Low voltage diagnostics is about finding problems in the car's electrical systems that use less power. It's important because many car features rely on these systems to work properly.
High voltage means electrical systems in cars that use a lot of power, usually over 60 volts. It's important to know how to handle these safely, especially in electric cars.
EVs are electric vehicles that run on batteries instead of gasoline. Some people think they don't need any maintenance, but that's not true; they still need regular care.
The Volkswagen Rabbit is a small car that is easy to drive and good for everyday use. It's known for being fun to drive and has been around for a long time, making it a popular choice for many people.
Car
Tesla
Tesla is a brand that makes electric cars. They are known for being high-tech and have different models that people really like.
Fluid intervals are the times when you should change the liquids in your car, like oil or coolant. Keeping track of these helps your car run well for a long time.
Viscosity is how thick or thin a liquid is. For example, some oils are thicker and some are thinner, which affects how well they can lubricate parts of the car.
Differential oil is the oil that helps the part of the car that allows the wheels to turn at different speeds. Changing it regularly helps keep your car running well.
Drive unit oil is the oil that keeps the parts of the electric car's motor and transmission working smoothly. It's important to change it regularly to help the car run better.
A warranty is a promise from the car maker that they will fix certain problems for free if they happen within a certain time. This is important for things like the battery in electric cars.
Lithium ion batteries are rechargeable batteries that power most electric cars. They are popular because they can store a lot of energy and last a long time.
Thermal management systems help keep electric car batteries at the right temperature. This is important because if a battery gets too hot, it can get damaged.
Battery state of health is a way to check how well a battery is working. It helps you know if the battery is still good or if it needs to be replaced soon.
A lift table is a platform that can lift cars or heavy parts up so mechanics can work on them easily. It makes it safer and easier to reach different parts of the vehicle.
A battery lift is a tool used to lift and move heavy batteries, especially in electric cars. It helps mechanics change batteries safely without injury.
A gantry is a big frame that helps lift and move heavy things in a garage, like car batteries. It makes it easier to handle heavy parts without straining yourself.
A boot camp program is a short, intensive training course where you learn by doing. In this case, it's about taking cars apart and putting them back together to learn how they work.
Miles per gallon tells you how far a car can go using one gallon of gas. The higher the number, the less gas you need to travel a certain distance, which saves you money.
An electric vehicle, or EV, is a car that runs on electricity instead of gas. This means it can be cheaper to drive and better for the environment since it doesn't produce exhaust fumes.
The exhaust system helps get rid of the gases produced by the engine. It's important for keeping the car running smoothly and reducing pollution, so it needs to be checked regularly.
The Ford Model T is one of the first cars that regular people could actually afford, which helped more families own cars. It was made a long time ago, and it changed how cars were built and sold, making them much cheaper and easier to get.
The Toyota Prius is a car that uses both gas and electricity to help save on fuel and be better for the environment. It's known for being very efficient, which means it can go further on less gas than many other cars.
The Tesla Model 3 is a fully electric car that doesn't use gas at all, which means you charge it like a phone instead of filling it up at a gas station. It's popular because it can go a long distance on a single charge and has a lot of cool tech inside.
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This is the Aftermarket Radio Network. Hey, everybody. Welcome, Carm, Capriotto, remarkable results radio. Glad to have you here. I got Superstar Scott Brown with me. I just don't know why I said that. Superstar, no, that's not the right category. But I did. Well, I know, even though you're from California, you're a Superstar in other areas, corner of Coney and Dick's Service Center, Claremont, California. The shop's been there 63 years, and you've owned it what since 93.
93, I've worked here since 1990. And actually, the shop will be 65 at the end of this month. So I'll cover first. Yeah, 65 years old. I posted a little bit ago on LinkedIn. We had our founder here. He brought his motor home down. We did some service work. And we found some old invoices from back in the 60s. And we were going through them. And you know, 94, he sharp his attack. And he looked at an invoice. And he said, Hey, I used to deliver newspapers.
To that guy on my bicycle back when I was like 13 years old. And I, wow, that is absolutely amazing. I only wish that I could ever recall like that if I live that long. Yeah. Wow. So yeah, we're happy to be providing service to the community, you know, and keeping people mobile and servicing today's and yesterday's automobiles. So you work with your wife. She lets you go out and do all these great things that you do. Well, as far as what travel, you mean? Yeah, I mean, you're working on so much stuff.
Does she run the business while you're doing all the cutting edge of forward thinking things? Yeah, she handles HR and payroll and that kind of stuff. I actually have my two daughters. My only two daughters, they work the front counter and manage the office. And while you hear them talk on the phone, they make me really proud. They really know what they're talking about.
ASE master certified diagnostic network diagram net. Oh my, what a great move that was we're over 30,000 subscribers over in that platform now. And it's pretty dynamic platform. So anybody that wants to further their knowledge and skill set and maybe seek some help from fellow experts head on over there and check it out.
Who would have known green screen to now? Oh my God. Contributed to P 10 magazine, you teach all kinds of AADAS. Every time someone who is a non industry person, I'm on to dinner or something like that. And I said, I remember seeing a video from my friend Scott Brown on what the camera see. And I tell people you have no idea what's going on with your car and how it works. Yeah, it is amazing. And we use that knowledge to help our customers understand.
And what their vehicles are all about. These vehicles are complex machines. And they need to be aware of what the vehicle is doing. And then that their car may need service and attention to keep those systems operating.
There's a million more things they want to talk about, but I want to really give a high five to all of our great sponsors. Hey, take your Napa Auto Care Center to the next level with the Napa Auto Care Gold Certified Program. Increase car count, build trust with customers and stand out is one of the best. Talk to your local Napa representative today.
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So Scott, let's talk about ADES because you just said ADES and it just hit me because I was in a Keith Perkins class at tools a few months back.
And he's talking about, you know, at the $99 alignment versus the $399 alignment or whatever the number is, right? And that one degree of off on the front radar and where that's looking.
And it seems to me that there's so many people that just don't appreciate and understand in our industry, the professionals in many cases, a major alignment has to happen.
Even the, I think the OEs require, they don't request they require NAPATRACS calibration. And we can't sell it. And you're the one who's so intimate with it.
What are the girls at the counter telling clients? Hey, listen, this is a major thing we're doing. We're changing some components.
We've got to put this thing back in alignment. Are they being able to sell it?
Yes. In most cases, there are certain procedures that the manufacturer requires that you do a calibration. But really, you know, at the high level, these systems can have some level of error.
They will always have some level of error. And systems will benefit from a recalibration. It's just like a wheel alignment.
So I am a proponent of proper care and maintenance. You know, when we're presenting these things to the client, of course, they are a little more expensive.
But we're trying to position ourselves where we are now the total care service center.
We are capable of doing all of these services and getting that car back in its proper working order.
In some cases, we're bundling some of these things together so that the car for sure is being fixed and put back into service.
So when we see we're selling a service where I say the vehicle has to go into service mode where you pull the whole front, front end of the bumper and everything off the vehicle.
They're looking to see what equipment is this vehicle equipped with. And we don't always catch it.
In some cases, we quote a job and then we find out afterward, oh, this car has this stuff. We're going to need to carry these processes out.
So it either turns into an awkward communication with the client or in some cases we may just take care of the vehicle, put the vehicle back into service.
But it offers an opportunity for us to engage with the client and get them to gain a higher level of understanding as to what is going on with their car and how it works.
And so on. And the conversations are interesting. I wish I could record some of these because they're all over the spectrum.
Some people like the systems. Some people have had bad experiences in the past. So they kind of they carry shade over even the newer vehicle.
That's always a challenge. You know, we're working with these complex machines and we've got to put them back together.
There's no doubt you have an eight-ass calibration system. You probably have 10 of them if I know you and because you're testing all kinds.
But are you doing calibrations for other shops?
Occasionally, yeah. We'll do some of those. I thought originally I would be doing a lot more sublet type stuff.
You know, I went to a bunch of local collision centers around here. You know, this is back in 2019, 2020.
And everyone I talked to, they already had a solution in place. All these mobile companies had already been ahead of the curve.
So is it the mobiles that are really getting it done? But let's just think about another eight-day shop, you know, a couple of miles down the road.
A competitor but really not. And they are doing alignments, but they're not doing calibrations.
And they're saying, listen, I'm 99 and you can go down to Scott and pay, you know, pay through your nose for it because unfortunately we're not professional enough to respect each other like doctors do.
Yeah.
That's the only thing that concerns me is that. And when I heard Keith's presentation and I was wondering where the other 500,000 techs were that were should have been in his class hearing the story.
Do we understanders that we just don't care Scott?
90% of the industry out there probably is still just kind of going through the same mode of operation that they've been going through for the last few decades.
And they just haven't adopted. Now I have recently I've had multiple shop owners contact me and start asking me questions, hey, what are you doing about cars with these cameras and these radars?
And I'm going, you know, I've been preaching to the choir for the last six or seven years here that, you know, you need to get in front of this.
And now here we are. So it's like there's a lag I think going on and we're going to start to see I think a pickup of this.
Tell me about that lag. Thank you for being there because I'm sitting on the sidelines seeing a recent reported on have in front of me about the percentage of professional shops that do have eight as calibration.
And I think it's a single digit number. I don't think it's any higher than say 9%. And it bothers me to think because I had a bunch of questions.
I was going to ask you as we moved into the an EV discussion, what kind of equipment do you really need and what's the adoption and adaption of trying to fix EVs.
But we're in this A to S thing. It's the same thing Scott are we going to learn about EVs and bring them into our maintenance program just as much as we should be doing A to S.
And it reminds me of the fact that these two major technical marvels that we're dealing with in our world. We're all lagging.
Unfortunately for us in Southern California, we're on the EV side. You know, we've been working with hybrids for a long time.
Toyota Lexus is our number one brand that we service here in our facility. And we do a lot of stuff, a lot of EV.
And now we're getting more customers with best, but you know, we've got customers they discover us, you know, through our normal marketing basically is some social, some web presence and word amount.
Is the biggest site here. Yeah, we had a recent customer with a Volkswagen GTI was buying a house locally here. And he said he'll just Googled EV service Claremont and we popped right up.
And he was so happy. He came down to meet us before he did any work. And he just wanted to check the place out and he said, oh, wow, okay, that's great.
But yeah, there are some parallelisms, right between those two that you're just talking about the eight ass and EVs. But, you know, I don't know if you want to go down into the EV tooling part yet.
I do walk with me. There's a lot of basic tooling capabilities that most shops already have to work on EV. So I mean, you've got chassis and suspension components.
You've got wheels and tires, you've got wheel alignments. And then you've got diagnostics you got to deal with. So you're dealing with not only the low voltage diagnostics. And this is really I think where the skill set in our industry is maybe lagging is low voltage understanding low voltage diagnostics and that carries over into network communications and so on.
And I think a shop that has a strong understanding there and the ability to be analytical and understanding the data it will help them solve problems on vehicles.
As far as the high voltage side, you definitely need to have some core fundamental training around that you need to have some safety training. But, you know, these cars are so well engineered that you really have to go out of your way to hurt yourself.
But, you know, it can be done. So you should be always aware of what, you know, what you should be doing. You should have certain safety gear, PPE that's required.
You should have that in your shop. But the majority of our work here is maintenance. I mean, and we try to promote lots of maintenance on these EVs.
There is a lot of opportunities there, but the talents there is the same. You're dealing with clients that they're driving a EV and they think all they need to do is put washer fluid in their car. It needs zero maintenance, but that's completely false.
And just to go down this short little rabbit hole EVs and we've been doing a lots of testaments. Okay, so let me give you an example of what happens when you're driving a Tesla.
And you're going to be using super charging, you know, the clients going to go super charge and they navigate to that super charger. They're taking the drive units and creating a waste heat.
Okay, they're heating the oil in that drive unit to transfer that heat into the coolant to then heat up the coolant or heat up the battery around the coolant.
They're basically cooking that oil. Okay, and we've had numerous cars. We're now recommending changing this fluid intervals at 30,000 if you do a lot of super charging because do we drop the fluid out and its blackest can be.
That is not conducive for long life.
What's the way to that? What is it? A 520?
It's like automatic transmission fluid. It's like a real, that's a real thick. They call it EDF in some cases, but it's a real thin viscosity.
And of course, it's providing lubrication for bearings, but that oil is being sprayed across the stator to keep the temperature down because that's the part that's creating all that heat and the rotor itself.
But that oil is doing a lot of work and Tesla's have a filter that it's a screw on filter.
It looks just like a little Honda filter. And if you want to keep that car going for a long time, go ahead and change that fluid on a regular basis.
I'm going to get my oil changed on my eBV. I love that.
I see online, I see people joking, oh, you know, I'm going in for my oil change. Well, actually, you probably should be going in for your diff oil change or your drive unit oil change.
So that's an opportunity to sell. And of course, we've done some videos and taken pictures and we show our customers and sell them those services.
But our first question is, do you want your car to last a long time? And in most cases, people go, well, absolutely, I want my car to last a long time. And we're selling maintenance, just like we do on a nice vehicle.
So those same practices that you're going to cross over from your ice platform over into your EV clients.
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It's amazing to hear you and to then have another individual listen to you and say,
Dan Scott's making too much sense. Why have I waited and or what do I need to do to get in it?
And are my people capable or do they have the right everything to get in it?
And I always go back to the Ohm's volts and amps.
I know a little bit of it, but not enough. I could probably burn my house down if I played with the electrical here, right?
And we all need to have that level of education.
And I remember spending a week at the NAPA EV ready training center in Canton and watching Bill Weaver do his thing.
And it was amazing to see from start up with PPE on day one to we're going to play with this battery at the end of the day with everybody with PPE on in total respect of what could happen.
But if you don't have a certain, you know, ASE CERT or I do believe of Voldom's and Am's, you know, classes under your belt,
it would be a waste of your time to even consider going into it.
Yeah. Well, I mean, it depends on your demographic.
I mean, if you're in the middle of Montana, your total addressable market is pretty minimal.
Here, of course, you know, we're an EV world here. There's lots of EVs.
So there's a pretty good market. There's a lot of runway ahead of us.
And there's a lot of unknowns, you know, a lot of the battery life on these vehicles is always a subject that cards do carry a mandated warranty.
And in some cases, California vehicles have a little bit longer warranty.
Those batteries are going to time will tell what what happens.
This is another market opportunity for shops out there if they want really want to try to get ahead of the curve or or catch up, start paying attention to these vehicles.
One that they probably should get one in their fleet, whether it's for their shop or what have you so that they gain familiarization.
I'm on my third Tesla now and we have two pre-S vehicles here.
We have a Toyota Highlander EV and we also have two Lexus small crossover SUV.
Those are all shop vehicles. Those are loner cars that we give to our clients.
In some cases, we're having to first time customers driving a hybrid vehicle.
And we have to give them coaching on that. But nevertheless, you get familiarization with these vehicles and what they're doing and what looks normal, what looks abnormal.
Start looking at the battery health on these vehicles.
I read a lot of articles and it seems like the battery issue or the battery as a component is moving so rapidly as far as technology and changes. Am I thinking right?
Well, there's a lot of push to make that battery more robust and they're making minor changes to chemistry of the battery.
But in general, we've got lithium ion batteries out there. That's the majority of the car park out there, so to speak.
And the batteries will live a long life as long as they're treated accordingly.
Some vehicles, a customer needs to read the owner's manual. If you're talking about a Bev, some of the LFP equip vehicles require you to charge it every time you charge it, they want you to go to 100%.
Whereas you have a lithium ion platform for daily use, you know, 60 to 80% is really where you charge it to and some cases you don't even need to charge it every day depending on your commute and your use case.
So understanding the use there is pretty important and I think will help with longevity folks at super charge all the time.
You know, there's a lot of talk out there that people are saying, hey, if you DC fast charge, you're cooking that battery.
Well, most of the cars actually have really good thermal management systems on them to prevent you from actually cooking that battery.
My professional opinion is that the jury is still out of whether or not the supercharging is going to be a net reflect negatively on the overall lifespan of that battery.
But we'll see. I mean, we're in uncharted waters right now. That's where I was kind of keying in on some of the tools and equipment that are available out there in the marketplace.
It gives us visibility into the batteries state of health or some data metrics that we can use to say, okay, these are things that I need to be paying attention to.
When problems start to pop up, you'll be able to identify when those are happening and either help the customer through some recommended services or prep them to budget for battery replacement is the largest expense.
If you wanted to purchase would be the battery lift. Yeah, for a shop. I would say I have a lift table here. It's not capable of doing the big batteries.
And I have not had a call yet to swap out of a battery. That is a pretty expensive component. But if you're going to be in this market, you know, you've got some runway to work with.
You can pencil that out and figure out what your return will be. But you don't know.
Otherwise, what's the investment besides the table? What is it? The four or five grand?
You're going to probably have a few lift devices. You're going to have like a gantry or an a frame to move that battery around it on your property or inside your shop.
Removing it off of a truck that comes to deliver it. You're going to have a back there. Then you're going to have to be able to lift it onto your lift table.
And you don't get to get a situation. So those are two of the big expensive items.
You know, the rest is basic tooling and service information. I mean, you need to follow the service information.
If you want to get hands on with a lot of disassembly stuff, you know, there are a lot of trainers out there doing stuff.
One that I would recommend a lot of the educators go to is another educator, John Kelly, but we were, we were state in Utah.
And he has a boot camp program. He actually has a prerequisite to attend the one week boot camp where you're taking everything apart.
You need to attend his online trainings, one of its safety level. And then there's some fundamental training, one week of boot camp.
And I've talked to numerous instructors that have been through that boot camp and they just, you know, they rave about the experience that they get because they're getting to take it apart and see how it's actually done and see how things get disconnected and reconnected and how you facilitate that whole operation.
So you're better equipped to get your shop up to speed and prepared to deliver these services.
Why would we as an industry turn blind eye to all this new tech and opportunity? And here's the reason that I say this, Scott, you said, I wanted to buy a Tesla so bad, but I don't have a car payment right now. Why do I want one?
I get that. And why would we want to walk away from the opportunity that we have you were probably the first in your marketplace to do this?
I think that's the crowning jewel of wanting to do this or telling people that you do to get the education to make sure the tooling is right and our people are up to speed, PPE is there, and you hang the shingle.
And if there's nobody for five miles, Scott, you end up being it. And in five years, your it is a crowning jewel.
I've had people, you know, debate, hey, you know, what's maybe what's a cost and a lot of confusion over what is that energy? What's the cost of that energy to go into that vehicle?
They understand the gas. They know how much a gas is. They know how many miles per gallon that the car will travel, but they don't quite understand the change in energy.
So you were complaining about making a claim. Hey, I don't have a car payment. Well, I go, all right, if you drive, or did you know that if you drive a car that gets 30 miles to the gallon,
you drive that car for 100,000 miles, and you're buying gas here in California, it's still at $5 a gallon that you're going to spend $16,600 roughly to go that 100,000 miles.
If you had an EV and you're paying California's ridiculous cost for kilowatt hours, about 40 cents, which is insane, you're going to spend about eight grand. It's roughly 50%.
Then on top of that, if you had solar and your house, you're making your own energy, you're controlling your own costs, that offset is continues to grow that officer that that delta between the gas car and the EV.
There's some interesting metrics to use. And frankly, you know, when every time I see a car in our shop, it's up in the air, we're taking, you know, pulling a fuel tank out or pulling the exhaust off and all this.
I go, man, this car is requiring lots and lots of maintenance, not the same maintenance level that you get in an EV.
Are you changing fluids periodically? Maybe you're doing some suspension work. Beels and tires or wheel alignments and tires are probably the number one, you know, service item because these cars 30 to 40% heavier.
They have a lot more torque. So a lot of times, first time EV drivers, they just love that torque until their first tire bill comes and then they realize that they can be a little more moderate on that on the go pedal to minimize that tire wear.
So what's it going to take to change the mind of people now, these EV mandates are not there for whatever right or wrong reason.
What's it going to take or is it going to take an individual like you at the counter when someone comes up to you and says, hey, Scott, I'm looking to buy a car. What would you recommend?
Yeah. Well, it's going to take, you know, engagement of the community. You know, this last Saturday, local little airport here.
The oldest family owned airport and in the United States had their 80th birthday party.
I've been working over there with the folks at that airport for a long time. So I took a couple cars over there and I took a couple of my apprentice technicians with me and we took a, we took my cyber truck and we had a partially disassembled, took another car, collector car.
And we had some engagement and we had lots of people asking questions about EVs and had not seen them.
And then we had some people come up to us and say, oh my God, I just bought an EV because my daughter bought one.
And we cannot believe it. And I had one guy, he's a Ford technician. We were just talking.
And he just flat out said, you know what, five years ago, I would have said, you never catch me, you know, I'd be dead if I was in a Tesla or an EV.
And he says, not anymore. He says, now that I own one and I understand what it does, it's absolutely amazing.
So it's not something that's going to be a complete solution for everybody.
You know, we had those demand aids and all that that I wasn't really fond of saying, yeah, we got to go there because it doesn't make sense for everybody.
But I think people need to give it a fair shake and understand their economics around the energy and the use case, especially if you're a commuter, does make a lot of sense.
And if you then pile on the ADAS component, okay, you know, again, we're in California where we have, you know, we have a higher vehicle population than the country of Australia.
You know, there's lots of vehicles, which means there's lots of congestion.
If you're driving an EV and it has driving capabilities, kind of like what the Tesla's doing, I drive this stuff every day.
It's so convenient to let that car handle all those dynamic driving tests to keep you safe and just handle the menial things that are happening.
And so the future is going to paint a pretty rosy picture of operating in an EV state.
I've driven, you know, cars that are ice propelled that have, you know, some comparable driver assistance capabilities.
And it's just not the same. The acceleration and stuff because of a gas car is completely different.
And they just do not respond accordingly and it's just really, it's kind of messy to be a non-technical term.
It's got a few years ago. I was at the Petersen Museum in LA and they had an electric car there.
I think it was from maybe the late 1800s, maybe 1890 or something.
A baker, probably.
I can't remember what it was, but I'm sitting there and my mouth was open and I just couldn't believe.
I think it was before the Model T. They were energizing vehicles with batteries.
Yeah, back there were hundreds of electric car manufacturers back then.
The big push then was, was nice and easy to drive your car.
But the part, the downside was that the batteries stunk.
You know, when you had to charge them, they had a lot of gasing and everything else.
Then of course they're real heavy.
And then a gallon of gas only weighs eight pounds versus those batteries.
That's what caused that shift, right?
Now that we're in this phase where the technology has evolved to a point where these EVs are highly efficient.
And battery technology has continued to evolve.
The EVs are, they're making a comeback.
Based on the connectivity you have to our great industry, do you see that the ice engine will ever get zero emissions?
And ice engine is only that thermal efficient to about 27%.
Maybe maybe 35 on a really efficient.
So all that energy that you're creating from burning that fuel, only a very small percentage makes it to the tire to move you forward.
You're creating a lot of waste heat and everything.
And what they are doing to these cars to make them clean.
I mean, you've got now two types of fuel injection.
You've got direct injection, you've got port injection in most cases.
If it's a diesel, you've got all this massive exhaust after treatment and very complex fuel systems.
And when those have failures, it becomes very expensive.
So it just seems to me that they're continuing to add on all these things to make this ice engine still somewhat compliant and useful.
Where that electric machine, I think, is going to end up winning.
In most cases, unless you're, again, like in Montana, having a tow horse trailers and move farm equipment and all that kind of stuff.
You pay any attention to hydrogen at all?
Well, you know, hydrogen, it's a similar thing.
The fuel cell is creating electricity to do propulsion.
I did have some experience with some hydrogen stuff.
Several years ago, I did a bunch of testing here.
But these guys were running hydrogen and actually burning it in an ice vehicle, trying to lower emissions and what have you.
But even then, the tanks and the infrastructure, it was just super, super cumbersome.
And in fact, today, you know, in California, they were selling the Toyota Mariah.
And now the infrastructure is pulling back.
There's a few charging stations or fueling stations for hydrogen that are going to be shedding their doors if they haven't already.
So a lot of this stuff is, to me, I don't see the hydrogen.
I don't see the runway on that platform.
I see the Bev stuff is probably got the biggest opportunity for survival.
I love your word runway.
I know you're an aviator, so you get that to my listener.
Please use the word runway that Scott has been saying in a bunch of times for your forward-looking, forward-thinking strategy on adding a strength or specialty to your business.
You cannot stay stagnant.
And I guess when you've down the throttle, you've got to have it to your point runway in order to be able to bring in this new technology, new opportunities in the new maintenance programs for your clients.
Because your clients are going to move in those directions and you have to be prepared for them if not you're going to lose those clients.
You could lose that electric vehicle to an EV specialty shop that's still as smart enough to do ice.
And you don't want to lose that, I guess, to your point is one home, one house, one place, come to Connie and Dix, we do it all.
Yeah.
And one thing we didn't touch on there is the charging.
We did talk a little bit about charging, but some people don't realize that they could charge at home.
They can put in a charger, it might cost them a little bit of money.
Sometimes the automaker will have an incentivized offer to subsidize that installation.
But what's interesting here is that I have actually done service calls where I've gone to the client's house because it's not charging at their house.
We've verified a charge is at the shop, we've got chargers here, doesn't charge at home.
So I go there and I'm troubleshooting and I'm doing a little bit of testing to figure out what's going on with their home charging.
So that's another service that you're able to offer because who else do they call?
Do they call an electrician?
We have the electrician might come out and you'll say, well, this part's okay.
I don't know why it's not talking to the car.
The technician, I take a scandal up there and I can plug it in.
I can see the data metrics, I can see that there's likely a problem with their charger and make a firm diagnosis.
That's another reason a shop may want to buy, put one in their fleet.
So they can gain familiarity and understand what that use case is so that they can better communicate with their clients, continue to further their business.
So buy Tesla, buy a Prius and loan it, drive it, learn it, play with it and put the shingle up.
I have three Tesla as I think I mentioned that earlier.
I have Model 3, an older one, but it's still, I mean, that's the first software defined vehicle that I've ever had.
And it's amazing that that car now is six or seven years old.
The use case and the electronics and the driver interface is like modern day.
It has continued to keep up with just like your cell phone.
So we're going to probably put that in as a special loaner for certain clients, further that experience and continue to build a business here in the shop.
18 episodes with me since I've gotten to know you.
And here's the 19th going and you know, you've been on a lot of panels over the years.
You know, I sure appreciate reading your P10 articles. How long have you been doing that?
That's been going on for about five years now, yeah.
And you know, they go on and on and on and they're so in depth, Scott.
Wow, the research you do.
Yeah, when you go on the website, it says it only takes about eight minutes to read it.
So it's not really that long.
Well, whatever, the point of it is that when you read a paragraph that's got the content in it that you provide,
and you say, I got to remember this.
To me, the content is so good.
I think it takes a little longer.
You want to skim it for eight minutes or you want to really read it, spend 15.
Well, thank you.
I really appreciate that.
They do take a long time to put together.
Anybody else out there listening that's an author, you know, writing technical articles takes a lot of research and a lot of testing
and a lot of acquisition and I, you know, everything I do, I acquire for everything I write about I acquire
and I want to know what frontwards and backwards.
You've done it.
Then they're done that.
Damn.
Yeah, I'll never forget the videos.
And again, we're going back a bunch of years where you were in the shop moving things around
and what the cameras read.
I mean, it was some of the most fascinating junkyard dog style stuff that you did to prove what the cameras were seeing
and how the software was reacting.
Are you still doing any of that?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I'm still doing that.
I and two other educators co-published, co-authored a textbook.
We talked about that on one of our episodes, AIDAS for colleges through Good Heart Wilcox.
We're in the middle of actually doing the next version of that.
We're working together and creating content like that.
But I will touch on the reason I did that back then is because I had gone to some training
and was really trying to get my head wrapped around it.
Every time I go to training, I walk away with I need more.
I need more info.
I don't quite understand exactly what's going on here.
And so I was trying to learn it on my terms.
And then when I started taking a deep dive into the computer vision science
and understanding how these cameras were working
and how the radar sensors were perceiving or measuring.
I said, I've got to be able to show this.
I need to show this.
As soon as I saw it, my head, just my light bulbs all went off.
And I said, oh, now I understand what's going on.
And it's helped me become a better troubleshooter when you have problems with calibration
or things aren't working.
Now you can kind of get a sense of how that system is perceiving that environment
and why it may have a deficiency in certain conditions.
So yeah, that was my big push and I still do that.
I just did some training last July, this last past July for ASE
at their annual educational conference.
And this was in St. Louis.
And I did two of my eight ass classes there
and I had all my tools there and cameras and radar
and got to demonstrate that.
And I did two technology cyber truck classes at the same during that same event.
So the four classes in and boy, I had a blast.
Got a lot of really good feedback
and people are still gravitating towards that.
So I think I'm hitting on the right marks there.
Okay, this is the final thing I'm going to ask you.
We kind of started out in the beginning talking about me going to Keith's class
and seeing that one degree off on the radar
and how do we explain this to our clients.
Either it's the discussion that we had
maybe we'll push people to realize that eight as an EV
have to be part of their future runway and added.
But what are we going to be able to say to the client
who says, I'm sorry, I'm going to go down for the $99 alignment.
They said, I don't need a calibration.
What are you going to say to a client?
You're going to refuse to do that if you don't get the calibration.
Am I right?
Yeah, likely we're just not going to do the job.
If we can't put that vehicle back into service properly
to it puts us at risk.
All right, so if the manufacturer explicitly says
you must do this operation following this operation
and if we don't do it
and that car, something happens that car.
Even if it gets in a collision because somebody ran into them,
nothing to do with the eight as operation.
The lawyers will go after you.
They will find that you did not follow a procedure
or you didn't repair the vehicle as per what the manufacturer says
and they will find something wrong.
It'll cost you money no matter what.
So don't even put yourself in that position.
I actually had a conversation with a local glass company here
just to start up and I asked him about his solution
for the calibration and he said,
well, we've done a few.
We just don't unplug the camera
and we had never had a problem.
I said, I need to really think about this
because you're going to put yourself in jeopardy
and create a big problem.
So yeah, it's an education at every aspect here.
The consumer needs to be aware.
The service provider really needs to be aware
and we need to just do better.
And it kind of reminds me, and again,
I want to yield to the ASE piece and why a certification
in all these particular areas matters
or it doesn't matter to the consumer,
doesn't necessarily matter to the professionals in our industry,
but it must and it should.
If you need a license to do nails and hair,
but you don't need any kind of certification or a license
to play around with an ADAS system,
with a camera system or radar system, it's wrong.
And we're going to have a big liability,
a national big exposure liability one day
and then everybody's going to wake up and say,
well, I dodged a bullet and now I've got to get serious.
Yeah, it's a low-hanging fruit.
Okay, so the way I explain that is that
if you have your processes in place
and your procedures in place and your documentation in place
and you're doing everything right,
you're hitting all the marks,
and a lawsuit comes up.
There's discovery requests for data around a car
you worked on or whatever.
If you've got the documentation,
the lawyers are going to start looking through that
and they're going to go, oh, there's no low-hanging fruit here.
We're going to move on and find something else wrong.
That's the way I look at it.
You know, we're doing everything in our capability
to put that vehicle back in service.
Of course, things can still go wrong,
but even the accreditation, right, the ASC certification.
Every one of those data points are going to add
to your comprehensive service offering.
Your credibility is really at stake here.
So associating yourself with these either trade associations
or partnering with like your Napa folks,
the certifications through ASE and others
are going to only help you elevate your brand
and your offering and your professionalism.
Hey, Scott, thanks for all you do
and thanks for being on the cutting edge of all of this stuff.
We need to make sure that we listen
to any words of wisdom that come out of you.
We must do it.
Well, thank you and I'll see you at Apex here
and I'm not a month or so.
Yeah, I'll see you in Apex soon.
Scott Brown, Connie and Dick's Diag.net.
Damn, you're a busy guy.
Yeah, and I will be doing a cyber truck technology session
at Apex on Tuesday, 10.30.
I'm sure the folks at AutoCare would appreciate
that my little plug there
and hope to see you there.
Oh, that'd be great.
Sign up for my class.
Tuesday, 10.30 AM to 12.30.
That should be really, really good.
Well, it'll be packed, I'm sure.
All right, man. Thanks.
See you but appreciate everything yet.
All right, thank you.
Take care, Carm.
Thanks for being on board
to listen and learn
from the premier automotive aftermarket podcast.
Until next time.
About this episode
Scott Brown, owner of a long-standing service center in California, discusses the critical need for proper calibration of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and the challenges facing the automotive repair industry. He emphasizes the importance of educating clients about the complexities of modern vehicles, including electric vehicles (EVs) and their maintenance needs. The conversation highlights the gap in professionalism within the industry, the necessity for certifications, and the risks of neglecting proper procedures. Scott shares insights on how to engage customers and the future of automotive service.
Scott Brown shares his insights on key challenges in the automotive aftermarket, including ADAS, EV maintenance, and industry adoption.
ADAS Calibration and Liability Scott emphasizes the importance of proper ADAS calibration, required by manufacturers after certain repairs. Skipping it exposes shops to liability, and he advises refusing jobs if required calibration is declined. Despite its necessity, the industry adoption is low.
EV Tooling and Safety While basic shop tools suffice for many EV services, high-voltage work demands safety training and PPE.
Looking Forward Using his aviator metaphor of “runway,” Scott stresses that shops must evolve, specializing in ADAS and EV maintenance to stay competitive as EVs become the future of mobility.
Scott’s insights make one thing clear: the automotive industry is changing fast, and shops that embrace ADAS and EV expertise now will be the ones leading the market tomorrow. Staying informed, trained, and prepared isn’t just smart—it’s essential for long-term success.
Thanks to our Partners, NAPA Auto Care and NAPA TRACS
Learn more about NAPA Auto Care and the benefits of being part of the NAPA family by visiting https://www.napaonline.com/en/auto-care
NAPA TRACS will move your shop into the SMS fast lane with onsite training and six days a week of support and local representation. Find NAPA TRACS on the Web at http://napatracs.com/Connect with the Podcast:
