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Small Shop, Big Work: Life at a Mazda Dealer With Christopher Johnson
Small Shop, Big Work: Life at a Mazda Dealer With Christopher Johnson
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About this episode
Christopher Johnson, a shop foreman at a Mazda dealer, shares his journey through the automotive industry, reflecting on his experiences from co-op programs to race car mechanic and now a mentor for young technicians. He discusses the challenges and rewards of working in a small dealership, the importance of maintaining a positive culture, and the evolving landscape of automotive repair. Johnson emphasizes the value of detail-oriented work and the impact of personal growth on his career, while also addressing the need for better support and understanding within the industry.
Topics:
career journey
mentorship
dealership culture
automotive repair
personal growth
race car mechanics
young technicians
industry challenges
detail-oriented work
Cars:
Chevrolet Corvette
Chevrolet Cruze
Honda Civic
Jeep Wrangler
Kia Sportage
Mazda RX-3
Nissan Frontier
Nissan Pathfinder
Toyota Camry
Toyota Corolla
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🎙️ Exciting Announcement! New Episode Alert! 🎉
Hey there, amazing listeners! I hope you're all having a fantastic day. I wanted to take a moment to share with you the three incredible takeaways from our latest podcast episode that I just know you're going to love!
1: Perspective is Key: In this episode, we dive deep into the world of automotive repair and hear stories from individuals who have faced challenges and triumphs in their careers. From the struggles they've encountered to the innovative solutions they've implemented, their perspectives shed light on the industry and offer valuable insights for all of us.
2: Unity in the Industry: Our guests emphasize the importance of recognizing that we're all in this together. Despite the differing opinions and experiences, it's crucial to come together as a community to support one another and work towards positive change. This episode serves as a reminder that collaboration and understanding can lead to incredible advancements in any field.
3: Laughter and Learning: While this episode tackles serious topics, it also brings a lighthearted touch to the conversation. Our guests share anecdotes, jokes, and even a quote from a Canadian philosopher that will leave you smiling. It's a perfect blend of thought-provoking discussions and moments of levity that make for an engaging and enjoyable listening experience.
I can't wait for you all to tune in and join us on this journey of reflection and growth. Remember to comment, share, and spread the word about this episode. Your support means the world to us!
And don't forget to set your podcast to automatically download every Tuesday morning, so you never miss an episode filled with amazing perspectives and expertise from our incredible guests.
Thank you for being a part of our podcast community. Your continued support is truly appreciated. Stay tuned for more exciting episodes coming your way!
00:00:46 Career in automotive repair journey.
00:05:32 Transition from racing to mechanics.
00:13:34 Attention to detail in motorsports.
00:17:22 Importance of trade license.
00:25:29 Importance of integrity in work.
00:31:05 Adaptability is key for success.
00:32:49 Opportunities for advancement vary widely.
00:39:37 Specialization can be advantageous.
00:43:14 Asian cars require regular maintenance.
00:50:14 Understanding and accepting personal growth.
00:56:03 Harnessing differences as a strength.
01:01:32 Paul's videos improve technician skills.
01:05:29 Importance of continuous learning.
01:13:32 Flat rate techs need support.
01:18:02 Understanding different roles builds empathy.
01:25:38 Surveys can ruin the experience.
01:29:55 Mazda is a reliable product.
01:33:07 Transmission issues can be prevented.
01:38:54 Culture is more important.
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Filter:
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Chevrolet Corvette
"... when I started there was we had a lot of vintage Corvettes and we had the C5 Corvettes, mostly all custom ra..."
Car
Chevrolet Cruze
"...nt for a different day with them. You had a Chevy Cruze and then you go into like a, you know, a Honda or..."
Car
Toyota Camry
"...ou do to it. Right. But, you know, order Civic or Camry or Corolla or something like that, they're worth ..."
Car
Toyota Corolla
"...it. Right. But, you know, order Civic or Camry or Corolla or something like that, they're worth doing the m..."
Car
Honda Civic
"...er what you do to it. Right. But, you know, order Civic or Camry or Corolla or something like that, they'..."
Car
Jeep Wrangler
"...r. That's where I bought my, I ended up buying my Wrangler there. But even like Peterborough looked so diffe..."
Car
Nissan Frontier
".... I just finished a clutch job in a front in a 17 frontier. So that's like so it's taking me a day and a bit..."
Car
Nissan Pathfinder
"...too. Yeah. But it's oh, my God. Right. Like every Pathfinder out there just can't keep transmissions in it. We..."
Career in automotive repair journey.
Transition from racing to mechanics.
Attention to detail in motorsports.
Importance of trade license.
Importance of integrity in work.
Adaptability is key for success.
Opportunities for advancement vary widely.
Specialization can be advantageous.
Asian cars require regular maintenance.
Understanding and accepting personal growth.
Harnessing differences as a strength.
Paul's videos improve technician skills.
Importance of continuous learning.
Flat rate techs need support.
Understanding different roles builds empathy.
Surveys can ruin the experience.
Mazda is a reliable product.
Transmission issues can be prevented.
Culture is more important.
Select text to request an explanation
Unbeknownst to me, the friend of mine was a little bit of a hack, you'd say.
The hardest dumb guy you ever met, but he cut a lot of corners to get the job done.
He'd say, no, my buddy Chris, race car driver, race car mechanic, my buddy Chris, my buddy Chris.
I get in there and I go, for Christ sakes.
But then they see the work I did, it's like, oh, one of these things is not like the other that way by just doing a fine job.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to another exciting thought provoking episode of the Jada Mechanic podcast.
My name is Jeff and I'd like to thank you for joining me on this journey of reflection into the toils and triumphs of a career in automotive repair.
After more than 20 years of skin knuckles and tool debt, I want to share my perspectives and hear other people's thoughts about our industry.
Support yourself with strong coffee or grab a cold Canadian beer and get ready for some great conversation.
So Friday night, we are recording in Canada with a fellow Canadian.
There's going to be a trend of that more and more as you see.
We're slowly taking over.
I'm recording tonight with a gentleman I don't know too well, but reached out to me through the podcast posting about wanting people to put their hands up and be a guest.
So I have Christopher Johnson with me tonight.
Christopher, how are you?
Not too bad yourself.
I'm getting good, man.
The weather here is beautiful.
It's long weekend for us, right?
Absolutely.
Thank Christ for that.
I'm looking forward to trying.
The weather is supposed to hold for the weekend, so I'm hoping to get out and get fishing all three days.
If my shoulder will hold up to it, then I'll be good.
But yeah, you're in Coburg.
I work in Coburg.
I live in Colburn, which is the next town over, the next affordable borough over.
Yeah.
So just down the road from you.
Yeah.
Which for the people not familiar, probably about an hour from me, would you say?
An hour from Kingston?
A little over an hour, probably closer to an hour and a half.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm thinking, yeah, past Peterborough, but before Toronto.
Yeah, that kind of area.
So well, not directly south of Peterborough.
Yeah.
Fort Hope kind of area.
So, and you work at a Mazda dealer?
That I do.
And the shop foreman there.
I mean, there's only four of us working in the back.
Plus our detailer.
We've got two apprentices, one young licensed tech.
He's just been licensed for just over a year.
Then myself has been grinding away for the last 20 years professionally.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How big is the shop?
We have four hoists now.
We did have three and we had to dry bathe.
We turned that into an extra hoist for our EV as well and an alignment rack, a sunken alignment rack.
Right.
And our detail bay.
So very small.
Yeah.
I was going to say for that area, that's not one of the larger dealers that are starting to prop up or pop up around, right?
Like they're...
No, we're probably the second smallest.
I think the Kia dealer just up the road from us is smaller.
Yeah.
They have four hoists and no alignment rack.
And we're the next one up from there.
But we do a comparable amount of work to say the next to Asian car dealer next to us, which is a Honda dealer with a little over half their staff.
Right.
So we turn a lot of work and we do a lot of good work.
It's good.
And you've been there 20 years?
I've been in the business in the area for 20 years.
So I started as a, as probably the American listeners wouldn't know, we have the co-op.
Yeah.
So I had a high school, but I finished late in high school.
That's a different story altogether, but went through the co-op program.
But even that was different for me.
I helped a guy open a shop from scratch.
So we were literally as a co-op student.
It was a friend of my dad's.
Right.
So we worked a deal that way.
So we were running plumbing lines.
We were running airlines, installing stuff.
I helped him open that.
So that was a bit of a wild and wacky experience as to getting the firsthand knowledge of working on cars.
So for my American friends, what co-op is referred to up here is where essentially you would go in and work.
Like sometimes you worked, say your morning, and then you went to a job placement, we'll call that, in the afternoon.
Or some days you would stagger.
So you might do two days at the school doing traditional classroom classes.
And then you would do a couple days away at this job placement, which was trying to help people pick careers.
It wasn't always trade heavy.
You could, if you wanted to work in a culinary, if you wanted to do it, they would try and place you in a position to get you real world on the job experience.
You didn't normally get paid.
Some people did.
Some people didn't.
But it was mostly accounted towards your curriculum, your credits to graduate high school.
And then it got your feet wet for what you wanted to do tentatively when you're 16, 17, 18 years old and not sure.
So that's what co-op is.
If you hear us refer to it, that's what co-op is.
Just consider it job placement for the most part.
So you took a friend of your father's, was starting a shop from scratch.
And you kind of got in and decided to help him do that.
Yeah, because before that, I kind of wanted to get into, I was doing some ice racing, which we do up, lit it up north in Minden.
Yep.
I wanted to race cars.
That was my thing.
And of course, I had no money to do some race cars.
So I got to learn how to do it myself.
And it snowballed for 20 years.
So I got in, wanted to do that.
Now, when you use a friend of your father, so anyone in the family into the industry, like was it as a tech or just you grew up around race cars?
Is that kind of?
Nope, not even that.
Because I didn't even get my driver's license until probably almost a year or so after you would normally do that.
I didn't think I don't want to drive, got no use for that.
Yeah.
Playing indoor soccer one year and broke my leg.
Well, then I'm sitting in the back room.
I want to say it was a spring and flipped through the channels.
Champ car race.
I want to say it was Detroit, but I watched that.
Like then I've been watching it ever since.
I haven't stopped watching racing since.
Yeah.
So it got us and hired.
Yeah, it's a common thread.
Everybody's a lot of us are into the motorsports thing.
So you just a friend of your father starting to shop.
What was his background?
Then this can I call him a mentor?
Is that a fair?
He was.
I did learn quite a bit from him.
He was.
He has always been a mechanic and then he'd been in the military and was working at an auto shop that my parents used to use.
Then he tried to break out on his own to do a work in a small shop.
I don't know where he's gone to nowadays because that didn't last much more than a few years and disappeared into obscurity.
His shop did it failed.
Yeah, him and I don't know where he actually went to.
Yeah, his shop did actually went to work for someone else.
That's how you got your feet wet in the industry was with him in co-op.
Yeah, then once I got into an actual apprenticeship program, it was at the local Honda dealer.
He was the owner was a friend of a friend.
So I got in there as an apprentice and learned quite a few more things.
Yeah, it was a bit of a, you know, kind of felt a little bit like a duck out of water because but I've always felt like that going anywhere.
The duck out of water thing is that because of the fact that you come from a smaller independent in your co-op and then you get into a dealership.
Yeah, and then it's now the man I got to do this for a living now.
I got to make some money at that.
I mean, I was still living at home, had no bills to pay.
So it was no matter what, just at least a good learning experience and make minimum wage.
But it was a good learning experience and made a lot made some good friends there as well.
So they started you a minimum wage at the at the at the Honda dealer.
Yeah, I think back then it was like eight bucks an hour, you know, early early 2000s.
Yeah, that was what it would have been about.
Yeah, seven dollars. I mean, yeah.
So they had you working on cars for minimum wage.
Yeah, pretty well. You're doing oil changes and and slow times you're doing.
You know, I'm getting the right lawnmower from the boss's house or something or delivering bits here and there.
So you're doing whatever is necessary in the building.
And so how long how long did you stay there?
I was there. I did the when I was an apprentice there, I did the day release.
So did the for the full day release.
And I was about to go off that winter for the two block program because they release is terrible.
Yes. Don't learn a damn thing. Don't remember a damn thing.
You spend the entire next time you're there remembering what the hell you learned last week.
So again, the two for my American friends, what he means by day releases, when we do our what we call our apprenticeship program up here, you can do it two ways, which is you can get you can do it one day a week where you leave the job and you go to normally a local community college and you'll sit through a day of classes and that can take like six months to go through or longer.
In some cases, I've heard of you sit there one day a week, sit through all your classes.
So our classes will be, you know, depending on the level, but fuel, electrical, transmission, like driveline safety and workplace have hazards, practices, all that kind of stuff.
When you go day release, it is notoriously the success rate is not so good because you tend to stay focused on the job.
What you had at the shop waiting for you when you go back. I never had to do it.
I was always in the I think there were 16 week blocks of four months at a time and I would go.
And that was easier for me to stay focused.
It was hard because now you're leaving. You're being laid off from the job, essentially, right?
And you go work in the shop, which so a lot of employers don't they prefer day release because up here, what happens a lot is they just want you to like get your certification so that legally you can work in the shop.
And if you're enrolled as an apprentice, you can your pay can sometimes be subletted by the government, which is good or bad, depending on how you want to look at it.
So that's what he means by day releases. He's going one day a week. So sorry to interject there, Chris.
I just wanted to keep everybody, you know, that isn't a Canadian.
They're going to be like, what are they talking about? Yeah.
You went through the day release program for that was your first year.
Yeah, I did the first year that then as I was about to go to my second, second years of the block program.
I was just about to leave and was told that I wasn't coming back.
But that I think that was in the works for a little bit before that.
I'd made some mistakes. I got left some, you know, that's the mollies.
I think in the last straws, I left to know I plug straight. I blew up an engine. I fucked up.
Yeah. And you're not the first one.
Yeah. Right. So I think before that had already been replaced by someone else.
But they were just waiting for the bay to be free. Right.
But and once I was, I finished that block program, I went, I think it was three weeks at a Mercedes Volvo dealer up in Peterborough.
Oh, I said three weeks. I wasn't happy up there from the after the first two weeks.
Yeah. Replied to an ad at a race shop over at Molesport or Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, as people know now.
But and as I was loading my trailer, my box into my trailer from the Mercedes, got the phone call.
When can you start? I can come over there right now because I'm mobile. Yeah. Right now.
So and that started a seven year career as a race car mechanic. Wow. Right on.
I learned a lot of stuff, a lot of good stuff there. Yeah.
Found out a lot of bad things, but that's not what we were doing, but a lot about that business as well.
Yeah. That was a mechanic and wrenching experience and a work ethic experience that is hard to replicate anywhere else.
Yeah. Work ethic we've developed doing that and to be able to do that on a regular basis.
You know, people are paying for race weekends, we're paying clients in cars and we're taking care of customer cars and racing them all weekend.
And if we're down south, we've got schedules to keep. Yeah.
And which people are paying for us and then you learn to prioritize how you're working and getting stuff done efficiently and working as a team.
And that's where a lot of the core values I've got now as a regular street car mechanic.
Yeah. Comes from that and keeps that and that's. Yeah.
It's the attention to detail, right? That is so I want to say carries over so well from motorsports into the everyday wrenching, right?
I think that's kind of, you know, even if you're not necessarily because not every race car is super fast.
I mean, that's what I have to remember. Some classes are not all that quick. I mean, they're they're fun.
But, you know, but it's still a situation of, you know, details matter to finish in the race or not finish in the race, right?
Yeah, like I've got a five thousand dollar Honda that I used to race beat the crap out of Porsches and BMWs and whatnot.
But yeah, the same attention to detail to that five thousand dollar car is same that we spend on our two hundred fifty three hundred thousand dollar Trans Am series cars.
Exactly like so you're working on a lot of high end cars at that point, like high dollar stuff.
Most of the work when I started there was we had a lot of vintage Corvettes and we had the C5 Corvettes, mostly all custom race builds.
So all the old C3s that we had were all race cars since they were C3s and they were all vintage and mostly owned by the owner of the shop.
But we did have a lot of other cars drop in and then a few years down the road into that.
It developed into a bigger race shop with a couple other owners coming in.
OK, I started to build a lot of Trans Am series race cars, which are two frame chassis.
Yeah, you know, silhouette body, big fire breathing monsters.
Yeah, fantastic. Yeah. Right on.
It's funny, or it's actually kind of sad in some ways that the stock car has never really taken off as big in Canada, right?
As like, you know, because I mean, it's not for we got lots of talented, talented drivers.
And absolutely, you know, it's not a situation of I just think that we I don't know why.
I don't know why I have a friend and her her son races, Cascar does really well.
But it's a struggle when you talk to them like you think that they're all they're getting paid really good.
Like, no, they're they're barely they're looking for sponsors every weekend just to get the tires on the car.
You know what I mean? It's where the ticket to get in.
Yeah, it's a different thing. So it's too bad.
The Corvette classes and all that stuff. I'd never I'm not I'll be totally honest.
I'm not I'm not a motorsports guy.
So it's it's always like the money has always been something that has been like, I just I just can't justify that expense.
I mean, I it's like anything else. If you love it, you love it. Right.
People look at us like, why would you spend one hundred thousand dollars on a bass boat to catch fish out of?
Well, you know, nobody's ever not smiling in a bass boat, but it's the same in a race car.
You know, it's just whatever you're whatever you're into.
So the detail thing, how did that did you was it did you have an adjustment period when you because you moved on from that into back to a traditional kind of wrenching experience job?
Yeah, back in about I want to say the end of 2013, the race shop was getting bought up by different owners.
And the owners I was working for were split in ways that I didn't want to necessarily stay with.
He was staying with and I couldn't go with the owner I wanted to go with.
There just wasn't the room and he set up his own business.
And that's all he does right now is as a race car business.
But at the time, it wasn't it wasn't for me.
It wasn't it wasn't my cards. Yeah.
So to speak, then at least luckily before that, I had already finished my third year, then went to write my ticket a couple of years before that.
So I got my ticket in 2011.
Right. I said, I'm going to need something to fall back on.
I'm going to need or just in case or if something's changed and behold, they did need that.
And that's, you know, saved my bacon so I could go into a, you know, earn a living again.
Yeah. What he means by ticket is like what we call it or take it up here is is our trade license that we have to have in order to be employed legally anyway, as a technician in the shop.
It's government, obviously government sponsor, government funded, government regulated by province.
Some provinces have slightly different, but it's all pretty almost the same.
Quebec is the Wild Wild West. It's a wide open thing there.
They don't recognize it. And it always has been that way in Quebec.
I've spent a lot of things. Yeah.
That's not hating on them. They're they're great.
Just it's a different. Yeah. Different culture there.
So what he means when he says ticket is it's just our legal license that we need to stay in good standing with to be employable.
The license pretty much in the end of it means is that when a car has to be inspected to be deemed safe for sale, you have to have a license.
And then if you're working in a shop that's performing safety related repairs, you're supposed to be a licensed technician or you're supposed to be an apprentice that's enrolled within the system that has the work checked over by a licensed technician.
That's what he means by ticket. So if you hear me say ticket, that's all I mean is just a license.
So it's important what he's saying is when you're coming out of the if you don't get one it and there are guys without a ticket working in the industry without a license in our in our province and in our country, they traditionally don't make a whole lot of money.
And they're constantly kind of looking over the shoulder to make sure that somebody doesn't come and knock on the door.
And, you know, I've worked with a couple of them in shops that had to transition out of working as mechanics into an admin role, because they legally couldn't be on the shop floor working.
So that's that's the difference between up here. It's kind of equivalent of saying you couldn't get hired without an ASC would be I guess is what you could say from the American standpoint is if you have to don't have an ASC certification, you can't work.
That's kind of what they're saying up here. When we pass our exam, we're not recognized as ASC certified because it's a different thing.
But it's a level of competency you have to pass the test. So very important in this industry that you have that up here. Otherwise, you're not getting a job.
So, yeah, it pretty much means that you've at least have a working knowledge of cars as I was five years out of working on streetcars when I got my license and I passed with like an 81 or 80 some odd percent.
Yeah. And there was hybrid questions on there and hyphards didn't really exist when I worked in cars, right? Worked in the car side or streetcar side.
Yeah. So you got out of the race shop. Where did you go?
I went to I was living in up in Peterborough. So just north of Sierra about for say half an hour north of Port Hope at a Honda dealer there.
There's a friend of mine who worked there. Got in contact with him. I'd known him from hanging back out here in Coburg.
I hang out with friends at the Timmy's because that's what we do here when you have nothing to do.
It doesn't matter where you go in Canada, right? Every Tim Hortons used to be back in the day anyway.
If you had if you were a car guy, Tim Hortons is a coffee and donut shop for people that don't know.
But by now, everybody should know you've all heard me enough.
So the way that used to be is that you would hang around the coffee shop, Tim Hortons, Friday nights, Saturday nights, sometimes Sunday night, sometimes Thursday.
And just lean up on your car and, you know, shoot the shit and talk crap to other people that tell them their rod was slow or whatever.
And a lot of street racing in our up here, you know, kind of that was the scene, I guess, is where you might hang out.
You know, street racing is not as wasn't as big here as obviously, you know, the hotbed, California, Oklahoma, that kind of stuff.
But we did have the Toronto area, which, you know, Christopher's not that far from at one point we had some of the absolute fastest front wheel drive Hondas that were in on the continent.
So I can't remember the one, but they he was one of the first Hondas to go in the eights, I think.
They did it to shot a documentary years ago about it.
The name escapes me. But yeah, he had a white one clapped out thing, but it was stupid fast.
He made a lot of money racing that car around Toronto and every cop knew that car.
So that's what Tim Hortons in the car culture is up here in Canada.
So every small town, Ontario is every small town in Ontario. They're all kind of the same.
They all have a pizza shop, a couple of Timmy's and it's the same people hanging out in the same places.
Yeah, your muscle car guys, your hot rod, your Hondas, your Asian import guys.
Yeah. You got the old folks coming in and out, getting their coffee.
Yeah. Complaining about how full the parking lot is with nobody buying anything.
Yeah. Every town, they're all the same. Yeah.
So that was kind of that's how you found the job at the Honda dealership was through that kind of.
Yeah. A buddy of mine that I knew from actually as an apprentice, we were an apprentice together at Coburg Honda.
And he made his way up to Peterborough, was working as a licensed tech up there.
So he got me the in there. I got the interview and got the job. And that was a very good experience.
It was initially, I had a bit of a target on my back because unbeknownst to me, the friend of mine was a little bit of a hack, he'd say.
The smartest dumb guy, smartest dumb guy you ever met, but he cut a lot of corners to get the job done.
Yeah. And he said, you know, my buddy Chris, race car driver, race car mechanic, my buddy Chris, my buddy Chris.
And I get in there, I got for Christ sakes. But then they see the work I did, it's like, oh, you know, one of these things is not like the other.
And I ingratiated myself that way by just doing a fine job.
So that was a wake up call for you to work for him, work with him, excuse me, and realize that like he was way different about how he approached the job than you.
Yeah, but the working job, I mean, the way he treated his own cars to get around, you know, that's one thing.
But the way he treated the customer's car should be something entirely different.
Yeah.
And it wasn't him, it was almost worse.
Wow.
That's the way he chose to make a living. That's certainly not the way I chose to make a living.
He's actually kind of a good like diagnostic tech and a good tech.
He could find things out very quickly just to get to the end, end game, cut quite a few corners.
And that never flew with me because we couldn't do that in race cars.
You're going to kill someone if you do that.
He lacked refining is what you're saying.
So, yes.
Now, is it fair to say that might have been because of the difference in background?
Like, had he been flat rate mechanic a lot or always like pushed by the clock?
And because I'm not trying to say that motorsports and race cars doesn't have time schedule, right?
But I mean, you're kind of giving a little bit more time, right?
It's about precision and detail like we talked about.
Was he just that way because that's what the clock made him that way?
Or is he just?
I think he made himself that way with the way I know the other techs in that shop and a few of them are still there and they're great techs.
They were more interested in doing the job they're getting paid for than getting paid for the job that they're doing.
And so they weren't as talk.
They knew they got paid to work on the car once and that was it.
Yeah.
They didn't want any comebacks and they had integrity.
Yeah, that's a key thing.
I've worked with a few mechanics that come back.
I remember one, he was right next to me.
He used to say it's just another opportunity.
Comebacks just another opportunity to make money, right?
Which is not, thank God, is not the concept that is, yeah, at every dealer.
I'm not trying to say that every dealer thinks like that or whatever.
It's just that was his attitude next to me.
And I'd be lying if I said he wasn't right.
There was lots of times that he got a comeback and he got more hours sold on the job and another kick of the can and I don't endorse it.
I know it wasn't good, but it did happen a lot.
And it happens a lot in not just dealerships.
It happens a lot where people are incentivized.
I'm going to go out and say it.
It does happen.
Is it right or wrong?
Well, it's probably wrong.
But I mean, if you're on the other side of the coin and you weren't given enough time to diagnose it all the way to the end and you run out of time or run out of budget and somebody says, take a guess and the guess was wrong, is that really a comeback?
That's what we could talk for hours on a whole other episode about what is technically a comeback because you've got the customer side, the technician side, management side really is all three of them line up.
So, you know, a comeback.
Yeah, if you, you know, change a water pump for a coolant leak and it was never the water pump, it was the, you know, fitting above it or something.
That's a comeback.
But I mean, you know, if you take that same car and it's like leaking out of coolant out of every frost plug, coolant hose, you know, the whole thing.
And the biggest one is the water pump and you put it on and say, we'll need to be rechecked and you put the water pump in and it no longer leaks.
But it still has a coolant leak. Is that really a comeback?
That's where perspective comes in.
So anyway, not to go on a ramp, but so he wasn't the he wasn't the best shining star within your your dealership.
No, and everyone, everyone knew that before and also before me starting there as well.
So that was, hence his his nickname was hack.
Yeah, well, they put a magnifying glass on you because you they probably thought you were guilty of that by association, right?
And yet generally speaking, yeah, that's I would say it literally had almost literally had a target on my back when I got there.
Then, as I say, I just go in and do my thing and prove them wrong.
Yeah. Yeah.
So then I've said made a lot of good friends there because the foreman we had there, he's still there.
Like just an amazing tech. Yeah. And just an amazing person as well. Yeah.
He'd always help you out with everything. He would drop everything to help you and get you to the solution that you needed.
Or if you're bound up on something like bolt snaps in a frame, then we got to drill it out.
He'll work around to get you some extra hours to. Yeah. To get it done. To compensate for that. Yeah.
Well, you have to compensate for that. If the apprentice next to you has to do a PDI for you, here's an extra little bit just to compensate for it.
Was it a shock for you to go? Because I'm assuming then with when you were licensed and you went to that dealer, they weren't hourly, right?
They were probably on flat rate. Absolutely flat rate. So I got two months. I think my first two months was hourly. Yeah.
Because I had never worked flat rate before the general manager knew that. And he said, here's, I think it was like two or three months.
I also had a lot of some of the training to catch up on the online training. So I wasn't doing anything.
I could do the Honda training, catch up and I can learn without having to be fast off the hop.
I can get to learn their processes for knowing the product, learning the processes and getting the job completed as it should be.
Then after that, go flat rate. Yeah. And did you. So in that first two months, because and that's awesome.
I've seen, I think I've most I've ever myself, I think was I got two weeks when you go to a different dealer.
They, you know, two months is awesome. I've never even heard of that in the industry. That is great that they give you two months.
That shows some real, real faith in what you how much they want you in that facility. Right. That's pretty good.
Did you find that was. That was the I think that was the manager at the time. They don't have that manager there now.
And I always had some issues with them when I was there.
And now I realize after the fact and working more in the industry, I realized he was a really good manager.
And he's gone on from there, but he ran the shop as it needed to be. And it was a darn good shop.
Yeah. Did you where did you find when you first got on that you were slow, like the the detail driven meticulous of the race car?
Did that kind of did you find yourself at a disadvantage trying to get some of the jobs done?
Like, was there an adjustment or did you just you had no issues getting the work done?
I know I don't think I had any issues getting the work.
The work done is even as a race car mechanic, I do. I just say sometimes we are in a crunch.
And if in between sessions, we're changing transmission, so we're doing that as fast as possible.
Right. They learn to work on a team as well. So, yeah, no, I don't.
I was not slowed or hampered by that at all. I think it actually helped quite a lot. I could do things.
Yeah, even now, the same way. And it just works for you. Just get faster at that.
Yeah, you develop a process, right? If you've if you've done that that repair or done that removal or whatever you want to call it, that component comes out.
If you have a process to do it, it's just like anything else. You're pretty fast with it, right?
That's how we all do. You know, I use tires example. That's how we all do tires so fast in the industry.
Right. Unless you're really fighting some, you know, giant ones that won't blow on the beat or yeah, or some really low profile stuff with not the best machine.
Because we just who hasn't done a million tires by the time they're 10 years into the trade, right?
Like you all have. And that's how you just your it's muscle memory. Right.
Like, well, that's good that you went into the flat rate thing. You had no issues. Made money.
Yeah, I made some money and, you know, starting out slow, work my way up and start working more and more.
And as we got to different service advisors as well, I wound up getting some better work back and more and more work back.
And yeah, I started going up and doing a lot better monetarily. Yeah.
It's a lot of experience. Yeah. It's a it's a some some and that's the thing.
That can be a big difference from one dealer to the next. How fast they progress you through. Right.
And I think it oftentimes more than not, it's just opportunities.
People, you know, leave a shop and they'll take a guy from like, you've seen it. I've seen it.
One minute you might be working in the service line just doing quick loops.
And the next minute you're like, OK, you're shadowing this foreman or they might give you a bay and go, OK, here's we're going to give you a bunch of recalls and some.
And before you know it, you're you're moving up pretty fast. Right. I've seen some I've seen some guys progress pretty quick.
Because it just they have an aptitude of being able to get that transmission out or, you know, those like that kind of stuff.
Jam the front end was really impressive to see some kids.
They could just they just seem like they took to it like it was instinct.
You know, Dyag was one of those things that like I haven't seen one yet that came in that had a natural aptitude for it.
You know what I mean? It was it's always it's such a process to learn.
But I mean, in terms of the nuts and bolts stuff, I saw some really talented young people just seem to take to it real quick.
Sometimes to the detriment because they just wanted to stay doing that.
You know, yeah, and then want to learn anything else.
They knew that and they could get money at that. And right now, my my gas and my rent is paid for and then some.
And that's it. And I can just keep doing that. Yeah.
I've seen transmission guys go that way, right?
They seem and in defense of that, I think it's such a specialized thing.
You know, the transmission thing, especially within one product line, that once you really learn it and learn it well.
Yeah, it's you get fast and you get good kind of at the same time.
And then it's just you're always and they're in such a demand, right, Chris, for that.
It's like it'd be really hard.
I've never seen a transmission guy stop being a transmission guy until physically his body, you know, the lifting is just too much the rest of the time.
It's like, well, what do you ever you need to stay doing transmissions?
We're going to make sure you get that right. Like it's whether it's money or whatever, because they're so valuable.
You know, it's not something that anybody in the dealer.
I mean, yeah, guys can take them in and out. Yep.
But, you know, if you've got to go in there and fix the damn thing and put it back in because warranty maybe isn't sending you a complete unit.
They're just sending you, oh, you're going to go and do a torque and a front pump.
Or you're going to do, you know, a third clutch.
Well, that's complete down tear down. Right.
Lots of guys can take the unit in and out the tear down and rebuild.
I can't do that. I would I'd be lying if I told anybody that I could.
I haven't done it since trade school. I have no interest in doing it.
It doesn't it doesn't interest me.
It's now we had the remember the GM front wheel drive.
Yeah. Automatic. So that's the only time I've had one apart and put back together.
And that was it.
Manual transmissions, I could take those apart. Yeah, we have taken them apart, rebuilt them in my sleep, especially Honda V series stuff.
I could literally done those at three in the morning and zero issues. Yeah.
Yeah. And but I mean, it's there. Yeah, they're a different thing, right?
It's it's I'm used to the I'm not used to it, but I mean, I understand the same thing.
A standard tranny inside. I understand that much better than I do.
Not that I don't understand the automatic stuff, but it's just like, yeah, there's a lot going on in there, right?
Whereas if you just sliding the gear up a shaft, my brain does better with that.
So, yeah. Yeah. So, well, so you were not specialized in the dealer then?
No, we were all pretty generalized. We were all like we were all capable of all doing the same kind of work.
And that's kind of the experience I've had at all the dealerships I've worked at. OK.
Up to this point is everyone's general. Everyone gets used to the same kind of work.
Like if you're doing, you know, back then they were doing the Civic engines for the cool, like the R18 engines.
Yeah. Everyone's getting their turn at doing one of those.
And when the piston ring recalls came out in the Odysseys, everyone's getting their turn at doing that.
This work sucks. You're all doing it. Yeah.
All that kind of thing. That way you don't have to rely on someone.
You know, someone's off for a week or two. Well, you can't not book that stuff in.
Exactly. Yeah. Yes. Everyone needs to be able to do the same work or understand what each other is doing as well.
Those repairs, I remember, like I didn't work in Honda, but I've seen the bulletins and everything else.
They're pretty in-depth what they tell you, how it has to get done. Right.
So, I mean, you know, it's if you can if you can wrench, you can get that job done right and done the way it's supposed to get done and have a successful repair.
You might be slow at it, but you can get it done. You know, and that's the key thing.
A lot of it when I saw specialized dealers, just like you said, and that's the thing I've found.
I saw specialized dealers, just like you said, and that's the thing I've seen is that dealerships as they get bigger, guys tend to it seems to naturally that people become specialized within it.
And I think that I don't know if that's a car count thing that drives it where, OK, like you're, you know, we're starting to see a rash of this problem electrically and you figured out the first one.
So now every time that customer comes in with that kind of complaint, we're going to have that guy look at it. Right.
That's I think how it goes. The problem, like you said, when it becomes specialized and it becomes specialized and there's a lot of that specialty, sometimes those guys really have and gals have the dealership by at a disadvantage because they know how.
How valuable they are to the day to day.
You know, if you're getting a ton of transmissions coming in, Nissan, hello.
And, you know, and Nissan doesn't rebuild, does not rebuild them, at least in Canada, we don't rebuild them much.
You know, it's straight R and R's, but I've seen I've talked to guys when I was at my Nissan tenure where they were in the dealerships in the States.
And when they started to roll out the rebuilding plan for them, which didn't work, the guys that did a lot of them became very specialized and high demand within the dealer.
And they were then used it to their advantage for a pay bump.
So that's what I saw within my experience of the dealership because we were in a big one in Ottawa, like 20 techs.
Guys were just naturally specialized.
And then what would happen is if, you know, your front end guy was gone, front end really slowed down in terms of getting the alignments done, getting in front of because he was gone on holidays.
He was off sick or whatever.
It really it's a different way of thinking about it, you know, and I other shops, I think they deal with it all the time.
I think even everybody doesn't realize sometimes how specialized anybody can be in a shop.
Even if you're not specialized, you might just be better at one thing than your coworkers.
So when you're still gone, there's still a gap there.
But I I'm on the fence of it whether people should specialize or not.
You know, I think it's if it's lucrative, you should if it's not lucrative.
Well, you know, maybe go to someplace that it is because I think it's I think we all are naturally predispositioned to certain things we do better than there.
Some guys read a wire diagram really good.
But if they had to rebuild the tranny, they'd suck.
That's me putting my hand up.
Other guys are really, really good at, you know, fast to do an engine.
But they struggle with reading a wire diagram, you know.
So I think specialty can be can be a plus.
So but you guys weren't.
Yeah, yeah, it certainly can be.
But I think, yeah, we always tried to everyone got whatever they got.
Yeah, we learned the product.
And if we're having problems, something ask anyone else in the shop and they they'd help.
There was I think six or seven of us that were licensed up there.
OK, and maybe three apprentices and a couple of lube jockeys because they had the quick lane down below, which is just oil changes.
So everything greater than an oil change came up top.
Right.
But we were all there to help each other, especially, let's say our shop foreman was Ken Nishitoba and Lottie, who was I think he'd been working there for probably about 15 years.
From Slovakia before that, like a bull just keeps on doing work.
But he's he's done everything and he can at least help guide you.
Yeah, you should. Very familiar with the product.
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
That's such a such an advantage when you spend a long tenure.
You know, you see a whole development, right, of the product from when it's a conception to when it's twelve, thirteen years old.
And it's, you know, on its last legs, you know it so well.
You know, I joke about the caravans, but I've seen when I worked there, I saw three different generations of caravans.
So, I mean, you get to know a caravan pretty good.
So still my favorite vehicle to work on by far.
Nothing even comes close.
So just a level of familiarity.
I mean, they're garbage. They really are.
They're hot garbage.
But they're making so much money.
Oh, this money makers.
Right. But Honda was like that back in the day, too.
Right. Like everybody I knew that had that worked in a Honda dealer, you couldn't get them to leave it.
Like it just seemed like the customers really love the cars.
Honda was very pro maintenance, very, you know, I don't want to say regimented, but it seemed like the people selling the car made it a point to say this thing has, you know, it's not your dad's Chevy.
It's a Honda and it needs to be maintained.
And here's the schedule and you should be doing it here.
And people just went, OK, great.
You know, I get a timing belt done.
And, you know, my ex, her grandparents were diehards.
I mean, they drove nothing but Honda's for like 25 years and they were all like first name basis with everybody in the dealership.
And it was just when it was there, they knew, OK, next year is going to be my they were booking their timing belt services like a year out.
Just so that, you know, they could definitely get it in and get it done.
They were that, you know, this was that important to them.
I wish every customer was like that.
So the Asian cars, very maintenance heavy, which is kind of good for a tech is guaranteed to get some work in as long as they do the maintenance.
But some people's don't get the maintenance thing of, you know, keeping the car running, just not just fixing what's broken, but keeping it from breaking on you in the first place.
But Honda's were so resilient back then, right?
You like they were a great car for people that even neglected them because they still would, you know, as long as you keep oil and just check the gas top up the oil and away you go.
Yeah. Yeah. Great cars.
Toyota's too great.
Nissan, not so much.
Mazda, not so much.
Mazda, not so much.
Mazda's the last, since they bought themselves out from Ford, at least has gone quite up.
We don't, at least in our little market here, we don't see a whole lot, especially under warranty.
We get the occasional cylinder head leak and right now we're dealing with valve seals on the turbo engines.
But, but not a whole lot, at least in our little market, because a lot of our customers are good with the maintenance and getting that done.
When did you, sorry, go ahead.
Except when you get some people that are new to the Asian cars and the heavy on the maintenance.
Like, well, I never had to do that with whatever I owned before.
No, no, no. Just, just because you didn't do it didn't mean you probably shouldn't have done it.
Right. Yeah.
But that's a argument for a different day with them.
You had a Chevy Cruze and then you go into like a, you know, a Honda or a Mazda.
Yeah. You don't do necessarily a lot of maintenance on a Chevy Cruze because it's a Chevy Cruze.
It's like going to be a pile no matter what you do to it. Right.
But, you know, order Civic or Camry or Corolla or something like that, they're worth doing the maintenance because, you know, back then, at least they build a car that could go a million.
Right. I don't know if GM's ever built a car that goes to a million trucks, maybe, but certainly not a car.
So you stayed at Honda for how long?
I think I was there until February of 2015.
I left there and went, I bought a house in the next town over Lindsay.
Yeah.
Then got myself a job at the, or an offer.
I kind of, I couldn't refuse at the Kia dealership there.
I mean, it was a five bucks an hour bump in pay.
Yeah.
And, you know, three minutes door to door.
So, I mean, it was hard, hard not to do that.
Yeah.
I missed the guys that I was working with.
Like, I was leaving with a heavy heart.
I was leaving with, I was leaving because I had a lot of personal issues that had kind of built up.
Yeah.
Which we can get to in a bit, which is the core of what's made me, I think, who I am now.
Okay.
As a tech, especially.
But yeah, for the five dollars an hour bumper and pay and the two minutes door to door.
Yeah.
And no weekends.
That was kind of a no brainer.
Yeah.
I graduated from Sanford, Fleming and Lindsay in like 1990.
Across campus.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So my brother might have been, no, he was at Trenton U probably a bit then.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Across campus after that.
So.
The town is a lot different now.
Lindsay from when I was there, a lot different.
So.
I think a lot of the small towns in this area, even that area are a lot different now.
Even Coburg now used to be like a nice, clean, quiet town.
And now it's just rife with the, you know, the drug-addled mess in the downtown.
Well, the city keeps getting bigger and people keep moving out, right?
It's the same, happened the same in Ottawa.
It's happening in my city too, right?
We're getting a lot of people moving east or west from the two big cities that I'm in the middle of, right?
Ottawa and Toronto.
And they wind up in Kingston.
Yeah.
So not that they're not welcome.
We're not trying to say that.
It's just, Lindsay was a cool, cool little town when I was there in, you know, late 90s.
And quiet, pretty, you know, and now I still have been back to Lindsay.
I was in Peterborough last summer.
That's where I bought my, I ended up buying my Wrangler there.
But even like Peterborough looked so different than I remember.
Yeah.
So it's changed, man.
Yeah.
How was that?
You probably didn't have any issues transferring from Honda to Mazda.
Nope.
I was saying when I went to Kio or Lindsay, I was at a Kio dealership.
That's right.
Yeah.
And now it's like Asian cars are Asian.
Yeah.
I say Asian cars are Asian cars.
You can only put so many things in so many places.
They're all mostly the same.
The only thing that changes is your service info a little bit.
And that's it really.
And the customer base changes a little bit, especially in Lindsay.
But yeah, we always had lots of work.
And the manager I knew from Honda, she had been a service advisor there and went to be the service manager at the Kio dealers.
So that was my end there.
She knew how it worked.
Right.
And the offer and that was that.
Yeah.
Different level of quality on a Kio versus a Honda though.
The way the car is.
Yeah.
Which sometimes brings in a different customer.
I found that they get a bad rap really key and high end day.
But I mean, for what you pay, you get a pretty good car.
I think, you know, like you're getting a lot crammed into that car nowadays for not a lot.
But I think the where that falls short is repairs at the end.
Some of their parts are ungodly expensive for almost no apparent reason.
Yeah.
And I think it's just a supply issue.
It seems like every time we need something from Kio or Hyundai dealer and it has to be a dealer.
It's like a week out before we can get it.
And then the same thing would be like you'll need a door latch and it's like 350 bucks.
And it's going to take a week to get there.
And you're like, it's a door latch for like a 14 sportage.
Right.
Like, I mean, why is it cost so much money?
Oh, just it is what it is.
OK.
And one for Mazda 3 is a buck and a quarter.
Imagine, eh?
How do I make that work?
Something.
Yeah.
So when you talk about the what made you the kind of tech that you are, you're not just speaking about the race car thing.
Then do you want to elaborate on that?
That's kind of the core of me being here, maybe call it a bit of a therapy session.
But I mean, in the last, mostly in the last four to five years, I've changed as a person, I've changed, which I think has also helped change me as a mechanic, not just by, you know, according to how I work on the car and the work ethic and whatnot, but it's just my attitude to the industry as well.
Right.
As like when I first started as a licensed SAC at the Honda dealer in 2013, I gave myself five years and like I'm doing this.
I got to get out. I don't like the industry.
But mostly I realize nowadays what I mostly what I don't like or didn't like was myself.
I've hated myself and I've had a lot of issues with dealing with people and being pushed around and being overshadowed and like brought down.
But that's ever since I was a little kid.
Right.
And, you know, always feeling different and feeling, let's say, just beat down and kept aside.
So I've always have kept to myself, you know, up until meeting my wife and starting a family, you know, a couple of weeks before that, I'd have sold my house, sold everything I had and been glad to move to the middle of nowhere.
Right.
And not talk to anyone, get out of the industry, get out of life in general.
And and, you know, since having the family, well, now I've got to provide for them.
I've got two kids, but just just after the birth of our first kid.
Sorry. No, struggling for a word here.
Thoughts.
Sorry, my wife was looking at our son thinking something might be like slightly off.
Then like he's a little delayed here and there.
Right now he's like a happy, wonderful child.
Right.
But as we get along, he's missing some marks.
What not that I'm but I'm looking at him thinking, is that the wrong?
He's me.
Yeah. Yeah.
And I'm I'm sitting there literally looking at a carbon copy of myself.
And as we find out years, a couple of years later, is even I'm thinking, yeah, I'm I don't want to admit that it's something's off.
And because that's it also be admitting that something's off with me.
But as we get him, we got him tested and he's has ASD, which is autism spectrum disorder.
Yeah.
Which nowadays that's I don't want to say fairly common, but it's very well known, very able to deal with and whatnot.
I know.
Yeah, I know so many mechanics in the industry.
So many with that are either on it or have children that are on and in it, whatever is how are you supposed to say?
And from varying, varying different levels.
And it's it's fascinating to see how it's just another thing that we in this industry have in common.
Right.
And that we can kind of find support with, you know.
Yeah. That's probably where a lot of the attention to detail can come into the focus on stuff.
And that's where it clicks in your head.
Yeah. Yeah.
But you don't realize it until later on.
But as I'm watching my son run around like that's me.
And then I realized, well, that's back in the 80s.
Yeah.
Growing up as a kid, because I'm I'll be 40 here in a couple of weeks that you know, AST almost didn't exist.
You were Asperger's or non-functioning.
A lot of that didn't exist.
You were just a troubled child or shy or.
Yeah.
Hyper, too much sugar.
Yeah. Your diet was all wrong.
That's what we used to say.
Like when we had super hyperactive kids when I was coming up, we always just all their their parents just load them up on sugar and then send them to school.
It didn't matter what they ate.
They were just hyper.
Lucas is a hyper hyper person.
And then David is is completely opposite.
David is you want to talk about a guy that understands detail and thinks on a on a different level?
That's him.
The two of them together.
It's a magic couple.
They are phenomenal together and what they achieve.
But it's so neat to see how they're so different.
Right. Like so cool.
I don't I mean, it's I'm just starting to to meet more people that that their children have it right.
And it's fascinating to me to see it, you know, because it's like I mean, I've even 30 years ago, they would have said, well, you just you know, you spank that out of the kid.
Right.
We know that you can't do that.
It doesn't work that way.
It's no.
No, no.
And yeah, you were either a troubled child or in school.
They would just pass you on to the next teacher and on to the next teacher and on to the next teacher and try and pass you through.
And, you know, but realizing that now that's looking at him, that's why I was the way I was and how I felt all through life.
And once I realized, you know, really accept that, I was like, I was kind of a weight off my shoulder.
I've got a reason now, you know, you always look, you get a troubled car.
It's not like a bag of hammers.
Go to this electric problem.
You want to dig for that problem.
And that was I dug for that problem and it cropped up.
And so it becomes a superpower for you then really instead of a hindrance.
Right.
If you'd learn how to direct it, it's a strength.
It does.
And that's exactly what I've been able to do the last few years, especially in, you know, turn my life around.
Like when I started, once I moved down to the Mazda dealer, I was, you know, I was a bit of an asshole.
I had an attitude, but I had, you know, anger outbursts and whatnot.
But I've had those, you know, the last 30 years before that.
And now, now knowing why or having a bit of a reasoning to it, I've had an attitude change and I've had the personality change click in me and like, all right, let's, let's work with this.
Let's, let's change this now.
And it's been a good, I think I've been there six years.
So at least the last, well, since four, since four now, the last four years have been like really good.
And so once you learn to come in this.
Yeah.
Once you learn how to harness it then, right, you can kind of, you can get control of it and, and, and, and use it to your, I don't want to say your advantage.
Right.
And you can, you can kind of get on that wave set waveform of mindset and, and then knock out some pretty complicated stuff, right.
When you're detail oriented like that, I'm not, I, I'm, am I detail oriented somewhat, but I'm still of like, you know, that, okay, I don't really care.
I just need to get it done.
Right.
That's more my mentality.
Close enough.
Yeah.
But it's just, I'm, you know, as I've done this so long now, I can still remember what I did to fix it, but I don't necessarily even remember why.
I just remember my body clinks to that symptom, that sound, whatever.
I immediately go to that part of the car, really quickly check if it's the exact same thing that I can remember from my memory bank.
And then most of the time it is, you know, so it's not detail driven that way.
It's detail that I can remember details, but I don't think about it like detail process.
You know what I mean?
So I remember the detail that failed, but you know, my whole process is not detailed process.
It's like throw a whole bunch of things at the board and see what sticks.
So in a roundabout way, that's not, it's just, I've told people all the time, like, you know, if you watch me diagnose a car, you'd be like, oh my God, how does he get anything done?
But it's just, it's a, I can't describe it.
It's just, it's a lot of intuition and a lot of, I spend a lot of time looking at data and wiring before I tend to even put a tool on a car.
So I spend so much time looking at data now, not as much as probably some of the other guys, because I don't get as much of that work.
But even on a diagnostic, I'll stare at the scanner for 40 minutes.
People go 40 minutes, but yeah, that, you know, why I need to, if the scanner will tell me what it's doing, I don't have to rip that corner of the harness out.
You know what I mean?
If the scanner is like, and it's just little things like that.
And I work with other guys and they immediately go to the component, flip it over, look at it, unplug it, whatever.
Oh, there's no green goo there.
And it goes somewhere else.
I'm looking at the scanner go all the time or whatever going, okay, well, it's that's normal.
That's working.
I don't even need to go touch that.
You know what I mean?
Go somewhere else.
Yeah, move on.
You've already checked that off.
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
So it's, but it's, it's such an intuition thing for me and an emotion thing that sometimes are like, you know, you're 20 minutes ago, you're at the back of the car and now you're at the front.
Yeah, I know.
But I'm just like, I got a hunch.
So don't be like me is what I'm trying to say.
Be more detailed.
So, yeah, so you kind of just got comfortable with it.
And then so how did your skills really improve?
Or is it fair to say they did?
I think they have.
I mean, the actual ground, as I call it, ground and pound working on cars, being doing brakes, doing suspension.
That's what I always did find that I did struggle with, especially electrical dikes.
I love them.
I felt I sucked at them.
It took forever and never quite knew where to go.
And I was actually working on one of our problem cars at Mazda, like our service info wasn't really helping with the symptoms.
And do the classic YouTube.
And of course, I came across a scanner banner video.
Yeah, exactly.
The car was working on exactly the problem.
It was a bit of a silver bullet, but that opened my mind to what the hell have I been doing?
Like, I, I know nothing and I need to know more.
So I can't get into that.
I know nothing and I need to know more.
So I can.
Can you reference what car was and what video it was?
I'm as the three.
I was a tow in.
They had as a tow in from an auction car or something.
And it was the rotted out ground on the PCM relay, which nowadays I go.
I've done quite a few of those now to repair it like, oh, yeah, it's it's that.
I've also done as he did tested the women tested and exactly as it did like that's it.
And that's when that kind of set off the fire in me to all right, I don't know as much as I should.
And I want to know a lot more and that will help me be a even better technician and does a better asset to myself and the company.
Yeah, because I snowballed from there.
I find that and you might find it too.
Right. Like Paul is huge in the industry.
Right. I mean, we can't say that enough.
He gets mad. I mentioned him.
It seems like just about every video.
But I mean, he's just that he's had that much of an effect.
But what's weird with Paul is that there's not like the guys that seem to work on all makes and models know Paul.
But a lot of the dealership guys, right, if I talk to my dealership friends, maybe only half of them know about Paul.
Right. Because it's a different way of thinking.
Right. The dealership we pattern failure and you might know a guy on YouTube that is a dealer tech and he's, you know, not killing it.
So you tend to follow him.
But you're not interested.
Some dealer techs are not interested in other makes other models.
They don't care. Right.
I'm just here to make my money and show me how to fix my car faster.
I make more money.
What I was the same way.
I didn't find Paul until I was after I was out of the dealership.
And and then I've gone back into the dealership and out again and in and again.
And what he everything that he has ever taught transfers to anything you ever work on.
That's the beauty of Paul. Right.
So it does. I think it seeing him and then even that video then watching as much as I possibly could on YouTube until I bought a subscription.
Yeah.
To the premium.
That kind of saved my career as a technician.
I think that drove me further and like I need to know more.
And as I said, it applies to everything.
It applies our Mazda's.
We have a used car department.
We're running out of Mazda's to sell.
We got nothing.
We're getting Toyotas and Dodges and you name it coming in.
I got to work on them.
Yeah. I got to fix them so we can sell them.
So I got to know how to work on those.
Isn't it amazing?
Isn't it amazing though?
You're almost like I want to say probably a master level like OE trained technician.
Right. But a guy like Paul and his platform can and it's not just you.
It's countless thousands of guys exactly like yourself.
They see one of his videos and then they realize there's more levels to this.
I can level up in my in my abilities and my like it's so.
We'll never say enough about what he's done for the industry.
He doesn't realize that he has an idea, but he doesn't realize he's too humble.
But that's what's so amazing.
Right. Is when I meet guys like yourself and other people and they talk they talk about him.
It's the same thing.
They were excellent mechanics.
Right. On that product line.
And then he's still able to teach them.
You're trained by how the OE wants you trained.
Right. You do it the way the OE wants you to do it.
And then you meet a guy like him and he turned totally turns the world upside down with showing you how to do it so much faster, so much more efficient.
Right. And you don't even think about it because you just you know I read the flow chart and I do the testing the way they want and all that kind of stuff.
What he's been able to teach us has like made us all so much better.
You know. Yeah.
So that was you too.
Yeah. Absolutely.
Absolutely. That's like I was you know at the Mass Dealer you know learning the business learning the bit of the front like the service end of things from the management point.
I was trying to work in my way because I not work in my way there but trying to understand more of the management end of things so that I can be a bit more of a better shop foreman here in a few years as we as we grow and can move myself off the flat rate.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's helped me just as a tech so so much.
Yeah, it gives gives you direction.
Right.
Yeah. Direction you didn't even know.
And ways of thinking.
Yeah. As well as some better ways of thinking about things and now they can ask me a problem there like well check this and this and this and go off and check it.
Oh yeah.
It's around that.
This is a it's now second nature.
Yeah. Yeah.
And we all think that we have good fundamentals.
And then you go spend a whole bunch of hours with him and you realize that your fundamentals are not that good.
You know like his fundamentals are phenomenal.
And then other people's like that he's taught and has such a huge influence on their fundamentals are phenomenal.
Right.
But it did it all comes back to it's just fundamentals.
He keeps saying that it doesn't matter what you're working on.
It's that all friggin works just about the same.
You know if you if you learn it you learn it like his his video that just dropped.
He's talking about like an E for ignition system on a Ford like an old old Ford and yet all the principles for an ignition system are in that video.
And he's like he's you know and then he goes further.
It's like I saw that with lab scope where guys start talking about how if you were good at reading ignition waveforms on a lab scope then you start to lab scope more and more because you get comfortable with the tool and you know a pin will hop on an injector.
You can kind of think it's similar to a coil oscillation.
And before you know it you're just you're comfortable.
You know it's it's so cool that way like he's just he's the gift that will never be able to repay back.
And it just keeps on giving. God bless him.
No.
Yeah.
That could have made me look I used to or never used to look at the other car videos and now that's pretty well I do get home at night and watching either some scanner dinner or South Main Auto or Super Mario.
Yeah.
Then go to bed.
Yeah and start again.
Super Mario there's over again.
Yeah Super Mario there's another cat that is just on another level like he's just.
And he's he's humble as heck too like he's he doesn't think he's anything special he's very special very special so yeah.
And it's so it's that's what I love about YouTube because I say the same thing if it wasn't for social media and it wasn't for YouTube I still wouldn't be doing this not even close.
I'd be doing something completely I'd have checked out 10 years ago.
You know it found me at the right time when I was stagnant and like yourself I was starting to get an attitude.
Just unhappy I was ground down from the from what it does to you right of always trying to make hours and production and all that kind of stuff.
Then if I hadn't have found a couple Facebook groups where I could just network with other people and if I hadn't found Paul to show me really what I didn't know.
You know and how to become better and give me because it was through what I learned from him that gave me the confidence to to keep doing this because in a very short period of time I learned from him.
That a lot of people weren't didn't know what he was teaching right they'd always gotten by the other way with an identifixers you know parts canon and I learned how to actually test things from him and then then my attitude.
Improved but my ego got worse you know what I mean because then I was like I don't care that you're 55 and I'm 35 you couldn't fix that car and I could so you know away with you you peasant.
And and it's so I owe I owe so much to to social media right and and to to him and to that to that platform you know it's been it's been the best thing that has happened to this industry without fail.
Guys hate it I I YouTube and me sometimes I'm tired of seeing people you know teach customers sorry teach the public how to fix their own car I'm not behind that I know what I won't will be or I never will be but man the there's no excuse for not knowing how something works because you've got a free.
It's like having a free encyclopedia to the whole world at your fingertips on how something works and how to like it's just amazing it's an amazing tool use it properly people absolutely is.
Absolutely is.
Yeah.
So so what do you have an exit strategy like you're talking about you understanding the the business side of it a little more I find that the more I network with owners and the more I network with advisors.
And it's not necessarily an exit strategy but it's helped me be a better mechanic because I understand better why you know things have to be done a certain way or why sometimes we only have the money you know that the time restraints that we have right we don't we understand it better I appreciate it better.
It's there's it's still a very strange relationship for sure but is that it's kind of what you want to is that your exit strategy is to get you talked about you're the foreman now right.
Yeah I'm you know for.
I say lack of better term I am the fore foreman of our shop and given that we only have four people.
I am responsible for the back half.
Right.
I'm teaching the techs early apprentices you know guiding them on their work helping them with their work.
Same.
Yeah, showing them the ropes and help them with stuff.
Trying to teach them things the right way.
And with our young tech as well.
He's asking questions I'm answering as best I can.
And we're in the process down I also talk with our hunter guy some of our other reps and deal with broken equipment in the back.
Yeah, I mean, all that was still trying to make my hours.
It's always gets a little strain but yeah it does still works in my favor.
Quite a bit because they know up front what I'm doing.
And they understand the strain of that so I do.
And as I've been my 20 years experience, I do get a lot more of the bigger jobs as I am more capable of doing that.
We do need to feed our you know feed some of those to the younger tech and get him experienced but get him experienced the right way when he's comfortable doing it.
And when we have the time to afford that as well.
So he doesn't get absolutely drowned underwater on a big job and loses but you know flat rate you want to be able to get them on some of the bigger jobs when they can learn to do it right.
Be meticulous about it.
You know, see the shortcuts, see the process and they're not so focused on my god like this is only paying eight hours.
I started on Monday.
It's Thursday.
You know what I mean?
Jots like that.
That's everybody.
Every flat rate tech has a memory like that where it was like they knew that that engine re and re was only going to pay 12 hours and they started on Monday morning and they were in the worst week of their life.
And they fired it up on Thursday afternoon.
Right. And then they're just like they're just you're so at that point you're just like feels like you're chewing nails.
You know it's a terrible feeling in there.
But you know we're always told well you make it up on the next one.
Right.
So that's because I was going to ask you so you're still you're still flat rate as a foreman.
Yeah, I am still flat rate as a as a form of this.
You know as we hopefully grow the way we want to in the next couple of years, the ideas for me to move to a salary position so it's not as a strain.
Yeah, yeah.
They look after you by the sounds of it right like they give you some work that you can knock out really fast to keep your hours up because you're pulled away a lot to help and mentor.
Yeah, no they they absolutely do. It's been great.
It's a we've developed a really good relationship with our service advisor service manager who's like even just a few years longer than I am.
Right.
And we have a new within the last, I want to say four or five years part or a new half owner slash general manager who he understands our plight a lot better than some others.
So he he gets us he lets us kind of rule that roost as we need to and we get stuff done we make a lot.
Let me ask you a question kind of a too far question.
Do you think a service manager like has to have been attacked to be a good service manager?
I'd say not necessarily.
It would certainly help.
Okay.
Okay.
In our case, I think he our service manager, I think he went through the first year, but then dropped out as that I think he dropped out of the program.
Right.
His dad was a only recently retired from the Toyota dealership in our town, and also had a side business so in the evenings.
He was working on other customer cars and our service manager being his son, you know, as a 1012 16 year old kid.
Pushing cars in and out and helping them work on the mat night so he had a very good working knowledge of how cars work and he can work on cars.
Yeah.
You know, for a slam he'll bring a car in and do an oil change or put on some gloves and help rock out a brake service or brake replacement, you know, whatever he needs to.
Yeah, because it's I've seen foreman's wind up as managers.
Right.
And then, but I've also worked for guys that they hadn't been like they're a manager but they hadn't turned a wrench on a car in 20 some years.
You know, and I think that there was at that point that becomes a disconnect right the foreman that becomes a manager like yourself.
It's not that it's not ancient history right like it when if you if you make it to that role a manager and get and move past the foreman role, it won't be that far removed but I've seen some managers like I said, it been 20 years since they'd been a wrench that they, you know, and they were definitely disconnected.
Definitely disconnected.
Why is that brake job taking that long and whereas if you were a recent tech you know why it's taking.
That's something you can at least work around them or help them out with that rather than saying, get it done now, get it done now.
Because it's got electronic parking brakes on it and they're not working the way it's supposed to to get me into the service mode.
That's why it's taken so long.
Like, and then they go, huh?
Like, yeah, because the only understanding you have it is that you push the button and that's how the parking brake works like you've never actually had to physically see, you know what's going on and you're trying not to break the module and so on and so forth or you're having to, you know, the scan tool won't communicate so now you got to find a fuse and you know customer just want to break job done and then you realize that like the things you can't do the brake job because you can't get the parking brake to work.
Stuff like that is completely lost on them.
So it's just like for them it's another work order and it's another why didn't it go right to you?
It's you knew from, you know, the jump that it was going to be a bugger and sometimes you don't get the help with that, right?
The only understanding.
That's the disconnect when I speak of it.
That's what drives me crazy.
So yeah, that can be.
That is certainly not a case of where I am right now.
I would say he's, they'll jump in and work on a helping get that brake job out.
He's helped me, you know, after doing a valve seal job, got to pull in a four wheel brake job and you know the two of us crank that out in under an hour.
So we have a very good working relationship.
That's fantastic.
That's for the guys that are listening and you know there's a lot of owners and a lot of managers and shops that do that same thing.
But, you know, if you're if you're not, you know, maybe maybe give it a whirl sometimes.
I think I've heard of different shops and different dealerships and they've had the process where you shadow somebody a completely different department for a day or a week or whatever.
Right.
And I used to think, oh, hell, that would be a that'd be torture.
But I think it would really be good because I mean if you took somebody that had been a manager but never actually have been a wrench, right, they're just a management, their HR skills are phenomenal, whatever you want to call it.
But they never wrenched on a car.
Well, imagine them being in the in the service base for a week watching what gets done and how it gets done.
I can't think that there's any possible way they don't come away with a much better appreciation for what's going on.
Same as like really good tech should spend a week as an advisor shadowing that.
Then you're going to really understand how what a grind that job is because some days you don't get one person that even wants to smile at you.
Everybody's mad. Everybody's PO'd. Everybody's cranked because the car is broken under warranty and oh, God, like, you know, it's such an inconvenience and blah, blah, blah.
But you know what I mean? It helps you appreciate that sometimes why the relationships are so strained sometimes between an advisor and a tech and an advisor and you know, you understand it better.
We've got an upcoming guest, Chris Craig from TikTok. I don't know if you're on TikTok or not, but he's the service advisor that's famous on TikTok for having these conversations with himself playing two different roles, technician advisor, about, you know,
can you not just do it for three tenths or free or whatever? Well, he was a fantastic episode because when you hear his backstory and you hear his trials, what he went through, you forget he's an advisor and he's not like he he's got all the same plight, all the same problems that mechanics went through.
He's just working a different role. It was really good to talk to him and everybody's going to love that episode when it comes up.
But I wish now that my shop is so small, I don't really have, you know, I talk to a lot of customers, a lot, a lot of them come in and they just hand me the keys and I don't even go see the manager that just tell me and then I hand it off to him.
And I bought, I wish back in the day, maybe when I was in a bigger dealership that I'd spent more time actually if I'd had that opportunity to shadow them for three or four days and what I really understood better, been more sympathetic to what they go through.
Yeah, it's a different role, especially if you're in a bigger metropolitan area. Like I say with us, you know, our town is 20,000 people in this town and that's just enough people in a town for me.
Yeah.
But with our dealership being so small now, I am also, I'm usually up talking with the customers, especially nowadays and with my changed role.
Yeah.
At least with our, we have one advisor and a parts person slash sometimes advisor and our service manager and that's all we have for front staff.
Yep.
And, but they're always back.
You know, we just, I'm always discussing with their service advisor, you know, why I'm recommending this eat.
But doing it long enough together, he knows exactly why.
Yeah.
My reason is always on the back of my work order, but he knows why I'm calling something because we know each other so well.
Yeah.
And, you know, I'm not calling anything it doesn't need and he can sell it the way it needs to be sold because small town, you know, bad news travels or good news travels bad news travels faster.
Yeah, if you're here, the good.
No, no, never hear about a good thing ever fucking did but heaven forbid you left one smudge on someone's front bumper or something.
If you did the job right, that was just your job and it wasn't worth celebrating or bragging about right telling everybody.
But if you do it wrong, oh my God, the whole world's gonna know about it.
You know, like it's just, I've never understood that and I'm not to say that some people don't brag about us.
They do.
But I mean, there's more the attitude of, well, of course they did the job right.
That's their effing job.
You know, but oh my God, they moved, they changed my radio preset or, you know, or they changed my battery and didn't program my radio presets back in.
I'm going on the internet immediately and complaining about because now it's going to take me five more minutes to put all those presets.
And if you're that if your life is so easy, that's the one thing that's going to cause you so much stress.
I would love to be in your shoes for that.
The worst thing that happened to you is presets lost on the radio.
Yeah, tough.
They'll always get the survey.
Are they always the ones that get the survey?
Yeah, exactly.
Oh, they're looking for it, Christopher.
They're looking for it, right?
They just they're just looking.
They're checking emails.
Why don't I get in that survey?
Why don't I get in that survey?
Like they're going to hear about me, them sons of bitches.
Yeah, that's we could go down a whole rant about that.
How I think CSI is just a dangling carrot and it's never going to, you know, So those are the ones that are usually always there for the free coffee, the free Wi-Fi, the warranty work and the plow your survey.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
And that's the problem.
I mean, it's if it if we didn't have to sell cars to those people, if we only had to work on them, it'd be great.
But the motivation is to keep them happy so they buy another one.
And, you know, I don't make money off car sales.
I make money off of fixing cars when I was at the dealer.
And that's what I always used to say.
So they can slam the survey.
I get it.
But if I fix the car and they slam the survey, because that's the other thing.
They slam the survey over such stupid things.
I've seen it.
You know, coffee in the waiting room tasted terrible.
There's a Tim Hortons right across the parking lot.
Like, why are you drinking our coffee when you go to drink Tim Hortons?
Right.
You know, Starbucks is too far away.
First world problems.
I know it's rough.
So is that do you want to become a service manager?
Is that the?
No, I. I think I'd probably not.
I don't think I'd be the best at being a service manager and having to deal with all that he deals with.
I know he deals with far more than I'd ever care to.
Yeah, I do like the wrenching.
I do like the fixing the cars and working with that.
So I don't mind working with the techs as well and teaching them.
But I think I'd probably wind up just doing that until I buy a house in the countryside and build my own little garage and eventually retire away to doing that.
Yeah.
So can I understand then that that's like you might want to be a business owner in the future?
Probably.
It's been a consideration here in the neck and last little bit, but that probably wouldn't be for another 10, 10, 15 years or so.
Yeah.
Until the kids are old enough and not as expensive.
And yeah, who knows what the cars will be like in 10 more years.
That's just that's the thing.
You know, I'm 48, so I definitely intend to be just about done in 10 years of working on cars.
Body won't handle it.
But even like I just when I think about wherever we're going with the technology and the people that will slam surveys, I can't even imagine what they're going to slam a survey on 10 years from now.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like, it's going to be a completely different thing.
Completely different.
So it's the surveys kill it.
They really do.
They take the fun away.
Ours are pretty good here, but that's again, they're a small town and they're literally my neighbors.
Yeah.
I live here, work here, and I think the four doors down from my house is one of our customers.
And my mother and my mother-in-law are customers as well.
Right.
Yeah. So hopefully not always necessarily the mother-in-law, but the mother you always hope is a good review, right?
Like your mom should give you a good review.
Mother-in-law maybe not every time, but you know, she's not she loves me.
Yeah, that's good.
That helps.
When you say moving, where are you thinking of moving?
Like, oh, more countryside.
So like if, you know, our area, so there's Colbert and Colbert and then kind of Kraft and then the middle or Baltimore, a little north somewhere, somewhere in the vicinity of Colbert because my family is still here.
Right.
The main laws are here and that's where our core support is and all our friends are.
At first I was thinking maybe you were thinking something really desolate like up in the Yukon or something like that, but you know.
Nah.
It's cold up there.
Maybe one of the babysitters nearby.
Yeah, my I keep thinking, making the joke that like when I'm done, I'm just going to buy an RV and I'm going to put a boat on the back of it.
And I'm going to head south for the summertime.
And when the weather is nice up here, I'll come back up here and fish Lake Ontario and the Great Lakes up here.
But once that weather starts to change again, I'll be in Florida or Texas somewhere warm and I'll just keep fishing all year long.
Won't make any money. I'll be a hobo. I'll be living like a Wal-Martian.
The Walmart parking lot for the boat and tow.
I came home, I drive past one every night when I leave the shop and come past and there had to be like 20 RVs in the parking lot of Walmart.
And Kingston here and I was like, wow.
Like, you know, do they travel together or like, you know.
Yeah, we should have quite a few at the one here.
I think they actually had to put a notice sometimes for no overnight parking because they were getting, you know, six or seven of the damn things.
And it's a fairly big Walmart, but it ain't that big.
Well, that's the thing. Like I knew one that's like we had actually a former employee of the shop and she totally intended to let her apartment go in May.
And she was just going to park the RV that she bought.
In the Walmart parking lot. That's where she's going to live.
Like October when it got cold again.
So, I mean, when I think when they're posting, like what they're saying with no overnight parking is they're really saying no squatting, right?
Like, we don't mind if you were just passing through and you're here one night, maybe two.
But this isn't your now. Don't put it down as your mailing address or shit like that.
You ain't got to go home, but you can't stay here.
That's right. That's right. So.
What is there anything about the product you really don't like?
Not really. Before I started working at Mazda, I never actually really thought about Mazda.
I could almost never remember that it was a manufacturer until I started here.
How I got the job down here is an old friend, a former friend of mine, but I was an apprentice with at Cobra Konda.
I was a technician at the Mazda dealer and they were looking for a tech and we'd been talking.
I was thinking about moving back down this way, living in Lindsay.
My family's down here and I started dating someone that was down here.
And we were thinking of moving in together.
So I got the job down here, sold my house up here and or up in Lindsay, moved down here and didn't have an interview.
I just sent in my resume and you want the job? OK, sure.
We trust that we trust the other guy's judgment. OK.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But otherwise, the product, you don't mind that you like it like it's nothing really about the product.
No, not really. It's it's an up and coming product.
I think the only say up and coming, it's been around for quite a while and it's just getting better and better, especially after the 40 years.
Yeah. Making a name for itself and a product is getting really, really good.
Like mechanically and technically, they're getting very good. We see very little problems in our area.
Yeah, I think the only problem is really zero. People leave the batteries dead too long and they're in comparison for two weeks.
Well, why did that happen? Well, you left it there for two weeks in your garage while you were not going anywhere.
Yeah, it has to be used. Yeah, for sure.
No, I used to say all the time, right? Like Mazda always had that stigma, you know, like, oh, it's not a Honda and it's not a Toyota.
Right. So it was like it was as far as Asian was like third ranked.
And I can tell you that to work it on Nissan, Mazda clips that all day long.
It's such a better, well-built product than Nissan.
I fucking hate Nissan's. I just finished a clutch job in a front in a 17 frontier.
So that's like so it's taking me a day and a bit like off and on and off and on.
And I wanted to hang myself.
I worked on this. There's nothing wanted to come out is a 17 with 60K on it and everything rusted on it.
They rust terrible, rust terrible, awful.
Just like three hours trying to get the exhaust off it.
Yeah, because nothing would come loose. Nothing's accessible.
And I hate myself for having to do it.
And that's a better frontier to buy because it doesn't have a CVT in it.
Right.
It's a this is a six is a four liter six speed all wheel drive for a four wheel drive.
Good truck for for an Nissan as far as Nissan trucks go. It's a good truck.
I don't know how they blew the clutch up in it, but that's that's their problem.
68 made it the clutch probably taking the 25 foot boat out of the ramp.
I'll say they're trying to go somewhere that a Jeep can go.
That's what they're doing.
That's what I'd meet. I'd meet the people.
You know, you never saw too many Nissan's in the trail.
And like, why is that? Because they only look like they can go there.
They really can't. It won't hold up.
So you'll come out really broken if you go down the trails.
You know, and I mean, I I talk a lot of crap on the product, but I mean, I earn that right to talk on it because I worked on it long enough.
And I'm like, yeah, there's no hope.
There's no hope. They're saying that they're they're finally done with CVT.
They're going to go back to a as traditional as an automatic as they can possibly make.
I think it's now eight speed, you know, which maybe eight speeds in an automatic is too many with the way Ford and everyone else is having issues with their transmissions.
But I mean, it'll be interesting because they I've said that for years.
They build a really good engine in terms of durable.
We saw lots of them come in, no oil in them, no cooling in them, put it on coolant back in to fix it.
And it was fine. But the transmission was just junk.
It didn't matter what you did. You could you could service the damn thing every 20,000 K.
It just will not make it to 150 without needing the 20.
It's just awful. And the automatics, even when they were building before the CVT's on the frontiers,
they had such crappy radiators in them that they would just make a milkshake of the transmission fluid with the cooler.
And what would happen is if you caught it early enough, it was good.
But we would see countless ones come in that had a brand new transmission in it.
And it was already starting to slip again. And the coolant levels down again.
And if you caught it early enough, but do you think so many like a lot of shops didn't catch that?
And then all of a sudden, that customer's like, well, these transmissions are terrible.
Well, no, really, what was the problem was the radiator.
You try to explain that to the customer like, what do you mean the radiator? Well, it mixed it.
And they're not like, listen, if I saw told you how many neons I saw make a milkshake of the transmission fluid, you'd believe me because they're they all did it eventually.
But, you know, it is too. Yeah. But it's oh, my God. Right.
Like every Pathfinder out there just can't keep transmissions in it.
Well, if you would stop, you know, because you don't see the coolant leaking on the ground, you assume your radiator is still good.
If you actually just went and changed your radio when you did your transmission, that next transmission would last.
But, you know, customers don't. We had it on as we get that quite a lot with the milkshake in the tranny.
But change it, the radiator flushed it out, flush it out.
Then it was good to go with the tranny. It's never ever a problem in there.
Wow. The cooler is blowing up.
We tend to cut them just in time, like get a bit of a drivability problem.
Oh, yeah. Need a radiator and a tranny flush.
And there you go. So what do you when you have young people coming into your shop and young people, what do you tell them about this industry?
As we were just talking, there's the whole point of this, you know, yeah, five, ten years ago, I said, don't fucking do it.
Now it's like I tell both very young apprentices, especially our one that's going to his second year, who's done the OEM program.
I see him as me. I was like, you can make a good living at this.
I see a lot of him in me. Like he's got the aptitude to be able to do it.
He's made some dumb mistakes, but we all do.
Just not thinking far enough ahead and not done with far enough ahead to think far enough ahead.
I was like, do this. So we've had co-op kids in too.
And I saw them like, if this is something you want to do, you can do it.
I would wholly endorse this so long as you're in it for the right reasons.
Right. Right. Do you think that's a better move for the young people is that they go towards a dealership versus an independent?
I know that's maybe a tough question.
Yeah, very tough question for me because my independent days were a long time ago, and that was in my early days where I don't remember a whole lot.
Right.
I think it's probably because I've lucked out at the dealerships that I've been at, that they've been running really well, and we've had a good team.
I know there's complete chaos dealers out there that you wouldn't want to go within 20 square miles of, but that's a very difficult answer or a question for me to answer.
I would say I go to a dealer being in our area, but if you go to my dealer or the one next door, then you're good.
Most of the other dealers in the town probably wouldn't recommend as much.
Right. Yeah. It's still very much the culture of the shop.
I've said it all before, people that know my story.
If I hadn't made the move from the independent to the dealer way back in 2001, I wouldn't have made it in the industry.
I just couldn't make enough money.
The independent wanted me, they just didn't pay enough.
Their money wasn't there.
They wanted to pay me $11 an hour, and I was a fourth-year apprentice.
I had a ton of tool debt.
I'd worked at a truck shop like two years before that where I was making $16 an hour.
So all the starters, electrical, all that stuff that I could do on a truck that applied to a car, but all of a sudden I'm back to being an $11 an hour lube kid, tire kid, perform safety inspections like tear all it down so the other guy can come over and look at it, say, hear your name, put it back together, right?
Because we were doing safety inspections for not enough labor, so you couldn't have him tied up on it.
If I hadn't taken the job of the dealer, I don't know what I'd be doing right now.
I don't know.
So the dealer is not, we have a lot of people come in and it seems like it's a real negative about the dealer.
And I'm not going to say one person should do one or the other, but I will say that if it hadn't been for me, I wouldn't have made it in the industry.
I wouldn't have made it.
So I got a lot of bad habits from the dealership.
I got a lot of jaded ideas.
It ground me out.
I'll never go back to one.
But there was something to be said for only having to learn one product and becoming very good at that product and working with a lot of people that were very familiar with that product.
That's the advantage.
The culture, like you said, you're in a good shop with great culture.
You can be in a dealer with crap culture.
I've been in those too.
I've seen independent shops with great culture.
I've seen independent shops with terrible culture.
So the culture is more important than whether you're a dealer and independent.
Yeah, that's what I've strived for at making our dealership that way.
I mean, it had a pretty good culture as it was, but now I'm trying to further that, especially with their young apprentices coming in, making it a good experience for them.
So they're not just pushing a broom around and just do it all changes.
They're calling it suspension work.
They're doing it.
They're calling it break work.
They're doing it.
That's the key, right?
I mean, we're already in a shortage.
So we're in a shortage of people that are leaving, and we're in a shortage of it's not the most enticing thing that people want when they think about what they want to have their children do as a career or, you know, do they pick that as a job?
Like you said, you only wanted to do it for five years, right?
Way back when.
So that's just I'm happy that you can say now that you would recommend it again.
I'm almost to the, yeah, I'm there again where people that know me and two years ago, if they'd asked me, would you recommend this, I'd have said, heck no.
This industry is and this industry, you're not going to free pass.
There's still a lot you've got to do.
Still a lot of improvements to be made.
A lot of long overdue improvements.
But I think we're getting there.
So and I really appreciate Chris, you coming on and and, you know, giving us that perspective because, you know, it's we need more of that.
Sometimes I get like, you know, oh, it's a jaded mechanic and all you do is talk crap.
But, you know, you showcase the people that hate this and then what they, you know, it's a bitch fest.
No, it's not. It's not meant to be that way.
It's just people just people telling stories about what they had to go through to get where they are.
And, you know, what they think is how we fix it.
That's it. You know, it's not meant to be a bitch fest.
It's just so good to get to see both sides of the coin.
Anything else you want to say in closing?
No.
Well, I think I'd like to quote a great, great Canadian philosopher who said, just remember, folks, we're all in this together.
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 ASAP 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.
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