Flat Rate EXPOSES Lazy Techs and that Scares the Auto Repair Industry

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I would never be in the position I'm in financially if it wasn't for flat rate.

But would I enjoy a base, or would I enjoy some hourly pay,

maybe one week or two weeks when it's slow,

or I'm not feeling like working tons of hours?

Yes, I would enjoy that.

Ultimately, I think it might be hard for some people to swallow is that

good techs will be good techs.

Bad techs will be bad techs.

And if you give incentive, a lot of places will be surprised

that their work is going to stay the same.

Those lazy techs are going to stand out and they're going to be exposed.

And I think that's what a lot of people are afraid of.

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another exciting episode of the Jade

Mechanic podcast. It's another hot, swultery summer night.

And I'm sitting here with again, drumroll ready, another Canadian.

I know you guys are getting so sick of that.

But I mean, hey, I mean, we got to do something in this country

to keep us all with a positive outlook with the way things are going.

But I'm sitting here with a young gentleman named Curtis Gardner

who reached out to me and did a really cool thing.

He kind of an episode we did with David Klein, he posted to his Instagram

saying that everybody is in the automotive sector needs to hear this episode.

And I thought that was really cool.

And I'd seen a little bit of Curtis before, but I hadn't seen a ton.

And now I'm a big fan.

So Curtis, thanks for coming here tonight, man.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me on.

Yeah. So how long have you been at this game?

Uh, I'm just entering my 16th year.

Wow. Wow.

And you work as an Audi tech?

Yeah, I'm nine years as an Audi technician.

Just hit Master Guild at the beginning of this year.

Congratulations.

That's that's quite an accomplishment.

So they're not a favorite brand of mine to work on by any stretch.

So my hat's off to you.

You have a lot of my respect there.

I think they're like anything else, right?

You get used to it and then it's, you know, it seems familiar and doesn't seem so.

But I mean, you know how some of the people like talk online, right?

They just Volkswagen and Audi.

They can't, they can't wrap their head around some of the engineering ideas.

So yeah, I was at Toyota for six years before and everyone told me,

Oh, you're going to hate it.

It's going to be awful.

And yeah, I mean, it was challenging for about a month or two.

And then it was, like you said, it's a car.

No, that's that's that's a funny move to make from Toyota to Audi.

Because I mean, I can remember back in the day, and as long as I've been doing this,

some guys that like our Toyota dealer technicians are, you know, work on a lot of Toyotas.

Absolutely love that.

There's like the brand used to be so good.

It made so much money.

They didn't break like the warranty times were awesome.

The retail times are even better.

Like, why would you leave Toyota and go to Audi?

I mean, Toyota is great.

I love Toyota, but I'm also trying to make some money.

And Toyotas are so good that they don't break as often.

And they're not as generous with their labor times and their warranty is not as generous.

So I, you know, it's funny.

I heard you talking about your master level pay.

And it was like, I got, I was a master at Toyota and Audi offered me the same pay to start at Audi.

Yeah.

Well, and it's so funny.

I can still remember our local Lexus dealer, which I'll call Lexus and Toyota one and the

same because in our local area, that's the same owner, same owner owns both of them.

And they were trying to find a technician and I was laid off with COVID

and they called and offered me a job.

And it was essentially the same per flat rate hour as what I was getting paid hourly

at the shop that I had been laid off from.

And I kind of laughed at the guy and I said, are you serious right now?

Like this is what you're offering to go work flat rate.

Yeah.

You make lots of hours.

And I'm like, it's Lexus.

Like it's a, it's a premier brand, you know.

And I said, that's for making lots of hours.

I said, I know your former shop foreman.

I know the guy that left.

You got none of the guys in the shop are making great hours.

So, you know, thanks for the offer, but I think I'll just pass politely.

Now that's three years ago.

I don't know if it's doing better, but I mean, I can remember, you know,

10 years ago on Facebook, everybody seemed to love working at Toyota.

And yeah, it's, I mean, I honestly love working on Toyota's.

They're great.

They're easy to work on.

They're, you have customers that will drive 300 or 400,000 miles

and you get a full life out of a car.

Right.

It's great.

But also want to make more money as a technician and kind of just

understanding that Toyota is a great brand to work for,

but Audi has a little bit more potential when it comes to making more money.

Right.

Stuff like that.

Right.

Wow.

So let's back up then.

Is that your whole kind of career so far?

You ever do a stint in the independent side or aftermarket side?

No, I started at a quick car doing oil changes.

That's about as independent as it's gotten.

And then started at Toyota, not very long after that,

maybe a six months or so and doing oil changes

and just ever since then been in dealerships.

Yeah. How'd you get into the industry?

You have like just, do you have family that's been a mechanic

or were you always taking stuff apart as a kid like all of us?

I'm always been into Legos.

I think that started with Legos for me as maybe it did

with every other mechanical technician out there.

Yeah. Legos or I used to hear a lot

like model planes and model cars, model airplanes, that kind of stuff.

I think now it's kind of the RC thing.

A lot of technicians seem to have been like RC guys.

I was an RC guy, but I put a lot of car models together as a kid

and a lot of airplane models and played with Lego too,

like Lego, Sandbox, anything that like, you know,

yeah, I could get my hands on because like I could read

and I like reading, but I always was more interested

in building something than just reading something.

You know what I mean?

Yeah. I tried college for semester

and quickly learned that it wasn't for me.

Yeah.

And then I, my mom told me I had to get a job.

So I was like, well, I'll try here doing change in oil.

And it was just, I wouldn't say it was rough,

but it was just changing oil, nothing crazy.

And one of the technicians there went to UTI.

And so I kind of heard from him, it was a good place to go.

And I was like, cool.

So I ended up going to UTI.

And kind of looking back, UTI costs a lot of money.

It's a good program, but it's expensive.

And so some school or some dealerships require you to have schooling.

So it was important for that to get into like a

premier dealership, if you will, to have that schooling.

So that kind of helped me.

However, looking back, there's probably definitely some cheaper

ways to go about getting that training.

Yeah.

Now, what campus do you go to?

I think, it's funny.

I think you said, I'm actually from Houston.

Oh, you're not Canadian.

Yeah, no, I was gonna,

I didn't want to interrupt you in the middle of that,

but I was like, oh no, I'm in Texas.

Okay, I'll get Braxton into that.

Because I was like, UTI, you'd be the first Canadian I've known

then that went to UTI.

I'm sure there's probably a couple.

But yeah, Houston, shit.

I shouldn't even talk about the heat then,

because you guys hear right in it.

Yeah, I was going to say, it's like today,

it was like 98 degrees, full humidity.

Very cool.

Well, I mean, I've heard lots of,

I've heard lots of good and bad.

I can remember, like lots of us,

I can remember watching TV as a teenager

and seeing ads for UTI and all those,

those kind of college programs and stuff.

And yet I talked to a lot of technicians now

that went through it and were like, man,

it was a lot of money.

It was really a lot of money.

And it helped me necessarily maybe get my resume looked at,

but a lot of them didn't take,

I think they come out of there going,

I thought I knew a lot.

And then when I hit the shop floor,

I really realized I didn't know a whole lot.

There was still so much more to learn.

So is that kind of what you thought?

Yeah, I think UTI does a fantastic job

of teaching you how each system works,

the basics of each system and how it works.

But they do it on a very generic level with,

I don't know, Chevy's or Nissan's,

whatever they can get into the shop.

And then when you get into a dealership,

you get that hands-on experience

of what it's really like to apply those things.

Yeah.

And you learn the nuances and the,

you know, like I always come back to evap, right?

Like when I was working at the Chrysler dealer,

like their evap system was like nothing else

that was being out at the time, you know,

like they were using a pump.

I don't say nothing else,

but in the domestic side, nothing else.

You know, everybody had a vent valve and a purge solenoid

and they had this pump.

And everybody was like, huh?

You know, and yet when we worked in it,

we knew it back, you know, forward.

And then when they go to the ESIM thing,

which is now even more common in the industry,

thanks to the influence of Chrysler

and the European stuff that's probably

really influencing Chrysler.

Now it's commonplace, right?

But I mean, I was lucky to be with Chrysler

because they were doing things that were different.

And that's what I liked about it.

And I just liked the brand,

but you know, I can remember I had a,

my actually a good friend of mine,

a good apprentice at the time he came as an apprentice.

Now he's an excellent mechanic as a Chrysler master tech.

And he come from Toyota and he said the same thing,

like they didn't hardly break, you know, they were just,

but he was held back at the Toyota store

because he was kind of held to like a C-Tech level, like,

you know, and he wanted to move up.

And there was no opportunity for him to move up.

The shop was very stuck in.

It's like, we have a guy that does this

and a guy that does that and we have a core group,

like you're going to be our old change guy.

And Dave was like trying to get, you know, to that next level.

And thankfully we were lucky that he landed in my,

you know, dealership and he's now an excellent technician.

So share that.

Yeah, I've been, thankfully I've been fortunate

to be a bumper to bumper for both Toyota and Audi.

So I've, and I don't know if Audi even does specialties.

Most automotive conferences, unfortunately,

only focus on one side of the shop.

But Tectonic 2026 presented by Tectometric is different.

It's built for the whole shop.

Owners, advisors and technicians all have sessions designed

for the work they actually do day to day.

It's three days in Houston, packed with workshops,

panels and over a thousand people from the industry

are set to attend.

And you don't need to be a Tectometric customer to qualify.

Hit up the link in the show notes below

and check out Tectonic 2026 register now

while you still can to get the early bird pricing.

But learning the whole car has helped me so much

rather than just some of the like Ford

and Chevrolet stuff out there

where they're learning just transmissions or whatever.

Yeah.

What, what, what do you remember about your first week at Audi?

The timing chains are on the back.

There's not very many inverse motors.

They're all trans, or sorry, it's like they're, they're inverse or

transverse.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying.

Yep.

Now that I'm, there's no transactors.

How about that?

There we go.

Say that that way.

Everything, even the like four cylinders and stuff like

that, everything is mounted transversely.

So it's, it was a big change because when you have to

to mess with the timing chains, you take off the transmission.

And so I was definitely challenged with that.

I was also challenged with they don't require you to lift

the cars up and drain the oil with the drain plug

because they have evacuation ports.

Right.

It was strange because that Toyota, that's all you did is lift

you lift the Toyota truck up to do an oil change for 0.5

and you're like, oh, this is just the way it is.

Now you get 0.5 for just sucking it out from the top.

Yeah.

You can walk away and do something else at the same time,

right?

Yeah, where's, you know, yeah, let's put a truck up and oh,

look, it has got extra skid plates.

Well, that's not going to pay extra time, you know,

like we're going to have to like, I mean, I don't know

how many, you know, bolts you've had in the skid plates

break down in Houston.

But up here, like, it's like, oh shoot, you know,

nobody ever lubricates some bolts before they put back in.

There's no any season and all of a sudden you're doing

it all change and, you know, you're fighting to get

skid plate bolts for half an hour like it sucks.

I've been blessed to not have to deal with that.

We don't have even the cars that come down from the north

from the north are they're still in decent shape

compared to some of the horror stories that I hear.

So I'll do control arm bushings and everything just

comes out smooth and everyone on Instagram is like,

I hate you.

This is off.

I'm like, this is normal for me.

I love it.

And then so I've kind of learned is that as a technician,

it's so much about if you want to make a ton of hours

about where you're at to sound so silly.

But up north, those same control on bushings

are going to pay you this.

And but you have to get the torch out.

You have to get the rust penetrant out.

It's going to take you twice as long.

But then down here, I do the same job in 25%

of the time because of just my environment.

Right.

Now, here's a question for you.

Do you think then like that warranty should pay more

for certain climates?

And even if it's not warranty, do you feel that like

it'd be justified to say somebody up north

wants to charge six hours to do the say the control arm job?

I'm just throwing numbers around, right?

Like I don't know what the control and bushing.

And say you guys get three.

Do you think that's fair?

Do you think that's a bunch of BS?

Oh, well, I think warranty could pay more everywhere.

Right.

We have now it's not a ton, but if you run the time under warranty

and you take the proper documentation of it,

you can get paid anywhere from like five tenths

to two and a half hours extra for seized bolts, broken bolts.

So you're not making a ton of time on it.

You can't really beat the book time.

However, you can get paid for it,

at least through Audi warranty.

Right.

And I have heard of guys charging an extra hour or two

for seized bolts.

And I'm like, that's fine with me.

Because I'd rather take the lower labor rate

than have to fight that bolt.

Well, it's not it's not worth it.

It's just a pain.

And I've heard people in the shop

get like maybe one or two pinch bolts stuck

and they'll spend an all day on it.

I'm like, no, no, thank you.

You can pay me triple what I'm getting.

And no, thank you.

Yeah, we just find another one yet.

There's a different fish for sure.

We struggle the most.

I think we're up here with alignments.

That's the biggest thing like it's like,

it's really hard to do some rear tow or rear tow.

Rear adjustment period on a lot of this stuff

when it's like, I'll say five years old,

you go in to try to do the rear adjustments

and the bolts are seized right in the bushings.

So if you get in there and try to like,

you know, move it,

you're tearing the bushings right out of it.

So sure you get your numbers to come green.

But guess what?

But you know, so everybody talks about like,

you know, the tow and go thing or nobody does a,

you can open a can of worms up here,

trying to do a rear adjustment on a lot of stuff.

If it's never been done and it's five years old,

I'll tell you that right now.

And I'm talking like,

you can really, really get yourself into some problems.

Not in line that you're going to do in an hour.

I'll tell you that right now.

And you're going to cost a lot more parts

and a lot more, you know, it just,

it's the snowball, right?

Like you just, and the customer is like, well, like,

why is it so seized?

Well, we never did alignment because, you know,

you got 100,000 miles out of that set of tires

and now we're putting new tires on

and we're going to line the whole car.

Well, guess what?

Everything back there is all seized up.

So we're big proponents for rust underproving

because it does help.

It really does help.

Does it actually keep the car from rusting away?

And a little bit,

but it does help with getting some of the fasteners loose.

And that's the biggest thing.

Like, like, I hate,

hate when you go to take, like,

the Volkswagen struts, for example,

if you've ever had to do one,

the Jedis and stuff,

like where the bolts go down through

and then not as capturing them on the strut,

almost every one of them up here.

Like it just spins.

It just breaks off and you're like,

you know, now you're getting in there

with a torch and a grinder to get the,

the nut off so you can get the strutter there.

Whereas like I talked to guys and I'm like,

oh yeah, I just spray a little bit of PBD on there

and then it comes right out.

And it's like, must be nice.

Yeah, I just, I don't even,

the PV, I don't even have to use that half the time.

So it's, I hear you say that.

I'm like, whew, I dodged a bullet just happened

to end up down here in Houston.

Just some simple stuff like that.

What do you find,

do you find a difference between the Toyota customer

and the Audi customer?

Are they mostly the same for you?

I'd say there's a big difference.

The part, the price of the car is a starting point.

Yeah.

But there is plenty of Audi customers

that maybe don't expect to get some of the maintenance bills

or the repair bills.

I mean, the oil change is 200 ish dollars

depending on what motor you have.

And it's, I just, they're like, whoa, $200.

I'm like, you bought an Audi.

Sorry, I don't, I mean,

luckily I don't have to talk to them about that.

But I get it.

I mean, it's expensive.

Sure. Yeah.

And so that and then, you know,

anything from the repairs,

Audi's don't last as long.

I mean, you get an Audi over 100,000 miles.

That's a fossil.

And so you see that and you're like,

these customers don't,

like the cars are not lasting as long.

They're breaking.

The repairs get more expensive.

And so there's that.

But I will say is the cars that are between that zero

to 100,000 miles.

I mean, there's definitely customers

that will take more care of their cars

and spend the money

or they have more extended warranty.

Right.

They'll spend the money on the extended warranty

versus just, oh, I'll be fine

because the repairs are so expensive.

Yeah.

Now, what's your favorite kind of,

do you like to do Heavy Line

or do you like to do Diag?

Or you do it all and love it all or?

I've tried to be,

I focus on the things that no one else wants to do.

Okay.

Now I enjoy the gravy.

I enjoy the suspension

or the services,

but I found my sweet spot

in doing evaporators.

Okay.

Because nobody,

well now people just kind of learn from me,

but when I first started out,

he no one liked to do evaporators.

No one liked to do interior work

like center frames, all that.

So I would pride myself

in learning how to do it,

learning how to do it fast.

And the whole shop would give me

all their interior work.

And so I just be like,

Hey, do you want to do this?

I'm like, yeah, sure.

And then so I'll always find ways

to turn a bad job into a good one

if I do it enough times.

That's awesome.

Those squeaks and rattle,

Diag cars,

I mean, you're never winning on those,

but the interior work,

the timing covers.

So I spoke about the timing covers

in the rear.

People hate doing those.

So I don't want to do that.

Although I'll do it.

I'll do it.

It pays 10 to 15 hours.

I can do it in a day

or day and change.

I'll do it.

And so that's the biggest thing for me

is just Audi has a lot of jobs

that a lot of people don't want to do.

So that would be my favorite one

because it keeps me busy.

Is that paying like 15 hours under warranty?

Is that paying 15 hours retail

when the customer comes in?

Depending on the model.

Some of the ones pay 15 under warranty

and then some of the ones pay CP

about the same.

It just depends on the engine

and the model of vehicle.

Right.

We've got a,

I think it's an A4.

I don't know.

It might be a 10 year old A4

sitting at the shop right now.

And it's got the PCV system

blown out of it.

Right.

Which is common.

And then it's taken out the rear main too.

And we're not even gonna,

like,

I work at a used car lot.

And we took it in on trade from a customer.

And of course the salesman got really,

you know,

because it's,

I think it maybe has 70,000 miles on it.

So he's thinking,

oh, this is a cream puff.

This can be great.

At first I thought it was like a bell

eyler noise.

And then that whistle would set up

after about 10 minutes.

And I'm like,

they had me come out and look at it.

And they're like,

can you tell us what eyler that is?

And I'm like, it's not the eyler.

I'm like,

did anybody put this on the hoist?

Look at it.

Nope.

Well, they put it on the hoist.

And of course the rear mains just puke in oil, eh?

So that's going to auction.

They're not,

they're not fixing it.

They're not gonna put all that into it.

And then try and put it back in on the lot to sell

because they made the mistake

they didn't realize what they're getting.

So,

but that was a funny one,

which is,

you know,

everything that is seemed so different.

The Chevy Cruises do it too, right?

Like then the Chevy Equatex

and they blow the PCV system

and then blows the rear main out.

So I mean,

you know,

such as I've seen Mercedes do it now.

It seems everybody's systems now

are doing something similar.

So it's just again,

when you get into the labor,

right?

And what's it take to actually repair?

You know,

I think the Equatex is like

an eight hour job to do that repair.

Whereas the Audi is twice as much.

So, you know,

what are you driving?

You're driving an Audi?

Okay.

Should have the extra money.

No big deal.

I've seen people

that would rather spend

that type of money on a car

than have a car payment.

Yeah.

And when I see that on an Audi,

as a technician,

I'm kind of like,

Oh, cool, the hours.

But then at the same time,

it's like,

like,

I don't know if

I don't know if I would do that.

I'll tell the advisor,

maybe tell them to take that $5,000

and don't spend it on the car.

Now, unless they're like

for sure in a bind

where they can't,

you know,

get another car or something.

But if someone's trying to spend

a bunch of money on an old car,

that's not worth it.

I'll be like,

just tell them.

Just be a little honest

and just tell them,

Hey, if you can use this money

in a different place,

I would recommend it

because this car is

just going to give you a ton

more problems in the future.

Now, let me ask you about that

because

like,

do you think it's

what makes them so failure prone?

Is it just poor engineering

or is it just like

build quality?

Like what happens?

Because we hear that

whether it's like,

you know,

they'll do that repair

where they've got a PCV issue

as an example.

And then next month,

something happens

with the electrical side of it.

You know,

whatever.

Like is it just junky parts

or water leaks?

I know it's a big one

that takes out a lot

of the electronic components.

But

like, is that what it where?

I think it's

a combination of everything

you just mentioned.

Okay.

I mean, you could tell it

when you get a hold

of some of the plastic pieces

on the engines

or even in the inside.

It's just seems that

after that

10 year, 100,000 mile mark,

those plastic pieces become brittle.

The components aren't as strong.

The way that they use

their gaskets

and their seals

doesn't seem like maybe

the longest term

type of thing.

They use a lot of

sealants

versus gaskets.

So I've noticed

that the sealants

will give way

if we don't have any head gasket leaks.

I mean, you might have an engine

every now and then

rarely with a head gasket,

but it's usually like an issue

from like an overheat

overheating

or a failed thermostat.

There's not like, oh, my head gasket's leaking coolant

just because of normal

driving or leaking oil.

So anything that has a sealant

is usually where we have problems

on oil leaks.

Okay.

I think the plastic components

are just built a little bit

cheaper.

Yeah.

The cars are great.

When I always tell people

if you want to drive an Audi,

drive an Audi under warranty

because in that period of time,

it's fantastic.

It's a beautiful car.

It's super high tech.

They're fun to drive.

They feel super sporty.

But once you get out of that warranty,

it just gets a little bit more expensive

every time you come to the dealership.

And so I've noticed

as they get older,

they get more expensive

and they start to get a little bit

less reliable.

Yeah.

Do you drive one?

I drive them

because we get a good deal on them.

Okay.

All right.

I wouldn't drive one otherwise.

It's a lease deal.

So I drive one

because we get a good deal on the leases.

But if I had to own one,

I would drive a Toyota.

It's not like you got like a 12-year-old

A-series sitting at home

that you're like,

these are pride and joy.

You're not that crazy.

No, it's funny.

We actually have a Q6,

which is an electric car.

Okay.

And they give you stupid deals.

It's almost impossible to refuse.

So we get the deal

and then I drive,

I actually drive a Corolla right now,

but my wife has the deal

and she drives the Q6 around.

Right on.

That'd be a fun car to drive, I think.

That'd be,

I think it'd be pretty neat.

It's like a,

it's like the Porsche McCons,

the little super sporty EV,

it's fast, all-wheel drive.

It's fun to drive,

but it can be,

I mean, you got the electric range.

You can't go anywhere long distance.

You're stuck.

Yeah.

I mean,

and I'm not a proponent of the EV,

it's just I drove an old boss at a Tesla Y

and I drove that thing

and I got to say it's fun to drive.

Like they really are the instant throttle

and the whole thing,

like the quiet.

I really like that.

But I mean,

yeah, he couldn't even drive,

you know, two hours

without having to pull over,

two hours on highway

without having to pull over

and charge the stupid thing.

Like it's just ridiculous.

Up here in the wintertime,

your range is cut in half.

Up here in the summertime,

if you run it with the AC on,

your range is cut in half.

Like it's just,

they're not,

Canada and Tesla don't,

you know,

we sell a lot of them up here,

but a lot of people

that really enjoy them up here

live in one of the bigger cities

where you can get to everything

you want to get to in 15 minutes.

You know,

I love working on EVs.

I just wish they paid a little bit better.

Yeah.

They're fine to work on the technologies,

cool, the high voltage stuff

is a little dangerous-ish,

but it's really the way that they work

and the way that they have everything set up

and having the batteries,

fun to take it apart.

It's a big job.

Really interesting to me,

but then you just,

it's such a specific job that you can't,

I mean,

you're just barely breaking even on it.

So it's one of those things to,

if I'm making money,

I would like to avoid.

Now, what's kind of the,

like you seem to have a very good attitude

about you'll take some of the jobs

that nobody else wants to do

and become good at it,

which is awesome.

I mean, that's the kind of technician

I used to be

when I was at a dealer

and I enjoyed that.

But what's kind of the,

because I've seen your social media content

and I know you're kind of pushing

kind of in a similar vein

to what I'm doing, right?

You want to talk about the industry

and make the young people aware

of what it is and the opportunities

that are there for them.

But what's kind of some of the drawbacks

from working at the dealer

that you don't like?

The rules.

That's going to be maybe more

of a personal preference.

There's a lot of politics sometimes.

And that's maybe more at a high level,

I think once you've been in

for 10, 15, 20 years

and you start to understand

how the dealership works

and the requirements and the numbers.

That's maybe more, like I said,

of personal preference.

The drawbacks.

I've never worked independent.

So it's comparably, I would say,

I don't really know besides that

because for me,

working on the same brand

and the same car is easy

because it's a lot of repeat repairs,

a lot of repeat processes.

So you might see the same problem

on so many cars.

It makes it a lot easier to diagnose

because you're going to check

that one thing first.

Yeah.

Well, for sure.

The politics is probably

my least favorite thing.

Now politics in terms of

how work gets dispatched

or politics in terms of like,

because I had an interesting

conversation with a gentleman

on TikTok just an hour ago

about the flat rate

versus the guarantee thing

in the shops.

And he's in a situation where

like his exposure to a lot

of the guys that he's seen

that have a guarantee

is that they become lazy

and complacent

and don't develop

and just sit around

and never push

to surpass 40 hours, right?

And I said,

you know,

and he says,

well, I think all those guys

are on a guarantee then

should get all of the comebacks

in the shop

and all the nightmare cars

because they've got a guarantee.

And I said,

oftentimes the guys that get

the guarantee are the guys

that were already getting

all that kind of work.

Like I know when I was

and I never had a guarantee

but I know that when

they knew that I was like

just a little bit better than,

you know,

some of the other ones at

Diag or,

you know,

I would take the time

to find the problem.

It just became

nature that I got more

of those cars.

Like, you know,

it was back three times

and the manager would walk out

and say,

hey, can you look at this

because, you know,

it's been bounced around

and it's the boomerang

and blah, blah, blah.

So I mean,

I kind of had that

succession.

So it's like chicken

or the egg rich

that came first, right?

That technician

that you might see

as complacent

and, you know,

is only working on his guarantee.

It might be because

that's the only way he feels

he's going to

bring it for his employer, right?

He's only going to show up

and be guaranteed

because they're going to make

sure that

they value him enough

to look after him.

And then the other guys

it's like, oh,

you know,

he never pushed his past 40.

Pushing past 40

all depends on what

work you're getting

is my opinion.

You know,

like,

is that your

politic kind of thing

is, you know,

you get a lot of harder jobs

to more skill to become.

We see that conversation

pop up all the time.

It's good.

It's a spicy topic,

as you know.

That's what we do here, Curtis.

I think

for me,

I'm in a fortunate situation

in my dealership

and with my group leader,

who is the dispatcher

for me

that he understands

where I'm at.

And when it's slow,

it can be a little frustrating.

But I'm also more

experienced enough

to know that everyone's

needs to eat.

So while I want to

make a ton of hours,

it's a guy next to me

is at 20 for the week.

It might suck

to give that good ticket

to him.

And I might be

frustrated with it

in a moment.

But I understand

bigger picture

is he's got his own things

to take care of.

So I think

five years ago,

my answer would be different.

I'd be like,

give me all the tickets.

And now I'm like,

okay,

I still want all the tickets

but I understand

why I can't have them.

That's not a big issue

for me, thankfully.

I think the politics

that I'm talking about

is maybe more

some of the hoops

that we need to jump through

and the requirements

by management.

Okay.

Break that down for me.

Safe place here.

Don't worry.

No, no, no.

I just want to make sure

that I'm saying in a way

that's not incorrect.

So

like there's a lot of things

that they'll add to our

ways of doing things.

Do this, do that.

Some of the

instruction that we receive

is a little bit gray

and then it gets

held against us

when we don't receive

or get the proper training

or the proper guidance.

It's more of stuff like that.

I think that for me,

that causes some issues

and not necessarily

in my case,

but what I see from other

technicians

and what I see on other teams

or in other shops

that bother me

is where there's not enough

training to show technicians

how to survive

on flat rate.

Yeah.

100%.

Sorry, cut you off.

No.

So it's like a leadership thing

as well as the politics of it

is everyone

is in the dealership

to make money.

And so

I think there just needs to be

some training

involved in how that happens.

Yeah.

And there's a lot of places

that don't have that.

So when you

bring that conversation up,

the excuses

that come out

about why they can't do it

and stuff like that,

it kind of bothers me

because there's no accountability.

So I don't even know

if that's politics

at the end of the day.

That might just be accountability.

Well, I find sometimes

it's been my experience

is that oftentimes

what dealers do

is they make managers

from within.

So they promote,

say a technician

ages up

and they make him

a service manager, right?

Or he spends a tenure

as a shop foreman

and he does really good

and the customers start to

get to know him or her

and familiar

and he knows the,

he's respected by the technicians

and they make him a manager.

And then sometimes

what like,

because of the way we are

as technicians

is sometimes we're very process oriented

and we're very like

we'll do something a few times

and then we tweak it

and it works for us.

I find sometimes that

they just too often

fall in the trap of

well, I would assume

everybody would do it like me

so they should have already

picked up this process, right?

And that's not the same.

You know, like how you may pull a dash out

is different than somebody else, right?

They may do it differently.

We're all kind of slightly

different.

So I feel like sometimes they're

we're not always the best

at giving instruction

it's just we get in there

and do it ourselves.

And I find that sometimes

that's where the management

in some shops fails

is because they can't convey

exactly how I want it done

or they go,

I would just assume

that you knew to do this.

No, you know, like

DVI is a good example.

I heard you having a

you're having a conversation

with some people

on Instagram about DVI and

all that kind of stuff

but it's like,

that's where I see it right now

is it's a very funny topic

in the industry

because everybody

you know,

has different opinions

and I don't

I can't say that

I think anybody is wrong

but like you look at

how two texts do a DVI

no two texts

really do them the same

and then what somebody

might put down is like

they've heard me say

that red, you know,

yellow and green

red being fixed now

yellow can wait

and green is perfectly good.

There's always inconsistencies from that.

You know, like one cut

one tech will call that

oil seal leaking.

Another one will say

some seepage.

Well, to the customer

it's very different, right?

Licking leaking is like

I'm going to see it on my driveway.

Seepage is like

I'll never see it.

You know, it's on the belly pan.

That kind of thing.

When you say DVI

you mean did video inspections?

Good, did you know

digital video inspections

or you know, back

I'm so friggin old

we used to call them MPIs

and we used to just it was a paper

and you checked it off, right?

And they go or we all rubber stamped them

because you weren't getting paid

anything extra

and like

we were very good about

looking and inspecting the car

and knowing okay,

it needs breaks

and writing down the estimate

for breaks

but we didn't fill out the

you know, the MPI

back in the day

like, oh, they only have two mil.

You know, like

it's got a break noise.

I drove it at Pulse 8

so it's squealing and needs breaks.

Nobody tended to ask

well, what's the millimeter?

And that's a question

for example, going on this topic

that still frustrates me

because it's like

what's the friggin matter

if it's two mil or eight mil?

They're noisy.

Like they're

they have a break complaint noise.

They've got some cheap pads on there

or whatever

or you know, cheap rotor

or machine glazed over whatever

what's the matter

if they're eight or two?

They need to be replaced, right?

Or service in some regard

and everybody's like, oh

the customer wants these details

do you really think like

that they do

or they just want to know

what repair is required?

No, this is a good question.

This is a really good question

because this is something

that no one's really asked me before

and I think it's

in your when I'm filming the video

I've gone back and forth on this on

people like oh show them the good stuff

show them that their cars in great shape

and sometimes

sometimes I feel like it's a waste of time

and sometimes I feel like it's great

but I'm also not going to get on a video inspection

and tell somebody

that their car is

you know the wheels

all the wheels are going to fall

if your breaking capacity is

or your breaking ability has been compromised

you're you know you're

I mean I'll be honest to say that

your tires are unsafe to drive

to drive on

they're bald and I'll show them

but then sometimes I feel like

just talking about the stuff

in between is

for me I'm assuming that that stuff is good

if I don't talk about it

that means it's good

yeah and

I watch some dbis on youtube

from different guys

and it's you know some of them do it

really fast and introduce themselves

and say hey you know my name's Curtis

I'll be your technician today

and and you know here's all

all of they're walking under the car

and they're filming it really fast

they're going this is all good

and this is all good

and then they come to the point

where they're showing them like you said

this is the tires that are at

two millimeters

sorry metric you know

two thirty seconds

you know they should really be replaced

ASAP

you know

and and people are like oh okay

the the stuff that we all just kind of

pushed past

and and said it was okay

that's where it seems to be in the industry

everybody's like no you didn't

spend enough detail on that

um they don't care

right it's my opinion

they don't care about

all the rear suspension bushings

are okay

because they don't have a complaint

with the way the car rides stops

brakes you know any of that

they're not feeling like it's bouncy

they don't care

they don't know what all that is

they're here for a

you know

peace of mind

I don't think we need to spend a whole

lot like

especially with the way

the times are even paid out

I don't feel like we should be

spending a bunch of time

on the stuff that's good

when we need to focus so much

on the stuff that's bad

and convey the importance

of the bad stuff

and why it needs to be addressed

today I think that's where

and yet

you know everybody's saying

Tex are doing terrible DVIs

and it's like first of all

a lot of them are not getting paid

for it

a lot of them are only getting

a half

you know hour to do it

which again

depending on climate

condition and car

and all that kind of stuff

a half hour might be enough

or it might not be

but like

if I'm going to go up

and show the customer on my DVI

that there's a loose ball joint

and it's a worn to tires

now are regular

I'm going to spend a large part

of my DVI portion of time

that's being filmed or whatever

explaining

the severity of that

that ball joint right now

trying to do it in a manner

that's not going to sound

like hey your wheels

going to fall off

and you're going to die

in a fiery wreck

you know I don't want the

Tommy boy thing going on right

from that great scene

but it should be

a good time to have

the communication via

the customer's text

or whatever

that this is why you're

you know

this is why we're looking at the car

this is what is the urgent thing

that needs to be addressed soon

all the stuff that we glanced over

like in time

it may need to be addressed

and later on

but this whole show them

all the good stuff

to waste of time

okay yeah

I'm kind of with the same thing

like I don't pull out

spark plugs and say

hey see they're still good

you don't and

and put it back in the engine

that's

that's just asking

for a comeback

in a waste of time

they're obviously good

the check engine's lights on

on the people

well that's not it

well you know

I drove

I test drove it

it drives fine

it doesn't have a check engine light

on I'm not pulling spark plug out

of it that's just

as an example

or I'm not

I'm bad

I don't yank cabin air filters out

I don't do it

people go why

you know

well first of all

if I yank it out

and they don't want to buy it

then I got to put it back in

and they obviously don't care

and that's how much

how many tents wasted right

that that was labor

that we could have sold

because here's the thing

it's always seemed slimy to me

when you see the quick loop shops

and they come out

and they carry one out

and they show it to the customer

and they go okay

and that's going to be 60 dollars

because I'm now adding labor

to change it out

it's really hard for me

even as a customer

to go labor to change it

like you've already got it in your hand

it couldn't it couldn't possibly

have taken a long

even though we know

right you're

contorting up under a dash

you're yanking out something

you're getting a crick in your neck

just sciatic screaming at you

to get it out

for them to say

that's maybe one tenth

two tenths that you spent

for them to say no

I don't do it

I look at it

and it's like if the one

under the hood is is dirty

I'm recommending the both

that's just my thing

because I've had a lot of them

where I pull it out

it's covered in leaf litter

right or whatever

mice something

and they go I don't want that

put it back in

okay

then something falls into the blower cage

and guess what

now we have a noisy blower cage

and now we have to take the blower

cage down or

you know come up with some method

to try and get the leaf litter

out of the blower motor

that's why I don't touch it

I do not touch them

unless the customer's going to

replace it

you've seen them too

like curse you know

they'll fold out

coming out

you're not getting that back in there

straight

like

why I uh

we have a lot of customers

that are very good

with their maintenance schedules

so

for me

I'm not usually recommending it

unless it's per mileage

where

if a customer is doing their

80,000 mile service

and they've only done all changes

since 10k

I will recommend it per mileage

but like I said

I'm not going to pull it out

I just

somebody might think

oh what a bad guy I am for that

but at the same time

like for all those reasons

that you just said

is exactly why it's not worth

the few tenths that I'm going to get for it

because

for them to say no

I've just already wasted it

and most of the time for us

you take it out

you show it in the video

you put it back

you drop it at wash

for them to approve it

30 minutes later to

take it out

put a new one in

and then you just done it twice

and got paid for it once

that's right

and and to me

like it can be really simple

like the service advisor

can do a lot of that

where they can ask the customer

do you remember the last time

you had your cabin air filter done

and if the customer says

the what

it's probably do

you know what I mean

it's probably ready to be done

if they can't remember the last time

but like I just

I pulled out so many

when we do the DVI

and they had been

because like

you know

I worked at a shop

where they might be there

because their brakes are noisy

but we're doing a free DVI

so we pull the cabin air filter out

and it's like

it's pretty clean

well why is it clean

well because they go to a different shop

for their oil changes

and the oil change guys are hard

on you know

right there all the time

getting that upsell on that cabin filter

well what did I just do

I just dumped a bunch of leaf litter

in the blower motor

or you know

I folded it

increased it

trying to get it out of there

and you know

hurt myself

for nothing

pain in the ass

waste of time

right

it's better to have the conversation

with the customer and go

do you know when you did the last

oil

you know

oh I just had that done

with my last oil change

cool

I don't need to get under the dash

don't need to pull your cabin filter out

I pulled them out now

if the car's got a funk smell

like they've had a wet dog in there

or the customer's been a smoker

and I get the car in my bed

yeah I'm yanking it out

and I'm probably yanking it out

and I already have ordered the new one

that's just the way I am

you know

but I don't like this this this dbi thing of

you know

pull the wheels on every car

and measure all the brakes

and pull the cabin air filter out

and you know

grab the lower control arms with a pry bar

and try and check the deflection in the

man oh man like there's

there's value in showing them

what's not broke I agree

but there's a lot of time spent

to do a proper dbi

and in this industry right now

we're still

if it has such value

I think I commented on your video on this

if it has so much value

the dealers and everybody else

that were supposedly so behind it

would be paying their technicians to do it

and I go

I understand like some do and some don't

and some people have the conversation of

well you got to do the dbi in order to get the work

nope nope

nope you don't

I made a whole career out of selling work on cars

that I didn't have to do a dbi to get the work

now it might have been like it's not running

it didn't start

that's work I got that work

you know

I'm not looking at the brakes

when the car is being pushed in

because the fuel pump's bad

you know what I mean like I'm not

that's that's a waste of time to me

the customer doesn't even care about their brakes

when

that needs a fuel pump

know what I mean

I feel

I feel sometimes when I'm doing my

well

getting we'll get into the getting pay part of videos

because

yeah

because that's that's gonna be a good one

but I think sometimes I feel bad

when I have to tell a customer

oh your fuel pump

we'll just use fuel pump for example

and say your fuel pump's bad

here let me recommend 10 more things in your car

that are wrong

yes

and then like you're just $12,000 that car

and uh

and the training that you receive on that is

well it's not your money to spend

and I'm like well I still feel bad

I still feel bad that I recommend to that

and then at the video my inspection

what am I supposed to say

have a great day

like I say that

because it's

what else do you say

but at the same time I'm like well

I felt awful

like I just recommended that

what they came in for

sorry about all this light by the way

I don't know

oh you're good

you're good

but like they just came in for

the fuel pump

and then I recommended

oil leak suspension tires

and then it's like

well they're definitely not gonna buy that

$500 fuel pump

or whatever

because now they need

10,000 more dollars of other stuff

yeah

you know I'm just gonna get rid of the car now

yeah well and that's it

and see

I've had this conversation

I don't want to say argument

but I've had this conversation

with some really smart people

that are in training in the industry

and I see both sides of it

because they're like

you have to advocate for the customer

you have to be transparent

yeah but here's the reality

okay

a lot of customers if I say

they're there for a

$500 is not an accurate number anymore

but say they're there for a $1,000 fuel pump job

they know coming in they you know

they got a suspension

shit I need a fuel pump

and they maybe Google it

and then you know they've got prices anywhere

from $500 to $2,000

so you do the

dyague on the car

and just like you said

you give them an estimate for $2,000

and then you whack them

with a whole bunch of other stuff that

is I'm not saying shouldn't be done

but

should it be done right now

and this is where we get into that

that gray area

because or difference of opinion

even under training is like

the really aggressive coaching companies

will tell you

yeah you want that whole ticket right now

and as a technician I'm like

I would love to have that whole ticket right now

if I could turn every two hour

fuel pump job into a 10-hour ticket

hallelujah I'd be you know sitting pretty

but we know that what happens is

a lot of the time we give them

you know $5,000 estimate

for the rest of stuff

and it drives out

and somebody else does the fuel pump

and we have this now image of us

like oh my god they're aggressive

that's the struggle with me

like is you know

we don't we

and it and it seems to be Curtis

because it's like we're so scared

of having the customer call up

two months after we do an oil change

you go I'm over at you know

shop XYZ

and I'm normally at your place

get all my oil changes done

and my brakes are metal on metal

and nobody told me

okay

like part of me goes

well why are you over there

not over here

if you get all your oil changes done here

and why are you not having us look at the brakes

and then the other thing is like

well

you never asked us to look at the brakes

so I can see both sides

because they don't want unexpected stuff

yet if we tell them about the unexpected

stuff that they don't even hear about

or know about

we look like we're

Chris we're trying to rip them off

trying to oversell

we're trying to upcharge

we're trying to you know all those

shitty words right that

it's always on the

I try to be as efficient

and quick as possible

talking about those things

oh my camera's freaking out

they're talking about those things

where

like we mentioned the things they don't need

so I'll be like

I'll mention I try to mention the things that

customers think of the most about

fluids tire pressure

and maybe leaks and suspension

but I say it in like a generic manner

oh I didn't see any leaks

underneath your car

but I'm not showing them

everything on your suspensions

in great shape

or maybe your upper

control arm bushings are bad

but everything else on your vehicle is good

and just keeping it good or great

and then moving forward

with the way that I talk about

the things that are good

just keep it short and simple

like you mentioned earlier

and it's kind of backtracking a little bit

but it's more of just saying

but keep it short and sweet

because you don't want to

quote them all those things

and then also in the video

if their their leaks are coming up

you say okay I noticed

your oil pan's beginning to leak

I'll say something like

just keep an eye on it

you know we'll check it again

at your next service

we'll check it in again at your next oil change

and just see how it's coming along

you know it might need

be ready for replacement

sometimes if things are in the yellow

brinking on red

yeah

I will

I will uh

send him a quote

but I'll say in my video

I'm gonna send a quote over for this

so you can get an idea

what it looks like

as you come up on your next

10,000 mile service

right

yeah

it used to drive me crazy

the fluid check thing that you mentioned

is a good one

because like you know

more and more of these cars

don't have a dipstick for

say the transmission

as an example

then it could be a process

just to check the level

right it's got to be up to a certain

temperature

you might have to have a scan tool involved

you know pulling out a plug

watching drips

all that kind of stuff

and I can remember

writing up cars

and it'd be like transmission fluid

is leaking from

cooler lines

and you know

on the dvi

and it was understood

that that portion of the dvi

that time it was allotted

was not the additional time

wasn't allotted

and wasn't approved

to spend checking the fluid level

of that particular transmission

right like it was

it's a process

they would then come to me and say

well is the fluid level okay

no

it's not

well how do you know it's not

well it's leaking

well did you check it

did you want it checked

like it's no authorization

for additional time to do this check

because the customer wasn't aware

it needed to be checked until we told them

that the lines are leaking

so obviously

the customer has saying

well if the fluid level is okay

I don't want to do the repair

and the advisor instead of going

the repair needs to be done

is going well let me go ask the tech

if the fluid level is okay

the answer is already in your

in your should be in your

fucking inbox

that no it's

sorry I hate to curse

no it's not okay

and it needs to be done

but you see what I mean the customer

a poor advisor is going

I better go ask

and then I better give him

shit if he didn't check the fluid level

because my customer is expecting

the fluid level now

they're not setting the expectations

with the customer that

where may find something

and if we find something on the DVI

it needs to be addressed

that addressment will take

additional time and money

and even to know where the repair is going

right

everybody thinks the DVI response

I note something

that means I immediately know

what it's going to cost to do

no to do the repair right

it's like oil seepage from top of engine

where on top of engine

requires further time to check

I can tell you the problematic

things that it might be right

you know on your cars

where they're prone to leak oil

I can tell you on

you know a lot of the crisis

where they're prone to leak oil

but I don't know

has to spend time

oh well and all of a sudden

the customer my point is

is that the customer is even

irritated that we told them

about something they weren't even aware of

and then when we don't have

an answer for them

other than well gee

it's going to take more time

to look into why and where

they get even more upset

they're just there for an oil change

in a brake squeak

you know and we told them

about these oil leaks

that they don't even have

any clue about or concern

and we've lost the brake job now

because we've tried to rebuild

their car

I guess is my point

that's the

yank I have about DVI

I think it's a good tool

I think that right now

we're trying to spend

all this time and teaching

on teaching technicians to do it

and I think the really

where the teaching is

is trying to get the advisors

to convert it into sales

because if you can't convert it

into sales

there's no fucking point

in the technician doing it

and that's the big problem

that have a lot of people

is A they're not

they're not paying the tech for it

and then B your advisors

are so poor performing

that they're not converting

what we find to to sold work anyway

so who is that

who doesn't want it

the customer doesn't want the news

the advisor doesn't want to sell it

the only thing that we know

is the technician wants to do the work

that's why he

he or she wrote it down

we fail on two parts

to get it sold to the customer

why keep punishing the technician

with more unpaid time

to tell things

to the customer doesn't want to hear

and that the service advisor

doesn't really want to sell

why do we keep doing it

because some coaching company

tells everybody

this is the future of the industry

this is what everybody wants

this is the only way

we're going to ever hit the numbers

and the profit and blah, blah, blah

in this industry that we're supposed to

I could show you shops

that have never done a DVI

that are busy and profitable

because they fix the customer's concern

we do both and

we do paper MPIs

and I do video inspections

I'm sending the quotes while over the computer

so and I'm not getting paid

to do either inspection

and that's the way

whether I agree with it or not

that's the way my shop

and my company does it

and so for me

my mindset is

well let's just control the things we can control

because

I mean yeah

would I love to get paid for those inspections

of course

more money

more hours more money

but at the same time

instead of complaining about it

and being like

oh I just want to get paid

this is worthless

the customer

and bringing all these downsides to the table

I've just been like

well how can I use this to my advantage

because they want me to do it anyways

and if I don't do it

then I'm going to be

reprimanded you if you will

and so I've just

then taken the effort

to put into these video inspections

since we're talking about that

and I've

made a way that works for me

that I try to eliminate

as much of the advisor as possible

because some of our advisors are great

and some of them aren't

but we have

I have multiple advisors

so when I do my video

I'm doing everything in my capability

where the advisor

just has to send the information

and I'm hoping that that's enough

to either make the sale

or keep the customer informed

I think some of the requirements

by the like you said

the companies

and the consulting

and the industry change

I think some of that is also dealerships

trying to save face

to a point

where they've broken trust

and they've lost the transparency

and so this is them trying to

trying to get it back

and it does help

I feel like I'm able to build

way better communication

and connections with the customer

which not every tech wants

and most techs don't want

we'll be honest here

and so for me

I'm like oh I get a connect

with the customer

and I like to talk with them

and speak with them

and show them their car

and that's just something

I enjoy doing

so these video inspections

benefit me

because it helps me

do something that

I want to do

but for the people who don't

want to do that

it is more work

and they're not getting paid

and they're not getting compensated

and they're not getting the training

on how to do it

in a way that

not just benefits the dealership

but benefits them

and if it's not financially

it needs to be some other type of way

right

because a lot of these dealerships

are taking advantage of technicians

from more points

than just the video inspection

and I mean you mentioned earlier

about people on TikTok

and having these conversations

about compensation

and hourly rate versus flat rate

and I mean I would never be

in the position I'm in financially

if it wasn't for flat rate

but would I enjoy a base

or would I enjoy some hourly pay

maybe one week or two weeks

when it's slow

or I'm not feeling like

working

tons of hours

yes

I would enjoy that

but ultimately I would

I think

which might be hard

for some people to swallow

is that

good techs will be good techs

bad techs will be bad techs

and if you give

incentive

to technicians

even if they're at hourly

and you say hey you hit 50 hours

here's a bump

you hit 60 hours here's a bump

and you offer that

but you also give them a base

I think a lot of places

will be surprised that their

work is going to see

stay the same

and you're going to

those lazy techs

are going to shine

they're going to be like

hey those lazy techs

are going to stand out

and they're going to be

exposed

and I think that's what

a lot of people are afraid of

is being exposed

yeah I think and that's

like

you know

and and my

you know

my experience has been

very well documented

where it's like

my rub was that

when everybody was paid the same

you saw guys that just

picked the low hanging fruit

and they were clocking

the most hours every week

and yet they

they couldn't diagnose a tail lamp

they couldn't diagnose

you know

half the no starts

that got brought in

they couldn't diagnose

certainly if the trainee

was in the lamp or

you know

fuel trim DTC

they couldn't diagnose it

they could not

they knew the pattern failures

and when that didn't work

it had to get kicked to somebody else

and my thing was always like

that person that

was the somebody else

usually they get a steady diet

of those kind of cars

and then their true skill

is not reflected in their production

their true skill is reflected

in the being able to slow down

back up

read the fucking service information

as my friend Brian Pollock

always says

and then dissect

what's actually going on

break it down

fix it

return the car to the customer

that's what they do

the pattern failure didn't stick

they threw the dart at the wall

it didn't stick

okay good

what do we do now

well shit

not everybody knows what to do

after the pattern failure

we got one guy two guys

three guys maybe

out of whatever they do

okay they got to get it

then

those three guys

at the end of the month

end of the year

they look at them and go

like they can't produce

like that tech over there can

that tech over there

that can produce

he's not getting those kind of cars

he's just doing

you know

what he can do

and and

the real growth then

of a of a technician

I think is

we constantly evolve

to a certain point

where we get

you know we learn more

we do more

we get more comfortable

it's a lot of techs get stagnant

and just like

don't want to learn this

don't want to learn that

not going to attempt this

because the money's not there

and it just stuck to doing the money

so that was my always my rub

was that the technicians that

just kind of wanted to stay

in that middle ground of

producing

they never evolved their skillset

which if they don't evolve

their skillset

down the road

they don't necessarily become

those type of people

that we need as leaders

they're just cogs in the machine

nothing wrong with that

but the production

is not the true earmarker

for me of a value

of a technician

it's the it's the

guy or gal that goes in

and takes the hard stuff

tackles it

gets it done

you know

doesn't gripe too much about it

and goes on the next day

we have to shift this industry

away from just looking at everybody

I don't want to say all the same

but I can tell you

that most of the techs

I talked to the left

they were all the techs

that weren't the highest producing

but they were the biggest problem

solvers in their business

in the shop that they worked in

and that's why they left

because they were not valued

and value isn't always about pay

value can be like

just somebody saying thanks

or acknowledging that it's like

how do you do that now

if today it's like

you can't say you're better

than everybody else

I'm glad to have you

I mean because

I mean you could

you could say it in a way that

I mean we have a guy like that

that does all the hard stuff

and does the

really complicated jobs

and could he be compensated better

absolutely

there's ways to compensate people

who aren't just turning and burning

a bunch of hours

right

but also like you said

the recognition where it's

it's saying

hey no one else can figure that out

and you did a great job

yeah

and then

but I think too many people

get their feelings hurt too

yeah

it's like

well

Curtis you didn't fix it

so we gave it to

Jim over here

and he fixed it

so we're going to tell him great job

I think that

is maybe what you're talking about

and it doesn't mean

you know

it doesn't mean that hey Curtis

you suck

and Jim's great

it's just saying that like

I think we need to have this

conversation because

one day Curtis

you can get to where Jim is

right

if we acknowledge

that Jim went a little farther than you

see that's that's the whole thing is

like

they want to make the pay

the earmarker of who went farther

than the next person

that it's not it

the pay is not it

that guy over there

gal that's like

just killing it

on the complex stuff

that's your

that's your key player

I don't care what anybody says

they can talk the numbers all they

want

as long as you have that person

any car that comes into your

business

doesn't even have to be

dealership

we can be just any shop

your business will always be viable

because you have that one person

that will not give up

until they are through

to the root of the problem

now if you got a whole

shop full of killers like that

you've got something

but it hasn't been my experience

that you have that

you have the

the you know

the grinders that got

the get the car fixed

in and it done

routine stuff done no problem

if all you have is those texts

that's when we start to see

these customers

or these people online

say

my car went back to the dealer

five times

and nobody could solve this

you know why

because that person that they had

that could solve the problem

you may disagree with person

me seeing this happen

that person that could have

don't work there anymore

or that person that could

they didn't get that ticket

because maybe they said

FU I had a shit week last week

and I'm tired

and I'm not looking at that

and it goes to somebody else

I'm not saying that's a good attitude

but this is why when we see customers

crying all the time

about I can't get my car fixed

that's why

we're holding them to this

this

nonsense

if you don't produce enough hours

and yet you're the guy

or gal

out of 10 of us

that could have got to that problem

or would spend the time

to get to that problem

every so

you know go ahead

so on both sides of flowery

you have the people who

do a terrible job

diagnosing

all they want to do is flag hours

and they don't have a

like a bottom

like a guarantee

and then you have the guys

that would spend the time

but aren't making any money

because they're not compensated

properly

so

in your opinion

what is a way to solve that

how do you

how do you pay the experience guy

that does

quote unquote bad work

but solves all the hard problems

let's say

in a dealership setting

so here's where

I think we fail

technicians

it's too much like

they're wrapped up in

how many hours

right because to us

what hours just equates is what

what my paycheck says

at the end of the week

that's it

right

we all have a minimum

and we all have

a dream number

you're not going to hit the

dream number

all the time

but we have a minimum

and I think what

in order for these technicians

that are going to

be

steadfast

and always do

the right thing

and find the problem

within their ability

I got to say that right

they need

their number to be

a lot closer to that

dream number

than what we have been

paying them

it shouldn't be

well what that guy did

at 60 hours of production

he's not

or she is not able

to do 60 hours of production

hypothetically

because they're in

these nightmare cars

so

but if they got 40 billable

that was all

shit work

problematic

nightmare stuff

if they got 40 billable

and the other one

got 60 billable

and it's just routine

muscle memory kind of stuff

their pain needs to be

at least the 60

I'm going to say it

that needs to be

what's the incentive

otherwise to do it

right

otherwise then

I want to be that monkey

that just hit 60

I don't mean monkey

in a disrespectful term

I just mean monkey

in the sense of like

if it's a circus

we're all monkeys

that's you know

what I mean

we're all doing different tasks

monkey's not the right term

I shouldn't use it

but it's got to be

like if 60 was the

top that week

and that person

their pay needs to be

at a different level

per hour

to where they're

getting that kind of money

because otherwise

what's the incentive

to take the hard cars

there is not

I'd rather

I have no lots

I could show you

lots of good technicians

Curtis

that would tell me

right out when they're last

you know

when they're at the dealer

they stopped getting certified

they stopped taking the

because they didn't want

those nightmare cars

because they saw their foreman

or they saw their guy

with all the

the certs

he made less money

so

what's the incentive

if we don't

like it's

it's not

if you're going to put them

in a tech

in a shop

and say

you're all going to earn this

per hour

and you're going to flag

a bunch of hours

cool

if you're going to get all these

certs

and your certs

bump you hourly rate

cool

okay I'm good with that too

but what all comes down to

at the end of the week

is that if your guy

you're like you call them

Jim

if Jim's not the highest

paid tech in the shop

because Jim will get to the

bottom

it then the system's broken

I'm sorry

because when you walk in

into the aftermarket

sector of this industry

and you look at it

most of the time

Jim is the highest paid tech

he's also in a leadership role

he's also in a mentorship role

as I feel it should be

and I feel this is where the

dealerships

have dropped the ball

is because we've taken all the

gyms

and run them out

because we say

I would love

I love having you here

but you're not producing enough

hours Jim

go ahead

no I would say I wish I could

say that I'm the Jim of the

shop

but

I know how the system works

and I know

I'm honest enough to know that

I'm not going to make a much

of money

regardless of

I'm not going to make a

bunch of hours

if I'm the Jim of the shop

and that's maybe more of a

strategy move

than anything

because like you said

those gyms of the shops

they're not valued

because they're not turning

those hours

and the dealerships

create these incentive

programs around hours

sure

around these metrics

and while they're nice to hit

they don't incentivize

the guys who fix all the problem

cars

and keep those customers happy

and keep the dealership

running

and when those gyms leave

or they're even on vacation

for a week

you really start to see

that those cars

don't get fixed

and they wait around

and customers are unhappy

and I wish that the gyms

would get

more compensation

and they would get

recognized for

having perfect fix ride

or fixing that customer car

that's been there for two weeks

and you or I unfortunately

can only do so much about that

but I'll be the first one

to tell you that

being the Jim of the shop

stinks

yeah yeah I know

I was there

and and you know

and that's why I've kind of

made the shift in my career

that I did

where I'm not going to go back

because I'm not going to go back

and and take that

extra 10%

and apply it

and watch my pay

be you know

less than somebody

that's not putting the 10%

that I would put in

that's just

to me it just doesn't add up

and it

honestly from the first day

I ever worked in a

in a dealership

it never did make sense

because my first days

in the dealership

I was hourly

because I hadn't got my license yet

and when the hourly tech

was just a tech that did clean up

they did

and I don't mean cleaning the shop

I did that too

but all the cars

that somebody had already

been paid out for

and misdiagnosed

it just went to me

and then so it was like

I'm doing

everybody else's comebacks

I'm doing a lot of the

die eggs that

you know

didn't

there's a v10

you know

RAM

that needs an engine

that's seized up solid

you know

extended warranty

it won't even fit on a hoist

how are we going to get this

engine done

give it to the

straight time guy

that's Jeff

this car left at two

in the afternoon

for a check engine light

it's

630 at night

Jeff's on second shift

the car's back with the same

check engine line

what do we do

give it to Jeff

that was just my life

so

and then when the rays

went through the shop

this is kind of

I'm going way back in the day

the rays went to everybody

but me

and everybody said

I asked manager

why is that

well

it's just for the flat rate guys

okay

but

I fix all their fuck ups

yeah

but you don't produce enough hours

okay

because we're not taking the hours

back from them

that didn't fix the car

and crediting me with them

it stays where it stayed

so on paper

it looks like I'm not producing

anything

the reality is

is I'm going in

and

you know

keeping the customer satisfied

now

these conversations always sound

like me bragging

I'm not saying

it's not meant to sound like that

but you know where I'm coming from

it all depends on

how they want to play the numbers

so the gym

until we get it out of our heads

that it's all about hours

the gyms in the industry

are never going to be really valued

and this is why

gyms leave jobs

we're using a lot of jays

gyms leave jobs

and go start their own damn shops

and then they repeat the cycle

in the aftermarket

that we're facing all the time

which is they're not good

business owners

they're just incredible technicians

but they're terrible business people

we we we got to break that

we have to stop the cycle

and I

people think

I got this bone in my in my craw

and I can't get it out

it starts with that

fucking P number

that production number

it it doesn't mean shit

I can manipulate

I did manipulate

I could show you how to do

I could teach people

how to manipulate it

it doesn't mean anything

it what matters is

what you can

friggin fix

your proficiency

if you're not

becoming more proficient

you're not

you're not becoming nothing

sorry

you know you're you're right

I mean

I I mean

you're you're telling it

exactly how it is

and it's

you know it's making me

kind of realize that

my

I love what I do at the dealership

but I also know that

being there is

it's uh

exactly what you're saying is

it's a game

you have to know how to play the game

and I know how to play the game

and you know

does that hose the gyms in my shop

sometimes

but we also have a shop foreman

that's the gym in our shop

and he gets paid

off of shop production

and so he gets paid differently

but he's not the highest paid guy

in the shop

by any means

yeah

but

so why is that

well that's

I mean it's not

whose choice is that

you know who's making those

decisions

he's not turning the hours

that's that's the truth of it

I mean he's not

he's not making hours

he's helping people out

and he's valued at this level

but what the real value is here

you can flag 100 hours a week

so we're going to pay you more

because you've been more consistent

sure you can fix cars

and you flag a bunch of hours

but

your you know your shop foreman

or your gym

is not getting paid that same

because he's not turning hours

but Curtis

if we remove the gym from the shop

how long does

you think the shop stays

before that guy that used to could

turn 100

can still turn 100

and not because he can't turn it

physically

but because the customers are not there

then what happens

you're right

I mean I don't even have to say it

I mean I know it

I know that my shop

and some of the cars that I work on too

would would

I would

not be able to

to put the hours in

if he wasn't there

and I wish

you know I've advocated for him

on multiple occasions

that hey we need to appreciate this guy more

and it doesn't doesn't matter

and

I wish it did matter

because I know that

our shop would be in shambles

if it wasn't for him there

because when he goes on vacation

for a week or two weeks

sure we can manage but

our our

our online cases go up

like our our hotline cases go up

we have

I mean I don't have proof to say

that we have more comebacks

during that time

but I just see more problems in the shop

that kind of get pushed

oh we'll just wait till

Jim gets back

and it's like

whoa

all that

you know why

why can't we figure this out now

why can't we take the time

and it's like oh well you know he's

the the

like you said the compensation guy

he's not the the flat rate guy

so

that's kind of the thing is

that his job is to fix the problem

cars

and so

if Jim leaves the shop

we're host

until we get a new Jim

who's probably not the same Jim

Jim

how many gyms do you think are out there Curtis

two or three

out of how many

40

yeah that's about the right number

I think too

so do the math on that

five percent of the industry is a

Jim maybe

yeah it's not a lot I mean I'm

I'm no Jim

but I also know that to make money

in the industry you can't be a Jim

well

in in

I'll I'll counter with this

in your environment you can't be a Jim

that's true I will say that

yeah

but I see what happens and we see it

and again

you know if you watch enough of my

content and you see kind of the

people that I'm networking with

I could show you

100 gyms

that went and started their own business

right

and some of them are killers now

like they're phenomenal

phenomenal shop owners

but oftentimes what happens like

Dustin Diesel on TikTok

there's a super smart smart

check into Chuck super smart guy

what do they do they got fed up being

the gym

and they went and started their own

business

and

they're you know they're they're

doing it they're they're making a

career and they're and they're making

a business but

like if you added up the amount of

hours that Chuck spends now a week

working

not just on cars but on the other

stuff that he's constantly working

on to you know cloning and

module repair and stuff to build

his business

he's still putting in way more hours

than he ever did

and any of the shops he's ever at

but he's doing it because like

he's trying to to to go to that

next step

these guys that were like Jim and

they go start their own business

I don't know as they ever really

make any more money

until for a long time until like

the business kind of grows around

them

and if they keep their culture

right

it grows around and we start to

buck this trend

but what happens is I see too many

guys like Jim that start their own

business

and they start cheap

they take every job that they can

and they get everything

and then before long they're like

they they they don't have time to

train they don't have time to

dedicate the time to

actually going in and seeing you

know all this new technology

before you know it's left them

behind

and then they're in this place

again where they're like

they're in the shop and they

don't know what to do

I used to be a really good tech

they say

fix all the cars

now I can't hire somebody that's

as good as me

well that's again

you're one of the five percent

good luck on hiring another one like

you

and then even if you wanted to

hire another one like you

it's kind of like the conversation

that we had

that's all over my tiktok right

now about what we pay them

well how do I make that work

you're not going to make it work

trying to be the cheapest new

shop in town

and hire your replacement

you can't do it

it doesn't work

so what do you do

I have been for years saying

that like well

you're going to go out there

and it's because of your business

you're going to take a pay cut

and you're going to hire somebody

almost as good as you

and pay them probably

as much if not more than what

you were getting paid

to your previous place

and then together you guys work at

and instead they always go

fuck I'm not making any money

hardly as it is

and they go hire some young person

and they try to teach them

everything that they can

but the numbers just don't work

young person I'm producing enough hours

it doesn't you know

I can't give them everything

that I have to

and then the business

just starts that spiral

of what all these businesses do

so

the dealerships

unfortunately have been awesome

by taking some talent

and driving it right into the

the aftermarket

you know what I mean

so many technicians I know

got fed up and said

eff it I'm never working for

a dealer again

chain stores do it too

but the dealers do it even more

the dealers are turning out

a really high level of talent

into the aftermarket sector

because of this concept of production

and you know burning them out

until they don't want to be

that person anymore

because it just doesn't pay

they watch the guy

like you said

Jim watches a guy turn 60 80

whatever a week

Jim's lucky to hit 40

and and we know that

Jim's not the highest paid

and Jim's mind eventually

he knows he should be

because he can see that

when he's not there

the effect that it has

but yet the dealer says

I can't make the money work

I can't I can't pay you that

because you're not proofs enough hours

the dealer is where

they're missing the fucking point

and it my argument has always been

the dealer knows that

they can pay him

and they know that

they can find the money

they just don't want to take it

from where

that should be taken

to pay Jim

and that's a whole other

conversation for a different day

that's that's a different kind of

Curtis let me ask you then

if you're not the Jim of the shop

two questions

what makes Jim different than you

if there is anything just a choice

or do you ever want to be the Jim

and I think you've already

kind of answered that

you don't want to be

I'll start with the latter question

is saying

if I was on a pay plan

that wasn't flat rate

what I put in the time and effort

to be the Jim of the shop

absolutely

I think

for the exactly the reason

we're talking about it

I know that they're not

compensated properly

and I know that there's no

like huge ceiling

for the Jim of the shop

so I know

I just know that it's not

something that I want to do

because it would put myself

in a bind

and it would hurt me

more than help me

what I like to

and I kind of saying

that what I like to open

my own shop someday

not being the Jim of the shop

yeah

I think there's thinking

of bigger picture wise

but

I also want to be able

to spend the time

to learn those cars

to solve the hard problems

and not get hosed

and that's just not

where the dealership life

is at right now

so is the flat rate

and the hosie as you say

how do you think that's

for the mental health

of a lot of those technicians

right now

well I think

I think flat rate in general

and compensation in general

in the automotive industry

is hurting technicians

because

when you can't make those hours

and you can't make the money

to pay your bills to

I don't want to say

feed your family

because that's pretty extreme

but that does get there

to that point

where you can't make your

mortgage payment

you can't make your car payment

and you start

getting in debt

and you start losing

you know

you can't make the money

you can't make the hours

and whether it's because

you're the diagnosis

diagnostic tech

or it's because

there's no cars coming into

shop

I mean that burden

that it puts on individuals

in the shop

is something that

most of us just keep quiet

about

when no one talks about it

or if they do talk about it

it's not heard

it's just

talked about in deaf years

because everyone doesn't want it

it's such a hard conversation

to have

yeah

and and we've seen

I mean I've seen it

you might have heard it

that everybody says well

you know

it's not to feed their family

like there's too many tech

technicians are terrible with money

they're terrible management

you know money management

you know

you know they all want fast cars

and and

you know fancy boats

and a bunch of guns

and all this like

they're living above their means

I think that

what we

innately want to do

is we want kind of the same stuff

that

like what Jim wants

is the same kind of lifestyle

that the

60 80 whatever

you know the

the golden child shop

shop

tech in the shop

what

affords himself

but I think that's what we all want

I know a lot of techs

especially to get out of the aftermarket

sometimes they resent the owner

I know I was that tech

I was like

this fucking guy is not paying me squat

and you know he's got a classic car

collection and they've got a

you know

a half a million dollar yacht

down at the Kingston Harbor

like

that this was all real shit

and we resent them

because it's like

I want some of that

and I don't even want a half a

million dollar yacht in the harbor

I just want a basketball

down up you know

the corner like

in my driveway that I can go fish out of

not

you know a 14 foot with a 10 horse on the

back that's all I can afford

you know what I mean like

we want to bring the pay a little bit

closer

so I don't think that it's living

above their means so much

it's just that

they

they're starting to learn their value

and this is what's scaring a lot of

people in the industry is they're

starting to really realize that like

like I've been saying for

I've been saying online for

fucking

almost 20 years

the technician is the product

it's not Audi isn't the product

Audi can be bought other places in

Houston besides where you work

but if how do you

continues to sell well at your dealership

it's because it has a reputation for

good sales experience

and being able to take care of the car

after it sold to the customer

that's the tax

that's not the salesman

the salesman only has to make the sale

and this is the thing

we're seeing it where

it's a Hyundai or Kia now

they're going to sell cars on Amazon

if you think that the days of

the

golden children being in

the sales department of the dealership

you're crazy

the the key players are going to be

in the service department

and if you don't have them

you're not going to have a dealer

because nobody will bring the car

back

if you're known as not being able to

fix it

so if you run gyms off

and you just have a bunch of guys

that can service this

and do the recall on that

but you can't solve the car that

you know is a nightmare

do you think they're necessarily

going to trade it back into you

and buy another one

no they might

but that doesn't solve anything

right

and and eventually

the reputation gets out there

that it's like

they've got nobody to fix the cars

well then you got the people who are

sending those huge estimates in the

shop just trying to make

whether they're trying to make a

living or that's actually wrong

with the car

yeah

then you got those that deter

customers from coming back

yeah well and we talked about that

you know guys get a little

there was a conversation that came

up you know

I guess a shop owner asked it

if you have a wheel bearing go

bad on the car

do you sell both wheel bearings

and everybody kind of went excuse

me

what well and and there were some

good arguments that why you might

make well they're both the same age

you don't want to have to deal with

the comeback of it six months later

if the customer's back

they're going to feel maybe like

you know they were

we didn't do a good job

if you have to pull the spindle

off or whatever press the ball

doing it you got to ding

and for an alignment again

there's all kinds of arguments

on the side of it

but there's that kind of

conversation that was like

what's the right way to do

and it was kind of split

and the other thing is like

we see it where you take your car

in and it's like well

Audi says you should change the

fluid until whatever 100,000 miles

but then you see a bunch of techs

that are struggling for work

and they're trying to sell that

fluid recommendation at 80,000 miles

right based on oh I took a test

trip look at the color of it

right are they advocating for the

customer at that point

yeah they don't want to see the

transmission fail

but what's pushing the advocacy

the fact that they need to produce hours

you know that's my thing about this

that's why I think it's

the mental health thing is where

they're not

it's going to open a can of worms

when we really start to see

and we're already seeing it

the fall out why

because you can pick another

skilled trade and go to work

tomorrow and just install AC units

and if we all of a sudden

have a summer that ain't that hot

and nobody's AC unit breaks

or we don't like they don't buy as many

he's not going home at the end of the

year with less money

he's just having a lighter season

but in our industry we never have a

light season

never gets better for us

when we have a light season

we suffer

and that's that's the thing that

people don't want to talk about

you know

well especially full flat rate is

is those customers start

stop coming in and

or even just like a slow season

that's like for me this year has been

terribly slow

okay so it's those

you know you don't

have those cars coming in

then techs start getting a little bit

desperate or maybe

what you said over

you know trying to sell a little too

soon or being like well this

category three leak is

or this category two leak maybe

he's category three

let's maybe push it a little harder

it might not be the right thing to do

but it gets done

because

well you can't bring home 20 hours a week

you know like that ain't gonna work

no

and some people out there are

are in a position where they can

do that

and feel comfortable with their

your financial situation

but 90 percent 80 percent of the

technicians in the world

can't go from making 60 hours a

week to 20 hours a week for a year

or a few months or a month

yeah they can't

their lifestyle would change

you're gonna talk right then and there

about like if they're

well if they're lucky enough to have a

home

how do you make the mortgage payment

you know if you are

not working like not living in your

own home and you pay rent

and you have a car payment

which do you pay that month

to pay your car payment

or do you pay your rent

do you pay your tool bill

like do your kids get signed up

for you know

extracurricular sports dance lessons

right or softball or up here hockey

any of those things that cost a lot

of money to put kids in all of a

sudden it's if you like your pay

dips from 60 to 20

things sacrifices are made

and here's the thing

the generation previous i think a

lot of us that go i'll use young

kids are soft

like they don't you know

a lot of them when things got tough

they went and did a bunch of side

work

and i'm not trying to steer the

conversation to to a different

topic that's we've already been

down that road

but what that does to the industry

long term is it cheapens it

so yes you managed to grind and

hustle

and you managed to keep the roof

over your head and the lights on

and the food fed and all all that

stuff good no problems with that

but what you did was you watered

down the the the the skilled trade

in your local area

because people found you now that

would work for 200 bucks

you know you would go home and do

that

cylinder head job or that

transmission re and re

you know for half the price of what

a shop would

because dealerships

the company that i work for it's

a fireball offense to be doing

side work

and so

um i mean specific to if i were

to go work on oudie

not that i want to just because i

do it all day i i kind of want to

have my home time for my family

but is if they for some reason

catch wind that you're doing that

but well now you're out of a job

completely

wow and you can't make that extra

cash on the side

so there's that type of thing too

where these dealerships have these

these rules and i get it i mean

they they want to make sure their

customers are their customers

i understand it it's but they

make it hard when

if i'm i'm not working on any

cars because there's no cars coming

in right well what am i supposed to

do

yeah like if i can't i can't use

my trade to make more money outside

of work where there's no money to

make

what am i supposed to do

and then they get upset

when you try to do something out of

work like

you know try to create a side

business or create something on the

side like oh no

you're done

and then it's like

you're stuck

you're stuck not making any money

because they won't let you and

you're stuck not making any money

because they can't give you the

work to make the money

yeah

and that just creates like this

whole ball of like

like in your head you're like

i'm just gonna explode because you

can't do anything no matter what

and then you just like

keep all this pressure and this

stress and this inside and then

i mean

i want to talk about suicide but

people make those decisions when this

comes down to a bowling point

and it's just like

when are we gonna figure out that

we need to meet in the middle and

help these people who are

struggling when the dealerships

put them in such and not

dealerships maybe just shops in

general put these

technicians in such a tight

spot where they're not being

compensated

yeah

like

if if it's slow because i made a

mistake and i can't make the money

if it's slow because i can't

diagnose a car

sure i maybe make less money that

week but if it's slow because

there's no cars to work on and

that dealership can't provide me

with the work

why do i have to suffer from that

if i'm going crazy when it's

busy

well here's and here's the other

thing

bringing it back to our friend

jim what if the dealer can't all of

a sudden provide that because

18 months a year two years ago they

ran off jim

and now we're seeing the effect of

less cars coming in

you know

and it doesn't even have to always

be a tech and say they fire an

advisor that's really good

right

say they make a sales choice

in the sales department and all of

a sudden that's not always as good

but i mean

i saw dealers at like one salesman

would move to a different dealer

and all of a sudden their car

count for sales went way down

because everybody in the local area

he was involved

he knew a bunch of people

that's listen when i'm buying a

Chrysler i'm going to see brian

brian doesn't work at this Chrysler

store anymore he goes

and you'd see it he'd put a

sometimes an ad in the newspaper

now at facebook's wonderful thing

everybody knows

you know he puts an ad on his

facebook saying hey i'm now gone to

the other Chrysler store

or the other Audi store

all his established customers

follow him and buy it buy the

car from them because they trust him

well he just brings something to that

dealer that benefits all the other

departments within the dealer

and and there's you yeah

and jim that left

he's taking customers with him

not because he poached them

but the follow it is jim is there

people are like f this i'm not going

back to whatever binghamton

Audi

as an example of the name

i'm going to you know

jones Audi

because like bingham can't fix it

that's the kind of stuff that happens

in the dealership no matter what

i keep harping on it

they don't listen to my podcast

unfortunately a lot of them

they're not getting it

they're not

that one key figure two key three

three guys or gals in the back

that are doing those complex cars

they're bringing in everything for

everybody else

it's their reputation is is them

you burn them out

you piss them off

you drive them out do whatever

it will have repercussions

that you cannot recover from

with just running an oil change

special or doing a better dbi

or running a tire problem

you can't do it

you can't

like guarantee you can't

i've seen it it doesn't work

and and this is the thing

i'm about empowering

technicians to realize

if you're one of those

gyms

no you're worth

don't be an a-hole to your employer

but like make sure that

you have a ripple

when you leave this

that employer

you have a ripple

David Klein that we talked about

like you know

the the episode

they reached out to me

that guy has a ripple

everywhere that he goes

what he can do in a shop

right

when they don't want to lose him

because he says

when i go on a week's holidays

the shop

just like when you're talking

recurs with jim

the shop's not the same

it doesn't hit the numbers

it doesn't have

it doesn't flow smooth

all that

when you are that technician

and you know you're that technician

man

make that worse something

that's what i

that's my advice to people

and your mental health

when you know it

it becomes a lot better

for sure

yeah i think

i think that's right

is when you can

support the

support

or no

maybe not support but

well know your value

when you

you make that jump

or when you decide that

hey

shop

shop a is not

holding me to the set

the standard that i see myself at

and i want to move to shop b

but also don't let shop b

give you the run around too

because

but some people are

a lot of people are scared to make

that jump

i don't know how many people

in my dms or

hey i don't like it here

and not even gyms of the dealership

i'm talking entry level

two years three years

they'll be like

hey

i'm not happy here

i'm afraid to leave

i'm so nervous

and like

should i quit

they're like

they'll ask me for

should i do this

should i do that

and it's just like

it's insane that

there's two year technician

stealing this way

you signed up to be a technician

and you're already feeling this way

well good luck

i

hope you make the right decision

because in eight more years

you're going to feel that way

even more

so yeah

what do you tell them then

i will be as honest as i can

and say find a

find a brand that you enjoy

find a brand in a car company

you enjoy

and then find a dealership

that you enjoy

that like you've heard

good things about

and then go out

and do those things like

don't wait around

i know it's risky

i know it's scary

but most of these young guys

will tell them is

make that jump

because you're not going to regret it

if you stay where you're at

you're going to hate what you do

you're going to hate your life

and you're going to regret that

you never took that leap years ago

i mean i'm in a position now where

i'm financially stuck

at the dealership that i make

it's because the hours

the environment

the situation

i mean that's a

it's a number of things

the company i work for

puts me in a great position

to make a ton of hours

and if i see my

one day if i want to become that gym

i'm stuck

and so for me

i always tell these young guys is

don't get stuck

because once you're stuck

making a ton of money

and you're stuck making those hours

it's going to be near impossible

if you make that change

because you've put yourself in a

financial bind

and so i just tell them

take the leap

if you want to work somewhere else

do it

try it

so let's back up then

like if you

you think you're kind of stuck

right now curris

oh for sure

if you could go back

what would you do different

i would

well

i don't know if i would do it

differently

i might have learned some new skills

earlier along the way

to prepare myself to

be an entrepreneur

and do some other stuff sooner

i think

besides just

oh i'm just going to go to work every day

and

not worry about it

maybe i am

i would have gone to school

to learn something

taking some online courses

i would have put myself

in a position to learn things

outside of being a technician

so i could

own my own shop

own my own business

do something besides being in a

you know position now

where as a technician at a dealership

it's

i'm going to have to take a pay cut

and probably an hourly rate cut

to go to maybe a shop

that i feel better about

my shop is great

let's not get confused

if i wanted to be a technician forever

this place that i work is

absolutely fantastic

i just have more aspirations

right okay

you're going back to what you

were talking about

within your two-year-old tech

comes to you on your DMs

and says hey i'm thinking about quitting

i'm kind of in a different place

in you because like i kind of

i delve into each one and

talk about like

because i get those calls to

and i'm like well

what's your situation like

and what and what are you doing to

what are you doing to grow yourself

and if they say you know

i'm not really uh i'm not being

i'm not getting the growth

at the opportunities

i'm not getting i'm i'll be like

okay so what are you doing for training

they go training

they're not giving me

okay what are you doing for training

outside of

what they want to provide for you

like do you

do you take training on youtube

do you follow these people

you know are you involved

with this kind of stuff

do you know who some of the key

players are on

you know

tiktok and

you know instagram

that are in the space

if they say no i say okay

so

you have to go and find these people

and you have to start building

yourself

but i also tell a lot of them

turns i'll tell you straight out

i tell a lot of them

if you're two years in

and you're hating it

get out

because you don't have

hopefully a massive tool debt yet

you might have just a little bit

get out

because like

the last thing i want to see

i talk about all the time

is these young people

there's a snap-on toolbox

or sale right now

in facebook marketplace

in my area

that was sold to the

valued at $18,000 when the kid bought it

i say kid i don't know

he's selling it for $4,000

like you tell me

he's keeping all the tools

he just wants to get rid of the box

you tell me that's not somebody

that's probably getting out of the industry

yeah happening all the time

right

so

i tell them if you're not happy

if you've already got this realization

that like

oh crap this isn't what i thought it was

going to be

like i thought it was going to be fun

and it's not

it's a grind and it sucks

i tell them and like

you gotta

if you are sick and ahead

you want to become the next gym

then there's no hope for you

just buckle down train

and you'll become the next gym

if that's what you really want to do

but if you just thought this was going to be fun

and you were going to make $100,000 a year

and you know

play with fun cars

that's not it

and you better get out

and just like

you know

take up HVAC

or take up like

go being electric

the amount of technicians

i know that have left

to gone into becoming electricians

is crazy

crazy

because we don't

HVAC isn't as big up here

we don't you know

like

AC is like

you know

lots of houses in Canada

don't

turn it on

or don't

fucking

fix it

because it's not terrible

we only need a few months of the year but

you know

there are lots of them left to be

problemers

lots of them left to be electricians

that talked about

the local Goodyear factory here

sapped up a bunch of talent

because they all just

go and fix those machines

i've told technicians

what you said before

that if they're that

like

if

well

you know

delve into the conversation

a little bit with them

but

if they come out saying

they want to be techs

that goes the way i spoke earlier

but if they don't

like i say the same thing as you is

if

you're 20 to 25

even 30

i mean 30 is a little late but

like do what's best for you

and don't let

a

two or three dollar pay raise

convince you

because you're only going to be that

happy for a little bit

and then you're just going to be in

the same boat

and that

shop

will string you along for years

and years

hell you want to

here's a couple dollars

and then you're 10 years in and

you're like

wow what am i doing with my life

i should have left

eight years ago

because

i really didn't like this at all

i know

i don't know maybe you meet them

i know i'm 50

and the amount of technicians

that i've met in my career

that were close to my age

that all said the same thing

i should have got out 10 years ago

like i should have

i should have never done this

like i

but a lot of them

like

they weren't going to go to college

they weren't going to go to

university

they just had a knack right

and the knack put them in a job

where

they could make a living

and you know

they

eat at a career

but now they

they've got a box full of tools

they've got

you know bum knees

bum shoulders

bum backs

and

and they're like

i should have got out of this

20 years ago

i should have went

applied myself differently

i was that guy five years ago

i was still that guy three years

but it's one of those things

where

you know

we keep in this industry talking

about why

you know the young people

are not coming in

and they're not staying

and it's

it comes right back to

what we've been talking about

tonight

the the culture of the business

has got to change

it won't

dealerships are not going to have

technicians on staff

if they don't get ahead of this

problem

i don't care what they say

oh we're going to do this

and we're going to pay them

it doesn't matter

with everything in cost going up

in every job

paying their people more

it doesn't matter

if all of a sudden every technician

starts to make 100k a year

if they could make 80k a year

doing something with way less

of the mental anguish

there's a lot of people

that will still take the 20k loss

because it's just at the end

of the day

they can go home and

and relax

and know that i go in tomorrow

rinse wash repeat

and i make the same amount of money

we're killing our people

because we're making them like

bear all the brunt

of all the other bad decision

in the business

right

if they make somebody else

makes a bad decision

makes it a management change

makes and then the numbers drop

out of the bottom

yes everybody feels it

but the technicians feel it the most

and that's why we have such the

problem with the mental health

and the technicians that we do

that's why

because it's the unsteadyness of knowing

i may not make anything tomorrow

or it's the it's the impending gloom

of knowing that like

i'm 30

and i got 20 more years of this

and i don't see it getting better for me

because i can't get to jim's level

for whatever reason

or i can't get to kurtis's level

or i'm already at that level

and i i'm bored or you know

like we made a manager change

and all of a sudden he hates my

guts because he doesn't think

i should be getting a guarantee

like this is the stuff that plays

in our head all day long

and then they wonder why we're sick

and when they wonder why we

you know some of us drink too much

and and you know

divorce is such a rampant thing

and technicians it's not even funny

they wonder why out of you you

spend a lot of time

you know if you're the more your

time you're there the more time

the more money you can make

yeah i think

i think a lot of the stuff i've

been posting online has been

conversations and where i'm

wearing a suit or talking

and you know i don't get a post

from my shop anymore

but i think that there's a right

way to go about having these

conversations with these dealerships

and these service managers

and these owners and

and i think that some of them

are interested

and i think they don't want to hear

like the

i'm gonna say complaining

but you know if you want to

have a conversation with the

people who make the higher

decisions you need to rise

to their level

and you speak to them in a way

that they understand

and i've been getting a lot of heat

from that because i'm wearing a suit

and it's like oh and

you know the things that people

say are are awful on social media

but at the end of the day

my my mission is to advocate

for technicians

and i want to help technicians

and i understand the system

enough to know

that if i just sit here and

complain on social media

and i just don't try to do

anything about like with your

you talking to people

and talking to industry leaders

and talking to technicians

and getting the voices out there

that's the type of stuff we need

we don't need people

you know

harassing in the comments

and going on to making these

videos we need people to have

conversations at the table

with the owners

and with the service managers

and talking to them in a way

that

i mean

if i were to go to have one of

these conversations and

they're talking about flat rate

which i have a conversation

coming up about that

and i'm excited because i'm

going to bring into it some of the

stuff about mental health

it says

is is if flat rate is so important

you know let's say that

fixed op manager

is making five hundred thousand

dollars more per year

on flat rate

is that worth

someone's life

i mean that's extreme

that's very extreme

but at the same time is

they don't know what's going on

with that technician

they don't know what's going on

they don't know there's

decisions in their

their livelihood

so is that

five hundred thousand dollars

worth it

because sometimes it feels like

that's more important

but if we want to have those

conversations we need to rise to the

level and rise to the occasion

and wear the suits and represent

ourselves in a professional manner

yeah

and so i

there's one thing that i hope that

this conversation does is realize

that

i'm on the technician side

and i will always be on the

technician side

even if i

become an owner become a manager

whatever well the future has for me

talking in front of people

and talking at these groups and these

tables with people

is nerve wracking

and sometimes it's hard to have

these conversations

and i get nervous

and i get anxious

but

you know maybe some of the things

i say

are

come off across as

you know

managerial or

the owners

i think of the owner's son

or something like that and

and ultimately

is

i'm nervous having these conversations

too i'm advocating for not just

myself

but for a lot of people

and

you know it's it's a tough situation

for me

and but at the end of the day

i want to help technicians

increase their value

and i want to help technicians

relieve some of that mental stress

and that mental

suffering

that flat rate brings to the table

and

flat rate is great for some people

but it needs to evolve into

something

that benefits the gyms

and the courtesies

and

the new guys

and and not just

to rush those repairs

and not to

you know get stuck on huge

dyag

but to do what's best for the customer

and do what's best for the

technician

and

in turn

if you're taking care of your people

and you're taking care of your

customers

that dealership

or that shop

will profit

we just need to be done in the right order

yeah um

going back to what we talked about

the David Klein episode that

you know kind of

helped me find you

well David

hit with me a bunch

was that like

he missed a lot of things with his children

and he

it's things he can't get back

and I don't know your situation

and that's that's fine

but

the technicians that are listening

like I have no so many techs

that are older my age that like

when they did the

the moonlighting

the shade treating stuff

they missed out on so much

and yeah maybe they did that

because like

they wanted to have a race car

you know and and and that took time

or or

you know they wanted their wife to be home

the kids to be home school

so they piled a bunch of work in

you know after hours

trying to find that balance of

being able to walk away at the end of it

hang up your head at the end of it all

and say I didn't miss

you know I'm good I didn't miss

I don't know too many that

can look back and not have a ton of regrets

on the stuff that they missed

while they were making money

and I think that that's the other thing

that we're we're we're not talking

about enough in the industry

and for 2026 I want to move forward

we're talking about it more is that it's not

the young people

it's not that like

they're lazy

but they value that time away from work

way more than my parents generation did

way more than I did

it took me a long time to really

I valued when I wasn't at work

because I loved being

I love the challenge of work

now I want to go to work

but I want to be able to leave work at work

and I want to enjoy my

I want to work for my leisure time

when we go home at night

and we hustle and we grind

and we you know

shade tree

that's all stuff you can't get back

that's hours at the end of the day

that you can't get back

Jay Cole that I had on

he talks with that right now

he is working very hard

but he's missing a lot of stuff

and he doesn't want to miss

a lot of stuff forever

and you know that's not just a problem

with our industry

it's parents all over the world

happening you know

they miss things

but our industry

because of what we could do

where our skill set would allow

we never had a shortage

if you wanted to work

from the time you got off work at five

until midnight

lots of guys did that

two in the morning

three in the morning

they made

made a killing

they brag about that

and then you see them

and it's like

they don't have good relationships

with their children

because they don't really

they're not bonded

they don't know

like dad was always busy

my own father

I could tell you stories

so

people are listening

this isn't about flat rate

it's not about

it's about knowing your value

and knowing that

there's nothing wrong

with a technician

wanting to go to work

and only work Monday to Friday

and only you know

clock out at five

and be able to leave it at home

and make a decent enough living

that they're not stressed

to the point of where their

marriage is starting to fall apart

or they're thinking

you know

crazy suicidal thoughts

and they want to have

strong family relationships

if we just say too bad

the shop's not making money

like go home and do side work

that's not the answer

and we know it's not the answer

and this is the thing

with too many years

they just said

oh well

the younger generation is not

going to do it

and they shouldn't have to

fucking do it

that's the other thing

they should not have to

because the other ones

the other skilled trades

they don't do it

not to the level that we do it at

and this is not about

Shaitree you know

side work

it's not what this whole

conversation is about

it's just don't think of it

as the solution

because it isn't one

it's a detriment

I'm going through that

same exact thing now

as my kids are three and four

and I used to

go in early

stay late

and then

you know the technician in me

I get

excuse me

I get to four or five o'clock

and I know that I can get

that work done

I know that I can stay late

but I also know I have

kids at home that say

daddy why do you

got to go to work

stay home

yeah

night

that's one of the hardest

things is I

trust me

little buddy

I don't want to go to work

like I don't want to go there

and spend my day there

I would rather stay at home

with you

yeah

and so that's something new

for me that I'm struggling

with

as the work hard technician

but also as a father

and a husband is

is

I'm trying to be more

father husband

unless

grind my life away at work

and so

I'm struggling with exactly

what you said is

it doesn't need to be

that way

it doesn't need to be

12 plus hours a day to

make a good living

it doesn't need to be

that

yeah

I don't

I said it to

conversation earlier

my goal

when I got into this

was never to take a dealership

and make that dealer owner

another million dollars

in the next quarter

to put in their retirement fund

that was never my goal

and I think too many times

we don't want to talk about it

and you're not at the level

where I'm at

but I could sit

and have those conversations

all day long

and look at them

with a straight face and say

because that's what's expected

when you go to work

as a dealer owner

a lot of you

I understand

it's not easy

but a lot of you

are playing on

such a different level

than what the people

that work for you are

you've forgotten

and this is the

this is it

I'm not there to make you

a multi-millionaire

I'm there to provide

for my family

and if you're going to

tell me that I'm not worth

paying

what I feel I'm worth

somebody else

right now

in this

fucking industry

in this marketplace

that we're in

I guarantee you

somebody else will

and this is the people

that are listening

that's the reality

you know it

you're all running ads

you're all trying

to hire competent

qualified people

like Curtis

and you can't find them

because you've lost sight

of what somebody

like Curtis wants

for Curtis

and what he's really

truly worth

to the bottom line

and when you

pull your heads

out of your butt

and realize it

things will

the ship will

ride its way

but right now

it ain't happening

and I

I hats off to people that are

figuring out their worth

I talk to them every day

and it is

it does my heart good

to know

that the conversations

that Curtis is having

the current stations

that I'm having

they're being heard

and people are realizing

and I'm not wishing any

ill on the people

that are you know

own dealerships

or own shops

I'm not wishing you any ill

but you have to stop

thinking

that your customers

can't pay

and that's why I can't give

Curtis more money

that's all bullshit

and if you

if even if you

don't think the customers

can't pay

you just don't want to

give it out of your own pocket

see how that goes for you

I guarantee

it's not going to go well

so

Curtis

that's enough of the rant

tonight

thank you for having

on closing thoughts

where do you want to be

in five years Curtis

I want to be doing

something for myself

that allows freedom

to have my own schedule

okay

I don't want to

sit around

and be on vacation all day

that's just not who I am

but I want to do

something that's building

for my future

and essentially building

for my family's future

right now

the dealership life

suits that

but I'm definitely

in the works on some things

that I hope

in five years

are too fruition

yeah well

as always

I hope that we can have you

back on at some point

and keep in touch

with where you're headed

and what you're doing

and you know

you and I are relatively

new friends

but I mean

we need to have a lot more

of these conversations

behind the scenes

and I think you need to

keep me in the loop

of what's going on

and what you're thinking

about

and you know

some of the people that

are are reaching out to

you

if you want to give them

a slightly different

perspective

send them my way

you know

not and I don't mean

that in a bad way

but you know what I mean

right like I can kind of

give it a little more

this is

how old are you to 30

34

so this is the 50 year old

right

um

and you know

we want to see the young

people succeed

that's the

why I do this

I don't do this for

text my own age

the guys that are

already my age

and still doing it

we've figured out

how to survive it

but I do this

and you do this

I think for the young

people that are coming

after you

and that's

why I do it

and I want to thank you

for everything

you're doing for the

industry

I think it's great

and um

people

where can they find Curtis

well right now

my biggest thing is

Instagram

at

Technar

with two Rs

that's

T-E-C-H-G-N-A-R-R

it's a little hard to spell

I'm also on

as well

I'm pretty becoming

pretty popular on

and TicToc

TicToc is also

Technar

so

yeah

trying to get out there

yeah

I first saw him on

Instagram

um

I see him a lot

more now on TicToc

and

everybody

you know where to find me

um

I'm over on LinkedIn

but I'm not very active

they're not white people

over there

I'll just tell you that

right now

it's definitely

a different crowd

a lot of the people

that I tend to

run down

tend to hang out

in that crowd so

they don't really

get me

and that's okay

it's all right

um

you know

there's some good folks

over there

I'm not trying to say that

but I mean

that a lot of the people

like that

you know

so-and-so dealer

principal

so-and-so dealer

principal is like

they're not going to

want to hear me

yeah

it's much more business

and uh

business forward

and stuff like that

and so

it's allowed me to grow

in some other areas

that are important

to the

the bigger picture

yeah

but uh

Curtis

thanks for being here

tonight brother

um

I appreciate you

and uh

as always

all my listeners

we got

some really cool

episodes coming up

um

Asta is in six weeks

so all of yous

that are listening

if you have or on the fence

about going to Asta

go to Asta

trust me

the who's who

of the internet

automotive realm

are

going to be there

not just me

but other people that you know

and I can honestly say this

it's an amazing event

and uh

you know

we've got

four tech J. Cole

is going

Brandon Sloan

Chuck engine Chuck

like we've got some really

cool cats from

the online space

that are attending

so if you're thinking about

I only want to go one event

this year

that's the event to go to

and uh

I always say

it's a life changing event

when you go to

it changes you

you realize that

you're not alone

and

Curtis you're not alone man

I know exactly where you're

coming from

so

everybody

I love yous all

we'll talk to you soon

thank you

hey

if you could do me a favor

real quick

and like comment on

and share this episode

I'd really appreciate it

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as always

I'd like to thank our

amazing guests

for their perspectives

and expertise

and I hope that

you'll please

join us again

next week

on this journey of change

thank you

to my partners

in the ASA group

and to the

changing the industry

podcast

remember what I always say

in this industry

you get what you pay for

Pierce hoping everyone

finds their missing

10 millimeter

and we'll see you all

again next time

Flat Rate EXPOSES Lazy Techs and that Scares the Auto Repair Industry

Master Tech

Toyota Corolla

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