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Lester Kovacs from Dorman Products | The Repair Industry Needs Better Communication
Lester Kovacs from Dorman Products | The Repair Industry Needs Better Communication
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About this episode
Lester Kovacs from Dorman Products shares insights on the importance of communication in the repair industry, emphasizing the need for better partnerships between manufacturers and technicians. He discusses challenges in receiving feedback on defective parts and the grassroots efforts Dorman is making to improve quality. The conversation also touches on the evolution of automotive technology, the impact of right to repair legislation, and the growing complexity of EV components. Kovacs highlights Dorman's commitment to addressing technician concerns and improving product offerings based on real-world feedback.
Topics:
repair industry communication
defective parts feedback
right to repair
electric vehicle components
Dorman product quality
technician partnerships
automotive technology evolution
grassroots efforts
aftermarket solutions
safety systems
Cars:
Chevrolet Cruze
Chevrolet Nova
Dodge Ram
Ford Explorer
Ford F-150 Lightning
Ford Transit Custom
Jeep Grand Cherokee
Lucid Air
Toyota Tacoma
Toyota Tundra
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Lester Kovacs is from Dorman Products. Today, he and Jeff discuss the challenges faced by Dorman in obtaining feedback from technicians about defective parts and why they need better communication from the industry. Jeff reflects on the reputation of aftermarket parts and that he's seen Dorman make improvements in that area. Lester also shares what's next for Dorman as they think about the future and the EV market.
00:00 Success in Diesel and Auto Parts
10:14 First Job in Automotive Industry
11:33 Innovative Product Development Role
19:05 Optimizing Automotive Part Reliability
23:06 Technician Ingenuity and Collaboration
31:01 Remanufacturing Enhancements via Failure Analysis
36:01 Communication Gaps in Auto Services
40:09 Tech Training: Progress and Challenges
44:22 Window Regulator Redesign Challenges
48:32 Expanding Beyond Light Duty Fleet
53:10 Tech Issues Render Cars Obsolete
01:01:42 Improving Dealer-Customer Collaboration
01:03:49 Tech Struggles with RF Hub Shortage
01:11:29 Aftermarket Solutions for EV Failures
01:16:41 Constructive Feedback Over Negativity
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Filter:
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Chevrolet Nova
"...d to get into. The first vehicle I owned was a 77 Nova with the. With the mission laden 305. Yeah, it pr..."
Car
Toyota Tundra
"...on, Jeff, but the Toyota pre pressed axles on the Tundras and the Tacomas, I mean arguably one of the best ..."
Car
Toyota Tacoma
"...e Toyota pre pressed axles on the Tundras and the Tacomas, I mean arguably one of the best built vehicles o..."
Car
Jeep Grand Cherokee
"...the back of the older Jeep Liberties. The, in the Grand Cherokees, the bearing was the same design and we hated it ..."
Car
Chevrolet Cruze
"...ntly, there was one that sticks out for the Chevy Cruze. I believe it was the oil return that was a plast..."
Car
Ford Transits
"... vehicle. So they can say every one of these damn Ford Transits or whatever the vehicle is, if it's the Freightli..."
Car
Ford Explorer
"... I had one of the shops call me for an idea on an Explorer. I forget what part of the system it was for adas..."
Car
Lucid Air
"Or yeah, I look it's right to repairs. It's become this whole, whole big thing. And I ..."
Car
Dodge Ram
"..., I told the story on here. We did an RF hub in a Dodge Ram. It actually the truck went to the dealer first f..."
Car
Ford Lightnings
"... don't know if it was the EVs or some of the Ford Lightnings or maybe something like that because they've been..."
Success in Diesel and Auto Parts
First Job in Automotive Industry
Innovative Product Development Role
Optimizing Automotive Part Reliability
Technician Ingenuity and Collaboration
Remanufacturing Enhancements via Failure Analysis
Communication Gaps in Auto Services
Tech Training: Progress and Challenges
Window Regulator Redesign Challenges
Expanding Beyond Light Duty Fleet
Tech Issues Render Cars Obsolete
Improving Dealer-Customer Collaboration
Tech Struggles with RF Hub Shortage
Aftermarket Solutions for EV Failures
Constructive Feedback Over Negativity
Select text to request an explanation
Look, it's right to repairs. It's become this whole, whole big thing. And I think for us as manufacturers on the development side, we just want to be able to offer modules to the aftermarket new. If we don't have a partnership with them to understand some more of the software encryption, the develop the architecture, everyone's okay with being blocked out. I'm. I'm really not.
With me this morning, I'm very happy to have Lester Kovacs from Dorman Products. Lester, how are you this morning?
Great, great. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks for having me on.
Yeah, I. I met Lester last. I keep saying last week because I'm. My toes are still off the ground on it two weeks ago at ASTA in North Carolina. And Lester and I kind of had a. A short but good conversation at the, at the product expo. And Lester, that's not your first time there, is it?
No, it's our. It's our third time there at the event.
Yeah. And how is it with you guys with. With like Connect? Because is the feedback norm for the most time? Positive.
I would. I would say it's. It's split and it's gotten better. I would say roughly, we get just as many people that will come up and say that would thank us for all of our different solutions. We get almost equal the amount that have had some frustrations or challenges with, with using some of our products.
Yeah. Right. And like, I know kind of behind the scenes, some of the people that you. You talk to on a pretty regular basis, some common friends of mine that like, if kind of key, I guess, right. If we get a part that doesn't work, you guys are very big on getting the feedback on what it actually doesn't do because you're constantly trying to make that better. Right. It's not kind of. Can you delve into that a little bit for me?
Yeah. So we've spoken about it before with some of the other people you mentioned. So the biggest challenge for us being a manufacturer, we don't sell direct to technicians. So what happens a lot of times is a lot of the parts that are defective. And you can probably attest to this. There are certain parts, depending on the dollar value, you may even just throw that part out. So, yeah, for multiple reasons, we have challenges with getting the defective part back. And then once we do get that defective part back, there's usually no story attached to it.
So we don't know why it failed. We don't know what type of test to do to it. And we also only get a certain percentage of our parts back. Some of these large customers try and do their best, but we'll give them for example a defect credit allowance based on sales. And it isn't always a requirement to get all the, all the parts back. Now we are getting better at that. So that is really, really important for us to get that back. So we're so we've started a grassroots effort.
We have our own, we have, we have our own Facebook page. We have about 400 or so members and we also try to be active at all of these, not only just traditional trade shows that our customers have, but now trade shows like ASTA Vision. So we can get out in front of the technicians and say hey look, if you had a challenge with our part, if you have a recommendation, please reach out to us. I put my email address out there, my mobile phone and we, when we started this about right during, I would say right after Covid and I almost thought the floodgates would open and we wouldn't have enough people to handle all the calls. But that's really not the case. We have plenty of other resources here that can help. So it just continues to be a challenge since we don't sell direct. And I'm open to any and all suggestions and also hope that everyone that listens to this podcast knows that they can reach out.
My, my Facebook handle is Lester at Dorman. If you're interested in, in joining our, our Facebook brand ambassador group, just direct message me and we can get you signed up.
Yeah, because I like I've used a lot of your parts for a lot of years. Right. And we got kind of talking about how the one go to that everybody that really popular right now is that Pentastar 3.6 oil filter housing. Right like that. There's nothing that comes close in the aftermarket to how I want to say how effective that part is. Is a one time fix for a really known problem for that, for that application. Right. Like it's.
You guys knock it in the park there. But that's not the only one. Like we were talking just before I got on this morning, I was talking with some of my friends and it's like even in the diesel market like you guys have had some really good Successes with the 6 liter powerstrokes, the you know, the older FICOM cases right that you or Clamshell we used to call them and like I can go on and on and on and think about like I don't think we've put an OE exhaust manifold on and I don't Know how many years right at anywhere that I've worked and not had issues coming back, you know what I mean? Like with them coming back and having to redo them over again or stuff like that. Like we find if there. If the service procedures followed, your parts hold up just fine. You know, we talked about some of the, you know the joke I, we always talk about is like some of the vent solenoids that you guys. But I mean I was just talking Brian Pollock and Brian has been very good with you about one that he. For a Honda application, Correct? Yeah.
All about how the amperage doesn't. Isn't the same and that's why it immediately shuts down the drive test that it's doing. Like you guys can't be expected to, you know, be perfect. We certainly don't hold anyone else in the industry to that level. I mean even dealer parts fail all the time. Right. So it's. My hat's off to you guys for how positive you, you, you stay with the, with the, the running joke that is, you know, everybody wants to always throw the silver, you know, silver wings under the bus per se.
What's, what's your background like? How did, how long you been with the company? How did you get there?
I, I just wanted to make one. One more comment on that too. And it's, it's, it's not an excuse, it's a reality and we have to keep getting better at it. I don't know if everyone fully realizes the breadth of our product. So we have a lot more exposure out there. And where I'm going with this is you look at a category like exhaust manifolds, one of our first categories and others, I'll get hundreds of people that will give us positive feedback on that. But I feel like since we have everything from a little key fob case all the way up through.
Yeah.
Loaded axles for Toyotas, hybrid drive batteries and. And all different types of components. We're opening our. Ourselves up more to have to unfortunately have issues. But I really feel like that we're, that we're in a place to better address those issues and work more closely with technicians. So I just wanted to put that out there. Jim, A lot of companies that have one or two categories, right. Even if you look at a company like SMP now, they're a great company, but they primarily focus on sensors and switches.
So that's kind of their wheelhouse. They don't have all these different hard parts. They are playing in it more. So just wanted to make that comment Back to your question about my background and how long I've been with Dorman. I've been here, It'll actually be 21 years in January. My MI and my background from being passionate about this industry. We were kids growing up. My father, I'm first generation, he immigrated here from Hungary.
He was a bricklayer. And basically we couldn't afford to have people work on our vehicles as kids. Looking at taking it there, taking it, being in pain. We have a state inspection. So it would come through and the bill would be even back then in the 80s, it would just be something we couldn't do. So he taught us how to work and fix our own vehicles. So we actually became a resource in our neighborhood for all the young kids to help out with different things or problems they have with their vehicle. So it was at an early age we just became very passionate about it.
And then I also started to get into. The first vehicle I owned was a 77 Nova with the. With the mission laden 305. Yeah, it probably had about 160 horsepower, but damn if I didn't do everything to that. I put a crane camshaft in and I put roller rockers. I put a Edelbrock intake and manifold that I purchased from Pep Boys. They were the only game in town. But we figured all these things out and did it in our driveway.
Now obviously now it's. It's different with the industry and. And I always do my best to support it, but that was something that we always had in our family. Always had a. We're always passionate about fixing our own vehicles. I'm one of three siblings. I have an older brother and younger sister. And my brother actually went to tech school for automotive.
He actually works here now too. So him and I, he would help me a lot with all the different repairs. More so on the performance side for different vehicles. I had. So one of the first jobs I had out of college was working at. I worked for a local warehouse distributor and I wore many different hats, but I had to cut my teeth on the parts counter. And one of the jobs being a rookie and unknowledgeable. One of the things about being a parts counter person on the traditional side of the business, where you're dealing with people like yourself all the time, is that you have to have thick skin, right? People, people are calling up, they're used to very knowledgeable counter folks.
And when you're trying to learn it and you're asking for, you know, you know, like year, make, model, and then you ask Them for the engine on something they don't need to know the engine on. All of a sudden they're like oh this guy's an idiot. And then they just start dropping F bombs. And here I am, just finished my college degree but wanting to really had an opportunity in the automotive industry to work on the corporate side. But they wanted me to work on the parts counter. It was, it was very interesting seeing that side of the business and learning how to look up parts. Learning, learning how they were dispatched. So that was my first, first job in the automotive industry.
Actually take a step back. My last year in high school I worked at a Ford dealership and I detailed cars. And that's when I really knew that it was, it was an industry that I wanted to be a part of. And then I subsequently then was a parts counter person. And after I finished that training I had various different roles at that warehouse distributor where I was involved in it and also in purchasing. Took about a two year hiatus between 2002 and 2000. January 2004 is when I started with Dorman Products. And I was recommended by one of my friends that was working, that started at Dorman two years earlier that worked with me at that warehouse distributor.
And when I was first hired the title was new product database administrator. Because I also, because I had a business degree and my, my whole responsibility was developing relationships with different, with, with, with technicians with associations that represent technicians. Also some OEM dealers. To understand, to understand where are those gaps in the industry where a technician has to go back to the dealer. Yeah, I remember one of the first categories I was really excited about because the way we went to market was air door actuators. Nobody had air door actuators, nobody had blend doors. Now you see standard and all the other companies out there, engine management companies have those types of products. So really I was hired to find these ideas and then spread them out to the different teams within Dorman to then bring them to market.
Fast forward to today skipping a lot of the details being at that time I was a one person team locally that developed those relationships. Now we have several people in strategic locations all over the US that do the same exact thing out of their home office. Because what we realized Jeff was what's failing here? Our Corporate office is 40 miles outside of Philadelphia. Isn't if not the same failures and vehicle population in say the Midwest or the Rust Belt or out West. Out west you'll see a lot more European applications, a lot more heat related failures. In the middle of the country you'll See a lot more rust. And then here on the east coast, you see kind of a mix. So today we have people out there doing.
Doing that activity all the time. And one of the things how I got. How I. How I became this, I guess, spokesperson or. Or individual for technicians to kind of bitch to about issues they're having is because I learned really quickly in order to get Jeff's ideas, in order for you to tell me, hey, Lester, we just had this three. This is the third three, six that rolled in and oil filter housings leaking, we had to gain credibility and trust. And you did that by addressing issues they had. You know, early on, it was.
It was kind of like when I was working with different mentors here. Dorman's. Dorman's a great company. It's a great culture. They would ask, man, Lester, do you think you're getting too much involved in some of these quality issues? And my response to that was, there's no such thing. And what I asked them for was the ability to have resources, because I can't hunt down every issue like the one Brian Pollock had. We're actually still in the process. He sent us the failed part back at looking into that.
So they quickly learned that they saw some of the results and said, hey, this has to be a key part of your role, even though your main role is to find ideas to also make sure that the existing parts meet your expectations. So kind of trying to make a short story long of how over the over 20 years, how kind of evolved into a whole team. And that quality controls a big part of what we do.
So you touched on some really cool things right there. And I think we forget that sometimes, like, you guys can make a $10, like you said, key fob case, and maybe it's sold to a whole bunch of DIY contingents, right? Sold across the counter at the Zone. And it has an issue with it. And all of a sudden your whole name online is made into mud because it's like, hey, you know, don't buy a Dorman from. Because I bought this $10 part. That's so not fair. And you're exactly right. The people that show up at a parts counter to buy parts, you know, we used to always say that the waitresses had the worst jobs in the world, right? But I mean, I would counter that with anybody that has to work at a parts counter.
Because you guys for so long were. Were the first name that a lot of those stores sold, right? Dorman had an application for it. AutoZone. There's the part it's in stock. The, you know, the whole thing you're selling, let's be real, you know, you're selling to sometimes people that don't even have the diag Right. So your part goes on. It doesn't fix the car. All of a sudden your name is mud.
It goes to the dealership or to a shop. The shop fixes the real fault, the broken wire somewhere or pin fitment or just installs the part properly and it starts to work. But your name's already, you know, the damage is already done, I guess is what I'm trying to say. So I never put too much stock in, in, in that the, the reputation. It's that you guys, the, the company had through all the media chatter. Right. It's have I put in parts of you guys and had, you know, a comeback shirt. Yep.
But not like it's, it's funny, I was just saying it before I got on. I had a vent solenoid I put on for a Nissan and it, it came back three weeks later. Well, we, we warranted it out and it's not like that car has come back again with that same fault. You know what I mean? So we can always, in the evap component side, we can always remember that. Like I've seen the OE ones fail over and over again when the canister is coming apart and something's jamming up the valve. You know what I mean? Like it's, we immediately jump. Oh, that's a, that's whatever. An aftermarket part.
No, we're not fixing the whole system. Right. That's the other thing that, the wrinkle that comes into this discussion a lot going back to. So when you're looking for fixes, do you guys track certain part numbers at a dealership that are getting replaced a lot? Is that how that goes or is it more of a one on one? Are you talking to service managers or it's.
It's all the above, Jeff. We really have to, you know, as it was. It's pretty cool how it's evolved, but it's also become more challenging because when we first started doing this, there was so much low hanging fruit. Now you have a lot of great competitors out there that are doing a lot of the same thing. So we're talking to service managers, we have dealership level technicians and that's really important for us because when you think about where these like I'll call them emerging technologies. Right. Things that weren't on the vehicle until, let's say if I went back into time machine in 2020 looking or even a little bit further. When active grille shutters became popular, there was nobody that had those available.
But being able to understand and talk to dealer technicians to see, to see what's failing. So to answer your question, it's not just a one size fits all. We will talk with, we will talk with the service writers, we will talk with their parts counter people, and we will also try our best to talk to the technicians. And the good news is some of those technicians, because of the relationship we have purchasing parts for development from the oe, were able to get a lot of good information about that. And then when we bring the part back, we'll also assess. The most important thing for us is what we call the smoking gun. Right. To have the failed part and understand the failure.
So what I mean by that, if we come across a part that typically lasts say five or six years and the main reason for failure is just normal wear and tear and it fits a huge vehicle population, a lot of times we won't look to change anything about that part, but we will look to understand, hey, what are the things that when they go back to the dealer, they have to purchase separately, like gaskets or hardware or anything like that to make the job easier. Then on the other side of that, if we see something like the oil filter housing where it's 100% failure and you can see some failures sometimes after 20,000 miles. And the main reason was because how that part was developed, they have some ultrasonic welds that are prone on that plastic part that are prone to leaking. The plastic itself isn't terrible. The plastic itself does tend to crack depending on if you over tighten that plastic cap.
Yeah.
But the main, but the main failure again was discovered through our ability to get all those failed parts back. And to do our assessment.
That's pretty cool. It really is. There's so many parts. Like we were just trying to think before I got on here, like your independent wheel end fix for the Ford trucks.
Yep.
Like, I absolutely love that. Like I don't even anymore try to diagnose, you know, the solenoid. Is it bad or is it whatever? Like I just immediately, you know, run through my quick test go. Yeah, it's got. And then put the two of them in because it, it's such a more effective fix. I know it's not engineered to stay engaged all the time, by the way Ford built it, but I mean really, it's, it's not going to hurt it from a longevity standpoint. By the time those trucks come in and it's such a more effective repair, like you guys don't get enough credit sometimes for, for coming up with stuff like that, you know what I mean? Like I can remember when those trucks first came out, it made a God awful noise and it was like it wasn't super common right away. So you're waiting three to four days to get the part to come in.
And then you would do one side and then the next side would go three months later, four months later. The vet, you know, the, the solenoids are always messed up. It's just a terrible, terrible design. And you guys fix it very, very effectively. You know, rather inexpensive compared to the time frame of going through checking all the other stuff. Like you don't get enough credit for that. That's, I think it's really cool. You know, when I think back to the Honda gas door and hood release cables and, and you know, like if anybody's ever had to do one of those cables for the gas door, it was a pain.
Like there's a lot of panels I had to come and you guys fix it with like a $20 part, you know, that's so I remember doing one of those like 12 years ago and my boss had ordered the cable from the dealer and it took three days to get in. And you know, he hands it over to his technician to go put it in. And I just didn't know what was going on. All of a sudden I'm like, you know, there's a fix for that for dormant and by now we've already sold the job at a, at a rather, you know, hefty price. And he's like, why did I not know about that before? I'm like, your parts counter person should be a lot more on the ball. You know.
You just said so much there to unpack as far as like. No, no, but, but honestly like challenges that we still have today. We could, we could go to it and it's really what we just say awareness because there's, because there's so many items. We always joke around and say if everyone knew everything we had from when they're buying the part, to the counter person, knowing it's on the shelf, to the technician and know to even ask for it, we would sell so much more products. But going back to what you're saying, enough credit. I have to give credit to people like yourself and technicians all over the US that work with us because that, that really ties back to my original statement. It's because we've we've gained the credibility of a lot of technicians. So when they see that problem, they're letting us know and they're sending, and they're sending that solution back.
And I mean, I think some people underestimate how smart technicians at your level are. Some of them will even hand us the idea, hey, if you just sold us this end to fix, I wouldn't have to fish, I wouldn't have to dig this hole, this whole cable out to replace it. So it really is, you know, I appreciate the credit, but it's just a testament to the relationships we have because we're not out there working on the vehicles all the day. It's important for us to stay in touch with people like yourself to see what's that next Honda fuel door fix coming out or whatever it was. I remember when we launched one of the newer categories, but man, it's already been six years now. I don't know how it is in Kingston, Jeff, but the Toyota pre pressed axles on the Tundras and the Tacomas, I mean arguably one of the best built vehicles out there, minus some frame issues that they recalled. So essentially at year 10 or 12, the bearings on the rear of those axles go bad. But you typically will need, and you can probably speak better to this, a factory tool that Toyota has, or I've seen guys actually get a salvage rear and kind of fabricate their own tool to be able to press that bearing back on, let alone take it off the axle.
So we looked at it, we looked, actually, technicians said, why don't you approach that the same way that Monroe did with struts 30 years ago. Hey, instead of replacing just the strut, here's a whole loaded assembly. So I remember, I remember coming out with that part where it was all, all pressed together for the, for the Toyota Tacoma. And one of the big things we do is that we always, we always want to get a try on. So even after the part is done and we approve it from a material standpoint, from a measurement standpoint, we want to get it on the vehicle. So we brought it up to our local Toyota dealer and the technician's jaw almost dropped and we're on the east coast, so we do get some rust. He's like, I just spent three hours fighting with one of these last week versus, versus having this whole entire assembly. So again, it's just really listening to technicians and having a really good engineering team that when we present them with the failure mode, if we don't always have the solution, they'll have ideas like that, for example, that iwe, they were like, hey, the main thing failing on this is the vacuum actuation portion.
Yeah. Other. Other makes and models just have that wheel locked to the axle all the time. And then there's only one connecting point by the transfer case. So we did a lot of testing. There was no drag, there was no fuel economy issues. So we came out with that where, hey, let's just eliminate that. That, that, that component that feels.
But, but that's a part that needs more awareness, Jeff. I mean you're, you're probably the 1% as far as it does that research. I can guarantee you if you and I walked into 10 good shops, maybe two or three would, would know about that solution. So that's a, that's why it's a lot to unpack. That's a continual thing for us to try to get that message out there when we do have those types of products.
And see for me, in my neck of the woods, you don't see a lot of Toyota trucks, but you see a lot of Ford trucks. Right. So your, your axle thing is I. Because I've had to do similar. There's used to be similar fixes for that on the back of the older Jeep Liberties. The, in the Grand Cherokees, the bearing was the same design and we hated it because it was like. Was it a labor intensive job? Like, did you get some hours of labor sold? Sure. But you did a lot of labor for essentially a $30 part.
Right. Whereas you guys, if it's like all of a sudden you sell something that's like a little bit higher on the parts side, but the technician can turn it around in inside of two hours. That's a win for us. Two hours versus four hours. Any technician, all day long, regardless of what they say, want to do one to two hours, three hours on a car at a time and get the next car in. That's what we want to do from a business standpoint. That's what we want to do. So when you guys, when you come up with a parts fix like that, that almost winds up being in the, in the worst case scenario, the.
The same price as traditionally, but less labor or even less expensive. It's a, it's such a win, man. Like we can get that. It's such an easy sell to our customer. As long as the part holds up, we can stand behind it. It's a win. Win. I love it.
You know, the iwe, I can't think of one that I've put in and had it come back yet not one, you know, like that's saying something for. And from a standpoint, it's a pretty simple part. You know what I mean? There's not a whole lot going on there. Not like some of the electrical stuff, but I mean when you look at some of the electrical stuff, you guys, it's like it's not perfect, but nobody's is, you know, like I've put in lots of other people's ignition coils and had them only last a week. You know, it's not this, this, this idea that we keep coming after certain companies in this industry for certain things drives me crazy because you guys build. Does Darwin build some parts for the OEs?
There are, there are some parts that we do for the OEs. It's very limited. It's what they call kind of end of life parts.
Okay.
And we, and we try to keep it separate. We don't want to like have, have channel conflicts, but there, but there are some parts we, we have, we have a, we have some individuals that look at. So say for example, Ford, GM, Chrysler has a vehicle that's say around 10 years old. And that tier one supplier, the amount of replacement parts that they contracted with, they've run out. So the cost for them, these tier one suppliers need large, large amounts to retool it up. But now at this point in the game, they don't need as many. So they'll look to suppliers like us and also other, other aftermarket suppliers. And, and it's really helped us step up our game.
We've taken a lot of learnings on. They're, they're very stringent on the quality side, as they should be, and, and apply that to the aftermarket side as well.
Yeah, yeah. It kind of break down for me. You talked a little bit about the, we talked about the Ford Focus transmissions, that automatic thing. You guys come up with a fix for that, right? Or is it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Down that for us because there's a lot of people. We're starting to see those cars get into their kind of end of life phase up here and there's still a lot of them that people maybe just last month put a bunch of money into and then now that training starts to do what, what's your fix for that?
So anything. One of the things I get really excited about is anything and I, and just to be clear, Jeff, you met. We're talking about the, the, the, the transmission control module, correct?
Yeah, yeah.
On, on the Focus and Fiesta. Just wanted to make sure. Sorry, coffee hasn't fully kicked in yet. So we, we purchased a company. We're, we're publicly traded. So all this information is out there called Flight Systems. That was an, that was a Tier 1 OEM remanufacturer and also was very, very competent in electronics. And even when we purchased that, we made an initiative, I would say roughly 12 years ago to invest heavily in software engineers and electrical engineers.
So where I'm going with this is when we get something in that's a complex electronics, the way we define that is it has a printed circuit boards and microprocessors that communicates with other modules on the network. We're able to really, really play Monday morning quarterback. So look, the oe, there's no doubt they have high quality products, but when you think about anything electronic, who do you know that has a 10 or 12 year old cell phone? There aren't, there aren't many people.
No one.
And, and where I'm going with that is that we have the luxury to. Let's say for example, if we're, when we were, when we were remanufacturing that unit, we noticed different things on the printed circuit board with the solder joints. Some of the microcontrollers, they were using areas that were failing on it. And we're able to do that not only to that tcm, but other modules that we're developing and also remanufacturing. So we're able to go through that process to not only do any improvements that the OEM manufacturer might have done, but anything that we're seeing when we get say 50 or 100 different cores back, cracking them open and seeing what's failing. And our facility and flight systems really allows us to hone in and to really develop a robust remanufacturing process where you wind up with a much better unit when you're done for that particular unit. So that's really at a high level again being able to take advantage of all the newer, all the newer electronics and components out there to replace what's failing on that existing product when we get it back.
Yeah, what, what I guess could I say, wow, that's a good. What's the biggest, most successful line within Dorman?
So I, I would say it's you know, biggest, most successful. You know, a lot of people on the. If you're measuring that based on dollars, believe it or not, one of the, one of our biggest lines is now chassis. We, we entered into a full chassis. So when you look at something like control arms from, from a pure amount or units I'd have to look at. But as far as dollar wise you're looking at categories like control arms, window regulators, radiator fan assemblies, exhaust manifolds is definitely on that. Those are when you look at, in, in all of totality, those that's, that's really your, your four or five biggest categories. But the cool thing about it is there's always things that just come out of nowhere.
Like right now, what's really growing fast, Jeff, is our turbo accessory line, which is, it's pretty much, it's doing really well because I think it's something like 60% of all the vehicles manufactured either they don't either have some form of GDI or turbo for that fuel economy and performance. And what a lot of people are realizing now, whether I'm taking that turbo off just to service it to get to something else or if I'm replacing it, it's really important to replace all those feed lines, whether it's coolant and oil because you don't know what service intervals. I mean you can cut some of those lines open and there's literally sludge like an EGR valve in there. So we've done a really good job of putting together kits and also selling them individually. And more importantly, there was one that sticks out for the Chevy Cruze. I believe it was the oil return that was a plastic like corrugated line that cracked all the time. So we made it. So we made a metal upgrade.
Again, feedback from, from technicians. So yeah, as, as far as like any one particular part, I remember, I remember for a short period of time, not short period but for back, back in the day, one of our best single selling SKUs was the old GM38 intake manifold. For the GM where we improved around the, the, where the PCV valve was failing, we made some improvements around there inside. So yeah, did I, did I answer your question on that? As far as like the largest CAD.
And, and going back to the turbo thing, like there's so many times that we've seen repeat failures of a big component. Right. And when you're, when you're dealing with people that you're talking to and it's like, oh, I put a turbo on and, and the, the OE turbo lasted me four years and I put a replacement turbo on, it only lasted me 18, 18 months. Sometimes you manage to talk to somebody that's at the dealership or at that OE level that they do a ton of them and they go, oh yeah man, you got to change that line because you know it's it's. It's coked up, it's sludged up. Like, that's why your bearings failed in your next one. You don't know that, right? Unless you're talking to the right people. We, we as technicians, we love the idea of a kit.
Here's the whole thing that you're going to need. And that's what's frustrating. You guys have been great. Just going back to the manifold, as example. So many times you phone up a dealership and you say, I need a manifold for a Triton. They send you over the manifold, and it's like, okay, what about all the hardware? What about the gaskets? What about, you know, I'm gonna have to remove the dipstick. I'm gonna need a dipstick too, because it's gonna rot up here in the rust belt. Like, you guys all have that always at the forefront of your brain, talking to so many people.
But yet when. When we sometimes are quoting a job and you're dealing with somebody that, like, is not a tech, but they're having to quote the job, source the parts and all that kind of stuff, it so much breaks down on just that conversation that's not happening between the parts counter person and the. And the service writer. And then the tech comes back and he goes, hey, yeah, cool, I got my manifold, but I'm going to need X, Y, and Z to do this job. And it's like the dealer guys, because I know I work dealers for so long, they immediately know if you're going to go up there and buy an EGR valve, you're going to need these extra seals because, you know you have to take the pipe off here, these bolts, and the valve always break. That all comes together. If you just go to the parts counter and you don't know that you never done the job before. And that person on the parts counter is not aware because how can they possibly be? Their job is to sell parts, not fix cars.
They don't know everything you need. You guys have been great at getting everything included. I love that. That's been so key for so many jobs for us. You know, it just makes it turnaround so much faster. The turbo thing I love because, I mean, there's lots of guys out there running around on not the OE turbo that it came in, and they have no issues because they do a more complete job when they put the turbo on, right? Like, they change those lines out and all that kind of stuff. And. And they're a weak point of a lot of the oe stuff.
It's. I, I'm. Yeah, I'm just. There's so many times now as I keep thinking of what you guys have done with a package deal for a part for repair that's made it so much simpler, faster. It's just. We love it. You know, the Motor Age thing that you guys are involved with now, when they do their. Their lunchtime kind of webinars, that's been very cool, very successful.
That's. That, that's relatively new for us. And it's. It's really ties in to the whole big picture. Right? I mean, when you look at one of the biggest issues you, you spoke. Everyone's talking about, it's the, it's the lack. It's the lack of experienced technicians that are out there. And also, I'm hoping we're addressing it, Jeff and I, and, and.
But it still seems like there's this. There's this stigma associated with it, whether it's, whether it's, hey, I don't want to be a greasy wrench turner. I don't want to have to be in debt and spend $30,000 on tools. I'll just go be an electrician or a plumber or anything like that. So where I'm going with this is we really felt like Dorman never did any technician training prior to 2019. We decided that this is something that was important for the industry. And it's also important that what we do, too, is not talk about our parts. This is about what are those things that these young technicians or even experienced technicians need to learn about, whether it's basic electronics or moving over into like EV hybrid or GDI service or later model diesel with the SCR and def.
Doing that. And that, quite frankly, is why we're at shows now like ASTA that we weren't attending before in Vision. Those were shows. My first 15 years with Dorman, we never attended. We. We basically attended our large customer shows. So. So we have a.
It's. It's dormant trainingcenter.com really quick plug. It's free to sign up all of our. We have free content. We do those free webinars over lunch. We have different sponsors like Motor Age. And then we also have courses that are available that you can. That you can purchase that were prerecorded.
And then we also have. We also work with our customers in different geographic locations. But the one thing really cool about our program too is that, Jeff, if you, if you called me up, we would work with you, whether if. If you were an mso or you had three other shops that said hey, we'd like to have G or Kenny or Pete come out and train. We'll actually do custom stuff like that. We did that for, for a gentleman we met in Florida where afterwards our, our training manager set it up and, and it went really well.
So I wasn't even aware that you guys were doing that. I think that's awesome. The, the training thing is, is so like it as frustrating as it is, excuse me, because it's better than it was 10 years ago, right when I first started to actually get involved in the, in the, in the industry just on a talking platform. It's so much better than it was but we still have so far to go because it's like, and, and you, you see all the time shop owners talking about, you know, well my text don't know how to do this and my text don't know how to do that. And okay, yes, some techs do need to spend more time training, no doubt about it. And not necessarily like training on the job if you want. I've said it before, it's unfortunate, but if you want to be that top tier technician, you know, the unicorns, you're gonna have to put a lot of your own personal time in unpaid. It's going to be an investment for yourself.
It's not going to be an investment for and I keep telling everybody, listen, once you learn it, they can't take it away from you. You take it to wherever you want to go, it becomes your, it becomes your portfolio, becomes your. What you can do, what you understand goes so far beyond your resume. So when you're actually in the bay and they go, wow, he or she's got a very, very developed knowledge of this particular system or how to do this or how to do that. If you put that into yourself because you spent the time unpaid, that's the reward for it is it commands you, you know, more respect, it commands you better pay. We all have to train more. I love the fact that you're seeing the companies reach out there and, and make it more available. And that's, that's been the beauty of it.
For more and more training is being, is coming out every month on the social media platforms that technicians can, can access. Now that I never had 10 years ago, like YouTube, you know, I say it all the time, right? YouTube has been my training platform. Even now I get to go to, you know, CTI and Napa training a lot and you know, through this podcast I've been able to go to asta and, you know, I'll go to SEMA and Apex and all that Jazz. Lots of opportunities, but, like, YouTube is still my go to. It has been phenomenal for. For development of growth of so many technicians that I know I get people reaching out to me all the time, that it's like, you know, Scanner Danner changed my, you know, career trajectory. If I'd have never, you know, if I'd have never heard you talk about him, I wouldn't be, you know, signed up and learning what I do. It's pretty.
It's pretty cool when somebody says to you, you know, Paul and I talk about this a lot, how somebody can show you the numbers on their paycheck that have improved just because of some training that was put out there for free by somebody. It's incredible. It's. You don't get more. It's hard to change the industry any more than that right there at the grassroots level of what somebody's actually getting paid. I think it's. It's killer, you know, and you guys have aligned yourself with some really good people with a good reputation that have done it. So where do you see a lot of the.
Do you get a lot of parts that come back that are labeled, you know, bad, that when you run through and test them, there's nothing wrong with them?
Yes. And. And. And I would say that there's two cat, two caveats there, and you kind of hit on it because of who we sell to. There are a lot of DIYs out there even. Even looking at that Ford TCM, that isn't a DIY item. But if you're not knowledgeable about that transmission, it's just. And if you misdiagnose it, it's just as much of an issue with the transmission itself as it is that TCM could be the issue.
Excuse me. Sorry. So there's also a lot of buckets. One of them is where we copy the OEMS part. The OEM part was redesigned by GM Requestler. They'll have a tech note, and it's a shame on us, but we've gotten a lot better on it. We won't copy the same tech note. Technician will take the old part off the vehicle.
One I remember is, like the caravan window regulator. It did a redesign on it failing, and we had all these parts sent back because there was a lot of technicians out there. And even me being more of a backyard technician, if I get a part that looks a lot different, it's like, hey, I'm just going to go to the dealer or try something else because the part doesn't look the same. So we've done a much better job at. On our website by part number down lower. If you scroll, there's a tech note at the bottom that will address any of those changes. And then the other thing that we tend to do sometimes if we don't have the whole story with the failure, we will bench test parts. And look, quite frankly, sometimes a bench test won't fully allow us to see what the failure is.
But not having the whole story, it's tough for us to make the effort to go put it on a vehicle and do some further investigation versus when someone like Brian sends us all the feedback. And one more note on that that we can do work for the. The other campaign that we're also strong about, unfortunately, is check the box. I'm hoping it's more done by accident, but there's a. There's a decent amount of defects we get Jeff that are someone else's part or somebody puts the old part in the box. And look, there's. We could, we could, we could argue how that happens, but we really want to get. Whether it's the drivers picking the parts up just to subtly take a look and say, hey, you might have put the wrong part in the box.
Because unfortunately that, that does happen as well too.
I think what happens in that. And you know, people have listened to me. It's. I have a love hate with the DIY segment, but I think what a lot of them do is it's like that's their way of trying it to see if their diag is correct or not without spending any money. And it. And it really irks me when they do that kind of stuff because it just drives up the cost for everybody else. Right? Because we get it. We've bought in parts from our local part supplier and you get the box and you know, it's like been open before.
That's frustrating. You want to hope that it's like, okay, so you know, it went to another shop, they put it in it didn't fix it, they took it back out. And I'm by no means am I defending that as a method. I think it sucks. But the worst case is like, like you said, you get a part back in the box and it's not even. It's a. It's an old broken oe window regulator that is nowhere isn't the rebuilt or the rebranded or whatever isn't the part that you're supposed to get. You're Getting a piece of junk in a box, that's frustrating.
And everybody's like, well, the part stores have got to do this and the part stores have got to do that. And they're, they've got enough on their plate right now. You know, there's so much going on. If people would just stop, like, trying and instead actually start working on fixing stuff, you know, it would go a lot better for everybody involved. But that's a separate rant. You know, the tech tip thing, like you're talking about. When I was at the dealer, that was key. Like, there was so many things that like, we dealer techs had to our advantage because we literally knew that the kind of build date changes that they made and stuff like that was key.
And yet we get into the aftermarket and you guys don't know that or till somebody fills you in on it and you're like, oh, yeah, after this month of this year, the window regulator was built different completely. And it won't fit into this other panel. Like, you're like, well, this thing doesn't even fit. They don't have the right part. You didn't buy the right part, bro. Like, I mean, it's. I hate to say it, but you didn't. It's just, there's so much to.
No way, Lester. Like, it's just, it's daunting if you think about it really. Like, you know what? We all need to, to. I think we all need to just slow down sometimes and, and spend a few more minutes actually looking at the job that we're trying to do, what the end goal is. And then you can kind of like, you can look at it and go, okay, I'm going to need this part as well, you know, and then whatever. What's. What is. My question was going to be not so much feedback, but where are you guys going forward? Where are you seeing opportunities for Dorman?
Yeah, so I, I don't, I don't know how many people realize this, but we're really, we're really trying to be aggressive on growing the business outside of light duty as well. So we purchased Dayton recently over the last several years as a full portfolio of heavy duty truck parts for your Class 8 vehicles. And then adopting that same philosophy, working closely with fleets and fleet managers to understand, which I love, because now you have a guy or gal that can tell you or point you in the direction of a tech that knows everything that brakes on that vehicle. Because we all know how, how people that use fleet vehicles treat them. And now they own 100 of the same vehicle. So they can say every one of these damn Ford Transits or whatever the vehicle is, if it's the Freightliner Cascadia, these break all the time. So heavy duty is big. And then the other one, unless you research us online, is we also acquired about two, three years ago super atv.
Okay.
And we really bought some of our philosophy there. Where primarily super ATV was performance. Right. You buy this UTV or ATV especially over Covid and people want to upgrade the suspension, lift it, put different types of accessories on it. We love that and are still doing that. But now we're trying to apply. Hey, how can we do more of a break fix model? Right. Things are going to break on here.
Let's get some popular replacement parts in your portfolio too. For someone who just wants to replace a common part that fails and, and can we uncover something that we can make an improvement upon it not just purely performance. So you look at heavy duty, you look at super ATV on the light duty side, it's really looking at, I mean it's not just these four buckets, but these four buckets really help us. So when you think about what's coming out new, it usually fits in one of these four buckets. So the first one is safety relates safety for vehicles. Right. You look at ADAS lane departure, blind spot monitoring. So that's really something that we're, that we're keeping our eye on.
One of the things we have to be careful with. From my perspective, it's not always a popular opinion because everyone sees these huge dollar and opportunities. But I'll walk you through a scenario that I presented again, it's still, still, still an opportunity. But say for example, my daughter's only nine now. Let's say when she's 19 years old I get her a nice eight year old vehicle that has all these fancy features.
Yeah.
We bring it in for inspection, it needs shocks, it needs brakes. We're going to change all that. Oh, by the way Mr. Kovacs, your, your blind spot monitor lane departure also doesn't work. It's going to be about $5,000 to replace those units, to calibrate them and everything else. And look, I know a lot of people have an appetite to replace them. I just think we have to understand what the true replacement rate is going to be when it's not covered by a collision or insurance. I mean we all heard about like TPMS was mandated, now park assist is mandated.
But how many people are driving around with their TPMS sensors not working and with different other functionality not working.
That's a great Lester, thank you for touching on that. Because we had a conversation just this week where somebody was in a shop on, on one of the shop owners groups and they were talking about how customer came in, valve stem of the TPMS is broke off. Right. She's literally says to them, well, isn't there somebody that will just put a rubber valve stem in? Like, I don't have $50 to spend on a TPMS.
Right.
It happens and it happens. And so you can see both sides of that argument were down where it's like, who would put the rubber valve stem in? Of course, some people put their hands up and go, I would put the rubber out. Like it's. At this point I want the customer's car to be safe. And then somebody else is going, whoa, whoa, back up for a second. Right. So now we're. The customer's going to leave with a safety system compromised on their car.
Are we all cool with that? People weren't. Now you can go down the whole rabbit hole of what is not my customer is your customer and so on and so forth. But I've felt like that since, since everybody started talking about ADAs. And I've seen shops that are going to spend all this money on ADAs. I think it is a terrible investment from a standpoint. Like you, you gave the example of in 10 years, you know, and I'm not, you're not trying to say that I get it, but I just look at it as like I, I see countless cars come in every day with an ABS or an airbag light or an ABS light on and they're not being fixed because the car is stuck. Still usable. Right?
Right.
I think it's very scary coming forward where that, like you said, we're going to start seeing cars that have lots of life left that wind up, you know, being recycled into, I can't say ashtrays because nobody smokes anymore, but you know, soda cans or whatever because people will not fix those. And, and that's the, that's the frustrating part for me is because we see these really good cars end up being not worth spit because of an ADAS system or lane departure system or a park assist system that doesn't function properly. And I know I keep saying I had a Toyota with a rear view camera that failed. The customer wanted the camera to work again and we put the camera in. And then of course the message keeps coming up now on his display center saying has to be calibrated, has to be calibrated, has to be calibrated. We gave him the pitch that's like, we're not equipped to do the thing. We can sublet it to the dealer, they'll calibrate that we don't have it, we don't have the software, blah, blah, blah. He refused to even entertain the notion that he now had to go somewhere to get that calibrated.
His camera now worked, albeit with a little message that continued to pop up. He was good with that. To me, that's like, we, we have so many of these customers now driving these three and four, five, six year old cars that they all of a sudden need a very expensive repair for what is, let's be real, a backup camera is not essential to people being able to operate a vehicle and they're continuing to drive the car. It frustrates me to no end to see that people are going to lay out a bunch of money for something that will make a message go away or all of a sudden make a backup camera work. And yet I can't sell those customers, you know, $2,000 worth of tires. You know what I mean? Like, it's just that. That's the. Where the industry is going, I guess, is, is I'm not, I'm not cool with that.
Just to kind of build on that. I, I definitely think it's going to be an opportunity for the aftermarket. I just think that manufacturers have to look at it differently. It's not like an exhaust manifold or intake. When that fails, the vehicle's not going to run. This is something where I really feel like it's. It. It's going to be based on a lot of things.
Right. Like another example to the opposite of what we just spoke about. We had a. I had one of the shops call me for an idea on an Explorer. I forget what part of the system it was for adas, but the vehicle owner, you know, probably a little bit more well off, just was annoyed by the fact that they had the light on the dash.
Sure. Yeah.
So he paid the $2,000 to have the component put in.
So.
So I guess where I was going with it is I just feel like we have to do a better job at saying, hey, this isn't going to be your typical. This isn't going to follow your typical part replacement. How a. When a mechanical part fails, where they have to actually use. That actually keeps them from using the vehicle at all.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is Dorman running into a big issue with Right to repair? Are you feeling more and More every week. Like you're locked out of certain things.
Or yeah, I look it's right to repairs. It's become this whole, whole big thing. And I think for us as manufacturers on the development side, we just want to be able to offer modules to the aftermarket new because and with how complex you can speak to it more detailed. I can speak to a high level. But if we don't have a partnership with them to understand some more of the of the software encryption, the architecture, we're just in the blind with developing parts, doing our own data logging, trying to pull features and benefits latent features out when you're doing something completely new. So if everyone's okay with being blocked out, I'm really not. Then that's a different conversation. But one of the examples we give is over the air updates.
Let's say if Dorman develops any module for a vehicle that works on that particular vehicle. But it's not the same as the OE spec because the software we write would be different. We can't copy their software. If they send something down over the air, it could render or send something or that car or that vehicle would not function properly now. So it's just a different way of looking at it because we look at when right the repairs started. And I do think a lot of the OE do a good job from your side, a decent job. What I mean by that is it was all about allowing you to use aftermarket parts. You look at Magnuson Moss and giving you all the tools and information that you need to be able to fix the vehicles from your end.
The biggest challenge that I see from talking to people like yourself is just the speed at which you can do it versus the dealer and then the updatedness, for lack of a better term of the data you're seeing versus somebody that's working in the dealership that can go right over to a computer, type it up and do the programming. So those looking at the two different sides of it, I would just say being more of a partner with the dealer for manufacturers to develop these complex parts. So they will, they will work. And then on the technician side, I do think they've done a much better job at trying to get you guys all the information you need. But I still think there's a speed and the level of detail that they're providing to you. And maybe I could be wrong just from talking to different technicians.
Well, I told the story on here. We did an RF hub in a Dodge Ram. It actually the truck went to the dealer first for diag and because the customer was convinced it was a battery issue. Of course it wasn't a battery issue because the battery was only a year old. But he had gone there thinking that his year old battery from the dealer was defective because it wouldn't crank the truck. And of course so it ended up being the rear. The rams the rear window leaks water right onto the RF hub. It's a brilliant design.
And so he of course because he's our type of customer for our shop once he determined that the dealer wasn't going to help him with any kind of warranty on his battery and kind of. It's not your battery. Okay. I'm taking it to my guy which is us. So it gets towed into us. We run through the diag. The RF hub has failed. Cool.
We don't at the time have the software capability to be able to program a new RF hub. So now we have to essentially diagnose the car phone the dealership over. It's causing the, the lights to flash and and the locks to cycle and all that jazz non stop. So it's draining the battery. So we unhooked the battery, send it over to the dealership. The dealership was nice enough to charge us extra time to hook the battery back up. We'd already installed the hub so we had the hub sent over to us install it because we have the seats out of the truck and then they. And program.
So what is. I've been at the dealer. What would be an hour job for them. They build us an extra half an hour because the battery was disconnected. Which I'm not here to argue whatever. I just need the truck back. We get it back, it's programmed and we still have to tighten the battery cable. Now people are like well whoop dee doo to like what you were talking about in the dealership.
That's an hour process a new RF hub. Right. For us it's an all day thing of having to go back and forth and all that jazz. And they're like well yes, you can sign onto the software and yeah I can but I still have to get the part coal or it didn't help that they're charging us a half an hour extra and not even completing the task of tightening. Tightening the thing. That's what makes a lot of us in the aftermarket leery of working with our local. Our local dealers or our local providers of other things that we can't do is because it seems sometimes like everybody's just out to oh well you know, like I got A I got a monkey around with this, so I'm going to charge a whole lot more. Like I just wish we could all kind of get on an even playing field and be a little bit nicer to each other.
That's the, that's the stressful part for me with all of it is because, you know, too many shops, I see what they're doing, Lester. They're just going, it's got to go to the dealer, you know what I mean? And that's frustrating because it's like the dealer will do everything we do on the car and it shop and probably for a very competitive price. If we keep telling the customer, I can't, I can't, I can't. There's no reason for them to come to us, right? It sucks.
It's the same kind of philosophy what you just articulated. And it was great the whole day. I mean there's just a whole, there's a myriad of issues, right? Like what do you now charge the customer? You tied up a text time and someone drive for all day for a one hour job. How can you hold hands better with the dealer to make that process? Hey, we're all in this together. Because what I, I don't know if you've been out to ETI yet, but there really are some good people to dealers that, that come out there and say, look, we know we can't service all these vehicles. We need independent service centers. So to that point and to your scenario, how do we keep that RF hub from taking you nine hours back and forth? Yes, you can log on to the software, whatever it is. If I don't know if you need auto auth for that or whatever different tool and everything else, but it's just to make it easier for the customer.
Because then to your point, and to me it's directly tied to what manufacturers like Dorman's trying to do. Because now if all these modules become dealer only and there is more of a more things involved with programming them now, you're gonna have to start sending them back to the dealer more often in those cases because like you said, people don't want to do what you did for customer satisfaction and spend a full day and tying up a technician to do that job. I do have to ask you though, because just in the spirit of my role, what year was that? Because hopefully the team's working on it, but there's so many things I don't. What year was that ran?
I want to say 19. Lester. Somewhere around there, like enough to be out of warranty Anyway, So probably in 1918, something around there, the RF hub, okay. The rear window glass especially. So if the ram, if it's got a sliding rear window glass, okay. Really prone to leak water down the back wall. And the back wall in all their infinite wisdom is right underneath that windows where they decide to put the RF hub, right. Radio frequency.
And they put it there because you know, the RF hub is not just doing security, right. It's doing tpms in and out. It's doing RKE in and out. Right. So it's got to be in a kind of central location. Cool. Right? Not under the dash like we're used to them having them. That's where they used to be.
So it's just somebody. When I was at Asta, I don't know if you saw it or not, they come up with a software where they're actually being able to take a used one and virginize it. The RF hub, which is the other thing tool is. So what makes me leery of all this technology is because it's like the running joke is oh, I tried to log into GM software today to be able to program and it was down yet again. You know, it happens. But we're also, we're in a real pickle here where if all these quote modules they're supposed to be on one time uses decide to go back ordered or decide like you were talking about earlier in the, in the, in our conversation, they decide to not service them because of whatever they determined to be end of life. Well, that person, they just maybe bought that truck and now it needs an RF hub. And an RF hub is six months backordered.
I think what Covid should have taught us is that like the OE shouldn't be allowed to have such a lock on these vital parts to keep these cars functional. Right. It just drives me nuts. Like imagine if you owned a hundred thousand dollar truck. And like the guys, we've heard the stories. I know people have been sitting six months at a dealership for I don't know if it was the EVs or some of the Ford Lightnings or maybe something like that because they've been waiting six months for a module to come in. Like if I have a hundred thousand dollar brand new truck and it sits at the dealer, six months waiting for something, you own the truck. I'm not paying on that truck.
I'm going and getting something different. Right. If we don't, if we're not allowed in the aftermarket to kind of be able to be that other Option. I don't want to say the rescue team, we're, we're screwed. We're absolutely screwed. And I haven't been to eti, but I would love to go. That's on the bucket list for going forward with the podcast to have that kind of conversation with them. Then it's like, okay, cool.
You guys want to protect proprietary software and all that. I totally get it. I don't call it gatekeeping, but like they kind of have to come to the plate more with maybe a longer service life on some of this stuff in terms of when they're going to support it. You know, the idea that they're only going to support some things like seven years is crap. You know, and they won't say that it's seven years, but it is pretty much once it's out of warranty. They really don't care. They'd rather sell you another car. And I have a big problem with that.
That's to me is the whole EV thing. When you look at ev, it looks great on paper but you know, you go price a battery replacement some of these cars right now and it's like you're going to exceed the value of the car. Well then you know, most people don't have an emotional attachment anymore to their vehicle enough to do that kind of choice. You know, it's just, it's like they're, it's an appliance to them, as my friend calls them.
Yeah, I don't, I, I don't think the OES did it on purpose. I think it's just the technology and the things are at least, at least my point of view. But there are some things in their control that they can I guess make us feel better. Like I. Knowing what we know about the industry and you alluded to earlier, I think you did. I, I hesitate to say this, but I almost look at like a new vehicle that has all these electronics. Almost like a 10 year disposable Bic lighter.
Yeah, 100%.
Because you look at the cost that starts to get into these different displays and diagnosing and fixing them. Now you like, let's say you get to that 10 year point or seven year and you're still on your original engine. Yeah, you serviced it well, original transmission, we do know that a lot of transmissions fail. Now you have a huge electrical problem. It's kind of like, wow, am I going to dump 678000 into this vehicle that's 10 years old that has all these miles or am I going to start Looking for another Bic lighter again, I hate, I hate to say it that way. Like, I have, I have some older vehicles and I want to hold on to them forever because I feel like barring some things I have to look at, you know, like some things that might come down the road, I don't have to worry about a lot of those issues that are common on every, every new vehicle you purchase today.
Yeah, like why do, why is there a whole bunch of rednecks out there that like, won't let go of their old, you know, Cummins 12 valve in a Dodge truck, right? Because it's like I can make my own fuel and it'll, it'll run with one and, you know, it'll take me to the end of the apocalypse and back. Like that's, it's, it sounds extreme when we say it, but I mean, there's a lot of people out there that when they still buy a car, they buy a car with the intent of it lasting 20 years, not 10. And you know, it's like me up here, I, my Jeep's a 2050. Call it 10 years old. I undercoat the Jeep. Why? Because in 10 more years, I'd still like to be driving that Jeep. I've only got three years and it'll be paid off if I could drive it. Ten more years of a paid off vehicle, that's awesome.
Financially, that's what I want for myself. And then I don't have to buy parts for it, I only have to do maintenance, I only have to do repairs. That's cool. The idea that these, the OEs are sitting here going, well, the average person, the average person now doesn't even hardly buy cars, they lease cars. And then it's going to go. You're talking about this technology stuff. Look at the Transits that somebody that's buying for fleet buys. And then look at the Transits that somebody might buy that have that whole integrated screen that controls everything H vac, all that radio control, that's an 800, $8,000 unit per se.
When it fails all of a sudden. Now instead of just not being able to have the radio because the radio doesn't work and I can function that car now, I can't clear my windshield now, I can't have heat. So that car could, that, that Transit could have like you said, brand new powertrain in it. Everything works great. They're going to get rid of that car or that, that unit because of an $8,000 stereo. And it's, well, it's not going to be 8,000. It's going to be used one. Sure, it's going to be a used one.
If they allow us to be able to make the used one work in the new one. That's therein lies the rub, right? I can't stand that. I think it should be illegal to make them. That that level of sophistication should be, should come with a warning label when people are buying it. You know, like it's like look at the Ram Rebel with The, you know, huge 12 inch screen in the center of it that does everything. That's an eight thousand dollar unit. Do you want to buy that when it's out of one? Of course not. You'll trade the truck.
What happens that truck. Then like we have to be able to allow the aftermarket to step in and be able to say I have a fix for that. You know, it's a thousand bucks. That's what we should be allowed to do. And I think right to repair is not dancing around the topic but they're, they're, they're, they're playing their cards very close to their chest. And I think there's some scenarios that when we get in there we talk about I want to be able to do this and I want to be able to do that. We don't think of the long game which is I want my customer in seven years to be able to do this and not have to spend 8000 bucks. That's what I think is where we're failing sometime on having that conversation.
So what do you guys think for Dorman with ev? Do you think it's going to be like do you see a whole new set of challenges or is it just kind of going forward going to be the same?
EV has become a really hot topic here with, with leadership and also our, our company's leadership. I mean you look at, look at like Wall street. They want to know that everyone's going to be ready for it. But when I look at and the way that we set up our focus groups, ev, Tesla, not just Tesla, but Tesla is a main focal point for us. So we were lucky enough to partner with a lot of ex test handful of ex Tesla technicians.
Right.
And when you look at the things that are really failing on them, Jeff, there are things that, that the aftermarket already makes. Like your biggest failures are tires, right? Because the extra weight suspension components. We have over 100 different components for various EV. We even have some improved parts where Tesla has a two piece part that's half composite for a control Arm and half metal where we've made it out of metal. So anyway, I'm sorry, I'll say you got suspension and then, and then you have all the little body related parts, window regulators, door handles the way. And I'm a, I tend to oversimplify but I look at the rest of it. When you talk about EV specific drivetrain to me it's like a giant RC car. So you have a big ass drive unit in the back, you have a battery, both of which I believe had here eight or ten year warranty.
And when you talk about the replacement, especially the battery, you're talking if you took it to a Tesla dealer and it's not warrantied, somewhere around $20,000. And then, and then how do you, how do you inventory that and send it out because it becomes challenging with doing a repair. I don't know if you've ever seen some of the guys in like electrified garage that rip the whole battery open. It's like, it's like 10,000 double A batteries and different banks and everything else. So I really feel like when you look at the different things that are, are failing, a lot of them aren't EV specific and a lot of people don't like to hear that. The one opportunity I do think would be their coolant. The coolant system that cools that with the different pipes and valves looking at that. But outside of that again there's going to be a ton of opportunities.
We're going to be able to replace a lot of those parts but everything else is the same. It uses the same type of technology or tier one. I believe it's different for a lot of their ADAS type components and things of that nature. So we're gonna continue to monitor it. We have over 100 SKUs available now for various Teslas and other EV vehicles like the Bolt. The one thing cool I think about companies like us now and other manufacturers that have parts for Teslas is the accessibility. What I've heard with Tesla is it's a whole process to order, to get, to be approved, to order parts from them. I don't believe they give any kind of discount to independent service centers maybe on the collision side and then in addition to that you pay for the shipping.
So they don't have any kind of delivery network. So I really think it's good that manufacturers like Dorman and there's other ones doing it that are providing these parts. We had so many people at Asta didn't realize, oh I can get the Tesla control arms through, through you yes. All your local suppliers, they, they have a lot of those popular parts now. I think everyone wants to hear that there's some type of fancy EV part that's failing all the time on those vehicles, and we just don't see a ton of that yet.
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool. I. Seth Thorson is a, is a great mentor, reach out to about, about stuff like that. Like, he's fantastic. He loves us. You know, him and I. It isn't my cup of tea, but he absolutely loves it and he's embraced it and he's, he's doing well with it. He knows them.
Yeah.
I'm sorry. The one thing he turned us on to, and there's some out there, is that the drive units have an issue with the ceramic bearings. So there. So that, to me would be one if you were to say, what are the one things that stand out? But even then, you're looking at, I believe the drive Unit is around 5,000 from Tesla. They're not as bad as you would think. I might be off 1 or 2,000 on that. And then, and then the repair kit, with the right ceramic bearings, all the seals to disassemble it and labor, you're. You're about half of that.
So you're still saving a ton of money. So that would be one that. We actually talked with Seth about that particular repair.
Yeah. Well, I, I don't want to keep you all day here. We could talk all day, but, I mean, I know you got things to do and it's Saturday. I just want to thank you for coming on. Really. I. This was, this was cool to, to have this conversation because, you know, the name has such, such a. There's so much opinion attached to the Dorman name.
Right. And I just kind of wanted to, to bring you on and, and share with the people how involved you are on the, on the behind the scenes of trying to do better. And that's what, you know, for, for being the biggest player and having all that negativity. I can't think of another parts company that's doing what you guys are doing to try and constantly, every day improve the product and improve, you know, how you network with us and, and, and I, I just have to thank you for that. I know it's. You're not the only one that's a team, obviously, but I mean, I just want to thank you guys and it was, it was cool to meet you at ASTA and have that. A little quick conversation. And you'll be at Apex and sema.
Or.
Yep.
Yeah, so I'll see you there. And I mean, we'll. We'll definitely hang out and have a good time because, I mean, I think it's, you know, going forward, the. The just the. All the negative talk about this brand and that brand and, and this and that and the other thing, it's like we all need to at some point just shut up and if we're not going to actually do anything to make the problem better, then just shut up. You know, if we can't give the part back to you guys and tell you why it failed or what's it doing, like we started at the beginning of this, we might as well not even say anything because it's like it's not for. Not that you guys don't want to, you genuinely want to, but that's what I want people that are listening to this to take away from it. If you get a dormant part and you have an issue with it, reach out to Lester on the team and tell them why.
Tell him what it did and he'll do like, he'll do amazing things to. To help you guys out to make it better. It's. You don't even know. You know, I've heard so many good stories what you guys have done to. For people when they are stuck that it's like there's no other. There's no other company out there doing that. And that's my point.
So, you know, all the hate has got to. Needs to go away. You know, at some point people have got to put up or shut up and, you know, they're not less. Lester will meet you more than halfway to try and solve your problem is what I'm trying to say.
So thanks, Jeff. I really do appreciate it. Just really, it's. It's been. It's been a great journey. You know, starting off, I believe we probably weren't the best. We weren't as accessible. But I can tell you the majority of people that I do meet for the first time that have had that issue that didn't get a response, whether it was through various channels, you know, everyone's busy, is that I'm really just really thankful for all the people that are willing to take the time to now work with us because of people like yourself taking the time to have me on Lucas and others to be able to just put ourselves out there.
So. So thank you. Really appreciate it.
I thank you for being here, man. It's. It's been a blast and like I said, I look forward to seeing it semen Apex, and we'll continue the conversation. So everybody, thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you all soon. Take care.
Thanks, Jeff. Take care.
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 perspective 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 10mm, and we'll see you all again next time.
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