Liz Tait Gets Real About Dealership Drama
Annotations will appear as you listen
0:00
97:47
LIVE
Because you needed tires. You're due for a timing belt and like, all this other stuff. They're like, well, you're gonna have to do this. Like, we. We're not. Like, I'm not gonna make any money on this car, so you got to do it for less than what I'm like, no, I don't. Parts has to. Parts has to take up a loss too.
They're gonna have to sell us the parts that cost. And like, really? And just a whole bunch of like, little things like that. It's like, well, our department isn't gonna make any money on this, so you loss, like, not my fault. I did my job. You didn't do yours.
I could hug you right now because I have been through that. And it is like, it. It is, you know, but you know what I mean? Because it's like, I'm gonna say it. Offensive people. I'm perfectly okay with that. Salespeople are some of the lowest IQ'd people that walk into the dealership every day. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another exciting episode of the Jade Mechanic podcast. It's spring is in the air, and I'm sitting here with a very new friend of mine, Ms.
Liz Tate. How are you today?
Good, how are you?
Oh, we were just talking before we got on. I had a nice two hour conversation with my brother, Lucas Underwood, which is always a very good conversation. He's just got. He's like, you. He just got back from Vision. And yet we didn't really talk too much about that. And. But we just shared kind of where we're going forward with the podcast and stuff like that.
We're up over 100 episodes now for here on the Jada Mechanic, which is like, to me, it's just like, I can't believe it's been 100 episodes. Like, we're coming on to a lot, like more than a year and a half now. And I'm like, wow, where did the time go? And you reached out to me and said, hey, you know, I'm gonna be going to Vision and I want. That's pretty cool. So let's kind of hear Liz's story about, you know, what do you do? Where do you work? Like, what do you love about it? What do you hate about the Jaded Mechanic kind of stuff? Liz?
All right, well, actually, I found your podcast because the title Jaded Mechanic definitely resonated with me about a year ago. I currently, I'm a partner in Level 5 Drive. We're an ADOS calibration company. So we're pretty much okay. All that fun stuff. And we also get into a lot of diagnostics with that and sometimes a few SRS issues. And whatever happens, the shop's like, hey, you know, we've got this issue. You can take a look at it while it's there.
It's like, yeah. All right. So that gets really interesting. But I've been a licensed technician up here in Canada for about, I think, 14 years.
Right.
So.
And where are you in Canada?
I am in southern Ontario, so, like St. Catherine's Niagara Falls area.
We're practically neighbors.
Nice.
Yeah. I'm in Kingston, the, you know, home of the tragically hip and Dan Aykroyd and, you know, all the other great stuff in Canada. A lot of it comes out of Brian Adams. A lot of people don't know that.
There we go.
He's born in Kingston. Yes, yes. So there you go.
There's a Canadian national treasure right there.
Right on.
So I prefer Brian Adams. Way more division, and it's been very anti Canadian.
I have not made vision yet, so. And they're. We're. We're frozen already.
Oh, yes.
Oh, listen, I'm. I'm gonna go out right on. On the limb right now. Oh, you're back.
Yes. I was gonna say, I was just typing and just letting you know that we're having some issues here.
Now, I heard you say Rush, which is probably why it caused the electrical problem, because.
And.
And if you happen to not like Rush, you and I are already off on a good foot. Because I think. I think that, like, every album they'd have done would have been better if it was just an instrumental. And that's what I'll say about that. They fantastic musicians.
Yes.
But that boy can't. That boy can't sing a lick. Like, he is the worst, most intrusive voice that I've ever heard in my. In my, you know, almost 50 years of listening to music. That's one of the worst voices I've ever freaking heard.
Yeah. Much better Canadian bands.
Yes, thank you. I even put Nickelback ahead of Rush, and I am not a Nickelback fan, so.
Tea Party. I love the Tea Party.
I can't stand them either. I'm sorry.
That's okay. But we can agree on Rush, so that's okay.
Yes, yes. So then. Wow. So you're. You do. So is that company mobile like you? Kind of.
We actually don't do anything mold, because most of OEM repair procedures, they want flat level floors, adjustable lighting, and all of that magical stuff. So, and we can't control that because most shops have slope floors to allow for drainage. So we actually have physical locations that we have.
Okay, cool.
We'll pick up and we'll drop off to body shops or, you know, other, you know, business to business customers so they don't lose a technician or anything or two people to drop a car for us. So we, we also get to test drive and see how everything is working. So we have a good idea.
Right.
Of what the car is actually doing before we even touch it.
Right.
Anyway.
Go ahead, sir.
And we also. That also allows us to test drive the car afterwards to make sure everything is still working the way it's supposed to be. But.
Right on. How long you been with this company?
About, I think two and a half years.
Okay.
So the company itself, the main corporation, was founded right around the start of COVID And I met them shortly after that. I was actually laid off from the shop I was working at. And one of the nice things that came out of COVID was that a lot of the big conventions in the U.S. they moved to online. So I could never get to them before. But because, okay, look, you can pay this, you know, one fee and you get access to all of the courses. Like, that's the coolest thing ever. So my kids are home from school, they're doing online schooling.
Like, I'm bored. Like, there's only so much laundry I can mentally handle in a day. So I, of course, so I paid for the course and in there there was a bunch of ados courses. I'm like, oh, this is new. So I started like, asking around. I've got a bunch of friends in dealerships and stuff. So one in particular works, a lot of them. So I asked her like, hey, you know, who in the area is doing this? She goes, nobod.
She goes. But some good friends of hers are doing it up in Burlington, Ontario. So she introduced me to them and we just, you know, kind of took off from there. So I actually joined as a partner for their St. Catherine's location. And I help out with all of the other locations that they have throughout Ontario. They also have two in Saskatchewan. And we're looking to expand across Canada as well.
Right. That's fantastic. Because see, I don't. We don't have in Kingston, as crazy as it sounds, we don't have anybody coming around doing that. You know what I mean? Like, adas, ADAS is not a. A huge moneymaker here. It's not something that, like, there's shops that do it but it's almost like the dealerships have got it completely locked up and that's. And I mean we've heard that they don't always even do it right, but you know, they're doing it right.
So sometimes. Yeah. So I mean for people that are, that are listening and Liz, not you, we kind of talked before we came on the air. You're. You're a female working in a predominantly male dominated thing and I'm sure that that always has been not. Not. I don't want to say an obstacle. That's the wrong word.
But you, you probably have some interesting perspectives on what that's been like. And that's by all no means do we want to keep, you know, hammering that on the head. That's like. But what's your. Like how did you get into doing this? Like as a technician? Because like, I mean when I went to school, high school, even my high school classes we had. It wasn't like 50, 50, you know what I mean? Like we might have had three girls and like 20 guys for auto class. So what's your. How did you get into this? You have other people in the family that are techs or.
No, my dad and brother are both welders and my welding is terrible. So that's, that's the funny. Like it's awful. Like people are like, oh, I can teach anybody to weld. I'm like, they look at me like, what is wrong? Like, I don't even know. They're like, we don't even know what you're doing wrong. Like we'll just.
Right.
So it was, it worked out for me in that regard. I just trained my welding for electrical dying and I was happy. But how I got into it. When I was in high school, I did take auto for one year. But everybody in the class is more interested in blowing things up. And I'm not against that. That's great fun. But I also want to learn about cars.
So I'm like, you know what? You know, the high school I went to was predominantly oriented so they shunted all of like the, the less academically inclined students into the trades. So like that's kind of. And it's still like that today, which is really sad. I've got stories about that because I actually taught, helped with my local college teaching at the high schools, doing a joint credit. So. Yeah. But anyway, so I went off and did a bunch of other things. I actually, when I was in high school, I wanted to get into art programs, but then I kind of looked at like, how am I gonna.
Like, realistically, like, yeah, I want to support myself. I don't. I looked at what they were doing for like a lot of the different, like, design courses. Like, that's boring. I don't want to sit there and design business cards. Like, that's not. Yeah, not what I want to do. So I'm like, all right, so let's go do something else.
So I did tried a bunch of different careers. I was actually had my life insurance license, my mutual funds license. I hated it. Again, deathly boring. I'm like, I don't want to sit there on the phone all day. Like, I can't do this.
Yeah.
So I got into. I was actually registered horse groom apprentice. So with an Ontario, we have that because of all the racetracks, a lot of people are getting hurt. So they introduced training for that. So I was working in the industry in horses. Then that again, like, most of the money of that is not in agreement. Like, I don't want to be making a minimum wage the rest of my career. As much as I loved it.
Like, I gotta move on. I had bought an 89 Chevy pickup truck because I also had a horse. And like, so I needed something to, you know, how. Hey. And stuff like that. And it. The box was rotten. But my friend's husband had a 92 who blew up his transmission, right? So I'm looking at his truck, looking at my truck, I'm like, you know, they're pretty much the same trucks here.
So we worked out a deal. And so I started basically combining the two trucks to make one good truck. And as I'm doing this, I'm like, wait a second. Clearly I'm in the wrong field because I was loving every second of fixing this truck.
Yeah.
And my family is a bunch of farmers and stuff, so fixing their own cars was normal. So, like, they weren't necessarily technicians, but they're fixing tractors, they're fixing the snowmobiles and cars, like, whatever. Very rarely anything actually went to a shop. So if I ran into a problem, it's like, hey, dad, you know, not a big deal. So kind of doing that, I'm like, I need to go back to school for this. But at this point, I was already in my early 20s. I'm like, no one's going to hire a girl with no automotive experience as an apprentice. So I actually went back to Niagara College, did the two year post secondary program, made a lot of great connections from that.
I'm actually still friends to this day with a couple of the two Professors that I had, who, they were part time professors, they moved on to other things in the industry as well. But I've stayed in contact with the college, so it's actually been great for the business too because we can work with co op students and hire some of the apprentices that didn't necessarily want to be a technician but want to stay in the automotive industry. So. So it's kind of went from there. So. Yeah, went from there, got licensed and haven't looked back since. I've questioned it, but I haven't. But I'm stuck with it.
Yeah, we, we all question it. Even I was questioning it in the last week, you know, Lucas and I were just talking about that, like, how, how long do I keep doing this? Because, like, I'm 49, so. And I've been doing this since I was 20, so it's 29 years of. And I, I've jumped back and forth between heavy truck and automotive and dealership. So I mean, I've got some, some aches and pains and stuff like that that, that have been legit from like trying to pound a kingpin out of a solid axle on a Kenworth or something like that. Like, I've got. So I'm sitting there saying to myself, like, how many more years can I really do this? Like, when I can go in now and I have to wear an elbow brace and I have to ice my elbo, you know, the end of the day or all that kind of stuff. And that's just the elbows and shoulders.
And I'm not like, I'm not looking for pity, but I'm looking at it going like, what do what, how do I transition to, to out, you know, so that's, we kind of had a conversation about like the, the end goal eventually is for the podcast to be financially lucrative enough that if I didn't have to work five days a week, I, I wouldn't, you know, I would, I would do the podcast. But then we got talking, Lucas and I, of course, and it's like, but if I wasn't doing this all day long, would the podcast still be as effective? Would I still be as relevant to it? And that's where, you know, it may be where it's like, it's in my blood and it might never get out. But when you went off to college and took those courses, that's something that, like. And I'm sure as you've networked with a lot of people too, there's, there's sure. We all hear of like UTI and everything. But I mean up in Canada that is a very real path that I, I had a lot of myself, like I did it, a lot of my friends had to go through when we got out of high school. As you go off to community college and take this, this, you know, course that gets us fast tracked on, on the CoQ or CFQ, which is for, you know, people that are listening. You've heard us say now she said or got her license, that's where license, skill trade up here.
So that's kind of, you know, a pretty cool thing. So how big was your graduating class when you, when you got out of college?
I think when after the second year, I think there was only 15 of us and I think only 10 actually graduated that year.
Yeah. A lot of attrition, eh? When you always start. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's a grind for sure.
Yeah, I know the classes now are much bigger because they've increased the capacity of the college. So it's good in that regard. But I think there's still that retention of the industry when they get out there. It's, it's the same everywhere. Like you know, the first years, like, you know, they're, they're the cheap labor, go change the garbage, go sweep the floors. And then they're, most of them still get, you know, kind of, you know, the end, the short end of the stick and they get tired of working. The industry is go. If this is all it is, I was promised like, you know, oh, $40 an hour because you know, they don't tell them it takes years of experience to get to that level.
Like I probably started, I went to Sir Sanford Fleming and Lindsay for I was going to be a heavy equipment technician. I was going to go work in a logging camp and make like 100 grand in 2001. Working on logging equipment and dodge bears and all those kind of life is funny that way. But. So when you came out of college, was there lots of opportunity right away to start in the trade or how did that go for you?
Everybody wanted somebody with experience. So it was still like pretty difficult to kind of get your foot in the door that first job. You know, I've always even told other ones coming out of the school that first job is always the hardest one to get because you have no experience. And everyone's like, oh, we want like, you know, 30 year apprentice or you know, someone who's been working in the trade for five years. Like, well, we can't get there without starting here. So it's always that Struggle of finding the right place that's going to bring you along. So. But there was a lot of opportunities.
It's just not for people coming out of school.
So what year was this, Liz, approximately? Oh, I'm not trying to date you, just like your age. Age.
Yeah, I think it was about 14 years ago.
Okay.
Or is it 15? I don't know, I've lost track.
Yeah. So we could say, yeah, 2010. We're talking thereabouts. 2009, 2010. Because I can remember, like I was the, you know, kind of around the millennial when it changed, when, When I started and they were dying for people. Like there was a shortage then, you know what I mean, of people. And then I think I could agree around 2010, I was in a dealer. I can remember kind of tapering off.
And it was like, we. You didn't. We were. We didn't have to run an ad. We always had a full shop. Like, you know, it wasn't like we're always looking for text if somebody dropped a resume off. It actually got really looked at, you know, because, like, we don't just need a person. We want, you know, we need an asset to the team, not just a body.
Yeah.
So what did you do when it was like, how did that feel when, you know, you're. You're kind of knocking on doors and people are going, oh, you need more experience, but you don't have any experience. How do you get the experience if you can't? Nobody will give you experience.
Yeah, I think that's really where kind of networking came into play. Just even, just like from the people that I've talked to in the past or like, so even some of my. The professors kind of went out on the limbs like, hey, you know, she's great. She graduated top of her class. She's worth taking a chance on because she wants to do this. And the first shop I worked at was actually a GM dealer. And that was. So that was a really interesting experience.
I learned a lot, partially. Like, the one thing I even bark at everybody about, it's like, never, ever, ever leave a job in the middle of doing something important. Doing oil change, and you've dropped that car down, put the oil in it. Do not walk away. Like, I don't care if, like you're like full on service managers come down, just tell them, you know, nicely, just give me one second. Put the oil in the car before you walk away. Or if you're torquing tires. Just one second.
Let me finish working the tires. Because you know, it wasn't all my mistakes. I've seen other people's mistakes too. Just what could happen when a place that's poorly managed and that manager is always in your face and pulling you off to go tell you about other things that are completely irrelevant at the time. But being experienced, I didn't know. And also they'd gone from one apprentice to six, all within a couple of weeks. So that was interesting. But having the engine mechanic there really wanted to train me as an next engine mechanic.
But then things didn't work out because I was not efficient enough for the manager as having never worked in a shop before. It's kind of stands that I'm not going to be. So he was really upset when I was fired, which. And then the fact he kept, you know, he's like, hey, I'm trying to get the new manager to hire you back. So it was kind of nice in that regard and gave me the extra ability to keep going that, you know, I'm not a complete failure. Like there's more to it than just being efficient.
So somebody sees potential in you, you know, it feels good. Isn't that messed up though, Liz, how you have somebody that's agreed to take on a mentorship role in the sense that like you're, your senior technician, sees value in you, sees potential, wants to, you know, bring you up, groom you along, show you the tricks and the, and the methods and all that kind of stuff and the management says you're not efficient enough. Or I, I use the two terms interchangeably, but they're really very different terms. Or you didn't produce enough for them to be happy. Right. And yes, that drives me up the wall because it's like we, for them, it's so simple. It's like my young apprentices have to produce X amount of hours a week to justify me keeping in there. Otherwise I'm going to get rid of them, they're going to be something else or I'll get someone else.
That is so not an accurate earmarker of what your abilities probably were because I, I sense that you kind of had the right attitude in the right way, which is like, my stuff is going to be perfect, My stuff is going to be well done, torqued, you know, cleaned, put away, organized, done properly. Am I wrong to probably assume that that's. Yeah, you know.
No, that's right. And I, I hated having comebacks and also when I was given the technicians come back because they're a flat rate, so they didn't want to do their own comebacks. So I was like, here, give it to one of the apprentice and they can fix why my brakes are squeaking. So I got really good at diagnosing brake squeaks.
You and I had a similar path because I was a straight time apprentice and a dealer for a long time. Even after like I was getting pretty proficient at a lot of the more advanced stuff in the shop of programming and diag and stuff like that. But I was still hourly. Like I was still hourly. So I got everybody's come back. So it kind of messed with my head and messed with my ego because I'd look over there at them and people still hear me. This Guy's been here 10 years and like he, he makes mistakes like that or that's the kind of work that he turned out. So it had a very early on it had a very weird effect on my psyche in the sense that like your, your time in didn't mean to me, right.
Your credentials didn't mean to me. Your work that you put out spoke of what you were, what you felt, how you felt about what you were doing. And I, I believe that like you don't have to work somewhere for 10 years to make that decision that you're going to turn out quality right. It's either in you or it's not so good on you. For you know, being that type of technician that had to go behind others. It said I had a lot of days where I wanted to quit because I got tired of like you see them making more money than you and you see them being the, the managers, you know, pet. And yet you're going behind them and fixing one or two of their cars a week for them, you know.
Yeah, yeah.
See, what did you think of the brand at least? Because obviously that probably that workplace you.
Didn'T love the brand was okay. I actually, down the road I went to Honda dealership which I actually, I love Hondas. Like I love working on Hondas. Even now it's like when Honda comes in like fantastic, you know, they're easy to work on. I know what I'm doing. And so you get something like a BMW, it's like I don't want it. Or Volkswagen's like, oh look, we have all these codes and we can't even look it up. Thanks Volkswagen.
Like fantastic.
Yeah, yeah, so that's that. So you went left the Chevrolet dealer, they fired you, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How did that?
Very short lived. Terrible. Absolutely terrible. Because I knew going into it that I had, I even told him like Flat out. I have never worked in a shop before ever, so. And then some of the things I was doing, like, because nobody else in the shop would do it right. I think the, I think one, the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, that for their efficiency numbers was a little cobalt that needed the catalytic converter replacement warranty. The card sat in the parking lot.
I found out all week and now it was Thursday afternoon. They're like, oh, this car has to go tomorrow. Who's gonna do it? And all the techs were like, not, not me. Like, she's like, liz, can you do this? I'm like, sure. Like, I've got service information, I'll give it a try. Like they've got, you know, ask, you know, the manager if you need any help. I'm like, cool. So I started doing it and the 5 o' clock came around.
I'm like, all right. So I punched out and I started on it the next morning. As we do, like cars in your hoist. You finish it the next morning.
Yeah.
And they had this efficiency manager come around like, what are you doing? I'm like, car was working on last night. He's like, why? I'm like, because it's in my bay. This is what I was told I was supposed to do. He goes, oh. And he storms off and said, go. There's oil changes out there for waiters. Can you do one of them? Like, in what bay? So I got. So yeah.
And then at the end of the day, like, oh, can you come to the office? Like, oh, you're just not efficient enough. We have to let you go. I'm like, okay. So I was just kind of like, you know, wasn't a whole lot of guidance. So it's like, it was really difficult to figure out what am I supposed to do for. Because even when I started there said, okay, bring the car and all right, which car? Yeah, well, you have to go to the tower. Where's the tower? Like, I don't even know where this stuff is. I'm like, you have to find keys.
Where do I find the keys? And like all like. It was just, it was, it was a good learning experience. It was actually one of those productive learning experiences as opposed to something I'm just, I've learned I'm never going to do it again. So. So that was interesting. But I did, I learned quite a bit and it did help me throughout the rest of the career even it was a short lived one. And then I did go to Honda a couple jobs down the road, left Honda. But I also realized I hate dealership life.
That just there's so much politics involved with it. Mike, I don't like it. It's not. It is. It is not for me.
No. It sounds like your Chevrolet dealer was so typical of so many dealers. I've seen where it's like the left hand isn't talking to the right hand. Communication breakdown, whatever you want to call it, it's. At the end of the day, it's just piss poor management. It's just terrible. Like, because obviously somebody thought you should have had an empty bay at 8 o' clock in the morning to be doing all the weight or oil changes that are booked in. Right.
Thank God most of the dealers around here now have finally gone to a quick lube or a fast lane. I should say. Yes. So if it's a customer only wants a bloody oil change, it don't go to the back of the shop and it shouldn't. Yeah, right. Because it's like if you're not coming in to do a warranty complaint and an oil change and maybe a scheduled service for that interval, it doesn't need to go see a tech. It can see a quick lane, you know, technician out front. They can dump the oil and.
And ship the customer on the way. They got 15 minutes, they want to be out of here, whatever, protect their warranty, yada, yada, yada.
Yeah, especially when it's the first oil change. Like. Yeah, like, you know, it's literally gonna, you know, be like, drink the oil, make sure that, yes, everything's still good. Like a quick check on everything, you know, voice PDI'd properly. Like, there's. You're not gonna find anything on the first oil change. So.
Yeah, and you shouldn't be. You shouldn't be. Yeah, and you really shouldn't have the customer coming in and complaining with a first oil change with. With a crap list of stuff to complain about that that has to be dispatched to the shop. Like, that's kind of where it's like, get the oil change done and the service writer can say to the customer, okay, so you got a squeak and you got a wind noise or whatever, you know, that nonsense. When can I book you back in to have that, you know, handled? And we'll have a loaner car ready for you, have it in the shuttle van and we'll get you out of here and. And, you know, we'll take care of that. I saw so many times, it was like they would do the oil change in the quick Lube.
And then the customer would say, oh, by the way. And then it's like, okay, now we've gotten the, you know, customer. We've got the oil change done out front, which I. In the back. If I'm looking at the car for something else, I gladly do an oil change. Don't give me an oil change only and bring it in the back because you don't want to pay enough time for me to look the car over, do the eval, do the oil change and put it back out. But if I'm there fixing something else that they're complaining about under warranty, sure, I'll do the oil change. What's on the hoist? Why the hell not? So we would see that and then be like, can you look at these other three things? And the oil change is already done.
That drove me nuts. And CSI sucks because. Right. We didn't. We didn't look at it because you didn't even know necessarily if you're going to get paid because those three things as a flat rate now, not straight time. Straight time. I didn't care. Tear the car apart.
Doesn't matter to me. I get paid. But when I was flat rate. No, I'm not tearing the car apart for something that is. Every Cobalt that I've listened to this week has all made that same noise. There is no fix for it. It's a Cobalt. Congratulations.
You bought a Cavalier. You know, it's an introductory level car.
Yeah.
They're going to be less than stellar like a Caddy. So you go on, you try your kick at Honda for, for the dealership thing, and you find that the politics are. Were they similar, Liz, or were they better like you like that brand? But I.
The politics were actually worse because they actually pitted the different departments against each other. It's like, oh, well, parts made more money. Or like, you know, sales maybe. Or sales has to make more money on this car on the used car side. So you need to take a pay cut. I'm like, no, I don't. Or just like, just so much ridiculousness like that. It's just like, oh, yeah.
Well, like the, the one was a car that I looked at. I'm like, no, no, they bought from auction. I looked at the car. I'm like, no, we're. No, it's a trade in. Sorry. And the sales guy didn't really look the car over, so they sent it to the back. I look it over like, no, this car is not worth the amount of work it's going to need to do, like, a Honda.
The Honda Certified. Certified for used car. Yeah, the certified free owner, like, you know what you're better off doing? Just, you know, put it in the whole sub line. The amount of work that needs. Because it was due for, like, the timing belts and a bunch of other stuff. So I said, okay, they put it in their p. They put it in their as is line. And then a different sales manager, for some reason they had two, decided he's gonna.
He put a sticker number on it and then sold it for the less than the sticker price and then sent. They sent it back to me. Oh, you looked at the car. Can you do the safety? I'm like, no. Why am I doing the safety? It's like, oh, because we sold it, Mike. Did you not look at the file? Well, no, I'm like, because you needed tires, you're due for a timing belt. And like, all this other stuff. They're like, oh, well, you're gonna have to do this.
Like, we. We're not. Like, I'm not gonna make any money on this car. So you got to do it for less than what? Like, no, I don't. Parts has to. Parts has to take up a loss, too. They're gonna have to sell us the parts that cost. I'm like, really? And just a whole bunch of, like, little things like, that's like, well, our department isn't going to make any money on this, so you guys have to take a loss.
Like, not my fault. I did my job. You didn't do yours. And just all the internal bickering.
I could hug you right now because I have been through that. And it is like. It. It is, you know? But you know what I mean? Because it's like, I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna offend some people. I'm perfectly okay with that. Sales people are some of the lowest IQ'd people that walk into the dealership every day in terms of being able to. Like, because a.
You don't. They don't read for crap, right? They don't listen for. And then it's like. And then they go, oh, well, I've already made the deal. I already have to do this. Like, I'm not. I'm not gonna lose money on it. Yes, you certainly are.
You and your department are certainly gonna. Because you effed up, right? You made a mistake. It goes back to leadership. If you've got a service or salesman running around like that. A salesperson. Excuse me, Running around like that, doing things, not paying attention. That's on you. You lead them as your manager.
Sales manager. Two sales managers in this dealer. They're so good and, and they screw up. That's on them. That's like so guess what? You gave that car away at a loss. Too friggin bad. It's the way it works. We're all told as technicians you're going to take a loss every day.
You're going to lose time on this job, you're going to lose time on that job. Why does it not work for the other departments? Thank God parts is starting to finally stand up and say no, I'm not giving you the parts of cost because like I'm bonused on on now what do the parts really actually cost? We never really know because when you start to like you've seen it. What they actually sell for list is not even really list and what they sell for trade is not really trade and what they show as cost is not really cost. It's all imaginary numbers. I hated that nonsense. I hated like you know we, my, a lot of my tenure at the dealer they always seem to appoint one technician to do all the used cars safeties because I think they found like they seen them work out some kind of deal where it's like he's not going to go too hard on us. And that way like if, if I have to screw him on a job I'll tell him he'll make it up on the next one. Right.
Listen, it's just like you know, he's, he yeah, they don't. But then he's not looking at the wind noise and the water leaks on a brand new car. Right. If he's busy enough all day or she's busy enough all day reconditioning used cars they just kind of like I watched, I worked right next to him and senior mechanic at a Chrysler did a way back when he never touched. I worked there with him for three years. He never touched a customer car. We had enough used cars going through that he could just recondition. So he'd do two sets of tires and you know, two four axle brake jobs a day.
He was happy. He's good.
Yeah.
That was all an oil change on every car like a battery occasionally. He was good. He didn't mind. You know, he's like I'm at my 50, like what do I care? And we're all like what are you doing? Like you know, sure you can, you know you'll do the timing belt on the car when it's four years old but don't Give it to them when it's got an engine complaint, when it's under warranty, even though we just sold it last week and now it's back. That was the part that pissed me off too, is because sales would sell, it would come back. It didn't even go to that tech. Right. And then everybody in the dealership's going, like, so you got your one chosen guy that reconditions the used cars, but then when it returns to the dealership, it's just another ticket.
And everybody's, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And I understand what they're trying to do here. We're trying to build a relationship with the customer. But you're screwing everybody in the back when you do that. Right. He of all people, or she that's doing the recondition to know whether that car is when it's leaving, whether it's going to leave right or not, and probably going to come back. And you know what it is? Sales probably already knew there was an issue with that car. Probably already told you about it.
You thought, eh, and it left. And here it is now a week back, you know, and now they're on a survey and the whole thing, like, yeah, I'm right there with you. I hate the dealership. Yeah.
Yeah. That kind of goes back to even the issue we have now. It's just like, oh, well, if the customer is not. We know it's not that big of a deal. We'll address it. If the customer complains, like, can't we just fix the car? Right. Yeah, like, that's because so many times I've seen that. It's like, that's okay.
If the customer complains about, we'll deal with it. Then it's like, no, just do your job right the first time. Like, yeah.
And then sales has the most convenient memory of not documenting that. Not remembering.
Oh, yes.
So it left. It left without air conditioning working. And then they came back and complained about it. And sales is like, what do you mean the air conditioning doesn't work? Well, service is going to have to give them an estimate figure. I'm not paying for that. Meanwhile, it was written up as, hey, this doesn't work well. Oh, well, we'll see what happens when it comes back. Like, I.
Yeah, yeah. Salesmen are scary.
Yeah. Anyway, my favorite was always, hey, Mrs. So and so is having problems with her radio. Can you go take a look at it? It's like, oh, she just doesn't know how to work it because you didn't do your job as a salesman to go out there and just kind of walk this 90 year old woman who just bought this brand new Honda with all this navigation and everything else and she has no idea how to even turn the systems on.
She's trying to pair a flip phone to her. Yeah, yeah, been there.
Yeah, yeah.
The customer looks at. You're crazy.
Yeah, yeah.
What do you mean I can't pair this phone?
Yeah, yeah. It's like, oh my, my son just did it with his. Like it's not going to work with yours. Sorry. So.
So what, what did you take away from Honda other than a product?
Probably just. I hate dealerships. I just the political nature of it and just. Well, we were at the time we were still doing the missions testing because it was still a thing here in Ontario. I think part of that I learned is kind of just like how to like take care of your technicians because yeah, I was the only mission inspector in the shop. Like, so I could actually do all the, like the, the testing and repairs to it. And it was a daily fight because half our scan tool, like we had one aftermarket scan tool which didn't work. I spent all day on the phone like, oh cute, like try to fix it.
I'm like, so I spent like all day fighting with the scan tool and the tech support hotline. All to come down to like, the scan tool is internally toast. It needs to be replaced. Like, oh well, maybe it just needs an update. I'm like, no, we need to replace it. So then they had the parts department send it out for $700 to do an update and it still didn't work. I'm like, well I told you it didn't work. But at the time they had a discount through their parts department because they had a carquest attached to it.
They could have got a brand new scan. It was not tell, but it was because it was a brand new line. It was on sale through Carquist. They could have got it for like a couple hundred dollars more than we paid for the update. But now they've spent the money on the update. Oh, we can't afford a new scan. So I'm like, this is ridiculous. And just things like that.
And then when I left, I was brought into because they just had a brand new service manager start like 2 days and I quit. The other tech quit. So they brought me in the office. Why are you leaving? I'm like, well I can't do my job. And like there's, there's certain things like I need like you know, if we're an emissions repair facility. We need to be able to communicate with all the cars. Like there's certain things like you know, I'm happy to buy but at the same time like you know, some things aren't in my budget personally because I was a single mom. So like I can't just go and drop like three grand or whatever on a scan tool.
They're like, oh well we bought a new alignment rack so you should be able to do your job. I'm like, alignment racks don't do emission testing. Like I can't, that doesn't, that's two completely different systems. Like the owner's like, but it's new and it's all shiny. I'm like, no, let's take a fish.
And throw it in the air and see how it flies and exactly fly for.
Yeah, yeah, I like it.
Oh, I love, I love that thinking. I love that thinking. It's just great. It's just like because I can remember Nissan dealer I was at got bought out by a new owner. And they bring in and they, you know, there's the, the old alignment machine worked great. Of course they get a new one. Cool, great. The newest Hunter and I love Hunter.
Great machines. Yes, well, and they're like, this is a fifty thousand dollar machine. Great setup, blah blah blah. I'm like yeah, it's sweet. Like it's cool. And they cut the labor time on the alignments because like you should be able to do it faster. No, actually the cars are more advanced now. There's like an ADAS thing and you know, zeroing steering angle and all that stuff.
Like it actually takes a little bit more now. Well that doesn't matter. We're, you know, you used to get an hour and a half for an alignment, now you get one. Okay, that's how they paid for the machine. Thank you very much. The price didn't go down to the customer. That was the thing that we're not, we weren't stupid about. Right? Like if you go and take a menu priced item and you go to the technicians go hey this is faster.
We can do more. Cool. Bring the price down for the customer. Let's sell more of them. You leave the price at the same and you take the labor off. We're not stupid. We know where that money's going. It's going to pay for the equipment.
And I'm not saying you shouldn't be buying equipment. And that's, that's, hey, that's why we do it. That's why we sell it, that's how it's priced. But like, do you think I have all kinds of love now for doing alignment the most perfect way if I used to get 15 and that was a good, reasonable time to do a four wheel alignment on, on something two, three years old. So all of a sudden I'm doing an hour. I'm not, I'm not invested with you that way now anymore. Right. Like I'm.
You're gonna get an hour.
And that's just especially, you know, when we have all the salt and snow. So even if I had two 3 year old cars where we're still bust out the torches to heat up those tie rods, we can break them loose like, oh, Canada's awesome.
So you had. Yeah. So the alignment machine was supposed to fix your emission testing problems. Yes, I can remember all that emissions testing when we came through too. And, and for people that aren't familiar, that's a pretty, that's a pretty hard test to pass to do the repair side of it. Like just about a lot of people got certified to do the testing. But what Liz is saying is she did testing and repair. So if it failed, Liz kind of had a pretty good understanding of what it failed on based on the.
We put them on a dyno and loaded and looked at the gas and all that kind of stuff and then went in and and fixed them. So good on you, Liz, good on you. Because I've known lots of technicians that failed that test.
So well done. In the defense of those. Some of the questions were terrible. So at the end of the, at the end of the test, like, oh, do you have any comments? I'm like, yes, I do have some comments. Yeah. Because I remember the divorce was. I got the one wrong. It's just because it was poorly worded and the question can give you enough information to answer it correctly.
So I'm like, yeah, you're getting a lot, you're getting earful about this because like this is not okay. You can't test people and then not and expect them to guess. Like, we're not mind readers, we're technicians. Like I can't, you know, magically figure out what you're trying to say when the information's not there. So it's like, oh, this car is this old. What does it need? I'm like, you know, what's the repair for it? Like, I don't know. There's no, there's no information. So.
Yeah, but stuff, eh, it really is. And that's the thing. Like I can't when I was at the dealer, flat rate. If you'd have asked me to start looking at a bunch of different brands for failed diagnostic or for failed emissions testing, diagnostic wise. And you wanted to flat rate me on it. I told you to go eat your hat because it wasn't, it wasn't happening. Right. Like I would have told you to sublet everything down to the dealer.
The dealer guy probably already knows when you make the phone call what it needs for this code or this fail or whatever, blah, blah, blah. Right. What we saw happen in Canada, you probably saw it too, Liz. I'm saying in Canada, where both of us are in Canada, but for the people that are listening, the, the sticker fix for a lot of it became people up here was we slapped new catalytic converters on a lot of stuff. Or what you did was you got it. So you priced the catalytic converter, which was over. What we had was called a conditional pass, which meant then the customer's car was going to exceed a certain amount for repair. They paid that amount and got maybe a tune up or maybe got, you know, like a.
And then they, they a catalytic converter and then that, that passed them. They didn't necessarily have to go through and redyno and pass on the dyno. They just had to pay some money. It was a money grab. And then that car meant that the next time, if in two more years when it came up for certification, they couldn't get a conditional, it had to be fixed properly at that point.
Yeah.
I'm not sure, Liz, when you were selling them like that, were they, they weren't allowed conditionals or were they.
When they're being sold though? They had to, they had to pass.
Yeah, yeah. So she couldn't just slap a cat on it to get the gases clean up, guys like, it had to be, you know, it actually had to pass. And then when they went to the OBT OBD 2 status set up, it didn't matter what that was coming out of the car. We didn't test that way anymore. We just scanned it. And if it had a code in it, it didn't pass. Were you still doing them, Liz, when that was coming up?
Yep.
Yeah.
Yep. Yeah. A different but.
Yeah, yeah. And the European cars wouldn't communicate. And then that's, that's the main thing as to why they scrapped the program is because a bunch of people in Ontario with really expensive, really brand new cars, Europeans, every time they went for a testing, it said in no communication, can't get it, can't get a valid status and that's why they got really upset because they had brand new cars under warranty that weren't being able to pass on the, on the government's essentially scan machine and they weren't being allowed to drive the car.
Yeah, yeah.
$100,000 Benz that has no check engine light on, no drivability problem, still under warranty and you're not allowed to drive it because the government's can tool says that they can't communicate and there's something wrong there. Yeah, we, they scrapped that program pretty fast.
Yeah. I think too with coming of all the gateways too. It's like, man, I couldn't imagine having to do that now. That's like what a nightmare that would be.
Yeah.
So.
So you left, you left that dealer.
Yep.
Yeah. And what happened?
I went back to the aftermarket because I did most the bulk of my apprenticeship training in the aftermarket because it was a very short lived tenure at Chevy, at the GM dealer. So I went to the aftermarket. I learned a lot from those techs. And also again, you know, apprentices are cheap labor. Like I had to do a lot of my trading on my time. I had a good friend of mine, I actually his, his boss liked me but he was like they were over like an hour and a half away. But my days off I drive up there, go to their shop, learn with, with a friend of mine. And so that's how I got a lot of my experience even to actually get to where I was.
Yeah.
Or what I wanted to be. Because I'm like I need my license and I'm not gonna learn what I need to doing tires and oil changes.
Yeah.
So that was like I even tell like, you know, currently in this street you shouldn't have to do that. It's what I did. But you shouldn't have to.
No.
So I hope this speak to the nature of the industry. Hopefully. I think so. Hopefully things start changing.
But I think it 100% speaks for, for the nature of our industry. And you know, I've kind of always taken it back to. We need to get back to the traditional almost the European way of, the way they do skilled trades, which is like it's very traditional. Master and a mentor. You know, whether it's a cabinetry or something like that, where you, you literally are at their elbow using their tools, watching how the craftsmen create something, a repair a new ship, whatever. Up here where we commercialize everything, it's like, okay, I can't. I want to sell tires. At 0.8, I want a 0.8 hour labor for four tires.
My flat rate technicians have all told me to go F myself because they can't do it for 0.8. So I need a whole bunch of lower skilled, cheaper rate people to come in and do my tires for me, like. And I'm sure, Liz, you've seen it up here. It's the running joke. Every October there's an ad for technician.
Yep.
For the because the tire season happens. And then every April there's an ad.
Yep.
For a technician for because by January, when we've done all the tires in the local area, we fire that technician and then we go hire one back in April to get the next two months of snow rush done and we fire that technician too, because we don't have the rest of the work the rest of the time to sustain that.
Yeah.
So you get, you know, I wish we could, as a business, we could stop having to rely on that and be able to say, you know, Liz wants to go learn how to be the next engine person at this dealership and she's being mentored by this person. And then we have the next front end technician who is, you know, you're going to mentor that person to watch how they do an alignment in one hour and it's perfect and all that kind of stuff. And that guy over there that's doing or a girl that's like wicked at air conditioning, somebody's going to mentor them and we'll see the progression in the shop and the succession. Because in the, in a, in an independent aftermarket, we just do that very naturally.
Yeah.
But in the dealership world, we suck at it. Terrible at it, because it's like we hold everything so close to what I learned how to do in a very efficient manner. I don't want to necessarily show everyone else how to do it because the very next week, you know what the deal, your same dealer, service manager will look at you and it's like, you could teach your, your guy could have taught you how to do all that engine work like that. And then the next month, if you're up there to his speed or her speed and you're just knocking it out and your guy has a slip, your service manager will say to him, what's going on? Like, this person's not out producing you. I became that technician at a dealer I worked at real quick, where all of a sudden everybody's like, man, I must do something wrong with you. Compton's over there. He was number one three weeks In a row, like, what the hell is going on? Like, he's new to the product. Why were you guys killing it? Like that was.
That's the way we treat our people in this industry, unfortunately, is. And it sucks. It really does well.
But it also kind of goes back to why so many technicians, they don't want to share their knowledge. They don't want to really mentor along apprentices, be a dealership or aftermarket side, because they're afraid, rightfully so, that apprentice will come in, learn what they're doing. They show them all the tricks they took 20 years to learn. Now this person's learned them in a year. Now they're outperforming them, and now they're out of a job. Yeah, because, you know, because of that, like, it shouldn't be like that, but because at the same time, that younger person still doesn't know everything. But it's also impossible to know everything. But it's hard, like, for anyone coming in to even get that knowledge.
And for those who. I get the fear of why they don't want to share it. But at the same time, with so much changing in the industry, we have to, like, we have to network. We gotta share, like, with our. You know, I hate the idea of competition too, because most of the time they're not our competitions. Like, they, they should be like our brothers and sisters in the industry, because it's impossible for us to service every single car in the area.
Yeah.
Mind you, there's also shops I wouldn't trust. Other shops I would like, there's definitely some places like, okay, I'm gonna take my car here. I'm like, don't like other. But it's like, oh, I need this to go to this shop because, you know, they do great work, you know.
Now let me, let me ask you a question because it's kind of something I think about too when you say that don't take it to this shop. Do you base it on. Because you've actually, like debates it just on the gossip mill, or do you base it on the fact of, like, you've actually seen cars that have been at that shop and they've now wound.
Up in your bay in the past? A lot of it is mostly like, they've been to that shop and they've been. I've seen. They've kind of like, oh, I've had it at this shop three times. I've spent this much money, I still have the problem. It's like, oh, okay. And when it's like several times Over. Especially when you're. You know.
Some of the small towns I've worked in say, okay. When we routinely get this happening from certain shops. Like, all right, Just, you know, avoid them. So. Yeah. Or even cars I've seen come from used dealerships. Like, oh, I just bought this car. You know, I just.
I need the first oil change. Like, I look at the car, I'm like, oh, where did you buy this? Because you need this, this, this, and this and this. Like, yeah, so. Or even my own personal experience, when I was an apprentice, I bought a little Cavalier because my old truck was just too much in gas. Like, I can't afford this. The car was safetied. And, like, okay. So driving the car, like, the brake pedal feels a little weird.
So I'm like, okay, what's going on? So put it up in the air. Pull the tires off. And the e brake on one side wasn't attached. It was totally seized on the other. Lower control and bushings are falling out of the car. And the brake line and the gas line was starting to, like, it was, like, starting to seep. I'm like, so, you know, a technician walked by and said, yeah, that car should have never passed the safety. So went back to the shop.
Who did the safety? They. They somehow found out I was an apprentice. I'm like, well, you know, you're an apprentice. You're gonna make mistakes in your career. I'm like, and this is not my fault. Like, they put all the blame on me. I'm like, like, this isn't our. They flat out said, this is not our fault.
I'm like, but your name's on the safety. You checked it over. Well, when it comes to e brakes, they're usually c. So we just gently tug on it so we don't actually cause any issues with it, Mike. But that's not safe. Like, if it's seized, you should. It needs to be replaced. Exactly.
It's like, oh, wait, just. I'm like, yeah, so I'm like, so things like that, like, my own personal time, like this. This is. We should not be blaming the customer because we didn't do our job right. So just all those little things. At least I've learned from, like, to remember not to do as a technician, like, right. Don't blame the customer if we've messed up. It's you apologize.
I'm sorry, sir, ma' am. Let's make this right for you. How can we make this right for you as opposed to. Well, you know, like.
But see, Lucas and I Had just a great conversation. We get talking about how there's so many shops that are like, the margin is so low they're not making enough money that they can't either make it right or a lot of them. Here's even the real reality, they can't even do it right because it's. There's no money left. And we always make excuses for when it's a used car because they say, well, they paid too much for it and if it actually was evaluated properly and repaired properly, they'd lose money. I never gave two craps if they lost money. I always said, teach your people to evaluate better or just bid lower. If you bid lower and you don't get it, oh, well, if your service, if your sales manager says, listen, we need to move more units, bring more cars back home from the auction, and all of them are crap and you're putting an engine and are tranny and every one of them, I don't care, I don't care.
Right? Because as soon as you sell that used car for now, my new car dealer, you go around and start telling everybody that that new car dealer sold me a piece of crap car. The real story is they sold you an off brand that they picked up at the auction that they knew nothing about, that they just skimped out on to sell it to you, right? They sold you a euro, whatever that burns oil or, you know, they sold you a Volkswagen TDI that was supposed to have a timing belt done and it didn't. And, you know, it went over 100,000 km and the belt broke and the engines took like they. They do all that?
Yeah.
I didn't care if that department paid too much for it or didn't put enough into it when they sold it, because they're now hurting my brand, my dealer's reputation by how they conducted themselves. That's what I hated. When the shops out there, though, that are safetying these used cars for these car lots, that was a big thing for me in a long time in this industry. I couldn't stand is. It's like. And I would tell people all the time, it's like, well, I'm buying this used car lot or that used car lot, and I'd be like, you know, they don't even have mechanics that work there. Eh? They'd be like, what do you mean they don't have mechanics? Where I'm like, no, they don't have mechanics that work there. Well, then who's fixing the cars? That's what you want to know is who's fixing the cars, because that's really like, you want to talk to those people.
You don't want to talk to the salesman. You want to look at that reputation. Because if they don't have a licensed technician on staff or somebody that can fix the car up, they're probably selling some pretty sketchy stuff because they've made an arrangement with a local shop that says, hey, I'm going to bring you 20 cars a month to safety. And that guy, all he's thinking is 20 more hours labor that I do on safety inspections or maybe, maybe 40 if I charge him an hour and inspect it and an hour to reinspect it after his non life licensed guy does the inspection. See? Yeah, years ago I worked at a shop, Liz, and maybe you can tell me if you've been to something different. Where down the street was a used car lot and they had four technicians on staff, not one of them had a license. So all day long they would bring a used car up that they bought at the auction. We would inspect the car, it would go back down, all the cheapest parts on they could find and it would come back up and we would reinspect it again.
I don't know the exact numbers of what he was charging, but I, I know that he wasn't charging to do the re inspection, he just got paid to do the inspection. So we would go down and say like I can remember when we had a Durango, a two wheel drive Durango, which was rare, and it had a loose wheel bearing on the front. Now that wheel bearing is like, has a little stub on the end of the spindles. Just, just looks like the four wheel drive one. It's like a, it was a 80 bearing back then and it was loose and it was already torqued up the nut up to spec so it wasn't going to get any tighter. And I remember looking at that car three times and when he brought it back down and I would do the inspection and say, wheel bearing still loose. Wheel bearing still loose. He was never tight, he was never replacing the wheel bearing.
He was just tightening the nut more and more. The technician, because somebody told him, we're not putting a bearing on that car.
Yep.
Like that kind of stuff. You've probably seen that too. So when people like make, you know, make this idea that I'm buying this used car, like, I hate safeties, I hate doing safeties at work. I hate the whole used car market. I just, it just pisses me right off because we as technicians up here in Canada, you know this. You're putting your industry, you're putting your license on the line. When you sign the safety sip saying the car is safe. Because if something happens and they find out that you were liable and you failed to do it, like didn't hook up the parking brake, they'll take your license away.
That's the reality of it. You know, it isn't like you don't lose your ase certs. Everybody goes, oh, the state's ASCs, they won't take them away from you if you have something like that happen. But up here we're unemployable. If something like that happens, nobody will touch you with a ten foot pole. You will lose your trade license, you lose your cfq, you'll never get it back.
Yeah, that's what happened to. I think there's a gentleman in Collingwood that he happened to. He didn't. He was charged for doing the, the fault, the fake safety and the truck, the brake lines blew like right afterwards.
So that's a huge. There's. And there's. Liz, you might know for the other case that happened. It was a Dodge Ram with a steering box and the box was found to be. It had death bubble. Okay. Like all the solid axle, you know, brand 2500s have.
Yeah.
And it was found after it sold from this little rinky dink car lot that the. It was set up with death wobble. And they went back to it and they figured out steering box is bad. It's past 30 days, 30 day safety. Okay. We don't do anything.
Yeah.
Customer takes the truck back and goes. It's doing this. The used car lot says okay, you need a steering box. Because that's how they found out from their mechanic that checked it out again. Another used car lot that didn't have a licensed mechanic on staff. They decided to make it right for the customer. We'll buy a steering box but you're going to be on the hook for putting it in because my guy won't put it in for free and I'm not paying him anymore. I've already lost my ass on this truck.
Cool. That truck got into one of those death wobble situations and it crossed lanes of traffic and it killed somebody in a Honda Civic. Do you know where the steering box was, Liz? Probably the passenger in the back of the truck. It was in the back of the truck. That guy that ran the shop. I can't remember all this incident on his names and so on and so forth. But I remember reading about this like over 10 years ago, they never did find the legit work order for that truck at his place of business where he kept all his licenses or safeties and whatnot. He obviously burnt it or destroyed it or whatever.
But they found they went through every safety he had done like the last 10 years.
Yeah.
And hit him with so many fines for inconsistencies with how the paperwork was done and everything else. Losses, license losses, business done.
Yeah. And the scary thing, the one shop I worked at, we did safeties for use for a couple used, little used car lots that were down the street. And the one day customer brings their current. They just bought it for that thing. We didn't realize it was that vehicle because part of the shop there did the oil change. Like, oh, you need tires. And the customer's like, what do you mean? I just bought this vehicle. We're like, wait a second, we've seen this car before.
I pull up the original work order. He had different tire. They changed the tires on the vehicle. Because when I do safety, I always write down. Right. They always write down the branded tire. And that's why I did that. Like, I always wrote down the branded tire and the tread depth because at least we're covered.
It's like, it's a good thing we did because these tires were not on the feed, not the tires that were on the car when we did the safety inspection.
That's right. They went on.
Which is scary.
Yeah.
Like, that is so scary. It's like, man, what is the nature of our industry? We're doing so shady things to people who don't know yet. We're being the professionals. Like, we're. They're relying on us to know what we're doing. And you know, have you seen the new industry ruining it?
Have you seen the new procedures now that have to be done for the safeties in Ontario?
I know I haven't. I've heard about them. I've talked to some buddies who are still doing the safeties, but now that I'm off doing all the ADOS stuff I did, we don't do safeties now. But like, I've heard it's just like, well, the cameras. Which is good because it helps. There's still ways around it because it always. But it's how the people, like all these are stupid. Like, no, it's to help prevent some of the stuff.
And all these, like these shady safety checks to help make sure the vehicles going down the road are actually legitimately safe. Like the assistance came in.
Yes. Isn't it sad that the government had to get that involved for us to be able to police ourselves properly.
Yeah. But then again, there are governing bodies of, like the trades. Like it used to be skilled, like, well, whatever it was, that was College of Trades. We have skilled trades, Ontario. Like how little they're actually doing to police to actually help. There's been complaints I know of personally of shops who don't have anybody licensed working there. They've come in and like, oh, well, hurry up and get somebody licensed. They don't stop them from working.
They just say, hurry up and find somebody licensed to work here.
They're not allowed to. They're not allowed to. Do you ever meet one? Did you ever meet an inspector? College trades.
I think once they command like, oh, we need a license for somebody here. It's like, yeah, you know? And that was literally the end of it. It's like, all right.
Yeah. So I met one. One time I was working at a truck shop where I had been hired as a 310s to work on. On their ambulance fleet. And of course, that day we didn't have ambulances in, so we didn't have any light duty. So what am I told to do? Go put a leaf spring in that dump truck over there? Which I'll tell you flat out, I'd done hundreds of them. Lots of them. I knew how to do leaf springs.
Right. I worked back and forth at that shop. We all flip flopped from 310s to 310t. We did whatever the boss told us because you weren't going to argue with them. And you'd say, like, this isn't right not to be working on this.
Yeah.
You go, do you want to work or not? Yeah, I need to work. Let's go and do that. So she, she very nice young lady comes walking in and she says she has to see my license to show it to her 310s. Yeah. She opens the door of the trucks, she goes, well, this is way above your weight rating. I'm like, yep. And she goes, did you know that you're supposed to be not working on this? Yep. Why are you working out? Because they said, my boss told me to.
I said, if you have any more questions, go in and talk to them. I said, I know I'm not supposed to be doing this. So of course then they go in the office and they shut the door and they have a little conversation. She comes back out and she says, well, thank you for very honest with me. She said, as long as they overlook it when you're Done. And I'm like, isn't this stupid? We're paying, you know, the government's paying how many millions of dollars to implement this program? And it has no teeth. And like, she. Of course not.
Very nice lady. I have her card still somewhere hanging around here. She probably doesn't still work for the College of Trades, but she kept saying to me, well, I'm a technician too. And I said, I don't doubt that you are. Don't doubt that you are. But I said, I can tell you that, like, I've been doing this 15 years now at the time. And I said, like, the things that I have seen in this industry where I am not supposed to be necessarily doing something, but I am forced to do it. I said, would make yours.
Would make you sick to your stomach. She goes, I know it's bad. And here's the reality is there's hardly enough people to enforce what needs to be done. Yeah, it's the same with the MTO officers, right, Liz? Like, there. There's like, somebody told me there's less than a hundred of them for the whole province of Ontario, and they'll tell you that there's. In your area, there's enough infractions going on every day that they could keep all 100 busy and never even come to Kingston. Yeah, right.
Yep, I do remember.
So what? Go ahead.
Sorry. I was gonna say, just a friend of mine, like her husband again, somebody else had bought a truck, the brake lines on it, blue, on the way back from the used car lot. So they called the used car lot. It's like, hey, like, you know, it was just safety. Like, you know, the brake lines shouldn't have blown. Let's go ahead and call the mtl. We've been through this before. They're not going to do anything.
What? I'm like, that. That just. And that blew my mind. Like, what do you mean? Like, clearly he's done this before. He just gets a slap on the wrist for not, you know, oh, you know, don't do it again, you know, do better. And it's like, whatever. They don't. Like.
Yeah.
Like, so.
So, Liz, let's move on to something positive now.
So let's kind of. Because, yeah.
Not. Not listen. And I love talking about this, and we can do it, you know, all day.
Oh, yeah.
But, yeah, kind of, you know, and we will probably. We'll have to come back and. And discuss this, but, like, how did you get from those kind of situations to, like you said, you kind of touched about on Covid you were, you were laid off on Covid. Yeah, like, I was. That's what makes me as angry. That's kind of when I was in Covid is when I got started this ball rolling, this podcast.
Yes.
If anybody's gone back and listened to the very early, early ones. Lucas, you know, had me on when I was laid off on Covid, and I was an angry sob. And I wasn't just angry about COVID I was angry about the whole damn industry.
Yeah.
For you then that gives me faith because you found, you found this avenue for you. Yeah, right.
And it's crazy, crazy to think that when I started, this industry didn't like this part of the industry. The segment didn't even exist. So who knows what the next 10 to 15 years is even going to bring? But yeah, it's just through their networking and just the power of just like always looking to what else can we do to help make, make ourselves better, help improve the industry. And the reason why I went, like, I partnered with them is because they, they were legitimately trying to do things correctly. And I had looked into the numbers too. It's like when I, before I even talked to them, it's like, of looking at some of the OE procedures. Okay. Like, condas, they want eight meters of space in front of a car before you calibrate that front radar.
What shop has 8 meters of open space? And, you know, kind of a minimum is 2,000 square feet. So I'm like, how many hoists can we shove into 2000? Oh, like we lost you.
No, you're right back there.
Okay, all right. Like, because I looked at the shop I was working at, like, okay, there's some space, but we don't have 2,000 square feet. So if we took the hoist out, then we'd have it. But then now we're down a bay, so financially it wouldn't make any sense at all. Plus the cost of the equipment. I'm like, this is crazy. Like, so who's actually doing this? Because as part of a mechanical shop or even a body shop, you can put a lot of cars in that space to do it, and then you'll make a lot more money doing brakes or having cars torn down to do bumpers or whatever, then you're gonna make doing 8s, but as a standalone shop, because it's all we do. So.
And also when things fail, we know generally what to start doing when it fails. When we first opened, it took a lot longer to get through it, trying to figure out, okay, so why did this calibration fail? And now we're, you know, having done it for so long, it's like, okay, so we know the basic things to check real quick to go through and figure, okay, is it a mechanic? Is it issue with the car? Is the issue with our lighting? Is there a setup issue? Is it a software issue?
Right.
Like all those things.
So do you see some sketchy stuff come in though, for calibration after the fact? Like, is that a common thing?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
How's that make you feel?
Used car lots. Yeah, something doesn't it. It does it really? Because, like how. It's like we can't calibrate this car. And then we have to call the shop. It's like, listen, this is. This is going on. And sometimes they get upset.
It's like, well, it was a customer paying, like. But I can't do anything with this car because it wasn't repaired properly. So it's. It's tough some days and it's just like.
So how is it sounds, though? Probably like your management is pretty understanding that it's not on you. That if you can't get it to calibrate because it wasn't done. Right. Right. The repair.
Yeah.
At the body shop. That it's not your fault that it didn't calibrate Right. And it doesn't. I have to think that they're not asking you to, hey, lean on the bumper a little bit and pull that radar back into alignment.
Or, you know, which we've seen other. Like, we've know that happens. Exactly. It's like, oh, when we've gotten cars like, oh, this one, you know, it was cal. It was repaired at, you know, such and such dealership. But this lights come on the dash. Can you take a look at it? I'm like, well, because the radar is pointing like way out to the left and up. So.
Yeah. It's how they got to calibrate. Well, either they didn't do it or they kept moving the target until it calibrated.
Yeah, they kept.
So which we've seen happen. Yeah. I'm gonna blame the weather because we've got some pretty high winds around here right now, so my wi fi. Oh, that's sweet.
And that's. Yeah. I. Because my last tenure at Nissan, we had a lot. They had that recall on the radar sensors. And I know that what it paid to do, you could not do it in the time frame. And I. I'm not opened up a bag of secrets, but I mean, there was some creative Ways that those things got changed to, to fast track through the calibration after the fact.
And I can tell you that the shop that we were supposed to be calibrated in, those floors weren't straight, they weren't level. So, I mean, it's like, I just, I. ADAS is funny for me because, like, especially when, like in the aftermarket, a lot of us don't even touch it. A lot of us don't even like, know in the service information. I just, I was looking at a Honda CRV the other day, and it was like, to do the radiator, they want you to pull the bumper and then it says it right in the thing. If you're pulling the bumper and it's equipped this way, there's a wave sensor that will have to be recalibrated. This, this CRV was not calibrated, was not configured with such. So it didn't matter how I got the rat out, right? It wasn't going to change anything.
But so many of us probably pull off a bumper and don't even realize till it's off, oh, there's a camera up there, right? Like now what do I do?
Yep.
Well, they slap it back together and plug everything back in and maybe, you know, they. No lights come on and it goes back down the road and everybody plays dumb. That's the part that drives me crazy when it's like we're not doing enough. When we're building our quotes and quoting our jobs and looking at our things of what are actually affecting. And then like, if. If I don't want to sell the customer an ADAS calibration, I better make sure I find another way to get that part out of there without disturbing the ADAs. Right? Which then takes the warranty, takes the labor time. Throw it in the trash.
Take the service information, throw it in the trash. Figure out another way, do it without it. But don't just rip the part off, put it back on to get it done and go, I. The customer didn't, you know, like the. I didn't make the customer. The customer decided not to do the ADAS calibration. The customer decided because we found out after the fact and we were already committed to fixing the radiator. And then it's like, oh, crap, I gotta call them.
Them up and go, guess what? It's going to be two more days. Now I got to take it to a shop that wants to charge X amount of dollars to, you know, calibrate. Not saying that they shouldn't charge that, that's what it should be. I've said for, for years that I hope it sounds funny because it would put like some shops of duals out of business. I wish we could get to where a lot of the cars just got smarter and they did it themselves without having to like an active calibration versus a. But you still got to pay somebody the time to do it, right?
Yeah. Yep.
Yeah.
It's like up here, especially when we get into like some of like the dynamic calibrations because it eliminates the need for the space and the floors and the lighting. But then you run into issues of snow. What do you do when there's so much snow on the roads and you can't see the lines? That windshield needs to be calibrated. It's like, well, we can't do it because it can't see the lines. Or you know, we get so much sleep building up on that radar. It's like, guess what? We know. Or we can't safely even drive the vehicle. So, you know, you can't ship the car today like you wanted to because it can't be calibrated.
It's just not physically possible to do it. Or rains, you know, there's lots of rain or we get stuck in traffic jams and then at times out it's like, all right, now we gotta start all over again. Like, it's just that's. I like, I like the static better because we can control the environment. We know right away if it's gonna pass fail.
But that's a great point, Liz. Thank you for that. Because I like, I just me, my dumb butt is thinking, this is so silly. Like I can remember because I can remember the first one I had to do on a Nissan as an older Nissan, change the rear view camera. And then I had to set up the. The targets and the floor was just not crooked enough that I spent two days moving the camp targets around trying to get it and keep giving me a different error. Different error, different error, different error. It turns out once I finally said to the boss and said, I'm done.
Like F this, I've been two days on. And he told me, I'll pay you, don't worry about it. And he did. We wheeled it down to the new section of the shop that was built recently with nice flat, straight floors.
Yeah.
And the calibration did it in 10 minutes the first time.
Yeah.
And then that was like, for me, that was like, this is the most effed up system I've ever seen put on a car. Because Liz, with the camera, it worked, right? Like we're talking just a camera. It worked, but it came up the message saying it turns on for a second and then it goes out because it's not calibrated.
Yep.
That drove me crazy. Like, you know, we're not talking about it didn't have any other warning in place to say somebody's about to rear end you and like, that's just a camera. But the system still knew that it had a new camera in it and it hadn't been successful. Calibrated.
Yeah.
So I like that. What you're saying though, that's a good point. That like, you can control the variables when you're in a, a controlled room, controlled environment. That's a good point.
Yep.
So. Yeah. What do you think? So we kind of, when we talk about the used car problem being such a, a facet with our industry of, of where a lot of things, the challenges pop up. Do we ever get ahead of that? Like, how do we do it?
I don't know how we would because, like, there's always going to be people who prioritize the dollar over anything else. I just think it's just the nature. There's always going to be those people who, like, you know, it doesn't matter. They've made their dollar and that's all they care about.
Yeah.
You know, I think that's one of the difficult parts, especially, you know, during COVID again, like, the used car market was absolutely insane because you couldn't get any cars. So I know people who bought cars that, you know, used cars that were, you know, they paid way more for than they would have a new car, but they needed a car. They couldn't wait eight months for the new car to get in stock. So they paid more for that used car than they would have a brand new one. And then like, there's always, that's, you know, the sketchiness with that for the used cars. Like, I don't even want to go to a used car lot. Like, if I buy something for myself, I'm buying most time privately and just doing, getting the safety done in front of somebody who I know or trust if I can't do it myself, so.
Right. Yeah.
But see, there is good ones out there to say that they're. But they're few and far between and I have a trust issue. So.
I do too. Because when I was, when I was shopping for my last vehicle I purchased, which was going on three years now, I went and I had to like, so I had to leave Kingston Drive all the way to Peterborough to find a Jeep that I wanted to buy. And like, you know how it is when you're shopping online. You can find all kinds of private sailors. You know what they are? They're shade treers or, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah, curbsiders. Right. They're selling cars that are not legit dealers, but they bought some stuff at the auction and, you know, and I didn't want any part of that and I had to go all the way to Peterborough to get what I wanted for the price.
And everybody's like, there's cheaper Jeep. Yeah, no, I'm not interested because I, I can go to this person and I can buy it from them and I can see the service records. They sold it at that dealer three years. It's 2015. I bought it. You know, they, they sold it. It's a return customer for theirs. It's whatever.
I didn't have to worry that from my background I knew what I was getting then. Right?
Yeah.
But I see it like, people come into us all the time and they're like, I just bought this car as is. And I'm like, oh, we haven't had one yet, Liz. That person's been able to buy as is that we've been able to pass. Too much structural damage, too much structural rot, you know?
Yep. And that's the scary part. It's like, this is my things. I remember when I was looking, helping at a friend and they're like, oh, can you come look at this car with me? The cut. The person says, like, it's great. It's clean. So the car. Yeah, it's clean inside.
You look underneath, there's like a 3 inch hole in the floor band. Like, no, but like, oh, the car is clean. Like, there's no, you can't safety that. I'm like, no, keep looking. But it's only. The worst part is the car was only like 5 years old. She's like, yeah, no, don't, don't touch it, don't touch it. Because that's just gonna be like a world of like, no, don't do it.
So. But.
And see that, that drives me nuts because it's like, you know, I know. And people hate it. I know. Like, I looked at. What did I look at yesterday? A 2017 Chevy Silverado with 111, 000 kilometers on it that just started to have some little rust peeking through the. It was a white truck, little coming bleeding through the paint on the rocker on the driver's side where they all go right under the cab corner.
Yeah.
Where they've been going for 50 years, where they rot there. And but underneath the truck it has got all that dry pokey where if like if I, it put, I push hard enough on the thing, I'm pushing through the panel and if I probably find a couple spots on the frame and start to really, like if I was to take, you know, a pick hammer, I could probably push through it. And they're like, does the truck really need anything? And I'm like, yeah, it needed undercoating like in 10 years ago. And everybody goes, well, it's a 2016, it's a 10 year old truck in Canada. Like, you know, and, and there's somebody who has taken a truck and let it deteriorate to the point of where, because I know what's going to happen. He'll trade it and you know, the dealer will probably flog it to the wholesaler, but the wholesaler, some bible lot will buy that, put all that, you know, smear stuff all over the dash, make the dash shiny, wax that truck up, spray some paint on there. And it's got a frame and some brake lines and fuel lines that are just about ready to let go.
Yeah.
And that drives me crazy. Yeah, of course we can. Yeah.
Okay, thanks.
Take a break. Yeah.
All right.
Okay, so, so what's the, tell me the day to day, how does it work? What's your, what's your day to day situation with like the business and the company? How does it go?
It's like, well, day to day I tend to float between our different locations as a licensed tech, so I kind of help out where we may need some extra diagnostic help with some of these because some get quite challenging like you know, as a module fail, is there a communication error? So we're getting to a lot of network diagnostics or is there an airbag light on they need a little help with? Are we doing a repair to the airbag system? Okay, then I'm, you know, helping with that, being licensed. But like the day to day shop stuff generally, like the customer will call our head office and they'll book it and dispatch it to this location it needs to go to. And they'll notify the technicians there or like our adas technicians on actual mechanics. But. And they'll pick up the car, they'll test drive it. We document the whole process, start to finish. So wait from pickup before we even touch the car. We're taking pictures.
It covers us and our customers. So if there's any issues they know everything's backed up and we've got proof of everything. We'll do a pre scan to see what are we starting with. And then as we go through we will like clear everything out. We'll document the procedure, we look it up in service information what the actual procedure is on every car. Again, like things are always changing. So we need to stay on top of that because you know, especially if it's a brand new car or even sometimes they've even changed the procedure partway through like to make it, you know, they've updated the system so now they've kind of changed how they want it done or the exact setup, you know, how they get to that setup point. So we measure everything out, we'll do the calibration.
If it fails, then we kind of get into why is it failed. We'll start looking is. Was the component installed correctly? Is a. Do we double check, triple check our setup to make sure we've actually done it correctly? There's some that are actually incorrect in service information, which is even more fun. So yeah, so I was like they should be correct most the time it is, but sometimes we'll even then have to go back to the like full on OE service information and to see if that's right to see if there's any discrepancy between all data or server or like the OE service information. So when we get into that it kind of gets really complicated or the. When the parts have been replaced and it's replaced with the wrong part and then there's a whole bunch of say.
Yeah, I remember, yeah, I remember at a Nissan dealer. The bay across the tack across the bay for me was it. It was a Hyundai product, I want to say like a Tucson Santa Fe or something like that. And it had come from the body shop. Not even one car we sold. We would do some work for the body shop, the independent body body shop that was on the shared lot with us. And as soon as they did whatever they did to the side of the car, it had this ADAS fault in. And you know the tech who was certainly we're a Nissan dealer is a Hyundai.
So he doesn't know and he's going on either like I don't even know what our scan tool or snap on scan tool was telling him as a code. But I mean he didn't have a whole lot to go on. It was a newer car than what we're known, we're known to work on at the Nissan store in terms of adas and Anyway, it ended up being. He spent, I don't know, the better part of a day off and on, on this thing. And it's like it keeps flagging for the left side driver's mirror. You know, satellite or whatever doesn't tell him it's in the mirror.
Yeah.
He finally tracks it down, he goes, did they put a mirror on this car? Yeah, well, it's got a mirror on it. So he get somebody now to call Nissan and say for this VIN number, what mirror should be on this nigga? Oh, that should be like this, this whatever satellite equipped mirror. 1200 bucks. What mirror was installed? Oh, this regular nonchalant, you know, ebay Amazon piece of junk. That's like a 200 mirror. So there's somebody in the insurance business not knowing and not quoting and not. And. And I felt bad for the guy.
But we're sitting there, sticking around, going like, you know, why does that stuff have to happen? Like, why, why does that have to happen? Why do people that don't know what they're doing get to order parts for cars? And then because like that body shop.
Sometimes, like we've actually seen it too. But even right at the dealership level.
They don't know this car together.
The proper part.
And it's together.
It was a. We had a Twitter brand new lifted from the factory. Oh.
Well, I didn't hear a bit. Anything you said there it was.
Yeah, yeah. You froze. Yeah. So I think. I'm not sure where you left off. So you go ahead.
I was just talking about how that, that technician over at the body shop, he didn't intend to be cheaper. He didn't intend to screw up that mechanic day when the car, you know, leaves the body shop and goes across the street to who handles their mechanical repairs, right? And it's like, hey, it's got this ADAS thing. It was the chain of command broke down so many times into why, what's it here for? What's here for Nate as well. What was done to the car? I don't really know. I'll have to call somebody and ask. All that crap should be handled before it ever gets dispatched to somebody. Because we know what could have happened is if they'd actually had the communication, it could have never would have never even needed to go to a technician. You did what to the car? Oh, left rear, you know, left front corner damaged.
You know, pull out a pillar, pull out B pillar. Replace door. Parts list, new mirror, ADAS fault left. Hey, did you put the right mirror on? And it would have Never had to be dispatched.
Yeah.
But because the chain of communication sucks, you know, everybody. Because again, it's going back to sometimes some sales people, like we. I saw him waste hours and he got paid. He got paid, but it was like it was hours wasted that probably were unbilled to the insurance company, whoever or whatever. All because somebody is like always trying to do this cheaper, you know, and use car lots and body shops. Right. Or some of the two people that most people in our industry will talk about. Like in the independent side of shops that aren't.
I don't want to deal with them. I do not want to deal with them. Don't want to deal with body shops. Don't want to deal with used car lots. Right. Like they're just always cheap.
Yeah. Like there's definitely some body shops that are trying to do the right thing but then they have the. They're being like handcuffed by the insurance company and some of them, it's exhausting to fight with them all the time. Which I get. Again, there's been a lot of good people that I've seen even ready to leave the collision side of the industry just because they're just so tired of the games the insurance company is playing with. Like they're just. I get everyone wants to make money off this, but at the same time it's like when the insurance says, no, we're not paying for this. It's like, but the obese says you have to.
And they say, well no we don't. And then there's that bickering back and forth. It's like, okay, well here's your OEM documentation saying it needs to be done. And then give it to me in writing that you're not going to pay for it. But they're like, oh wait, no, now we'll pay for it. Because they'll. That will hold the insurance company liable instead of the body shop. And they don't want that.
No, because I'm just going to inform your customer that their policyholder will not do it properly and see how long that lasts until it's not on the 5 o' clock news. Yeah, 100%. That's how it should go. We should be playing hardball with these people a lot more than we are.
A lot of shops frankly afraid of them because now if they lose them.
As game of war of, you know.
They'Re afraid of losing that income and that money and the rep on the.
Field, like that's how it should be played.
It's a game and it's for everybody.
Yeah, we cracked up there again too.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I think what I'll do with this, Liz, is we might have to. When you've got a day that's got better weather, might have to come in and record this again, if you don't mind.
Okay.
Oh, are you good with that?
Yeah, I'm okay with that.
Okay. Because I don't, like, I don't want to. I'm just. I'm. I'm know now that I'm like, I got an hour in and probably by the time we try and fix this, some of this stuff up, we're gonna have 30 minutes and then we'll have to. We'll be too short to use it.
Yeah.
So let's. When you have a better weather day, maybe next weekend or something like that, or you can get. If you can get to a different PC or different setup, we might have stronger WI fi. And then we'll. We'll do this again, if you don't mind.
Yeah, I was like, mine's all hardwired anyway. But yeah, I think it's just the satellites or something going on outside because normally it's been pretty good. It's like, okay, it should be good. That's if you're gonna do it here. Because I know a WI fi at the shop can be a little sketchy. Which Supposed to be great. But I'm like, no, no, I'll do it at home because.
Right.
The Internet connections are better. Not today.
Might be something to do with the satellite because the cat is really infatuated on something when you look over. Yeah, something. Yeah. Did you, did you get a chance to run into. When you're at Vision, Liz and Keith from L1 Diagnostics?
I took one of Keith's course, actually.
Okay.
Keith did one of the courses that I took.
Yeah, he's coming up on. He's coming up as a very. An interview very soon.
Nice.
Before he went division, he did an interview with me. But yeah, him and Liz are fantastic. Fantastic. I think I've just about interviewed everybody that works for L1 now, except for one last one technician. But they're great and they, they do the same thing with you. And you're talking to me about, like, the ADA stuff and what you've run into shops and stuff like this. I'm like, I've heard that Liz and, and, and Keith talk about this stuff before too, so I'm glad. I'm jealous as hell that you got to go to Vision.
I really am. Because. Yeah, like, you know, it was. I'm. I'm hoping, hoping to be there next year. It's kind of that. It's kind of the perfect time to have one because we're not into tire season yet. Like we're just starting to trickle back into it now.
So like they would hold it the same week every time we could go, I would be there. But the podcast has got to make a little bit more money before I can take as many trips as I want. So that's, that's the goal though, like. And you know, I'm, I'm at a newer job. I've only been there since November and so it's like even a question of how many times can I get away to do. Yeah, you know, these trips depending on when they fall. It's not that hard to. If we're not in a busy, busy time of the year.
But like, you know, I was gonna ask you, you having a hard time finding technicians because you were saying like you're licensed technique from location. Location.
Yep.
Yeah. It's tough, isn't it?
Yep. Because one like, because we're heavily electrical, most technicians, like oh no, no, no, no, we don't want, that's not what we want to do. So in that side of it that's, it's hard there because most of them like they're, you know, if you. I think statistically in Ontario, I think it's like 55, 55 of the trade's workforce is retiring within the next couple of years.
Yeah, it's crazy.
That's a lot. It's like. And you start looking at the automotive, it's like. Yeah, I can see that. So a lot of these older guys, if they can retire in the next couple years, they don't care. Like, yeah, why would they waste like put all this time into it and like just to be like done with like, just give me the break jobs instead. Like, whatever. Send it to the dealership.
Like that's the biggest thing. Just send it to the dealership. It's eight US dealership where you know, it's, it's, you know, network communication. We're not, you know, send it to the dealership. So but because we get into that, it's like, no, we have it's. And also electrical diag is a bit of a different monster than like drivability diag or like engine diag. It's two different sets of like patience that you need.
When I think of like how many 20 year veterans I know that aren't good at diag electrical or Elect or drivability. Like it doesn't matter that you've been a 20 year vet. You know what I mean? You're not gonna fill the role of what somebody needs you to do every day. You know what I mean? Like, it's, it's a, it's a different level of skill set. It's a critical thinking versus a repetition. You know, I talked about like I was, I had a long road trip yesterday with a friend. I'm talking about, think about it like this. Everybody goes, well, it's just like doing puzzles.
I said, think about it like this. A traditional one dimension puzzle is like if I move the pieces all around, eventually I will get it together. And they all have paint on one side and nothing on the other.
Yeah.
And I know that at least this is the side up and then I get the puzzle together. Look at a 3D puzzle now and tell me that's, that's what this level of thing is. So I've worked with amazing guys that were phenomenal at a 3D puzzle. But if you put a road map in front of them and said this is power and this is ground and show me where it ends up, they'd be like, yeah, right. I have no idea. Yeah, I have no idea. And, and, and so it's just a, it's not even left brain and right brain. I think it's even more segmented into various categories within that.
And it, it's tricky because, like I suck at as a 3D puzzle type thing, if I take something apart on Monday and you ask me to put it back together on Thursday, I'm screwed. Like, I can't remember. But like, if you say to me, go diagnose that wiring problem, here's some. I'm good. No problem.
Yeah.
Doesn't matter if I've ever done it before. It doesn't matter. Like, it's just, yeah, here you go. That's what's gonna happen. So.
Yeah.
And I don't know why it is I can't. But I like, I. What I've seen people really excel with the 3D puzzle thing. They haven't been able to teach to me. And the way that I've been able to do the drivability electrical side of reading, I can't seem to be able to teach it to them. It just seems like it gets like all messed up and then we can't do it. But yeah, you know, I, I'm still, I'm 49. I'm still working at trying to be better at it.
So I think that's. I think that's the nature of it. We're all just trying to be a little bit better than we were yesterday.
So it. It. I struggle. Like I said, if I take it apart, four o' clock before I go home, and then I come in the next day, and at 1:00 clock, you say, here, go put this together. I've already done two other Carson. I'm like, oh, this is probably not going to go today. Because I get like, you know, yeah, it's one thing. It was one part.
But, like, I had a. The crv, I had the rat out of it. I had the PCM moved at the battery out of it. I had all to change. Like, the pipe that goes from the front cover over to the thermostat housing, and I had all these parts taken out of it to get the rat out. And then to get this pipe, the O rings changed. I was trying to remember, like, where all these bolts go. Like, how does this.
I shot I. The bed on the time. It was terrible. Like, I was. Yeah, just my boss didn't care. We got it done. But I'm like, if I have the parts there and they're like, here, go do this. No problem.
Hitting the time, easy. If I have to split the day and walk away, I'm screwed. Unless it's a brand I've done 100 times. Right. Then it's a different thing. Like, I have to do the job first time and only time under repair. Forget it. Terrible.
Yeah.
All right.
Okay. It was nice meeting you.
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 Changing 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. That.
About this episode
Liz Tait shares her experiences navigating the automotive industry, particularly as a female technician in a male-dominated field. She discusses the challenges of dealership politics, the importance of proper ADAS calibration, and the pitfalls of the used car market. Liz emphasizes the need for better communication between body shops and mechanics to prevent costly mistakes. The conversation also touches on the struggles of finding skilled technicians and the impact of COVID-19 on the industry. With a blend of humor and frustration, Liz offers insights into the realities of working in automotive repair.
Original notes
Like the show? Show your support by using our sponsors.
Promotive can help you find your dream job. Touch HERE to see open jobs.
Need to update your shop systems and software? Try Tekmetric HERE
Wanna go to Tekmetric's first ever industry training event Tektonic? Register HERE
In this episode, Jeff Compton sits down with Liz Tate, partner at Level 5 Drive, an ADAS calibration company in southern Ontario. Liz discusses her unconventional path into the automotive industry and the challenges she encountered working as a woman in a traditionally male-dominated field. She shares candid experiences from her time in both dealership and aftermarket environments, highlighting issues such as poor management, internal politics, and the difficulties around proper vehicle safety and used car inspections.
00:00 "Jaded Mechanic: Celebrating 100 Episodes"
08:47 High School Educational Tracks Divide
12:41 "Balancing Podcast Dreams and Career"
19:00 Mentorship vs. Efficiency Conflict
26:01 Customer Complaints Post-Oil Change
30:52 Parts Pricing and Accountability Issues
32:22 Dealership Service Frustrations
41:31 Catalytic Converter Solutions in Canada
47:28 Dealership Culture and Resistance to Change
52:22 "Challenges in Car Shop Margins"
54:30 "Beware Unlicensed Car Technicians"
01:03:00 "Flawed Program Lacks Accountability"
01:06:08 Industry Evolution and Innovation Insights
01:10:26 ADAS Calibration Challenges in Aftermarket
01:18:47 Decaying Truck Neglect
01:24:58 Communication Breakdown in Auto Repairs
01:26:39 Insurance Struggles in Auto Repairs
01:32:52 3D Puzzle vs. Road Map Understanding
Follow/Subscribe to the show on social media!
TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@jeffcompton7
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@TheJadedMechanic
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091347564232
The Jaded Mechanic Podcast
Jeff Compton
0:00
97:47