An EGR valve is part of a truck’s emissions system. It helps the engine burn cleaner by reusing some exhaust gases, and if it fails, the engine may run poorly or fail emissions checks.
“Safety” here means the truck has to pass an inspection so it’s legal and safe to drive. The dealer hadn’t checked it yet, so they didn’t know what it would take to pass.
The Ford F-150 is a large pickup truck made for hauling and towing. Because so many people drive them, repair shops see them a lot. That’s why it often shows up in stories about busy dealerships and frequent service.
The Honda Civic is a very common car. The host is saying they used to work on clutches and transmissions on Civics, which are jobs that can take real time.
At a dealership, a service writer is the person who takes your car’s information, writes the repair paperwork, and communicates between you and the mechanic. The host is saying that role can sometimes focus on the wrong things.
The Volkswagen Bus is a van that’s designed to carry passengers. If it’s in the shop, the owner may need a ride or shuttle while repairs are happening. That’s why it can show up in stories about service logistics.
The service manager is in charge of the dealership’s repair department. They’re responsible for how the shop runs overall, not just individual customer interactions.
The host is talking about Ford’s heavy-duty trucks (“Super Duty”) with diesel engines (“Power Stroke”). They’re saying the repairs can be more difficult because the engine bay layout makes certain jobs harder.
The alternator is the part that keeps the battery charged while the engine is running. The host is saying it’s annoying to replace on certain trucks because it’s hard to reach.
John Mills is the experienced coworker who mentored the host. The host says John taught him the right steps for tough repairs so he could learn faster.
The Chevrolet Spin is a small van-like vehicle meant to carry people. When someone says “spin the thing,” they usually mean operating a part or checking how the car responds. In a repair setting, that kind of comment often relates to how the vehicle drives or shifts.
Term
DPF delete
DPF delete means removing or bypassing a filter that traps soot in diesel exhaust. The host is saying that when a truck has been modified this way, it can come back later with other problems and extra work.
The check engine light comes on when the car’s computer finds a problem. Here, the host says it came on even though the underlying issue was caused by a wiring connection mistake.
The Rolls-Royce Phantom is a very expensive luxury car. If the check engine light comes on, it means the car’s computer has detected a problem. Fixing it can involve checking the engine computer and related sensors.
A serpentine belt is a belt that powers several engine accessories. The host is saying that when they have to take things apart, they’ll also replace easy wear items like that belt to avoid coming back later.
A screw compressor is a machine that makes compressed air for industrial use. Instead of pumping air in cycles, it compresses air continuously, which is why factories like them.
A supercharger is a device that forces extra air into an engine so it can make more power. Here, the speaker is using the word as a comparison for how the system increases pressure/airflow.
Diagnostic work is how a technician figures out what’s actually causing a problem in a car or system. The point is that modern problems often need more steps and checking than just quick fixes.
TSBs are official notes from the car maker about common problems and what to do to fix them. Instead of trying random repairs, a technician can look up the right procedure.
Identifix is a diagnostic information service used by technicians to help narrow down causes based on symptoms, codes, and repair history. It’s part of the modern “evidence gathering” workflow the speaker argues takes longer than a simple fixed “hour of diag.”
“Hour of diag” is when a shop charges for diagnostic work by the hour. The speaker argues that today’s troubleshooting can take longer because you have to test and confirm the real cause.
“Door rate” is the shop’s hourly price for labor—the rate they charge customers for technician time. It’s the number that helps you estimate what a repair might cost.
“Bay efficiency” is how busy and productive the repair work area (the bay) is. It’s basically a measure of how much real work gets done versus time lost to breaks or delays.
“Margin” here means the extra profit the shop adds when it sells parts. It’s different from the technician’s labor—parts can be marked up a lot even if labor is unchanged.
A “brake caliper” is the part that squeezes the brake pads to stop the car. Replacing one usually means swapping the old unit for a new one and making sure the brakes work correctly afterward.
“PDI” usually means a “pre-delivery inspection,” where a shop checks a vehicle before handing it to the buyer. It’s like a final checklist to make sure everything is ready.
A “Chrysler dealer” is a car dealership that sells and services Chrysler vehicles. The speaker is pointing out problems with how dealerships staff and run the service process.
An “oil change sticker” is the reminder label a shop puts on the car telling you when your next oil change is due. The complaint here is that the sticker information is sometimes wrong or missing.
“Kilometers” is the unit used to measure how far the car has been driven. The speaker is complaining that the maintenance reminder numbers don’t seem to match the car’s actual mileage.
“Air filter margins” means how much profit the shop makes on air filters. The speaker is saying if that profit is small, shops may try to sell other products instead.
A “dipstick” is the stick you pull out to check how much oil is in the engine. The speaker is saying shops should show customers where it is and how to use it.
Term
wheel out key
“Wheel out key” sounds like the moment the car is ready to leave the shop and the keys are handed back. The point is that the shop should make sure the customer-facing paperwork is done at that step.
DVI here means a video inspection. A technician records what’s wrong with your car and sends you the video plus the estimate, so you can see the problem instead of just hearing about it.
A clutch adjustment changes how the clutch engages when you press the pedal. The story is that one technician knew exactly how to set it so the customer liked how it felt.
The speaker is talking about AI (ChatGPT) that can answer questions and generate lists. Here, the idea is it could help shops quickly put together an estimate by using the right vehicle and parts info.
Parts lookup is the process of finding the exact correct part for your specific car. The episode suggests AI could do that searching and listing work quickly.
Upper ball joints are parts in the suspension that help the wheels move and steer smoothly. If they wear out, the car can feel loose and tires may wear unevenly.
They use a 2022 Chevy Silverado as an example. The idea is that AI could quickly create an estimate for a common job by using the right year-specific parts and labor info.
“Canned jobs” are ready-made estimate templates for common repairs. The episode suggests AI could help shops create those templates quickly for specific vehicles.
A “four corner brake job” means the brakes are serviced at all four wheels. It usually involves parts like pads and rotors, and sometimes the calipers too.
Flat rate means a mechanic gets paid a fixed amount for a repair, based on a standard estimate of how long the job should take. If the job takes longer than expected, they may not get extra pay.
David Roman is mentioned as the person who said the idea that the technician is “unemployable.” In this conversation, it’s used to explain why some people end up better off running their own shop than working for others.
“Bill accurately” means you charge for the right work and the right amount, not guesswork. The goal is that the final bill matches what you actually did and what you told the customer.
Larry Grogan is mentioned as the person who shared a warning about customers trying to pressure a shop to cut prices. The host then uses that warning in a real story about a truck inspection.
A “four wheel brake job” means the brakes are serviced on all four tires. That usually includes checking and possibly replacing parts like brake pads and rotors.
In a shop, “production” basically means how much work gets done in a day or week. It’s often measured by how many jobs are completed or how much time gets billed.
Labor times are the “how long the job should take” estimates used for pricing and scheduling. If the real job takes longer, the shop may still be stuck with the original estimate.
An impact gun is a heavy-duty tool that helps loosen or tighten stuck bolts quickly. It’s the kind of tool mechanics use when regular tools can’t break something free.
They’re talking about how shop work can affect people’s mental wellbeing. The claim is that the job environment can create stress and burnout, especially when technicians feel unsupported or underpaid.
Pay methods are the exact system a shop uses to calculate pay. It can be hourly, or based on the job, and it affects how fairly technicians feel they’re being treated.
Canadian Tire is a big Canadian store that sells automotive stuff and can run related services. The host mentions it as an example of a company that should change how it treats technicians.
Midas is a well-known auto service brand. They’re mentioned as an example of a big shop chain where culture and technician pay/conditions matter.
Brand
great Canadian oil change
Great Canadian Oil Change is an auto service brand. It’s brought up to show that even big chains can change how they treat technicians.
LIVE
We need to start demanding it as texts that were treated like, you know, maybe not doctors or lawyers, but I feel that my education and experience is worth the same amount as my sister's education. She's a friggin lawyer. So there are problems that she can solve and has solved for me only someone with her credentials can do. And there are plenty of problems that I have solved for her that only someone with my credentials can do.
So you, you were saying they, they kind of came in and bought the, the Sterling dealership and the Freightliner dealership and all Western Star all became one kind of conglomerate.
Yeah. So we, we merged everything. It became a melting pot. Here I end up back in the same shop with the same toxic mess.
Yeah.
And neither of them. Now you got three shops worth of work or three shops worth of guys in a weird economy. It was a bad, it was a bad deal. So, so I ended up making another move. Moved over to Jerry's in London, worked for them, finished my apprenticeship there. And you're either an insider, an outsider there. For a long time I was like part of the family. I loved it there.
I still, this day I still, I still love them, you know. You know it's, I hate them too but it's a, it's a toxic thing. But finished my apprenticeship there. We had a great crew of guys on our shift. Man, we could punch out the work. We were changing like we do two EGR valves of, on Volvo D14s a day. Like we were rear cover jobs, clutch jobs like. And they moved me up like they were, they were happy to get us into the ejector, ejector cup jobs and stuff.
They, if you worked hard there, they, they'd invest in you. Sent me some training and stuff and it was, it was a great place to be for a while. Until you've got, you've got kids of the owner maybe in roles they weren't necessarily ready for. There's a big respect thing. You know. The, the, he was, he was one of the foremans, was, was the owner's son and like he'd just go into your toolbox and help himself to your tools to do, to do a quick thing. It's like man, that's like going inside my girl's purse, man. Like you just ask, ask.
The answer is yes man. But ask, you know, and when you got a brand new fifteen thousand dollar toolbox that you got two coats of wax on, it's just, you just don't, you don't go there and that, that would turn into Shouting matches in the shop and the morale went pretty quickly. So I started shopping around. At this point I'm licensed, right? So like I, I don't need to stay in the trade necessarily. I've always got that. And that was, that was the one thing like my dad stayed on, my folks stayed on me. See this through. Get your damn ticket no matter what.
If you never turn wrench again. And that ticket has opened doors. So started fishing around, you know, kind of watching for stuff. And I randomly applied for a job. It was sort of a vague description, but they were looking for a red seal something and I got hired. So I interviewed, it was like a panel interview. It was for a company called Novatrax and it was north of London. And the owner of the company had two businesses.
He had a farm equipment implement dealership where he had a couple different brands and they also built wagons, like dump wagons there. And then he had this company called Novatrax and they were the importer and assembler. It's sort of a game they played with nafta. So they had a small production facility where they would build reversing fans. So these are the coolest things ever. So you'd have you name the piece of equipment, you put it in a, in a highly messy environment and you're going to plug your rad up. So if you're, if you're forestry was a big one, you got fella bunchers, a machine that would cut down trees and delimit all this stuff. You got this pulp and crap in the air.
Well by 10 in the morning you're overheating because your rads plug right full of whatever. So this fan, great big, you know, 30 inch fan, 12 blades on it, has a piston in the middle, an airline that would go in through the center and on a timer those blades would go 180 degrees and instead of sucking the air, it would blow the air. And if you're standing in front of that thing, you get coated. It was violent, it was crazy. So. And they were looking for a service tech. So I ended up being the winning bid or whatever I most charismatic or whatever. There was a bunch of applicants and I went to work for them for a few years and that was the first job where I felt like, you know, these will always matter.
But it was the first time I felt like they value what I have to say and what I think it was, it was magic. It didn't last forever, but it was magic. When I was there and I did installations of new equipment, I would do Measuring So there'd be some new machine come out and I would go and take all the measurements so that our engineering team could make a kit to retrofit one of these things. I would go to. These were, these were put on at Terex ASV in Minnesota, put them on at the factory. They were an option and some of the Case New Holland products had them as a, as a factory option. So I would, you know, here I'm like 24 and I'm taking phone calls from, you know, engineering lead of Case New Holland. It was, it was awesome.
And in our little, in our little bubble, I was the, the North American expert on the technical side of it. So did that. So you know, from, from going to the field to I had my own office and a computer and company cell phone and you know, I'd be the, the guy on the other end of the phone. It was the first time the roles were reversed. You know, I was used to calling Eaton Fuller and arguing with them and trying to get that extra half an hour or get authorization to change the synchro or something like that. And now I'm the guy taking the call and I've got the control system. I had, you know, I had a couple of some, some props. This is pre zoom, you know, this is all, this is all voice and email and I'd be, okay, I got my wiring diagram.
So, okay, you're going to take your, you know, take your test light and check for power here and check for grounds here. Okay, you need a new timer module. Send me your email or send me your, send me your mailing address. I'll send you one out. Take that one and smash it with a hammer and throw it in the garbage. You know it's going to be warranty or not, right? So that was really, really cool because I was, I had to. So many guys can just do this. But to try to articulate, okay, I'm on the phone and you need to be my hands.
And there's a, there's a green wire going into a gray terminal strip. I want you to, it really makes you break down, break it down. And that was, it was such a cool job. What sucked, I was there a couple of years is they had an agreement, it was, I think a 10 year agreement with, with the patent holder to do manufacturing distribution in Canada. So it was North America wide stuff came in from Germany and at the end of that 10 year agreement they, they were too far. The two parties were too far apart is the nice way of saying it. And, and our Deal came to an end. The parent company actually opened a facility in stratford.
So another 20 minutes further from home. And they offered me basically the same position. They, they had hunted a few people and I hummed and hawed on that. I, I really wanted to go, you know, where I am now. Compared to that, I probably maybe should, you know, hindsight, probably should have taken the job. But I was really sort of jaded and, and I was, I was offended for my employer. You know, John brought that, spent a million bucks to bring that brand into North America and make, make it go. And now that was established, I kind of felt like the rug had been ripped out from Underman.
I, I wasn't privy to those, those conversations, but that's how I felt. And I go, yeah, if they're gonna, if they're gonna burn him, what happens when they don't need me anymore? And I still loyal to John. So I, I end up, I turned a position down and I, and I told, I told John at the time, hey man, like, they offered me a job. And I, and he said, well, what are you going to do? I said, so I'll let you know when I make my decision. The following Monday, I let him know. I said, no, I'm going to turn him down. He gave me a job in his implement dealership. So I did that for a little while longer.
I've worked an egg a little bit on and off. Just when you need a filler here and there. Yeah, not for me, man. It's, it's, it's not a compulsory trade. They don't. It's, it's, it's just, it's not for me. So from there I went to a company called. Another very close friend of mine, Diver guy got me into the company he worked for and I was a service technician in the food tech industry and I did that.
It was more millwright type stuff. Again, traveling here in your 20s, you're not married, no kids. Travel is great. You know, I spent 220 nights a year on the road doing install and service work. That's where a lot of my fabrication welding skills really got tuned up. Really. That, that really. And, and reading blueprints and yeah, so did that for a few years.
But two kind, two things sort of happened. One, I started sort of getting cocky and wearing out my welcome and being a little more abrasive with management and engineering. More management. The engineers and I got along pretty well, but I, I got, I got 40 grit personality and some people in a. Companies with an HR department don't do well with, with 40 grit personalities.
The manager role is tough, right? Because the engineer role is kind of like, you know, we see it all the time. Like every mechanic, you know, hates an engineer. But really like the problem is just the problem. Right. Whatever they goofy way they build it, like I'm going to figure out a way to get that part out of there. And you know the engineer for reason, what he was thinking or not thinking, it is the way it is. It's the manager side of things that always like they can't do the job and they're like why is it taking so long? What's the problem here? Like it just look to them it looks so simple. It's like you, you've got soft hands.
Like you don't even have, you know the, the beginning of the even understand how. Yeah, right.
Here's, here's, here's the wrench. Yeah, yeah. So here's the Vernier. Tell me why the part doesn't fit together. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So from there at that point we had just moved, we just bought our dream home out in the country. We'd always wanted to, you know, always wanted to be out in the country since before property values went insane and I find myself with the rug yanked out from under me and probably at least half my, my own doing.
So I end up at a Ford dealer actually at this Ford dealer and, and they hired me to. We actually went there. I was doing, I was doing some actually back a little bit nag because I needed a job and we had our diving charter business and I needed. Because I lost my company truck which was the best tow truck for towing a boat is your company truck if it's a company that you don't own. So I needed a truck. So we went to the Ford dealer to buy a used truck and it was a couple year old super duty truck. And I'm talking to the sales guy who happened to be the owner son and I'm sort of trying to okay, what's the bottom line? They go, well we haven't even got it in the shop and looked at it. We just took it on trade.
So we don't know what it's going to take to get through a safety. So I can't tell you what we can drop to. I said well what if I just buy it the way it is? And I say myself. He goes well how can you do that? Well I'm a truck mechanic, you know, I can, I can find a way to do that. He's like well do you Want a job? So my answer I was well, do I get a discount on the truck if I work here? He goes, yes, you do. So, all right, let's, let's do this right. So, so I was here for a little while and it was, it was. And I was brought in to mostly do the super duty trucks.
You know, interesting place, very, very busy dealerships like these guys. 4 to 6 F150s a day left this place with, you know, new, new F150s every day. And then you got your edges and all the other stuff that goes out of there like just rocking. And people come from all over Ontario to buy cars and it's, it's not necessarily because they're the cheapest. You know, they had, they've still got half a dozen guys every day that, that go out and get cars. Like they'll, they'll go to you and get your car or they'll drive you, you know, drive you home. It's not the shuttle where you gotta stop at 30 other places. It's that concierge valet service.
They still do it, Do a ripping business, so. But family owned and not without his problems. It was a dealership, but a little bit of a different dealership. The biggest issue I had there at this point, I started my own business. I was working on cars and boats in my little two bay shop behind the house, right? If anybody watching, if you want to build a garage or a shop, 16 foot ceilings, at least 12 with 16 foot ceilings. Violate the zoning, just do it. This shop finder has 10 foot ceilings. I can't put a freaking hoist in it.
An eight foot door, you know, you're standing on a $35,000 chunk of concrete. Six more feet would have cost three grand, but nope. So, so I'm doing, I'm doing, you know, Honda Civic clutch jobs transmission on my belly and jamming them in. You know, I'm not, I'm not doing that stuff anymore. But I was. So I was doing that after hours and working later than I should and all that sort of stuff, but doing a bunch of that and then working at the Ford dealer during the day and there was some politics. There was. They're in the process of building their new dealership down, down the road from us and we had a service writer who felt like he should be the service manager.
So he was, I feel like he was undermining the service manager. Yeah, kind of, you know, like it was just like just, just. Right.
That's a funny, that's a funny dynamic. I've seen that happen too, right? Where I've seen the service writer. Because they think they've got such a. Such a relationship built with a customer that they think that they. Like, they're constantly telling the service manager what to do and what. And. And they're doing this wrong, and they're doing that wrong. In a dealership standpoint, I'm not talking with the independent shops here people, and, And I would watch that and I'd be like, okay, so you see it from the customer standpoint that it's a real inconvenience to them that they have to take the shuttle bus back home or something like that.
The service manager is the one that's looking at the whole operating cost of the whole department. And, you know, it's where we would come into that realization that sometimes the customers that the service advisors were so worried about impressing really weren't that valuable to the bottom line. You know what I mean? I always equate it to, like, you'd see them come in and they'd give them a bottle of whiskey at Christmas time, right? To the service writer. And I'm looking at going, well, they're here every two months bitching about something under warranty, and we can't even sell them a brake job. Like, so they come and give you a bottle of whiskey. And I made no money off them. Like, what do I care if they don't come back, right? Like, not the best.
That's you. You just hit it. Right there is like, I've seen it at all levels. The truck dealerships, although they pay the tax a little differently. It's the same, you know, a customer come in with donuts for the guys, right? And the parts department will pick that freaking box. They'll be. There'll be an old plain donut in the break room by break. For the tech, you know, the customer brought them in for the text.
The texts are the guys that fix their truck and got them back on the road. But we just get the crumbs, man. It's. And it's, It's. That's got to change. But you, you hit it on, Hit it on the nail with the bottle of whiskey for the, for the, for the service writer. And maybe he's getting a little bit better deal when it, when it comes time to write up the bill. But, like, you know, it's, It's.
It's a mess.
So you, you got to the Ford dealer. How was that a transition from what you'd been doing, like in the, in the equipment side of things and I to just going to. Working on super duty power strokes. Like did you. Was there a learning curve there or did you just kind of take it to fish to water and just.
It's, it's. It's a learning curve. Especially going to you know a highway truck where you flip the hood open and they're not. They aren't like they used to be but all intents purpose. You flip the hood open and there's the alternator. Right? Yeah. Super duty truck with a 6 4. The alternator ain't there.
It's like you know your inner fenders. At least you're. You're. You are pissed off doing an alternator on a super duty truck. It's ridiculous. I had a great mentor there. John Mills. He'd been with the company like 25 years.
He's. He's actually left. He's up in the diamond mine or a gold mine way, way up north doing fleet stuff.
Okay.
Just recently. First second job he's ever had. Really neat guy. This guy is so patient and he would just. All right Greg, step by, do this, this and this. Don't do this, don't do this. But don't put an impact on those cab bolts. You're going to regret that.
You'll spin the thing if you did it John's way. He had the secret sauce for all this stuff and it didn't take long to catch on. You. You do. You pull a cab off two of them and now you got all the. You got the cheat codes.
Yeah.
So it didn't take long. But you know I. I think the first 64 that I did it was a trade in truck. You know it had been DPF delete a dpf. Gutted they the sales guy or the. Yeah, the sales guy got. Yep. It looks pretty from the hot you know from the road.
Way overpaid for it. Then they resold it and it comes back with both turbos rocker arms need to be done the. The. The updated harnesses DPF and like and I end up. I. We bent a pin putting the. Putting the harness back on the back on the ecm. So I got this phantom check engine light like that truck that.
That was the first cab off and man it kicked my ass. It was. I think that cab was off three times before it was finally right. The sales guys, you know the sales guy said he's got to take a mortgage out to pay the freaking service bill after that. But you learn like I've got a policy on. On those super duties. Is Anything I did, for the most part, anything I disconnect is hard to get at. You're getting a new one, you're getting a new fan belt or new serpentine belt because it's right here.
Right now you're getting new upper, lower, rad hoses because I've seen them pop off or leak after. They're really easy to change right now. You know, any of that wear stuff, we're doing it. If you don't want to do it, you know, especially now it's my shop. You don't want to do it, no problem. Yeah, I'll call the record right now. They'll tow it down to Ford dealer and they'll tell you the same thing. But I'm not dealing with the comeback, so.
So I got enough time in there. And then I did that long enough. I really butted heads with that. That service writer. And I actually walked out when he just got mouthy with me. And I just. There, there's a line, right. I have a hutch on my toolbox.
I've done the best thing ever. Because all you got to do, no matter how bad your day, is pull that thing. I'm going home. Turn the lock, grab my lunch pail, walked out. The next time I was there was to get my toolbox. I worked, went. Worked on compressors for a while, doing mobile service on. On Solaire units.
That was really neat. That was. It's a dealership. It's the same thing. I think my message here is, is the corporate bullshit is gonna find you no matter where you go.
Yeah.
You know, so work for an outfit that basically owns the compressor market in Canada, or the majority of the compressor. The specific brand, anyways. Dealerships did that for a few years on the road a lot. We're. We're not far from Sarnia, which is the Chemical. They call it the Chemical Valley. So I had to do a bunch of special training so I could go into those plants and service their air compressors. We're talking screw compressors, style supercharger.
So service that stuff for a while. All the. All the same. Oh, did we crash?
It came back. It glitched there first.
Yeah. All the same time, you know, I would get off work and I would go work in my own shop for what's starting to become a growing, you know, a growing concern. So it all kind of came to head right before I went out on my own. I kind of. We've been sort of talking about. About going out on my own for a few years, and my wife Said like, you're not getting any younger. You're bitching about who you're working for. You know, you need to if you're gonna do it, let's go, let's do it right.
Or, or don't. Right, but shut up either way. So the kind of, the last straw was around Christmas time, I went to, went to our boss. So our, our branch reported to Toronto and our boss was in Toronto. So I was in Toronto for one of those stupid safety meeting. Monday morning safety meetings. We drive, we'd have to drive through a snowstorm to go to a safety meeting. So we'd have a meeting with the boss and say like, dude, it's, it's time to talk about some more money.
Right. And if there's any managers listening right now, I'm going to translate this for you because you don't speak technician. If a tech comes to you and says, hey man, it's time to talk about a little bit more money, what he's really doing is he is holding you upside down by your feet and shaking you for everything you got. And if you don't give him what he is worth to your business, they're gonna leave. Right? That's. I, I am saying, man, I need, I'm saying nicely, hey man, it's time to talk about more money. What I'm really saying is you need to get your checkbook out or I'm putting my tools on a truck again. That's what's going on.
Yeah, I've got another offer or, you know, it's time to cut bait and, and fish and I'm gonna go, I'm start looking. Yeah, yeah.
So, you know, they. Couple weeks go by and they give me a dollar an ounce, a freaking dollar an hour. So. And that was, I drove, I was driving home from Toronto, I'm on the phone with the wife and I'm like, we are actively now looking for a shop. I'm, I'm, I am going out on my own. It's just a matter of when. So we, we hung around. I found a shop in Petrolia and negotiated a lease on it.
And it was a bit of a tense negotiation, but we got it done. And I wanted to have a signed lease before I put in my notice because it's kind of like I am on the hook for a two year lease of this building. There is, it's, it's. Cortez burned his ships when he reached the new world. I cannot turn back no matter what these guys tell me or offer me. There is no turning back. So, signed a lease, turned in my notice. And the cool thing is when we go into the plant, a lot of times when we're doing the service work on the compressors, you have no cell coverage.
So. Which is great because if you don't want to answer your boss, you're just in the plant. So I turned him, I went in to the shop early in the morning, threw a letter on the boss's desk, and then I headed to the plant and turned my phone off for the day, right? It's like, just let that marinate, you know. So about three in the afternoon, I, I come out of the plant, turn my phone on to like 16 voicemails and emails and the freaking owner of the company, everybody's like, you know, so call the boss in Toronto. And he's the first call. He's like, man, what's going on? Like, not. He's not mad. He knew I was in the plant, right? So he's not mad about.
He's like, what's going on? I said, dude, I've got another opportunity I'm going to pursue. You know, it's been, been a slice. Well, you know, tell you what, I'm going to come down. I'm going to come down tomorrow and I'm taking out for breakfast. We're going to talk about this. You can take me out for breakfast. Sure. So we go out for breakfast.
The next morning, I order the most expensive thing on the menu, you know, and, and, and he's, you know, he's a. Come on, Greg, man. What's it gonna take? What do we got to do? You name it, you know, we're gonna do it. I said, I said, man, we had this conversation two months ago. You had a dollar, right?
Yeah.
That was all you had. So I said, you know, this isn't me putting a. This isn't, Give me more money or I'll leave. This is, I'm leaving, you know. So I find it really sad that I had to walk to the edge of the plank, the edge of the cliff to finally get you off your wallet. And it said, I knew you guys were going to do this, so I've made commitments that I can't turn back from, right? Like, It'll cost me 100 grand to say no. So. So the answer is no, man.
Thank you for breakfast. You know, I'm going to work for the next two weeks. Unless, Unless you want to walk me out right now, which would be really great because I got, I got a lot of. I got like six Months worth of work to do in getting this shop ready, you know, so. But it's just that's that, like corporate, like, just blind, right? Like, you can't say you didn't see this coming.
So what, what do you think when we. When we see in the channels that we kind of hang out in and everybody talks about the numbers and everything, right? And the number has to exactly be this or else, you know, your profits are not that. And, you know, I'm not. I'm not the guy that understands that at the level that a coach or trainer or business person does. Right. But it, to me, it's always been very simple. It's just a situation of like. And again, can you always find another technician? Well, I think they used to think that a lot, Greg, and now I think we're in the situation where we're at, where it's like you've got somebody coming to you and saying, like, listen, I need more money.
And, you know, you can talk all they want about, well, you're not really worth all that because, you know, you can't do this and you can't do that. But, I mean, we're talking with you about a guy that's getting all the work done that they need done right there. It's not a situation of you're saying to them, I only want to do this, you know, because that's how I look the most productive, or I don't want to touch that. Like, you did everything that you're given to do. But the reality is, is when somebody comes to you and says, like, hey, we need to talk money, what they're really saying is it's like, I don't feel like I'm. My compensation matches my value to you. And that's the most polite way I can think to say. To say it.
And what that means is that you can tell them they're great, but at the end of the day, they're past the point of having the conversation about how great I am. We're now up to the what's the compensation need to be? And look at. And if you blow them off, you might as well sign their termination papers. Don't wait for them to quit, fire them, because they are going to become toxic and they're going to quit. And. And then, you know, you, okay, so you don't pay them severance, they quit, whatever. But you're stuck with your pants down trying to find somebody to replace this person. You're losing profits because you're not getting work done.
Are you really Saving money by not having a conversation and giving them what they want. Like, nobody. I don't want to see anybody be like, okay, bend over a barrel and grab your ankles. But the very real reality is, like, listen to what they have to say. And, yeah, sometimes you just got to get off your wallet, pay the bill
and, and negotiate and say, you know, greg, yeah, you want more money? This is what we need from you. We want you to invest in yourself and, and do these courses or, or. Or take on additional. More money, more responsibility. Okay, let's. At least. At least for negotiating, right? We're gonna get.
We're gonna give you an apprentice, and you're gonna, you know, have to train the young person from the company, or we're gonna give you a cell phone, and you might have to take a couple, you know, service calls. Like, service questions from our other people that are struggling because you're a senior. Whatever. Those are very real things that I think some people be like, okay, I'm gonna take the money, but. And I'm gonna understand that this is partially, you know, now a responsibility that comes along with it. Know, it's. It's. I liken it to like this.
You can say, okay, you want more money? I want you then to get some ases. Okay, cool. All right. You know, but we don't even say that in this industry. We just always go back to, I need you to produce more hours before I can give you more money. Like, we, as we age, we don't produce more hours. We tend to produce less. And, and as the technology as.
As we were just having this conversation before I got on, you know, initial diag used to be like, you walked out and you hit it with a hammer, and it smoothed out and started to work again. Your diag was done. Now you walk out, you hit it with your hammer. It has no effect at all. And you're. The clock is still ticking. So you're. You're gathering ever evidence.
You're. You're scanning, you're checking for tsbs, you're checking identifix, you're checking Google, you're talking to a friend. You're doing whatever. That's just the first hour. And now everybody's like, but I told the customer, you know, they've got an hour of diag. Well, an hour of diag is an hour diag. An hour is not an hour diag doesn't mean an hour. And it'll be promised result or promised answer or promised, you know, it's an hour of diag.
It's an hour of testing. It's an hour of gathering evidence. And we need to like, really start to, you know, not hold the customer's feet to the fire, but have the conversation that, like, this stuff takes longer to solve than it ever did. And, you know, the hour thing doesn't, doesn't line up anymore. That's just gathering. That's just a plan of attack. The first hour.
You know, is the average car more complicated, more complex than the human body? And if I would argue that it is. And you look at how many steps you go through to get a simple diagnosis on, on any ailment. Right. And nobody ever questions, no one questions a medical bill. You know, I, I think when it comes back to compensation, a couple things, tools that we as techs need to have is you need to know what your shop labor rate is. And a lot of techs don't know that. And a lot of shops don't want them to know that. Right.
Yeah.
And they need to know. On the truck side, they did a pretty good job. Most of the shops I were at, of course, tracking our bay efficiency. And my, our target was always 75 to 80% because you, because you take two breaks a day, we're gonna have some admin time. Right. And, and 80%, you know, 80% of 2200 hours a year is a lot of freaking money. Right? Yeah. At the door rate.
So you go, okay, If I build $250,000, and that doesn't count a single part that I put on at a 30 to 100% margin.
Yeah.
Parts guy didn't sell the part. I did. Right. I built 250 grand. 220 grand in labor last year. And this is in 2011. Right. And you paid me 50 or 60.
There's meat on that bone still for me. I'm not saying I should get all of it or half of it, but. Yeah, you know, in those days, it was kind of a given thing was a third, a third, a third. Right. So if the shop made 200 grand, you were getting 65, 70, you know, and that has drifted. I, I've got a, I've got an invoice here from a shop in Gainesville, Florida. They charge $1579 to put a brake caliper on a pickup truck. You can't justify that.
Like, like, you know, and, and I bet you they didn't pay the technician all that time. I know what my bones. They did. So I think that's a big thing is knowing what we build is a really Big tool. And the shops need to start being transparent about it. This customer paid the bill, so it shows that people will pay it. I think the service writers need to be a little more transparent. That whole.
We could do a case study on this one, on this one build, it's on my desk. But knowing what we build and knowing like knowing where we land, efficiency wise or whatever you want to say is a, is a big one. And then I think the dealer's got to start finding efficiencies in their organization and not taking it out on the tech. Right. Like you know, maybe the floors in the front office don't need to be that nice. You know, maybe your management team, your upper management team needs to take a little bit less. We need to start demanding it as text that we're treated like, you know, maybe not doctors or lawyers, but I feel that my education and experience is worth the same amount as my sister's education. You know, she's a frigging lawyer.
So there are problems that she can solve and has solved for me that only someone with her credentials can do. And there are plenty of problems that I have solved for her that only someone with my credentials in Canada, specifically Ontario, because we have a, because we have a license, we do have them over a barrel a little bit. So there's a Chrysler dealer outside of Petroleum. I think they finally have a licensed guy. But for a little while they did. They had to send their cars to a sister dealership to get BDI'd, you know, license plate on. Yeah, like
it's not stupid when you think about the dealership, the amount of money that it's earned and the amount of money that it can make and the amount of potential for earning that's there and they can't retain one friggin licensed mechanic in the province of Ontario. That's there's such a red flag there that they're obviously like it's gotta be the most mismanaged, effed up, poor process place that anybody can think of. Because like that you could go find a 50 year old mechanic like myself with a license, be like we just need you to show up here and do these PDIs so we can get the cars done. If you can't even do that, you're either like got such a toxic culture that nobody or you're just won't friggin pay. And if it's a, if it's a dying dead horse, just put the flag over it, put the tombstone on and say the business is dead and lock the doors right but they don't. And it's like, well maybe we can get somebody in here stupid enough to do this job and, and have all the piled on them and pay them so little. Like there's so many things. The conversation that came up a couple weeks ago is like, you know, technicians inefficiencies.
And it's like, why do we have text standing at the parts counter waiting for a four dollar oil filter? Why do we have them standing there waiting for to get tires that were delivered that morning there and carry them over to the tire machine but we don't know where they are because they're still haven't been carried in like they should already be at the flipping tire machine.
And that is a service manager's job to look at the entire process and say where are my bottlenecks? You know, if it's, if it's guys standing at the parts counter waiting for oil filters. If it's, you know, I don't think a technician should be filling out an oil change sticker. One we got greasy fingers and terrible penmanship. I could write you a prescription for anything and it would go through a pharmacy. That's how bad my penmanship is. Right. So. But a service writer, they had to go talk to the customer, get the mileage, get all that stuff.
They should know what flavor of oil it takes. So it's nothing for them to scribble out the oil change sticker, which a pet peeve of mine. I see it all the time. Jump in a customer's car that had an oil change at XYZ shop and it'll say your next oil change is due. It'll say 58,000 kilometers, like exactly. So you're telling me that car came into the shop at 52,000 on the button, right? I doubt it. It doesn't say what flavor of oil, it doesn't say the date. If we're going to be professionals, we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard and fill all that stuff out, you know, make that, that's what the customer sees.
They go, my impressions, that guy couldn't even add 6,000 to 52. 625. Yeah, he couldn't tell me the date, he couldn't tell me what kind of oil is. Like what kind of a job did he do of the oil change? You know?
Yeah, we, we tell people to check their oil and add oil if it needs it, but we don't. Like they don't know what grade of oil, what oil to buy when we send them out of there after an oil change. Like, so you can remember being in the truck shop, and I do too. We'd service a rig and all those trucks either leaked oil or burned oil or both.
Right.
And the. The old truck driver, God love them, I miss them. They'd fill up four rotella jugs, right?
The boot, two or three. Here, top these up while you're at it.
Yeah, in the bunk, right? And that was what he was putting in between the services. Like, we think about that. You want to move oil people in your shops and you want to move your fluids or whatever. Like, I guess the, the air filter margins aren't very good. Like, let's sell some more oil. How do we do that? Well, if you got a car that's burning oil or leaking oil, sell them two flipping liters of oil and tell them this is how you put it in. This is what you put in, right? This is where the dipstick is. Here's a complimentary rag that we picked up off the floor and threw it in the trunk for.
Like, tell them to do that. You want to move a couple more liters. Well, do like that. Serve your customer. But we can't even bother to tell them all because here's the thing. If they pull over and they get gas and they go, I wonder, I should check it. But I have no oil in there. And I wouldn't even know what kind, because not every oil cap rate says what to pour in and how do I buy it and whatever.
Like, what am I going to pay here? They're just not going to flip and do it, you know, and we should be advocating for them. And there's so many things we could be doing for the customer. Like you said, the oil change, I. It's back to my wheel out key thing, right? Like, advisors should be like, finding wheel out key printing. The new oil chain sticker, it should be on the invoice when it, when they get dispatched the job, there's the new sticker to go in. Don't make them walk across the shop to the one sticker machine that sometimes works. Like, have it printed and stapled to the work order when they get it, and then it's done. Then.
Then you can't say, oh, the technician forgot to put it in the window. Like, the customer comes back the next day, the sticker's not there, and. And the advisor is like, these dumb mechanics and it's like, holy frig. Like, what were you doing? Like, playing candy crush on your phone. Like, I know that's. I get a lot of Flack for how I talk about service writers here. But the reality is like they're the first to throw the technician under the bus. But the very real reality is they don't sell squat.
Service advisors don't sell squat in the sense of a product. They don't have a product to sell. The technician's ability is the product they sell. Yet they're always saying they are where they're the ones that screwed up the car. Like I just, I'm over it, done, done hearing it.
I'd really like to see the text treated. Treat the whole process more like I'm going to say a dentist office, right? When I go into the dentist, I see a nurse or whatever. They go and they check, you know, paperwork, blah, blah, blah, blah. They have a quick look under the hood and then the, they call it not a technologist, the person that cleans your teeth. Hygienist will come in. They do all that. And then, you know, 45 minutes later, the dentist comes in with his Rolex, you know, looks around in there, scrapes with a little pick or whatever and gives you a bill for 500 bucks and walks out the door. Because that's all he had to do, right? Is his expertise was completely focused and he might be able to see 20 clients an hour because all of the busy work has been done by people that don't require quarter million dollar education.
So I'd love to see, you know, let's, let's keep the techs doing the tech stuff. You know, I've been. Because I'm out of the dealership. I don't see the trends. But you talked about these DVIs, which. One of the things I want to look at in the future is some kind of system where I can interact with my customers virtually like that. Hey, I'm going to walk around your car and you can have a little bit of personality. I think it'd be really cool.
The danger for the dealerships is they will start becoming attached to the technician, not attached to the service writer, not necessarily attached to that dealership. So a great example at Jerry's, there was a guy, there's on the other shift. He was the rock star that kept that other shift running. His name was Derek. And there's a customer with a truck, with a Sterling truck. And he would come in, say, my truck needs a clutch adjustment. Is Derek in today? No, he's on afternoons. Okay, I'll come back after, after five, you know.
Well, Greg can adjust your clutch. Nope, only Derek adjusts my clutch. He knows how I like it. So one day I asked him like, Derek, what do you, what do you do that's so special? It's a frickin, you know, half inch drill bit. He's like, I adjust the clutch to spec. I'm like, yeah, that's what I do. She was like, Pete likes to adjust the spec and he thinks I do something magic. When Derek left that shop, all of Pete's work followed.
This guy called every truck, dealership and service facility in like a 10 mile radius until they found. Is Derek work there? Nope. Does Derek work there? Nope. Found Derek to this day that truck, Derek works on that truck. So that, that's a, it's I, I see where the DBI things going.
Yeah.
But you know, I, I like Greg's style. You know, he's abrasive but he, you know, I, I, you know, I always feel special when I get in my car because Greg worked on it, you
know, and that's the, that's I, I see it happening too because like I see there's more and more guys on Tick Tock and they're showing their DVI process and, and literally like the video is, is going from that tablet that they're filming to the customer's tablet or phone or whatever. Opening up their, their laptop at work and they're clicking. Yes. Right now the, all the financials and the logistics of the repair is handled by the advisor that tells them. Well, it does all the tabulations and the adding and calculates it and all this kind of stuff. But the reality is that forward facing now is more now with the technician than it is with the service writer because she might have dropped it off in the night drop box. She's never even spoke to a service advisor. And now through a tech metric program or something like that, they get an estimate tabled to them, plus a DVI video that has a person on the video.
Well, of course they're gonna, if the car is finally fixed the way they like it, they're gonna come back and go, you know, Curtis, my technician here at the dealer last time, I really like the DVI processes. It was great. I want Curtis to fix my car this time. And that's where we're now. They don't like it. But when people get on there and they say, well, I can replace a service rider with AI, or I can replace the service rider with a kiosk, they're not that far off in the sense that it could get to there. Because if the DVI is really effective and it's been proven that it is and it's what customers really like. They want to see the DVI they want to see and they want to have faith in the person that's filming their car and showing them what it needs.
The person that we used to, you know, would go around the car with them and look at their tire tread and try and make the pitch and the drive through. That's not happening as much anymore.
Right.
So it is entirely possible that we are going to replace or phase out some service writers. Not them all, but certainly we'll probably operate with less because that person will be like maybe tabling 10 work orders that all got submitted from a DVI and they're, they're calculating and running it through the program and then they're hitting forward to the customer. But that forward facing person that their identity with the repair shop will be the technician.
You can't tell me that that something like chat GPT if you gave it the credentials to get into your dealership's labor labor tables and parts lookup say chat GPT. This is the VIN of my Aerostar van. It needs a four wheel brake job, two upper ball joints and a, and a catalytic converter. And as fast as you can say it, it'll start spitting out the part numbers. It'll probably print a pit pick ticket for the parts guy. So Greg, I don't doubt that that's coming.
You wouldn't believe how many shop owners already know Greg that use it to build their canned jobs. So yeah, they literally like another guy I know, Kevin, he says, yeah, whatever. 2022 Chevy Silverado four corner brake job, right? Pads, calipers, rotors, chat GPT. You know, build that estimate for me and it'll spit it back in a minute going, you know, price, availability of parts is this labor breakdown is this total cost, is this. Would you like me to get started on that today? That's literally how it answers back. Like it is so smart that it can build the canned job and it can, it never forgets it. It can remember it from like Chevy 2022 versus 2026. If there's a part number difference, it knows it.
It's, it's incredible. Like it. Yes, it is going to completely revolutionize the way we do this business whether we like it or not. Here's what's going to change. Stay the same. Excuse me. The technician out in the bay that's going to put the parts on is going to be the same type of technician. It'll always be that way.
It's Just the. And I. I think that's. That's where it's like, we talk about culture and we talk about leadership and all that kind of stuff. The type of person that has that knack, that ability to bolt parts on and get the car solved is not going to change a whole lot. It's going to be the same type of personality. So we should stop trying to reinvent the wheel and change their personalities and I think learn how to value them and work with them instead of always being working against. Because I know it sounds tired, but I mean, for as long as I've come up in this industry, it's always been an us versus them feel to it.
And it shouldn't be that way. And everyone's like, it shouldn't be that way. You're right. No, but it's at such a rooted core that it's like that, that if we want to break it, you're going to have to break and it's going to be you in management is going to have to recede because they're not going to change. The type of person you need won't change. You'll need that. A type personality in the back that can fix the car. So you might as well learn how to lead them and change the culture so that they feel at the end of the day like they don't hate this job and they don't hate this industry.
You know, I went through it.
It's, you know, we're not gonna have time to get into everything, but it's. I think my message is that it's. It's being out on your own is, this is my dream. I'm in my dream shop. It is also my own nightmare. Absolutely. You know, but a few. A few takeaways of it.
The first takeaway is when I moved from my shop behind my house where I had an established group of customers, my labor rate doubled because, you know, a shop behind the house, I was too cheap. But I was making twice. I. I was making twice an hour in my backyard as I was working for the man. So I thought I was making bank. There's still half of what the standard labor rate was. So when you go on your own and you've got a, you know, thousand bucks a month in insurance and $5,000 a month, you know, probably five, $6,000 a month overhead, all of a sudden, your labor rate, it's got to be. It's right in line with everybody else.
Yeah.
Labor rate doubled. Do you know how many customers I probably had? 50 customers. You know how many customers complained about my labor rate changing? 1. Only one, Whoopi, you know, so the message was, well, shit, I should have been charging this labor rate and working in my garage and just stay there. I'd have been better off. So that proves that customers will pay if they perceive that you're giving them value. Service writers are so bad at communicating the value of what the technician did and the extra things that we did. And I am not saying to charge for stuff that we didn't do.
But right. If the technician went an extra mile, if a technician got out a broken bolt, make sure we charge them for it, but also make sure we tell them right. Instead of just saying, you know, fifteen hundred dollars fix brakes. Well, no, no, no, no. You really like it doesn't have to be in Tom Sawyer novel, but, but you know, buff the, buff the insides of the rim buffed off the, you know, the surfaces of the wheelbarrow of the wheel hubs before the tell them that, you know what I mean? This is what we do that makes our work special. Communicating that. Yeah, we, we could go down. I had a bunch of stuff that we didn't even get tonight.
But it's, you gotta. There's only so many hours of the day and it still is a thing that I struggle with. You got to go home at some point. You know, if it's Tuesday and you haven't made any money and it's seven o', clock, you ain't going to fix the day. You know, that day is, that day is a lost cause. Go home and see your family, see your kids. That's probably my, my, my biggest regret in this is that the sacrifice, the family sacrifice is exponentially higher than I anticipated. Yeah, don't get into something that you can't.
I say don't get into something you can't do on your own. So every time I've had to count on people, I found myself let down because I can do it myself and carry it. We are not getting rich. If I had two texts in there banging out 80 hours a week, I would be wealthy. But I can make it on my own. If you're counting on somebody else, you better have really, really, really good people that you can count on. And you better pay them because if you need them, you, you need them more than the, than the dealer down the street. You're going to have to pay them what they're worth to you because, you know, there's a kind of takeaways.
And the other thing is. Yeah, go ahead.
What's what's the obstacle right now for you staying as a one man shop? Like just there's no,
I don't think that we can afford to pay a tech. I can't provide benefits and the volume of work, the type of work that a normal tech would want. You know, we're doing a transom and a floor on a boat one day and then we're doing a brake job on a Honda the next day and then we're doing a cab off on a super duty and finding someone that could do all those things or finding like apprentices. I'm, I'm just frustrated to all hell with that. But that's really a thing. I've also got other challenges where I get pulled away. You know our vision was we have three guys in here, maybe someday that'll come true. But I don't think the industry's there.
So we're kind of how do we pivot? I think the growth in our business is I'm kind of at capacity on service is I want to grow into other avenues. I, I'm going to look at doing, I'm going to look at getting a dealer license and refurbishing the odd used car. You know, if I had two or three minivans here through the winter because it always gets slow in January. Be a great time to throw wheel bearings and struts in a minivan and put it back out front if you don't need to double your money on it. Even if you can recover your labor rate when you're slow, it'll, it'll, it's not going to pay in January, but when it sells in March you can pay the credit card off or whatever. It's, it's a, it's an interesting, it's a tough one.
So do you have a succession plan for yourself and the business or do you just kind of think that when, when you decide to kind of like shut the doors and lock the key for the last time, you'll be able to walk away from it because like what it sounds like to me Greg is it's, it'd be hard to find somebody to be able to walk in and do what you want done because it's, it's, you know, your range of talents is not like you, it took a lifetime to build that. You know what I mean? And then somebody to come in and you know like you could get a boat guy and you could get an apprentice for a trucks right? Or like. But it's going to be very hard to get one person to do all three. Right, that's, that's the trick.
And this is, this is sort of the ugly of it. And I don't want to paint it as, as me as a success story. I am a survival story maybe. And, and five years from now I hope that it is a success story. I'm too stubborn to let this fail. But the succession plan as we see it is I'm going to earn a living. We bought this is a piece of real estate that is in our name. You know, we have about, you know, 75 more years and we'll have the damn thing paid for.
It's on the never never plan. And at that point, you know, the thought is we'll either put a renter, some, some other business can use this facility either as a shop or as a H VAC warehouse or who knows, a nail salon. I don't know. It's a piece of real estate. That is my retirement plan. I'm, you know, I, I don't make what your average technique, I don't take in a, in a wage what your average technician at a dealership is going to make, even flat rate. But I'm making a payment every month. That is building wealth.
It's putting equity into this building. That's our retirement plan. You know, so this, the successful plan is, you know, I'd love to have someone take it over and become, you know, become our tenant. I would literally, if it's 20, if a guy came and worked for me for 10 years and then I'm ready to retire, 15 years and I'm ready to retire. I'll give you the tire machine and the hoist and whatever. You just sign a lease on the building, pay me rent. I, you know, what's a 20 year old, a 15 year old hoist going to be worth, right? So you can have that, you can have the customers. You know, I'd love to see it.
I don't know, a lot could change. You know, a real estate developer could come around the corner next week and offer, write me a check and if there's enough zeros on it, everything's for sale. So you're the, you're the first person
I've heard that said was frank enough to say with themselves that they're not a success story, they're a survival story. And you know, we talk a lot in the industry about how some people manage to buy themselves a job. And you know, certain segments of the industries talk on that like it's a bad thing and it's, and it's a. But I think you're one of them that, like, your days of being able to work for somebody else are done. You're not. You're unemployable, as David Roman says.
Absolutely.
I don't think that necessarily like striking it on your own and getting yourself set up to where you make all the. All the money, you take all the risk, you take all the liability, and at the end of the year, you don't really take home any more than what you would have. But working for somebody else, that mental health, that I'm not going home frustrated with being devalued or feeling a certain way because of how they make me feel, there's value to that. Now you take on a whole lot of other stress, like when we started talking about, you know, you never turn it off. You wake up in the middle of the night and you're thinking, where is that ground splice and all that kind of jazz, but you can't put a dollar value on that. This is mine. And I feel free here. You know what I mean? I can.
I can go stand in the corner and pick my nose. It's my business. I can do that. You know, I can leave that rag, you know, on the bench. And like, I don't. If I don't sweep my bay, it's mine. You know, there's.
There's value in. I can pick who I'm going to work for. And we. We are. If I had three techs, I can't be picky as I am right now, because I am. From the day I went out on my own, I have never had an empty bay ever. Like, typically every bay in the shop. A lot of times we're waiting for parts and stuff, but I've never had a day where I walk out the door going, I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow.
So, yeah, I'm learning to charge. I don't want to say charge more for it. That's not the right. I'm learning to charge and bill accurately. I'm learning to. You know, earlier you would underestimate. I don't even say underestimate a job. You would quote a lot tighter because you really needed the work or felt you did.
Now it's a take it or leave it. And. And if you're going to push me around, you're going to come in here and push my buttons. You. I won't have you back. I'll just, you know, you'll call for an appointment and I'll give you an appointment in, in November, you know. Oh, you're that busy? Yep. You know, like they'll get the message.
Last one was, and this was actually Larry Grogan, the guy we bought the building from, told me this. He says, you're going to have. People are going to come and push you and they're going to say they're gonna, they're gonna promise you the world, right? And I have this. A month ago, I had a diesel truck in for a safety inspection. And this is one of the few things in the industry where we hold the cards. I'm holding this damn thing right here, you know, the stupid thing that doesn't have the passwords written on the back. That's right. And I'm holding that thing right.
I'm the one that's got to scribble my name on it and put a yellow sticker on this truck. There's nothing, you know, the days of the hot safeties are over. I've always said I don't want to. Why do I want to take a bribe from you? I would rather you just pay me to fix your truck. But in this case, trucks on the hoist wheels are off. It needs a four wheel brake job, ball joint, and a set of headlights. Headlights look like a bathroom window, right? So quote it. It's going to be 2500 bucks.
Totally reasonable. That includes the inspection. And he goes, well, can you do it for two grand? I'm going, I can do it for 24, 75, 63. You know, like, like that's what I can do it for. Said if I can maybe get you cheaper rotors, but, you know, I might save a hundred bucks here or there, but that's what it's for. Well, I've got like five other trucks that I got to bring you for safety. So if you could do this for this one, it's like I'm like. And my exact.
The words weren't out of his mouth. And I said, you're gonna bring me five more trucks? You're gonna beat me up on the price of those two? I said, I don't want them. I don't want them. Right?
That's right.
So, yeah, he said, go ahead and fix that one. I've never seen him again. You know what? He can go beat up my competition. And you know what? The competition around here is competent. They aren't going to tolerate it either. So you need a yellow sticker on your truck. You're gonna pay what it costs. And it wasn't like I.
Not like I was Exploiting them, you know, so. But we're at a dealership or. When you work for the, you know, you work for somebody, you. You can't tell a customer where to go. Right? So. No, you know, yeah, yeah.
You're the one put under the microscope and you looked at your production when it was like we took in something that we had no business touching for. For what we quoted. But it's. The production sucks because it just took too long. And, and who do you blame when it took too long? Well, you blame the time technician. They must have been slow or they must not have known what they're doing. And, you know, that's where, you know, I'll. I'll die on that hill of like, there's more to why it took too long and why it didn't go right than just the technician ability.
You know, some.
If we lose our shirt on a job the dealer's got to take or the shop owner has got to take the hit, you know, because if. If, you know, we get into something sometimes it's something so stupid and we learn from it. Well, guess what? The next time we see that we're a better. You now have a better technician, A more valuable technician. You don't have to pay him more an hour today because he learned something the hard way. And the best lessons are learned the hard way. So.
Yep.
Pay him for his day right where he feels worthless because he frigging spent all day trying to chase something that was so. Sometimes it's so obvious when we. The Eureka moment. A Ben connector, you know? You know, and. And when I've had people work for me that apprentices make mistakes and, and more than one occasion say, I'll just clock out and fix it. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're gonna. You're gonna fix it.
I'm gonna pay you to fix it. You're my. Like, you're mine. I'm gonna. But I'm gonna pay you. You. You screwed it up on my dime. You're gonna fix it on my dime.
I owe you that at very least. Right? So none of us should get out of bed. This. As a business owner, I guess maybe it's different. There have been days where by lunchtime, I'm going, if I just stayed in bed, I'd be a richer man, you know?
Yeah.
Broke. Broken impact gun today. You break. You break a $600 impact gun, the rest of your week is a write off. But. But none of us in any business, whether you're working at Walmart or Working as a technician should be worse off for having worked a hard day, a full day. And. And yeah, it's criminal otherwise.
It's criminal. It's gotta stop.
Yeah, I agree. Well, touching on a family thing. I don't want to keep you away from yours any longer. It's been a long day and I know you.
Yeah. I just got a text from the wife. She ran over a vehicle like a car mat with a lawnmower. So I gotta go pick that out of the blades when I get home. So.
Good luck scuba diving this weekend. Thank you. Safe trip to Ohio for that. I'll. I'll definitely check back in with you, Greg, you know, in a few months, six months to a year or something like that. See how it's going, see what's changed, see if anything's changed, you know, that kind of stuff. And reach out to my people in my circle about, you know, how they run their shop. I'm not saying anything.
You're doing anything wrong. I'm not trying to say that.
Oh, I'll take all the advice. It doesn't cost you anything to listen. And Jeff, thank you. Thank you for, for giving us texts, a bit of an outlet, you know, listening, you know, just being that work with these things in my ears and listening to the plight of, you know, sometimes we feel alone. I appreciate you giving us an outlet. Sometimes just being able to talk about this is very valuable.
I don't want anybody to feel alone, you know, and we keep touching on it and we have to touch on it. The mental health side of this industry has got to improve. And that's the, that's the whole thing. Like, I can talk all we want about pay, pay plans and pay methods and valuing technicians. The mental health thing has just got to improve. It's just. There's no two ways about it, you know, and then. And if I'm responsible.
Yeah, the mental health is. It's, in a lot of cases, it's a product of the environment that were trapped in, you know, and when you. When a guy, typically a guy, let's just say we're very, very proud and, and we're programmed to fix stuff, you know, but we don't know how these things work and we don't know how to fix these things. It's, it's. And you work all day and you work really hard and you put, you know, you put your blood into the damn thing and then you don't get paid for it.
Yeah.
You know, we can't keep doing that. And that Maybe it's going to take some sort of a watershed moment or a watershed legal action against the industry, this, the stakeholders of this industry to fix this. But they have, they have, they have. This has always been a thing, but it's just the greed has just narrowed and narrowed and narrowed to where people aren't seeing a way out and, and the chickens are coming to roost and they can't get texts. But then the flip side of it is like, you're hurting people. You know, you're, you're, you. This, this behavior and this greed is genuinely hurting people and something's got to change. You know, I, I just wish that, you know, the Ontario College of Trades or, or the, you know, the shareholders of these big corporations would, would, would listen to, like your voice, Jeff.
And you know, I think imagine you testifying in front of Congress about the mental health technicians, trades people. It would, it would be watershed. I think you put together.
Imagine if I sat down in the boardroom at Canadian Tire and talked to them about how they have to change their culture within their business, right? Or Midas or Canadian Tire or, you know, great Canadian oil change or something else. Like if I actually sat with them and said, this is what your typical person works for you, actually really feels, looks like and, and, and wants to, you know, at the end of the day, this is what they feel like. You don't. You, you, you walk in and you see them and you, they, they, they showed up today and you think that's a win. Talk to them at day's end and, and think about, like, how many more years do they think they can do this or want to do this or what do they actually feel? And that's the thing. If more would listen, we would start to really solve this problem. But like you said, the greed is in the way. And it's not just that.
The big franchise stores and it's not just the dealership, it's, it's, it's all throughout this industry and some of it's. We painted as greed. But what the reality is is there's, there's a collection of people that are realizing that they're worth more than they ever were paying themselves, and now they're starting to pay themselves and everybody's calling them greedy. And we have to change that stigma too, because at the end of the day, when another shop charges, I don't flipping care. I really don't, man. Like, it's whatever. I agree with my customer is my flipping business. And you know, I don't want to See people getting ripped off but if they pay 500 and the car leaves fixed and they're satisfied and you're satisfied charging 500 bucks, I don't care if somebody would have done it for 250.
I don't give a shit. Go be poor somewhere else. That's what it boils down to.
So for years it was a race in the bottom but I feel like as the shortage there's going to be things you just can't get or can't get done anymore. It's already coming like you can't get someone to fix your weed whacker because it's not financially like 300 Weed Whacker. You can't pay a guy. It's going to be 100 bucks in labor just to look at it and 100 bucks in parts. Here's a new one, right?
Yeah.
You can't get an electrician out in your house to wire up a light because they're too busy wiring new houses for a thousand bucks a day, you know, or whatever. So it's, it's, we got to, I think it's got to get worse before it gets better shortage wise. I just hope that something, something, it starts with us. We just got to, we have to recognize ourselves as professionals. We're gonna be proud of the work we do and we gotta. If, if every guy in your shot, if we, if we had some solidarity. Every guy in this trade, guy and girl in this trade said I need to be treated but I need not. It's not just money.
I need to be treated better. Yeah, they'll treat us better or the shop, the shops that do will be successful in. The shops that don't won't be able to ship cars this week because there's no one to sign the safety certificates.
That's right. Greg, thank you for coming on tonight. Thanks for listening. You know as always thanks to my family at promotive, you know launch Tech USA Tech Metric. Without you guys we wouldn't be able to have these conversations. So I mean I appreciate everybody that you know reaches out to support me every day. The people that have bought the merchandise from the store, you know that just tickles me. What we're trying to do with that merch store guys is, is to take you know, a shop owner, a technician to a training event.
It's not like I'm putting in my pocket right. We're, we're going to do something with that money to give back. So you know, I know the prices, tariffs suck. The prices are a little high shipping sucks. But think about that from a standpoint of it's not going into Jeff's pocket. We're going to do something with that to continue to improve the industry. So thank you, everybody, for listening. Greg, it's been a blast, man.
I enjoyed talking with you. Go. Good luck fixing the the lawnmower. We'll talk to everybody later. Thank you, man. 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 10mm and we'll see you all again next time.
About this episode
Shop culture can turn toxic fast, and the people doing the work often get undervalued. Greg Hilliard walks through his path into heavy-duty diesel work at a Ford dealer, then zooms out on dealership politics, diagnostic reality, and how “an hour of diag” isn’t always an hour. He criticizes opaque labor-rate math, bottlenecks, and pay structures that punish techs. Digital video inspections and AI could shift trust toward technicians, while staffing shortages and mental health remain urgent.
Launch your tool game to the next level with Launch Tech USA! HERE
In this episode, Jeff Compton and Greg Hilliard talk about Greg's career spent in dealerships, independent shops, and finally as a one-man owner-operator. Greg pulls no punches about toxic shop dynamics, the true value of a technician’s labor, and the personal costs of striking out on your own. He and Jeff discuss compensation, mental health struggles in the industry, how digital tools like chat GPT are already impacting repair businesses, and why demanding respect is not negotiable for survival.
Timestamps: 00:00 Feeling valued in engineering role
05:56 Becoming the technical expert
11:52 Buying a used truck at Ford
19:49 Fixing stubborn cab issues
24:57 Avoiding the boss at work
27:52 Discussing fair compensation concerns
35:41 Struggles with retaining mechanics
41:08 Streamlining dental office visits
43:47 Using technology for car repairs
52:54 Struggling to hire a technician
57:37 Choosing entrepreneurship over traditional jobs
59:35 Getting advice from Larry Grogan
01:07:17 Addressing workplace culture issues
01:09:20 Electrician shortage and industry pride
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