Why Some Technicians Are Leaving Flat Rate | Daniel Whitey

Hey, how many advice for the young technicians coming in, Daniel?

You have to have a hustle attitude as far as, oh yeah, I'll do that for you, I'll get that

done, get comfortable using tools.

Just because something looks like you can't remove it without removing eight other things,

take your time, and it all has to come from within you.

It is a hard industry, I think back, there was definitely times when I wasn't sure if

I was going to keep going, I was like, do I really want to keep doing this?

If you're going to do it, it's definitely not a career that you're just going to coast

through, this has to be something you're really passionate about.

You have to be willing to constantly learn and adapt to new things.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another exciting episode of the Jada

Mechanic Podcast.

We're sitting here the first week of June, and we're just rolling into the nice weather.

I say nice weather, and this morning we had crazy downpour and high winds this morning,

but for Canada, it's pretty nice, and you're like, you're always talking about Canada.

And guess what, there's another Canadian guest today, so that's just me still trying

to be the 51st state, right?

I had some people get on me this week about my duck, my mega duck, my Make America Great

duck, and Donald Trump and the whole thing, and it's just like, I'll tell everybody, don't

take it too seriously, okay?

I'm not standing on one side of the eye or the other, it's just, it's all fun.

So it's a duck in a jeep, okay?

But speaking of Canadians, Daniel White has us with me today.

He's from the York region up near Toronto, if anybody's familiar with that, and he reached

out to me and wanted to be just to kind of, you know, as we always do, kind of shoot the

shit and talk.

So Daniel, how's it going, man?

Doing good, bud.

How are you?

Very good, very good.

A little stiff.

I woke up, anytime it rains like that, this one gimpy shoulder that I have, it gets really

sore.

Like, you know, almost before you get out of bed, you know what that's like.

But I mean, I was, this morning I go to this like church dinner or breakfast with my parents

and my brother.

And you know, you're seeing all the old people sit around their talker, and the one guy in

front of us literally like, you know, only one leg and then a prosthetic on the stump

and wearing shorts, and he's grinning his head off, right?

And I'm like, well, I'm not going to get here and bitch about anything.

It's all relative, right?

Yeah.

So how's things there, man?

Things are good.

As you said, the weather's been nice lately.

I was off the last week of May from work and the weather was perfect.

And I can't complain.

Summer's just started.

It's exciting.

Always right.

Yeah.

Now, what did you do for your week?

Do you sit in a week off?

Yeah, just took it easy, took the kids to the zoo, stuff like that.

Tinkered around with the cars a little bit, you know.

Uh huh.

I haven't.

The last time it's been 20 years since I've been to the Toronto Zoo.

Oh, really?

Oh, yeah.

It's because I'm just sitting there and thinking we took my nephew

and he was still in a stroller.

And so, yeah, it's probably been pretty close to 20 years.

drove past the exit a bunch of times.

Like I was just in Vaughan Mills with my brother

last weekend at Bass Pro Shops, right?

Getting ready for this coming season.

And I'm like too far.

Yeah, no, that is far from where we are.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's I never minded Toronto.

You know what I mean?

Like it's like the traffic is crazy.

Oh, absolutely.

Compared to anywhere in Canada.

Yeah, but it's still manageable.

Like I drove around in Montreal a bunch and I'll take driving in

Toronto or Montreal any day, any day.

Me too.

No right turns on reds there.

The cops wait for you when they see your Ontario plate.

Oh, is he going to turn?

Right? Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, you see the Quebec plates fly by your right speed.

Yeah, they never get pulled over.

You're speeding on to come get the other guy.

Do anything. Oh, yeah.

Well, I know you, man.

It's it's it's a trip.

And actually, I should be careful because I had a guy

reach out to me from he's from Quebec City

and he wants to be on the show.

So I probably shouldn't.

I should probably be nice to the French a little more.

I'm always nice to them.

I just, you know, they know what they are.

So kind of give us a tell us a little bit about yourself, Daniel,

like how how long you've been doing this?

So crazy thing that we call being an auto mechanic.

So I I first I went to college for it when I was 23.

OK. And I'm 36 now.

But I really to me, I've really been doing it

consecutively, professionally for about 11 years now.

OK. OK.

Yeah, for for about 11 years and I've been licensed for almost six years.

Yeah. Yeah.

There's that licensing that we're, you know, always pops up in the conversation

now, like we're starting to people are starting to know what that means, right?

Because again, a large part of the listener group is still the Americans

where we don't they don't have that, right?

And you're seeing now they're talking in the last couple of weeks about people

are like they're really on the fence about they don't want that to happen

in the in the US because they're a government involvement.

But what do you think about the like coming up through the apprenticeship

program and getting the license? What did you think about it?

Well, for me, I I really I was always fast, like interested and fascinated

with cars ever since I was a kid.

I always wanted to know how they worked and stuff like that.

So I didn't my high school didn't have an auto shop program or anything like that.

I after high school, I found myself working a few different retail jobs.

And then actually, I went to university for a little while and that

just wasn't really what I wanted to do.

So then I found myself working at the Toronto Star.

Oh, nice. The production plant, which was in Vaughan.

And I worked there for several years and over the course of time, I was there.

I got the opportunity to sort of move up a little bit.

And I got to know my middle room form and Jim pretty well.

And I did some training programs.

I used to create standard operating procedure manuals, all types of different stuff.

And then one day he just we were going over the stuff I had done.

And he just looked at me and said, Daniel,

this place is not going to be around for you for the long run.

You have to figure out what you want to do with yourself now.

You know, you're a young guy, you've got to get going and do something bigger than this place.

It's not going to be around, right?

Yeah. And, you know, no manager or boss

have ever had to set anything like that to me.

So, you know, I really took that to heart.

So I just figured to go all in and just do automotive

because I always knew it was something at least learning how to fix a car.

And how to do certain things.

It was always something I wanted to learn how to do.

Right. Where I went to college, I had, you know, done basic things.

Like one time the tire was flat on the driveway.

You know, I put the spare on, you know, change the car battery, stuff like that.

Wiper blades.

But I will say back to your original point of the apprenticeship process.

I think it's mean it's not perfect.

I think overall it's a good system to have in place because down

in the States is, you know, we talk, you've talked about with so many different people.

It's really just the ASEE program.

And even then they don't, I don't think they mandate that people get their ASEE.

It's sort of up to them, right?

Yeah, it's all on the choice of the employer to either make the people

recognize it right or on the individual to take the test to have a.

I don't want to say proof of knowledge, but like the tests show a level of

competency to some understanding and competency being the understanding,

not necessarily because, you know, oh, listen, lots of people can take a test,

but you know, you put the tools in their hand.

Yeah, I know.

And you're not wrong, but it shows a level of understanding at least of the

systems that they're teaching, right?

You have to, if you passed it, you probably understood how that system worked.

And, you know, what happens in the shop is a different thing altogether.

I talk all the time, but like I'm the kind of technician that's not never been

super fast and, you know, it can blow a whole transmission apart on a bench.

And remember every little piece goes, that's not me.

I have to be like meticulously laid out and have a process to it or else I'll,

I'll forget to, you know, the order or something.

I have to go back.

So that maybe, does that mean that I can't be a mechanic?

No, because obviously 30 years later, I've been successful being a mechanic.

It's just, I have to, you know, but I have a really good understanding of systems,

right?

And that's where I've been allowed to, to keep up and still be very, you know,

successful is because of the sense that like my brain understanding helps me get

through with my brain's inability to remember photographic memory of how,

you know, shit looked.

I don't, I'm just, I don't know where I am on the spectrum on that,

but I definitely there somewhere.

What, um, what college did you go to up near?

So I did a two year program at Centennial College.

It was a Chrysler, Chrysler co-op diploma program.

Nice.

So how it worked was we did our first eight months in school.

We did, um, level one and level two.

Okay.

Then we went to paid co-op placements for eight months.

Then we came back.

We did level three.

As in when I say level 12 and three, I mean, you know, as mandated by, you know,

well, at the time, I guess it was the college of trades.

That's gone now.

Yeah.

And then they had a level four program.

They had a level four program, which was a little more Chrysler specific, I guess,

as far as like the new stuff that was coming out.

It was a very good program, especially for somebody like me.

I mean, I had to learn, you know, everything, not just like the fundamentals and

knowledge base behind it, but, you know, kind of getting in and, you know,

getting used to using tools, you know, that's its own other thing as well.

But for me, I took my time with it and, um, I persevered.

And I, I got through it and, uh, I've never looked back myself.

Um, a few guys I went to college with, I'm still in touch with actually two of them.

After graduation, we, uh, all worked together at the same Chrysler dealer as

apprentices.

Yeah.

We all worked there together.

And, um, one of the guys is still there now and another guy has moved on and myself,

I've moved on as well.

But yeah, a few guys that, uh, we went to college with, you know, 13 years ago,

whatever it is, you know, we still, uh, still hang out once in a while and catch

up.

So it's pretty cool that way.

What, what made you pick the Chrysler program?

Um, at least when I was looking at everything on paper, it seemed to me to

be the most comprehensive program in terms of when I read what it was about.

It seemed like it really had an idea and, you know, a direction, you know, what

I'm trying to say, um, not just that, but I've at the time, as I said, I've always

been into cars and you know, like when Chrysler brought back that, you know, the

Dodge Challenger and what was it like 2008 or something like that.

I was like, okay, here we go.

They're starting to, they're starting to pick up again, you know?

Yeah.

Cause I mean, I hit Chrysler in 2003.

So I can remember like the first, you know, the first like the, the C class

semi car coming, right?

And the rear wheel drive, like the old three hundreds, I can remember them coming.

And, and I can remember when the PT Cruiser hit and there was a big deal, right?

Like, oh my God, like a PT Cruiser.

And, and cause before that had been the Viper and then everything else was a

caravan, you know what I mean?

Like it was like, you had a neon.

You had a caravan, you had a Viper and you had the Ram truck.

And then they, when the rear wheel drive cars hit, I was just like, oh yeah.

And then of course the Jeep thing too, like I'd always loved Jeeps as a kid.

So when I hit, it wasn't by choice that I picked Chrysler.

I literally same kind of thing.

I had some friends that worked at the dealer and I was in a small little

independent shop, not making enough money to, to survive.

That's not a knock on them.

It's just, and I went to the dealer because like I was there with these guys

that were like making five bucks more an hour than I was way back in like 2002.

And they weren't flat, right?

They were just like hourly and they're making five bucks more.

And they're like, why don't you come work with us?

And I'm like, oh, I've heard all these things about working on the dealer.

Like it's all starve and, you know, their politics.

And they're like, um, and I was intimidated.

I was literally intimidated.

Where I was, they weren't trying to, but it was like, I wasn't getting exposed

to anything and they're like, I didn't feel like I was ready.

And they're like, oh, no, trust me, you're ready.

You're smart enough to come work with us.

Like, and I'm like, yeah, because my test scores are doing pretty good.

And, you know, I'm in the shop working next to you guys on the, on the labs.

And I'm doing fine.

Well, I went and it was the best thing I ever did in my career to start out

because I got exposed and I got training that I would have never got at the little

shop that I was at.

Not to sit and I'm not trying to sit here and say, like Andy shops or dead ends,

obviously I'm not saying that, but I was in one of those shops that we talk about

in the groups that like it's, it's one of those shops that they set themselves up

and design themselves to be, I'll say it, to be the cheapest option in the

neighborhood.

And then there's no room for advancement there.

Like they can't to bring on, if they're hiring young people, they're always hiring

young people because it's cheap labor, not because they're trying to get young

people to become great technicians.

They just, the money's not there.

Like we didn't have training.

We had one scan tool, no service information.

Like it was, it was just half the customers were paying on like a never,

never pay plan, like, you know, come by and pay once a week with some cash.

And it was just a gong show.

We put on the cheapest parts we could find.

Like everything was cars that somebody went and bought that needed to be

safety. And then when you looked at it, you're like, wow, this thing's really bad.

Right.

And then it's like, well, I mean, I already bought the car, you know, like,

wow, did we get it ready?

So that was the big part of what I did was like oil changes and tires and safety

inspections and on these, I remember these old rotten Toyotas and like old rotten

Hondas and everything was rotten.

And, um, learned a lot, but I was going broke.

Like I was making $10 an hour.

And the running joke was like the tool truck, there'd be a tool truck every day,

a different one.

And if you went and bought a tool off the truck and it was 80 bucks, you worked

for free that day.

Right.

You know, eight hours, time 10 bucks, you just worked for free.

Um, and I laugh about it now, but it was the finding a cruiser dealer that hired

me and taught me everything that it taught me really did save my career for sure.

So, and that, that just became why I love the product.

Like we, I know I'm going to ramble, but we in the shop yesterday had a 2023

demon and I want to say like a 2022 TRX truck.

I don't know if that's the right kind of date, but it's about that.

This guy's trying to sell them both anyways or something.

And like just to be walking around those two cars, like are those, I've never

seen a TRX up close.

I've seen lots of challenges before, but I'd never seen a TRX up close.

That thing is something like entirely unto its own.

Like it's not like people like, oh, it's like a raptor.

It's nothing like a raptor.

It's completely, I don't know.

Man, it's, it's a truck, but oh my God, it's so much more than that.

It's just ridiculous.

They fired them up.

And of course, like the boss wouldn't let me drive them around the street.

He knows what's going to happen if I drive them.

I come back with a speeding ticket, but it was just so cool to be around those

two cars and it was like, because for me, you know, people have heard me say it.

That's why I love Chrysler, right?

That's why that, that, that's their heritage is building ridiculously

stupid, high horsepower, loud, obnoxious, you know, throwback cars.

And then they still build the best truck in the market.

I don't care on anybody says, but yeah, sorry.

I agree.

Yeah.

Ram.

Yeah, that's my favorite truck too.

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It just feels different.

Hey, when you drive a Hammy Ram and then you get into like a Silverado and I'm

not knocking anyone else, but it just has the way that that engine wakes up in the

power band when you're driving it is just different.

It's just different.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And it's always been different.

Like it, it's just even because again, like I worked there when the first

Hemmy's hit, so we were always running the old five nines and, you know, four

sevens and five twos.

They were junk.

And then when that Hammy truck came, it was like, Holy shit.

Like it's, it was different.

You know, everybody wants a 53 and LS the world is what they say.

But like, no, man, you want to Hemmy swap the world.

If you want to do something like it's just a different, it's a different beast.

So sorry.

Did you ever get to drive one of the demons?

Never driven a demon.

Yeah.

I had to go with my service manager at the time.

Across the street, the owner of our auto group, he had, he had one down in the

basement bunker.

Nice.

And I guess for whatever reason, he wanted the carpet liner installed in it.

So I had to go down there with him and put it in.

So I've never driven one, but I've sat in one.

I've driven Hellcats.

I've driven, you know, SRT 392 shakers.

Yeah.

Charger Daytona's, you know, all that kind of stuff.

Never driven.

Well, I've driven a TRX into my bay.

That's about it, you know, for an oil, for an oil change.

But even just sitting in the TRX, you can just tell like, this is a serious truck, man.

Oh yeah.

It's I yeah.

It like, and I sat in both of them and I'm like, it just

the way it feels like you're sitting in that, like you just, and I know performance

cars have a feel, but there's just something about those two.

Like the way the cockpit around the TRX is designed, I'm just sitting in

and I'm like, this is not supposed to be a truck.

A truck is not supposed to feel like this seat in the console and the steering wheel

and the ship, like it's not supposed to feel like that.

It's just, it's ridiculous.

And then, you know, the the the demon is just, I don't know.

It's like it's like something cool from like the 70s, but walked in and then all

of this technology going on and performance like they're we're talking

70 on an horsepower like it's nothing like what anybody ever drove back in the day.

Right. It's just exactly.

No, that's right.

Yeah.

100 percent.

Yeah.

So what did you like you said that here?

Sorry, the heritage with Chrysler like that's sort of something that drew me into

because I love all, you know, the classic cars and the challengers,

Hemmy Kuda stuff like that charger.

So yeah, I agree.

Yeah, it's definitely a cool lineage and they're still they kind of got off

the track for a little while, but they think they're bringing the Hemi back.

So we'll see if they do some gas chargers.

Yeah, it's not electric one.

Get rid of that electric.

Have you heard one?

Have you heard the speaker exhaust startup?

Yeah.

Yeah, so like.

And it's almost like.

I mean, does it serve a function?

Sure it does, but I almost would have been better without that.

You know what I mean?

Like, yeah, it makes so too.

Because it's just it gets your attention, which I guess is what it's supposed to do.

But no, I'm just it might a piece of my heart breaks every time.

When I, you know, there's a there's a Crieser dealer right across the road

from me actually that like where I used to work years ago.

And so yeah, I remember they had one out front for a little while and I'm like.

That's just looks wrong, you know.

Yeah.

I mean, you know what?

When you started the dealer, what kind of what were some of the jobs that like

you were really excited about?

And then what were some of the jobs that you were like kind of intimidated by?

So for me, when I first started working there, the place I did my co-op at first,

I I worked in a few different things in the service department.

I, you know, moved cars out of the drive through and stuff like that.

And then I got to work in the, you know, the quick loop bays, but they were all,

you know, drive on racks.

And, you know, we were just doing oil changes and filters and wiper bleeds and

stuff like that.

So then when I came, when I got hired at the dealer after graduation, I still had

a fair amount of kind of catching up to do.

I felt as far as like, OK, let's learn how to rack a truck.

Let's learn how to rack this car, you know, on a two post.

So then what ended up happening was me and another apprentice that had already

been there and he had more hands on, I guess you could call it experience than I did.

They kind of elected the two of us to be in charge of their new, what did they

call it, a quick lane or express lane.

Chrysler express lane.

So then he and I did that for probably about almost a year.

And we would do everything.

We would do, obviously, oil changes.

We even did a mountain balance tires, tire repairs.

Sometimes we would even do the odd little recall flash here and there,

depending on and then we would inspect the cars.

And then, you know, if something, something was loose in the front

end or something like that, you know, we call like a what senior licensed guy

over and have him kind of verify, oh, yeah, there's something wrong with this car.

You know, so we're both we're both learning, but we learn from each other.

And then we both got away from that.

So then it was actually.

I heard you talk about mentorship before.

So I actually had a great opportunity at the stealer because, you know,

while he and I were doing our quick lane, you know, jobs, you know, all the kind

of older guys that have been there for a while, you know, they kind of saw, OK,

these guys can work.

These guys can move.

They at least can do tires and oil changes and put wheels back on properly

and torque them properly.

So then he and I sort of start each started working with a licensed technician.

And we were their apprentices and that lasted for quite a while as well.

So even when I went to my buddy, Sean Billy, when I went to work with him,

I still had a lot of a long way to go.

But he he taught me a lot and he was I would say one of their top earners.

And he was a guy that at least in my opinion, he could pretty much fix anything.

He was a really good, well rounded tech.

He could solve an electrical problem.

He could do suspension work.

He could do AC like he could do everything, you know.

So for me, it was

not so much that I was ever afraid to do something, but I was always just trying

to learn as much as I could and do things properly.

If you know what I'm trying to say, you know, I didn't want to.

But, you know, even now where I am and even even while I was at the dealer,

I've always kind of had a certain amount of quality control for myself

when a job gets shipped out, even if it's just, you know, a four wheel brake job.

So speak, right?

So for me, like I wasn't always the fastest, like, you know, certain things.

Yeah, I could get in and out and bang out.

But I was never like, you know, lightning speed kind of guy.

That's just not who I am, you know, your auto repair shop doesn't slow down

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But things I was excited to do when I worked with Sean, we had the opportunity to do.

We did it. We actually did an engine in a Hellcat.

Oh, nice. Long block.

Yeah, we did a long block because what happened was it had come from another dealer.

They took it off, you know, the delivery truck and.

I can't remember exactly what happened, but I think the story is it overheated

when the guy at the other dealer was doing, you know, his PDI test drive

and then they started poking around and then.

I don't know. They didn't want the car anymore.

They did that.

They wanted nothing to do with that car.

So then however it happened, our dealer ended up getting it.

And then yeah, me and Sean got the car and got to do the engine in it.

And that was sort of the first time he kind of left me alone really and said,

OK, this is what you need to do.

You know, go.

He had done that before for smaller, you know, smaller things.

Like I remember the first day I started working with him.

He hands me a work order and a set of keys and he goes, OK,

bring in this Ram truck and change the serpentine belt.

It pays 18 minutes.

Go.

Yeah.

You know, type of a thing.

That was a really that was one job I did there that I was still obviously

an apprentice at the time that was something I'll always remember

because it was the first time I'd ever really done a big,

a big heavy line repair, let's call it.

Yeah. You know, and even then, you know, putting everything back together,

making sure everything's right.

And then, you know, we got to drive it after.

Obviously, we had both keys.

We kept, you know, we took the red key in the car.

You know, it was a lot of fun getting to drive it after, you know,

we had just done all this work to it, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's the kind of jobs that's almost like, you know,

and I've talked to so many dealer techs and it's like, yeah, they hate that

sometimes like they lose their butt on some of the jobs, but just like

getting to do the quality control test drive on something like that.

You know, almost like give up an hour pay or whatever, because it's just

also going to get a chance to really, you know, like flog one of those cars, right?

Like you and that's part of it.

You put an engine and you got to really get that thing up to temperature

and and like you're you're shaking it down, right?

And yeah, I'd still be a sucker.

You know, if they came back to me and said, Jeff, come back

and all you're going to work on is like, you know, scat packs and demons.

And like, but it's not going to pay great.

I'd be like, OK, I'll do it.

Twist my arm, you know, just let me road test all of them.

And that's that's what always cracked me is like the salesman

or, you know, even my boss at this job now, he like, you know,

because he's been in the used car market for a while.

So you don't ever really own anything, but you get to demo it, right?

Extended demos. That's right.

He had a stick shift.

Well, you know, scat pack years ago.

And he said it was just stupid to drive that thing around.

Like he said, it was almost you couldn't drive it.

In town, because the tires are breaking free all the time with a stick, right?

Like an automatic, you know, you just put it in D and kind of like

just keep your foot out of the pedal and you'll be all great.

He says that it's just like you're just trying to roll away from a stop

and, you know, chirping the tires.

So I had to get rid of that.

It was a heat score, but he said it was just so much fun to drive, you know.

So and those cars just want to go, man.

Yeah, even the five sevens, like, you know, I can remember the old

the older five sevens with a stick.

I drove an SRT eight challenger, a yellow one back.

It was one of the last PDI's I ever did for Kaiser.

And, you know, stick shit.

And it was like that car was still stupid, fast.

And it's a 57 like the six twos now.

And it's just like supercharger.

What? Hello. Like, yeah, you know, thank you.

I'm good now, right?

Like I've scared myself.

I don't need to, you know, drive super cars because I've driven.

I've driven lots of Teslas.

And I mean, that's impressive, right?

How it will accelerate and all that shit.

But it doesn't have that feel, you know, it just no, it feels so

controlled and refined, whereas you drive something like that.

And Corvette's the same.

It feels refined.

You drive Chrysler.

It's just like this feels like a car like this feels like a car that can hurt me.

And it but in a good way, right?

You know, absolutely.

My favorite one to drive was always the

yeah, the charger with the 57 and the shaker hoods.

Yeah. Yeah.

That one was always my favorite because yeah, still plenty of power.

And I just loved I love seeing that hood scoop out the front of the windshield, you know?

Yeah. Yeah.

So going back to the job experience, because we can't keep talking about these

cool cars because it just.

So did you say that for overall, like the dealership, then they had a pretty good idea

about mentorship for you?

Like it sounds like it.

It it was just sort of one of those things where I don't know if it officially was ever

the service manager was like, OK, you're going to go do this now.

But it just sort of ended up panning out for us.

I will say we were a pretty apprentice heavy dealership.

And then even after me and my buddy went to go work with the two techs,

they had other people they hired and brought in.

So it was definitely a very good experience.

Like that's, you know, I did my whole apprenticeship at this dealer.

I got licensed there.

Like to me, like I wouldn't definitely wouldn't be where I am now without,

you know, that place and that group of guys.

And, you know, my my buddy Sean, that, you know, pretty much showed me

all the stuff I know and at least gave me some confidence to be able to try to tackle

things because it did end up happening where obviously I couldn't be his apprentice forever.

Yeah. Then I did start working on my own at one point.

I got my own bay, but he was, you know, he was pretty understanding of that.

And he would still help me when I would need help with certain things.

But yeah, then I started working on my own.

And that was its own, you know, a new thing for me too.

Yeah. And it was a good experience.

So I was still hourly when I started working on my own.

So I could still kind of take my time.

I would try to obviously hustle where I could, but certain things, obviously I couldn't.

Yeah. And then I went flat rate, obviously still working on my own.

And then I really tried to go lightning, lightning, lightning and nothing bad happened.

So I guess it was okay.

But it wasn't for me at least flat rate is I definitely had good days with it and some

decent paychecks here and there, but it was never like consistently.

Yeah. It never consistently worked for me.

If you know what I'm trying to say, you know, I never always make my 40 hours every week

or make 50 hours.

It was sort of always around this a certain threshold where it was OK,

but it was not enough money to make a good living. Right.

Yeah. And we know what it's like in Canada, right?

You get that tire season, that twice annual thing.

And all of a sudden you just see a lot more cars, right?

And that's when you got to really hustle down and like and get it done.

And those were the days that I'd worked the long days.

Like I'd worked 730 in the morning till eight o'clock at night, right?

Because if they had, I can remember like if they had a bunch of like

cars that were in waiting to get tires put on, we only had two tire machines

and like other work to be done.

So they were like, I'd stay and get knock out 23 sets of tires,

you know, at the end of the day after everybody went home.

Because my dealer, we didn't like they didn't dispatch used cars to just anybody

and they didn't dispatch PDIs to just anybody.

There was only one guy that got used cars and one guy that got PDIs.

So, you know, when I I'm jealous of the guys that I hear about, like, well,

you know, when I had a tough week, they throw me a couple of used cars

and they throw me a PDI. I was like, that didn't happen for me.

We had to we had to make it on whatever we could find.

So I was jealous of the guys that when I hear that, you know, their their dealer

would kind of, and I'm not saying it was right or wrong,

would kind of keep that for to help people out that were down on ours.

That's I thought that was always really cool.

I I'm like you, I didn't I stayed hourly for a long time.

And when I was hourly, because I got a lot of crap jobs.

And I don't mean crap, like just recall after recall.

I mean, like here's another check-in check, here's another, you know,

when it rains, the, you know, power, you know, the wipers turn on by themselves.

Caravan and stuff like that.

And it was just like, go figure it out.

You know, I remember I was on early my apprenticeship, we had a V10 truck,

not a Viper truck, just the old 68 V10.

And it was in a 3500 with a dump box on the back.

And we didn't have even a hoist that would have fit on.

And they sold this truck to this French guy.

And he blew the engine up and it seized it right up.

And so he had some kind of extended warranty through the used car department.

And like we had to put a lawn block into this truck.

And I can remember like, yeah, it wouldn't fit on the hoist.

I had to do it on the ground.

And then of course, because it seized up, I had to like pretty much take the the the mains out.

And so I could spin the crank to get, you know, the flywheel to come off.

Right. Because, you know, it was just I was like two weeks getting that truck down.

I was not fast, right.

And it was like, but it was in a flat bay between two bays that like, you know,

and I had parts laying blown all over the place.

There's probably six bags of floor dry on the floor by the time it was done, like it was.

But it was cool to get it done and then drive it.

And of course, after you drive it, you realize that it's like, oh,

OK, it's got about ignition coil, which was common or not ignition coil coil pack,

which was common on the six eighths.

But like you couldn't have known because when it came in,

it came in deader than dead, you know, seized up.

And I can remember going through the die on that going, well, why is it only firing on, you know,

five cylinders coil pack?

So it was just one of those things where it was like nobody was chewing my butt.

Nobody, because by then we'd already had so much money into that job

that buying an $80 coil pack at the time didn't make any like didn't break anybody's hearts.

Didn't make anybody mad.

Right. It was just get the truck running.

And I can remember that job.

And there's some other ones I remember doing that just sucked.

I remember a side impact curtain airbag on a brand new grand Cherokee.

Like it had 300 kilometers on it.

And it went through PDI and we didn't PDI it, but it went through PDI.

Pretty sure the airbag laid on.

And then, of course, the customer picked it up and then brought it back.

And the reason the guy that did the PDI didn't write it up for it

was because he would have, they would have asked him to start looking at it.

And he didn't want to. So he never did.

And I remember finding that that was the first time I'd ever seen it.

They had pinned on a terminal, but never stripped the actual wire, the insulation off.

So it was like the terminal was crimped around the wire,

but there was wasn't touching copper.

And that was a trick because it was inside the connector, right?

Like it's hard to see.

And that took me a while to figure out because I remember I just went to the module

and started deep pinning at the module and switching stuff around and going,

well, when I run that circuit down to the other side, like switch left or right,

like we do with ABS or whatever, it's still, you know, the code's following.

So it must be a bad inflator.

So get an inflator, go and put it in the exact same thing.

What the hell's going on?

It's at the connector at the inflator, right?

So it was just I was it.

I was first time I'd ever seen that.

I'm like, this doesn't make sense.

And you take the connector part and you're like, oh, that's pretty cool.

And you go to, you know, you go to your drawer and you get your connectors out

and you find the connector that has the right pin and you repin the damn thing

and it's fixed. But like, yeah, that was the first time I'd ever seen them do that,

that they forgot to strip the wire and then make the connection that was dumb.

So, you know, I've seen my fair share of brand new.

I've seen my fair share of brand new PDI cars with some kind of light on.

And then you tear half the car apart to find something not plugged in or, you know,

whatever, right? Yeah, it's frustrating, isn't it?

Because then it's like, and I don't know, you've probably phoned tech line

once or twice, but I can remember phoning them and they're like, what?

It's doing what?

And it's like, they wouldn't believe you.

I'm like, trust me, man.

Like it's OK.

And then they'd call back, you know, or you'd reached out to them

in like a week later and you find it and they're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense.

No. OK. Yeah.

Like they were pretty cool to call.

I enjoyed talking to them on the phone and people were listening to me like, oh,

yeah, sure, Jeff, you called them all the time about it.

Right. You dummy.

Oh, no, but it was like you would get really weird stuff and like you would

call them up and it's like and they were pretty smart.

They had seen.

Well, they didn't see it personally.

But again, when they sit there and they collect all that, you know, case

findings and stuff and sit there and pour through it, they were a really good

asset because they had they had heard of at least and they'd say, oh, yeah,

go look at this one, you know, force.

I talk about all the time caravans had those floor spices under the carpet

that would rot and corrode and do all kinds of weird stuff.

And the old Jeep Liberty's first gen Jeep Liberty had this connector

underneath the console that had like a hundred wires in it.

And it would fill up with water and do weird stuff like, you know, we had one.

And it was like you turn on the rear wiper and the radio would switch stations.

It was it was ridiculous.

Like it was stupid.

And it was this big connector.

Oh, yeah, some of the electrical problems you see in Chrysler cars, especially

just, you know, you got to approach the fundamentals, though.

That's the thing, right?

You just got to break it down to what is it?

And then, you know, like people trash on them, but I love the product.

I really do.

It taught me so much.

I do.

I do as well.

I don't drive one, but there's I do like the product and I definitely

will always maintain that it's definitely a good brand to learn on if you're

going to a dealership.

Is it such a big brand?

And there's so many different types of vehicles.

And again, their service information.

I found this after I left Chrysler.

Yes.

You tried another brand.

The service information is really part of none.

Yeah, it's the best there is.

100%.

Yeah.

So when we talk, you know, the service, everything.

Yeah, topology.

Like that's everybody that's using any kind of scan tool now that has topology.

You thank Chrysler for that.

They invented that shit.

So I mean, you know, people want to rip on them.

And it's like, I mean, yeah, they're not perfect.

But I mean, like look at Ford or look at like, I mean, everybody has their problems.

I'll share with you as their problems.

But did you get into the EV stuff going back to the you're talking about the charger?

No.

So I left I left Chrysler in the tail end of 2021.

OK, I left there.

So we started getting, I think those like hybrid Jeep Wranglers and stuff like that.

But there was no electric fully electric cars yet.

So I never really even I've never driven one of them.

I've never serviced one or looked at it.

That was just sort of around the bend when I was going there.

Yeah.

But when I left there, you know,

yeah, those EV and hybrid Wranglers are not doing well from what I've heard.

They got lots of lots more than one engine issue, I guess, on the which is,

I guess the tornado and you can't blame the fact that it's a hybrid.

But I guess I know I know two that were hybrid Wranglers that like literally came

off the truck and the engine was junk.

So and two of them.

And then it was like eight months to get a replacement engine like it sat there

like that long. That's crazy.

I can remember the first I wasn't certified to work on it,

but my co-worker was hybrid Durango way back when, you know,

it was one of the first things they rolled out with a hybrid.

And I remember looking at it going like, yeah, I want no part of this.

And now it's now they're pretty cool.

I'm starting to slowly warm to the hybrid thing.

But the straight EV thing, I don't ever think I'm going to be on board.

Especially when you see it with a Wrangler, like that to me is just like

so, so backwards of what a Jeep person would want.

And I was like, oh, yeah, like, you know, because the idea that you

it's a vehicle you can take anywhere.

Well, no, you can't take it very much farther than the next fucking charging

center. Come on. There's no there's no charging station on top of the mountain.

You're going to climb with it. That's right. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. You get your little generator at the back and, you know,

fire it up and charge your car and keep going down Moab or something like, yeah,

no, thank you.

So what made you leave?

It was a combination of things.

I had been there for so long and I was just kind of.

I was just kind of getting tired, I guess.

There were certain things that that particular dealer, you know, I would kind of

make, I would voice my opinion about something, it would change for like a week

or two and then it would go right back to where it was.

And I was just so we had a service manager that I really liked.

He was our service manager for three years there.

And then he left.

And then after that, like the person who they appointed to be the service manager,

I knew her quite well. I had no problem working for her.

It was just things just weren't changing.

And I was just kind of.

I just sort of wanted to I wanted to see what it was like at a different,

a different brand.

So I ended up going to where my previous service manager was now working,

which was a Hyundai store, which was.

Complete opposite ends of our brands, like just much simpler,

smaller dealer, smaller group of guys.

But that in and of itself was also a very good experience.

I actually really liked working there.

Even the couple of guys that I worked with there, I still still go by to see them

once in a while, you know, yeah, we definitely had a good crew.

Every few places, I mean, I haven't worked a lot of places, but where I have worked,

I will always say and where I'm working now that definitely have been privileged

to work with a good group of guys and a few girls over the years,

like good group of people that, you know, when you yell for a push,

everybody comes to help you, you know, and vice versa, you know, stuff like that.

Right. Or that's the key point, right?

Well, yeah, the culture in the shop. That's the main thing.

It's it's, you know, people always talk about, well,

texts are quitting because of money.

The recent survey show that most texts, it's not even the top five why they quit money.

You know, it's it's it's the culture, which the money is part of the culture.

But, you know, they work with people that don't,

you know, they don't get along or there's they don't even hide the political divide

or the favoritism, right? Like they don't even hide it.

And that makes people really frustrated to come to work every day, right?

When you know that you're going to come in and, you know,

you're going to face the same challenges over and

and over again that nobody really cares.

And then it makes it worse for me because it's like,

you know, if I just know that you're not going to change anything,

just tell me you're not going to change anything and then I'll learn to live with it.

But when we go through the rhetoric of like,

how about let's have a monthly meeting and talk about, you know, improve me and nothing improves.

That just the way I'm wired to just frustrates me.

Like I just I talk all the time in my, I just stopped going to the monthly meetings.

Like I would go there and eat my pizza and then I would leave.

And I would go back down to the shop and I would work on whatever I'd left in my bay.

And I didn't like that. But it was just like,

I'm not going to sit here and pretend that like we're going to do anything about the amount of

comebacks that we have or, you know, like I'm not, no, I'm not going to sit here because

they're not my comebacks. I'm not having comebacks. I'm slower than everybody else.

And I'm doing the work the way it's supposed to get done. And, you know, if I have a comeback,

it's because it was an intermittent, we couldn't duplicate it, you know, like otherwise,

it wasn't a big deal. But like we have four chosen guys that like could do whatever they wanted.

And if the car came back, oh, well, that was just, we didn't talk about it.

And that frustrated me. And then it's like, you know what, we're not going to do anything about

this. Let's just all get along and just skip it, eat the pizza and then go back to work.

Like, you know, don't, don't lecture me with shit that we're not going to change.

So is that kind of what you were facing? Yeah. I mean, there'd just be so many times when I just

sort of see the same, you know, a couple of people constantly just getting fed stuff. Like I remember

there was one time me and another buddy were sitting around doing nothing, like all like for a

good couple hours that afternoon, there's no work. We watched the same guy pull in like three,

how they did use cars, we all got to use cars as well as, you know, PDIs, but we saw the same guy

pulling three pre-owned inspections back to back. And they each paid an hour. So before the car was

sold, when you would do the safety, you would do the pre-owned inspection and just kind of make a

list of what it needs to pass safety back to back, three of them. And we were just like, are you

serious? Yeah. You know, because of course, when the car gets sold, it's going to the guy who did

the pre-owned inspection unless they're not there that day for some reason or they're on vacation.

Right. So it was stuff like that. And I was just getting, I was getting pretty burned out on,

I was getting burned out on, I guess, warranty jobs there and, you know, what I was able to

collect every week from my paycheck being flat rate, it just, I just had enough of it. You know

what I mean? I just wanted to try something else is really, is really all like, is really the only

reason why. And I think it was a good decision for me to, for me to move and try something else,

because it showed me that, okay, I can work on another brand and get used to it, or I can just

at least try a new workplace. Because it's one thing, it's one thing I think, because I was there

for six and a half years. It's one thing if, let's say in the span of six and a half years, I've worked

at four different Chrysler dealers with different groups of people, but I was literally at the

same one the whole time, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it was just, I think it was just time for me to just

make a change. And it was a hard, really hard decision. It was not an easy decision to make

by any means. I took, it took me probably a good month or so mulling it over and thinking about it

and going to visit the new place and talk to the, talking to the owner there, seeing my old service

manager there. It took about a month of me really mulling it over before I decided to pull the trigger,

you know? So was it a financial like increase to go to the new place, like to the Hyundai store?

So it, actually, I did take $3 an hour pay cut going there. Wow. And I knew that up front. I knew

that up front. But I will say that, of course, again, like the cars are a lot simpler. And at the

time when I got there, like they were doing, we were doing a lot of good service work. Yep. So

there was, you know, when I first, when I first started working there, I was, I was happy with

my hours I was hitting at first, but it didn't last either. And then, you know, I eventually,

that's a whole other story. There's a lot of things that happened at that place too. I went

on vacation. You were there when the engine recall happened? Oh, yeah, we did. We did tons of tons of

Elantra and Sonata, Tucson. Oh, yeah, all those engines. I never did. I only ever did long blocks.

A guy I worked with was like the engine slayer there. Like he would do, obviously long blocks,

he would do, he would have a Elantra short block like in in the morning and out by, you know,

23 o'clock running and cooling system, bleeding everything, you know? So we did lots of

engine work too. Warranty wise, I found it wasn't quite this, the same as Chrysler

because it didn't seem like the same kind of like ridiculous, again, electrical problems, nothing

like that. You know, I was just kind of, I'm not the best at electrical. I can do it and I understand

it, but it's not really my forte. So again, I was just kind of tired of dealing with like that kind

of stuff too at that Chrysler, you know, because it just seemed like in the span of a couple years,

it was just going from like, okay, we know what the problems are with these cars. And now it's

like, okay, what is going on here with these new cars, you know? But it was again, it was a hard

decision to make, but I made it, you know? And that's what ultimately burned me out was it was like,

you know, guys could talk about doing the new transmissions or something like that. And I was

just over my corner going, okay, like I'm over here doing check engine lights and software and

wiring problems and, you know, Diag, that's all I was doing, a lot of it. And so for me, like I

found at Chrysler, like we were all okay at it, but a couple of us like were really good. When I

made the jump to Hyundai, which was like, I don't know, 2012, say, I landed in a dealer that you

could tell that Hyundai from a wiring standpoint was pretty good, not as prone as Chrysler,

because none of them were good at solving it. Like it was like if they had

a comeback on a check engine light, like it was, it was like a boomerang. It circled the shop. And

I can remember like a couple of them, I got one and it was like low on power, you know, lean fault.

And I'm like, going out and I'm driving it. I'm like, what has this all had done? And it's always had

a tune up and a couple of them, like the fuel pump's bad. They're like, the fuel pump's not bad.

It's still starting. I'm like, well, you're running up the hill and the thing is running out of fuel.

Like the oxygen sensor can't keep up. It's dead. Like it's running out of fuel. And I remember the

one I talked about it before, there was a seat airbag fault and the car had been like from

40,000 K had this fault in it. And then it had been traded twice and sold twice. And it kept

coming back and back. And then until they put a whole seat in the car,

and it still had an airbag module, every seat that you could change,

all this kind of stuff. And it was a bad ground. It was a bad ground. And I'm like,

how do you guys not know how to do this stuff? And they're just like, oh, just nobody ever

taught us. And I'm like, taught you, like it's, you're all licensed technicians. Like you should know

how to determine that the ground is bad. Like it wasn't like, and in defense of that, it was

intermittent, but there was also like, you could go back in their history and look and there'd be

periods where it was like four days that it was in the shop. And it says right in the work order,

left light still on, fault still there. Right. The customer drive around the fault will go away.

When I got it, that was literally 45 minutes and then there's the bad ground. I'm like,

how do you not know this? Like this, you know, and it's, I'm not bragging. It's just like,

I was amazed at what they couldn't do. Evap, Wolf might, there wasn't a flat rate tech at the

Hyundai store that I was at. They would touch and evap fault. They wouldn't touch it. They give it

all to the straight time guy that were in the bay next to me in apprentice. And I'm watching them.

I'm like, this is not hard. Like this is, but they just wouldn't do it. They would,

they'd give it back to the tower. They'd cry a little bit and then the tower would give them

a service. Here's the timing belt job, you know, like when, when Hyundai's still had timing belts,

that's how old I was. You know, or here's like another front cover to reseal or here's like,

you know, a control arm noise and a brake job. And you know, it was like, like it was just,

here's a good ticket, get out of my face for that thing. Right. Or here's, here's two PDIs to do.

Cause I didn't lie. I didn't lie there either. Like I was just like, are you kidding? Like you guys

are all master techs. So that's, that's something that's always made me laugh. That's like,

that guy over in the corner, he's our master tech.

Not throwing shade people don't get mad at the Jade mechanic. So you finally left Hyundai, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, so I only, I only was at that Hyundai dealer for

almost a year. So this is what happened. My service manager that left my Chrysler dealer,

he was there and for quite a while, but then he left on us as well. And

it was kind of like, okay, what's going on here? You know, so then they hired a new guy to come in,

long story short, I went on vacation. I was gone for like a week and a half. I went down to Colorado

for my buddy's wedding. And then I come back, the new service manager that they hired had quit.

The parts manager, the parts manager had quit. The service advisors had quit.

You know, so then we were like, what are we supposed to do? So the owner of the Hyundai

store, he was actually a really good guy. He didn't want to lose like us, the tax. So he was paying us

our wage, our flat rate wage, straight time. And we would just come in and, you know, come in at

eight o'clock in the morning, work, you know, an eight hour day, and we were just catching up on,

you know, our engine jobs and different things we had kicking around. So that lasted for good,

I don't know, month and a half probably before they got someone else in there.

You know, and then I just, the sort of, for me, the writing was sort of on the wall that

I wanted to try to get into like a, like a straight time fleet, sort of an environment.

Yeah. So I was at Hyundai for about a year, like I said, and then I left there and I took,

I took the job where I am now that I've been at for the before years in November.

I've been at the same place and it was actually pretty wild. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. This is

the longest I've been in a place, you know, since I left Chrysler. And I don't really have any

intention on leaving, but it was pretty wild because I got the job and I wasn't really sure how I did

in the interview. I thought it went okay, but I wasn't, you know, I wasn't sure. And then I got

offered the job and I accepted it. And then maybe about 22 weeks later, after I accepted this

job, I found out I was going to be a father. So I was just like stoked that I found this job and

took it, you know, sort of a thing. So at least I didn't have to worry about the financial stress

of being flat rate anymore. Yeah. You know, steady predictable income. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

So we're in work. Sorry. Oh, go on. What, so because you've heard some of the conversations and

people have said that the saying is that, you know, like people don't quit jobs, they quit managers.

Right. And you kind of talk about like, you had a manager that you really liked and you kind of

followed him. Like that, that happens a lot, especially in the bigger cities, right? Like,

especially within dealer groups, within big cities, that happens. Like a service manager is known to

like treat tax good. It doesn't really matter what the brand is. They'll go to another store.

And all of a sudden, like technicians are falling there because they're like, yeah,

so in this industry, it's not just about the dealer thing.

Your people that are in charge of your, how your technicians are treated,

you know, that kind of will, again, this is going to sound so divisive, you know, that are the

go-betweens between the advisors and the tax and like, that's the manager's role. He's the leader.

If they're strong, you can do, there's no, there's no limit to what you can achieve

as a business, as a shop, right? Within limits, of course, but there is no limit. You can do,

you can have incredible numbers. But if that person doesn't, isn't respected or doesn't know

what they're doing or like, won't fight for the technician for that hour that they should have

got paid, you can just, you might as well stick a pin in it and call it done because it's gonna,

it's not going to be what it should be. It'll be something. Maybe you'll make some money,

but it won't be what it could be. So, so you left with the independent side.

And I know for me, when I did that, all of a sudden I was really worried that I wasn't

going to be able to fix anything if it was a brand that I wasn't familiar with.

And did you, did you think about that or? So I definitely felt that way when I left Chrysler

because I was going to a new brand. And then I kind of thought, I don't know, I guess we'll see

how it goes. But you know, my boss that, you know, I followed there, he, he was like, oh,

you'll be fine. It's they're pretty simple. You know, he kind of reassured me, it'll be fine.

Where I am now. So I met, I met a fleet shop. I worked for a pretty big company. We're in the

courier business, I'll just say. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Couriers and deliveries and stuff like that.

So I took, I took the job there. And what I never, what I didn't think about until I had been there

for maybe the first month I was there, I realized being here is kind of like being at the dealer.

The cars, the trucks are literally all the same. They're literally the same trucks,

but they're all identical. And you know what I'm trying to say? I never, I didn't think about that

before I went there. But going there, I realized pretty quickly, it's everything becomes repetitive

motion after a while. And then you get quicker with certain jobs that you do a few times there. And

it's, that's cool that way. Yeah, I know I worked on a, a FedEx fleet. And that was like,

probably I'd never worked on so many Fords in my life. Right. And then it was just like,

it was one V10 or V8, you know, box truck FedEx truck after another 3500 rear, you know, dual

rear wheels, like it was just all the time nonstop drive shafts, you know, rear brakes, like,

to where you're doing them, you're knocking them out so fast, it's making people go, holy crap,

like, you know, you did that rear, rear job in the time that I've seen some guys do a caravan.

It's like, yeah, like I've just done, it's like you said, it's getting the reps in, I've done

hundreds of them now, right. So they, they look at these bigger jobs and it's like, yeah, but,

you know, and we had to do them all on the ground. That's the thing we didn't have a hoist that would

lift them. But I mean, we, for the, for the guy that we did, like he was, he hadn't figured out.

So he was one guy by himself and it was like, he could get the work done. So he was sending

up to the fleet shop that I worked at. And he had a hoist that he could lift his and do the tires

and the thing, but he, he realized that he was like straight time and unionized and like, you know,

so he do like one break job, one tire job in the morning and that was it. And then the afternoon,

he'd do one break job, one tire job in the morning and that was it. He was 22 trucks a day.

And we'd bring them up to our place, blow them all apart, tell them what they needed. He'd send

parts up the next day, you know, so it was like it was just sitting there. And we'd go down in the

same one that we left that he was working on. It was still there. And he was eating. I joke,

because every time we'd walk in, he'd be like, Hey, and he was in the back eating,

eating his lunch or drinking a coffee and eating a donut. Like it didn't matter what day that you

went in. He was in the office eating something. And he was like, yeah, I mean, he's like, I tried to

retire there a couple of years ago and he says they threw a bunch of money, may you stay on. He

says, so I went bought a new tractor, he owned a farm. It was like, I bought a new tractor. So

he's like, I'm just trying to pay the tractor off. And I'm like, this is the life, you know,

so not saying that that's what you do is that you're, I'm not saying you're dogging it, Daniel.

Yeah, no worries. I didn't take it that way. He dogged it for sure. But yeah, that's what I

just found is, and you know, the thing is, it's, I was talking to a friend and she's, she's got a

fleet of ambulances that she, she works on. She had 3500 six liters and gases. And I'm really familiar

with them too, because I worked on a fleet of those. So like we were talking about a mass airflow

problem that she was having with the lean codes and a mass airflow and all this kind of stuff. And

I said, so I went through the whole ramble of how like, you know, she was telling me how the data was

corrupt, like not skewed, and it had a piece of foam in the mass airflow that obviously ingested

the mass airflow and she changed it. And we got talking about this, you know, the different ways

that you can, what the data should look like and how it should act and all this kind of stuff. And I

said, or you can just walk over to another unit and get the air box out of that unit and plug it

in this unit, go for a drive. Like, yeah, that's the beauty of fleet. That's what I call that.

Yeah. But that's the beauty of fleet work, right? Like if you have, you've got 10 other cars, the

identical part, swap it if you can swap it real quick, you know, like, oh, for sure. Yep. You know,

or even, yeah, sometimes we've had, we couldn't get parts and we had like a retired unit outside.

Yes. So you seal the part off that one and then use it on the truck that's in service.

All the time. That was the beauty. Like, yeah, they always seem to have,

you know, you need a connector walk out to the dead graveyard, cut the connector off or,

you know, headlamp bezel or headlamp or like, you know, wiper motor, blower motor, switches,

all that great stuff. Yeah. Anything's fair game. Yeah. So the baby comes along, you get a pretty

substantial, you know, steady gig. It's all good. Yeah. Oh yeah, it's been going great. I know it's

been going great. He's, uh, he's almost, he's turning three shortly. I have a little girl too.

She's turning, she's turning two, not too far after she is turning three. So yeah, they're

about a year apart. Very cool. And I go to work, I go for a morning shift. And then by the time I

get back, I can play with them. I was doing, when I first started working there before he was born

and for a while after I was doing kind of more like an afternoon shift, I would kind of start,

I would start around 10 o'clock and then I would leave at, you know, 89 o'clock at night.

Yeah. So now I'm, I've been fortunate enough to be on the morning, more of a morning shift

so I can, you know, at least play with them when I get back from home. We're going to get back home,

which is great. And, um, yeah, no, it's been a good gig for me. I've really enjoyed it and we have a,

which we had at the dealer, you know, we have a safety boot allowance. The only difference is it's

much more substantial than what was at the dealer. And then we also have a tool allowance every year,

a thousand dollars. That's helps say. Oh, it's great. It's, it's really sweet. Yeah. I never, I

always wanted to work at a place where, you know, I'd have, you know, something like that, right?

Because, you know, you can buy as many tools as you want, but you're always going to need more.

You know, I bought tons of tools since I started working at this place.

Things I didn't have, you know, bigger wrenches, you know, different things, right?

Different bigger sockets, more standards, you know, imperial sockets, right? Yeah.

That's the thing. Cause a lot of that, those boxes, those box trucks, that kind of stuff,

they're still built with a lot of imperial on them, right? Like we joke, you know,

when you're working at the dealer, like it's, you never see what's a nine sixteenths again. Like,

you know, it's your 14 mil dumb dumb, but like, you know, when you're, when you're out in that

stuff, it's like, yeah, you're, you go to service some of the doors or, you know, the roll up doors

in the back or any of that. It's all standard stuff in the back. Like it's all that way.

Cause it's still, you know, yeah. I always found the trip for me was working on, because again,

multiple places that I've worked, we've had different fleets like that.

What did you find when you work with the drivers directly? You know what I mean? Like,

do you find that some drivers are just like really hard on equipment as Corb Blanc says or like,

I, there, there's definitely drivers that I'm sure are a lot harder on the equipment than others.

I will say that without getting into specifics, there was a few drivers we had that I had a few

issues with for the way they were treating me that I'm just happy that they're not driving in our

sector of the company anymore. They're driving in a different area where I don't have to deal with

them anymore. But the most part, I will say they're, they're pretty polite, respectful. There's some

that are kind of like, eh, whatever. They don't really care. They just treat the truck like,

you know, they treat it like it's never going to break down. It's either, you know,

full throttle or nothing. They just drive it to the wheel, like the wheels fall off.

But then there's others that actually, you know, you can tell they care a little bit more about

it and they try to, at least you can tell it's clean inside. They clean it, you know, the cab

and everything. They keep, try to at least keep it clean. You know, you can tell that they care

more than the other guy was garbage, tree worker and everything. Right. Well, that's, you know,

you get to learn what some of them, their favorite snacks are, right? If you keep seeing them in

same truck. Oh yeah. That's for sure. John really likes Twinkies. What always made me laugh or just

shake my head with some of them is like, they would come in and they would complain about this

truck and they go, it's doing this again. Or, you know, like the AC is not as cold as John's

truck. And you're like, okay, we've already been through this, right? Like your, your fleet manager

doesn't want us fixing it, right? Like they don't want to put any more money into this. So like,

you're complaining to me, but like, I'm not in charge of that, right? Like it's already been

decided up the thing that like, you know, you know, or they would get in and be like,

oh, the new truck is so much faster. Well, yeah, it's a new truck. Like this one's war.

There's, there's definitely a certain amount of, oh, this truck, I drove this truck and it felt

better than my truck that's out of out for service right now, or it did this that. There's

definitely some comparison that they do. Yeah. My big, we definitely interact with them pretty

well on a daily basis because, you know, we'll be, we'll be in the shop doing our PMs that we have

to do for that week. And then, you know, if they have an issue with something, you know, they just

drive up to the garage door and you know, then they'll ask you for help. And then you, hopefully,

if it's something quick, you can just get it done so they can get on the road. Because usually when

they come over, the trucks are already loaded with freight, right? Yeah. Yeah. And that's,

that's got to be a hard job, eh, driving in Toronto, driving one of them trucks. Like I wouldn't

want to do it. Like I, I rode rage so bad just getting to work now that like I, if you couldn't

pay me enough money to drive anything as a job, like I'm so, my brother, we're sitting, oh, it's

funny. We're going to leave the gas station today and we're getting ready to turn. And there's a guy

in front of me and the light turns green and he's turning left and the customer customer,

person in front of him is turning left too. So the both of them are left, it's clear.

And he's sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting. And this has been like, it's a bit of a

high traffic zone. We've been sitting like 10 minutes at this late already. And I'm, I'm behind

him. He's the first in line and he's not going. Well, I laid on my horn until I thought I was

going to break it. And then you see him and he creeps, you know, older gentlemen, probably not

going to go to heaven for that. But my brother is like, just looking at me like, why do you let

that body is so much? And I'm like, because they're flipping. And he's right. Like it's, it's like,

he's holding me up. That's the thing. I'm like, he's holding me up. I've got nowhere important

to be, you know what I mean? Like we're just out doing the thing today. Right. Like we're running

around doing grocery shopping and shit like that. But it's just the way I'm wired now after I lived

in Ottawa for so long. I can't, I can't drive in traffic. I'm good for about 20 minutes to

in and 20 minutes. Yeah, I can't do it. I want to drive all day.

But imagine that I'm getting in those. Yeah. Yeah. Those trucks. I know all day. I wouldn't be able

to do it either to be honest. I don't even think I'd want to drive even just like a car all day.

I wouldn't. I just wouldn't, just wouldn't be into that myself either. My back will get stiff.

You got to get out. I just couldn't do it. Half them, the AC, you know, those AC, the box trucks,

those AC units don't work for shit. Like they're terrible. You got the door open half the time.

They're noisy, clunky, bangy. The radio is like crap. Oh yeah. Bangin' around, shakes, vibrations,

noise. I know it's got to be tough for sure. Some of the trucks, like they're, they don't have

air, they're just not equipped with air conditioning. And then the ones that are, you know, when they

break down, we do our best to get them, you know, fix them. But, you know, it's we're the time of

year right now where that's everybody's primary concern. And then you end up getting a backlog

of stuff. So it's just trying to keep that moving. It's the other thing I found too,

when I first went to this place and, you know, I didn't have to worry about being flat rate

anymore or anything like that. I've realized after all this time, doesn't matter if you're

getting paid by the hour or your flat rate, at least for me and my situation, I still,

when we're getting backed up with trucks out of service and things are breaking down, we have

a lot to do. It's still the same level of stress, man. Or if not worse, or you know,

I've realized that the last sort of year or so, it's the same stress. Just with the workload and

the backlog and the fleet. Yeah, because in the dealership, it'll ebb and flow. Like we talk about

the tire season and then we'll talk about like, you know, September was always a rough month

because everybody's kid went to school. So nobody had any money and the car was gone from, you know,

where it had been and it showed up somewhere else and it broke down and it was all good.

But like when you're dealing with fleet, fleet is always that level of stress of like we already

always, always, always have either too much backed up like units down and we always have to have a

certain amount of units ready to go or we're spending too much money and we have to die back.

And then it's like, well, if I don't fix it, you're going to have more of a backlog of work. But if we

do fix it, we're spending too much money, right? Like and people, they laugh, but the reality is,

is like, if the air conditioning is not working, they're not taking that unit out of service. Like

it's still work. It's still being used. Exactly. You know what I mean? My brother was like,

because I was talking about, I bought myself a sweet fan for the shop to work in. He's like,

Oh yeah, cause you don't have air conditioning, right? I'm like, I haven't worked in a shop that

had working air conditioning real well, it has it, but it isn't like when we think of when we

walk into the salesman's office and it's like at 61 and they've got their sleeves rolled down and

they're sitting there looking like little penguins shaking cause it's so cold. Like the shops I've

been when they had air conditioning, like it took the humidity out, but it wasn't cool.

Like, I mean, it was still first pushing 75, you know, which is hot in, you know,

whereas like I've been at Lucas's shop in the summertime and the AC going and it's like,

the whole shop is like comfortable. You know what I mean? Like 68. Wow. And, but up in Canada,

now we don't air conditioning shit. So yeah, they don't pull the truck out of service because

the AC doesn't work. They don't care. Like it's going to, it's going to keep rolling, right? Like,

you know, the driver who usually drives that truck may say, I don't want to drive it today.

It's too hot. The AC doesn't work. Then they'll do their best to find them a truck. They're the AC

works, but then somebody else will take that truck or, or it'll sit there for a few days. Well,

it's too hot. It all just depends. But yeah, definitely it's that time of year. We're already

in the midst of that already yesterday. I put a compressor on a truck, which isn't too bad to do.

It's got to hope the lines come off because then if they don't, then I got to change the lights too.

Which again, just not the end of the world just takes more time, you know, turns a repair into,

you know, a lot longer than it could be, right? We're always trying to, you know, obviously do

things as quickly as we can, but then there's certain things you just, obviously just can't be

helped, right? Yeah. How many techs in your current place now? So in total, there is 10. Okay. Not

bad. Yeah. 10 guys. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a good size. It's And everybody gets along.

Great. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's a good group of guys to work with. Yeah. No complaints there. Again,

I wasn't sure what to expect when I got there, but the nice thing actually was,

so after I had my interview when I got offered the job, the manager at the time when he called me to,

you know, let me know that I've got the job, I said, listen, I'm pretty certain I want to take

this job, like 99% sure, but I said, if it's okay with you, would you mind if I came by and at

least like checked out the shop and like met some of the guys? And he was actually okay with that,

which was really nice. So then I got to go and then I met a couple of the guys I looked around and

then it wasn't a long thing. I was there to be there for maybe half an hour tops. And then after

that, I was like, I shook his hand. I said, all right, I'm in. Yeah. That was it. That was a cool

thing too, that he was okay with me doing that. Yeah. What about, did you hear any, like did

anybody, when you, so when you gave your notice like at the high end, a dealer, you know, we talk

sometimes that people say, oh, well, you know, they finally offered me, you know, a different

arrays or they finally offered me something different. Did that happen with you or they're

just like, see you. So when I, when I went to talk to the, you know, the owner of the dealer,

well, I liked, he was a really good guy actually, I got along with him really well. He was, he treated

us well, I think over. He was definitely not a bad guy at all. But so he, I told, I had to give him

my notice and then he said, you know, like, is there anything I could do? Like, can I ask why he

said? And I just told him where I'm going to work and I gave him an idea of like what they're

paying me per hour. And he just was like, well, you know, obviously I can't really compete with

that. And but, you know, that's, he wished me well, like we left on like good terms and he

totally understood why I left, you know, so we definitely left on good terms. Yeah. Yeah.

It's, it's, it was pretty, it was pretty painless really. And I mean, I was only, I was only there

for about a year. It was harder leaving the Chrysler store. Right. That was

even that interaction was a lot different than my one when I left Hyundai, if you know what I mean.

Tell me about that when you left the Chrysler, like, did they, did they come up and throw money

in the problem or? He didn't throw any money at me. But he was just trying, he kind of tried to say,

like, you know, if you don't tell me what's going on, like, I can't help you and blah, blah, blah.

And I was like, well, you know, we've kind of been down this road before. And I just think it's

enough. And I just, you know, it's been a great six and a half years, you know, thanks for everything.

But, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this. I've already made up my mind. And then even there,

we left on, we left on like pretty decent terms, because I would still go back there and visit

like the guys that are, that are there. And then I would see him and he'd still say hi to me. So,

you know, like it was fine overall. But yeah, that was a hard, hard decision to make leaving the

Chrysler store for sure. That's fun. That's funny, though, Daniel, when they say to you, well, if

you don't let me know, like, what can I do about it? And it's like, you see my paycheck, you know,

exactly. I mean, you see, you know, the hours are, are sucking, right? And, and, you know, maybe,

I don't know if they tell themselves that it was like, well, the hours are low because he's not

hustling. I don't know if that's really, it probably is a big part of what a lot of them tell

themselves. And, you know, there are guys that just don't hustle, you know what I mean? Like,

they just kind of just come in and do their thing. And they're, and you know, they're,

they're totally satisfied. Me, when I was flat rate, like, if you'd have told me that there was

more work to get done, and it was like pretty easy, good work that I was good at doing. Oh, yeah,

I would have jumped at the chance to say it. Like I tell everybody all the time, I worked a lot of

six day weeks, man, because it was trying to just get up to 50, you know, and, and I would come in

and if it was like, you know, because the regular day, there'd be 12 of us in the, the

crowds or store. And on Saturday, there'd be three. And I was like, well, I can make, you know,

there's a lot better opportunity. This is what you're telling yourself. A lot better opportunity

when there's only three of us now, because there's not many cars coming in. But I would be like,

well, you know, I'm sitting here at 41 hours and it's Saturday, you know, I'll come in and I'll,

hopefully I'll hit 50, you know, 11 good job and I'll hit 50. And more days than not,

like you were there from, I remember it was like, you'd start at eight and you'd be done at four

instead of being done at five. And by one, you had nothing. You had like, you had indigestion from

the cheap lunch that they bought you and no more work. And I was like, I guess I'll change the

oil in my own car, right? Like I'll do something like that or, you know, right, but he didn't come

in and make 10 hours on a Saturday most of the time. Like it was just, it sucked, you know.

And now it doesn't matter what they could pay me. My rule is like, if any place is open on Saturday,

I don't even apply to it. I don't even apply to that job. I'm just not, not doing it. Weekends,

weekends are mine and, and you know, I don't think they should be, well, you can make the argument,

I guess, for why we should be open on Saturdays. We truly want to serve our customers and I can

kind of see the argument. But the thing is like, I never, in the dealerships landscape,

it never worked because if I started a job on Saturday and then I wanted two consecutive days,

Sunday and Monday, I, when I came back on Tuesday morning, my job from Saturday was finished by

somebody else every time. So I never got two consecutive days. So you come in on, on, you know,

if you, you come in on Monday, maybe you do your, your wrap up and then it's like, well,

you can have any day off this week you want and they're like, but you're always carrying over,

you're always carrying over. She never got two days. So I worked a ton of six day weeks, ton.

Yeah. And that's just what you did.

I did it well. Yeah.

You know, and I, like, I talked about the indigestion, but it was like the running joke is always,

you know, pizza, right? Like we got, we didn't get pizza. We had a local diner that sent down,

like you can order anything from the menu. This is boy, inflation's a bitch now.

As long as it was under 12 bucks, you could get whatever you wanted for lunch.

Like you get like a hamburger with cold fries or you could get like,

you know, a lasagna with like cold garlic bread or something. It was like,

that's how long ago it is. It was 12 bucks. Now you can't eat anything for under 20.

And then you'd go out to the sales office and they'd be like eating like pizza or, you know,

subs got catered in or like it was just like, and we're like, you guys haven't even sold a car today.

And your lunch budget's like, you know, 300 bucks. And ours in the back was like 50 bucks.

Yeah. It was a trip. So I learned a lot on Saturdays and I had some good Saturdays too,

where I made some good money, but more times than not, it was just not worth being there.

And now that dealer that I spent all my tenure at, they're not open anymore on Saturdays.

Oh really? Oh nice. That's good. And a lot of them around here now, the only,

if they do open, they just open the quick lane. They don't book anything else in the back.

Like you can't, I can, I can remember a joke. Like it was Saturdays was recall day, recall day,

child seat anchor bolt day. Like it was just, you know, towed in from other dealer day. Like, you

know, they come in and it's like, you're from the other side of Ottawa. Like you're literally like

90 minutes to drive around Ottawa. Why are you here? Well, the other dealer's not open on Saturday,

and we've had this ongoing thing since we bought this. And you're like, oh my,

are you kidding me right now? Right? So you would dig into it and you'd find the ghosts in the

machine. But now this customer's like, you know, you're waiting to order a module on Monday.

And now the customer's like calling. I need my car. And it's like,

you know, I'm having to rent a car. I live 90 minutes away. Lady, you're the one that brought

it 90 minutes because the last two dealers couldn't fix it. And now you're blowing up our phone about

like the commute. I'm sorry. Like what do you want us to do? It's a free repair. It's a warranty

repair. I just, I was just shaking my head. Like I just, it's where a lot of I think like

my sense of humor about this industry came because it was just like,

it was like Groundhog Day, so many for so long, right? Like it was just

rinse, wash, repeat. Here's another recall that comes out that like the first time you do it,

the time sucks. And then I can remember Jeep Liberty ball joints. And like we're like,

I remember the first one we were doing, everybody's like, you know, getting buried under the time.

And then by the fifth one, you're just like zinging them out. Like it was just amazing how

fast you did them. Them and the Dakotas had an upper ball during recall too. And it was just like,

you could do them so fast, so fast. You know, everybody was like, you'd be fighting over them.

It was, it was ridiculous. Like it was a good job. You know, it was, you know, the one thing I hated

seeing coming in was anything on a PT cruiser. Just hated it. Like control arms,

that was a good job. Everything else. F those little cars, man, they sucked. I hated them.

Never really worked on one other than like, there was a guy who had one at the, when I worked at

this place, but you'd bring it in just for like, you know, we'd change the oil on it. That was

really it. I'm sure it was there for other things too. I never touched it for anything

other than that though. You know, yeah, we had a couple of customers with the turbocharged ones,

and they thought they were something special. Right. Like that was a really special little

PT cruiser. You ever work on, you ever do anything on a prowler?

A little bit. I had a so funny story. Had a prowler come in one Saturday for a tire repair.

And I joke about this all the time because it was like, they're staggered sizes, right?

Special order. He comes in on a Saturday. We hadn't sold the car. Then he was all pissed off

because he bought it another dealer and like, well, they're telling me it's going to take like a

week to get a tire. That's why he's here. And he's driving around. He's like, I wouldn't put air

into things. It's going to nail in there or something. And the nail was at the point where

you couldn't have plugged it. Not that I thought you should be plugging prowler tires anyway.

Right. But it's like, so we give him the estimate to replace the tire.

And because again, it's prowler low mileage, right? Like they don't drive them. They just sit

and look at them, wipe on them with a diaper. And he's like, Oh, it's the same price that they

gave me. I thought I'd save some money coming here and say, we're buying the tire from the same

vendor. Dumbass. Like it's only same place. There's only one place that has the size in this brand.

Like, what'd you think? And I remember had another guy come in.

He carried a Viper tire in under his arm. He wanted the tire repaired. And I'm like,

it's a Viper. Yeah. And I so I explained to him like, like, here's what I do. I can take this

bus this down and put a plug in it. No problem. But these letters that are on the side of the

tire for speed ring, I technically have to grind that off because now it's a plug tires not speed

rate. And he looked at me like I had shot his first born right in the head. And he looked at

me like I was crazy. And he's like, you got a grind. I'm like, yeah, you're supposed to grind

that off the tires. It's not a speed rated tire anymore. And he's like, you can't fucking do that.

And I said, I don't think we should plug this tire for you, sir. And he left and he was all pissed

off and called the service manager and service manager. Of course, I had a good service manager.

He laughed at him. He said, no, the text right, you know, but so that was my

the whole experience to a prouder. And then we had I had one with the god I'm trying to think of

what it is. The Chrysler Crossfire, did you ever work on one of those?

I haven't, but there was a few we had in the shop a couple times. Yeah, I know, I know what

you're talking about. Yeah, they're weird. They are weird little cars. Yeah, because it's like half

Mercedes. Hey, yep. Yeah, half Mercedes, half Chrysler. Yeah, some kind of weird vacuum door locks

and switches. It was just stupid. Like it was just dumb. And yeah, I know PT Cruisers were the

weirdest customers to get. They were weird. The timing belt in the PT Cruisers,

a terrible job. I don't care what anybody says. I know lots of people that go, those are gravy.

I love doing them. You must have little tiny hands and and like can can tort your neck in a funny

way because like I hated, hated doing timing belts on those. I hated them. They were terrible.

There's no room. You got to jack that engine so high up to get it up where you can line your

cams right. Of course, you think you're going to break shit, but you get it done. But like, yeah.

And then do you work on any of the eco diesels? A little bit. Not. Yeah, we had a guy. We had an

actual dedicated like diesel tech there. Yeah. So, you know, I the odd time I do like, you know,

like an oil change or a fuel filter on one or something like that, but nothing too involved.

Yeah. But he, he, he would take care of all that kind of stuff. And I know at least at that time

that he was doing engines in them and you know, different things.

Did you talk to any of the Genesis stuff when you were at Hyundai?

I did actually one of my first jobs when I got to Hyundai, I did, I did a clutch on a Genesis

coupe, the 2.0 turbo. It was like, you know, car was, you know, it was an older car, but the guy

loved it. You know, he had it since new and it needed a clutch. And so this is what happened.

I kind of inherited the job. I didn't look at the car. I didn't look at the car, right?

But it was clear to see, yes, this car needs a clutch. So what had happened was

maybe some time before the clutch went out on it, he had a wheel bearing noise. And this was

like a few years ago and they told them, yeah, you need whatever side rear wheel bearing, right?

So that was a couple of years ago. So now he's coming back, okay, I'm going to do the clutch.

So like, let's do the wheel bearings. So then I was like, okay, so I do the clutch that went like,

okay, it went fine. It took some time, but it went well. So then I go to do the wheel bearings and,

you know, the cars, you know, 15, 16 years old, literally everything seized in the back.

It needed new everything in the back. And then the guy, he loved the car so much. So he agreed to

do it. That was the largest repair bill I think I've ever been a part of. I think the guy spent

like 13 or 14 grand fixing this car. Like it needed new, you know, axles in the back, new

control arms, new everything just so we could change the bearings. And then, you know, new hubs

and parking brake shoes and just went on and on and on. Like I swear I had that car and it wasn't

my dedicated bay. It was like a secondary bay next to mine, which was also great. Like it still

kind of bring in, you know, quick jobs if I was sort of on a stand still for parts. But oh man,

yeah, that guy, that guy loved that car. He spent big bucks on that thing. And then I finally get it

all done, you know, and I'm driving it around and, you know, it drives good, but you know, it still

drives like, you know, it still drives like a 17 year old car, you know, but, you know, I get it.

You know, I have a car that I've had for a really long time that I, you know, try to keep running.

So this guy, yeah, he loved this thing. And then I also worked a bit on like, you know, the more

high end, you know, the four door ones, like the nice, the nicer stuff. I like those.

Do you remember when they used to look like a Jag? When they got a word,

style, yeah, like it was like someone say a Jagger, like I'm trying to think of what, but

they were styled kind of like that Euro, they had that Euro styling, right? And I remember looking

at them going like, when this thing ain't broke and has electrical problems, because they like,

everybody, that was the joke was like, every Genesis had electrical problems that was way

worse than any high end they did. But they were a pretty cool car when they were working. You know

what I mean? Like it was a pretty nice car for what you could buy. Now I think it's so funny how

you see like, they become this prestige name and it's the separate dealer for Genesis and all.

I'm thinking like, I can remember when that thing was just like a warmed up Tiburon. That's all it

was. It was just like a Tiburon that somebody put a bigger body on. Like that's all it was.

Right. Oh, it's a Genesis now. I see them in traffic and I'm like, oh, okay. Kind of looks

like a Cayenne from the back. I'm talking to the SUV ones. And then it's like, you get a closer

right. It's a Genesis. You pour schmuck.

No, for sure. What? Do you have any advice for the young technicians coming in, Daniel?

My advice really, what I was always sort of told by, you know, my peers and you know, people above

me is just, you know, just you got to have, you have to have like a hustle attitude as far as like,

oh yeah, you know, I'll, I'll do that for you. I'll get that done. But aside from that, you know, a

lot of, you know, when you go to tech school or whether it may be they haven't gone to tech school

yet, some people and they're just starting to work in a shop, that would be the biggest thing I would

say. But for people who have, you know, are going to have gone to school and at least have some

knowledge of what's going on with the systems they're working on, the biggest thing I can say is just,

you know, get comfortable using tools. Just because something looks like you can't remove it without

removing, you know, eight other things like take your time and, you know, a lot of it has, it all

has to come from within the individual, right? At the end of the day, that's sort of what I

have even tried to teach some people that I have somewhat, not, I wouldn't say mentored,

but I've taught certain things to over the years, like younger guys, you know, it all has to come

from within you. And it's a hard industry, it is a hard industry. Like I think back, like there

was definitely times when I, I wasn't sure if I was going to keep going, like I was like, do I

really want to keep doing this? You know, you leave work at the end of the day, maybe,

maybe you didn't make much money, but you know, your, your hands are all cut up and your, your sore

and you know, it's 45 degrees out in the summer. And it's just, it's a really hard industry. I

would say like, if, if you're going to do it, like it can't, it's definitely not a career that you're

just going to coast through. Like this has to be something you're really passionate about. And you

have to want to get, you have to be willing to constantly learn and adapt to new things.

Yeah. You know, that's, I guess that's really what I would say about that.

Yeah. You never get to a level of comfort where it's like I can coast, you know what I mean?

No. Because it's, it's the technology is ever changing, you know, and it's even

to say it in the fleet garage is similar because it's like, oh yeah, we got all fours.

Well, next season, they may buy like a whole fleet of GMs. And then all of a sudden it's like,

if you haven't worked on a GM in a long time or at all or whatever, it's a, maybe it's a new,

you know, scan tool, new service information system. Like it's, it's the same as jumping

dealers. And I tell everybody like, you've got to learn how to learn. And that's my guys that I

mentored like what I taught them wasn't just the fundamentals of like diagnosis in a car and

die egg and electrical and, and you know, that kind of the stuff that I like to do,

but I taught them how to learn, which is like, if you don't know,

you have to learn this stuff, which means you have to be ready to go home and, and reach out to

someone and get the answer or reach out and get, you know, the training that you need. And, and

you're going to have to learn. It's just a constant evolution of learning more and more things. And

don't, I tell everybody now it's like the stuff I can't remember some 50 now and I've been 30 years

in the stuff that I can't remember is like starting to pile up. And that's okay because it's, it's not

relevant anymore. Right. Like it's like guys that like talked about the old Cavaliers with the two

twos and they used to do the head gasket so fast. And guys I worked with that used to do a K car

head gasket so fast. And I'm like, how many of those do you do anymore? Like you, you, you need so

many for so long. And it's like, you know, what do I care anymore? Like it's not relevant. I don't

even get to be exposed to it. That the thing to remember is the fundamentals of how you diagnosed

it the first time. That's what you need to like hold to your process process is very important.

Guys that just like, I remember this splice or I remember this, you know, connector always backing

out that that that's like, it's good to know when it's making you money. But man, once those cars

go away, like you just let that, let that shit go, you know, don't don't hold on to it. That's right.

Doesn't matter anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's like the guys you see it in the diesel side. And

it's like, they got really good at fixing six liters. Well, how many six liter power strokes do you see?

Not too many anymore up here. And if you do, like they're in rough shape and they're not people

are not putting money into it. Right. So if all of a sudden you were good at the six liter, but

you didn't get onto the 64 and you didn't go onto the 67 you're 20 years like left

behind. Try to think of what the technology now to try and catch up in 20 years is like it'd be

crazy if I snap my fingers and I'm back at Chrysler in 2002. And all of a sudden I have to go back to

work in 2026. Like the architecture of those cars is so different now. If I had never continued to

apply myself so that I could fix the 2026 is I'd be so screwed. You know, so that's what I tell all

the young people is just just get ready to be constantly learning. It's not about and yeah,

the money's getting better for sure. But the expectations is also getting really heavy too,

Daniel, like what they're expecting us to be able to solve now. And that's the that's that's

that's what's good. Yeah, for sure. You know, a lot of these kids up and everybody goes,

well, these kids are washing it like they're not staying in the industry. I'm going to say this,

I think some of them leaving is not a bad thing because I think they know where their strengths

are. And they know that when we go more and more into the side of stuff that's electric,

they want no part of that. And then, you know, if you're not strong on electrical stuff,

look at all the I mean, now to do a break job, you got to use a scan tool, right? Park and break,

like resets and all this because if you're not comfortable with service information, you're not

going to be the kind of technician that's going to be successful in this industry. And I hate to

say that because, you know, we've all worked with guys that like, these were good, you know,

their hands were good. Now, you can't write on that anymore. You really can't know overall,

you're definitely right about that. The other thing to like, sort of to your point of,

like when we were saying, yeah, with service information, like that's a great example, like,

you know, so many times, like, I was guilty of it too. And I was like, first starting out,

I wouldn't know how to do something that I'd ask them on, they'd be like, you know, go on

dealer connect and, you know, look it up. And then, you know, that's what I that's kind of what I

meant to say when I say, like, you know, it has to come from within you. You have to know how to

tackle like everything yourself. You know, there's times when everybody needs help, but you really

have to have that fundamental knowledge of this is what I need to do to figure out

my problem or what I need to fix on this vehicle or where I need to find this information. It's

a lot involved with it, you know, and I think about it now, it almost makes my head spin.

It's a lot like this tomorrow, like we all, you know, think about if you walked into your shop

tomorrow, and everyone else had quit, and it was only you, you and the service information and

all the bays that you could ever want and all the cars you could ever want. But there's nobody

else to reach out and come get you, right? Nobody else to reach out and say, how do I do, you would

just, you would, you would be like, damn, but then you just be, you would have to get really comfortable

with the service information and then just start fixing cars. And that's what I tell them is it's

like, you know, it's nice when we get along with each other and we can help one another,

but you can work in a place where nobody likes anybody and nobody wants to help anybody. And

I'm not saying to stay in those places, but that doesn't mean you're trapped, right? If you've got

the service information and, and you've got some ability, you can still fix the cars without people

to help you. And that's what I think we've got. This, this younger generation has got to learn

how to do and I'm not, I'm not picking on them. I'm not labeling them as anything. I'm just saying

like my friend, Brian Pollux says all the time, read the F manual, man. And because he's not

saying because he doesn't want to help people, Brian's one of the best guys you'll ever meet for

trying to help people, but he's, it's his way of saying there was so much in there that if I just

tell you how to do it, you're not going to get any, and it's, it's that ability to then teach

yourself to learn how to learn. And that's, that's the secret sauce, man, is, is, you know, learn

your service information and learn how to, to make it your, your superpower and you'll be,

you'll be good. We'll all be good. You know, I hate it sometimes, you know, some of it sucks.

I hate when now when I run into something and it's like, like working on Tesla, like I talk about

all the time, I get the occasional Tesla and I'm like, Oh, but now I've had a friend reach out and

help me out and give me some links and, and it isn't terrible. Do I want to be known as a Tesla

guy that can, no, I don't want those customers in my face. But the car doesn't intimidate me.

And I guess that's what I'm trying to say is learn, focus on the car and focus on the service

information and more of us will be successful than will be failures. So, you know, I think that's

part of the mentorship, you know, any closing thoughts in? Oh, sure. Yeah, sorry. I was just

going to say, like, even like, you know, what during when I was working with the license stack,

like, you know, he had to see a certain amount of basic knowledge and fundamental from me before

he would even consider taking me on his, you know, as his apprentice. Yeah, just from doing all the

basic things that you learn to do, right, tires and, you know, racking a car, you know, changing

the oil, doing it properly without any, you know, leaks or comebacks or, you know, yeah,

no, for sure. It definitely curls off all those skills. The hubs put the rims on very,

very important. Yeah, that's very important. I do I've been I've always done that. I do it

where I work now. I've been always done that. Yeah. Yeah. Very important. In closing, I think you

think mostly Americans should just adopt our system and be done with it.

Well, I think it couldn't hurt because it seems to me, at least from what we see is that

there are always there's always some, you know, story down there about somebody who took their

car somewhere and the guy's not certified at all. And he said he was and now their car is in

shambles taken apart. And they're like, well, what do I do now? So I think it couldn't hurt,

you know, it would only benefit their their workforce if they're so hard up for, you know,

technicians or, you know, like, you know, all that stuff with the Ford CEO and all that business

that's going on, we have all these empty bays, well, you know, we're gonna have to have some kind

of mandate come in, fix things to make an actual process for people to at least have a pathway

to figure out how to go about this. Because here it's it's pretty good. I mean, it works,

worked for me and lots of people I know. And, you know, it's not a perfect system, but it's

pretty good, you know, I think up here for us, what we what we, you know, we don't have a choice,

like it's just the way you have to do it. You can't exactly, you know, can you get hired in a shop

without a license? Yeah, but it's almost impossible to there are a couple around that was still,

but like, it's the same thing, like they will only have you do certain things. And, you know,

when the Ministry of Transport is coming around or Terraria College of Trades or whatever,

they'll hide you. They'll tell you stay home that day. Because like, you know,

because you're such a liability there. And, and, you know, I'm not trying to say that all those

guys that didn't get the test didn't pass way back then. And somehow they worked for 40 years

and fixed cars. I'm not saying that they were all like shouldn't have been or dumb or I'm not,

I'm not saying that. But I think that like the industry should just realize that a basic level

of competency is not an obstacle. It's just what it is. It's the bare minimum of where everybody

should start. And, you know, it's the same as us. Like we the critique I have always for our licensing

system up here in Canada is that we don't ever retake the test. And we don't ever recertify

you know what I mean? So it's like, if I had to go back and take the test of my stress, no,

not at all. Right. I stressed it the first time I wrote it. I was like, Oh my God,

this is going to be, and like I was like, I was the last one to finish in the class.

And I had the second highest mark in the class. So I was like, again, that's just the way my head

worked. And, you know, when you think about everybody's against it, I don't think we should

be because like going back to your saying people, you know, they don't know what they're getting

when they they they reach in the Google and they, oh, mobile mechanic or, you know, somebody doing

auto repair for $60 an hour. Then they go, Oh my God, because my local dealer is like 160. So

60 is like that's, you know, times are tight right now. I can really afford 60 is way better than

160. And listen, it might you might get the same result. I'm not saying you don't.

But man, when when something goes sideways, yeah, something goes sideways at that $60 an hour shop.

Like it's like they're coming with a tow truck to get it out of there, right? And then you're into

like, where do you drag it after that? And who wants to touch it? It's a big thing. So that's

what I've always never liked about the idea. And ASC didn't mean, you know, doesn't is because

nobody ever asked up here, they go, Oh, Daniel, your your Class A technician or your 310 s or your

your licensed technician down there, they don't ask anymore. Are you ASC certified? Like they

don't even ask. They And it's just like they look at your shirt and you're working

and they assume you're qualified. And, you know, if you're never touched that car before for that

particular problem, drivability, wise, whatever, you probably shouldn't be touching it. And, you

know, the fact that like, people just, oh, well, we'll try. You know, I'm not against people trying,

but like you have to be upfront when you're trying versus when you're saying, yes, I can.

You know, it's a different, different language, different, different approach, different

everything, not to get too philosophical, but we have to be a lot more honest with where we are.

Each of us is within the industry and what the goal is. And then I think we'll get a little bit

better. Like right now, the attrition rate of technicians leaving is not good. It's scary.

But I think that the, when we get the minimum certification level, minimum level of competency,

I think the pay will come up because you're going to see a whole bunch that can't get that

are going to be gone. And then it's going to bring the pay up a little bit, whatever that looks like,

I don't know. And then we start to really break into what is the different levels of technician

within the industry. What does that really look like? ABC, licensed apprentice, master, blah,

blah, blah. I think it becomes a lot easier to start to classify what everybody's value is to

do who they're working for. Anyway, Daniel, closing thought, give me something.

Well, thanks for having me on. It's been great. I really enjoyed it. I really know what else to say.

Yeah. Definitely. Yeah, it's been a long ride in this industry and I'm sure you can relate

because you've been doing it even longer than I have. Yeah, I love it though. I really do. Like,

I mean, most days now for me, there's more good days than bad days. The stress is behind me.

I've gotten to where I can live comfortably and the tool thing, that's the big thing.

I don't have to buy too many tools anymore. I'm paying off my Zeus and I'm paying my

subscription to it and that's it. I don't have to buy anything else if I don't want to.

I'll tell the young people in this in closing, don't get yourself under a pile of tool debt

and don't feel like you have to buy everything all at once. There's some tools. It's really

nice. Some tools make the job very easy, but if you can keep some money in your pocket and learn a

different way without having to spend all that money on that tool, think about that as still

there's some value there. That's just what I'll close with. Daniel, thank you for being here,

man. I really am happy you reached out to me and said, hey, I want to share my story because

I like to see dealer texts come on and not be always the worst thing I ever did because I'm

one of them where it was without that opportunity that that dealer gave me way long ago. I wouldn't

be sitting here in front of y'all. I love everybody. I don't care where you work. It doesn't

matter to me. I don't judge you as being, oh, you're not as good as this or that because you only work

here. I've met some incredible people that worked out of the back of a truck. I've met some

incredible people that were like top tier at a dealership and then superstars and after

when I've met them all and it doesn't matter. It comes back to what Daniel said. It comes back

to what's inside of you that's going to determine how well you succeed in this. Daniel, thank you

for being here with me, man. Thank you, Jeff. It's been great. I really enjoyed it.

Yeah. All my supporters and everybody, launch tech USA, tech metric. Thank you for providing for me

the ability to do this going forward. We don't see it stopping anytime soon. So reach out to me

if you want to be like Daniel and share your story with me or if you're not comfortable

being recorded, but you need to talk. Always still reach out to me and I'll do that. I'll be happy,

happy to listen because I have people that I talk to every day in the industry that I don't record,

that I just need to unload to. June is men's mental health month and there's a big problem

with it going on in our industry. A lot of high suicide rate for technicians and I want to see

that stop. I want to see it get better. So at any point, reach out to me and say, hey,

I need to talk to you and I will do everything I can to talk to you as soon as I can for as long

as I need to. So don't feel like you're alone, guys. Daniel, thank you, brother. Appreciate it.

We'll talk to you again. Thank you, sir. Have a good one. You too, man. Let's talk soon. Thank you,

everybody. Hey, if you could do me a favor real quick and like, comment on and share this episode,

I'd really appreciate it. And please, most importantly, set the podcast to automatically

download every Tuesday morning. As always, I'd like to thank our amazing guests for their

perspectives and expertise. And I hope that you'll please join us again next week on this journey

of change. Thank you to my partners in the ASA group and to the changing the industry podcast.

Remember what I always say, in this industry, you get what you pay for.

Here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10 millimeter and we'll see you all again next time.

Dodge Challenger

Chrysler PT Cruiser

Dodge Neon

Dodge Viper

F-150 Raptor

Chevrolet Silverado

Dodge Ram

Challenger Hellcats

Dodge Charger

Chevrolet Corvette

Ford F-150 Lightning

Chevrolet Spin

Jeep Grand Cherokee

Jeep Libertys

Jeep Wrangler

Hyundai Sonata

Hyundai Elantra

Master Techs

Byd Seal

Plymouth Prowler

Chrysler Crossfire

Hyundai Genesis

Porsche Cayenne

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