The Importance of Communication in a Auto Repair Career with Chris Higgins, Part 1
The Jaded Mechanic Podcast
The Importance of Communication in a Auto Repair Career with Chris Higgins, Part 1
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Most of us, we spend more time with our coworkers and our bosses, right, than we do with our own families. So if we can't have that open lines of communication, granted, doing it at the right times as well, too. Not always like, where my mouth gets me in trouble, like we just spoke about, but that needs to be there. Otherwise, what are we doing, right? I mean, everybody's like, well, it's just a job. Go to work, do your job, and go home. But we spend a majority of our living life at our job. Why can't it be a little more right, you know, why can't we have those open lines of communication, good or bad?
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of the Jada Mechanic podcast. I got a new friend with me, Mister Chris Higgins.
Doing very well.
Jeff, how about yourself? Very good. I had. We're starting to finally wrap up tire season and tires is hard on my. On my shoulders, my elbows, my knees, the whole thing. So it's the other night there I went to bed at probably, I hate to admit it, probably 730 didn't sleep well. The meds I took for the muscle pain I had a reaction to, and I was up all night in agony. It didn't agree with my stomach. So yesterday was a complete day of just stay in bed and try to get caught up on the rest that I missed the night before.
And today I feel a hundred times better. So it's just. It's tire season, right? It sucks, so. Right.
Yeah, it funny you mentioned that too there on I believe it was Wednesday. I'd kind of just a big, heavy, heavy job week. So like, I had a Ford three quarter ton, you know, and ball joints, track bar, ball joint, tie rod ends, you know, the drill. And then followed up by a one ton gas or the, you know, the v ten, the Triton that needed spark plugs, but they hadn't been done before. Nine out of ten broke. So, yeah, I was really, really wrenching this week. And I went to bed not feeling too bad. And then I woke up one morning, I was just stiff as heck, but I still made.
Still made my morning walk and kind of loosened up again. But yeah, definitely not as young as I once was. Definitely not super old yet. But, you know, I could care less really, if I did ball joints much anymore.
Yeah, I'm the same, you know, like guys. Guys get into the. Oh, I hate diag or whatever, but when I think about like what it does to the body to do a day load of tires or a day load of front end. Give me the diag, man. Like, I can. The stress I can handle.
All day? Yep, all day.
It's the. It's the physical thing that when I go home, I can't enjoy the time away. Now, you mentioned something. You said your. Your morning walk. Is that. Is that a routine for you?
Actually, it is going on a little over a month now. You know, I was getting some. So I'm aging like all of us, right? And then knocking on the door to 40, and I'm like, you know, I'm just kind of tired of, you know, being sore and tired and exhausted by the end of the day. I walk a mile and a half to 2 miles every morning, even on my days off. And you'd be surprised. The first week was a struggle. I'd get, like, a big crash around between that two and 03:00 p.m., just, like, exhausted. Right.
You know, um, when you power through that and your body starts adjusting, just kind of the natural energy you have, it's. I never would have thought in a million years I could feel this way. But it feels great. It definitely helps clear the mind, too.
That's good. Yeah. That's when I was off on COVID leave. I got up to where I was walking 5 miles a day, and I dropped a ton of weight. I felt really good. And then when I got back to work, it's something that I never seem to make time for, and I probably should, because you joke you're knocking on the door of 40, I'm knocking on the door of 50. So, I mean, it's like, you know, and I'm not looking for sympathy, but it's. It is something that when I think about how much better I felt when I moved around that much when I was off and not carrying that extra little bit of weight, I really need to get back to that.
But it's trying to find that commitment. Like, I'm probably 5 miles from work, so I could essentially say, okay, I'm going to get up early enough and walk to work. And then how do I get home? Because I'd be walking almost 10 miles a day instead of five. So it's little things like that. Do I get a bike? Well, a bike versus walking is not the same, I find, anyway, exercise, and I don't like it. I'd rather walk. I could walk for hours and be like you said, you clear your thoughts. You think about, you know, the things you're facing at work, things in life.
It's a really good way to decompress. But it is.
And I, I noticed, too, after, you know, like walking. Just your thought process, too, when you're at work and you get one of those complex issues, or doesn't always have to be complex, just your thought process.
You.
It seems like you're a lot more calmer, too, you know, when you go about it, you know, you're not, you don't get as agitated as easy. I mean, we all have our days still, but, you know, as a whole, it's just, it's a lot better.
So what's it, what's a day to day for you?
A day to day for me? Well, usually get up. I'm in the central time zone here. You said you're in the eastern, right? Correct. So central time here, I get up at about quarter to five, Monday through Friday. I'm five on the weekends. And then I do my walking like we had spoke about. From there, I get home. I do, probably most of us do have my coffee.
I do a lot of scrolling and trolling. Sometimes there. Sometimes I like to stir the pot. And then, yeah, I work in Moorhead, Minnesota, which is about a 20 minutes drive from where I live. I'm positioned about 6 miles north of Fargo, North Dakota, in a small town called Harwood. And. Yeah, and I work in Moorhead at an independent shop. Kind of a.
Quite a. About 20 years here this year in the automotive career. So I got quite a vast array of knowledge there, anywhere from dealership to corporate level stuff to a lot of independent experience. So kind of well rounded, kind of been around the block, I guess so, yeah.
How did you get into it?
Well, I grew up on a farm in southeast North Dakota with my mom and my stepdad. We didn't have any livestock or animals or anything, but, you know, we farmed barley, wheat, and soybeans at the time. And it was a really rural community, you know, farming community, lidgerwood, North Dakota, for, if anybody's bored and wants to google it, town of about 700. But yeah, from there, you know, farming. So we're always fixing machinery. Right. And then, so when I'm, you know, junior senior, always did well in school, but I like to, you know, work hard and, and kind of screw off too. And I'm like, well, I'll just go to college.
So I even got a, you know, a two year degree for it, too, at Wapiton, the North Dakota State College of Science. And, yeah, for whatever reason, the industry trapped me, can't get out of it. So stick with what you're good at, I guess.
Yeah. That's it. And, you know, I've, I've said it so many times. Some of us, I just, I literally think we're just put here to do this right, because I, I didn't, I didn't grow up wanting to be a mechanic. My father was an auto body guy, and I. So I grew up around cars, but I didn't, when I was in high school, even think for 1 second I was going to be a mechanic. I didn't make the decision to be a mechanic until I'd already graduated. And I was sitting there just, I had, I worked at two different gas stations, pumping gas while I was graduated, and was, what am I going to do with my life? And my stepbrother had gone through and was becoming a heavy equipment, diesel tech.
I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go do that. Because, I mean, I had a 75 Malibu at the time that my dad and I had put together. And body wise, we'd put it together. It was a rusted hull when we got it, but it ran terrible. It needed an engine. It needed, like, a lot of work. And so we are always tinkering on that, trying to get it a little more reliable, a little more. I was young, so it's like I wanted to go faster.
Not realizing that speed was, even back then, was a lot of money, and now it's a stupid amount of money to go fast. So I never was like, I'm going to be a mechanic. I was just always working on cars. I had friends that were like the quote unquote gearheads who were way more into cars than I was, but it was like I was always around them, and it would be like they'd be stuck with something. I'd just be like, let me look at it. And then it was like, it'd be fixed, and I don't. It's so. I don't want to say that it's genetic, but it just seemed to be that I just approached it from a different directive, and it did trap me.
And then, you know, I got into where I'd been doing it. Before I knew it, I was doing it ten years. And then after, like, ten years, was like, well, what else am I gonna do? You know, there's lots of times I almost walked away from it. I really did.
But, you know, looking back now, I kind of. I thought the same thing. I was doing a little reflecting the other day. And so, you know, after my two years of college, I moved right to Fargo there, and I started at a dealership. Right. But back then, even though I'm still fairly young, I was still right in that generational deal where they. They shove you in quick lube for a year or two, and then you got to fight for what you get. Sink or swim type mentality.
And looking back at it now, I'm like, I must have been a special kind of crazy to stick with that. Changing oil for nine or $10 an hour and fluid changes for a year and a half. And then when you actually make the shift to the shop, thinking you know something and knowing you don't know a damn thing and fighting to scrape together hours on flat rate, you know, with a really small guarantee, it's like, yeah, there must be some sort of passion there underneath the skin for it. So what.
Chris, sorry to interrupt.
Yep, not a problem.
What manufacturer was that? What? Oe for the dealer.
It started out at Gateway Chevrolet in Fargo, and then through my time there, that was from, like, late zero six. I was with gateway. I never thought I was going to leave the dealership, honestly, when I started, I thought it was great once I got into it, but I was young enough then, and there was an older gentleman on the gateway, also owns a Hyundai Nissan store, but he was throwing a stink working on them. So I was basically voluntold because I was young and moldable, that, hey, we're going to move you to the Hyundai Nissan store. And I was scared shitless. But honestly, it was kind of a blessing in disguise as we kind of unfold here. It really. I always grew up for Chevy.
I was a Chevy guy, but. So that's what you're used to, right? So stepping out of your comfort zone, little did I know, you know, almost 20 years down the road, that small change at that point in my life, kind of where it took me, it's kind of crazy.
Yeah. It's a lot different way back then. Even what a Hyundai like was compared to a Chevrolet. Right? Chevrolet had. Had trucks, had this. All these different product line right. Within the product line, yeah. And then Hyundai, I can remember in zero six and zero seven.
And I can remember Hyundai way back when they had the pony. That's how old, um, I can remember they were small, you know, small little. A few models and such a different demographic. Right. And probably, I know a lot of those guys that went to, that made that transition similar to you, like where they went to an import asian brand years ago. They, once they were there, they tended to stay there because, you know, they. I want to say maybe they became that level of aptitude a little bit faster. And then they just wrote it.
You know, I'm not saying Allende is a good brand. Now, you look at how many of.
Those engines, all the engines.
But I mean, I did my short little stint at Hyundai, and it wasn't for me. I did. The cars were not hard to fix. Not at all. They weren't hard to diagnose. I just remember being in there going like, the build quality needs is terrible. Like, how are you ever going to get somebody to invest in one of these as a ten year commitment, say, to a car, right. We tend to think about if I'm going to buy a Chevrolet or a Ford or the domestics used to be, I'm going to, you know, keep that for ten years.
Right?
And you'd see that the initial build quality on Hyundai was like, this sucker's not. It's going to be ready for the scrap heat by the time it's out of five year warranty, you know, and.
That was crazy, too, because it got a lot of people those the price point at the time, you know, now. And everything is just outrageous. But one thing I did notice, though, that I can elaborate on is the Hyundai's were nice to work on. The typical Hyundai owner was a little more receptive to maintenance versus, you know, working on the big three. Oh, I mean, not fixed until it breaks or until it needs it. Nissan's just suck in general, because they can have five or 10,000 miles and they must use a special kind of metal, but it's like they rust and seize themselves. I don't know if they, you know, changed a little bit over the time, but Nissan's a whole nother demon. But honestly, there's a time, and even now, just being well rounded where, you know, Asians, even some euros, like, really don't scare me at all.
Like, you can kind of. It's kind of like a mindset, right? Once you understand kind of the fundamentals of each platform, you can kind of, and, you know, accurate service information, you can kind of navigate and be like, all right, this is the route they're going down here. You know, you can kind of get on their thought level or their thought process, I guess.
Yeah. I still recommend a Hyundai over a Nissan to anybody that asked me today.
Oh, yeah. Night and day and then. Yeah, and then I always thought it was funny when I'd go for Hyundai training. I got to gold level Hyundai certified technician. In my tenure there. I didn't get to platinum because I'd left in the meantime. But the Hyundai Kia training center in Aurora, Illinois. Their parts distribution centers the same place.
But Kia and Hyundai, they're kind of like a Kia is kind of like the, for lack of a better term, redheaded stepchild of Hyundai. But all their parts are coming right from the same horse's mouth, you know? And it's just like I always laughed about it. So you get your Kia, your optima, and your sonata. It's the same car, a little bit different body panels, a little fancier radio, and one.
Yeah. And I, you know, the thing with Nissan that really was the frustration for me was it was the most user unfriendly service information system I've ever had.
100%.
It was terrible. Like, it was so inefficient compared to anything else I'd ever seen in my life that, like, I wasn't the only one in the dealer. I came on brand new, and I was like, thank goodness they had a subscription to Protemand, and I'd be using pro demand more than I'd be using the Oe stuff, and people would roll their eyes if you listen to me now, but if you've ever navigated the Nissan side, trying to find the breakdown of the harness and then the location and then the pin out, and then this could be in four different sections.
Not only that, I don't know if you noticed this too, Jeff, but when you're looking at, like, the connector end view of the Nissan's, you had, it was like a mirror image. So even though you're looking at it one way, when you're at the connector, it's the other way. And I'm like, that's stupid. Yeah, yeah.
Oh, it was in. Did you ever, like, tech line? I can remember when I started, like, to work for Chrysler. Tech line was a phone call. And when I got to Nissan, it's like, oh, if you need to consult tech line, I'm like, okay, how do I do that? Always send them an email.
Right?
And it was a. Before they'd email you back. I'm like, what's the point of that? Like, by the next day, I'm not thinking about that car, and you're on to something else, and then somebody, you go and get an email, and you have to stop what you're doing, switch your brain back to yesterday, do an email response, read it, wait. Like, it was the most inefficient thing in the world. And I could call the guy, and I could talk to Charles, say, and then I could call Charles back in 2 hours and go, okay, Charles, I did you know, test ABC. Like you said, this is my result. He guide me to something else. I was just laughing with how ineffective Nissan was.
It's. It's sad because their engines are. I'm really impressed with some of the engines, how durable I saw them. But that transmission and that wiring was just crap.
Like, oh, horrible. I think that CVT tranny is even really. Well, obviously really horrible. But now what is it? Subaru. And I think, I'm trying to remember the other manufacturer that uses them, but it's not brand specific. It's kind of a. It's great when they work in one slip of the belt and the whole thing's trash. Might as well throw it away.
They're telling everybody, I know the local dealer here. Anyway, when everybody goes in to buy a Nissan and they're like, oh, no, we don't use a CVT anymore. We went back to something completely different, you know, something more traditional, which I don't know, but, you know, I still.
Have a friend that works, an old mentor of mine that still works there, 20 years there recently, India. And some of the. They still use some of the CBT's, from my understanding, whether. I don't know if they changed a little bit, how they operate, but I know sometimes the salesmen are just trying to make a sale too. I think we've all known that, right?
Because, I mean, I'm sure the techs are probably like, no, it's the same. Maybe they change the software or something. But I can remember seeing, like, them come off the truck. And I know there was a couple. We had a couple rogues that, like, the CVT was shot right when it was delivered for PDI. Oh, wow. How does this ever happen? They're like, no, it's just. That's just what it is.
It's. It's just terrible. You know, Hyundai, when I was there, the transmissions were just starting to have some issues, but otherwise, it was all engine work all day long. Front covers would leak.
Timing chain tensioners, I think was at the three. Three Sonata. Yeah, that was. I made a. Made a lot of money getting good at them because as every other manufacturer, Hyundai was really horrible at paint anything. Now, when those timing chain tensioners went really bad, like, right away, they'd be like, 14 hours to do them. And then you get creative and, like, I don't even have to remove the engine. I can lower the transmission mount, take the motor, you know, and then get it way up in the air, clean everything up nice, swap them out, be done, and three, 4 hours and then they caught wind of that, and I think they dropped it to like 5.2 or 4.8 hours.
And I'm like, that's a bunch of shit, chris.
How do you think that that happens, that they find that out? We hear the old analogy, and the guys are like, oh, guys go to class and they, and they run their mouths and that's how they find out. Do you think that's how they find out? Or is it just like you've got clerks that are not doing their job and they're not running the full time, and they submit the five hour, and the oe goes, I don't care how they're doing it. We're just going to cut it to five.
A little acronym I developed in my corporate side of it. You know, I was a field service engineer for a couple years, but I like to call it WWR warranty waste reduction. Long story short, you know, big brother's kind of always watching. So, you know, as with any corporate job, you know, there's rungs in a ladder, and you just got to kind of be mindful of that because, excuse me, you know, just as a technician's job is to repair cars efficiently and make them some money, you know, there's certain positions throughout any corporate business that it's their job to save the company money to help look, make them look better. So I'll let you guys all kind of paint the picture of what can happen there. So, you know, if you get people popping through or like you said to technicians kind of speaking amongst themselves at a training center, you got to kind of be careful for who's listening, so.
Mm hmm. Yeah. So it, there is some truth to that. That's how that happens. Because, you know, I always was like, I can remember being on a training for a sprinter class way back then and before, before the class started, there's the instructor in the class, he's just kind of, you know, shooting a breeze, and everybody's talking about, oh, what are you running into? A lot of this and a lot of that. And it's like, oh, you hate that job. Here's the trick to do it. And they'd all be sharing freely information about how they, you know, buy this torque strive socket or this thing, and you can, you know, shave time from doing this job.
And it's like, and he's sitting there listening, and that's fine.
And that's it. I'm not completely cutting down on them. They're not intentionally trying to do it, but what they're doing is they're starting a, they're starting basically an investigation, you know, and then, you know, then you get people like warranty admins, right? Dealership has them, they submit them into their, you know, whatever oe corporate to get paid, and they start looking at punch times and they're like, all right, well, maybe there's some truth to this here, we're paying this, we'll use $10, you know, for a round number, but I never see more than an hour and a half of punch time or 3 hours, you know, and then they start, you know, eventually start putting two and two together. So, I mean, I get both sides of it. Yeah, but it's like one of those deals, you know, as a technician at heart, like we, you know, know all, are there certain things that, you know, like, hey, I cracked, I cracked the puzzle, right? I solved the riddle. So I want to help, you know, a few select people get there, but then you got to be careful who you're sharing your, your tricks with. You know, it's like, it's like diagnosing a vehicle now sometimes. And then, you know, people are all like, you know, services by, well, why are we charging 2 hours DIAG you had that done in 15 minutes? And I'm like, you want to know how I was able to get to this in 15 minutes? This is the procedure and process I developed over 20 years of doing this.
That's why we're charging that, you know, so it's all the stuff you got to take into account, you know, stuff we, you and I know, and most of our listeners probably know, but it's, you know, nature of the beast.
You get called a gatekeeper, though.
Very well.
You do.
I've been called a lot of things for my mouth has gotten me in trouble over the years. You know, sometimes I offered my opinion when it wasn't welcomed, but like anything else, you know, there's times where, you know, it's welcomed and there's, you know, times you got to bite your tongue. But it's like I'm very passionate about what I do, right. So even though it's not my business, my hands are still involved in it, right? My name is still on there. You know, I like to make at least known that, hey, this is how I do it and this is why I do it. And I'd love to have a discussion, but sometimes they, you know, sometimes it's taken well and sometimes they're not as receptive about it, you know, because I get it. It's not my business, you know, it's their business. But, um, there's no malice intent ever.
You know, it's like, I've been down this road, right? I beat my head against the wall. I've got this burnt me bad. This is why I do it this way. You know, most people are pretty receptive, but it's a learning experience. Every life's always in session, right? You know, every day is a new day.
So, can I ask you how you transition from being a technician to getting into that kind of like you said that more of that admin side when you were with who you were with.
So in a nutshell, so I was with the dealership, Hyundai Nissan until 2013. Long story short, there just how they were running it at the time, I was going to a lot of training, right, doing a lot of the warranty work, and I was also helped bring in a lot of younger techs and me up to speed. And then my customer pay work would get given to them because it had to get done. And I'm sitting there trying to make a check off warranty work. So I left the dealership world and corporate world and went into the independent world for would have been six or seven years, right? And I was at three different independent shops in that time. They were all great along the way. You know, the first one, I just kind of. I was the import guy when I first left the dealer.
That's kind of how I got out of there. And I wouldn't get any other work. They would kind of spoon feed a couple other texts there, and if they didn't want to work on it, they'd ship it out and send it to the dealer. And I, you know, I'd get frustrated. I'm like, you know, I can work on that. Let me work on that. But. So after a couple years of that, I left that and went to another independent.
Did well there. Got a lot more training there. But at the time, at that independent, they're always dangling the carrot in front of you, right? So it's kind of a salaried position. But I felt at the time, the goal post always got moved, you know, to earn and level up, and. And sometimes there'd always be an excuse of why. And I'm. It wasn't for me, right? I'm like, you know, if you actually count all the hours and the time and stuff like that, and then everything that was supposed to be, you know, mandatory at the time, it wasn't. It was good money, but not that great, right? So then I went to, I downsized, went to a smaller independent, which I loved.
I probably would still be there now, but I, one of my close friends that moved back closer to Michigan. Now, at the time, his kid and my kid were in the same soccer deal, and he was an AC Delco rep at the time.
Okay.
And he's like, you know, you should really apply. General Motors is looking at field service engineers, and I think he'd be a good fit, you know, because he'd pop into our store and stuff like that. And so I applied, and it was kind of, it was a really long process from when I submitted my application and resume to the hiring deal. But it was about five or six months, and then I finally got, got all that done, got a lot accepted because I don't think there's a lot of people knocking down the door to move to North Dakota anyhow and kind of take over the North Dakota. Western Minnesota, and then northeastern South Dakota was kind of my region, loved the job, met a lot of really, really awesome people, way smarter people than me as well. It helped me kind of think outside the box and not, you know, not being the go to guy and me having to be seeking out the go to, it was a very humbling experience. Kind of helped speed up my career even, you know? But just like anything else, you know, life happens. I had some life changes happening, you know, sorting out my own problems and stuff.
And then unfortunately, I, you know, I had to resign. There were some certain things going on at the time with my driving capabilities, with just where I wasn't going to be able to perform and do it right. So I had to take a local job, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise anyway. You know, I'm earning more than I ever have. I'm really excelling. I'm finding my purpose and meaning in life in that being a field service engineer was a huge stepping stone to really accelerate my aftermarket career. It got me listening to, like, you guys, it got me, you know, scanner Danner, Paul Danner, you know, Sean tipping, all them biggie. And you, you know, you guys gave me a new passion for the career.
You know, I was, a lot of people around here want to just be parts hangers. And then, you know, that got to me, too. And I'm like, what am I doing in my life that I started just geeking out on these podcasts and got back in the independent world. I've been, you know, wrenching in Morehead and like I said, for a little over a year now again, and I'm just starting to really thrive career wise and everything.
The field service engineer thing for AC Delco, that's not the dealership level. That's like, are you going from like, what's that entail? Going from helping with problem cars?
Yep. We're basically an extension of tech line is what I was. I had 58 dealerships that I basically serviced and we would go around and make sure. Basically help troubleshooting. Right. You know, like mobile diet, mobile text, mobile diet. That's basically kind of like what we were only, you know, working for corporate. We were corporate employees.
So I was an employee of General Motors itself, which it was great. We'd go around and basically like, assist the dealers and making sure they're, they're have their special essential service tools, as they should. We'd work hand in hand with the technician that was having troubles with the vehicle. In my area, sometimes I think I got abused because in the remote area I'm in a lot of the texts and always, weren't always up to date on their training. Right. And if they weren't getting paid or had the training certifications to submit for the OLH was what they called for the extra hours, they weren't getting paid. Right. So they, someone would be way too quick to hit the easy button.
So it's kind of a juggling act. Sometimes you have to kind of be like, all right, which ones are kind of crying wolf? Which one's here? Give them this little bit of information, make them send you back information to kind of make sure they're being engaged with the problem and not just hitting the easy button. And it was a juggling act, though, because you had to be careful because some of them dealerships and some of them technicians, they'd throw a big enough stink, the customer call in, start complaining, and then you have to be more proactive. Right. You have to get down there and have that conversation with the service managers, the dealer principals, and say, hey, you know, I'm here to help. Yes, but I'm also, you know, not necessarily here to do your job. You know, technically, you guys are the servicing shop. They're your customer.
You know, you have to have a lot of difficult conversations sometimes, but.
So did you tend to. I wanted to always ask this, if I could ask somebody that was in the position, most of the time when you get there and the, the car is not repaired, it's got an issue. Did you find that it's technician competency or is it technician compensation? That was the biggest obstacle in them fixing the car?
I'm going to say a little of both. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. I made a lot of trips when I physically asked over the phone, did you check pin fit? I can't count countless vehicles that I fixed with pin fit issues. A lot of the thing I've realized is the newer these vehicles are getting when they're going to, like, the micro 50 pin fit connectors. People are trying to shove their micro sixties into there and they're like, no, I checked it. It's tight. Well, they hogged out the pin, right? So I take the proper pin, put it in the connector and hold it up, and my terminal tool falls right out.
I'm like, get a new connector, get a new harness, plug this in, you know, and send me the screenshot. It's going to fix it, right? Yep. And then there's some of it too. You can just tell some of the dealers where the, you know, service managers may not be. They're there, but they're not. They're mentally abs, you know, and they're just not engaged. There's some dealers, you know, and I'm not trying to knock on the dealers, you know, because, I mean, there's independent shops, you know, I have my days too, right. But it's just, this is the stuff I witnessed because I'm pretty observant.
So, like, when I, you know, you can kind of pick up on body language to people when you're talking to them, and you can just tell the ones that are there, the ones that are just filling a chair and doing the bare minimum. And it's frustrating because a lot of these same places have very talented techs or texts that have a lot of potential, but they're just not, they're not given the proper tools. Right. And then, you know, sometimes it's just flat out heartbreaking because it's like, you know, too much more. And this one's just gonna leave and are they gonna come back? Are they gonna try something different or they're gonna just go to a whole nother career, you don't know. Yeah, but there's only so much one person, you know, me, you know, can do too. Sometimes I gotta stay in my own lane and worry about my workload, what I had to do, too, and, you know, just help them fix the car and move on.
Yeah, I've really seen that dynamic sometimes. You can see it now as I'm more of an outside. I'm not an outsider, but I've been. I've become more in tune that I can kind of watch how the designated leader in a facility, how everyone else reacts around them is a very tell to what their level of respect for that person is. And oftentimes, as sad as it is that managers aptitude as well, because, like, some of them I worked for, some that you knew they were no kind of tech in their, in their, in their day, which was fine. They're not necessarily hire service manager. I want the sharpest tech in the world, but there comes a level of respect sometimes with a guy that can really go and bail you out of a problem or just come to you and say, have you thought about it like this? When I'm talking to a manager and he has, like, I'm over his skill level with how I'm approaching it. And you can see that, like, the, the wheels are, the lights are on, but there's nobody kept picking up what I'm putting down.
It becomes very hard for me to then consider that person my leader. You know what I mean?
Right.
It's tough because I don't need him to bail me out, but I need him to have my back and I need him to be able to bounce ideas off of, but, like, because at the end of the day, I don't want to waste anybody's time. I don't want to waste anybody's money, either as a technician, right. Flat rate or not in a shop, I want. So if I'm working in a place and it's like, he's not at my level and it's getting hard. I'm not bragging, but it's getting hard to find a tech that I can bounce ideas off of that doesn't goose chase or doesn't have me going, oh, I've already. Come on now, dude. Like, I've already checked that. That's what have been step one.
It's struggling. I struggle with it. And I see, I've seen some shops where they're like, you can just kind of tell the body language of the tech when they're looking at the manager. They're like, yeah, no, it. We're sunk here because we can't lean on him. Right. And then we call in the service, the field service guy.
So it's kind of like even, you know, transitioning out of that back into the independent and, excuse me, independent world. It, like, when I whip out my pico at, at the shop, like, when I first did it in relative compression, they're like, what do you, what do you do in there? We need to do a compression test when you do this. I'm like, no, we don't yeah. And then they just start, they give, they gave me the deer in the headlight look, and I'm like, no, see, check this out. I mean, that, you know, the voltage doesn't lie. You know, we can do this, this, this and this, and you don't have to tear this apart, and we can move it out and bring the next one in. And it took me a few months to, like, get that to sink. And then also, though, there, you know, there's always a downfall with the relative compression, too.
I mean, it's a good baseline. Right. But you still need to sometimes dive in a little deeper. Yeah, but, yeah, just like, you know, showing them some efficiencies, you know, and how to streamline stuff. I mean, in the past 14 or 15 months that, you know, I've been back in the independent world. The little shop we were in, we since had got out of that, and we have this, you know, beautiful 8910 bay shop we just moved into. And, you know, we're growing as a company. And I just think it's kind of unique how, you know, timing, everything.
You know? I am a firm believer that, you know, through life, things happen for a reason, right? They help learn, shape, and mold us. Good, bad, or indifferent. I mean, life happens, right? So, I mean, it's, it's been a great journey. I work for some, you know, great people now. I mean, we still have our differences, but we actually talk through them, right. And we see both sides of it. We can have conversations and not hold resentments, and that's important.
Yeah, it's. I've been, I've been very blessed in that. Like, I keep saying that this job, to me, is still a relatively new job. I started in September, but now I'm coming up on, it's like, well, before I know it, I'll be there a year. And this has been the easiest first year that I've ever had in a place, you know what I mean? So it's, I'm over the moon ecstatic with that because I can just see there's no limits in front of me. There's no barriers, right? Like, I don't look at it and go, oh, well, I'm probably going to top out at this level in terms of the kind of problems that I'm going to get or the pay. I don't see any obstacles in front of me. And that's, that's rare for me because most places that I started a new job, you could see them within about six months, and.
Excuse me. And so I'm over the moon with happy with how this is going, you know, and I, and I I hope out there for more people that they can find that. And it doesn't have to be like, sometimes people are like, yeah, you know, he's always ripping on dealers and it's not, I mean, I've said it as well. If it wasn't for a dealer, I wouldn't have been in this industry, still wouldn't be doing it because I wouldn't survive. Wouldn't have survived where I was at the independent way back. And in 2000, if I'd have stayed in an independent, the one I was at, I wouldn't have survived. And I can guarantee you right now, people don't want to hear it. They were all the same back then.
They could not. Like there wasn't a whole lot of young people in the independence. Every independent that I walked around and knew, they were all like much older than me. 1012, 1520 years older than me. The dealerships were full of young people. Now I think the other way around where the dealerships have a lot of old heads and the independent shops seem to have the young people. And I'm not sure if that's a great sign or not because I don't know how the mentorship thing is happening. Who's got maybe a leg up on it.
And I don't know if you've noticed this and I can't speak. You know, like I said, we're not knocking on dealers, but right in a unique time, I'm finding not necessarily like better, but more like I don't even know the right word to use for it there to not really offend anyone. But there's some interesting talent in the independent world versus a dealer sometimes. You know, back when I, you know, 20 years ago when I started, the dealer is like the pinnacle. You bring it here and they're gonna figure out your make, model and whatever. And that's not always the case anymore. I've, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of people that fix stuff that, you know, either a didn't want to put any more money at where I was working at the time or whatever, got kicked down the road. But I know I've personally fixed a lot of stuff that's been to two, three, you know, four shops.
And it's easy. I mean, I get it, you know, tunnel vision happens. There's stuff I've overlooked before and any tech, we're human, right? You know, we're not, we're not programmable machines, you know, we're, you know, we got the human error with us, but, you know, that's. And I know why at the same time, but, you know, and I don't know the hundred percent way to fix it, but, you know, the, the oes are trying to save money, right? And then everybody's like, well, the dealers don't have to pay their tax flat rate. But I'm like, well, you know, the dealers making their money like their shop is by billing hours out. Right. And collecting money. Well, you still need to collect that XYZ amount to pay this person that somehow form, you know, way, shape or form.
So if the technicians at the dealer aren't doing their training to qualify to get this, the extra labor time for the rare and weird conditions and the dealership's not collecting money for it, you know, how do you expect a dealer to pay, you know, for a round number, a, you know, good worthwhile technician? 100,000 a year. Not on flat rate, just 100,000 a year. But, you know, they're only collecting 60 labor hours, you know, pay period from the oe on warranty work. You know, that's not justifiable either. No. And the D and then oes are pushing. We need to get the, you know, the text of training. The text of training.
But still, it's like the prize for some newer tech. Is not the rewards not great enough yet? I don't think it's quite there yet to incentivize them to do this because, you know, for majority of the dealers, it's still kind of a flat rate environment, you know, because that's the, that's the revenue coming in.
And we talked to so many guys a Chris that it's like the more up on their skills they got, the more certs they got within the Oe, the harder the work became and less money they made.
That even to me. I mean, I, like, remember we were just talking about that. I had to. I was doing all the warranty work because the tech secondly couldn't to get submitted under their technician number. So my customer pay work was kind of getting handed off to them because it had to be done right. It had the customers coming to get it. And I'm like, once. Yes, twice.
Okay. This was happening multiple times during this time period when I was there, and I just had enough. I'm like, you know, my timing belt and spark plug and 60k services are getting given away. But here's this three 10th recall we need you to do. And here's this eight 10th airbag clock, spring recall, and don't forget to test drive it and inspect it. And I have to run my ass off to get 8 hours a day, and I'm there for 10 hours, and I'd stay late to do three, four pdis to get my hours up. It's like I'm working with all the time. I got involved into my career, and you break it down before and after hours.
I'm making minimum wage, you know?
Yeah, yeah. The recall thing was funny for me because it was like, it seemed to be that when I was at the dealers, the first thing that any of them seemed to learn, certs or not, was how to do the recalls right. You know, the airbag recalls, we were all doing them. Even if the guy had been there maybe only three, four months, he didn't take any kind of Nissan training. He was doing the recalls, you know, and they paid well. It was the same as when I was way back at, when I was a Chrysler. Now, I don't know, in the background, maybe if they were submitting all the claims underneath the foreman's number, and then, you know, to. In order to get them paid by warranty, I don't know.
And it's not really that important. It makes me laugh when I see, not laugh, but I feel for the guys that are like, yeah, I got all my certs, and then I got handed all the recalls because the. The rest of the guys that could do a timing belt didn't bother to get the certs so they could do the recall. First of all, your shop culture is broken, because if he can do a timing belt, he can do just about any recall that's been ever given. And if he didn't get certified to do it, he needs to be working somewhere else right on his toolbox until he has a job that he can go get in his. His certification done, and then he can start to give you dispatch work. I never understood that, because for me, a straight re and re job under warranty, I never had a problem with, because after I did it two, three times, it wasn't hard to hit. It was always having to fight to do the diag.
And I'll give you the example, the cars that would come in, and it's like, oh, well, it's got a remote starter that just put in last week, but now it's got this electrical issue. We know that it's not really technically supposed to be there. And by warranty, we can't make a claim if the warrant, you know, if it's causing it but just see what you can do with it, you know, to figure out, make sure that it's not that, right? It's like, guess what? You know, I unplug all that stuff, or I cut it all back out, and the problem that the car has is gone. And they'd say, well, we can't pay you. I don't know how we're going to pay you, because that wasn't supposed to be in there.
You charge the customer.
You know, you don't want to. Right, Chris? Cause it's like, well, we want him to buy another Chrysler three years from now or two years from now or maybe six months from now. Like, oh, he's a good, you know, good customer for sales, right? We want them to buy another car. That was the part that always made me. That drove me to quit, because it's like, it shouldn't. Or you'd see them, and it's like, wait a minute. This has been in a body shop, you know? And it's like, I can remember one out of caliber, and that they have that fuse box that was in the fender. Well, on the driver's side, it was mounted upside down.
It didn't come from the factory mounted upside down. You started to peel it apart, and you're looking for this problem, and it's like, whoa, this has been in an accident. Well, that's how it got turned upside down is when they put the car back together. I'm not faulting the guy at the body shop, but all of a sudden, if it fills up with water now and it fails, that's not a warranty defect. That's something that they have to go back to the customer and say, hey, sorry, we found this. You know, it sucks. So you either need to pay us and make a claim against your insurance, or you just need to pay us a tech. We can't make that claim, but they just slide it through somehow, and you not pay me the full amount and not piss off the customer.
And it just was towards the end, I was done with it, you know, I'd had it. I was. It didn't make sense to me. I just wanted to show up, make a good living, you know? And I couldn't because the guys that didn't have to even think like that could bang 1214 a day. And I was lucky to get eight to ten, and it was like, at the same rate. And I'm like, that's just not fair. And.
And I think some of that, in my experience, it's getting a little bit better. We're still a long ways from perfect, but educating the customer before you buy it and letting know aftermarket accessories are just that, right? They're aftermarket. They didn't come with it. So if there is an issue with this, you will be on the hook for it. And I'm even seeing it more in our local dealers, too. Customer come in and said, yeah, I had this at the dealer, but they had to charge me for, you know, and whatever, right. It is what it is. And then they don't seem too worked up about it.
But yeah, you know, like you said, you know, when I was early 2010, 1112, when I was still there, it didn't matter what was on the vehicle. If it had under 10,000 miles, customers should have to pay for anything. And I'm like, I didn't put the stereo system in. I didn't put this Astro start screen, whatever, you know, this didn't come factory. This is not nor, and it was hard to wrap that around some of the service advisors at the time because they were, we, there was a period of time there when the, the general manager at the time was trying to. Any used car sale or any car salesman, they're transitioning them as service advisors. So then, you know, they're trying to cut, you know, sometimes customers a deal. What's come up? Well, we can shave here.
Well, they're shaving the labor times. I'm like, you don't touch the labor times. I told them, that's for the technician. If you want to give them a discount, put them down at the discount line. Take it off the whole ticket, don't take it out of the technician's pocket. And I, I don't know how many conversations I had to have like that until I went blue in the face. And then, you know, eventually you have enough, you get fed up and you're like, hell with this. You know, nothing's gonna change.
I can't keep doing this. You know.
Yeah, it's. And that goes back to, because dealerships, at the end of the day, so many have missed the boat and they think that they exist, and they do. They exist to sell cars. But, like, I was early enough in to know that, wait a minute, the margin here on the car sales sucks. They're not making enough money to survive, to sustain the dealer, just on the profit that they get on generating the car.
All the money, big as most people think, you know, all the money gets.
Made on the service after the fact. So why are we continually screwing service department to move more cars like let's do the breakdown, the math to a basic level here. If I sell a caravan, we make a $1,000 on it. WHOOP. Do you. Do you know, if I. If. If I keep that tech happy and he keeps motivated, he keeps selling work, he'll make $1,000 a week easily.
He could make $1,000 profit. So why do we want to burn that department down? But it's like, nope, oh, I can't move these cars. Well, you might be able to move them then, but if everybody in your back is all burnt out, you know, and feels jaded, they're not going to make you enough money, and they're certainly not look after the customer the way you want. And then your CSI starts to hit the tank, and before you know it, your. Your. Your audits won't get paid under warranty. Like, it just goes on. It's just a vicious cycle.
All because we have some salesmen in the sales department that just want to. They believe that service exists to serve them. And it's the other way around. I believe that. It's like sales exists to move the product. Service is there to service the product, to keep the. The lights turned on. That's the way it is.
Absolutely.
But it's frustrating. CSI, what was your take on that? Did you ever really pay it a whole lot of mind? Because I know I didn't.
I didn't even consider it when I was a technician. I didn't. You know, the more wisdom you get through the career, though, and my time as an FSC, you know, there was a CSI score for FSC is the service managers. You know, they get something sent to them, right? And you, you know, was the. Was the FSC assisting you? Knowledgeable, right. And all this. And, you know, on the corporate side of things, that. That plays a huge role as, like, one of your metrics, too.
You know, so you gotta be on your game. You gotta be helpful. There's obviously things out of your control, and most service managers get that, too. And, you know, on both sides of it, you know, corporate side and the dealership side of it. But, you know, the CSI, a lot of dealerships, the service advisors, that CSI is a huge part of. Of their pay. If they don't get all five or whatever completely satisfied CSI review, like, we're talking like thousand, $2,000 hits a month, depending on how their commission structure set. And it's good, you know, there's some customers, though, you know, you're just never gonna make happy.
You could do, you could give them the car for free, and they're not gonna be freaking happy. And there's always gonna be some of that, right? But my biggest problem is nine. I'm gonna say 99 times out of 100, when there is a bad CSI, whether it's at a dealership or independent or just a bad Google review, it is 100% communication. It's something got lost in the process. Too many people trying to. Too many chiefs, you know, trying to relay a message, right? They're not being forthcoming with the customer, letting them know the full expectations upon arrival. Like, hey, this is what. This is what's going to happen.
This is the conversation we're going to have, you know? And there's going to be one of two ways we're going to go here. And communication is everything. And that just not even just in our industry, just in life in general. I think that's where most of frustration, confusion, and everything comes from.
Good stuff from Chris Higgins on this episode of the jaded Mechanic podcast. That'll do it for part one of Jeff and Chris. Their conversation, part two will wrap it up next week. Be sure to listen. Hey, if you could do me a favor real quick and, like, comment on and share this episode, I'd really appreciate it. And please, most importantly, set the podcast to automatically download every Tuesday morning. As always, I'd like to thank our amazing guests for their perspectives and expertise, and I hope that you'll please join us again next week on this journey of change. Thank you to my partners in the ASA group and to the changing the industry podcast.
Remember what I always say, in this industry, you get what you pay for. Here's hoping everyone finds their missing ten millimeter. And we'll see you all again next time.
About this episode
Chris Higgins shares insights on the critical role of communication in the auto repair industry, emphasizing how effective dialogue can enhance workplace dynamics and improve job satisfaction. He discusses the physical demands of automotive work, the importance of maintaining a healthy routine, and the challenges technicians face in both dealership and independent settings. Their candid conversation touches on personal experiences, industry frustrations, and the evolving landscape of automotive repair, making it a relatable and thought-provoking listen for those in the field.
Original notes
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In this episode, Jeff Compton welcomes Chris Higgins, a seasoned automotive technician with extensive dealership and independent shop experience. Chris highlights the crucial role of clear communication in automotive repair environments, particularly how it affects customer satisfaction and service efficiency. He also shares his journey from working on a farm to becoming an influential figure in the automotive world, emphasizing the lessons learned from his diverse experiences. Jeff and Chris also discuss the challenges they've had dealing with warranty work and their shared experiences in navigating the complexities of different dealership cultures.
00:00 Effective communication is crucial for healthy work relationships.
03:25 COVID leave led to healthier habits and regrets.
07:05 Reluctant mechanic finds calling through family influence.
12:23 Nissan's rust; Asians and euros manageable.
15:21 Inefficient email communication led to laughter.
18:36 WWR: Warranty Waste Reduction in corporate work.
20:08 Technician discussing the investigation into punch times.
24:45 Applied for and enjoyed the job, faced challenges.
28:09 Balancing communication while avoiding customer complaints.
30:57 Observing leadership impact on team dynamics and respect.
36:15 Independent talent emerging in the automotive repair industry.
36:59 Human error happens, we're not perfect.
40:12 Certifications are essential for recalls; shop culture.
43:28 Customers shouldn't pay for non-factory car features.
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The Jaded Mechanic Podcast
Jeff Compton
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