it one time.
Yeah.
Hell yeah, man. My check is going to be sweet. I get it. And I didn't get my $5 bump. So I go talk to the service manager of my department and the truck shop, and he was like, oh, you need to go see the main guy up front. He's the one who handles all, like, the payroll and stuff. I said, okay, no problem. So I go speak to him.
I was like, hey, I'm supposed to have this bump. It didn't show up on my check. You know? What's up? He's like, we would never do a bump like that. Like, who told you that? Well, you know, this guy that's running the truck shop. I'm trying not to use names. It's hard for me. Not just. He's like, you know, I said, the truck shop manager who told me that, and he was like, I didn't authorize that.
Do you have it in writing or anything? I said, actually, I have a post it note that he wrote it down on. Let me go grab it. And I went. Grabbed it from my toolbox, showed it to him. He was like, yeah, that's his writing. We'll give it to you this one time, but we're not doing this again. Like, I didn't agree to that. You know, we're not going to do this.
All right, duly noted. So he gave me my corrected check. I started hopping around on indeed looking for any place that, you know, had, you know, looking for someone with diesel experience. And I found another dealership that was like an hour and 15 minutes up the road. And I applied with them, came in for an interview. They offered me several more dollars an hour than I was making at my normal base rate. And I was like, these guys are going to pay me what my bump was over 60 hours, you know, just to come work from hour zero. So, yeah, I'll come work here.
So worked there for, I think, another two or three years. We moved into a beat. We were in kind of. We were in kind of a rough area with our original shop. We ended up moving to an old caterpillar dealership. Nice. And I don't know if you've ever been inside of a caterpillar dealer in their shop, but they've got like the overhead cranes that go through the whole shop. Massive, beautiful, just awesome setup.
And, you know, continued working there. They ended up turning me into a shop foreman. They split the shop in half. I was forming over one half, the other guy was forming over the other half, and he didn't like me very much because he was there for, like, 25 years, and I'd been there for like, three years. And him and I are both, you know, ranking the same in the eyes of the latter. So we bumped heads a lot and we went. It just became one of those things where I was constantly chasing money, you know, having to go ask for more money and. And, you know, in a typical tech fashion, I was outpacing my spend.
My spending was outpacing my earning. You know, as soon as you make a dollar, you spend a dollar 50. And I got kind of caught up in the rat race of trying to, you know, look, look like I was doing real well and stuff. And so it was constantly, always chasing after money. Started doing side work out of my house to try and help make ends meet and all. And eventually I started to realize that it wasn't even about the money at that job. It was just I hated the environment, the dealership politics, you know, bumping heads with the other foremen and stuff. You know, they eventually put me on a salary, and it just.
It didn't make a difference, you know, I still hated coming to work every day.
Yeah.
And I had gotten to the point where I was so busy in the evenings and weekends. I mean, there was a point where I was working, coming home on Monday through Friday, coming home at 05:00 in the afternoon and working till, you know, 12 30 01:00 in the morning, getting up at 05:00 a.m. the next day, going to go work at the dealership, do the same thing. And then on the weekends, Saturdays and Sundays, I'm out there 708:00 in the morning till nine or ten at night, had two little, you know, had two young kids at that time or during that period and wasn't getting time with them. And it just, it really took a toll on me, you know, and I got to the point where I was so busy after, in my evening hours and weekend hours, where I was like, you know what? I could probably fully support myself off of this. I should just make the leap and go do it, because obviously I can't work for somebody else. I just hate being there.
So when you were, when you were doing all that side work, was it still a lot of diesel truck or was it a lot of. Just anything in it?
Yeah, really a lot of diesel trucks. And I will say one thing I never did was I never took business from the dealership I worked at. I'd even had people that had been customers there at the dealership approach me about it. I'm like, nope, I will not do it. You know, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna poop where I eat. We're not doing that. And, you know, I just refused to do that. But word of mouth, I'm telling you what, even to this day, that is our best form of advertising.
You know, I mean, my name got around the, you know, started in my county and then went to, you know, like the tri county area. And then, you know, now we have people coming from a state away to bring stuff to us and all now, you know, so, I mean, it blew up pretty quick. And it's a, it's a pretty interesting, it's a neat feeling to have people use your name like that. Oh, well, Dave's the guy in this area. Like, go to him, you know, don't go to the dealerships. Don't go. This guy, go to Dave. He's the guy.
And it was, it was a point of pride for me to do the best work I could, provide service for as many people as I could. And at the time, what I thought was, you know, I was doing them a favor, which was really hurting me, was I was, I was the cheap guy, you know? Yeah, I was doing like top dealer level tech work for like mom and pop down the street shop prices or less. And it, you know, it just, it blossomed from there. Even when I got into, you know, my own shop, I mean, I was jam packed within like two or three weeks. Yeah, my whole parking lot was filled up and it was just, you know, spent years of weeks of backlog work, you know, wasn't anything for me to be three or four weeks out on work. And I ended up getting into a song because I came to a point where I was, I was burning out in my shop. Like, I just couldn't, you know, I started heading, having similar feelings that I had at the dealership were like, I just dreaded coming into work because it was just, I felt like I was treading water. I wasn't getting anywhere.
And I'm like, I'm doing so much work. I'm working so many hours. You know, I was doing the typical twelve hour days coming in on Saturdays. At least when I had started the shop, I did at least cut Sundays off. I did not come in on Sundays. I did spend that with my kids, and I just couldn't figure it out. Like, you know, there's no way I should be this busy and not have any money. It doesn't make any sense.
You know, for years, I want, you know, I wanted to hire somebody. I'm just like, there's no money to hire anybody I like. There's no way I could do it.
But such a reoccurring theme, a when people start and they build it up from the side hustle, you know, the work clientele, and they build a new. It's such a reoccurring theme, and, I mean, it's the only time I've ever kind of excused people that did side work, right? Because I've always. My thing has always been, have I done side work? Yeah, I have. But I always knew that I was doing. I was at always such a point when I would agree to do it for people that I was already like, this place is screwing me so bad. I don't care what it's doing for the industry or what I'm doing for my other shop night, I was the same. I didn't poach, you know, customers from the dealership too often. Once or twice I had some of them that said, you're the always the guy that's working on my truck here, you know, and it was a smaller community, so it's like, I'm just going to have you work on it.
And I'd be like, so you want an intake done on a five nine? Yeah, sure. That was a two hour job for me, right? In a five nine. You know, the whole tune up, the whole works. Like, it was an easy 400, $500 in the morning. Like, it was like, why would I not do that? You know? And then because the customer was going to come into the dealer and request that I was the one to work on it anyway. So why do it at the dealer and see them make the money? I might as well do it at home. And so I didn't like doing, you know, side work from the sense that I didn't feel it was good for ever making me more money at the shop that I was already at, right, of being able to, but I was so fed up by then, right? There's like, piss on them. I don't care, you know, I'm gonna get it.
How do we break that cycle, though? I guess, like, you know, because it's so many in a sock, so many Nasog that have started a shop that way.
You know, it's, it's hard. And if you look around Asog, you know, with some people, I might have a good reputation. Other people, I'm an asshole because I just, yeah, I'm looking at some of these people going through this stuff and typically I start off pretty nice with my advice, like, hey, you know what? Like, this is not doing anybody favors. Like, this is why you should probably do it this way. And then I see them, like, doubling down on it and just like, it just gets worse the longer you look at their situation. And I've seen people, like, come up with similar, like, the same situations weeks apart, and they post about it and I'm just like, we told you what to do in the last post and you haven't done anything to help yourself. Like, we're not telling you this for fun. It's because if you start doing it this way, these problems don't happen.
That's right.
So, you know, I have a good heart, but I can be a real asshole. Like, I try and help. I've had so many people on a song block me, it's not even funny. You know, I'll open up a comment thread and says, there's 20 comments. I look and there's three. I'm like, God damn. A lot of people don't like me.
I get that, too.
But it's just, you know, it's, it's frustrating because I've been there and I don't want to see you struggle like that. You know, if you are a good tech, if you do plan to ride this through, these are some of the basic fundamentals that will help you get to where you can actually provide a good service and put money in your pocket. You don't have to struggle. So it's frustrating for me to watch people struggle when I know they don't have to. They just don't see it yet.
Yeah, it's tough. A, it's so, it's, it is. And it's, I'm saying, you know, I I have to watch how I post now because it's like somebody goes, well, we extended credit to a customer and now they're not taking our phone calls and we can't get that money back. Or, or we put a used engine in and, you know, now I don't know what to do because they're calling me from two states away and, you know, the engine's blown up and they're on the side of the road and they're threatening this and like, dude, and I, for me, I look at it and go, do you just not read in here? Like, do not take the lessons from other people and apply it to your own? No, you don't. Okay. So be more engaging in the conversations like that are happening here because that's for Facebook. For me, when I started in this whole thing, I would talk on it for hours every night on forums. Just different, you know, people.
But mostly just, how am I fixing this car? I got this, this code, and then it became like, why are you working? It evolved from that into, because the excuse was always, I'm not paid for my diet time or I'm not paid enough. And the conversation evolved into why you're working for people like that.
Yep.
Well, you know, and it's excuse after excuse, and it's like, learn from other people's lessons. Let's them. So when somebody says, I extended credit and they didn't pay me, uh, because, you know, the use part that we put in failed and they still owe me, but they think they don't, I just shake my head anymore and I go, like, if there was going to be a pin post in Asag, of the ten things that, you know, you don't do, that's what we really need as a pin post is don't extend credit.
Yep.
Don't use parts. Don't do engine rebuilds in shop. Don't at, you know, 910 on and on and on. Because it would save so much of the conversations. Not that we don't want to have the conversations, but, like, you know, I wish more people would just like, AI, if it gets smart enough, it's like, it should immediately, like, people should be able to put their hand up and go, I have the story. I was there. Here's the story. Yeah, done.
Yeah, the problem is they think they're making money and, yeah, they don't know that they're not truly making money. I mean, me, in my early years, like I said, I mean, I worked for years and just, like, didn't have any money in the bank. And I'm like, I don't. I'm doing thousands of dollars worth of work every week. How am I. How do I not have money? But, you know, if you do a $5,000 job and your profit margins 20%, you got to do ten of those a month to even cover your, you know, rent, insurance and all that stuff, and you're not going to be left with anything, and, you know, you're doing $5,000 jobs like that, they're, you know, they're typically going to take you a couple days to do, you know, you're just going to run out of time before you have the opportunity to actually make money off of it, you know, something like that. You'd have to make a large volume of work to have such a low margin work out for you. And I just, I didn't understand that stuff.
And once I started to, I just looked at it and like, wow, I was. I was doing this all wrong. Like, I was doing good work, but I wasn't charging right for it. And I ended up getting to a point where I guess it was about four years ago, and I was at a point where I had been offered a position back at the dealership I had first started with. They were under new management and all that stuff, and the service manager there was from a Toyota store that did really, really well. And he was, like, just dumping money into the shop to, like, new equipment and trying to bring in talent and stuff. They asked me, you know, what would it take to bring you back here? And keep in mind, this manager doesn't even know me. He only knew of me through the people that worked at the, at the shop there.
And they were like, you need to get him in. So I came there and talked to him, and he was like, cool, you know, what would it take for you to come work here? And like I said, I was at a point where I wasn't really making much money at my own shop, but I had a lot of freedom. I was like, you know, you know, I was going through a divorce at the time, too. And I said, you know, I've got a schedule with my kids where I have to, you know, meet these specific hours where I can come in late on certain days to drop them off at the bus and then get out early to pick them up and stuff. Like, you know, I have a lot of stuff that comes with that. But he was like, well, what's your dollar amount? I said, well, I need at least 115,000 a year to come work here, and I'd need you to meet my stipulations for, like, the times I need to come in late and stuff. And he was like, well, let me put together an offer for you. So a couple days go by, and he calls me up.
He says, this is what I'll offer you every week. It would be a salary. York these hours, this, that, and the other no Saturdays, blah, blah, blah, and ended up coming out to $114,700 a year. I'm like, you just had to be that asshole. I said, I need to at least make 115. You just had to come in just under it with your offer, huh?
Yeah.
So I was actually really considering it, and I was two weeks away from my first aste event. I'd never been to training before, and I signed up for Aste, and I come to, like, this burnout point where I was just done, and I was actually considering going back to work at dealership. It's actually a really. It's a very similar story to how, like, Lucas started off with his thing. Just gonna say that, and it's eerily similar. And I went to Ast II, and just, like, lucas, I had this whole, like, I'm not even gonna say an epiphany. It was just an experience of different people in the industry, and it was a whole new side of the industry I never knew existed that just, like, reinvigorated me. I was like, man, like, there's people out here doing it.
I need to do what they're doing to get like this, because these guys are happy. They've got a crew they're bringing here to train, like, these other techs that I met, because, I mean, I was still, you know, I was an owner, but I was in a tech mindset because I was still doing all the tech work, and I met these other techs. Like, actually, I was the first year I met Mario, and I was talking to him, and we ended up going back and hanging out his hotel room one night. We're just kicking some drinks back and just shooting, shooting the breeze and all. And I'm giving him this whole story, and he's like, man, if you don't do what you need to do to get your business, like, working right for you. So that's most tech stream is to open a shop and run their own gig and be their own boss. He said, if you did it, you're not going to be happy going back to work for somebody else. Like, just make it work, man.
Like, you've got it there. Just make it work.
Good stuff from David Carroll on this week's episode of the Jaded Mechanic podcast. Thanks for listening. Part two coming up next week. Be sure to listen then. 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. Our.
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