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Dory Carlin Says Bad Management is KILLING Good Techs
Dory Carlin Says Bad Management is KILLING Good Techs
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About this episode
Dory Carlin joins the Jaded Mechanic Podcast to discuss the challenges facing automotive technicians, particularly the impact of poor management on job satisfaction and performance. He shares his journey from dealership work to owning an independent shop, emphasizing the importance of creating a supportive work environment. The conversation touches on the need for proper training, the value of mentorship, and the industry's struggles with mental health. Listeners will gain insights into fostering a positive culture in automotive shops and the significance of valuing technicians' skills.
Topics:
management issues
workplace culture
mentorship
mental health
training and development
independent shops
flat rate pay
customer service
diagnostic challenges
young technicians
Cars:
Dodge Dakota
Ford Escape
Ford Ranger
Hyundai Accent
Jeep Wrangler
Nissan Frontier
Nissan Murano
Toyota Tacoma
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In this episode, Jeff is joined by Dory Carlin, co-owner of a two-bay independent shop in Western Pennsylvania. Dory shares his unconventional journey into automotive repair, reflecting on lessons learned from both good and bad management throughout his career at dealerships. They discuss the challenges of growing a small shop, emphasizing the importance of valuing diagnostic expertise and standing firm on pricing, and touch on the evolving roles and support needed for young technicians entering the trade.
00:00 Jeff can't take the heat!
06:20 Valuing the Auto Industry Fairly
13:02 Reflections on Childhood Acquaintances
19:32 Dealership Dynamics and Challenges
25:55 Customer Choice in Service Quality
27:16 Shop Owners' Part Choices Critique
34:11 Luxury Brands Use Flat Rate
42:18 "CSI: The Imaginary Priority"
44:43 Success Depends on Team Dynamics
51:07 Collaborative Learning Boosts Business
58:00 Customer Satisfaction: Word-of-Mouth Impact
01:00:35 Public Transit: A Modern Solution
01:05:34 Closer Job for Family Time
01:12:04 "My Ex-Girlfriend, My Wife"
01:17:51 Industry Dynamics and Control Shift
01:25:31 "Vehicle Repair Access Concerns"
01:27:27 Tesla: Pioneering Car Subscription Features
01:33:51 Hiring Biases Against Young Workers
01:39:14 Car Troubleshooting Conversation
01:45:27 "Navigating Automotive Service Rates"
01:50:18 Car Sales: Prioritize Quality and Integrity
01:57:35 Understanding Trauma in Different Professions
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Filter:
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Toyota Tacoma
"...ey just stuck a video yesterday that was a Toyota Tacoma squeak noise and it ended up being what he found ..."
Car
Ford Ranger
"...now for six months. Oh my God. He had an old Ford Ranger and we scrapped it because it was not where the t..."
Car
Hyundai Accent
"...as this little, I don't know, probably a 14 or 13 accent Hyundai. Now, Canadian accent is not at 14, you k..."
Car
Nissan Murano
".... That was a, that was timing chains and a Nissan Murano. And it's a big job. You have to drop the engine ..."
Car
Nissan Frontier
"...fucking bank. What a surprise. It's a leader in a frontier and they put it in the wrong bank. Like they got ..."
Car
Jeep Wrangler
"...t even clear, like if I go into a newer 2021 Jeep Wrangler, right? I can't even go in and clear codes now wi..."
Car
Dodge Dakota
"...he rivets right off. But the, you know, the Dodge Dakota ball joint recall, we'd do them in 12 minutes lik..."
Car
Ford Escape
"...ook at that and see it. I remember the first Ford Escape all later I did, I took so long thinking that the..."
Jeff can't take the heat!
Valuing the Auto Industry Fairly
Reflections on Childhood Acquaintances
Dealership Dynamics and Challenges
Customer Choice in Service Quality
Shop Owners' Part Choices Critique
Luxury Brands Use Flat Rate
"CSI: The Imaginary Priority"
Success Depends on Team Dynamics
Collaborative Learning Boosts Business
Customer Satisfaction: Word-of-Mouth Impact
Public Transit: A Modern Solution
Closer Job for Family Time
"My Ex-Girlfriend, My Wife"
Industry Dynamics and Control Shift
"Vehicle Repair Access Concerns"
Tesla: Pioneering Car Subscription Features
Hiring Biases Against Young Workers
Car Troubleshooting Conversation
"Navigating Automotive Service Rates"
Car Sales: Prioritize Quality and Integrity
Understanding Trauma in Different Professions
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Think your shop is good?
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Hey, I'm Jeff with the Jada Mechanic Podcast.
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I really believe that the only way we learn trials
and tribulations of where you can go,
man, this sucks.
How am I going to get better?
Oh my God, I fixed it.
Oh my God, I fixed it.
There's no feeling.
Drugs, sex, rock and roll, they're all great.
Fix a problem.
Fix a problem that no one else can.
It's right into the veins.
You're just like, dude, I got this.
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen to another exciting episode
of the Jada Mechanic Podcast.
It is still hot as Hades up here in Canada.
And your guy's a little, what's the word?
It got a little swamp ass going on every day.
Like 100 consistently in the shop every afternoon.
It's a small shop, no AC, all the kind of stuff
that everybody talks about.
And yeah, it gets hot.
So if I get a little giddy, it's because of eight,
like six freezes in the afternoon.
I had an ice cream cone.
Come bought us Gatorade.
So, you know, hydration is important.
But that being said, you know, life is good.
And I'm sitting here with somebody that kind of reached out
to me and I'm reached out to them.
And I just said, hey, if you want to be honest,
always like everybody's welcome here.
And a gentleman named Dory Carlin, which I don't know,
are you related to the Carlin?
Uncle George.
In my family, we refer to him as Uncle George.
But as far as I know, there's no relation.
But man, he's got some fantastic points to ponder, right?
He was a guy that can make you think.
And hopefully you'll be a guy to make us think too.
So Dory, how are you tonight, brother?
Fantastic.
The weather is just as bad and gross down here.
I'm in Western Pennsylvania in the good old United States here.
And you know, I was always under the impression
you guys had colder weather,
but it sounds like it's just as gross up there too.
It made the headlines up here like the Loka headlines.
We were actually hotter in Kingston, Ontario
than Houston was the other day.
Oh my goodness.
I can't imagine.
I can't imagine.
We get the extremes because we're like literally
right on the shore of Lake Ontario.
And that size of water mass definitely has an effect.
Lake effect winter is really bad.
And then the humidity up here sucks terribly.
So yeah, we see traditionally like, you know, you'll see
like, so people get mad at me when I do the Celsius thing,
but you'll see lots of summer days you get up over 100 in the afternoon.
And then in the wintertime, like it's nothing to go out
and it'd be minus 30 when you go out
and I fire up my Jeep to go to work in the morning.
So I mean, we do have some pretty extreme weather up here.
And I mean, you just get used to it,
but like I have never been a person that's been bothered by cold.
You know, like the only thing my ears can be falling off.
If I can move my fingers, I'm good.
The heat, I can't do it.
I just like it has a weird effect on me.
And I feel really bad now because it's bothering me more as I'm aging.
And you say, Oh yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. It will get you.
I mean, that was that was one of the prerequisites.
We have a little two bay shop and we have air conditioning.
Right. We're old and grumpy.
And dude, you get me in heat.
Me and my business partner will fist fight.
So keeping us cool and calm works great, you know.
So you're just you're just a little operation then.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Did you guys do you have like ESO stations back in the 60s gas stations old school?
There was ESO, Ohio.
They were all basically ex-ons, you know, back in the days.
And we got a hold of a 60s ESO gas station that was pretty much abandoned.
And I worked with one of my childhood friends at a Lexus dealership.
And it took us a couple of years.
But one day I called him.
I was like, Hey, we need you to look at this place.
And I have a dream.
And that was it.
So yeah, we're rolling and we're a little two bay shop.
We just have our first real employee.
He's 21 and man, he's a good kid.
He's got a good head on his shoulders.
And we're figuring out how to make that jump from you're working the cars,
you're writing the orders, you're making the sales.
And then you're fixing them to, Hey, we now have an employee.
I have a front desk.
So we're like right in that little realm of I hear you talking about all the time
for business owners, you know, of making that jump.
And it's so funny, right?
Because I'm not a business owner.
It's just like I've spent a better part of 20 years.
Like that's when I first got to know Lucas online.
And then we always discuss the business.
And we discussed the business from my very limited, you know, understanding of it.
But I'd worked in a lot of different types of automotive repair from,
I started in a, in a four bay oil gas station in, in that, you know,
since been knocked down bulldozer, they've all disappeared.
They don't exist anymore.
And, you know, I've worked in the truck shop.
I've worked in, you know, a 10 bay bus garage.
I worked in, you know, road service for like lots of things.
So we would always discuss the business side of things.
And, you know, and just the industry in general.
So always from my perspective as a technician, I never wanted to own my own business.
It was something that I thought I got close to doing because I thought that was going to be
my only option because I knew I was hard to employ because, you know, I'm kind of arrogant.
And I'm kind of like, I'll ask the questions.
Obviously, look at me, right?
Like I'll ask the question.
A lot of people don't, or don't bother to ask or don't really want to know the answer to.
And I'm always going to ask it because like if, if it's different than what I think,
then I'm going to learn something.
And if it's what I think, then you're going to reaffirm it for me is the way I've always
thought. And so it makes me, you know, a challenge sometimes to employ because
it's not that I can't fix the cars, but I always knew that we as an industry were
undervaluing ourselves. I knew that from the first year in, you know, and it wasn't like my,
you know, other people around me had told me, oh, it's always going to suck because I had,
I had all the enthusiasm starting out. And a year in, I'm like, man, we're letting
these people go, you know, for too light. And I mean that from the, the kind of work
that we put in for the type of pay we were getting out. And it's just,
that's where my perspectives have always come from, from the business side.
So it's funny now when the shop owner is like, oh, your insight on business. Whoa.
Well, hey, I say, you know, I'm kind of the same ilk. I was 20 years at dealerships.
I worked for Lexus. I've worked for Nissan of Master Certified Mercedes-Benz mechanic.
And I always like to say, I've worked at places that taught me how to do it right.
And I worked at places that taught me how to do it wrong.
And they're equally valuable. Just like everything that's happened in my life,
sometimes being taught the wrong way is incredibly more valuable because you can look back on and
go, well, I don't have to waste my time doing it that way. I know that way doesn't work.
I can try something else, you know? And that's basically the root of it.
And that's such a superpower, right? Because it's like, it's like I say, the more,
because I'm a technician with, blessed with really good intuition. Like it's,
if you watch me try to go down a process. Don't the cars speak? Like, don't you,
you can almost walk up to a car and kind of just, you get a feel. Yeah. I believe in that 100%.
And smell, like I keep talking about that truck wagon that had that burning smell that was like,
you know, 104 codes in it and these intermittent thing. And I'm like, what's that smell?
Let's just go like that. And it fixes the car. Like that's not something that you'd ever
want to publish as a case study and teach it to somebody as a process. But man,
if I look back at my career, how many cars I fixed that way. Yep. And it's in the dozens
that have been that way just from instincts, instincts and eyes, ears and nose, you know?
So I, yeah, I've learned I've watched people go down rabbit holes that I didn't have to go down.
Oh yeah. That's a, that's a rough one, especially when you're flat rate
and you're watching the guy next to you just go down in flames. Yeah. And you want to go,
hey, excuse me, hey, hey, excuse, but you know, it's not going to work because they're just as
hard headed as you. So, so you know, you know, my business partner and I talk about that all the
time, leave me alone, let me go my path. I might be wrong, but it's going to be my path and
you're not going to pull me from it. That's what's tough. Most automotive conferences,
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pricing. That's very tough. And, and we've all had those cars that like all you took
from them when you were done, you didn't take profit. You just took a lesson. Yeah. And we've
had days like that in our career. Fuck, I've had weeks like that.
When you're off, there are, there are, it can go for a day. It can go for three days
because I've turned to my guys and going, I see it. You're having a rough, I see it. Don't
worry about it. We'll work through it. Let's, we'll find you something simple to get back
on track. But that one just ate you alive. I get it. It happens. Let's figure it out.
And a lot of guys don't have that kind of support. Dealerships like guys burn.
Yeah. Dory, what kicked the passion off for you then like as a, as a young person to decide
that this is what you want to do? You know what? I will be completely honest. I have come from,
you know, I have had multiple careers. Okay. And I, my dad was a mechanic. So I saw kind of
what he went through. So I almost looked down on it a little bit. When I took my first
dealership job, I came from something I had to do. I was in a place where I was married. I just
had my first kid. I was, I knew that no matter what I did, I had to make more money.
Okay. I knew I was a fantastic troubleshooter. I came from dirt bikes, motorcycle industry.
I've done audio video work. I've done content creation on the internet back before content
creation was before a buzzword. But I honestly, I remember having a very vivid conversation with
one of my childhood friends that he's like, yeah, you kind of look down on becoming a mechanic.
I was like, yeah, I felt like I gave up. I felt like I was doing what my dad did. And that was a big,
I was a big mistake. I was really pompous in that activity because I thought I was naive enough
to think that I could just come in and it's just rotating tires and changing oil.
And there was no, there was no like concept of what I was doing. I was 25 years old.
And quite honestly, I was a dick, you know, I was like, well, I can work here for $13 an hour.
And they'll pay me to get my state inspection license and my missions. And this is what I'll do.
I'll settle down and I'll make money for the family and, you know, fine, I give up.
Little did I know, man, it was the greatest decision I ever made.
Did your dad make it look simple almost like how good he was?
I just saw the wear and tear on him. I saw a beaten and battered guy that came home with
bloody hands and dirty fingernails and had to have a few drinks before you could talk to him,
you know, that kind of situation, you know, it was frustrating. And I could see that as a kid.
And I immediately married that to, oh, that's just however mechanic it's, you know,
and that's not true. You know, we come in a million different shapes and colors and flavors.
I mean, the guys that I have met working at dealerships and independent shops,
I wouldn't trade that for anybody for anything. They're great groups. I've seen
amazing talent. I've seen, you know, just guys doing the right things for the right reasons,
you know, and it's been eye-opening. Last 20 years have been incredibly eye-opening.
What I have seen, especially I've started to really appreciate in the last seven years,
is I can look now at people that are adults in my industry that I meet and I correlate them to
people that I met as children who were just a little bit different, you know what I mean?
Like they just, they were either a little bit shy or they, you know, you didn't see them in
the same kind of classes that I went to, but you always knew where they were, you know,
per se. And they, and what it is is just different places on the spectrum. Like they had
these abilities that like, and I didn't, I didn't get to know them. I kind of hung around with
like some of the jocks and I hung around with some of the gearheads in school. And I'm
seeing that like the traditional gearheads that I hung around with, like one of them,
other than myself, is still a mechanic. And the rest just went to completely different
areas, right? Yeah. Some skilled trades, but a different skilled trade.
And then these things. Problem solving. Problem solving. And then these kids that like I didn't
really hang out with, I'm seeing all in these adults now that are just like them.
And they were just a little bit wired different where they could like really did some,
they, you just knew that the wheels were always turning in their head. They're
quiet and it's incredible. Like they're, they're just, it's like you said, there's so many
different flavors that make this up. I've met some people that were like, the job was,
the job was a retreat. The job became, I know myself, I looked forward to going to the job to
get away from the, the situation at home, right? The relationship I was in, I was not happy and
that I worked six days a week, like seven in the morning till seven at night, if they'd let
me, because I didn't want to be there. And then other people that were like,
you know, they've been so much good at like, this is just my job. This doesn't define me.
This is how I earn my living. This is how I feed my family. I have no love for this,
but I come in and I fill a role and I go home at night. And I'm, I'm not either one of them
anymore, right? Like I'm somewhere in the middle. Somewhere in between. Yeah.
Weird place. So, you know, well, I mean, there's a value in knowing
nine to five or eight to four or whatever your schedule is. You know, I would joke
when I was working at say Lexis that, you know, the service manager would try to talk to me
first thing in the morning before I'd come in and he was kind of checking on, well,
is this going to be done? Is that going to be done? And I had to stop and I'm like,
listen, I don't remember what's on my list. Like it's, it's going to be as much a surprise to you
as it is to me because I leave it here. I go in the locker room. I change into my uniform.
I walk out and go, oh yeah, that's right. That GX needed an alternator and I was figuring out
why the power steering pump makes noise. You know, okay, cool. And I would jump in and
you'd get honest work out of me, but I quit taking it home very, very early on in my career
because I knew I couldn't do it. I'm one of those guys that if I come across a real problem or a real
something I can't figure solution out to, it will run right back here 24 seven in a loop
and just keep grinding and grinding and grinding. And then finally, oh, hey, you know,
but it will drive me absolutely insane as a troubleshooter, as a problem solver.
I knew that early on, even as a kid that like it's all hands. I'm not a, I think they call
them tactile learners now, right? We had to do it. I got to do it to understand what I'm doing
and why I'm doing it. Yeah. So the dealer that you spent all of that, the times with,
what did you love about that? Like what was the appeal? Like did your dad work in one and you
were or did your dad a shop like yours and you wanted to go? Yeah. Yeah. He was an independent guy,
you know, back in, you know, the seventies and, you know, you'll talk to a lot of guys,
the good old days, you know, we joke that he worked for a guy called fast Eddie.
And he had a big, a big heavy equipment, two bay garage that's gone now, just like you said,
bulldozed. And, you know, we joked because my mom is a seamstress and she made nice
Naga hide covers for the toolboxes that used to sit on the side of the toolbox. Yeah. The
records, right? So it was like a family thing. And yeah, he was an independent deal.
When I got into a dealership, my first dealership was Lexus. And I just, I liked,
I guess the machine of it all, like how all the pieces interacted. Every place of ever
work I've gone in with my eyes open. It wasn't just learning my job or knowing what I can do.
I would always ask questions. What's a service writer for? Yeah. You know, what's the service
manager watching? What is he doing? You know, you know, how does the general manager work?
Why does he get to work bank hours? And we're back here, slave it, you know, stuff like that.
You know, so I've always gone in with my eyes open, learning lessons for everything. I've
never had blinders on and the dealership just presented an environment where you could connect
the dots and understand like, oh, there's a method to this madness. You know, you'll see,
oh, the parts departments like this and, you know, the service writer works like that. And this
is, oh, okay. And then once you define kind of what the roles were, then you could quickly
pick out and go, oh, that's not working. Oh, that's not working because this and, you know,
you don't say anything because you're not one of those guys. But I would, I would note it and go,
oh, okay, that makes sense. This would be easier this way or that would be that way easier that
way. Or, you know, so yeah, that that's what interested me. It was a large mechanism that
had a multi just everywhere you look, there was craziness going on. You know, it was, you
know, I remember the transition for me from when I went from the little four bay gas station,
where it was just myself, two other mechanics, and that the guy out front who did all the
estimating, all the booking, all the scheduling, all the parts ordering, everything like that,
right? Yeah. So I go to the dealership where it's like all of a sudden, like you said,
there's a whole sales department that is, you know, wanting to be your friend because
they need favors done. And then there's a whole sale, you know, service department
which you're a part of, but within that facet that you've got like four advisors who
some days they seem to get along with each other and some days they want to kill one
another. And then, you know, you have your parts stored, like you said, that was like,
they seem to be the bane of everybody's existence, right? Like parts because parts was
always seeming to be getting stuff wrong. Now I understand that it's a very hard
job within the dealership. Like it is constant chaos in parts. And, you know, we all know,
like you click on it and it shows stock at the warehouse and you order and then you get a
notification five minutes later saying, yeah, it's been updated and it's not at the warehouse.
And, you know, it's an intergalactic back order. Good luck. Right.
Promise your customer tomorrow morning is now three weeks. What do you do?
Right. It becomes a chain. So I can understand for you that sentiment that when I got to the dealer,
it was like this big machine all of a sudden and it was like, wow, where do I fit in here?
And then I realized real quick, like I fit in fine. Like the dealer, I'll say it again,
the dealer saved me for this industry. I wouldn't have stayed. I wouldn't have lasted if I'd
have been at that little four bay gas station. I wouldn't have survived this industry because
I could not. It didn't pay enough. No, it's not just the pay. There is just something too
and independent at that time or that size. It's chaos. It depends on what the,
it's 100% on what the owner is. How organized are they? The roles aren't defined.
That's my biggest, that is my largest goal in dealing with our independent is I want to make
sure everyone knows their goals. What are you responsible for specifically? Because that's
the one thing I hated at the dealership more than anything. Well, why didn't you do that? Well,
because it's not my job. I can't force the service writer to sell. It's not my job. I
got to stop. I got to fix the cars. That's what I do. And that's tough. Independence turned off
a lot of young kids. I have young kids that stop in the shop. Hey, I want to be a mechanic.
We have a program here called Votech vocational technologies that a lot of 16, 17, 18 year olds
get into and it's kind of to get their feet wet. So I get a lot of kids that stop in. Hey,
I want to be mechanic. Listen, go to the dealership. They'll train you. You don't have to pay
for schooling. They'll say you want to be a Subaru technician? They'll send you the Subaru
so you can get certified. And then you learn real quick, is that dealership promoting within?
Are they going to send you to school? Yeah, because I've worked at dealerships that had
one master certified technician out of 14 guys. And I've worked at dealerships that had
17 master certified texts out of 17 guys. Yeah. And that makes a huge difference.
Big time. And, you know, it's funny. The young people that I've seen that like they go to the
independence store sometimes, and I have to be very careful I would say this,
sometimes it's like the, and we talk again and in these groups that we're in, we're talking
to less than 5%, right? We always have to remember that. So when I put my head up and go,
I've seen them come from the, from the aftermarket side of things with some really bad habits.
Everybody looks at me like I'm crazy. But I mean, we call it like some of them are very good at
cobbling things together because that's maybe how that was the culture of the shop. Yeah.
Yeah. Had no money, like fix it as cheap bubblegum duct tape and weld wire if need be,
you know, mechanics wire, the first guy I ever worked for that four beggar gas station,
the head guy like welded mechanics wire and two part epoxy was his like go to and
it didn't matter. It could be a side view mirror. It could be like he was
a sensor. He just JB welded it in there. Good. Good to go. Let's go.
He'd sit there and go, Oh my God, Adrian, like, but that was what literally his customers were
hoping for that level of repair, which is why he couldn't afford to pay because he wasn't
charging because I get the customer base that he, we have to remember up the road within three miles
of us was six dealerships. There was a another independent store shop literally right across
the side street, like across an alley. There was one across the street and one more one
blocked down on the same side of the street. So we were surrounded by 12 other shops in a not
particularly big part of Ottawa. So like there was a lot of customers and a lot of options.
So there was a customer for everybody as they say, we were the shop for those customers that
like didn't have a lot of money or didn't want to put a lot of money into it.
They got blown out of the dealership at $120 an hour or whatever it was at that time, right?
Oh, well, yeah. Cause I can remember the dealer was like at that time we're talking early 2000s
like a hundred bucks and we were 64. Yeah. Yeah. I don't miss those days. Yes.
When you do the math on that and it's like, okay, a 10 hour job, you're saving 300 bucks.
If you go to somebody that's, you know, $30, $2,300 was a lot of money. Sure. You know,
now it's groceries up here in Canada. Right. Gas, you know, you name it. Yeah, exactly.
I had an uncle that was like that. He had an independent shop for years and that's a little bit
where I wouldn't say I grew up there, but I'd spend a lot of time with him. He was close to
my dad at the time. So I kind of kicked around this independent shop and that's where
he was. He was right across the street from a, like a government housing kind of facility where
you had low income families. And honestly, Uncle Glenn, he had a soft heart. He was the kind of
guy that would give a shirt off his back to do it. But the double-edged sword on that is that
you set the customer level that you want. And I don't think a lot of guys understand that because
they're afraid to ask for better money and to stop using bailing wire and JB Weld and to literally go,
well, at ours in the early days, what we did is we gave people the choice. You could go
aftermarket and it's going to be this much and it's going to be, it's going to fix it,
but it's not going to be a thousand percent dealership quality or here's the price for OEM parts
done the right way with the right time. You choose. You know, and I let the customer set
that tone and what that allowed us to do was to first identify the customers right off the
bat. Hey, I want it done right. Use OEM parts. Awesome. So we would then curtail to them. We
wouldn't burn these other people out, but at least I know what the lay of the land was. Am I
getting junk walking through the door? Or am I getting legitimate customers that want a good repair
with OEM parts, but they can't find another shop that'll do it? That's right. Yeah. And I've
talked for forever. It seems like it drives me crazy when you see shop owners and they
don't even look at a OEM part as an alternative. Cheaper. They immediately go to the cheapest thing
or it's not necessarily the cheapest thing, but it's like the one that I can get my matrix to
where it's the same price as a dealer part. I can give a three-year warranty on it. Yes. Just
drive me up the wall because as you have been a dealer tech for a long time, I was a dealer
tech for a long time. I knew that when like if I had to come back, it was 99% of the time
it was mechanic error. It was never the part because you were putting on the best parts.
It frustrates the hell out of me now. How much do I have to go in and redo because the parts are so
bad? We have selectively eliminated specific aftermarket manufacturers. Porman, I'm not
naming any names. I'm not, listen, we're not talking trash. I will not use them. It's just
that simple. It's just it's frustrating for everybody because you look like an ass. It makes
you look like somebody can't do the job when I go, oh, you know that new part I put on? Yeah,
it broke. Sorry. Come on. I just, I can't afford to do that. Yeah. Yeah. And it sucks. I go
back to the vent valve situation, right? The EVAP part from the aftermarket. Like,
I just will not use them. You could tell me the OEM one's going to be three weeks away
and I'll be like, does the car run? Yep. Check ends lights on. Okay. Well, we're going to have to
wait three weeks for the for the dealer one to come in because it doesn't seem to matter if it's
been a standard or a blue streak or, you know, Wells is hard to get up here. But I'm trying to
think like, if I can't find, say it's a Denzo oxygen sensor, if I can't cross the OEM number
into the aftermarket catalog, I don't bother to even look at the catalog. I just fill the
dealer up and go, give me give me the oxygen sensor. And that's a hard lesson to learn.
You know, when you're starting out either, you know, as an independent, it's a hard lesson to
learn because you want to be Johnny on the spot. You want to be the guy, oh yeah, I can get that
today. We're buzzing out. We'll knock it out. You're fine. We'll get you going. It's hard
to go, whoa, whoa. Let's just wait for the right part. We were burned so many times in
the early days because of that specific, and it's hard, and it's all you. It's just because
you have the right drive. I want to get the customer down the road. I don't want to hold
their car for a week. Nobody can go without their car, you know. But, you know, in an EVAP sensor,
run it. You're not dying. It'll be fine. The light's going to be on, you know. But, you
know, if you have something that's more important, you know, you got an oil pressure
sensor that leaks, you know, I can't put that car back out on the road because I don't
guarantee that the customer is going to check his oil. That's right. You know, and it's those
little pitfalls that you learn and go, no, okay, I'm sorry. I have to be the bearer of bad news.
My apologies, but this is the best course of action, and I can't do anything about it. I'm
sorry. And you build good customers that way. They understand. They either understand or they
leave. You know, that's what's tough. So how did you go from Lexus to Mercedes?
Well, going through the big D, man, going to the divorce.
You know, the Lexus dealership was 20 minutes away, and the Mercedes dealership was about 35 or 40,
and no, vice versa. One was further away, and I wanted to make the change of I needed to be
home more often and better hours and better pay. And, you know, I would have been, you know, I liked,
I liked those two dealerships a lot. So there wasn't a big difference between those two.
I was set up to be a lifer at Mercedes. I kind of found, man, listen, the Germans know how to
do it. That's all I can say. You talk about a machine, and you talk about, I don't know,
there was some psychological warfare there, too. Like they had you, you were a team member, man.
You were part of us, you know, and I bought in. I was 100%. Like I got it. There was support.
They were clear about their roles. They were totally clear as to, you know,
what they expected of you, that sort of thing. What pushed me out of there was the warranty
times. The warranty times were horrendous. And it was right at that point where you're making
me fight tooth and nail at a luxury dealership. Like you guys are almost, oh man, at the time,
I want to say there were 165 or 170 an hour or something like that. You know, and I'm going,
you're making me fight for time. Where's this coming from? You know, and that's kind of what
happened there. But I loved, that was a place that showed me what you could build when you get.
I had an old boss when I worked for motorcycle stuff. He always talked about running a company
is like having 18 boat engines on the back of your boat. If you get six of them going the same
direction, you're looking pretty good. Right? Well, that's what Mercedes was. Mercedes was, man,
they had 17 techs, 16 and a half of them were going the right direction. You know,
they didn't tolerate a whole bunch of shit, you know. And, but there was also that,
hey, we're working together. It's a team. Even though it was flat rate,
old timers would cut the guys retired there. They were lifers. They would come over and show you
easier, faster, better ways to do what you're doing. That sort of environment, that doesn't exist
in a flat rate environment. I've seen fistfights in flat rate shops. You know, you know, I,
so that sort of environment, I dug, I got it. I was, I was in 100%, you know.
The luxury thing always like, and to me to this day, like when they talk about like,
and you see them post, they post the job ads and it's like, ooh, they're paying $45 an hour,
you know, flat rate. You're like, how are they selling cars that go for $150 to $200,000
at this dealership? And I, listen, the people are going to correct me again.
Exchange in Canada, right? So most of them are sitting there very close to 100K. And secondly,
like, I don't know, I don't research them. They're not my kind of car. So if you tell me that,
oh, they don't sell any of them that go for 200, I'm going to believe you. But I know that they
sell a ton for 100. Anyway, it always makes me laugh when you see these high luxury end brands,
and they still pay flat rate. Because I'm like, you would think that we're all about quality
and we're all about snobby, you know, prestigious cars that they would just be like, you think you
would walk in and it would be like this high end salon type thing, you know, pristine, clean,
guys are just paid to like have the service manual open and torquing every faster. You know,
that's not what you get with flat rate, right? It doesn't matter whether you're working on a
you go, obviously, you're getting guys that are slamming and banging as fast as possible to make
that money. And it just, I could never wrap my head around the idea that like BMW and Mercedes
locally here are still paying be our flat rate. And they still have comebacks and they still have,
you know, shoddy work because I've seen it and you're like, where does the money go?
If they like for door rate, and they're still paying texts, not that much more to work on
that those cars. And they're still flat rate. Where's the money go? Right.
Goes in the pocket. And the overhead of running that type of presentation versus, you know,
your mom and dad Chevy dealership, right? Well, that was a big part of why I left Lexus. So
the run of that was when I worked at Lexus, that was my first dealership experience.
And I got in because one of my childhood friends worked there and were actually multiple childhood
friends. So there was like four or five of us out of eight texts that all grew up together. So we
were tight. Yeah. And it was an hourly shop. And we the Lexus dealership that I worked for
probably spent 10 to 15 years, number one, regionally in their service. We crushed it.
I mean, we just because we were as tight as we were, we were 180% efficient. Five guys at least 160 to
180% efficient every month. Did we screw off? Oh, yeah. There was there were stuff like like I
saw you brought up the the television show tires, right? I mean, come on. He made they nail it.
Right. Steve and Shane nail what that experience is 100%. Right. And, you know, did we mess around?
Yeah, absolutely. But at the end of the day, we were crushing it. Well, the service manager comes
to us one day in a meeting and goes, Hey, there's a there's a payroll freeze right now. We're
having a hard time with a couple of things. I think this was this would have been like
Oh, let's see, my daughter was born 05. So yeah, oh, oh, seven, oh, eight, something like that.
And we had a pretty hard dip in car sales and stuff, but nothing Lexus was just fine. Trust
me, they were fine. But hey, there's a freeze. And we put up with that for one year.
And the next year came around. And my current business partner who I own the shop with
went to our service manager said, Hey, I understand there's a freeze, but I need a race. I don't
know what to tell you, but that's what I need. And he goes, No, there's, you know, there's no
way to have it. It's just not going to happen. He was all right. Well, thanks. And the next
day he came in and he put us two weeks in. Well, you got to give me time. I can't he
was like, No, it's, it's, it's already done. Yeah, within three months, four of us quit.
Wow. It was, we gutted the place. They went from number one regionally to last.
Did the owner care? No, he didn't care. They were fine. His company jet was fine, right?
His multiple properties were fine. Yeah, he cares. They spent the next six years digging
themselves out of the last place for regional because they just wouldn't give us a dollar more
working at a Lexus dealership. And that's, that was a, it was a hard lesson to learn,
but it definitely taught me self worth instantly because I got hired down the road for $2 more
and they were ecstatic to bring us in. Yeah. And so, you know,
they're so, that fills such a stereotype that I've seen and heard, you know, for the better part
of 20 years and lived through some of it in my career. And in, you know, when people talk about
number one in the region and CSI scores and all this kind of stuff. CSI, oh my God, CSI, my man.
CSI really made a lick of difference. You would see them, you know, really,
really, really, really make it about their culture would be the CSI. And yet we know that it's like,
it's a dangling carrot. I've said to it, it's like, if you get a score at the end of the air,
we'll write you a check. Oh, shit, you had to be at 99, you know, you hit 94.
F you guys, you get nothing. Good luck next year. Like, and how cool is that, you know?
Every dealer eventually is going to watch that and happen and get close
and then go, you know what, F this, we're going to focus on making money. And how about then fixing
all these warranty weird complaints and making the customer pat, you know, shaking. You build this,
there's too many Karen's. Yeah. I've seen dealerships bend over backwards
to save a Karen. You know, we do it our independent shop. Yeah. Hey, you know what,
I've had this conversation word for word. It just looks like we're not a good fit for you.
You know, I just don't think that this is going to work out by all means that I got,
you know, four or five other places that were more than happy to take you as a customer. I just
don't think this is going to work. I appreciate your business. It's been great. Have a nice day.
Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. I saw way back in the day when I was at Chrysler,
the first Chrysler store I worked at, arguably still one of the best technicians I ever saw
in terms of being able to take any problem that the customer had, find the solution and fix it.
And I'll give you this example. This little lady, so he comes to work at this dealership and he
had left a straight time dealer where you just fixed cars. That was it. You approach CSI
like it was everything. This little old lady comes over this neon and she says,
I have a squeak in the seat. And then it was like a boomerang. Nobody could seem to find it because
like, of course, you get in and you move the seat around and then the seat doesn't squeak and she
was a little thing. Colin spent all morning on this and he realized that the squeak that she
was hearing was the seat cover on the seat foam. Little old lady, she wouldn't have weighed
100 pounds, right? It's just squeak and hardly any miles in the car. Colin takes the seat apart,
puts a plastic bag over the foam to stop the squeak, puts, reassembles the seat. Now,
you know, two trains of thought on here, people are going to put their head up and go,
I would hire Colin in a second because Colin fixed the car. And then you're going to have the
other train of thought that have been in my experience from the dealership and they're
like, you can't get paid for that repair. Correct. The warranty won't pay for that.
So what Colin did was cost him a lot of money that day. Now, why did he do that? He was a
straight time foreman. So his job was to try and solve these problems. What I took away from that was
be somewhere in the middle, don't be Colin, but don't be like all the other guys that had
boomerang that car, if you know what I mean. So CSI for me was like, she probably filled out
a great CSI survey for us. What did I amount to, squat? How much did it cost us that day?
Couple hundred bucks by the time we paid Colin and made a claim that you can't get paid.
So what is that worth? And here's the unfortunate thing. That little old lady,
Mrs. Smith, right? Her loyalty is worth something. But is it scalable? Is it tangible?
I don't think it really is. And this is the CSI game for me is a dangling carrot. I don't tell
anybody out there. Like, if I go in and I sit down in a job interview for a dealer and they
tell me start talking about CSIs are number one priority, I know I ain't making any money here
because it's like the priority becomes, we got to chase this imaginary check that they might
write us at the end of the year versus we need to look over every car super well
and present like all the work that we can find on it and sell on it.
That's how. So I worked at a dealer that was like, when I left that first dealer,
I went to the second one, they didn't give a spit about CSI. They were all about like sell,
sell, sell, sell, sell. We fixed the cars too. Like you had to diagnose fixed cars, but like
if you went out and said it needs a break job, you had somebody selling breaks.
Yeah. You didn't have anybody worried like, oh crap, it's only got 50,000 K on it. Like,
I wonder why it needs breaks or like breaks. Yep. Let me just, you know,
complete faith in what the technicians were selling, which is sometimes a little sketchy.
Sure. Also through the service writer, that's what's tough too. How many service writers have
you met where they do a hard sell rather than a soft sell? Meaning that, hey, if you don't
do these breaks, you're going to die. Now they're at 430 seconds. They're not going to die.
Okay. I'm just saying in the next 5,000 to 10,000 miles, you're probably going to need breaks.
Yeah. Right? And that makes a huge difference. I tell my service writers that's the soft sell,
soft sell everything. That way, the learn, the customer learns that the one time,
you know, I heard you telling the stories about the caravan with the rotors into the,
you know, the metal to metal, you know, the one time you go, listen,
if you leave here, you're going to die and they believe you. It's not a, it's not an opinion,
it's a fact. And that's what we push really hard. Service writers make or break a place
because they're your contact to the customer. 100%. It's what I think of like,
you know, places that I've made a lot of money and places that I've made zip. It all
comes back to who was at that front counter. That's what all boils down to. And again,
like I've, I've talked, there was always a mix there. Like we had some guys that were,
you know, really aggressive and we had some guys that were like a little more restrained,
I guess you would say. They both were necessary. They both served a role, but it was like,
depending on where you were, you were hoping that a certain ticket was, you know,
to this guy, another guy, right? Like, it's the best. Right. Exactly.
I want him on my Saturday. I don't want him because I, you know, and, you know,
so going back to the CSI thing, we have to remember once you're at a warranty, it's not,
it's not important at all. It's not important. And it's, and it's, and it sucks. And, you know,
the people that are not in the industry that listened to this, maybe this episode,
I know we act like at the dealer, like it's really important that you fill out that survey
and whatnot, but they really don't. Like it's not that be all or end all. What they're really
thinking is that like the car leaves, you're satisfied and you keep bringing the car back.
If you don't fill out the survey, it's not the end of the world. You know? Right. Well,
then, you know, it's the old adage. If you don't want anything nice to say,
don't say anything at all. Just, you'll be fine. Is your car good? Your car's good? Okay.
You know, I'm sorry that the greeter didn't greet you with a smile on their face and
the pedicurist didn't paint your nails the right color. I'm sorry, but is your car fixed? Yes. Okay,
great. You know, that's tough. You start getting into that, start splitting hairs. And when you make
CSI, it didn't really affect, Lexus had that, Mercedes had that. When you make it a larger
part of someone's paycheck, that's where it can get ugly real quick. Yeah. Just because you had a
Karen that is complaining about wind noise. Meanwhile, they have like marbles in their cargo area.
You know, you're like, dude, I can't pick out what sound you're particular about.
Can you put the tin cans away that are in your cargo area? Please? I know we're dealing with a
squeak but on desk, like, you know, and you can't say that. They don't let you say that, you know.
Lexus have gone for test drives for noises and there's been a case of beer bottles in the back.
Right. 100%. It's happened to you. Or cans or bottles, right? Like,
up here in Canada, we were all about the bottle for a long, long time. You never
ever drank beer out of a can. It was just not something to know. It's common. But like,
all the time, it would be either like 50 wine bottles in the back or not judging. Like ladies,
if you want to cart them around for whatever reason, like, I'm not judging. I'm not judging.
It's really hard to hear like Dory saying, I got a wind noise at 70 miles an hour on the highway.
And I'm driving up to the highway and all I'm here is clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink.
How did you hear that? Right. Right. And it's literally happened. Like most people that are
in this industry would go, oh, they're being facetious. They're just great. No, legitimately.
I'm not, you can't make this stuff up. That's right. Yeah.
Like between how do you listen to the radio and hear the clinking and still hear the
wind noise? Like I don't, you know, it strikes me. Right. Well, you know, on the other,
on the other side of the coin, too, I've had customers that God love them. They come in
and go, listen, I'm really sorry. It's not making it today. And I go, listen, I understand.
Our coffee isn't that good. You don't want to be here. I don't want to be here. Let's go
for a ride and see what we can find. It's not you. I understand. And once you put those
people to comfort and rest, you know, they understand at least someone's listening to them
because I've never turned to a customer and go, make it do it. They can do it right now.
I know cars suck. Right. My business partner says all the time, I hate cars. Right. I still,
I collect, I still like cars. I still have that little bit of, you know, love for them.
I've seen customers talk to Paul and Paul go, you know, I hate cars, right? Like,
I don't want to hear about your collection. I do this for a living. I'll fix it. I'll good.
But I don't, I don't care. I hate cars, you know, but we were, we were probably the top two techs
there because we would take the time with the customer. We know you're not crazy. We know
you're not making this stuff up. And it doesn't happen all the time. And that's what's
frustrating. And to, to kind of stick to this kind of thing, I don't know if you watched, um,
Royalty Auto Service on YouTube, Sherwood, they just stuck a video yesterday that was a Toyota Tacoma
squeak noise and it ended up being what he found it. And again, like this is the level that they
go to, if it necessitates this is like it ends up being, it's just, it's a shock. The strut
in the front of the Tacoma, the seal is all dirty where this piston rod is coming up down
through. So it needs struts in the front of this Tacoma. But like he's literally there with arc oil
and a stethoscope and getting two guys, the big guy Chris, right? Chris is a, is a whole vibe
himself pushing on this truck to make the noise. And there's Sherwood with the stethoscope, there's
the noise. Okay. It needs struts. They had a good, easily had a good hour into finding that.
So the customer, the diet time, the customer, and then Sherwood's like, yeah, well, with the,
the mileage on the thing and the age of it, yeah, that should have struts anyway, just based on the
why in this industry, you know,
do we, when we don't get the results we want, it's most of the time I keep saying this because
we didn't want to pay for the results we wanted to get. And that paying the time to diagnose
the car. And I love that guy because like it, and again, some of it may be for TV,
but he's in the shop, guys are around him watching how he approaches this problem.
I think where, and I don't know, I want to think that probably why this sounds
of like you were talking about your experience for everybody so tight,
that learning curve becomes like so good because you, everybody's involved,
everybody's watching, everybody's, you know, it's, it's Dory's turn to, to teach a lesson on,
you know, how I found this noise. And, you know, like you're saying, your, Paul's got one,
and so on and so forth. That's when there's really no ceiling to what a business can do.
You know, I want to think that it's like my friend Benji at Frogpond,
that that's very much how they approach it. Like everybody when they work as a team,
and when everybody is helping one another, everybody's seeing his method and that person's
method in this, like that's how we all get better, you know, right? That's the part of this industry
that I love. That's the part that I get really off on is, is seeing how somebody does something
and then learning from it. I'm all about learning, right? Like it's just the key thing
for me. Like I don't, I'm not going to break production records anymore. I'm not, I'm
old and slow and hurt. But if I still learn tricks like that, I would, I would do this till,
like I don't wake up that one morning, right? Cause I'm, I'm, it's like a drug for me.
Sure. Sure. You know, and, and, and I don't know if that happens at independence,
cause I, I've never really worked at one. I've always been a dealerships.
But, you know, that was the kind of stuff that you would see happen, you know, at Lexus or Mercedes
guys would, before it comes in the door, one of the old guys would be on you. Oh yeah,
check this, this and this. That's what I found last week. And that, you know, that is, that
cuts out so much rigmarole and guessing and testing and diagnosing, you know, but you
know, I, I also know you're a big, uh, uh, proponent of paying for diag time, you know,
cause that's so important. Diag time is not only just for the technician doing it,
it's for anyone else in the shop that wants to pay attention to how you're going about solving
a problem. And my line to any customer that questions diagnosis time, I would go either
two responses. I would go with either, you know, you're paying for my expertise,
you know, I, I can guess that you don't know how to do struts on your car. I do. I can do them in
an hour and a half rather than you can look up the YouTube video. That, that's the other thing,
power of YouTube. Anytime I have a customer that wants to know why and how it's, I'm like, here,
look, here you go. I'll send you the link. This is what I'm going to be doing.
Go nuts. Yeah. Check it out. And 99 times. Oh, I see. I understand. Thank you so much. Go ahead
and do that. You know, that's a big part of it. And then the other side is, um, the, the second
line of defense I go to, I go, well, we're a good shop for a reason. You have to pay me for what
I know because no one else is going to fix it. That's right. I'm sorry that you have to pay
me to do it, but at least I also have zero problem. If you pay for diagnosis and you want to take it
down the street by all means, I don't have that problem because if you're, you're not going to be
happy anyway. I could do that job to the best of my ability for the lowest amount of cost.
It doesn't matter. You already have it in your mind that you don't appreciate value and
experience. Thank you so much. Pay your bill. Have a wonderful day. I don't try to keep people like
that and bringing your own parts. How many times have you run into people? Well, can I bring? No,
I can't. I can't warranty it because chances are it's wrong anyway. You didn't order the right part
or it's the lowest quality part on the planet and I'll see you in three weeks
and then you're going to be unhappy. Yeah. And my job, my business model,
isn't bring your own parts. I'm sorry. It's just what it is because they still go online and say that,
Dory's shop didn't fix my car. They always, that Google review, that Testament Facebook group,
they'd leave out the part where they say, I showed up with the part I bought on T-Mu.
They always leave that part out. It's just, because in their mind, and I get it, I get it,
they're mine. They're all the same. The part is exactly the same. It's like buying,
what's the example? It's like buying a loaf of bread at Kroger's or buying a loaf of bread at
Walmart. It's still bread. It's still bread, right? It's like one friend didn't need to hold oil or
give you a good ride or stay together. It just needed to be toasted. That's it.
So the ignition coil for $10 or the ignition coil for $100 is the same. They're just
really ripping me off on the $100 one. Never mind that there's completely different
things inside. It's a $10 coil that's not us done it probably.
The $100 coil is built like the one that was under the hood when it was born.
And it was quality checked. And it went through all of those things.
So when people, that's why, and again, I worked for a shop owner that when we sat down,
we did the initial interview, he knew about me from the groups and I knew about,
I'd seen his name and I'm thinking like, they're not, they don't do these kind of shenanigans.
And then I would see a customer bring his own parts and I'm like, wow, okay, we're doing that now?
No, this guy, he's a little more difficult. And I'm like, if he's a little more difficult,
then we probably shouldn't be doing this because we're performing bad behavior.
You're teaching him to be difficult. I have broke many customers of that because
I just calmly explained it. I didn't take it personally. I didn't get all mad and frustrated.
I simply showed him the details, showed him the reasons, showed him the hows and the
whys of why I can't do that because it doesn't work for us. Do you like us being a business?
Yes. Okay. If I do that, I'm going to go out of business. So it's just tough. It's tough to hold
the line. We say, hold the line at the shop. Yeah. Do you think I'm crazy when I think that a lot of
people, the bring your own parts thing, I think there's somebody in every core time that the subject
comes up, I got to take my car in. I swear to God, when these people are sitting around,
somebody always says, well, it wasn't that expensive because I took my parts in,
my mechanic put them on. Do you think that's happening really a lot? These kind of conversations
are happening? I think it goes back to the old adage of if you keep a customer happy,
they might tell one person. Right. And then if they're unhappy, they'll tell everybody.
They'll tell people standing in the line at the grocery store. They'll tell people,
go into the doctors. They'll tell people because they don't, Mercedes taught pretty much everybody
that there's three kinds of people. There's people that appreciate value. There's people that look
for price. And then there's people that look for time. Right. Luxury cars, nobody cares about
how long it takes. These people have three or four other cars and they have a fleet of
loners. Nobody gives a shit. Right. But in the independent game, these are blue-collar people.
They got one car. Like I feel their pain. I'm sorry. I can't leave my car that long.
Well, your car is going to explode if you don't leave it. I'm sorry, but I can't.
You got to leave it. There's got to be a way around this. And I don't have loners.
I'm not that big yet. But it's the old adage of they're going to cry to everybody
or they're going to tell one person, man, they did a great job. And that's a tough
industry to be in because I think, I don't know, can you think of another industry that would follow
that? Like someone that did their nails wrong, they might complain a little, but they're still nice.
Come to the doctor's office. Bring your own parts to the doctor's office. I dare you.
The same thing when people, they talk about the deadline thing. And it's like,
if you've ever had a custom home built, right? And somebody just shared this recently on there,
like you never see it get done by the promise time. Right. I never thought of that. Yeah.
So it's like, and sometimes it's maybe a month. But like, we know that some construction projects,
we're talking a year behind schedule. Oh yeah. Because of variables that are,
they're going to say it or their control or whatever. So, and I'm not advocating saying
that we all need to lower the bar to be like the other skilled trades. That's not what I'm trying to
say. But it's not the end of the world. Like those people that are waiting for that custom home to
be built, do they sometimes stay in the home longer? Yes. Do they sometimes wind up in a
hotel waiting for the house? Yes. Do they sometimes wait in at the in-laws? Yes.
There are solutions. They didn't die in the winter because the house wasn't built on time.
That's my point. And we live in a world where, you know, and again, I forget sometimes there are
rural people in rural places, but like in my little corner of the world, we have a public transit
system. So it sucks. I get it. But if your car tomorrow is at the shop, it's a door shop because
it's waiting on an alternator and you can't beg, borrow, reschedule, whatever you had to do the next
day. Like we can take this magic thing in our pocket called our phone and we can look at the
local transit schedule and we can figure out that I got to be at the closest bus stop by
eight o'clock in the morning and I have to catch two buses and that'll get me to where I got
to go tomorrow. But my question is always, how many friends do you have on Facebook?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Make a call. Send a text. Make a message. My own brother has been without
his own vehicle now for six months. Oh my God. He had an old Ford Ranger and we scrapped it because
it was not where the tires breaks on, right? We talked about it. Now, his roommate that he
lives with, they have like, she has this little, I don't know, probably a 14 or 13 accent
Hyundai. Now, Canadian accent is not at 14, you know, at 12 years old, there ain't much life left
in that one yet either. I mean, it's alright. It's 12 years old. It's one of the good ones.
Right? So, and at first when he got rid of his truck, I was like, I was panicked. I'm like,
what is he going to do? But they're making it work. They adapt. Right. You figure it
out. I'm like, shit, when that Hyundai goes down, they need to be start planning. And
I'm already like, they need to start planning now because when that thing all of a sudden doesn't
start or the transmission like I've had the talk with them, don't call me and say, I need a training
for a 2012 accident because I'm going to say, no, you need $500 from the local wrecker and then
you need to buy some bus passes. And here's the reality, right? Like it's up to them to
figure out how they're going to make it work. And the reality is the grocery store that
they would need to buy everything they would need is two blocks from their house. They could walk.
Now he's waiting on a hip transplant. Oh my goodness. You know, she might be a walker
going up, but he could get food. He's not going to start. So we're in a very fortunate time
where, yes, there's rural places and people rely on those cars. But those rural places,
I find that most of the time they don't ever really stop driving it until it stops them.
And get another one. They're not the type that is like, I'm into the shop, you know,
for this squeak and rattle kind of thing. If it's working and doing work, they're using it.
So I can't always immediately go, well, rural people don't have public transit. Listen,
rural people don't squawk about crazy things that bring in for a car. You know, the likes
they are already independent and self-sufficient. And you know, chances are they've already put
two alternators on it already. You know, that's something to be said for that too. We're missing
a lot of that in our society. As much as there's information on YouTube, I love meeting fellow
independent problem solvers that aren't even in the industry. You know, these guys are
IT guys or they're electricians or, you know, they're steam fitters, you know, or they're union
guys, but they know how to put an alternator on. They know how to check the voltage and go,
well, is it 12 volts or is it 14.2 volts? Okay, the alternator's bad. You know,
we're missing a lot of that in our society today. Well, we're not developing it.
That's the problem, right, is where everybody is just like,
I mean, I would have never thought that I'd ever make five cents from content creation
20 years ago. And here I am making some money every month from content creation. Now,
it's like a viable employment opportunity career for these young people. And we look at that and go,
listen, here's the reality, right? But we don't even really know what the reality is,
because it could even get even bigger than the way it is.
It changes so fast. Yeah.
So like if you just said 10 years ago, like there's going to be kids that are going to
be millionaires from playing Minecraft on YouTube, I'd have told you you were nuts.
1.7 million views. Watch me play video games. I can't even comprehend it.
And now they have energy drinks that they sell and shit like that.
So I got to ask the question then, if your experience as a dealer was so
positive, like in, you know, a team effort kind of thing, why'd you ever finally leave that?
Um, so I went to go work for another flat rate shop that offered me more money in flat rate
dealership. And this is honestly, this is one of those stories that, that always makes the
hair on my arm stand up because I really feel like I was guided. I don't, I don't mean to feel
like overzealous or anything like that. But I went to go work for another shop. Again,
it was a move to be closer to my kids. I was even closer. I was like five minutes down the road,
so it was easier to take them to school, be a part of their life. Basically in my
five miles from where I lived, it was a commute. I got tired of driving 45 minutes
every morning to work and 45 minutes at home. And, and, and honestly, the general
manager at, at Mercedes was fantastic. He heard that I was contemplating about leaving.
He called me up to his office. He said, listen, you know, what can we do? And I said, well,
the bottom line is I can't move closer to you and you can't move the dealership closer to me.
And I'm sick of driving an hour and a half out of my day. I just can't do it.
I think I could make this other dealership work. You know, they, they have
frequent turnarounds. Nobody's worked there longer than three years, that kind of burnout.
But it was in my backyard. It was for the same. It might have been for a couple bucks more, honestly.
And it was just that kind of move. And the general manager was like, listen, if
anything doesn't work out, just show up with your toolbox. He's like, I will save a place
for you. You know, and they were that kind of organization. And I appreciated that.
So I went to go work for this other place. I worked there about three years. And
I was having a bad day. And it was the kind of place that
turned you into something you're not. I'm a very happy, go lucky, kind of, what do you need
help with? You know, I'll go the extra mile and work in there three years. It was the
kind of place that just drained you. They took everything and didn't give anything back.
And I was having a particularly bad day. I was throwing tools, which I never do.
That's not my style. That is absolutely not my style. I was throwing tools and I had to go,
listen, I'm stepping out for a minute. I'm going to go take a walk out the back door.
I'm going to go sit on the grass, watch cars go by and settle myself down.
And I was walking out the door and something popped up on my shoulder and said, hey, text.
It was my cousin Ronnie that owned a little abandoned 2-bay SO gas station, literally no glass,
no doors, parking lot, full of garbage. It was abandoned, no electric, nothing.
And something just popped in my head because I tried to buy it off and probably about
five years earlier and he wasn't ready to let go. He inherited it from his dad. It was special to him,
that sort of thing. And out of the blue, hey, text Ronnie. Just text him, say hi. And I texted him.
I'm walking. I remember walking up to the grass hill, texted him, you know, hey Ronnie, how's
it going? Two minutes later, he kicks back with a picture of a for sale sign in his hand.
And I go, what's that for? And he goes, you'd never guess. I was like, is that for the shop?
He goes, yeah. I said, listen, just put it back in your truck. We'll figure it out.
And at that point, I knew that it was, it was just time. I was frustrated.
I knew I worked at a place that showed you how to do it wrong. It's as simple as that.
I was frustrated. I knew I could do it better. I knew that I learned enough lessons.
I knew that no matter what I was doing here, I could do it better somewhere else. And that was
really the thing that drove me, that I could have control, start to finish from when the car comes
in the door to how we treat the customers to how we deliver it. I was all in at that point.
And I started making phone calls. I called up to my childhood friends and I said,
hey, I got a crazy idea. Why don't you meet me at this address? We need to talk.
And I'd love to hear your input. And we walked the property and we decided right then and there
of it that we were going to try to do anything we can to do it because we were already at that
point. And ironically, the dealership that Paul worked for, and the dealership that I worked
for, the common thread in our existence is we're 180 degrees opposite. I will give you this one piece
of advice. If you ever look for a business partner, look for someone 180 degrees opposite of you.
Because it's not when you're similar to someone else. It's not the big things that drive you
crazy. It's the little things. It's the little tiny things that get under your skin. So when
you get two people that are 180 degrees opposite, you're getting someone who can see problems in a
different view and a different light to go. And if you're mature enough to go, oh, I never thought
of that. Let me contemplate that. I didn't see that problem or I didn't see that solution.
And we walked the property and we decided at that point that we were all in. We were done.
We were done at dealerships. His treated them like gold when they found out he was going to leave.
I got fired. I've never been fired in my life ever. Not once. I was up front. Hey, I bought a shop.
This is what's happening. This is what's going on. I'm just giving you the guy's heads up.
I'm not going in two weeks. It's literally abandoned. Yeah. Bye.
Which is very telling of obviously why the culture was so bad in the first place, right?
Absolutely. 100%. And that's what told me I made a good move.
Yeah. So what was the first week like at the brand new building?
So my ex-girlfriend, which is my current wife, she hates it, but I call her my ex-girlfriend.
Listen, you're my wife. You're my ex-girlfriend, right? She remembers vividly of me pulling up
in my 90, my lifted 98 Dodge Dakota pickup truck with a trailer and a toolbox on the back,
pulling up in front of the house. And I pop out with the biggest dumbest smile going,
guess what I did today, honey? Right? And I immediately, I talked to her for five minutes.
We grabbed something to eat. And I flipped the U-turn, took it to the new shop.
And I had just primed all the walls in the shop. We got it cleaned out. We pressure washed it.
We just got electric. And I think the two-post lift was scheduled, I think,
three weeks before they dropped it off. So I didn't have any way to lift anything.
But I basically had three weeks there to put together what invoicing program we were going to use.
I started the process to own the location for Google. You got to remember this is a gas station
from 1965. It didn't exist on maps. It opened. It was built in 1961. It went out of business
in 1969 and was abandoned since then. So it didn't exist on maps. It didn't have a street address.
It didn't have a telephone number. So I went through all of those processes to put us on a
map quest at Google and all those places. And honestly, it gave me three weeks to get my head
together. And man, when we dropped that first lift, we put it up ourselves. And
it was like a switch. It was unreal. It was an amazing experience that I would never
want to trade in my life because it was literally the day we put it up, we started taking appointments.
And it was just a step-by-step process. Our first month was like $400, I think,
something like that. But the next month was $1,000. And the next month was $1,500.
And it's what's so cool about this industry is, of all the people that I've heard about their first
week or their first day or their first month or their first year in their own business,
not once has somebody ever said to me, nobody ever came in the first day.
There's always been such a neat a dory that it's like, it doesn't matter. I don't know
whether the pre-marketing works or there's that many broken cars just driving by all the time.
I think that's what it is. I think it's too. They see a new sign, they see a new light on,
they see a new place, and they go, I'm going to give that a shot. And I don't know whether it's
like they're trying to get one up on us where it's like, oh, I'm going to go in there and
they're going to be brand new and they're going to need me as a customer. Or is it just like
they're that optimistic? But I mean, this is the beauty of it because other businesses
you could start like a restaurant, there's lots of restaurants that open on the first day.
And if they don't do like a ton of pre-marketing, nobody walks in.
No, you don't walk in. Right.
I've never talked to a shop owner. It's like my first day, we had no customers.
I think that's just very telling about the power of what our industry still is and how
viable and necessary we are. We got to always remember that it goes back to valuing ourselves.
We are almost, well, we've pretty much proven it. We're almost recession proof.
Like I can tell you, we're COVID proof.
We're absolutely COVID proof. My business did not change at all.
Yeah.
Not once. Through any of the lockdowns or COVID or any of that BS, we did the same amount of work
from the beginning to the end. Now, we might have had like a, we might have put together some
money to maybe deal with if someone walked in our door and told us that we were going to get
shut down, that maybe we were going to have to figure out to bail out the owner because we were
kind of like waiting to knock somebody out. If someone told us we were going to close,
like we're not closing. I don't know what to tell you, but we're not closing.
But that was, it's been steady. It's been steady in growth the entire time from day one.
The lessons that we learned, the first I can tell you the exact job that I stood my ground
on a price and said, no, I'm sorry. I can't do it for that. Have a nice day. Hey, call us if anything
changes. And the next day, hey, I'm going to schedule that job. I appreciate it. I can't find it
cheap. What was that, Dory? What's that? The job was that. That was a, that was timing chains
and a Nissan Murano. And it's a big job. You have to drop the engine out of the bottom
of the car. And we stood, I said, listen, it's 14 hours. There's nothing I can do about it.
I can either put after market timing chains in it or I can put OEM ones. Guess which one I want you
to do. It's a waste of time otherwise, you know, but we stood our ground. And to this day, we
have that customer. 11 years, 11 years later, that customer, you don't have the Murano. It
rusted out a long time ago, but you know, but he appreciates what we do and how we do it.
Yeah. It isn't that cool, right? Because, I mean, it's the same. And
how many times have we dropped the ball as an industry in that where we didn't stand our ground
and we completely shift the dynamic of where it should be where, and I don't want to say, like,
we're in charge and they're not, but that's pretty much what it is, right? Because otherwise,
it's like, we're saying, here's the steering wheel, like, I'm going to let you drive,
but I'm going to correct you a little bit just so we get to where we're both happy
going. Whereas, like with you or us, when the customer says, and it's like, no, listen, I've
got it in park. My foot's on the brake. This is as far as I go. If we go together, I still drive.
You're along the ride, right? Like, you know, I'm providing you something. I know the analogy
is a little off, but listen to what I'm trying to say here is that we're not,
they don't dictate the process. That's what I keep saying. Exactly. They don't dictate it.
I do. It's my bit. I get to set the rules. When you stand up to the customer and say,
I honestly want to believe that most customers will respect you for that. Now, you have to be
then professional and you have to get the results that you fucking promise them. We can't have
that conversation the other day with Brian and it's the episode will drop there.
The amount of dyag that's being done on cars that we're all about charging for dyag and it's
not right. Like it's the dyag is wrong. Like Brian talks about she comes in. I need a cam sensor.
Okay. That's pretty straightforward. It's a Nissan needs a cam sensor. Yeah, I already have one done.
Whoa. Okay. Shoot. Now you go through the what kind of part was put in and all this. Right? Right.
Dory, they put it in the wrong fucking bank. What a surprise. It's a leader in a frontier
and they put it in the wrong bank. Like they got she got charged for repair, charged dyag for the
repair and still had to go to Brian's shop because when it didn't take, they told her it has to be
programmed. We don't program here. So that's the escape goat. Oh, it needs program. Right.
I don't know what's going on. I look over what I did or maybe I messed up. Yeah, it needs
program. It should have worked. You can remember it as I can. It always made me laugh. Oh, you got to
go to the dealer for that then. You know, you're for that got to go to the dealer for that. You
must have to go to the dealer because my scanner won't do it or right. Right. Yes, there's some
truth to that. But like, man, I fix a lot of cars with a code reader and a very basic set of
data like I still do. And it's why? Because like, cannot I'm not going to fix the one hole one DTC
that in a Nissan with a code reader because it needs. Oh, sorry about that.
But you know what I mean, but it's like I can, I can, I can't flash it with that. I can't put
software in. Right. I can do a dyag with that those pins where I need the data stream.
Yeah, I can, I can see that that wave is a mess. I can see that Oh, when it hits this temperature,
it quits reading. You know, those are all valuable tools. Most people can't.
Most people can't. I don't want to say most people. Some texts, there's a difference between
I always like to say some guys can tell you if an alternator is functioning.
Some guys can go in and tell you how an alternator functions. Yeah. Right. There's
a difference between knowing if diodes are bad or the windings are bad or if the brushes are bad.
You know, is that necessary in that scenario? Not always. I just need to know whether it's
functioning or not. But it's not. But it's not important enough. But it's damn good information
to know because sometimes you'll run into like a Nissan Murano that the gauge cluster light
isn't telling the alternator to charge. I've seen guys put two and three alternators in cars and I'm
going, did you check the gauge cluster? Because that's all part of that circuit. If you pull the
schematic up and go through your lines, that gauge cluster is actually what controls the alternator.
Is it doing its job? No. Well, bypass this and this, this wire. Oh, look, it's charging. Surprise.
It's not being told to turn on. And you just wouldn't think of that. You just, you know,
if we're grading like an A grade, a B grade, a C grade, maybe even a B grade tech wouldn't know
to go that deep into that scenario. You know, so it's important to have those basics, to have those
building blocks to understand, okay, what all is involved in this system because it's not 1970
anymore. There are way too modules. When I started working at Lexus, there were six modules in their
highline luxury vehicle. By the time I left, there was 32. Yeah. It was insane. Yeah. I scanned a 2022
Volvo X40 or whatever, whatever. Just for, I'm doing a great job and I got to back up the
car. Oh yeah. Good times. Counting at 40 some modules that the Autel showed me.
41. You're an Autel guy too. Dude, I love my Autel. I have an Autel. That's not the best piece of
equipment you've ever used. So I own my own Snap-on Zeus, not the Zeus minus, as everybody calls it.
All right. That's good. That's my own Zeus. And then the shop has a little Autel and like,
I love Snap-on Tools. I've had it on Scanners forever. But man, like I tried to do the same
process with the Zeus and it's like, no, you have to buy a secondary cable and all this
kind of stuff. The Autel and the Autel says, yep, you want to back up the caliber, here you go.
Now I like that they're putting more of the breaking stuff behind the secure gateways.
I think that's a joke. Like that should be, that's BS is what it is. That's all it is,
is locking them. Nobody wants to steal the breaking information from the fucking car.
Like say that you have to be on to, you know, like be logged in and accredited in order
to back up the caliber off. Like, can I get around it? Yes. Do I want to every time? No,
I don't want to ground to every real caliber. Are you guys fighting for the right to repair
in Canada? Do you have any kind of laws that are coming into play for that?
It's not even as bad here as it is for you guys in the States with nasty stuff.
We're going to shut down on a lot of things. I'm paying for that access,
that extra layer of access. Like I can't even clear, like if I go into a newer 2021 Jeep Wrangler,
right? I can't even go in and clear codes now without that pre-authorization and access.
Nissan's doing it, Chrysler's doing it, which means Mercedes-Benz is also going to follow suit.
There's a fight here for the right to repair. There's a lot of legislature that's coming up.
I don't know if it's going to go anywhere, but I see it. It's a problem. It's definitely a problem.
And it frustrates me because it's like, I can get their point of saying,
you know, like on a Dodge truck, let's put the wireless control module. Like,
or the, you know, let's put that behind some kind of security, because that's what
makes the car start and, you know, somebody could steal it. But the brake thing or the air
conditioning, you know, climate control doesn't need to be there. Braking doesn't need to be there.
Like we need to still make this stuff so that it's like, if somebody should go to
the local chain store and need a brake job done and it's the only place it's open and all
that kind of stuff, we should be able to provide them with the, and this is a slippery slope
because, you know, I want competent qualified people working on stuff, but they shouldn't be,
have to tell the customer, sorry, you know, it's only going to be a dealership with service
credentials that is going to be able to get your brake job done because we haven't paid the money
to service your, your calipers. I think that's bullshit. Right. They're not there to get a
key programmed. They're not there to get a security, you know, security handshake done with a new ECM.
They just want a fucking brake job done. And to lock it behind that module then to me is just,
it's just plain dirty is what it is. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, I get it, you're driving people
to try to go to the dealership. That's really all that mechanism is for. It's to crush the
independence. You know, it's to make one more problem to try to access another system that you
should have access to to begin with. We're dealing with this. I own it, but I don't own it. Yeah.
And that's what gets me fired up. Yeah. It's anything that BMW subscription services
for heated seats. Why are we not burning down dealerships?
But see, we can thank Tesla for that because he was the first one that I ever heard of
that was like, oh, if you want certain features on the car to be there, all you got to do is subscribe
and we turn it on. And now like everybody just like you said is adopting that where it's like
after when the warranty's up, you know, or like we'll shut those features off.
And we'll just turn them back on. It drives me absolutely asinine ridiculous that somebody
in a little room with a bunch of switches and some keyboards can turn on functions in my car
that I can't because I decide I want to pay money. I own the car. How it was conceived
and built is how it should stay right minimum. Well, that was that was the first case you brought
up Tesla. That was kind of the the first case of a Tesla was bought at an auction.
It was then repaired. Yeah. It was put back online on Tesla and Tesla eliminated features
that said, well, you didn't pay for those. Yeah. Well, I bought the car at auction. What
are you talking about? Those features are features that come with the car when I purchased it at
auction. I haven't followed up on that case. I probably need to. I wouldn't be surprised if
it's still a litigation to tell you the truth. That's insane. Like how do you not do it?
And the only like silver lining in that whole cloud is that what it's going to do
is drive the more computer literate people to go, oh, how do I crack that?
How do I communicate with the Tesla and limit its communication to Tesla servers and just tell it,
don't worry about it, turn everything on. Yeah. You know, and that's a shame because then there's
going to be legislation for that. Oh, you're stealing. Well, I'm not. I'm actually doing
everything my car is supposed to do. Like there's a whole argument there. I get that.
You know, it's really frustrating to see, honestly, because honestly, I think, you know,
I'm 47 years old. I think we're the last generation that understands, hey, when I buy
something, I have it. Yeah. I try to explain to my 15 year old son the difference between
local data being stored on his laptop and what is the cloud. Yeah. He didn't get it.
No, he did not understand what that is. The difference between, you know, I haven't turned
on vinyl, man. Right. So I have a bunch of vinyl. I'm like, dude, you have all this music to listen
to all of it. No one can tell you, oh, I'm sorry, you have to download that first or oh, I'm sorry,
that comes with ads. Yeah. You know, so it's tough. It's tough to hold that line of I own
it. I have it. I should be able to use it. That was my biggest beef with the idea of having an
iPod. I can serve my ex-girlfriend years ago, bought me an iPod. And before that, I was just rocking
an MP3 player. When somebody showed me the iPod, I was like, wait a minute. So I got to take all
the music I already have and put it on your server before I can use it on your machine.
Yeah. You already own this music. I can put it on my own laptop and put it on an MP3.
Why the fuck do I need an iPod? That's an iPod. And that was enough for me to say,
I've never owned an iPhone. I never will own a product. I'm just against that.
The idea that I have to give it to them before I can use it. No, it's mine. I bought those CDs off
of Columbia House. Columbia House, right? Got one for a penny. They're fucking. I'm not putting
them on your server to put them on your machine. And to ask for authorization to play them.
You know, it's just it's insanity to me. So you got a young person recently.
Oh, yeah. How's that going? Well, I'll tell you what, it's funny that you brought up kind of like
the end of he worked at. He's kind of had the same experience in a shorter interval. You know,
he's 21. Yeah. But he's worked at independent shops and he's worked at dealerships.
And what I'm doing a lot is deprogramming because he's had shitty management. And that's the bottom
line. You know, he's a good kid. He's got a good heart. He's very intelligent. He can definitely
read and comprehend better than me, which is which is a very valuable tool to have. But he
has been taught like, I think his line is like, Oh, I messed up, I'll pay for it. Well, it's not
paying for it. It's the lesson I want you to learn on why you messed it up. Paying for it
doesn't make everything okay. Right? It doesn't just go away. Like I want you to learn and make
the lesson of, Oh, if I slowed down, or if I looked up the proper diagnostic procedure for this,
or if, Hey, I paid attention on what I'm doing or how I'm doing it. It's that slow it down
and make everything more simple. I'm deprogramming a lot of stuff. Yeah. Because, you know,
but again, I'm a little older. I didn't believe in peanut allergies and all these other things.
But dude, I'll tell you, this kid might die. He runs into a pack of peanuts. I've seen him puff up so
fast. It's not even funny. So then we have to watch what he brings in what the customer cars.
I can't have him dig through glove boxes. You know, when you have a technician that
carries an EpiPen in his toolbox, I get it. I understand it. But he's worked for dealerships
that have treated him like garbage because of that. You know, I get it. I may have not subscribed
to it until I saw it. But it's legit. He's not making this crap up. Like I've watched him
turn pink and get welts up his arm because he touched a wrapper. Right? So I get it. It's just
a lot of deprogramming. I wouldn't keep him if he didn't have a good head on his shoulders. And
that's really what it's about. It frustrates me when I'm still engaging in the groups and
whatnot. And I see people, you know, talk about the young people and especially like,
oh, if they come from a dealership, like, I don't even want them because they're
going to have so many bad habits. And if they come from an independent, I don't want them because
like they're not going to have the level of quality that I expect, you know, for my high end. And
I'm like, man, when you don't realize, like, it's traumatic to leave a job that you've had,
whether you were fired or whether you quit, it's traumatic. So you have that to deal with
when they get in there. And then like, I know the first month at any new job, I am not me because
I am like trying so hard not to... I'm trying to really hard to remember everybody's name.
I'm trying to like clock in. What's my number now? Like I can remember my time in 2004,
but what am I now? I'm 1289. Okay, that's 3510. Right. All day long. Right. Exactly.
To remember, right? And I'm just like trying not to screw up. Right. Not to screw up. I'm trying
to get the paperwork right. Last week, you know, last month I was using TechmetricTVIs.
Now I'm back to a pad and a paper again. Like, all this stuff. So when we get these young people
in here and they go, oh my God, they're just not getting it. They're stupid or no. But you
literally have to take them and expect that you're going to have to back them up just
like you said, deprogram them, refresh that hard drive or whatever. And like pat them on the
shoulder and go, you're going to get it. You're going to... Okay, like here's what you're doing
really well. Here's what I love about what you're already doing. Like you're taken to this
like that. Perfect. Here's what I need you to do though. I need you to not make the
fucking mess. Right. Be like that. Don't be like, did you... Does everybody make a mess like
where you were? That's not productive. That's not how you do that. Right. He told me stories
of being an independent where the guy would throw stuff at him. Oh, yeah. Right? And I'm just going,
listen, first off, that doesn't happen here. We'll figure it out. And at the end of the day,
we're going to have a debrief anyway. Yeah. You know, we're going to... Because they need
that little bit of extra assistance because they've had a shit experience for the last two years
at other places. And the difference is you can tell immediately whether they have the right stuff
or not. I really do believe in that because I worked at the Nissan dealership and I went from
having two bays to one kid showing up randomly and he's like, oh, yeah, I'm working in this bay.
And I immediately went to certain, I'm like, what are you doing? Well, yeah, he's going to
work here and I'm watching him nod off, taking tests online to get Nissan certified. I'm like,
you're not going to last here. And I'm going to make sure you're not going to last here
because I'm already a dick. So, you know, but you get a feel for people. And I trust
you. Are you a legitimate person here for the right reasons? I'm going to go out of my way
to fix your training, to adapt your work style to how you troubleshoot to the knowledge that you
need. And more importantly, I'm going to show you how to find the answers. I'm not a tell you
the answers guy. Definitely. I hate that. I'm going to show you how to find your answers
and then progress down the tree of diagnosis and troubleshooting and estimates and all that fun
stuff because I want to build you. I'm not interested in just grinding you down to nothing.
There's nothing to be gained from that. And that lesson, that answer that they go find on their own,
they will always hold it more valuable than all the answers we ever give them. I can still
remember one of the best kids I ever mentored Oliver's name. He's gone on to do incredible
things. But it's these lessons we have. We had a Saturn view that they changed the engine in.
And when it was done, it didn't start. And Oliver comes over to me and he, of course,
this is not a rather toxic shithole of a shop that we both.
And it had really bad culture and I had a real, I've talked about them. The shop foreman was
the only gentleman that like, if I saw him walking on the side of the road to this day,
it would be everything I could do to not jerk the wheel towards where he's walking.
It's still that much. 20 years later, it's that, that. But anyway, sure.
Oliver, his task was swapping this engine out. And when it doesn't start,
he hooks it up and there's like 20 codes in the thing. And he goes over and he's like,
he's got 20 codes in it. And the guy's shooting his mouth off the
performance. Oh, I fucking probably needs an engine computer, probably dropped the computer
out. And I'm thinking, how does that happen from changing the engine? That doesn't make any
sense at all. But okay, whatever. So Oliver, by now, he'd been there long enough to know that like
that guy troubleshooting wasn't his strength. Right.
In one, you know, hold out the shooting parts, right? He comes to me, he goes, I go,
so what's it doing? And he goes, well, it's got a bunch of codes and it doesn't start. And
I go, um, well, what's missing? Because I don't really know yet. I go, okay, just go over
and see if you got spark. So he goes over and he comes back and says, I got no spark.
I go, so, um, what do you have at your coils? And he comes back to me and he says, um, you know,
like Thomas, he's like, uh, I'm only got five volts of the coils. And I'm like, every coil?
He's like, yeah. I'm like, so, and me, I don't know what's wrong with this car, but I go,
so Oliver, let's think for a minute. Have you ever seen a coil in your life yet that
operated on five volts? No. So I said, well, that's where I would start that is trying
to figure out why all your coils only have five volts. And I said,
don't get overwhelmed with the fact that it's got 15 codes in it. Just think about like,
pull your wire into our basics, right? Ended up being Dory that there's two connectors that will
swap on that engine. Oh my goodness. So it ended up like having an EGR swapped with a cam
sensor or something like that. Right. So he fixed it, you know, like in an hour later,
the car's running. He to this day, we talk about that and we joke about that. And we,
you know, remember when the asshole said it needed an,
thank fuck, we didn't listen to that guy, right? Right? Yeah. That's a good feeling.
That lesson, and I didn't teach him a lesson. I just like, think about this this way, Oliver.
And all of a sudden now, I know it, it, it became part of his process on how he approaches a problem.
Whereas the other guy could offer nothing, but background noise that thank God,
there was somebody else there, me to disregard that. Yeah. So this reminds us to shut off all
the other external shit. Don't let's just think about this from basics. And I am proud to be able
to say that like that guy now does troubleshooting remotely for one of the largest fleets in North
America on their death and reductant and after treatment systems on these buses. Wow. So that's
something that like, and this is not me bragging, but I mean, the little things that we think
mean nothing when we're in the shop can have such an effect on the people that are around us,
that shape their whole process. And the process, ladies and gentlemen, is what shapes your trajectory.
And your trajectory is what your life becomes. Yeah. You know, people hear me say all the time,
there is no ceiling for, for, for this person or that person. It's the truth. If you set them
up, they, they, they will, they will run out of time before they run out of potential. Right.
But you have to build that foundation with these people. So when we get these young
people in here and oh, they're no good or man, they're good. They are good. They are better
than we were. Yeah. It's just different, right? Like it is just different. And well, it's,
it's different. And I always think back on, you know, when I get frustrated with a 21 year old,
because what do I have in common with a 21 year old? You know what I mean? Like I have lots of
answers. I could give him an answer to literally every problem in his life right now. Yeah.
Is he going to listen? No. So at the end of the day, I go, okay, I'm frustrated.
What can I show him tangibly that is going to give him a building block? I could tell you,
you know, all the answers, but that's not the fun part. Humans only get better through trial
and tribulation. I really believe that the only way we learn honestly is trials and tribulations
of where you can go, man, this sucks. How am I going to get better? Oh my God, I fixed it. Oh my
God, I fixed it, right? There's no feeling. I don't care what drugs, sex, rock and roll,
they're all great. Fix a problem. Fix a problem that no one else can. It's right into the veins.
You're just like, dude, I got this, right? It's a dangerous path becomes like a drug because then
it's like, I 100% and convince some of the people that we know in our circles that are like doing
these nightmare cars that other shops couldn't get through. If you think that they're not addicted
to that, you're kidding yourself. They are certainly 100% getting off on the fact that
it's like, I did another one. My friend Brian, it frustrates him when he gets a car from somewhere
else and it seems simple to him, but I know I've known Brian a long time now and I know that he
would not be Brian if he wasn't at that level and constantly pushing himself, getting that kick.
That fix, yeah. Yeah, that fix, right? Like, I'm in my car, man. Like, you know, I'm ready for it.
Like, yeah, bragging rights alone. I mean, that's, you know, to be able to do something
like that and go, yeah, duh, you know, we've had, we've had stuff like that and here's the
double-edged sword of that. A lot of times those jobs don't hang. That's right. That's the
double-edged sword. So you get to be the hero, you get the happy ending, you get your fix.
How do you explain to a customer six hours of diagnosis? That's a tough, that's even for me,
that's a tough sell, you know? Yeah, but this is why we need to be charging the one-hour
dykes on the cars. Get up on the downside and you get, yeah, absolutely, yeah. That's going to, and,
you know, it sounds of late like I'm always trying to say nobody should be doing free dykes.
Listen, whatever you want to do in your market or whatever, it's you. Like,
there's enough to go around. We can't fix all the cars. But like for me,
that's what it pulls down to me is like, I know what the dealer,
like I had some that took me three hours and I got paid an hour. But I had ones that like,
I looked at the work order, walked out, put the key in it, hit the switch, heard it,
walked back inside, I had six minutes in it and I collected 36 minutes. That all evened out.
Right. And it's fair. Like a lot of people don't understand that, that, listen, I come across
problems that I've already had. Yeah. Right. And it takes me eight minutes to do it.
But in the long run, there's about maybe four people that would know that in the 50 mile radius
of our area, just because I've experienced it. Yeah. Should I not get paid the full amount?
No. I should get paid for what I know. Yeah. And I have the special tools in my toolbox
that makes the job easy. You know, a lot of people don't understand that. My, you know what,
our loved ones are probably the hardest on us. Right? I have that discussion with my wife
regularly. You know, well, flat rate, I don't understand flat rate. I don't understand. Well,
you didn't spend that time on it. How should, why should you get paid? Because I already lost
my ass. That's exactly it. Four other cars ago. It's time for me to make my money now
because now I know. Yeah. You know, it's difficult to explain, but at the same time,
did the car get fixed? Absolutely. Does it run like a top? Does it do everything it's supposed to
do? Absolutely. Was everybody happy? Absolutely. Then let's go with that. You know. Yeah.
And see, the thing is, like, when I explained to people the two sides of the flat-rate coin
and they go, well, I paid for two hours and you had it done in 45 minutes. That's not fair.
The other side is when I say to them, it took me three hours and only got paid one. They say,
you're crazy. So, like, this is the life we choose and this is the life we live in and we've made
our, we're at peace with it. Right? If you want to work for it, you're at peace with that.
It's not anymore. Not because I can't do it. I keep saying that again, but because it's too
much as control has been taken away now to where I have to, the kind of cars that they would give me,
like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to diagnose them for 36 minutes anymore. Even if I could,
I'm not going to. I'm going to slow down, gather even more evidence, you know, document even more
things. It's just a slower process now because I'm not trying to hit a number. I'm trying to
solve the problem and trying to fix the problem. That means collecting evidence, collecting information.
I'm trying to create lessons that I can share, case that I can pass on. That all eats into the
time. So, you know, it's not because I can't get the work done in a timely manner. I can't
diagnose the cars pretty fast. Some of them I still can. But it's, it's, I'm giving more
value now when I can do the tests above and beyond what I already know to prove it
out even more. That's value now. And that's just how I choose to go.
What's the future look like for you guys? What's your goals?
I'm trying very hard to grow our bays. We've talked about building.
The borough that we're in and the local government that we're in is going to be difficult.
I would love to go to more bays because I think we have a lot to offer. I think we have a fantastic
I think we have a fantastic storage of experience. Both me and my business partner,
we're getting older. You know, we have bad shoulders. We have bad hips. We have, you know,
physically we can't do it. But man, I think I can really teach the right people to really be a
kick-ass team. We've also talked about shifting more into used cars. You have more control over
used cars. It's not such a timeline. It's not, oh my God, they have to get this to work tomorrow.
And if you put out good quality there, again, you can crush local competition. You know, how many
times have you seen cars come from some other small independent car lot that has check engine
lights and air suspension lights and brake lights on and you're just going, what are you doing?
Why are you selling cars like this? And again, if you just
do what you say you're going to do, people are happy to pay a premium because no one else is doing it.
So, you know, we're looking at kind of a bunch of expansion models. All I know is in the future,
I'm going to work on cars less. That is like, I can't, you know, I talk about it's the mileage,
it's not the age, you know, run a slide hammer. I can't do a slide hammer. My elbow and my shoulder
are out of commission for two days. I'm not touching it, you know. I pounded spindles on,
I did a Volkswagen Geno last week and the struts where they go down into the spindle,
right? So, I'm pounding up on the bottom of the spindle to get it slide on. With a
three pound sledge like sore handle. I didn't fish this weekend because like this hurts.
That's a rod with that. Like, so, you know, in the old days, I could run an air hammer in the
morning and I could run one in the afternoon. I could knock them ball joints out and, you know,
just take the rivets right off. But the, you know, the Dodge Dakota ball joint recall,
we'd do them in 12 minutes like people, oh, you can't. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You crush it.
Did it. Now, I'm the same slide hammer. No, like I can't do tires anymore. If I do a bunch of
tires in the morning in the afternoon, I'm sitting down. Yeah. Well, I took a break from doing
tires so we didn't have tire machine at our shop for about six years. Nice. And then we had
a dealership that was updating all their equipment and I got like the Primo, like road force balancer,
like the dealer machine. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember how to do this. And I bang out my first
four and I spend the rest of the day limping. Yeah. I'm like, oh, wow, I haven't done this in
six years. There's a difference. And, you know, it's a very difficult lesson to learn
because up here, I'm still the 25 year old. Oh, I can boom, boom, boom, boom. We'll bang that out. Okay,
good. What's next? And I'm used to doing that. And when the body lags, it's not fun and it's
very humbling. And so we're making that shift to consulting, teaching, passing on our experience
because I tell you what, you know, what's really fun is showing up a 21 year old and
how to do a job. Yeah, it is. Right? Yeah, it is. And then it's like, but then I know that like,
I only have to show that 21 year old once and then like, yes, you know, he's got it. Tomorrow,
he'll blow the doors off it and be like, Oh, keep up, old man. You know, and part of me,
I smile inside, man. I'm like, All right, good, you get it. Good. Thank you. One,
I'm going to make sure I take care of you. That's a big part in this industry. And
I hear you talk about all the time I hear anybody in this industry talk about you have
to take care of your employee. You have to the days that they're evolving door. I remember working
a Nissan guys would show up in the morning with a craftsman, top load toolbox with like six tools
in it, and they would quit my lunch and go home. Yeah, those days are over. Yeah. Yeah. It
doesn't, it doesn't work. And I've seen them too. They roll in with a cart and he got some tools in
it. And you know, by Friday, they're rolling out or the second Friday, you know, the first
paycheck, right? Yeah, they got the first check in the boss is like, Yeah, I don't,
you know, we kind of, we kind of needed somebody more experienced. And we thought maybe,
you know, what they're saying is it's like, you're taking too long, or you don't have
enough experience. And both of them to me, I look at is like, we're failing them, you know, because
like they just might not have it where they can't look at that and go, okay, in order to get that
all later out of here, I have to move these, this and this and this and this and this. And I'm,
I'll tell everybody, I'm not one of those texts that can look at that and see it.
I remember the first Ford Escape all later I did, I took so long thinking that there's no
possible flippin way to take the fucking alternator out of a car.
Yeah. You know, now I do them in like 45 minutes. But like I was like three hours because I'm
convinced there's got to be a way there's got to be some mystical combination of tools and
holding your tongue right and it'll, it'll sweep through. Don't fucking, you know,
absolute. What was the big deal about taking the axel out? Like I should have just, you know,
done it. It's mental. It's mental. It's all up here, right? Because I'm not that way. I'm looking
over and that guy's like, why don't you take the axel out? And I'm like, why is that car still
not starting? Like even down, that's how I was, right? This is my strength. This is not my
strength. Yeah, strength. That's not your strength. And that's just we were and it
takes all kinds. Dora, I don't want to keep you any longer, man. This has been a long night
for you. Absolutely. Thanks for giving me the opportunity. I really appreciate coming on, man.
Dude, man, the kind words that you've been saying and all that kind of stuff, it really,
you know, it's really nice to hear. And that's the thing like, we're starting to really
feel like we're making some traction in terms of actually getting, you know, people to think
about what really this is going to take to change this. And, you know, like you said in the beginning,
you're having the conversations and asking the questions and giving the answers that nobody
wants to do. I love the tough questions. I love the issues. I just, I think that I'm
in such a comfortable place now about like, this is where we want to head as an industry.
Like it's just going to take more of these conversations. They're not that bad.
You know, they're not. And more than anything, I really wanted to give you an honest thank you
to bringing attention to suicide rates. That was something that was really heartfelt
on one of your other episodes that this is an issue. And it's something that is very close to me
for situations that I've dealt with. But thank you so much for bringing, because the more we talk
about it, and the more we bring it to light, that when you have good people being treated poorly,
causing issues like that, we got to talk about it. It shouldn't be that way. It's the bottom
line. It shouldn't be that way. So thank you very much for bringing that to light. That was
something that really touched my heart. So I appreciate it. Thank you for the time, man. I really
do. I, in closing on that, like, you know, I've never had a bay mate that's gone, you know,
that way. I had a good friend take his own life two years ago. And he didn't work in the industry.
And, you know, I had, I've got my brother who's struggled, you know, within the past
with some PTSD from his job and all that kind of stuff. And it's been in some dark places
a lot. And when I think about what he has had to go through to earn a living,
and then I think about, because he's a correctional officer, and I think about what we have to do,
like we're only dealing with cars. It shouldn't be that bad dealing with cars that we feel that
way. He's dealing with criminals, like the worst of the worst, people that would like are
trying to kill him or would kill him if they could get away with it. That is heavy on you.
You see the ugliness all day long. We are just working on cars. If we are in this blue collar
job, and it is so bad from working on cars that we see no other way out, then the industry
is broken. It's okay to say that it's broken because that means that if we acknowledge that
it's broken, we go about fixing it. And that's all there is to this. It's just that simple.
Yeah. So I kind of giggled a little bit with my background, what I have going on here, right?
My wife is a therapist. So I've commandeered her office just to do the video conference. I
thought this was good to do the podcast. So if anyone out there feels enlightened,
maybe you had a good therapy session. But she deals with drug and alcohol addiction.
She sees it every day. I have family members that went through it. And we're at a point where
I believe everyone can find somewhere along the line. You deal with it. Find the help.
Find the help. Get the therapy. Talk to somebody. I don't care if it's a therapist.
I don't care if it's a loved one. Talk to somebody. Get the help you need.
Anyone that's watching and listening, you can always reach out to me.
If you're in this industry and you're feeling that way, don't wait. Get a hold of me.
Right? And then we'll have a conversation. We'll have the talk. You will feel better,
for sure. Doris, thank you, brother, for being here. I want to see how your young
person is working out. I want to see the shop, which direction you take it.
As everybody, as always, I love you. Thank you for listening. We'll talk to you again soon.
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 change in the industry
podcast. Remember what I always say, in this industry, you get what you pay for.
Here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10 millimeter and we'll see you all again next time.
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