Fleet Work vs Auto Repair and Why Mental Health Needs More Attention | Riley Spence
The Jaded Mechanic Podcast
Fleet Work vs Auto Repair and Why Mental Health Needs More Attention | Riley Spence
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101:50
Concept
heavy equipment
Heavy equipment is the big machinery used for construction and road work—things like loaders and other industrial machines. The speaker is saying their company maintains those too.
Concept
automotive fleet maintenance
Fleet maintenance is when a shop keeps a whole company’s vehicles working—like delivery vans, service trucks, or company cars. Instead of fixing one person’s car, they’re trying to keep the whole group reliable and on the road.
Term
snow clearing
Snow clearing is the work of getting roads and lots usable during winter. It often involves using big machines and planning around storms so people can still get where they need to go.
Term
journeyman welder
A journeyman welder is a highly trained welding professional. They’ve learned the craft through training and practice, so their welds are reliable.
Term
TIG weld
TIG welding is a careful, high-control way to weld metal. It’s often used for aluminum because it can make neat, strong welds when the technique is right.
Term
excavator
An excavator is a big construction machine used for digging. Here, they’re talking about repairing the bucket area so it can keep doing its job.
Brand
Chev
“Chev” refers to Chevrolet, a major General Motors brand. In the transcript, Chevrolet is central because the fleet is primarily Chevrolet vehicles, which affects parts availability and ordering channels.
Concept
four wheel drive
Four wheel drive powers both the front and rear wheels. If you use it a lot for months, the drivetrain works harder and needs more careful maintenance.
Car
Silverado
The Silverado is a common Chevy pickup truck. They’re using it as an example of a vehicle people complain about when dealer oil changes cost more.
Term
engine locked up
If an engine locks up, it basically can’t turn anymore because something inside failed badly. That usually means the engine needs major repair or replacement.
Car
Chrysler New Chrysler
The Chrysler New Yorker is a larger, comfort-focused car. In the podcast, it’s mentioned because something broke or needed service at a dealer and a replacement part was installed. That’s the kind of real-world ownership detail people want to know.
Car
Rolls-Royce Phantom
The Rolls-Royce Phantom is a very expensive luxury car. The podcast mentions that it can have electrical problems connected to the engine area. Electrical issues can be tricky because they involve sensors and control computers.
Term
spark plugs
Spark plugs help the engine “ignite” the fuel. If they look dirty or coated, it can be a clue that something about combustion or fuel quality isn’t right.
Term
carbonized coating
A carbon coating on a spark plug usually means the engine isn’t burning fuel as cleanly as it should. That can be caused by fuel quality or other combustion issues.
Term
white-tailed deer
White-tailed deer are animals that often wander onto roads. They’re a common reason for car crashes, especially in rural areas.
Term
diagnostic (diag)
In car repair, “diag” means figuring out what’s actually causing the problem. If you rush it, you might replace the wrong part and have to do the job again.
Term
crank sensor
The crank sensor tells the car’s computer where the engine is in its cycle. If it’s wrong, the car can run poorly or not start, but replacing it without testing can waste labor.
Term
lab scope
A lab scope is a tool that lets you see what a sensor signal looks like on a screen. It helps confirm whether the sensor is actually behaving correctly.
Term
spark output
Spark output is how well the ignition system is making the spark that lights the fuel. If you don’t test it correctly, you can chase the wrong problem.
Term
software patch
A software patch is an update to the car’s computer. In this case, it was meant to keep the truck starting properly even if a small sensor-related piece fails.
Term
transfer case
In 4WD vehicles, the transfer case sends power to both the front and rear wheels. Pulling it usually means the job is pretty involved.
Term
ABS module
The ABS module is the computer that manages anti-lock braking. If it loses its settings, the brakes can behave incorrectly until the system is re-initialized.
Concept
apprentice
They’re talking about how new trainees sometimes don’t learn the “how we do things here” rules. Those habits matter because they keep the shop safer and less chaotic.
Concept
suspension geometry
Suspension geometry is how the suspension parts are set up and angled. It affects how the vehicle handles and how stable it feels when you drive.
Concept
no fuse
A fuse is safety protection for electrical circuits. If there’s a short and there’s no fuse, the wiring can overheat instead of safely shutting down.
Concept
braking doesn't happen in a vacuum
This emphasizes that brake performance and temperatures depend on many variables: vehicle load, tire grip, road conditions, airflow, brake pad condition, and rotor thickness. It’s a reminder that diagnosing brakes requires more than one measurement.
Concept
infrared gun
An infrared gun measures how hot something is from a distance. But brakes don’t heat evenly in a simple way, so temperature differences can be confusing without the full context.
Concept
supply chain of parts
This is about how hard it is to get replacement parts. If the parts are delayed or backordered, repairs take much longer.
Brand
Tesla
Tesla is the company they’re comparing to. The idea is that Tesla already had phone/key-style features, and other brands copied the concept.
Concept
EV
EV means electric vehicle. It’s a car that runs on electricity instead of gasoline, so fixing it usually requires different tools and training than normal cars.
Term
regenerative braking
Regenerative braking is when slowing down helps recharge the battery. Instead of wasting all the energy as heat, the car turns some of it back into electricity.
LIVE
I want to be as good as I can be. Like, I want to learn from the best and stuff. And that's why I love working at different places. Like, you go to a new dealership or a new garage or wherever you're to, and like. Like, say if I walked in to work with you tomorrow and there was another really good tech there or whatever, like, that's a gold mine of information that you can absorb if you're asking the right questions and if you. The right traits as a person.
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another exciting episode of the Jade Mechanic podcast. So this is kind of a. A second run out of. Out of something. It's kind of like, you know, you guys that ever been hunting and you got a deer cam out there and you see a deer and you go up maybe, and you. You go at one fall morning and you take a shot at her and she runs off. You don't see the rest of season. You got to come back and you get another crack at her, you know, so next year maybe you finally get her.
This is kind of like this kind of situation's happening today. Now, my, My. My good friend Riley, he's not a deer. He's more like one of them Newfoundlander mooses. And we. We recorded last week and we had a lot of problems with WI fi because he was up at the hunting camp and the WI fi was not good. So he's back down now. You're at Goose Bay this morning, aren't you, Riley?
Yeah, I'm back home in Labrador and Goose Bay. Back now for a week, so a bit more closer to civilization, I guess.
Now, if you're listening to Riley and you're like, what the hell is he saying? I understand, you know, the Newfoundlanders, or as we call them, the new fees, have got an awesome dialect and an awesome accent, so. And as his isn't as thick as some, but as you get to listen to him, it sounds really, really cool and you begin to understand, but just, you know, you're not. It's not on the wrong speed. That's just how we talk. So how's it going, bro?
Not bad, man. Not bad. Just beating around the house today a little bit. Getting the skidoo clean, getting the skidoo ready for ride and stuff and, you know, trying to get ready for the upcoming work week.
Now, I gotta tell you, we. We got rid of all our snow by Wednesday last week, and then we got a little light flurry on Friday.
We got dumped.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So. Yeah.
How much.
How much did you get altogether.
Do you think that last snowfall.
Yeah.
Oh my God. I'd say like probably 15, 20 centimeters.
Holy jump.
It's pretty, pretty average like here and this like we're so far north and the air is really like dry. We just throw the winter. We'll get like consistent every day, 1 to 3, 5 centimeters. And then every now and then we'll get like a big dump of like 15 plus.
Yeah.
So the company I work for, we're a construction company and we also maintained provincial hydro companies, automotive fleet and heavy equipment and stuff.
Yeah.
And we also maintain the road site going to Muskrat Falls energy project. So we are pretty big into snow clearing. We got a lot of loaders, a lot of two flyers right now and some sand trucks and stuff. So it's a big part of our business in the wintertime, like keeping people employed and stuff. Right?
Yeah. So good contract to have though, really.
We're basically hydro's construction company. Like that's the only way to put it. Like we're so tied in with them. It's pretty cool. And we do a lot of other heavy civil work like and other projects too.
This is a relatively new job for you, right?
Yeah, I started last May with this company. Left the dealership and just wanted something where I'm right. My like I. Coming into it I knew I'd be writing my own service, finding my own part, submitting off the invoicing for payments and stuff. And it's not like out of my wheelhouse where I was in service before as at the dealership and stuff. And this is tech. So. Yeah.
Just being in, going into that job, I was so excited for it, just for the change. It's so nice. I go into work and I work with a lot of very high, high professional people. Like I'm in the fabrication shop where they have my hoist put there.
Yeah.
And it's like it's probably one of a kind in the province outside of like major industrial sites like mines and stuff. Like we have a metal sheet that's probably 16ft long. We got plate bending machine that's massive. Like it takes two people to switch the jaws out. Like wow. It's pretty insane.
You guys. Some pretty cool stuff then.
Oh, it's nuts. What we can make. We made snow buckets before I started there, like for loaders. It's. It's crazy. And I work with a. He's a journeyman welder and man to watch him. He's after teaching me how to aluminum.
Well the spool Gun. Yeah, I've been practicing at the Tig weld with Tig weld and aluminum. Because when you Tig weld aluminum you don't have hole. Like when you start with a spool gun, you make a hole, right. And it's not watertight, but when you Tig weld, it's. If you do it right, it's watertight. That's what you do on aluminum boats. And I was just like, you know, I'd like to learn how to do that.
And so been fooling around with that a little bit whenever we got the time, but for the most part we're extremely busy. Like that definitely keeps me on my toes.
It's like he must be an incredible welder though. Way to watch because like lots of guys can stick stuff together but like to being able to build a bucket, even just a bucket.
Oh God.
You know, that's some cool stuff, eh?
It's really. Well right now he's. They're putting in a new new bottom and back into an excavator. A 320 cat bucket.
Yeah.
And just watching them do it, like you use flux core for that, it's a lot hotter. Right. So. But like it's just crazy what you can see him doing. It's not, it's a lot more to it than just going to Canadian Tire and buying a millermatic 120 and calling it a day, you know, like it's serious skill and it makes you more self conscious about weldings like as techs. Like we all weld a little bit like whether it's bowl extraction plate, stuff like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But yeah, it's pretty cool to be be around it like us. And then we got heavy equipment mechanics there too. We got a really good journeyman there and our. And the owner of the company is also a journeyman heavy equipment mechanic too.
Oh, that's pretty cool then.
Yeah, yeah, he understands like when. Well I don't really see him much because he's dealing easily without slight a lot being dealing with projects and stuff.
Yeah.
But when I do talk to him like it's really cool. You know, he understands like what the industry's like. He understands like what it means actually work on some of these systems. And you know, he does value like our opinions like you know, if you're given construction or like actual words that mean something and not just baffling them. Bullshit. Right.
Yeah. Because you, you come, you come from the background at the dealership where you kind of made it up pretty high up in terms of some of the decision making that was going on. But, you know, I kind of shared how it was still very frustrating because it's like you're the. I don't want to say the money's the limiting factor. Right. But it's. It's just way more. Way more hats to wear.
Right. Way more plates spinning in the air at the same time. Whatever analogy you want to use to. Yeah, to just manage all that in once. Right. It's. It's tough.
It is. It's extremely hard. Like, when you're dealing with, like, all it takes is one irate customer who things went astray on and things weren't communicated to properly. And like, being a Goose Bay, geographically, you're challenged without saw, out of town customers because, like, the nearest town is almost 300km away. So it puts everyone in a bit of a situation. Right. Well, that's when a vehicle is not drivable and they came from a town.
And you and I talked about even getting parts, like, we're spoiled here, like, and even some places on the mainland. Right? Which is. I. I don't mean mainland. You're on the mainland, but you know what I mean? Not up. Up north of the. Where you guys are sometimes two, three weeks for some parts to come in easy, easy.
And like, it's. And as a. We were a new dealership too. So, like, there's an established Chev dealership here, and they get air freight. Next day, like, I order parts from a lot because Hydro Fleet is primarily Chev vehicles. And like, the next day they can have a part for me from the warehouse in Montreal. And like, when you. And like, when I talk to the district service manager, they're telling me that, well, that's the way it is up there.
I'm like, well, no, it's not the way it is up here because there's a chef dealership 10km up the road who can get parts the next day. So, like, either put some more time and care into it, or, like, you know, you're putting us in a hard spot. Like, how can we tell a customer to buy our product when, yeah, you know, we can't compete with the turnaround on the vehicle being down.
Yeah.
And then your CSI score gets hit and everyone's heads roll.
Yeah, see, you left that behind and went to this job and what was like, did it kind of freak you out the first time that you wrote up an estimate for, like, you know, for your new employer? That's like 10 grand?
No, fuck. No, I, like, fuck. Like, listen, if you want a white glove service.
Yeah.
If you want someone dedicated, married to your fleet and taking care of it and may like properly maintain it. Like I felt like, because I'm dealing with elements agents when I submit these things. And like at 100k general, like around 100k, I usually go through all the driveline fluids. I'll go through the transmission transfer case, rear diff, front diff. Because here in Labrador you're in four wheel drive from the end of November usually till May.
Yeah.
And they're used in a poor air quality area as well. There's a lot of flying particulate, silica, silicate particles in there and stuff. And you see it, it's very evident when you take a air airing take off and like the whole thr body's dusted and I'm like, you know, every oil change I go right through the filters, check everything and when I submit it off, you're like, oh, it's not do it this time. And like I got to the point now because I'm after putting through like, I think I looked at it, it was 200 and something work orders since May.
Yeah.
Of last year. And I just told him, I said, listen, you can either change the air filter now or you can change it when the engine's dusted and it's consuming 8 liters of oil every couple thousand kilometers. It's up to you. Yeah. Like I'm not fighting with you on this all the time. Like it's driving me nuts.
Well, because I mean, and that's the thing we all saw. We've all seen if you worked in the dealer long enough or in this industry long enough. You know, guys don't want to spend $50 on an air filter, but you know, seven, eight thousand bucks for a turbo job. Right. And all of a sudden they're like, damn, I just wish I'd have changed that sucker out every time.
You know, hindsight's 20 20.
Yeah. And again, it is like I'm not because you've heard me, you know, Riley, rip on some of the quick little places where they're like, down here where our air is pretty, you know, we don't have that particulate and they're selling them an air filter every time they come in for an oil change. And you know, everybody's like, oh, it's ridiculous. Well, in some parts of the country, it actually makes a whole lot of sense. The difference is like, you know, you're charging 60 bucks for, you know, an OE filter for a powerstroke Ford, you know, hypothetical round numbers. And they're charging, they're charging 60 bucks for an OE filter for a Fenistar caravan, right? Like, it's just, you know, they're making up that labor that they lose on the oil change loss leader.
But who are they hiring though?
You know, that's it, that's. Oh man, we could, oh, we could go.
That's a whole different can of worms.
But we could go on that because you see like the, the comments and the stuff and the. Every neighborhood group on Facebook's got the same thing. I saw a guy yesterday and he was like, he was complaining that the dealer wanted to charge $170 for an oil change on, I think on his brand new Silverado, right? And it's like, you know, where I can get it done cheaper? And it's like, oh, you can get it done cheaper lots of places. But I wouldn't do it, you know, ever, because you're not getting the oil that's supposed to be put in there.
Do you think that new place is going to stand by that oil change if someone double rings an oil filter and blows the engine? You know what I mean?
Like, and here's not, here's the thing comparing, you know, the, that segment of the industry to us because you know, Riley, I'm not sure maybe you've seen it. But I do know, like the dealer around here, years ago, they o ringed a filter and the engine left and of course the engine locked up. It was a 27 and a Sebring way back when, right? So I don't know, I've seen them,
but I know I never done a lot of work on them.
Oh, they were trash, man. I can tell they didn't need any help blowing up. But anyway, so the difference was is that as soon as that happened at the dealer, it got a brand new Chrysler Lombok, right? And it gets put in there. Everybody forgets that when we go to these quick lube places and they do something like that, they go, oh, well, they came good for it. They helped us out. You know, first of all, you can't send it over the dealer and say, hey, put an engine in this because the customer's gonna, you know, they're gonna know something happened. So they go and get you a used engine which has probably got more miles on it than the one that they blew up for you and you don't know anything about. So when I get on them so many times about like where you take your car, your truck for Basic maintenance.
You got to really think about how they handle it when it goes wrong and everybody goes, oh, well, they took care of me. Like they replaced the engine. Yeah. And then that engine has phantom, you know, electrical problems because put it in or you know what I'm talking about. Eh. So anyway, yeah. A whole other conversation. What's some of the other challenges you see besides being so remote like you were talking about that, you know, they live in four wheel drive, the better part, most of their lifetime.
Yeah. Other town. Well, like the other thing about this, this particular part of the country too is our temperature swings are massive. Like summertime, you're looking at +30 to like not +30 constantly, but you get to do get a stretch of like hot days.
Yeah.
And the, these trucks run like a lot of them got like four or five thousand engine hours on them and it's that like probably 200,000 kilometers they're running a lot. So you see these major temperature swings which breaks down oil. And then people are still like, even on outside of the fleet and in dealership world, like you're seeing people have like cylinder while scoring prematurely, like under 100K.
Yeah.
And like you got to educate the customer then to say, like, listen, like, the temperature swings are crazy here. The oil is breaking down so fast and we're. You're driving it to 100 felt like 14,000 kilometers, like whenever the indicator is gonna go off. You know what I mean? Like.
Yeah.
So it's just not feasible in that way. Like you can't expect something to last in those conditions. It doesn't make any sense. And our fuel quality here is extremely poor as well. Yeah. So it's like you've taken spark plugs. I took them into my truck at 30,000km and my Spark plugs were covered in. I don't know what to call it.
It's like a carbonized coating and you can chip it off. Like so. Yeah. That's awesome on the engine.
Right?
Like, I was like, I'm just like, holy fuck, man. It's a wonder anything here runs. Like it's not.
Oh man.
And then in the summertime, you see like, like these vehicles, they'll go on dusty in dusty conditions like we talked about. So you end up with dirt in your EVAP system. The evap system is not able to properly vent off the tank. The pressure builds in the tank to the point where it's not enough to set off an engine light, but it's enough to vaporize the fuel.
Yeah.
And then you get an airlock and then so like I was looking at the maintenance history on a truck the other day and at one point she had six fuel pumps putting up in the span of like 30,000 kilometers.
Wow.
I was like, holy. And the fuel pumps, like it was a 20, 21, 20566 gas. Yeah. So the fuel pump for that is fairly expensive. It's like, I think it's like five. I want to say it's 500. And you can't. You can only get at a dealer.
So I'm just like me, like no one caught on to that. Like.
And what was causing that failure? The fuel.
The last fuel pump fixed it apparently, because there was nothing there like afterwards, like engine diagnostics or anything like that. Error on the maintenance history for like evap system or anything like that. So I don't know if it was dirt in the tank and they weren't draining the tank and cleaning out the dirt or.
Yeah.
What was going on there. But I was just. That kind of baffled me a little bit. I was like, what the.
Now how about when you're up in that, like is there are animals coming into contact with some of the vehicles a little more prevalent?
Yes, all the time. We got the ptarmigan here or like, I think it's called a rock ptarmigan.
Yeah.
And like in this part of Labrador, they're super stupid. Like. Yeah, they hang out on the side of the highways. They'll fly in front of vehicles. Like it's not uncommon to have someone come in with a headlight beat out or like the grill of a brand new truck beat out and stuff like that. They do a lot of damage. I hit one one time in a Jeep Gladiator doing 120 and it bent the hood to the point that the hood had to be replaced. And when it hit the glass, it was gorilla glass in the gladiator.
Flexed in, but it never broke. So. Wow. The gorilla glasses, pretty good product.
Because I know I've heard lots of people like on my friend that was from Nova Scotia, he said out that way. And you know, like we, we joke down here. There's a lot of white tailed deer, right? And you hit a deer?
Oh yeah, yeah.
It'll write the car off. But like they talk about when you see a moose and you hit one.
I hit a moose doing 120. Came like on a stretch. I hit the moose and when I struck it, the head was across the a. Like the. A pillar.
Yeah, yeah.
Bent the a pillar in the head, came in through the window and the or the glass or through the windshield. The windshield hit my hand and then the moose flicked off and came around and struck the back of the vehicle. It was a 2019 Ford Edge that I had.
Yeah.
And I did 60 something thousand dollars worth of damage when we did the estimate up on it. But I managed to keep the vehicle on the road and just pulled over. I got out, couldn't find my cigarettes. I was pissed. And Then my grade 11 high school music teacher came along with her boyfriend and I was like, can you off?
Yeah.
I don't want you here because like
hitting a moose is not. It's like hitting another vehicle. Like hitting a deer is like hitting. I don't know, it's like hitting a deer. But this is like hitting a. A car.
Literally, you're hitting a brick wall.
Yeah.
They weigh about. A mature moose weighs about 8, 800 pounds.
Yeah.
Plus for sure, easily. So, yeah, you're not going to want to hit. Hit it. It's not recommended. And they're so fast too. Yeah.
So when you left the dealer behind, like when we talked before, I know your stress level working there was. Was getting pretty high, you know, I mean like you had. You were just kind of fed up because you'd started out, you worked your way up from being a technician to being like service manager to, you know, like, pretty involved in all the stuff that was coming in and going out long and. And that. That took a toll on you.
It really does, Jeff. Like, not just in that circumstance though, either. For me, myself, like, it definitely did affect me. But like as technicians as well, or just people in this industry as a whole, the mental health aspect on it is. Is massive. Like, we work in a negative environment. Like it can be a negative environment like where nothing goes right and you have people that are there working on a vehicle who are like, say if you're an apprentice, like just starting out, you're two years in, you're like continuously buying tools because your tooling's not up to stand up to par. You're probably making some mistakes on your electrical diag or other diagnosis.
General, you might not feel like your person is supposed to be your mentors helping you the way they're supposed to. And the relationship there is as a road, it. And it just really comes down on you. Like, I remember being in that situation specifically and like at the end of every day, like you're sat down in your truck or your vehicle and you're getting ready to leave and you spend like 10 minutes just thinking like, is this what I'M supposed to be doing, like, is this the trade for me? Like, should I get out? Like, it's. It's really difficult on the head. And like, anyone who's in that situation. For me, I had. I ended up reaching out and getting going to counseling and stuff.
When I left the dealership,
while I
was still there, I mean, I started doing counseling and that helped a lot. Even if you're not in a situation where you're in a crisis, like, just to do the preventive maintenance on your own mental health, the same as you, a car, to have the tools to, you know, make it through the hard days is. Is really big. And I also.
I think that's the beauty of networking, like, through this, like you and I, or, you know, any kind of that. Just, you know, I know some people don't like social media, but I know that, like, for me, finding Facebook all those years ago and being able to just have conversations about what we did that day or what we were struggling with or something like that, a lot of times, like, people would think, well, it keeps you in a negative headspace. And it. And it does because you. Sometimes you're only dwelling on the negative. But the. The fact that, like, I knew I wasn't the only one. You know what I mean? I wasn't alone.
Probably kept me from. From completely walking away, you know, and doing a bad thing. Because, like, it's not a situation. And, you know, men. Men are weird, right? Like, we talk about all the time about, like, you know, you see it on Facebook and. And, you know, like you said, you sit in your truck at the end of the day and you just go, like, what the hell? Nothing. Nothing went right. You know, is this really what I want to do with my life? And then, you know, we talk about, like, sometimes the women, like my friend Ashley, she talks about, like, you know, you go into the restroom and you have a cry and you get mad and you wash your face off and you go back out.
Like, we as men are not. That's not something you can do. It doesn't make the situation better. It makes. Makes it more difficult. You know what I mean? Because if you have got a toxic environment or a co worker or something like that, it just paints the X even more bright on your back, right? That they. They see that. That chink in your arm or that.
That weakness and they're gonna pile on it, right? I think it's that alpha ideal about versus, you know, and so I. I tell everybody, like, if you're struggling, reach out to Somebody else that's been there, reach out to me, reach out to, you know, have those friends, right Riley, at another shop or in your shop that you can go to and just say like man, we gotta go get a beer and have a, you know, or we got to go fishing and something and, and just this for a while because otherwise it'll eat you up, man.
Like it will, it was all in like either you leaving that job and then you might find yourself then especially being a younger apprentice and like say if you're in a smaller area and like the shop owners know each other, you'll probably end up in a situation where it's really difficult for you to find stable employment in a good place where they're willing to invest in you, right? So like I have apprentices now. Like they're not my apprentices, they're heavy equipment apprentices. But like you see them have hard days sometimes just with things outside of norm and I try to talk to them and just say listen man, like you know, if every day was easy peasy and nothing went wrong, you'd never get better. Like these days when like you're struggling with something, like something won't go right for you. That's what makes you better. You're not gonna, you're not gonna become more skilled by always having the easy job.
That's right.
You know what I mean? You need the salt in your face. You need something to not go right. Yeah, fine tune your skills. Like you're like a knife, you got to sharpen yourself and this is what's going to sharpen you.
Well and that's the thing. Like it, it's, sometimes it's healthy to be humbled, you know what I mean? Like you can, I had it, I, I was 100 convinced I was going to put that module and it was going to fix that car and it's like nope, it didn't do it. You're, you're like, you know what I mean? Like you're just so deflated, you're so beat because you're like man, I, I, I, I, I thought that's what it was. And you know, and then we come and it's like that's how you make yourself better. Your process becomes better is it's like it ended up being a pin fitment issue, hypothetically, right? And you're like, well I never pin fit before. Now you check pin fit every friggin time. You know, it just is, it's the way it goes. It's good to be humbled.
But you gotta like, you got to celebrate the victories way more than you got to dwell on, on the defeats. That's the whole key to making it through this. Because I, I say it all the time. If this was easy, everybody would do it right now. Especially what's, what the pay can be for the skilled trade versus, you know, like there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of people crazy enough to do it right now. If it was easy, everybody would be choosing this.
And if it was, yeah.
But you know, people have figured out that this is like the glory days are of, you know, I say it all the time. Fast cars and freedom and all that kind of stuff. As long, yeah, skin, knuckles and dirt and, and grease.
It's not, it's not that anymore. And you're never gonna go back to that. It's. This is the area. Like this trade now has developed into the spot where like, you don't need the lower mechan of people on intelligence coming in you, you need puzzle solvers, you need people who are extremely multi talented, multifaceted. Like this trade covers so many fucking groups of other trades. Like, you know what I mean? Like we're dealing with vehicles with ethernet ADAs. We're not necessarily designing the fucking ADAs, but God damn it, we got to fix it.
And like, same thing with EVs, hybrids, stuff like that. Like to me, in my mind, like we do with the tech shortage that's. Well here more or less is definitely here for me. I don't, I don't see it as a bad thing. Like it's gonna suck for the people with vehicles, but for the people that are in this trade now, like for me, I'm, I'm 28. I'm at the pinnacle where it's eight, where it's like ability to do it and knowledge of doing it assume going to meet. And when it gets to that point, like name your price. Really?
Yeah.
And that's what's going to happen.
And that's. I was told all that from the time I was a kid, you're always going to be able to name your price. And I mean it hasn't really come true till now. And that's okay. You know, it's like I, I'm able to, like we talked about before it turned on, I'm working for somebody that treats me really good and pays me really well. And most days they're not that tough a day anymore. You know. My tough days are behind me now.
Tough days are your shoulder acting up or something. Hey, like that's where it's due now.
And, and you know, do you still have sometimes a tough one? Yeah, I had one last week where I almost got the diag wrong, and it was just a situation of like, I had to slow down and, and you know, because it's like the same thing. You always got all these other jobs that got to get done, and then you got this diag that you got to do, and it's like you're trying to rush the diag because, you know, you've got four other cars all of a sudden that are, have got to go. Everybody's promised everything at the same time, and they're, they're routine jobs. You know, it's just like, if I can get them in here, I can get it knocked out and then come back to this. Well, the diag is still waiting, right? So you rush it. Well, if I hadn't gone back and said, well, wait a minute, before you send that over there to the dealer for the warranty, you know, engine control module, let me have a look at it again. And that takes, that takes some guts to be able to go to somebody and go, wait a minute, I might have been wrong now. You know, it's tougher when the customer.
You've already find that out after the fact. But I mean, sometimes we just have to slow down and go, you know what, Mrs. Smith, I understand you're frustrated and you're here and your car's been here today, but like, we're just trying to get this right. So, you know, like we're. I cannot rush my technician. This is for the advisors that are listening, if you're still listening. I cannot rush my technician through this. It has to be done a certain way because we don't want to be wrong.
Right? And, you know, guys talk all the time, right, Riley? But like, I had a guy talk to me the other day, he's just like, I put a crank sensor in it because, you know, it was a 50 part and it's, it's easier to swap that out than to actually, you know, grab a lab scope and access it and take the connector apart and start to do it. He's like. And he's not wrong. He's right.
No, he's not. No.
But, you know, the, the crank sensor didn't fix it, so now he has to take that back out again. So he's doing his labor twice, which is, I'm not judging. And you know, but it's one of those things where we're always behind the the proverbial gun of trying to get this stuff done as fast as possible. And that's what I just keep telling everybody is like slow down, you got to slow down fast. You know, think about every step that you're going to make. Think about is it really the right step to do at this particular moment? Because for me it ended up being, for me it was just I wasn't testing spark output the way I should have been. I was testing it lazy. And that's what bit me is I just go get a different tool.
Oh look, spark ain't being shut off after all. It's just being moved around if people know what I mean. And it ended up being at the cylinder that's low in compression is the reason that it's doing that. You know it's still a warranty problem. It's still a warranty with Nissan. It's got, I've done my problem but I mean I look like a real fool if I just sent it over there and said just jam it seemed in this and bring it back and you got a cylinder that's not creating enough compression. You know, I didn't look like idiot and I mean I, I brag and talk all the time to my boss about how smart I think I am. So I look pretty stupid.
Just slow down.
So you can't like to be, to be a diagnostician in this industry, like it's no good to be the shop manager or the owner and to look at your tech and say oh yeah, just do that real like to say to start the sentence was saying just like I learned that from someone that was on your podcast one time and it like struck to me and I've always over examined my words now when I'm talking. But yeah, so like to hear for someone to say just do this or just do that like man, it's not that simple. Not every, like these vehicles aren't like people. Not everyone works the same way. Not everyone takes the cranking like takes the crank sensor data and uses that for a signal to start foreign injectors. Yeah, like, you know what I mean? Like it's just so frustrating to see people do say those things.
Think about how many cars now we've seen that you can unplug the crank sensor and it'll still start. You know what I mean?
Oh, three liter eco diesel. They changed, they changed the whole mapping for how it starts because they made the thing out of some shitty Chinese plastic that like that's, and it's in the most hot spot they could Put it. If it was any hotter, they put it in the seventh ring of hell.
Oh, I can remember that. Yeah, I did one of them. Or before the, the recall came out and you had to pull. We're talking about, guys, is the reluctor that they put on the back of the 3 liter Eco Diesel for the rams, you know, and they put that reluctor on the back of the crankshaft right in the bell housing so that it can get a crank reference. And it's as simple as they were able to like make a software fix so that it doesn't matter. That thing can like. Because what would happen is the little tape that goes around the reluctor, which is magnetic tape. Have you seen the new modern wheel bearings? Right, guys? The same thing.
It fails, right, falls off. They made a software patch where you don't even need that damn thing anymore.
No, it reads off the solid tone wheel on the camshaft, but it'll still run like shit. It just won't shut off on you. So you're good. This is no longer a safety issue
because I can remember you would pull them apart and. And Riley's done probably more than me. But I remember the last one I did. You could buy that part for like 25 bucks. Right. For the viewer.
But it was all at a time. What you remember the time that it paid 4. I think it's 4.2 hours now to earn that. That tone wheel and do this and do the Software update is 0.3. That's ridiculous.
And they wonder why guys are leaving the dealerships, like running out the door. Because I know for me to do it, I was, I started it the one morning and I was finishing up just before lunch the next day. The last one, four wheel drive, 2500. You know, pull the transfer case with the transmission on the back. You know, move the exhaust around a little bit so you can get it. It's not an easy job.
And it's not. And those sensors, the, the. All the temp sensors and stuff on that SCR on the doc pipe, dude, they put those right at the tippy top of that transmission. And they put the most annoying connector locks ever on there. And like you almost ripped the pin out of the connector trying to unhook it.
Yeah, you might as well pull the cab off it if you got to repair, you know, anything else. Like, you might as well pull the cab.
Like if you got coolant line that lies underneath the valley. That's, that's.
Oh, I got out at the right time. I think we Both did, Riley. We both got it at the right time.
I got it just as we started getting more Wagoneers in, like, caught in the area. The hornets were my best friends. I love those things.
I never saw one. I've. I mean, but I've never got to work on one yet.
Like, it's not 90% of the issues on it is just. The pro is. I don't know if it's what the word is for it, but it's just the way that all the modules communicate.
Yeah.
And it really does not. Like a dead battery. As soon as the battery dies or the battery's disconnected, you got to do a recalibration on the steering angle sensor. And until that happens, everything's locked up solid. Nothing will work. You can't even take the electronic park brake off. You can't put it in neutral. You got to do it wherever it's too.
And then, like, there's a million different calibrations on the valves. You got to do, like, sometimes we had them come in, like, where they were dead for so long. The calibration was lost in the ABS module for the inlet and outlet valves and stuff. Yeah. So, like, you'll start it with 329 DTCs, do your steering angle calibration. Once your steering angle calibration is done, then you got to do all the calibrations on inlet. Note that valves on the ABS module, then you got to do ABS initialization. Then you gotta do like, it was just like an hour worth of programming and calibrations that you got to do.
And then finally, no DTCs present.
All because the battery goes dead. Yeah, I know.
Yes. It's crazy, man.
So what. What did. What do you do to. To try and. And then maintain the. Like, what's your go to for sanity? I know, like, we were talking last week and you kind of. You're up around the hunting camp, but, like, is that the best thing for you, is to just get away? Sometimes
I don't get away as much as I want. It's now. Right now. We just had our daughter in October.
Yeah.
Man. The solace I find in just spending time with her. Like, I get up at like, 5 o' clock to start getting ready for work. I'll take my daughter out to the living room with me. I'll put her in her playpen or in her pack and play.
Yeah.
Like a bassinet. And I put her in that. And then, like, I'll start making breakfast for myself out in the kitchen. Leave everything a Little bit dark, so she's not overstimulated, and I'll just hang out with her in my lap and. Yeah, you know, is that look to me, like going from being just completely jaded and done with this industry, like, it got to the point the dealership where I was like, maybe, like, am I the problem here? Like, you know what I mean, am I the one that's attacking the. Are my co workers making them feel like shit and I don't want to pissing off the customers? Like, am I doing more harm than good? And that's kind of where it got to that point. And I was just like, you know what? Maybe it's time for me to just walk away. And since I've been where I'm to now, like, I go into work in the morning, I put my headphones in, I listen to your podcast, I listen to Dave Ramsey, listen to whatever.
I don't need to have. Be a social butterfly at work and just do my job and break time comes, sit down and have conversations with the co workers, stuff like that. Like, to me, I found the job for myself. That it's to the point where I don't. It's not to the point, but it's, it's. I'm found a job where I don't need to run away from it. Like, you know what I mean? I appreciate it where I'm at. I'm respect it.
Like, I enjoy my co workers. I like the work I do. Like, you know, I'm happy because I
know for me, you know, and I keep talking about it. I know there's. People have heard me say there's a reason I won't work at a dealer is because I'm a toxic person when I work in one. I am 100% toxic when I work in one. And it's got to do with the, it has to do with the pay plan, but it has to do with, like I joke, I could walk in and you could guarantee me 60 hours paid a week, right? At whatever the hour amount wanted to be. I would still be hard to be around because I'm, I have such a, in that environment, I have such a high standard of what I expect everybody else to be doing that it, it trickles down to where it's just because, like, I see it in the end game where it's like, if everybody's not on their ball, so many factors have to line up for it to be efficient and productive, right? So I, it doesn't matter. Like, even in my own space, right? Now I have an advisor that, like, he's forgetful. Or I have, you know, parts that come in and their parts are from the part store and it's right next door.
It's across the parking lot. They're wrong. Like, the old me would lose my mind because of, like, I'm supposed to have this break job done already. Right. You know, and I do it to myself. It's not them doing it to me. So I. I totally understand that.
Like, I have to work every day to keep this toxic person from coming out because it was just the way. It's like forged in fire. It's like I was, I was. I was born into that when I started in this industry. And it just became the norm. Right? And then window, where it's like, you can't get any more done, you can't get any more focused, you can't get any more angry without it having that negative effect. Now you come over the other side of the roller coaster and you start heading down. I can't.
I can't do it anymore. I'm no good.
There's so much energy used to, like. Like, I. I know right now, like, me talking. I seem like a calm person, but, like, would I ever get angry? Like, I'd get so pissed off, I'd be like. I'd have an advisor there staring at me. A person who. I don't know what the fuck they did there.
Yeah.
And. And they're dragging you away from a transmission rebuild to ask you how to. How to put this part on vor status. And I'm just like, why the. Is this the 20th fucking time I'm showing you guys this, like. And then they'll ask, like, they'll make a comment about something. I can't remember what the exact scenario was, but something about, like, about what I made or something like that there. And I was like, I'm.
Do I make this? Because I can do your job, your job and your job, but you can't do mine. That's why I make that. And like, you know, looking back on that, like, that was a very cuntish thing to say. Wasn't very nice.
Yeah.
But, you know, I still love them. Like, I think the world of all those people. Right. Like, even though. Because, like, your job is not your worth.
No.
As a person. And I feel like in this industry, we forget that so much. It took direct link it together. Right.
It took me so long to realize that. Like. And it's funny because, like, you know, I said to you last time we were Talking. I'm not. I'm not. In my heart, I'm not a mechanic that goes fishing. I'm a fisherman that fixes cars, right? Because that's like where my true identity of what I absolutely love and adore is. Fishing.
That's what my brain now, because for so long all I was was a mechanic, right? It was part of my whole identity. And there's still this platform which is a big, big part of who I am. But, man, like, I don't, you know, if I had to stop fixing cars tomorrow because the shoulder or whatever, it doesn't change who I am. But 10 years ago, me, oh, man, I'd have been. When I was off on Covid, I didn't know who I was. Did not know who I was. If it wasn't for my little dog and the fact that was like, I could fish, I'd have been probably in jail, you know?
Yeah. Covid never. Like, when Covid happened here, I was just. I wrote my second block exam on that Friday and Monday everything shut down. Yeah, I moved back home, started another new job back at the dealership. Early sub dealer I first started at. And man, like, people just. That was when things picked up for us.
I don't know why. Like, it was just all of a sudden, like after two weeks, when people realized the world wasn't going to fail, they were like, okay, well, my vehicle still needs to go. And then the price of vehicles went out, right? Just. That was another contributing factor too. Like, that was the heyday for dealerships,
like, for fixing what they had because you couldn't do truck. You know what I mean? But here in like, like a joke. And I shouldn't, I'm not gonna get. But you know, as. As Ricky and Bubbles used to say, worst case, you know, Ontario, first case,
Ontario,
you know, it became a really weird spot because everybody, you know, we had a lot of people that like, could shelter inside, you know what I mean? Could stay home. And then all of a sudden, those cars weren't traveling at all. And then it was like, you know, I can remember seeing the post and be like, I haven't driven my car in three weeks and now I can't get to start. What do I need? And you need. Well, you need a battery. Like, well, why I never did this before. Yeah, because you're driving every day now. You work from home, like, dumbassy.
You only, you know, you're sitting there with your mask on, only going out once every three weeks. Like, of course your car is going to be Dead
drawing by yourself, wearing the mask.
Oh, bro. Oh, man. I saw one four months ago, and I just, like, they used to make me really angry, and now I just shake my head and I want to hug that person and go, like, it's going to be okay. It's. It's okay. You can. You can take that off now.
Yeah.
And that's. That's all I want to say about it, because otherwise I'll probably get canceled. But, yeah, I saw a lot of. That's when I really started to think of my mental health was during COVID Because I. I had a friend, you know, that their marriage went to during it. Right. And another friend that after it, committed suicide. And, you know, I believe that that was the real.
That was the real pandemic, was what the mental health was, not the COVID Yeah. You know, and mental health is something, like you said, we don't. We don't talk about it enough. And, you know, going forward with this podcast, that's what I want to be doing. Sometimes something every week is just trying to make people feel better about, you know, the chance you can do it because, like, you're doing this for your daughter. You know what I mean? Like, this is. Everything you do is for her. And, I mean, that's cool.
And she. She's gonna love you, you know, whether you're, you know, the top technician at your job or whether you're just, like, you know, it's just a job to you. She doesn't see you as, you know, Riley, technician number whatever, service manager, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. She just sees you as dad. Right. And that's the. That's the important thing that we've got to remember here is that, like, it's important to be good at your job, and it's important to continuously try to be better. But, like, this isn't a.
There's no gold medal for this. There's. This isn't a race. This is just how we earn our money and pay our bills and, you know, you want to become better at it and. And make more money to pay more bills, but, you know, you want to have that. That balance is, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. So, yeah.
100. Like, I mean, I still. I still, like, I just subscribed to Paul Danner's premium thing.
Yeah.
I started doing his classes or whatever on my own time because, like, I want to be like. Like, like anyone who cares about this, about their skill set, like, I want to be as good as I can be. Like, I Want to learn from the best and stuff. And that's why I loved working at different places. Like you go to a new dealership or a new garage or wherever you're to and like, like, say if I walked into work with you tomorrow and there was another really good tech there or whatever, like, that's a goldmine of information that you can absorb if you're asking the right questions and if you have the right traits as a person and not just a little prick that's going to come in and make everyone else's life hell, you know, and leave a mess everywhere and not clean up after themselves and like that.
Yeah.
So, like, I feel like in the trade, like in this industry that, like, it gets missed a lot too. Like, people come in as apprentices and they're not taking in the etiquette properly to like, you know, follow suit with the rest of the shop and like, just pick up where other one. Like pick up after themselves and. Yeah, you know what I mean? Just not be an idiot. In the graduate. And you see. And you see it a lot. Like, especially now with a lot of the young guys.
And I was like, it too. I'm not gonna say I was perfect, but I definitely had had that issue. But over time, you work it out of yourself and, you know, it's just. I was shit.
I was that guy that, like the. The apprentice that worked in the bay next to me. Like, I kept telling him, don't leave your airline all over the floor because I'm tripping on it, right? Because when we're walking between the. I have to stand between his hoist and my hoist. And of course, I was skinnier then. And they make it just, you know, skinny enough so you're standing on his airline to use your hoist controls.
Holy.
And I was, I was like, you gotta, man, you gotta roll that up. Don't leave it on the floor. Don't leave it on the floor. And finally I cut it in half, you know, because he would not roll it up. And it was like. And think of back now I'm like, am I proud of that? No, I'm not. That's a dick move.
Yeah, it definitely is.
But I mean, you know, and this is not me ripping on the young people. It's just now I look back and go, yeah, he was. They were running him dry. Like, they were running him ragged trying to get this done, get that done. Like, he's just a, you know, first year starting a kid apprentice. But at the same time, me is also like, it's also important that you know, be. You can tell them two, two extra seconds, roll it up and hang it back up. We all do it.
You know, it's the same as like I had to train myself for. For years when I got a magnetic work light to actually make sure that I put it back on the bench before the car left because otherwise it was stuck on the bottom of the car. We've all done that, right?
It's just I'm still not there. I lose a lot of time.
I go down to Princess Auto.
Whatever's on sale, I just buy, man, fuck flashlights. It's such a rabbit hole of like money to spend. And it's just like this is the easiest thing you'll ever lose, but here it's 120 bucks.
Yeah, well, you and I were, you know, we're old enough to remember like when you burnt yourself on the old work lights, you know.
Oh my.
When they wire cage and like. Oh yeah, you know, we brought the
LED bulbs and started putting them in, it was so much better. But yeah, I do remember those.
The young kids, they don't know. They have no idea. They're like, what. Oh yeah. These old lights that used to drop and if there was gas, you went running for the door because, you know, you might have like burnt yourself up
or, or, or have to run or. Or. The other one too is like when you're taking off like the underbelly plates off an excavator. And it was from the day when you didn't have impact, electrical impacts and stuff. We were talking about that the other day at work. It's just like, man, what a time it would have been to be a mechanic back then. Like I would not want to be at.
I. I joked, you know, early in my career, I can remember going out and digging a hole in a. In a pile of coal and Hamilton to dig underneath and to be able to get the skid plate down to help the tech I was working with, you know, do a hydraulic repair on the bottom of the excavator, you know, like and digging a hole into the pile because that's where the machine died, right on the pile and they weren't pile. Right. So it's like, okay, get under there and you know, dig out enough of a hole that you can kind of kneel and work underneath you and get the skid plate.
It was.
Yeah. I mean it's. Oh man. It's just when you think about the stuff, you know, what you did, like, it's cool as Hell, but like the young people now, they're just, they're, they're, they're. Their whole challenge of this industry is so different. You know what I mean?
But like some of them too, at the same time. They're not like, not to talk, but like, it's like a lot of them that come into the trade like heavy equipment. Especially because heavy equipment is, is immortalized as, oh, you're a heavy equipment mechanic, you're making six figures start now, you know, like that. But like there's no passion behind it. No, you're working here because some old feller in a bar told you that he was a heavy equipment mechanic and he made six figures and you're like, well, you know what? Maybe I want to make six figures. So you around in school for nine months wasting some money and you get into the trade and you're like, what? I gotta crawl around in the snow and. Yeah, set up a Frost fighter underneath the base pants so I can get this Pete to start?
Yeah.
No, that's the reality of the trade. You're in. You're at the bottom of the pole.
Yeah. And the money is there because it is such work, you know, there's no passion because it's not like. Well, you've heard me all say. What got me into it was the idea of fast cars. You know what I mean? I thought I was gonna be, I thought I was gonna be driving Vipers and you know, cool. And then you realize, you know, all those fancy trucks and all those fast cars, like they're just attached to customers and it doesn't matter what they drive, you know, the customer is the customer. It can be, they can be a certain way. They can be cool as hell or they can be, you know, the hardest part of the whole repair is just dealing with the customer.
But when you're doing that heavy equipment stuff, like all you're doing is like high stress, dirty, heavy, noisy work. And you don't get to even really enjoy it because it's like, how fast does an excavator go? Not very friggin fast. So all of a sudden the tracks start turning again. You could roll back out to the job site and then you can watch the guy put a 12 hour shift in, spinning around and using the bucket. There's no, there's no, there's no, you know, sex appeal on that. Right. It's just he did your damn job. And you get to those cars that I got to work on.
That was the highlight was just being able to see it start up and drive it and feel how it felt,
you know, I had a customer with a red eye hellcat.
Yeah.
And he brought it into the shop, and he said, it gets wobbly around about 200. What did I do?
What'd you tell him?
Yeah, I said, all right, I'll have a look at it. So he gave me the. Not the valet key. The one with the red logo on it. And I took it for a drive, and sure enough, she got wobbly at 200. And I was like. I brought it back to the shop and looked it over, and the tires were just straight up from. Just burnouts and everything.
And because the guy used the car. It was his. Like, it was a. I can't remember why bought it. I think it was, like, for his 50th birthday. He's a construction company owner, too. Like, really nice guy. Super smart.
Yeah.
Good businessman. Like, I really respect him. But. Yeah. So I just told him, the guy, you're gonna need a set of tires. I wouldn't recommend us do it because our tire machines just is probably going to chew the. In the wheel.
Yeah.
And here, locally, there's near garage with, like, a tar machine set up, Able to do that properly. So he did it when he was in Toronto that summer.
Good friend.
Yeah, it's. It was. You know, that to me, that was crazy. I was like, this is, like, a highlight. Real moment for me. Like, I'm not wasting this opportunity. Like, customer concern. Wobbly at 200.
Right. I'll pay the ticket.
Oh, man. So up here, if you got that ticket, like, you're. That's considered up here, stunt driving.
Yeah. Your license is gone here, too. Yeah. If you had that. Yeah.
You might as well run off into the bush and, you know, burn the thing and hope that nobody finds you because you're never driving again. Like, it's just. Yeah. I don't know. I. I got to drive an SRT8 a couple times, and that was pretty sweet.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Drove one of the old. Do you remember the Viper trucks, the SRT10?
I've seen one. I've never ever worked on one, but there's one, I think on the island.
I got to drive one. It was pretty sweet. It's pretty cool.
That must be nuts.
It's. I actually prefer driving it over the Viper because the Viper like it. It just feels like you're in control, whereas the truck, you never felt like you were in control. You know what I mean? And. Whereas the challengers and The Chargers, the SRT8, they always felt really good. Like you always felt like you were in control.
But yeah, the suspension geometry on those is. But it's fine tuned, perfect.
That old, those old SRT10 trucks were just stupid. Like it was just a pickup truck with way more horsepower than it ever should have had.
It's like a death trap. Right. It's like it shouldn't exist. It shouldn't have existed. But like, you know, that's what they do. I guess.
So what's. Is that what you kind of miss from the dealership is the variety.
Yeah. I would say, like, honestly, not so much from the dealership but like from just working in an independent garage as well too. Like I, I've worked in spots where I was like it could have been. It was Honda's, Toyotas, Nissans, everything. Right. And I really like the variety. But yeah, now it's just like, it's all chef pickups.
Yeah.
And a couple forwards. But I can't really complain though too because like I do get to go into the heavy equipment and truck and transport a little bit when it's not as busy for the automotive. I started like, started the process now to challenge the first block exam for heavy equipment so I can pursue a dual ticket.
Yeah.
And I think that would like, not, like, not so I can like go and leave and make big money in the mine or something like that. Like you can go do that as an automotive mechanic now like if you really want to, you go up north or wherever and make 150k a year. But it's not what I want. I just want to have that, the knowledge more. So that's like, to elevate your skill set and stuff. Like a lot of guys, like when I was doing my red seal, like a lot of them, they're like, I don't give a. If I ever even look at another engine. Like, I just like, I don't care if I'm doing breaks for the rest of that.
I just want the ticket that's going to say, you got to pay me this.
That's right.
And you know, it's crazy like to see that like, and to hear people say it because like, I think in our class there was 18 of us and there might have been four of us that like were the dig deeper kind of guys. Right.
Yeah.
So it's. And again, that's, you know, in the long run it's going to be good for guys like us because who's competing with us, you know, like.
So let me ask you, what do you think about in The States where you see some of the conversation comes up and it says like we need what they have in Canada for we need that certification because like, you know, if it gets to the certification it means that like they're more competent, more qualified, more trained.
I. In the States it's not, it's not legally required for you to be certified a, to work on vehicles. I think that that's a huge mistake. I think they should definitely have some sort of certification. Whether it's the recommend ase, as the, as the parent holder that. But our block Pro, our apprenticeship program here, it's cool. But what you learn in school is like you're basically getting recycled 20 year old GM training stuff. Right? Like it's not one size fits all.
It's impossible to put everything into the curriculum. Yeah, it gives you a base, but it doesn't make you competent.
No.
Yeah, there's a lot of. I don't think we, no one's going to have it perfect, I don't think. But the information that you're giving people needs to be more modernized. It needs to come up to date because it could really put you in a situation where if you don't sit down and read the description and operation of the system and instead you just hop into it thinking that, oh well, I learned this from my teacher and he told me this and this is how this works. Well, guess what? It's not like you have a short band O2 sensor there and the information you're taking from it is not going to correlate over to what they taught you.
Yeah, it's a completely different way to diagnose it. You know what I mean? What you're, you're looking at an amperage trace on a lot of them, you know, on a wideband versus at a voltage trace. And it's, and I don't understand, you know, like. Oh well, yeah, it's still kind of the same thing. They kind of work in reverse of each other. And that's where if you, you know, you spend too much time and don't learn it, then it's just like, and I mean my friend Brian, he made a really good. We kind of had a talk on Friday and he says like, so Brian routinely handles like 10 to 13 diags a day. That's just what he does.
And he says, here's the reality, he says, like with identifix, he says, and a little bit of testing, say like 20 minutes of testing and identifix, you can get about 75% of the cars fixed. The right, the first way. The, the first time, the right way. He says it's that other 25 to 30% that'll be the ones that are going to kick most people's butt in the industry. He says, and it's not just like it'll kick because it won't be, it won't be the same two things that are just not published by an identification. It'll be completely two different things, completely at a left and right hand field that, no, you wouldn't have thought to even look there. You know what I mean? And he says that's the struggle that, you know, when we're trying to bring up now this process and how do you teach them? The reality is right now, like if we can just figure out by some basic eval what if, if it's going to be one of the 75% or if it's going to be one of the 25% and then the 25% is like, just say no. And the other 75% then is just have the process in place that you can get through it, you know, and the other 5%, there are still people in the industry that can fix them.
But man, it's like it's a completely different conversation you got to have with your customer. Now going back to it when the customer comes in and you know, you were saying like, everybody, you know, wants you to have a pretty good idea about what it is in an hour. And yeah, that's 100 the truth. Right. Like, it's, it's. You should, but man, when they come to you and it's like, hey, I've already done X, Y and Z, you don't even start with the hour. I, I feel like you have to make the customer have that conversation right away. This is probably going to be a two to three hour thing.
Yeah.
Because we got to go back now and see what, what was done if there, if those parts are actually working the way they're supposed to be, you know, if they're not some junk aftermarket ebay crap, and then we still have to track down the original ghost of the machine. That's not a one hour process. That now is a three to four hour process. And that's like, you know, Paul Danner talks about that. And you know, with retainers and everything else, it just comes back to communication. You know, be honest with yourself, with your ability, and be honest with your freaking customer. That's the part that always yanks me, is that we, we over promise, like you said earlier, over promise. Under deliver.
Right. And you can't do that. You cannot do it. It's why everybody gets upset. They don't even care. You could take the most complicated problem and if you told them to be done Friday and you don't get it done till Monday, they still hate you for it because it wasn't ready on Friday. And that's the part where it's like the technician has done everything they could have done. They've worked a miracle.
They solved the, the problem that nobody else could solve. But damn it, we told them it'd be Friday without even checking with the mechanic, you know. Yeah. Customers pissed. So when you talk about getting the kind of like we were talking about dual license.
What's
like how, how easy is some of that that you've taken your work experience translate over to being able to. To kind of apply it to what you are doing day to day
struggle
with the hydraulics kind of thing of some of the. The way some of the stuff works.
Hydraulics isn't. It's not too bad. Like I feel like in our, in our little like part of that industry like we're not getting so in depth to like the diagnostics of the Hydrox. We don't see a lot of those kind of breakdowns. I feel like that's more of like if you're working for like a Brandt dealer or a cat dealer or something.
Okay. Okay.
You would see those complicated like electronically controlled pump scenarios frost more so it's just generally hydraulic leaks maybe rebuilding cylinder stuff like that. That. Yeah. I have. I haven't done any of that myself. Like mostly what I'm. What I've done is like done some minor engine work, stuff like that reseals maybe diagnosing a speed sensor on transmission here and there.
Yeah.
But like it's not. Hydraulics isn't a hard concept to grasp. No. You know what I mean? The biggest thing I find that is difficult about that part of dentistry, especially for the truck and transport stuff is like the service information is not there.
Yeah.
There is like no support when something's up fitted. It's like. So you're literally just guessing really at the end of it.
And even like if you go into like the motor for heavy trucks or whatever, like some of those aftermarket service information systems, they're two to three years behind. You know what I mean? Like it says you're working on a 2024, but that diagrams for like a 2021, you know and they just. It's almost like they make it and then it's like if there's changes, they add it to it after the fact. Whereas it's not like us where we can log in. And Pro demand is probably updating stuff, you know, every hour somewhere on the program and you're not even being told about it. But for the most part it's accurate. Yeah. When I worked on the truck thing, it was like it was, you know, you could almost not even worry about sometimes the diagnostic time because everybody just knows.
Knew that there was nothing out there for you to work on, like information wise. And that's again, you know, you talk to all these guys and it's like everybody had a phone, a friend at the dealership, like they'd call the international dealer and say, you know, I got a, I got a whatever, you know, an international with a cat in it. It's doing this. And they'd be like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we know what's going on with that because they fixed it when it was under warranty, right. And then they're talking, you know, for us it was like, you know, it. I laugh all the time because it's like people think I'm crazy. But you know, parasitic drains, like in cars, people are going nuts. And you and I know the outfitters, they put them in anything they put in with no regard at all if it's going to drain.
Because they're like this thing's not even going to shut off. Like it's going to. And if it does, we just put a switch and shut the, you know,
open up master switch on the battery. Yeah.
So it's like I, you know, people think that's, that's nuts, but I mean that's just the way it's always been done in my. Yeah.
And like in truck and transport, all of our fleet pretty well has like anything that's upfit it or like just in general, all of them, I'm pretty sure. Like Oliver Kenworth, Oliver Pete's, they all got master switches and they're on the seat for that reason. Like, like what the are you gonna do if you got a parasitic draw on that? Like where are you going to start? You know, like, well, you're gonna unplug.
You're gonna unplug the, the monitoring system that tracks, you know, the hours and, and the payload and all that kind of stuff. And that's probably gonna fix the drain. But like here's the reality. You're not supposed to use the machine without that in it because like they want it in there. Right? So, so guess what, Master Switch it is. Master switch it is. And then it's like, you know, I remember we had a fleet of garbage trucks, and that was just our. That was our thing every night as we went out and we took their logbooks out and we looked at all the room repairs that they wrote down that the truck needed, and then if we had time, we did them.
But then we made sure that all the master switches got shut off because otherwise by morning they wouldn't start, you know, and, and people just shake their head and they're like. And I'm like, yeah, it's serious. I had. What the hell was it, a 2023 Mazda on Friday that had only like 30,000 kilometers on it. And I know our, our American friends are out there going to get pissed with.
All
right. Because it's the way it here. But it had a, an onboard battery charger that somebody wired in under the hood and run the cord down next to the block heater cord. Right. And they're plugging that car in forever. And it's like, I remember looking at this thing going, because I finally had to put a battery in it to sell it. And I'm like, what a rigamarole mess this is. Right? And he cut it all out.
But there's somebody that way back when used that car so little that it needed a battery. And they're like, I'm not buying a battery. And it wasn't going to be working. It just like I'll spend 100 bucks on a battery charger and stick it under the hood. Like, you know, there's. There's always more than one way to fix something is what I'm trying to say. It's just what's your, what's your desired outcome? Right.
Like, you know, it is. It's. We. There was a. Like, on the newer GM 2500s, they got the auxiliary battery with the, with that mess of a. The relay infuse system there. And it's super common to see the auxiliary battery relay block fail.
Yeah.
The fuse pops for the charging side. And I had a couple now where, like, I replaced that. And then I seen one there a little while ago. My assumption is, is that the driver for the truck replaced it himself. And instead of disconnecting power from the other side, where it's also fused again, he left it hooked up and he dropped that cable to ground and popped the fuse on the other side.
Yeah.
So anyway, they ran the, the slip tank pump off of the auxiliary battery and instead of just moving the wiring until we got the part In. He hooked up like a. I think it's a. It must have been like a 20 or 22 gauge wire with alligator clips. No fuse.
Yeah.
On it. Just hooked that up and ran it over to the other battery for like, so I could power his slip tank. And he started telling me, but he was like, what do you think of that? You think that's a good idea? I was like, I think you're a. Because you're gonna catch the truck on fire. But yeah, sure. Like, whatever your desire, whatever you want, really. Like, it's up to you. I don't care.
Like, do you get a funny smell when you're running your slip tank?
Like, you know, he had to. You could see the. The insulator on the water was like crinkled up. Like you put a heat gun to it too. I was like, man, holy. Like, you, like. And up here, like in like where it's so remote, like, what you see is a lot of people like, grow up. They growing up, they get like the tinkering and like the repairing your own stuff.
Right. So everyone thinks they're a mechanic. Everyone thinks they're whatever. And you end up with a mess of just. That's been with to the point where it's just unfuckable. Yeah. And you see it so much, it's. It's crazy.
Like, the stuff people will come up with and do. And you get some. You'll do brakes on someone's vehicle and then they'll come back with an infrared gun telling you that one side's a little bit hotter than the other by a couple degrees or something like that. And it's just like, man, there's so many variables to put in here. Like, braking doesn't happen in a vacuum. Okay. Like, each side is seeing different things. But like, you can't explain that to them because they're mechanics, not astrophysicists.
Like, and the thing is, like, these are the same people that will come back with an infrared gun after you. They paid you, right. And think you did something wrong. But they're the same ones that did it themselves. They'd only put a rotor on one side if they could get away with it.
And you see that though.
You do.
Like I see. I've seen it from dealerships here. And it's just fucking crazy. I'm just like, man, there's the rotors. Like probably there's 3 mils in difference in thickness.
Yeah.
And you're just gonna throw one on new like, head. It makes you shake your head and just question so much.
I remember cussing out the parts store one time because I'm like, he only had one rotor in stock. And I cussed him for like a minute and a half. It seemed, how that blue hell can you only have one rotor? Like that doesn't even make any sense. And he's like, well, sometimes people just warranty the one, you know, they have a caliper that sticks or something. And I said, and that's your fault because how many times have you guys have a. Somebody walk in and they want to buy just the right rear caliper? I was sitting at the parts store Friday morning waiting for to get my part, and the guy walks in, he says, I need a right rear caliper for a 2016 F150. And then he was like, well, what's the, what's the, you know, is it going to be a rebuilt caliper? Is it going to be all new and how's, what's the warranty on it? And I'm thinking, you freaking chucklehead. Like you actually need two calipers, dumbass.
But I didn't say anything because you know what, Riley, maybe last month he did the left hand side, you know what I mean? And now so it's like I, I don't know, it's. And you can't know. But I used to like, I'd cuss people out for that. I'd be like, are you like, you got a hole in your head or what? Like, what is going on that you think that that's the right way to do something? And what I've learned is that sometimes it's just they don't know no better. And then the other half is like, there's so much now financial is just everything that everybody can do to get by. And I think that that's, we're going to see more of that going forward. Especially up here with the way our finances are, are economy is in Canada, it's very different. The tariffs are making things, you know, everybody's, all the skies falling, the sky's falling and you know, but it is having an effect.
Somebody was telling me there's going to be these, these like, these evs that are going to come from China. And he couldn't remember the name of it, but he was telling me like he saw something on YouTube and they're like, they're going to come here for 20,000 bucks, they're going to be able to sell an EV for and I'll have a 10 year warranty when it hits. And I Thought, wow, that's going to be something to see. You know, it won't be able to get fixed anywhere but when it was sold and there'll be no friggin parts available for it when it is broken. But congrats, you got a twenty thousand dollar ev.
So you know, but like someone explaining like that's the other thing that just gets me man. Like just the amount of misinformation out there and misunderstanding of how these things work and like the supply chain of parts and then everything else there. It's like half the parts that are out there for vehicles right now, they don't even exist. Yeah, like no one's had, no one got them built. Like a 68 RFE transmission for a Cummins or a 2500 and up Ram. Like best of luck to you my friend. To get one. We had one one time, it was a year, it was exactly a year, I think it was 13 months on our lot before we had the transmission show up, up.
Yeah, I know like and, and I saw, I saw a post today where somebody was like they had a quote for nine grand for a new transmission from the dealership and they couldn't believe it was nine grand. They wanted to find somebody that wasn't going to rip them off. And of course they don't mention what kind of car it is or anything like that. And you know, somebody I saw post it might have been one of the guys on Tick Tock and he says you can kind of, if it's, you can kind of calculate now for a thousand dollars per speed. She's got a 9 speed, 10 speed, something like that.
And it's Brendan Sloan.
It might have been Brandon.
Yeah, I see, I've seen one of his videos and he said that.
Yeah, so he's like yeah, if you want it rebuilt, it's a 10 speed and it's, you want it rebuilt with a better billet converter and all that jazz and all the stuff that's going to make it last a little bit longer than the OE one. Calculate on 10 grand and everybody goes that's a ridiculous price. It's a hundred thousand dollar truck. It's 10 of the value of the truck is the way they look at it, right? And you're like, like 10% of the value of the truck. It's kind of how it always correlated to how it always did cost. But we just all of a sudden now we forget that we're spending a hundred thousand dollars on these vehicles, you know, and, and my, my clips blow up because she was like, you know, from roads. He's like, don't tell me I can't charge 200 an hour labor when they sell for a hundred grand. Don't tell me that.
But you know, people just lose their ever freaking loving minds. And it's like the one guy tried to tell me this was cool. He said he had an estimate. He never said what car for two sway bar links in the estimate was $980 at the dealer. And he went and bought two links for $86 and it took him 40 minutes. Then I said, you know what's the greatest part of these stories? That everybody always shares them with me. And I said nobody ever has any paperwork to prove that it was ever done. And I said, that's the cool.
He's like, well it's just the way it is. And I'm going, it is the way it is because like I, I saw Bigfoot walking around last week, you know what I mean? And he was, and he was carrying a leprechaun under each arm. That's about as realistic as some of these things that people say now. And it goes back to that misinformation thing. That's a funny mental picture when you think about it.
I had a co worker bring up at the break room table there a while ago about the price of his oil change at the dealership that I used to work for. He said it was $550 for an oil change. I was like, well what else did you have done? He was like, nothing, just an oil change. And I asked him, look at this and look at this. I was like, well you saying, can you look at this and look at this. Bam. That's 300 bucks.
That's right.
Yeah, like that's the, like that's like. And then he started saying, well that's ridiculous. It shouldn't be that much. I was like, do you know what it costs to operate a business right now, like every month? I can tell you the exact dollar figure it is for that business to operate every month. And it's not ridiculous when you break it down and look at it. That's how it is.
And thank God they're finally doing that because when I came up it was like, here was an oil change. Oh, and the customer's got two other complaints. Look at it real quick. And, and you know, we're not going to pay for those two other things. You hopefully you can find something you can sell the repair on and that's going to cover your time now at least we people have got the guts that when you come in and it's an oil change and two other things you want to complain about, that they're allotting some time with a charge to check those two things out. Because it should be if I'm going to walk to the computer and look up a bulletin to see if there's a software patch or if I'm going to look over to see if there's a TSP or if I'm going to look over identifix to see if there's a common thing to look for. That all takes time. And I'm going to for it because my people now thank God, the technicians start to listen.
And what is identifix cost a month?
Oh, it's gonna be 100 bucks a month easily.
What is all and all that? I think that's 2300 for the basic subscription for a year. That's if you pay up front like that. So divide that by 12. Like it all costs money. It's not. No one's doing for free for us.
And even if you buy the software or you rent the software or you can call it. And you don't charge for the time, right? Or you don't. Your technicians now are walking up going, no fault found. No fault found. You know, and they're just doing what was allotted to them to do if they're paid on flat rate. Because if there's no time on the ticket, I don't. You don't want me to spend any time because you don't want to pay me for that. And thank God we finally got to the place where we're having a conversation now where it's like, people have got to stand up to the customer and go, okay, do you really want this investigated or not? Because, like, our door rate's 150 an hour, and, you know, they're gonna spend probably the better part of an hour looking into this.
It could be a really common thing. And there's a software, you know, and if that's the case, we're gonna roll it in. But, you know, be prepared for a buck 50, you know, 150 bucks per complaint. People go, I'll just live with that. Cool, cool. You know, I don't. I think we finally got past the point where we're starting to realize we don't have to give this all away, you know, and it cranks people up. But, I mean, that's just the reality of it is, like, the dealer, you know, it.
The dealer doesn't. Chrysler doesn't say, oh, Riley, you guys had a shit month last month. We're gonna not, you know, charge you to use WI fi or, excuse me, you know, WI tech and everything else. You get that? No, it don't work like that. You know, here's a new tool room full of tools that like, you know, you can't say no to because you
got to have half a million, right?
Everybody, everybody forgets that. And it's like, you see it, they rip on the dealership guys. And I'm like. And I'm standing my up all for them, all the time going, I understand. You know, it's. And they're. They're not always doing the best thing for the customer, but here's the reality of it. Like, they are forced to charge what they have to charge because they're not.
They don't have a choice. A lot of what they get every month, they don't have it, they can't say no to. It just gets built. You know what I mean? And everybody thinks that it should be. They should be doing this for free and that for free and doesn't work like that. Does not work.
I had a. I had a guy one time, he bought a truck at another dealer out on the island. So first off, you know about the truck from us, whatever. But anyway, you bought the truck used and only have one key. So he brought us to program the key and for us, we're like, obviously wide tech costs a lot. We were charged, it was one hour minimum charge to use Wytech if you wanted something reprogrammed or whatever. So anyway, I reprogrammed the key or I programmed the key to truck and you know, whatever my day. And then next thing I know, he's calling the advisor.
Flipping. What do you mean? It's a one hour charge program, a key. The dealership I bought the truck from told me it only takes 20 minutes this and that. Anyway, I went on the phone and I was like. I was like, man, like, listen, the stuff costs money. Like to have the software to do this. I was like, it's probably. I think it's a couple grand a month.
I believe in the dealership, plus the cost of the pods, plus the cost of tablets. And he was like, well, that's ridiculous. So I can bring it to them and get them to do it and charge me point five. And I was like, well, bring it to the other shop in town that can program your key. He said, but there is no other shop in town that program. Well, here we are. And I was like, that'd be one hour, sir.
And that's, that's where you want to like whoever told them, you know, because we have the conversation all the time. You know, you need to stop telling people, having conversations with people about time and just about price. Stick to with, you know, each job has a value, right. And we don't necessarily have to be like, you know, if it's the same thing, like I got 0.6 for just about everything we had to do with the DRB3 way back when or even the Y tech. And that was kind of how long ago I date myself when I got to the dealer because the time didn't really go up. But I mean for the OE tooling and back before NASA you could program all the keys you'd want to within half an hour, within 30. This wasn't a problem. You know, we didn't have people bringing in ebay keys and saying can you program this? And we didn't have, you know, all these other things that were wired into the car that might have stopped the, you know, being able to program.
We didn't have those obstacles right now it's like people go, oh my God, I can't believe that, you know, it cost x amount to do it. Well, the unfortunate thing is like it's a big part of your anti theft system now. And everybody's so crazy about like keeping these cars safe from being stolen. I can remember when if you had a Chrysler and you had two good keys and a Ford as well, you could program a third key. And of course without having to touch a scan tool, there was just a sequence. Would everybody love to have that come back? Sure they would.
Until their vehicle stolen.
That's right. Think about it now.
And now on the tungsten model rams they got the credit card for starting us. You ever see that?
I had not seen that.
That's just when I was doing my tech training for new technology updates or whatever. That was one thing. It's like so the customer can have. It's a basically like a hotel room card key. They can as long as they got that on them and they can put it to their Apple wallet and their phone to start the truck. And then if they bring their truck to the garage in the new technology like educational video or it said if the vehicle is started with the wallet, with the wallet on the phone and they drop off the vehicle and forget to leave you a key or something. You can just have a key on hand and it's a hundred dollars to program it to the vehicle.
Yeah.
And then like that's their cost they have to incur. I was like, how easy are you making it to steal these things now?
Well, and that's the thing is all that technology is stolen from or not stolen. Excuse me, that was close. Is. Is borrowed from Tesla. Because Tesla had that.
Like their Tesla has that.
Yeah, that little tiny stupid thing, you know, and same thing if it's. I remember the boss, he could do anything he wanted with his Tesla anywhere in the building. He, as long as that key was in his pocket, that car would roll the windows down, do all that, you know, brakes on it, and he'd cycle the wipers or some stupid, you know, just. And you know, people, it's like. Yeah, it's the same thing. We had a Mitsubishi that we were trying to. An EV at the shop or a hybrid. Excuse me.
And we're trying to charge it. We don't have a charger at the shop. That'll work.
Work.
So we had to look around. Kingston was only one car lot that had a charger that we could go and charge this car with. No big deal, except we had to build an ID and pay $50 before we could even go and charge it for an hour.
Holy.
This new tech that everybody just got. I gotta have it. Gotta have it. Well, you know, especially on the EV side because, I mean, what the hell, I might as well. I'm getting enough for it. When the post, you know, people that go and buy those cars, like, you might as well make friends with your dealer and, and, and you know, or somebody if you're in a different area, like if you're in Toronto or a major city. Yeah, there's somebody out there, not the dealer, that is really well schooled with this kind of stuff. You get away from those big cities like where you are, you know, you're kind of at the mercy of whatever.
You can even find a place to charge it, let alone if it's broke. Where are you towing it to? You're not towing it one hour, you're towing it a day. Right?
Yeah, we. There. There's a bit, bit more of an initiative being brought forward now by some of the Indigenous government councils and stuff to, to have it here. Like there is a couple level one charging stations here throughout the town. They got the YMCA and then at one of the hotels and stuff. But like, like, it's funny because, like when EV readiness became a thing, they ran that campaign through Mopar or FCA or whatever, they basically forced the dealers to buy this $60,000. Mopar level one charger.
Yeah.
And it was. Anyway, then all of a sudden they're like, oh, hold on, we're not sure. Like, we're putting a pause on this. And then they're like, sorry about you spending 60 grand, but you can just put that thing in storage until we're ready to do this. This. It's just like, what the man. Like, do you realize how much money like that is? Like, that's a wage. That's a year's wage or something.
That's right.
It's a. It's. Yeah. And. And so people that are like, oh, my shop can't afford this. My independent shop can't afford that. You know, and then, then dealers are just the devil. Like, you guys just got built for it.
You had no choice. Couldn't say no.
None. You got no show. Like, if you. And like, we had a parts manager one time accidentally ordered 124 bottles of R1234 YF. Oh, I don't. He was fired when we caught it. Like, he was done.
Yeah.
But, like, when I seen it, it was like the price was a. I think it was $98,000 is what was gonna be billed to us. And like, you think someone on the other end of that computer when they seen that order come through would be like, maybe this is a mistake.
Yep.
You know, but no, I managed to cancel the order of 99, but in the order, 24 or whatever it was showed up. So that was like, still almost 20 grand. Yeah, but like, that's. That's a hit man. Like that, like, stuff like that, those mistakes that. That could bury you. Right. Like, in the long run.
Oh, I'm short. Or still to enter a Mopar bottles of Freon.
Like, oh, and that, that mistake would bury a lot of independent shops for six months. You know what I mean? That. That little mirror. So it's like we all have to be a lot more forgiving people, you know, when. When they do make mistakes about like that. And I agree. Like, you know, unfortunately, with all this AI and chat, DTP and stuff, when you place your orders and you do your estimates and the whole thing, like, there's nobody that's going to pick up the phone on the other end and go, hey, Riley, this 99 bottles of, you know, 30, 12, 34. Did you mean nine? And you go, of course, yeah.
Oh, we just meant 9, not 99. You know what I mean? And. And yeah, it sucks. What's. In closing? What's the goal for the next Year for you.
I want to get to one of the trade expos or like trade shows. That's kind of what I got set in mind. Or now I'd really like to get out to either ASTA or Vision. I believe is the other one.
Vision was Cans was last week in Kansas City. I've never been so I can't, I can't tell you what Vision's like. Everybody speaks very highly of it. So I mean if you could make it, it'd be, it'd be phenomenal. I think it'd be a phenomenal opportunity for you. If you make it to North Carolina for Asta, bro, you and I could have a lot of fun. Like they have never seen somebody like you in North Carolina, I guarantee.
Oh, probably. No, I really. I think the Net, the networking of it though is just. Is the crazy part. Like, like Check Engine Truck. The first time I seen Check Engine Truck on Facebook, I thought he was a crackhead with a scan tool. Yeah. Just by looks like, not to insult them or anything.
Like that was just my reaction. I was just like, holy, who is this guy? And now I like, listen to him. I'm just like, man, he is just like, he's on the spectrum. Smart. Like there's, he's.
Yeah, it's. He's an ADHD guy with a slam tool, which is like, once you start to meet a bunch of them, Riley, they're all like that. That's just what makes them able to, to get through it. Like their brains are just operating on another level. Right. Like, and, and the coolest people in the world. Like, I have been so fortunate to meet those people.
Like you met, you met Rick White too, didn't you?
Yeah, I met.
That guy is so, so cool. I, I listen to his 10 minutes a day. Yeah, I try to like regularly. It's difficult, but man, he's, he's pretty spot on, I gotta say.
And what you realize with the coaches thing, like Josh Parnell or, or Rick White or, or Cecil, if you sit and spend time with them, you realize that it's like they're numbers people, psychologists, you know what I mean? Like, they're big time. They're. They're. They know how the human brain works and psyche and how to motivate people. Especially Josh Purnell. Like you, that guy's just infectious the way his, his attitude and his belief in self can come through and cra. It's crazy. Rick is a hoot.
Cecil's a hoot. Like they're all such cool dudes. Paul Danner's, like, one of the most humblest guys you're ever going to meet. Jack and Chuck, same way.
Like, he just gonna be, like, seeing God walk down the stairs. One of the first time sees Paul.
The first time I ever, like, was stood across from Paul, I was just like, I. I had to pinch myself, you know what I mean? It was a. It was an amazing weekend because it was like, it was the first time I'd ever gotten on a plane, flew to North Carolina, met Brian Pollock, who I'd, like, Talked to for 10 years, met Lucas, who I talked to for longer than that. All these people that I'd known, like, for so long and been friends with and had such an influence on. On me, but I'd never been in the same room with them. And then when you meet Paul and you sit down, you have a beer with them, and you eat some chicken wings and stuff, and like, Super Mario and all these other people. The first time you're like, you're pinching yourself all the time going, I can't really be here, right?
Like, you're in a room full of people where you don't feel like you deserve to talk because you don't, like, you know, you're not the smartest one there. You just want to listen and take it all in, right?
I. I was like, I still like that when I go to those shows. I mean, like, I do my thing, I do my interviews, but, like, I, I. And I'm still. If I'm in the classroom, I'm probably asking some of the stupidest and the most questions because I'm like, they're always smarter than me. I know they are. You know what I mean? It's just. And.
And they look at you phony sometimes, and then it's like they just kind of grin because it's like, yeah, okay, you know? And. And sometimes you'll see it where you'll ask the question that's always the. The superpower. And you see other people and their. Their minds click, or they're like, thank God somebody else asked it, right? Because they want to ask, too. So that's the whole thing. Like, there's no such thing as a dumb question. I don't care what anybody says.
Sometimes it's the wrong time to ask it. That's the other thing we got to talk about sometimes with these courses is, like, you can have a lot of questions, and you can really derail the conversation if you start asking a lot of questions over and over and over again. And it doesn't mean that you shouldn't be there, doesn't mean that you, you know, are dummy. It just means that sometimes it's like shoot the instructor an email or at break, you know, ask them a couple of questions then because it can really do conversation. And you know what, what it ends up being is that they look at sometimes their course MA material and they make little tweaks to it so that when they know somebody's going to ask the question, they rewrite the material to address the question. And that's the whole power of like when people go, well, I don't want to take the same class that I already took. I've taken a couple classes now, two, three times. And I can tell you that every time I take it, it's better than the time I took it before.
And I always.
Wow. So that's, that's pretty cool. Especially coming from like, where, like where if you just did your education through like a college.
Yeah.
It's like it doesn't matter how many people didn't like that course material. It's never going to change. Exactly.
Right. Because it's a pointed down from them as like. Riley, do you take any carburetor questions on yours? Like when you're.
No, we had TBI questions. Or how about injection questions? Like the. I can't remember. I, I just, I crammed a little bit of it into my brain in case it was on the exam. But like, man, you know, you're never gonna see that now, especially not in this province. Vehicles are throw it away within 10 years. So it is what it is. But no, carburetor questions weren't on there for sure.
But we evs were heavy. It was heavy EV questions.
So when I came through, they were still doing. They were still doing carburetor questions and they weren't even talking about EVs yet. They were just talking about basic hybrid like, I mean, basic hybrid like no regenerative braking, no nothing, just a basic. Like it's got a battery pack on it and you know, like it's got a cord and you plug it in and sometimes the engines charge. That's it.
You know, I'll say the EV portion is very. It was very well done. It's very in depth. And yeah, I was. It really sparked me to want to know how to do, how to work on EVs and stuff. So I ended up, when I went back to work at the dealer, I took all the EV courses I could get.
Oh, good for you.
Yeah, because. Well, like in the Long run. Even if it, Even if, like the 20, 30, zero carbon bullshit doesn't happen. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's gonna be something that's more relevant in the future stuff. So, like, if you're the God and knows how to fix those and knows how to diagnose it, like, you know, you're the guy that's gonna be in demand. You're the guy that's gonna be getting paid. Right.
And I wish in my brain I could separate the political motive behind the tech, because right now the political motive for me is the, is the, is the obstacle in me really truly grasping
it turns your stomach to think about it.
Yeah, it really does. And I shouldn't because I should just treat it as like a car and learn how it works. And I know how they work. And I can, you know, if I had to troubleshoot them and fix them and got exposure and, you know, and that's the other thing too. Like, here's the, here's the reality. I'm not running out and buying one of the 700, $800, you know, DVOMs right now for the few that I actually come into my, into my bay, like, I can. I'll pull the codes off of it and then that's it. Because I've got none of the other specialized safety equipment or training in my shop to be able to do anything with them.
So it's a situation of like. And I understand they're not as like, you know, we've had guys that say, like, you know, it's really hard to kill yourself working on one. And they're right, they are. But I don't need to be the first one, you know, because we don't have any of the way I look at it, right. So it's, it's one of those things that people are listening. If you want to get into it, get into it. But realize the investment. Realize the, the responsibility you have for the safety equipment and stuff and the training that goes in and then go in.
If you're not going to do it, don't do it halfway. Don't half ass it. Stay the hell out of it and
do it just enough so you know that. So you don't know what you up. And that's when I got a vehicle.
Right. It's. That's the whole thing.
I personally never. I personally haven't dove into any of them yet, but, but I wouldn't go and volunteer myself up without more training to say, you know, I'm the guy.
Yeah. I don't I don't have any aspirations of ever being the guy. I think it's just. I'll probably be too old and broke down by the time they become super prevalent. And I'm okay with that. You know, my. My next generation can. Can get all in it and make all kinds of money, but.
Right. I want to thank you for coming on, bro. This has been fun.
Yes, man. I really appreciate you having me on. It's a fanboy a little bit. The first time I got the message, but, you know, it was awesome.
It's. There's no reason to fanboy about me. I'm just. I'm nothing special. I'm just. Just like you, man. Just like you. Any closing words?
No, man, I just got. No. I'm short for words at the moment. I had something in my head for a second. I lost it. I wanna.
I wanna say to the young people that are kind of listening to what Riley's been talking about and been through, is that like, be. Be understanding that sometimes when the older guy seems, you know, seems like he's hard to approach or seems like he's grouchy or seems like he's got a bad attitude. Just understand that like, by the time you get to be the old dude, you. You got a lot that hurts and you got a lot of. You got a lot of that. You're carrying of mistakes that you made. Because we're really hard on ourselves. So when they seem a little rough around the edges or they seem around, you know, like the.
Just understand that it's not always a personal thing. It's just a situation of. It's like, like, you know, they. And I'm not excusing. If anybody is a senior and they're telling you to get out of this trade, don't listen to them. That's why, don't listen to them. Because that's the wrong attitude to have. But if they seem like they're rough and they're hard to talk to, just give it some time and do the work and put your effort in and, you know, roll your airline up and try to be organized and pay attention and.
And it'll get better for you. It'll come around. And it's just. What this is, is like we said at the very beginning, you know, this is not easy. If it was, everybody would do it. So the people that are hard to approach, it's not that they don't want you there, man. It's just a situation of. It's like they are working really hard every day to make sure that they don't forget and they get everything done and they try to make everything happen when it has to happen the way that it's supposed to happen.
There's a lot of plates in the air spinning, so. So, you know, just be patient with everybody. Everybody. And, you know, like I always said, I love you all. Thank you for the, you know, all the comments and everything. Riley, thanks for all the fun we've had talking. We'll do this again, you know, and everybody just try to be 1% better tomorrow than you were today. And that's about all, really, you can do.
And, you know, thank you to my family and my friends at LaunchTech USA and Promotive and Tectonic was coming up for Tech Metric. So if you're interested in going to Tectonic, reach out to me. I'll give you a. You know, we've got a great discount code for you for that. There's lots of stuff coming up in the near, near future, guys, that we're going to share with everybody, so it's going to get really exciting. So, Riley, thank you, brother. Nice having you. We'll talk to you again, bro.
Thanks, everybody. Have a good one.
Hey, if you could do me a favor real quick and, like, comment on and share this episode, I'd really appreciate it. And please, most importantly, set the podcast to automatically download every Tuesday morning. As always, I'd like to thank our amazing guests for their perspectives and expertise, and I hope that you'll please join us again next week on this journey of change. Thank you to my partners in the ASA group and to the Change in the Industry podcast. Remember what I always say, in this industry, you get what you pay for. Here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10 millimeter and we'll see you all again next time.
About this episode
Riley Spence shares how his move from dealership service to a remote Labrador fleet/heavy-equipment role changed his outlook—more autonomy, better mentorship, and real-world fabrication and diagnostics. The conversation digs into why maintenance advice varies by region (dust, extreme temperature swings, poor fuel quality, long 4wd seasons), plus the practical realities of parts delays and customer communication. A major theme is mental health in the trade: toxic environments, burnout, and the importance of counseling and community. They also debate certification, modern diagnostics, and the dangers of rushing troubleshooting.
Original notes
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In this episode, Jeff sits down with Riley Spence to talk about his move from the dealership world to working on a fleet for a construction company out in remote Labrador. Riley shares what it’s really like dealing with tough northern conditions, from tracking down parts to handling low-quality fuel. They also speak on mental health, the importance of having a strong community in the industry, and why continuing to learn and connect with others matters so much as a technician.
Timestamps:
00:00 Getting a second chance
09:54 Managing equipment in dusty conditions
12:40 Issues with quick lube services
20:20 Dealing with self-doubt and burnout
23:22 Challenges of being an apprentice
27:34 Managing tough diagnostic situations
36:13 Reflecting on career burnout
37:37 Why I avoid working at dealerships
45:19 Learning from skilled coworkers
49:50 Reality of heavy equipment trades
55:32 Pursuing skills over big money
01:03:27 Outdated info in truck systems
01:05:47 Fleet maintenance and master switches
01:10:14 Frustrations with car parts stores
01:15:45 Auto repair process improvements
01:20:11 Discussing challenges in key programming
01:29:34 Meeting online friends in person
01:31:01 Managing questions during courses
01:36:20 Advice on understanding older people
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The Jaded Mechanic Podcast
Jeff Compton
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