TikTok Mechanic Metal Man Online Talks Challenges and Triumphs in the Shop, Part 1
The Jaded Mechanic Podcast
TikTok Mechanic Metal Man Online Talks Challenges and Triumphs in the Shop, Part 1
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My boss had already, like, gotten wind of this after I said, hey, I want to order a transmission for a five seven, not for a 3.7. He pulls me into his office, and in his wording it almost exactly, he's like, now, man, what you're trying to do here is impossible. You know, this can't be done. It just can't. So I'm just trying to warn you, maybe you shouldn't try to do this. And I'm sitting there just like, just because you told me that now I want to do it even more.
Welcome back to another exciting episode of the Jada Mechanic podcast. Things in life sometimes happen timing wise, that you're just like, wow, right? You're just amazed. So there's been. There's been some talk in the social circles online. No, it's not the icon ranch thing, guys. It's somebody else's shop that's got a pretty good name on social media, on TikTok, especially, and a technician that I don't know very well. But we've talked a little bit before all this kind of went down, and then it all of a sudden became very relevant. So I'm here with metal man online, as he's known on TikTok, and he's going to introduce himself, and then we're going to get right into this.
Okay, so, yeah, so my name is Spencer Ellis, or as many of you guys may know me as, metalman online. I am a mechanic that is mostly self taught. But, I mean, I find myself in a unique position in the automotive industry where I'm just young enough to be getting in at the worst time to be a mechanic. But also, I'm just far enough ahead that I feel like I have a little bit of an edge. Yeah, it's.
It's. I'm gonna. I'm not gonna argue with you. It's just this is, in some ways, it's the best time to get in because there's so, like, there's such a network of a. Spencer, when I think about when I started in 98, Facebook didn't exist. Online was barely a thing. Right. So how old are you?
I am 29 and self taught for the most part. Yeah. My. The actual training that I've gotten has been limited to what I was able to get from ase trainings, as well as just on the job, what training I got while working at Carmax, so.
Right, and so you were at Carmax for how long?
About seven and a half years.
Okay, so fair chunk of change there, right, in terms of, you know, and you say you got some ase, like, testing.
Yeah, some ase certifications. So, I mean, I was. I was getting really close to getting, I think, what it was like, you've got five that are required in order to be considered master tech. Right? I was two away from that. But Carmax then comes out and they're like, hey, by the way, we used to require these ase certifications to be able to get to your next pay grade. We're not going to require that anymore, because some of them to become a super high up tech there, they were requiring, you know, how to rebuild automatic transmissions.
Right.
And especially there, they're like, we never do that. We almost always replace. So, you know, they stopped requiring a lot of those certifications because they just. They didn't seem like they were necessary 100%. So I stopped pursuing the actual certifications after that point.
Mm hmm. Yeah. And Carmax. So, again, I don't think I have that. That chain up here. But that's a mostly used car.
I think it's mostly North America.
Yeah, yeah. Or like America, United States. It's a used car dealership chain. Is that what it is?
Yeah. So it's America's number one used car reseller. They started as Circuit City. That's what the company was before. And then, because circuit city dissolved, they still had people that were like, all right, let's create some sort of business. And the used car market was something that they felt like they could tap into. Created a really interesting streamlined process of, like, we're gonna buy your car, and we're gonna have a no haggle price tag that, like, you know it dealers, they have their hidden fees that are in their. Carmax tried to steer away from that.
They were like, nope, this is the sticker price. That's what you're gonna pay, right? Minus tax, title, license. But, yeah, it's very much like a assembly line, almost. For the sake of. We had 20 minutes to do just about anything and everything that came in. There were some parts of the shop where it wasn't, but, like, we had to get out. Over a hundred cars a week doing the math there. Yet you have roughly 20 minutes per car.
So an oil change on, say, a 3500 dually, you got to do that as quick as you can do a Honda Civic. Um, I know it can. It can be just as daunting as it sounds, and especially when it's, like, 20 degrees outside after a snowstorm. You got to scrape off the car. You got to then pull it into the shop. You got everything dripping on you. And, oh, the bottled oil that they put in the back because it's a diesel. And we had specific diesel oil.
It is coming out like pudding because it is so solid cold outside. So, yeah, those oil changes were not my favorite, but I got very good at doing them quick now.
And on the pay schedule or pay structure of that, is that straight flat rate or is it like.
It was an hourly setup? So tiered system. You had your mechanical associates levels from one to five. Level one started at like 24 something dollars an hour all the way up to a level five. That was closer to like 45, $50 an hour. I found myself in the last time or in the last position I had while being there. I was a level three trying to get to level four. And the workload was also given to you in a tiered way. You have your simple diagnostics, like just, you know, interior inspection, pushing buttons, making sure things work, taking apart breaks to make sure that you can get accurate measures, measurements, all that stuff done by your lower techs till you get to your repairs.
And, yeah, teared off in the difficulty. But again, they got rid of all of those. They got rid of all of the requirements for that to where, yeah, you were able to train up somebody to do that job no matter what.
Right. They just started kind of dispatched to your strengths regardless of whether you had a certain amount. Yeah. And business wise, that kind of. Certainly it can be a logistical nightmare. I know at the dealerships now, they talk all the time about guys that come in, especially new hires, and they're not certified yet within the OE brand. It can be a nightmare to try and dispatch some jobs to them because they're really not supposed to be doing much if they're not in the eyes of the OE certified to do it, even though they could have a. It could be a tech with 20 years experience.
It can take just about anything apart. Maybe has worked on that caravan before. You mean to tell me he can't do a window regulator under warranty because he's not trained by Chrysler? Like, that's just nuts. Was that Carmax? Is that your first kind of would. Your first main job in the industry?
My first main paid job, we'll put it that way. I went to a private school. I am the only graduate of my class. That shows you how small it was during our last, or at least the last two years of me being at that school. They required that every Thursday was the goal was nobody showed up for school. Everybody goes to a respected business that they want to get themselves into intern there so that they can get a feel for. Is this something that I want to pursue when I get into college? So my grandpa, he got me an internship at this mechanic shop. And day one, I'm like, okay, they're gonna just get me some small stuff.
There's three guys, including me, in this shop, so it's small, right? He looks at me, and he looks over at a f 250, looks back at me, then looks at the other guy and is like, should we put him on that f 250? And I'm like, oh, no. I don't like how he. How he was looking at that truck with me, and I'm like, okay, you know what? Let's do this. Come on. Give me whatever you got. We walk up to the front of it, and he's like, all right, you're gonna pull this motor. Day one. All right, we're gonna pull a motor.
I've. I've done maybe some Boy scouts merit badge automotive experience and torn apart my bicycles. I didn't have much experience at this time. Decided to get. To just grit my teeth and get into it. Within the two weeks of me being there and them picking up where I left off, we were able to get that done in about two weeks. So it wasn't that big of a deal, but it was like, this is what I'm gonna be looking forward to for the rest of my life. Yeah, so, great experience there.
I then left on my. I. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. At the time, I was called on a mission to Farmington, New Mexico, right on the Navajo reservation. So I got out there and I said to myself, everybody out here really needs their cars bad. Like your car was your life to be. It was what fed you. It was what got you water.
It was what got you electricity. Because some people, they just sit out in their car and charge their phones. So, like, I saw, that was my. That was my calling there. I needed to be there to be able to help these people out with their cars. Started out with pretty simple stuff. A few major engine fixes here and there. I did spark plugs on a Triton.
That took me 5 hours one day. Nightmare in the middle of nowhere with. With limited hand tools. As a missionary, you're not allowed to use power tools. So this was all hand tools. Right till the end of my mission, where I literally did a dual engine swap on a. On a dodge neon. He had a good engine in a bad car and a bad engine in a good car.
And he just wanted me to swap them over for him. So I mean, it ran up like I got it running the day that I was supposed to be in Farmington. Fly home.
Right.
So I told him, you're gonna have to find somebody to slap on the bumper for you and fill up the radiator and stuff. But I know that it works. It runs. You're welcome. And all of this for free because you're a missionary. You need to have that Christ like attribute of not charging people for stuff.
To be a servante.
Yeah, exactly.
Wow. And no power tools are allowed.
No power tools. There was one time where I did break that rule. I bought a die grinder because I needed, I needed to cut a bolt, a rusty bolt that I'm like, if I don't cut this and figure it out then, then this person is not going to be able to make it home. They were staying with her aunt or something like that. So I needed to just, you know, that one time, break the rule, get a grinder, cut this bolt. Good to go.
So that's pretty, that's pretty amazing though. You know what I mean? Like it kind of. So that the, the f 250 engine job, there's so many, I've talked to so many mechanics now that talk about those kind of jobs that they had where they were just thrown into the deep end of the pool. Right. I don't know if it's kind of like if people are doing that to try and discourage young people from getting in or if they're just. There is no better exposure to what one of those, you know, what will be a teeth gnawing job. Right. So you might as well get it out of the way is what I'm trying to say earlier in your career, if you stay through that, you're probably going to survive.
Right. In terms of you, you're not going to get knuckled under by the job. You're going to maybe hate the industry at times and hate your boss or hate a co worker or whatever, but you're not going to hate that where you just want to throw your hands up and go, I can't do this. Right. That's.
Yeah. And I feel like the best part about that was I at least had a boss that was right by my side anytime I had a question. He was the shop owner, main mechanic, did all the diagnosing for both me and the other guy that worked with me. So like I had a very good mentor to get me, to help me like really understand the industry. I mean, at that point, I still didn't know certain things. Like, I didn't know how to, how a window regulator worked. My head was just thinking, it's just a doctor Seuss glove going, whoop, whoop, whoop. With the, with the window up and down.
I didn't know what it looked like. Automatic transmissions, forget about it. I had no idea. So having somebody that was there by my side to help mentor me was great. Going out on my mission to help these people out was, it really helped me appreciate just how necessary this career is and utilizing a skill that I knew I had it. I had a knack for taking things apart and putting them back together. My mom had tons of things that were in the house that I either took apart and put back together, and it kind of worked. Dvd players, bicycles, things of that nature, but, yeah, and then getting home and saying, all right, I want to make a career out of this, because I also do, like, I'm very artistically inclined.
I can paint, draw, and whatnot. My mom wanted me to go into animation and stuff with Pixar. I looked at her dead square in the face, and I'm like, mom, I am not going to be able to make a career out of art in, like, in this day and age. It's all computer animation. I'm not great with that. Hand drawing animation is almost dead. So I'm going to try to make a career out of this mechanic thing. It was going to work.
I have a cousin that he works at Carmax. He did at the time, quit for a brief period of time, but is now still there. He was probably the reason that I got hired on there. A good word of mouth, like, oh, yeah, this guy's really good at what he does. So here we go. We're going to start out in the mechanical industry, and we're going to really make a name for ourselves, only to be met with. Boss hired me on as a parts guy, so I'm like, well, at least now I'll know what a window regulator looks like. So spent maybe six months in that parts department, really learning the odds and ends of, like, I didn't know that you could order parts from a dealership at that time either.
So, like, it was wild to me to really understand just how big and vast this industry was.
Yeah.
Till finally a position opened up as a mechanic, and I was like, all right, we're finally going to be able to put those skills to work. It was also at this time that I had purchased my first pickup truck. It was really my first vehicle to begin with my 2006 Ram 1500. Bought it from a family from my mission.
Right.
300,000 miles on a 3.6, or, sorry, 3.7 liter. Yeah. It said to myself that, hey, we could just buy this, fix it, flip it, and buy my parents zero five Colorado from them. Or, sorry, zero four Colorado. Love that truck. Even though it was gutless, it was such a fun truck. But I bought that truck with the intention to just fix it and flip it, only to find out the title was bad. So I had to make a bunch of phone calls, got it to where it's like, okay, you have to have a level two inspection done.
I'm assuming that was kind of like, you know, you had your safety check with emissions at the time. No longer required now, but at the time was it needed a level two inspection where a police officer actually had to, like, go around the vehicle and inspect it. I was so paranoid of how in depth this. This was going to look that I had a couple of bolts snap off on my motor mounts because the replacement block I got, it had rusted off where the bolts would go for the motor mount. So I cut the head off of the bolts and superglued them onto where the motor mount bolt plate was is. I was like, I am not getting this thing to not pass. I have to drive all the way down to Arizona to get it to even work. So, you know what? We're going to do everything as good as we can do it.
So it now has a clean title. But, yeah, it got branded as this thing's junk. This thing is even Carmax told me it's only worth dollar 500 because I was trying to sell it to them. So I realized at that point, I was stuck with this truck. I then decided to again hone those skills that I knew that I had. And I was very tenacious with the idea, let's just hemi swap it. You know, I'm stuck with this truck, we might as well put an engine in it that actually is going to be able to get me up a canyon, right? I joke about all the time that this truck with 300,000 miles on it and the original transmission and this Jeep Liberty engine underneath the hood, that I would get passed by semi trucks going up a 6% grade. It was that gutless.
I remember I worked at the dealership in 2006 when those were new. And I can remember the same thing. Like, we used to think that, like, you know, a 3.9 in a four wheel drive Dakota was a turd, right? Like, they weren't that quick when they put three seven in a four wheel drive ram, we're like, my God, this thing is slow. Like, you could. Almost felt like you could get out and run next to it. Right? It was so slow. No.
So, yeah, I probably had the better torque version of that because this was two wheel drive.
Yeah.
In two wheel drive. And that's the thing that, at least in Utah, I get made fun of the most for still having a two wheel drive vehicle in Utah, you know, with our snow and everything. I'm an idiot, I will. I will admit. So it's sandbags or loading up some. Like, I've just had engines that I keep around, throw them in the bed of the truck so that I can actually have traction.
Yeah, yeah.
V six is so glad to be rid of them. Other than the weight in the bed of the truck, that's all they're good for.
When you. When you decide you're gonna do this hemi swap, were you did. Is it fair to say that maybe you didn't quite know all the, like.
What that actually I had no clue what I was doing. Absolutely no clue.
Yeah. Good on you.
Say that again.
Good on you for taking that on, though, right? Like, you're not like, yeah, I.
So many people made fun of me for it, but, I mean, looking back, I wouldn't know half the stuff that I know now had I not taken under that or taken on that big of a swap. Not just that, but, like, so I. This was actually, like when I was first dating my wife, I had bought a new transmission for it, thinking that maybe the transmission is just, like, slipping. It's not putting all that power to the ground. Bought a new transmission for it, only to get it in and realize that it was the three pin connector, not the four pin connector. There was a difference between these 42 rles, so I had to then take it out, put my old one back in. And as I'm putting it back in, in my. In my girlfriend's driveway at the time, jack slips and my hand is between cross member and transmission slips off, the jack crushes my hands.
The first time I've ever cried in front of her. And, you know, we got it towed to Carmax. I asked them, hey, can you guys throw this transmission in for me? I've got all the pieces and everything. They refused. They refused to put it in for me. They're like, we're not going to put this in because why were you replacing it? How do we know it's good? And I'm like, it's still good. But we're going to have to pay extra labor because we don't know where all those bolts go. And I'm like, all right, fine, I'm going to push it over to Sam's club and across the street and just put it in myself.
And I decided to take the money back that I got from that transmission that was wrong and went and bought one from a five seven. Just thought, why not? Let's start this crazy idea that I had at the time and let's start making it work. The transmission still was working, why not? So transmission was the first thing I purchased. It was from a 4.7, had like 90,000 miles on it. So I'm like, okay, 545 RFE with 45,000 or with 90,000 miles on it, that's not bad. Okay. And especially with Dodge transmissions, everybody is always telling you they're bad, so you better get a low mileage one. Meanwhile, I've seen more problems with like a four l 60 or a six r than I have with Dodge transmissions.
So I take that as you will.
So listen, the signs behind me, right, are speaking of what my lineage is like, that's, you know, people used to say all the same things. Same things. Used to hear that all the time, right? Well, Dodge transmissions won't hold up. If you looked at how a lot of people back then in the two thousands were buying a work truck, they went and bought a dodge and they worked it, you know, like a lot of trucks, a lot of agricultural haul trucks, that kind of stuff. So I mean, yeah, they got used. Somebody that's got a cream puff, you know, f 150 that didn't do anything with it. Yeah, all our transmission went to 100,000. That, you know, truck over there being used, it only made it to 60,000.
Yeah, one used and the other ones, like a, use like a minivan, like they're not the same.
So one was abused and the other one, like one guy gets told, oh, yeah, these things are bulletproof. You're never going to have any issues with them. So he never does his maintenance. He never does anything to be able to take care of it only to be met with, oh, yeah, the transmission's gone bad. Well, I don't understand how that happened. This thing is supposed to be bulletproof. So yeah, I would say that like, I was doing everything I could, I put a deep sump pan on it, I put a 2500 radiator or the transmission cooler on it, because I was like, I am not, not going to have this thing fail I mean, knock on wood, but even right now, I think I have a couple of things that I need to go back in on. So I have a spare transmission sitting in my garage for the sake of when, not if, when.
The amount of abuse that I put that thing through is gonna eventually catch up to me.
So you eventually found a hemi for your truck?
Yeah. So I I used my tax return one year to go and buy an engine during my lunch break. Found one with 124,000 miles on it. They compression tested it, had pictures of each, each cylinder, so I felt good about the purchase. Two grand for the engine came with a four wheel drive wire harness and all the accessories. So I was like, this is a good purchase. Built everything on jack stands in my garage, just pieced everything together. Got motor mounts.
$300 a piece for a motor mount. And I had a guy that made fun of me so much for it. He's like, why don't you just go and get some at a junkyard? I'm like, nobody has a two wheel drive v eight in Utah. Yeah, they're all four by four mounts. Looking back, especially after seeing how these mount plates looked, I probably could have used the four wheel drive mounts. It still would have bolted up. It just had a weird looking bracket, but, yeah. So my boss had already, like, gotten wind of this after I said, hey, I want to order a transmission for a 5.7, not for a yde, uh, 3.7.
So he pulls me into his office, and in his wording it almost exactly, he's like, now, man, what you're trying to do here is impossible. You know? This can't be done. It just can't. So I'm just trying to warn you, maybe you shouldn't try to do this. And I'm sitting there just like, just because you told me that now I want to do it even more.
Right?
So, I mean, it did. It did take me a long time to piece everything together. Got everything figured out, ready to stab it in on July 4 weekend. And after everything was stabbed in there, it would just crank. It wouldn't start. And I'm just like, what's going on here? That's when I learned about skim. Skim tip, them, all that stuff. I had somebody come by to try to program it.
I put it on a trailer, towed it down to a dealership just for them to tear apart the engine for it and them to tell me, oh, yeah, it's your tip. I met your. It's your skim module and stuff. It's not programmed and whatnot. I'm like, I spent $300 for these guys to tell me everything that I told them. Their communication was not great. They actually talked with me. They probably could have actually gotten me somewhere.
But that's when I was like, okay, screw this. I'm going to reach out to junkyard. I'm going to tell them, give me every piece of wire that you have on that truck, including the keys, including the lock cylinder. If it's a wire, I need it. Right? $300. At the time, that was in 2017. They pulled everything out from the same vehicle, slapped it in within an hour, and it fired right up. Fired right up.
And I just had to worry about the difference in gas pedals that I had. I actually zip tied my gas pedal to the floor of the truck because I. I had to get a correct one for it. But, you know, it fired right up, and it passed emissions within the first 30 minutes of me driving it. I'm like, this is insane. How did I do that so well, looking back, I'm like, it's an OE for OE swap. It's not that hard, but, yeah, it definitely taught me so much about vehicles and how they work and everything that it really gave me an edge at work and to roll up the next day at that boss that told me, what you're doing is impossible with both fists up, both middle fingers raised. Like, you don't know what you're talking about, bud.
Hey, buddy, let's go for a test drive.
Let me show you how well this roast tires now tire. I mean, I made a snowball. The first burnout I could make, I made a snowball out of the rubberization. I just. I was so happy. I was. And at the time, of course, I'm trying to get engaged to my wife, and she's having conversations with her mom. Like, he's spending so much money on this truck, and it's still a full size, two wheel drive pickup truck.
Why is he dumping seven grand into this thing? Just for it to get to a level that I probably could have spent seven grand and bought a truck that already had it.
Mm hmm. Easily. Easily. For sure. For sure.
What? The experience.
Yeah.
What it taught me was cheaper than. It was cheaper than college. That's all I can say is that is my. My degree, if I was to ever have one. So I drive it around proudly today. I still beat the tar out of it. I have hauled houses with that thing. Yeah.
And it's still running strong. And even though it's not the original engine, it just rolled over 400,000 miles last week.
Yeah.
So I. I proudly drive that thing around with a license plate that says hemi swap on it, even though probably somebody's driving by going like, didn't that come with one? What is he talking about?
So for a guy from, for a guy from Utah, you do a fantastic North Carolina accent. I just gotta say, because I have.
Been told I'm adopted. So, like, I've been told that I have a texan accent. I'm like, I don't know, maybe there's somebody in Texas that is like, has a long lost brother out there that he didn't know he had. Everybody tells me I look like Upchurch and I don't see it.
So, I mean, I understand the project car thing for a long time. I didn't. When I was in the industry, when you'd see these young people sometimes and you still see them driving around, right? You're looking at something that looks, like, haggard and clapped out, and you're like. And some guy gets out of it and you just know he's a gearhead. And you're like, to the onlooker, that's not in the industry. It doesn't make any sense. But it's like, he's. That car is your.
It's your portfolio. Portfolio. It's your. In some ways, it's your degree. Just like you said, it's not always supposed to make sense to everybody else. Right? It makes sense to car people. And that's the whole thing is like the car enthusiast crowd that doesn't work in the industry. I've always been.
I've kind of kept them at an arm's length because it's like, I look at it and it's like, sometimes the way they conduct themselves when they talk about mechanics and whatnot really drives me sideways. And, you know, but you kind of know when you see the guy get out and he's got, like, grease under his fingernails and he has, like, a dealership shirt on or something like that. And, you know, he's like that thing. That thing means something to him. It's like. It's like a pet. It's like a dog, you know, you've had it for. I totally, totally get it.
It's.
And my wife. My wife has definitely, like, she's fully accepted that I'm probably going to have this truck until I'm dead.
I'm.
And even then, I'm probably going to be buried with it. I. It's such a pile, but I love it so much. It taught me more than I could have ever learned sitting in a classroom. And, I mean, even. It's. It's had its problems, for sure, but those problems. I would go to the dealership, I would go to the higher up mechanics around me, and I would ask them, yeah, what do you think? Like, what do you think could be causing this issue? And they're like, I've never been asked that question in my life.
Yeah.
How is this, like, how is this the humbling? Never seen that before in my life. Like, right now, I don't have reverse lights on it. I can't find much information on it other than it's likely inside of the tip. I replaced every last piece of wiring. I know that everything traces good and powers up and whatnot. I can see on the dash that it registers. It's in reverse, but, yeah, I haven't had reverse lights on it for. Well, ever since doing that swap.
So. Is it. Do I really care all that much? No, I just back into every parking spot so that I don't get blocked in. So, I mean, eventually I'll fix that. And the tachometer that likes to sweep all the way past 7000 revolutions per minute all the way up to ten. Yeah, there's definitely problems that I still need to learn on it. Yeah. But it's still functioning.
It's still towing everything that I needed to.
It's a bit Frankenstein, though, right? So, I mean, it's always going to be.
I've got at least 30 different vins saved in my phone for. This is where this part came from. This is where this part came from. This is the mileage that it had. So, yeah. Engine is probably at 200,000 miles ish at this time. Transmission is at like 150, maybe 160. Rear differential.
Took a 50,000 miles break after I grenaded it and had to rebuild it. But, you know, there's. I would say that it's a. It's a rolling recycling plant. If you want a green vehicle, having something with all of these things swapped over from old parts, I would dare say is more of a green vehicle than some of the other ones that are out there that are obsolete after ten years. Ask my father in law how that works out.
That's awesome. I mean, and that's. That's a big part of it, right? It's. It's huge. It's. It's. You're a dedicated young man. I like that.
I really do. You know, you. You're a thinker. I can tell. And you're like. You're not. You're not knuckling under by anything. So kind of talk us through, because, like, we kind of started off the conversation and leading into something, and I think somebody.
I were like, okay, 35 minutes in, what are we getting to? You work for? I first saw you on TikTok, and I saw you moving your toolbox into a shop that is known very well on social media. Like, very well known. Yeah, on TikTok, YouTube, so on and so forth. Right. You're moving your toolbox into Dave's auto center.
Yep. And I was an opportunity that I had seen two videos posted and tried twice to get hired on there to back up just a little bit. I had gotten fired from Carmax just about a year ago, so I was kind of looking for anything to be able to get me hired on the bishop that was in my area when I was replacing my transmission in my girlfriend's front yard at the time, he told me that day, he was like, hey, you're the person that was changing the transmission in their front yard, right? Yeah. You ever wanted to work in heavy duty industrial stuff, I'd love to have you come and work in my shop. I took him up on that offer, and five years later, took him up on that offer and worked on thermoking units and JCB industrial equipment.
Yep.
So really got to cut my teeth there, too, because I hadn't dove that deep into the diesel world. They have these four cylinder Yanmar diesels that they have this timing cover ceiling issue. I was chased with, okay, you need to. Or I was tasked with the. You need to figure this out, why it's leaking. Figured it out. Yanmar has now, since, with Thermo king, figured out a kit to be able to make that repair easy. I trained guys that were there for 40 years how to rip apart these diesel engines like they had done head gaskets.
They have never had to rip apart the bottom end of these diesels before. So, yeah, young me, teaching somebody that's in their fifties how to tear apart a Yanmar, it was. It was something different, but it really opened me up to the industry. I then was switched over to JCB, doing a lot of their industrial equipment, did a lot of fun stuff there. But it was, again, an eye opening kind of way of doing it was some new thing that I had never experienced before. And I was definitely taking every bit that I could learn and trying to just get myself into a better position to where I didn't feel like I was going to be there for forever. So I needed to gather as many skills as I could here and hopefully put it into the next job that I go to. It was looking like dealerships were the only place that was going to match close to what Carmax was paying.
I was like, I need to be making over 30 an hour. I have a house. I have, you know, I've got bills to pay. I need to find something that's over 30 an hour.
Yep.
Then Dave posts a video saying that he's looking for mechanics. And I'm like, okay, what do you, what do you. Where is this guy? Oh, he's just up the road from me. Wow. Probably about a 20 minutes commute, so not that bad. Yeah, but he's showing, like, oh, yeah, I've got a snack fridge for my mechanics. Like, this guy really knows how to keep, like, he knows how to take care of his mechanics. After being at Carmax, for sure, I knew how well somebody could be treated, also how bad somebody can be treated.
But I said to myself, okay, let's try to make this work. So I reached out and had an interview with his son, Miles. I then got word back from him after an in person interview that we did find somebody. Sorry, I'll keep your name in the back of my mind next time we're hiring on. So maybe two or three months later, all of a sudden, the opportunity presents itself again. And I reached out, gave him my resume, and then I get a text that evening of, Dave would like to visit with you personally. Can you come up here after work? Sure, yeah. Heck, I'll call out an hour early.
If this is as good of an opportunity as I'm hearing, then great. So I go up there, sit down, we have a chat. He's asking me about what are my worries about at this point. I've only been hourly. I've been making 32, 60 an hour for from Carmax to thermoking GCB. So I'm telling Dave what I'm making and where I'd like to see myself. Because at both these jobs, I was working to get at least to 35, $36 an hour because I knew what I was capable of. Only for Dave to cut me off and say, I will start you at $45 an hour flat rate.
And I'm like, I'm stunned. I'm like, that's as much as the high up text at Carmax made. You're telling me I'm going to be able to make that now? They were hourly, but yeah, no, I'll be making that flat rate. Let's do it. So I mean, he shook my hand and said, go ahead and talk with your wife, but I can't wait to hear back from you to see. See when you want to start. So he was confident that I was going to not turn him down. I would be an idiot to turn down that kind of money and so on.
Right.
So what I knew that I put in my two weeks.
So what I knew of Dave to kind of back up now is. And, you know, is big, big presence on tick tock, big presence on social media. Looks like a massive facility. Right? Is it?
Yeah. So he's got. He's got a north end and a south end shop. So the north shop is the most recent one. It used to be what was known as Les Schwab. They bought out that. They basically just do tire suspension brakes. He bought out that building because within the last two years, they've been exploding, of course, on the Internet.
And that has led to them saying, we need to find ways to expand it. Even right now, he was looking at buying a third building.
Yeah.
So he purchased this building. He's connected the two shops with, like, concrete and whatnot. The south building was his original building and even that was super small. He's added a significant portion of that shop, too. So, like, the machine shop side of things that you see in the videos, that's his original shop. Then there's a section of it that kind of goes off into a garage with six bays. I think that was an addition that was maybe within the last ten years or so. Don't quote me on that.
I don't know the exact dates and times, but within a certain amount of time. And he lives literally across the fence from it. But he still drives his Mercedes Benz v eight twin turbo vehicle around the corner so that he can park in front of the shop.
Yeah.
All right. So when you were hired, man, I'd probably do the same exact thing.
When you were hired, you weren't going to work in a machine shop or were you going to work in, like, the six bay kind of general.
I was hired on into that newer shop, decided to shop that they had their shop foreman and one other mechanic, and they actually sent the. Another mechanic that was in that same shop, they sent him over to the south one. So it. It was me and another tech that got hired on at the exact same time. We both just were told, all right, and this was actually very important to be told, but it was still our misunderstanding in the end. We were told by Dave himself, you are going to be paid 30 like you're going to be paid 30 hours at your rate, for the first two weeks of working there, you're going to be paid 30 hours. And if you're able to get over 30 hours, then you'll get the commission on top of that. So it's like, okay, that's.
That's a good amount of money for us to at least get up on our feet because at flat rate, without any tickets, closed out. Like, we're not going to make anything for those first couple of weeks, maybe even the first month, only to be met with after the first week. The HR gal, she basically runs everything. She looks at the paperwork and she's like, all right, Dave would like you to pick out on the jobs that you've done, where you want your 30 hours coming from. I'm like, wait, what? So that wasn't just going to be fronted to us, it was, we're. We're getting paid from jobs that were come, that are going to be completed, right? So, like, in the. In this first two weeks, I had pulled three engines, right? I had pulled an engine on a GTO, I had pulled an engine on a sprinter van, and I had pulled a cab and engine on a, on a 60 powerstroke. So, like, I had racked up quite the amount of hours.
And I'm like, okay, well, I guess just pull the 30 from the 60. I mean, that itself is 30 hours right there. So just pull from that. Only to be met with a little bit of pushback from Dave himself saying, he sat me down with my shop foreman and he's like, he was fighting me on what he wanted to pay. And I wanted to understand. Even to this day, I don't understand how he had that set up. I truly do.
So let me give some context to the listeners because I think what you're trying to say to us is that Dave started this new venture within the business that he was going to bring cars in, have two techs and a foreman oversee the removal of the engine. Then I'm thinking that it goes somewhere else within the facility for the engine to be rebuilt. And then you install the engine when they're done with it, and you're liable for any of the problems that it might have had after the rebuild. You know, problems that are, that become awry when you're removing the engine, installing the engine are all on you. That's what it sounds like to me.
And I can actually a little bit. It honestly still ran like a traditional shop on that side of things, but it's not like tickets did those big tickets, did feed a majority of that paycheck.
Yeah. Like he's booking in probably. I'm thinking other traditional brake jobs, maybe, you know, an exhaust inspection, something.
There is some of that, like, gravy work, as some shops like to call it, that he just flat out doesn't do. He had tire machines. He doesn't do tires anymore. He doesn't do quick oil changes. He doesn't do those things that can get cars in quick in and out. He prefers to do the really heavy, in depth jobs that nobody wants to do.
Right. Yeah, I get it. He's on billions of dollars, millions of dollars of machine work, machine shop facilities and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, he's going to want to do heavy line. I totally understand it. It's not a terrible business model. It's a terrible business.
If I. If I could have an in house machine shop, I'd do all that stuff all the time. I'd never leave. I'd never come home.
But you can't. You like, the idea that he thinks that you can flat rate your people that are going to be doing the. The re and re's of it is. Is ridiculous. Now people are going to put their hand up and go, well, guys that do transmission shops, a lot of them do re and rein flat rate all day long. I know they do. It's not the same transmissions, especially when.
You rip out an engine and it's expected to have, like, I'm spending maybe 1015 hours just pulling the motor and tearing it down, putting all the parts in labeled cups and putting pieces on a rolling cart. And basically, like, what you would see bakers use for their bread. You're putting all the parts stacked up on one of these to roll it into another room for storage while the engine gets sent over to the machine shop. Now, I'm not getting paid for that vehicle until it's done. So I'm not going to see that truck probably again for another two months. That's how pushed back a lot of these jobs were. And some of them, if you weren't getting an engine that was like, say you had a 6.0 head, gaskets failed. Okay, well, we've got a tow monster package that's ready to go, ready to stab into your vehicle.
They were trying to push that a lot more. Getting one engine done a day. Goal. Two engines done per day to be thrown in these tow monster packages. But again, it can take a long time to even rip it out, do the teardown, and get it sent to the machine shop, have them do their full teardown cleaning and add to the ticket what they needed from that point on. So there was a lot of pieces that were moving here, but it was still just time that I'm sitting there going, when am I going to get paid on that job? I spent a significant amount of time on that, and I'm not going to see that reflected on my paycheck until two months from now when the ticket is closed. I get it, but I kind of was like, hey, is there any chance that we can at least get paid out on the work that I did? I spent the time, and I know I could get it later, but we have the cash now. He takes 50% down on every job.
Yeah.
So the money's there.
Yeah. Yeah. So I gotta ask from a time standpoint, like, because we all know when, say, the book time says it's x amount of hours to yank the engine. Right? Now, when you talk about doing the teardown, is that time that's allotted extra, or is that kind of just expected that you guys were going to go further than just, like, yank it out the bottom, throw it in the corner, start bolting the other one in? Like, how did that work? Where. Who determined how much time you got to tear it down further to the bare block or whatever to all go into the machine?
I think a lot of it was still based on Mitchell time for R and R, but I don't want to misspeak for it. So give me a second. Like, it seemed like there was additional time added to the ticket for just about every ticket for those little things that you would inevitably run into.
Sure.
But there were there. This was one thing that I had a hard time with. He would add extra time for, say. Let's say you got to push the vehicle into the shop. There is an additional fee to just push it or tow it with a golf cart into the bay. Let's say it's snowed the night before and you've got to tow it in. You are adding additional labor to scrape the snow off and pull it into the shop. So there was that.
Let's say you have a rusty bolt, as he put it. It's not my fault that the bolt is rusty, and then it's snapping off. To be able to remove that bolt, we got to put additional time on that within a certain amount of percentage before it needs approval, I guess. So there. I didn't run into that a lot. And to be honest, it was maybe still a lot of like, how I was at Carmax wherever. If I ran into something, take care of it right then and there and move on. There were some things that I personally just did not add to a ticket, mostly because I just did not understand how the system worked.
We all got, like, little iPads and whatnot, or Android, whatever those are, to do all of our inspection work and so on. So to add it to the ticket, you actually had to go onto a desktop, but you could take pictures and everything with it to inform the customer. Hey, we noticed this wire harness is in rough shape. We would recommend doing one at this time. Rusty bolts. We recommend new hardware at this time. The terminology from my shop foreman was very important. He's like, you were basically signing over a legal document of what you found.
You need to make sure that you document the hell out of this thing. Am I allowed to swear on this cat on this podcast?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay. My mom might hear this, too, but, you know, she. She can. She can tough it out, but, yeah. So it was. You were told just to be very thorough with your inspections because there's additional time and labor there that they can charge for.
Right. So did you ever. Did you ever have a bang up week where it's like, you closed out with a ton of time, like, way above your 30 hours? Yeah.
So, um, like, my first couple of weeks there, I'm going over my numbers, and it's like, yeah, you're starting, like, this first month. I'm. I'm getting into maybe 30 hours, 32 hours. But a lot of this time was spent on the big engine tickets. So, like, I'm spending a lot of time. I'm spending the full 8 hours there. I'm cutting my. My lunches short.
So then that way, I have more time to be able to get these things done because I need a. I need a paycheck that's decent enough to at least pay my house bill. So the one paycheck that made my stomach churn, I actually threw up that morning. 2 hours of work or two weeks of work. I made $1100. And I was like. I was terrified. I had immediate anxiety that morning.
I threw up. I'm just like, what am I doing here? I just made the biggest mistake of my life. If I turned down my hourly job that was guaranteeing me at least $2,000 every two weeks, I turned down that job, that comfortable job that didn't leave me with anxiety every single morning for this. It was a huge turning point. And, of course, I'm just. I'm in my head. What am I gonna do. So, that being said, that being said, there were some lights on the horizon.
My video of me quitting my job at JCB and Thermo king to go to Dave's, that paycheck came in, and that video made me $1,000. So I'm like, okay. Oh, we can breathe a sigh of relief. Thank you, TikTok. Plus some of my other videos contributed to it. So, like, to be able to be able to have that. That gap made up for by simply the saving grace of a video that I made. Okay, we can breathe.
Let's. Let's still not discount the fact that, like, I can't count on that for saving every single month. I can't. And that's only one paycheck that I get per month from tick tock. It's not something that I can count on consistently to be over a $1,000.
People have heard me talk more than once on. On this platform, and, like, so me being in Canada, I'm not. I'm not seeing money come from TikTok. Right. It's not monetized for me, which is fine. I don't do. I don't. I'm not on tick tock to make money.
I'll be totally transparent with you. Some months, it is not worth it. Yeah, exactly. You look at, like, $100, like, oh, great, now I got to pay taxes on this, too. That barely pays for a tank of gas.
Yeah.
And I burnt through a lot of that.
And so I look at it, and it's like, so there are other people out there that are making a ton of money on TikTok, and that's all good. That's good. Hats off to them. They work really hard at it. I know as a content creator now with this podcast, like you just heard me say at the start, right? I'm going to record two episodes today. There's. That's, like, working another day. Now, this doesn't sound like work, having this conversation, but I just.
I don't. I worry about guys like yourself that sometimes get into jobs or their. Their occupation. Their job becomes this, where it's like, well, as long as TikTok keeps paying good, I'm gonna keep right here. You know what I mean? And I remind them all the time, like, well, what if that tomorrow they flick a switch, YouTube could do it, TikTok could do it. And all of a sudden, they say it's not monetized anymore. You still gonna where you're gonna be in the industry?
Well, you're gonna be. I wish, like, you know, we look at people like, let's say, let's you, let's use a big name out there, whistling diesel. Like, that guy has to be making a ton of money to be able to make the content that he does. I would like to see myself. It's a, like, a small goal that I have in the back of my head of, like, I wish I could do mechanic work for free and live only off of what the video makes me. So I advertise myself as a free mechanic minus parts. At least make it to where they can get a parts discount and whatnot. But yeah, I'd love to be able to just drive around, fix people's cars and they get their car fixed for really cheap when all else seemed like they couldn't have get it done right.
I even did a video recently where I. I donated everything that I made from that video, which in hindsight, I only made, like, I only made $75, but I bumped it up to $100 and I gave them a $100 bill. I think it was just last week on, on Friday that I was driving past their place and I said, oh, yeah, that's right. I need to. I need to run over to their house, handed them a $100 bill and said, you know, this is what I made from the video. You guys deserve it. Let me know if you need any more work. I'd love to be able to get myself to that point, but in today's day and age, it seems like it's that much more impossible to be able to reach that.
I'd love to be able to make that happen. But, I mean, the logistics seem a little bit too far fetched for me to be able to make it happen.
And we're going to stop it right there. Next week, we'll wrap up the conversation with Spencer Ellis and Jeff Compton on Jada Mechanic. Now, next week, they're really going to get into the nitty gritty of what happened at Dave's auto. They've alluded to it, they've talked about it briefly, but today's episode was really about backstory for Spencer and how he got to Dave's auto. And then next week, we'll talk about what happened. Be sure to be here for jaded mechanic with Spencer Ellis, aka Metal man, on TikTok. Next week on Jaded Mechanic.
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 partner in the ASA group into 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
Spencer Ellis, known as Metal Man Online on TikTok, shares his journey from a self-taught mechanic to working at a well-known auto shop. He discusses the challenges he faced, including a boss who doubted his abilities and the steep learning curve of engine swaps. Spencer recounts his experiences at Carmax, his mission work in New Mexico, and the unique opportunities that led him to Dave's Auto Center. His story highlights the importance of perseverance and mentorship in the automotive industry, setting the stage for future discussions on his current role.
Original notes
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Jeff Compton is joined by Metal Man Online (Spencer Ellis) from TikTok, who shares his journey as a mechanic. Metal Man discusses the challenges of inconsistent pay and the pressures of engine rebuilds in a high-demand environment. Jeff expresses concern over content creators relying on platforms like TikTok for income and highlights the expenses often overlooked.
00:00 Exciting Jada Mechanic podcast introduces Metal Man.
06:11 Hourly setup with the tiered system, and mechanical associates.
08:09 First job: school intern, then mechanic's apprentice.
12:20 "Challenging mechanic jobs can also be beneficial."
15:19 My Cousin worked at Carmax and influenced my hiring.
17:08 Ensured vehicle passed inspection despite motor mount issue.
20:15 Regretted car repair mishap led to injury.
23:27 Neglected maintenance leads to unforeseen mechanical issues.
27:35 I replaced the gas pedal, passed the emissions, and impressed the boss.
31:13 Maintain distance, yet understand their passion.
34:54 Two videos led to a job in industrial equipment.
36:40 Learning and gaining experience in the diesel industry.
42:28 Hired at the new shop with commission pay.
43:29 Initial pay delays; compensation based on completed jobs.
48:18 Engine production slow, delayed payment concerns.
51:13 Rusty bolt needs approval, didn't understand the system.
54:14 Regretting decision, uncertain future, seeing some hope.
57:10 Aspiring to live off video content creation.
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The Jaded Mechanic Podcast
Jeff Compton
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