Episode 285 - Bad Reviews Can Lead To Better Practices With Brett Hunziker

0:00For years, the automotive industry has been plagued with the perception of shady business practices, greedy owners, and incompetent technicians. It's time we flip the script. Good clap, David. I'm very proud of you. I don't know if you know this, but this is not a standard podcast, David. We started this podcast in order to bring everyone together to have the tough conversations everyone's been avoiding.

0:31Instead of endless complaining and pointing out the problems, we seek to get everything out in the open and look for real solutions. To do that, we bring on industry experts, vendors that are changing the game, multi-million dollar shop owners, as well as those that are struggling every single day to pay the bills, and everything in between. We're not professional podcasters pretending to know how it is.

0:56We're in the trenches every single day trying to pay the bills and hopefully achieving some success. So if you're tired of overly polished scripted conversations, it's time to tune in to the Changing the Industry podcast. Lucas and I are proud to partner with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence as a means to help shops, whether they're getting off the ground, hiring their first technician, or looking to pass along their business to a new generation.

1:29So jump down to the show notes and check the link in the description, which will take you to their events page. The Institute is committed to bringing world-class training to shops all over the country, including their Leadership Intensive, their MARS Intensive, and the Service Advisor 3-Day Intensive. Some of these events take place all over the country, so jump down to the show notes, click the link, find an event near you, and experience world-class training unlike anything else you've seen.

2:03And now on to the episode. His buddy had put in a fast fuel system. And it was like, literally the system was just dangling under the frame. None of the lines were tied up. They didn't clean out the fuel tank. They opened up the fuel tank and there was like this screen in the bottom, a bunch of plastic chunks. And it's like, wow.

2:31Wow. I see them all the time. And it's like, I don't know. I think that the performance market sends the wrong signal to those people. That they can do this and you can, you know, look, modify your own truck and just because you can buy the part. And then they get upset at the shop that has to clean it up because it's like, dude, if you would have just left it alone, I could have installed it for $1,000, right?

2:54I could have installed it for $500, whatever it is. Yeah, because you messed with it and you made a mess. I, I'll never forget, I had a dude try and put a sump in his own tank one time and he for some reason cut the hole in the bottom of the tank with a razor knife and ended up like cutting this jagged edge out away from where the sump would cover.

3:15And he's like, can't you just like put something on? I was like, dude, there's an inch hole in the bottom of the fuel tank this won't cover. He's like, can't you just move it over? No, I still threw silicone on it, be fine. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then like the ones that crack me up were like your, um— oh, I'll never forget, I had a 6.4 in the shop one time.

3:33Now I've learned my lesson. We don't work on 6.4s, okay? Those trucks are cursed. If it's an '08 6.4, if it pulls into the parking lot, I walk outside and I politely tell them, we don't allow your kind here, turn around and leave. Wow. Because the bad luck radiates away from you. It's gonna affect everybody. Yes. But, uh, we, we had an '08 in here at some point and dude deleted it.

3:57And I'm like, I'm not trying to be disrespectful to you. But for me to fix that, I'm returning it to stock because they had flashed the tune out of it. It was after all this craziness with the EPA had happened. And I said, whether you like it or not, I'm not going to buy a tune and I'm not going to access a tune and put on that truck.

4:15So if you want me to fix it, it's going to be $26,000 because I'm returning everything back to stock. Yeah. And dude, he got really upset at me. And I said, look, I'm sure you can go find somebody to put a tune in the truck. Sure, it's not going to be me. No. And he's like, I just can't believe you won't do this.

4:31I'm not gonna— did you show him the video of the people getting raided? Yeah. Oh yeah, he didn't care. It's not his— I, I almost wonder if he worked for him, right? Like, no, he would— like, it was a plant operation. He was a plant. Yeah, absolutely. Sure. Yeah, you'll hear those horror stories, but it doesn't— we have our, uh, supposedly— I've heard lots of horror stories.

4:51We have out-of-province inspections up here. We don't have yearly inspections. If you buy a vehicle in Alberta, you never have to have it inspected ever again. But if you bring one in, a brand new vehicle from outside the province, gotta have inspected. And it's like a stupid, ridiculous— anyway, they've— I've heard horror stories where they'll put plants— the government will put— send somebody in without a province inspection to see if you're doing it right and you're following all the steps, or if you're cutting corners, or— oh yeah, thank God it hasn't happened.

5:17It's got everybody scared shitless. So yeah, no, we follow the rules. So, well, And it's like, that's an, that's, that's an overfunded government right there. They got nothing else to worry about. That's exactly it. Than to, than to screw over small businesses. Inspections here, they say, oh, it's, it's because, you know, it's inspector discretion right up until it's not. Right. Yeah. Until they decide they don't like what you decided.

5:43And now it's a $10,000 fine and you're a piece of crap. Right. And, and it's like somebody gets hurt, something happens. And, and all these shops around me, dude, they just push them through. Like, you don't even have to go in. You don't bring the car in. You call and say, hey man, I need an inspection, and they pass it. And, and it's like, yeah, but about the time that, that you do that and something happens to that person, something happens to that car, yeah, you know what's gonna happen, right?

6:09They're coming after you. And it's like, I just don't understand the lackadaisical enforcement until it makes them look bad. And then when it makes them look bad, that's not okay anymore. Like, you know, why weren't you kind of doing the past 10 years? That's kind of the attitude for a lot of places. I mean, lots of, lots of shops around, it's just they don't care until it's time to care.

6:30So it's— yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, state inspections here are $13.60. Yes. How— what benefit is there for you to even want to do them? I mean, other than to get the customer— maybe sell some work. Yeah, at least I can charge money for mine. Like, it's I mean, we're probably $250 for that, and there's no sticker. There's just a— it's— they have to bring in a form.

6:56Um, it's all logged into like the, the government portal, so we have to log the actual, uh, whether it passes or fails. And they have to— if they want to register the vehicle, they have to have all that work done within 10 days, or they have to pay for another inspection. So I mean, I don't disagree with how it's done, but I don't agree with the fact that you don't have to do it on a vehicle that's been registered.

7:19None whatsoever. I have so much problem with that. That's— but, and I've, I've, you see the vehicles, I mean, you see what kind of shape the vehicles are in that come through your shop and people say no. I mean, whatever, for whatever reason, if you can't afford it, you can't afford it, but it should not be on the road. Yeah. I, yeah, I, I don't know.

7:38I mean, I think that the consumer just doesn't care and they don't take it that serious, and they're like, well, nothing's happened yet. But yeah, it's like big trucks in the States, right? You see all these accidents happening, all this craziness happening, and you pay attention to it for just a little bit and you see like they've not been maintained, they've not been taken care of, and there's all these inspections, there's all these rules.

8:00But I mean, like, a wheel comes off a big truck and nails your car going down the road, somebody's getting killed, right? Like, I've seen it over and over again. It's happened. Well, what's the point of— what's the point of getting pulled into the way station and getting checked over? They do better than they do with, with cars. But a lot of trucks are out here on the road that shouldn't be on the road.

8:19Other than handing out licenses, then anybody, anybody can get a license. That problem. Yeah. You don't need to— you don't even have to be able to read English. It's like, I don't know what that sign means anyway. Give me my CDL. I'm going to go drive this. 50,000-ton whatever nonsense vehicle and flip a U-ie in the middle of the road. So I was on a panel with the local chamber with the dude that runs the truck driving school locally for the community college, and he was saying, he's like, the law says they have to be able to speak English.

8:51And he said, we're not passing them if they can't speak English. They have to be able to speak English. Is that North Carolina? That's a federal law. Well, yeah, I think though it was in the news like that, that was a new thing because I think in Florida they— We all know that shop management software is an absolute requirement to properly run a profitable auto repair shop.

9:13And I could come here and tell you that there are thousands of reasons to choose Shopware over any other option, be it the world-class analytics, the amazing people behind the product, the fact that the product is so fast, it's easy to use, it's easy to learn. You can onboard people overnight into this product and have them working It has world-class record keeping, but see, that's not the reason.

9:34The reason that I want you to choose Shopware is because it differentiates you from all of the other shops in town. It creates a world-class experience for your consumer that was built for the consumer. It's something they're used to. It's very much like any other checkout process you can find online. And now they can even get the same financing that they can in other shops online right here from Shopware.

9:57So I'm going to encourage you go into the show notes, click on the Shopware link and get your free demo. Today. Ask the law. Oh, that might've been just regular driver's licenses. They, in Florida, everybody, if you want a driver's license, you have to be able to speak English. If you can't, because of the road signs, they're all, they're all in English.

10:14Like you don't put translate. California, they put translations in there. They put freaking Somali in there. Spanish. It's just all the different languages. And look, it's just LA County too, by the way, because as soon as you leave LA County, they're less crazy. But LA County, I agree with that, right? Like, right there in LA, it's not— it's like, it's like, uh, uh, I still wouldn't say they're not crazy.

10:47There's just a lower level of crazy. I don't know. I showed you the buses in San Diego, and I talked to the dude, and he's like, yeah, he's like, we pull around and we load all the people up on the bus, we take them to LA and leave them. It's like, we've got places for them up there. He's like, we just load I'm gonna let them take them up there.

11:02Like, you're having a hard time, we'll bust you up, you know? I, I don't know. I mean, I don't know that the road signs help. I— we were in San Diego a while back, and, and David's like having a fit, and I can tell he's getting aggravated. And these 2 ladies are sitting behind us, and he's like, not only did they like murder English, but they murdered Spanish too.

11:21He's like, I don't know what they're talking about. He's like, it's like a mix of 4 different languages. I don't know what this is. Yeah. It's funny because you can, you can tell when they ran the English phrase through like a translator and then it just spit out the individual words from English into Spanish. Yeah. It's not, you wouldn't say that phrase ever in Spanish.

11:48Like that's not, maybe in Spain, maybe, but they have a weird lisp in Spain. Yeah. I can't unhear it. By the way, if you've ever heard somebody from Spain speak, like, look it up. They have a weird lisp. Now that I told you, you're never not going to hear it ever again. Absolutely. How do you know the difference, David? I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'll, I'll send you some clips of people from Spain speaking Spanish and they have this weird lisp and they talk like this and it's, it's weird.

12:17Nowhere, nowhere else, nowhere else in the freaking world do they have this weird lisp. Although the rest of the Spanish-speaking world doesn't have this problem. North America, they're not a specific, you know, you know, nationality, but they have a lisp. So who's that in here? Damn Canadians. See, Canadians sound like Minnesotans to me. They all sound the— they, I can't tell Canada from Minnesota.

12:47It's all the same. And also you talk to somebody from Alberta and you talk to somebody from Newfoundland, they have very, very different, it is a different language altogether. Other than the French people. Like I can tell they're not speaking English. They have their own. That's, yep. There's, there's, uh, Fringlish. There's, yeah. Yeah. But here's the thing, like when you go down south, like Lucas's mountain people, he's got his own dialect and then you go into like Al— yeah.

13:15And then you go into Alabama and they've got their own dialect, but to everybody else in the whole wide world, it just sounds like a Southern drawl. It, it doesn't sound any different, but they have, you know, nuances to it where I listen to any Canadian from anywhere. I'm just telling you, they all sound the flippin' same to me. They sound like Minnesota.

13:35Did you go to Minnesota? North Dakota? That's what you people sound like. I don't know. Oh damn. Everything I know about Canada came from South Park. Okay. Like that's really how I feel about Canada. And Jeff confirmed all of these things for me, right? Like just knowing Jeff is completely— Terrence and Philip is a thing, dude. Yeah. There's some, there is some truth there.

13:55I'm sorry, Brett. I'm sorry. I'm just gonna apologize to you right now that we just assume all Canadians are essentially memes and then Jeff just reinforced it. Because he is a meme as well. He's, it's like he gets upset and the A's start flying out and you're like, yeah, keep getting him upset. He sounds more and more ridiculous. And then he doesn't realize it, that he's essentially a meme.

14:25But then we just apply that to every Canadian, even though that's not true. That's how social media works. Yeah, exactly. For example, we just assumed that your internet is connected by elk, which is why you look the way you do in our story. That would be that massive LED light in the middle of my ceiling because it's just with no shade on it.

14:51It's the only way you guys see sunlight. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. I could use a 3000K. That's a 4000K, is a little bit white. Yeah, that's making me glow. And Lucas, this is how we I don't, I don't know this guy. So I immediately went to his website. No, I don't. No, I don't. I don't know anybody. I don't know anybody.

15:08I don't know. One ear, the other. It's okay. I immediately went to his website and started reading all his bad reviews. Like, that's, that's how we got, that's how we introduced her. That's how I introduced myself to him. Hi, guy. I don't know you. Let me read all of your bad reviews. Yes. Let's break this down. I love this. Oh yeah. This can be, it's going to be kind of like the Reddit thing.

15:28It's like, Am I the asshole? Uh, am I the asshole? Is Brent the asshole? Is Brent the asshole here? Let's just say sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. He charged this poor guy, he charged this poor guy $425, uh, Canadian dollars. So it's not even real money, but $25 US dollars. Yeah. See, David was higher. He was like, you were into the hundreds at least.

15:57You said like $150. Yeah. I said it was $150. Oh, poor Canadians. You guys have a good sense of humor. I, I feel bad for you because we just ran out anyway. And $3,404 material and consumables. Is that how you have it outlined? Oh, I don't have that. See, I'm not shops with materials and consumables. Yeah. Not, not shops. So I don't have it say, I like Carolyn's original terminology.

16:26Yeah. Parts that could not be itemized. Right. Oh, so that's what they are. Yeah. So the OG terminology in your line is parts that could not be itemized because it's like, yeah, gloves. I mean, I guess I could charge per glove, but sometimes like some cars you rip 15 pairs of gloves and some cars you don't rip any pairs of gloves. Sure.

16:46And then things like, Like grease, like I'm not gonna, but in California, just so you know, you can't put that line on there in California. You have that. And so in California, as, as parts people, we used to sell these little packs of like brake lube and anti-seize and this, that, and the other. And to the repair shop, I thought it was insane that it would, it ever got sold to repair shops because a repair shop should be buying that in bulk.

17:14It's much cheaper to buy in bulk. Yeah. But then somebody clued me in and said, no, in California you have to itemize everything, anything that you sell, including lubricants and grease and anything, anything, anything. And so we buy the individual packs because I can charge 2 packs to that particular customer. And it's like, okay, do they know that essentially you're screwing the customer because it's like more expensive to do it that way?

17:40And they're like, yeah, they don't— it's the bar. They don't care. It's just like transparency or nonsense like that anyway. Yeah. And it's just, he charged this guy $425 just to tell him what he already knew. Yes. What he already knew. He knew everything was wrong with his car already because this guy was a trained professional. Yeah. A trained mechanic who knew He just didn't have the certification maybe.

18:09Or like, I like it when they tell me, I just don't have the tools. It's like, okay, then what the hell is that? Yeah. If you could have done it yourself, why didn't you? I'm an engineer. I could totally design that bridge. I just don't have the requisite schooling. It's like, okay, so you don't have anything. Like, what the hell are you talking about?

18:29Like the dude that, the dude who reinforced the Pfizer building in New York City, right? Like that was. Is that the one that was starting to crumble down? Well, like, the, the beams folded. And so the video, there's like the interview with the dude that's inside the building, and he said, I was standing between the beams when the beams folded. And like, they, they like folded down.

18:51There's, there's an entire building, it's 1,000 feet tall, nobody's in it. They can't— yeah, they can't, they can't fix it because it's leaning to one angle. Like, it's leaning. And they can't put any safely put anybody in there. And those stupid things sways back and forth because they had, they, they stupidly said, ah, that foundation will be fine. Let's just go ahead and set it here.

19:14And then they built the whole thing and they're like, hey, this thing's like 4 feet off at the top. And like when you get up to the top, you're standing at a lean. Yeah. That's the one they built into the trash under in the water on the, on the shoreline in New York. It's just a slurry. Oh yeah. So we went, we went to New York, which was a cool show.

19:34And it's interesting to go to New York at least for a day and sit in traffic. That's what we did the entire time. We either at the conference or we sitting in traffic. What's that? $400 a day in Uber bills. Yeah. $400 to get like 3 miles, 3 miles to go in New York because it takes an hour and a half because you're just sitting in traffic.

19:54I don't know how these people live. Just, they're nuts anyway. Anyway, so we went through the, uh, 9/11, um, memorial, uh, museum thing. And they talked about how when they originally designed the World Trade Centers, they had to figure out how to actually put this thing in the ground and not have it fall apart because they were essentially setting the building in a slurry of sand and goo with like Like there's bedrock under there, but if we get all the way to the bedrock, everything is going to be surrounded by slurry of goo and it'll eventually start leaking and then the whole thing will crumble and everybody will die.

20:35So anyway, what I want to ask about is, so you're, this guy already knew what was wrong with his vehicle, but he's still charging for the diagnostic fee. And then he just wanted his rack and pinion repaired or replaced, which is insane to me. This is like, In his world, it's 1964 and you can still repair gearboxes. And then he, you wanted to charge him for a driving light, $259.63.

21:02It was very specific. $259.63. Yeah. Or service his battery for $60.50. $60.50 to service the battery. Good. Explain the $259.63 for a driving light. I will have to open up that work order. That, to be fair, There was a list of recommendations for this guy that, that long, and it was— yeah, it's gone longer. I couldn't— I can't go past the screens, but I would go higher.

21:32Uh, yeah, there was, uh, the truck was a disaster, uh, and I don't— and he was honestly, he was a super really easy to get along with guy until the very fact that we told him his rack was pooched. And then he just— everything was shit and we're bad people now and we want to charge him for this and this and that.

21:49And maybe it was a Trailblazer. You got to take the whole front bumper off. There's a shitty half-ton. I mean, there's nothing special, but, but the— yeah, you also don't want to put cheap rack opinions in those things. Not up here. I don't know what it's like down where you guys are. They don't know an aftermarket remand. Uh, just no, don't even bother.

22:06Yeah, they don't last at all. And, and You know, these people, it's like, I don't know, you cross a line with them into telling them something they do not want to hear and they get so visceral, they get so upset. And it's almost like they expect to hear what they want to hear. I don't understand why they don't treat doctors like that.

22:27I mean, I'm sure some doctors get treated that way, but it's like, dude, you've got a serious illness. I mean, you're going to sit there and scream at the doctor? I mean, all he's doing is giving you the information you requested. Yeah, like, I don't understand why it seems okay to treat us in that way. And, and, you know, it's like HVAC.

22:44I, I talk to these guys all the time that are, you know, $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 estimates every single time they go into a house. And I get it only happens one time in somebody's lifetime, but the reality— no, dude, it's 10 years. It's every 10 years. Yeah. And it's $20,000. It's $20,000 to $25,000 for a— maybe like a— hey y'all, Lucas here.

23:03It's story time. Over the past 6 months to a year, I've actually been working more and more in the family business. Now the family business is not an automotive business. It's a tourist attraction. And one of the things that was happening in that family business is we were doing all of the marketing internally, be it social media ads, be it Google, all of it.

23:20We were handling all of it, website building, the whole 9 yards. And here's the deal. It became very clear our marketing efforts were ineffective. Now we could see that we weren't getting return on investment. We could see that we weren't getting good conversions. And that's when we stepped in and hired someone. We hired a professional that knew what they were doing. And for the first time in years, Our parking lot's full when it's typically empty.

23:43And that's why I'm going to recommend you pick up the phone today and call Shop Marketing Pros or click the link down in the comments below, because you shouldn't be learning how to do marketing. Your marketing machine should be working for you right here, right now, making sure your bays are full. So go into the link in the comments and click on the Shop Marketing Pros link for your free marketing analysis today.

24:03A house the size of mine, yours would be 50. Yeah, $50,000. And I'm telling you, it's every 10 years. Those units are designed to last 7 to 10 years and then they conk out and then they don't make any parts for them. They don't make any parts for them. So you're having, there's no fixing anything. I mean, still, you're, you're, well, you're, it's probably 25 years old where you could still get parts and stuff like that.

24:23Like if they were still repairable, they're not repairable anymore. Like it's design obsolescence in these stupid HVAC units. And I don't necessarily blame the, the, HVAC manufacturers because they're having to deal with EPA regulations. The EPA is like, frequently, yeah, the EPA is like, uh, we're changing refrigerants again for the 3rd time in, in 5 years. Uh, so now it has to be like this and it has to meet this level of efficiency and it's got to only pull this much electricity and it's got to do this and it's got to do this.

24:53And they're like, okay, so we have to redesign everything from the ground up. And so we go walk into a where they quoted you one unit last year, they're not available anymore. So now you waited a year, they walk into your house, now there's $10,000 more. Yeah, it's like— and the, the cost of it, it's something I've talked about before, is I, you know, Tanner's a good friend of mine and we talk all the time.

25:17He wants to build a shop mahal, right? Like, he, he just wants this amazing huge facility. And I'm like, dude, I'm gonna tell you right now, I wish I had not built a shop as big as what I Now, and my dad tried to tell me, and I wish I'd listened, in a lot of ways maintaining them and keeping up with them is insane, right?

25:37It's a lot of money. And, and a lot of the money that you make, you have to turn a massive profit just to be able to keep up with the building. I mean, it's like I got an estimate the other day to wash the shop. It was like $11,000. It just washed the shop and clean it up and clean the gutters and do all the things.

25:54And it's just, you have to have it painted. Oh my God. You don't even want to talk about that. It's a lot of money that goes into it. And I just don't think, and maybe it's that a lot of people have been sheltered and they were really bad with money. They did a really poor job of managing their finances. And so a $600 bill feels like, oh my God, I can't believe this.

26:14And I, you know, I've talked to some people that work for the other business and, and I'm like, yeah, we just fixed this car and it was $15,000. And like, $15,000? I've never had $15,000. And so it's a perspective thing, right? You never had $15,000. $15,000 bill seems really big. Yeah, yeah. This thing needs $7,000. This truck needed— I mean, between— oh, we looked it up.

26:40Yeah, I want to know about the light though. Yeah, what's going on with the light? Uh, so right low beam headlamp 1.2 hours. Oh yeah, okay. $222. Yeah, my shop rate's $185. Yeah. Um, and $37 for the bulb. Yeah, bumper, front grill bumper. Yeah, yeah. Or the battery had to come out. Like, I know some of the bulbs in those things are easy, you can pop in, pop them out, but some of them are not and you gotta pop a bunch of stuff.

27:10I mean, yeah, they don't, they don't have a concept of that. They don't realize that like, hey, that headlamp is buried behind the— like, I have to loosen the front— whole front bumper has to come loose, and then that whole assembly has to come out. And then, yeah, and then I have to take the, the, uh, then I have to take the light bulb out, put the light bulb in, put it all back together.

27:29The wiring is probably effed because it's a GM product with an H11 bulb, and so it's screwed right there automatically. I'm gonna have to replace the harness. And then, so that drove up the price. And oh, by the way, you have ADAS, so now I gotta align it. And then I gotta redo, set the ADAS. So the entire bill is now $1,200 to replace your light bulb.

27:48And they're like, what? So yeah, well, you should, I don't know, look into this shitty vehicle you've decided to buy before you buy it. Yeah. Yeah. Instead they're just like, oh, it's my car payment. No, no, no, no, no. Don't forget about the car payment. Like the $700 a month car payment for the Malibu, whatever. Fine. You should probably check to see Hey, what's this going to cost me to own for the first 5 years?

28:12Because it's going to take me 5 years just to get it down to a manageable, uh, balance before I can actually trade it in. Because otherwise there's just depreciation all the way through. But they don't check that. Nobody checks it. Nobody. It's just like, what's my payment? That's it. That's it. That's it. Just the payment. That's all that matters. They know they have to worry about their payment and they think they have to do oil changes and they think an oil change is $60.

28:35Yep. So that's the, that's, they, they know that going into buying a vehicle that that's what, and you can't tell them any different. And this, I mean, the salespeople for God's sakes are not gonna tell them any different. Why would they? 24,000 kilometers on a, we had a Land Rover in here. It was 2 years old. It had 26,000 kilometers on it.

28:55It was in for its first oil change because that's what Land Rover tells you you can do. And it was clickety clacking. The whole time it was— when we pulled it in, we did the oil change and it was nice and quiet. But like, holy cow. And you tell these people, what? I don't know. Yeah, no, just because AMSOIL says you can go 25,000 kilometers or, you know, on an oil change.

29:17Oh, well, here's the thing though. Like, what they don't tell you is that you still have to— you have to drop the oil or you have to drop a portion of the oil. You've got to send it to AMSOIL so AMSOIL can then tell you, hey, you're fine to keep running. It's not 25,000, don't worry about it. It's, it's every 5,000 you've got to send the sample out to AMSOIL.

29:36And, and they might tell you just replace the filter. The filter's starting to clog, the oil's fine, the oil hasn't depleted, but the filter's effed. You have to put a new filter in it, and they want you to use their like $35 oil filter. So like that whole AMSOIL thing's, I think, a bit of a shame. But yeah, good quality oil, that's fine.

29:58Yeah, but the idea that you can just pour it in and like don't worry about it for the next 25,000 miles, like no dude, that's not how that works at all. I mean, it's always got a whole protocol. It's the same thing as the 7,500-mile interval or the 10,000-mile interval, and they think I'll never have to check it. No, yeah, well, it burns oil by design.

30:15It wasn't part of the plan. Like, check it. Oh yeah, out of it, right? You can go 7,500 miles, but there's not going to be oil in it in 7,500 miles. Yeah, like spec on what, on a 6-liter GM in 3/4 tons, what, 1 to 2 liters between oil changes it's allowed to consume before it'll call? We put a brand new motor in a guy's truck and it was consuming a couple liters of oil every 3,000 kilometers.

30:38That's the same with Volkswagen. It's like, yeah, Volkswagen, Audi, dude. Yeah, like you just start running 2-strokes again. There you go. If you're burning You're burning like a 1 quart per 1,000 miles on an Audi, you're fine. It's 800 and that's the threshold or something like that. It's like, it's super stupid where you're like, the hell, really? Just like that small of a difference is like, engine's fine.

31:05No, engine's toast. Get out of here. But people have, people have no idea. No idea. So this, this review set me off. This, this one. I hate everything about this. Yep. I hate everything. You should send this guy. Like mean gifts, like a giant, a giant box of mini penises. You should send them that just like every Christmas. Confetti. Just, oh yeah, confetti box.

31:31Just have them explode and just make sure that you tape it for us so we can just all enjoy. Because this is, this is the stupidity you have to deal with. I took my car in because the passenger side window wasn't working. Okay. It wouldn't go up or down. They had already been told by another shop 2 years ago that the issue— hold on, hold on, hold on— that the issue was likely— so they didn't diagnose it.

31:57They went, oh, might be the master window switch. That the issue was likely the master window switch on the driver's side. So in his mind, he's like, oh, that's what it is, because they know. They just Kind of go like this over the car and then boom, I know what's wrong with the car. I explained this when I dropped the car off, which I would have completely dismissed.

32:19I would have been like, are we serious? Did you just tell me that? Those words really come out of your mouth? Are you, are you serious? So what do you want me to do? Just put a window switch in and call it good? No. Oh, you want me to make sure that's what's wrong with it? Yeah. That costs money, idiot. Anyway, I explained this when I dropped off the car and even said that it was the If the fix was going to be expensive, I'd rather not go ahead with it.

32:41What the hell does that mean? What's expensive to you, sir? Can you show me your DoorDash purchases? Because I'll show you expensive. I'll show you expensive. I will. I'll open it up. Did you really pay $32 for a Sonic burger? You know, you can go down to Sonic and pay $1.99. They'll bring it out to your car, right? You just hit a, like, hit a button and the little touchscreen thing.

33:06The window wouldn't go down. How's he gonna do that? All right. All right. Touché on that one. Priorities. Priorities. Yes. Yeah. Instead of starting by checking the master switch, that's which seemed like the obvious first step because he knows, he knows step one, check the— no, you idiot. What if it had just been a fuse? What if it'd just been a fuse?

33:33Like fuse popped on the master window switch. Don't you, you would've been pissed if I would've sold your master window switch and a fuse and be like, it turned out just to be the fuse. Too bad we put a switch in it already. They went straight into checking the wiring. Oh, imagine that. The wiring. That's the boogeyman. That is the wiring. They told me that if I wanted to look, uh, and wanted them to look at the window master switch.

33:58I'd need to leave the car overnight or come back the following week because you can do all this in 5 minutes, whatever. Absolutely. In the end, they charged me $181 for a diagnostic, which I hate when they call it diagnostics for testing. Like, testing. They got equipment out and they checked the wiring. Diagnosis is what you get as a result of the testing that just confirmed that the wiring was fine.

34:25I told the receptionist that seemed like a lot because he prices things out. I'm sorry, sir. You know my overhead? You know, you know what it costs to run it and operate this? You know how much my technicians make? You know how much I spend in training and equipment and all that? You don't? Oh, you have no clue. You don't know how to price anything out.

34:41I told the receptionist that seemed like a lot, especially since I had a rough idea of how long they spent on the car. What the fuck? Rough idea. She checked and realized it had only been 45 minutes, not a full hour. Oh my God. I'm not charging you by the hour, sir. Brett, why did she do that? Why did she? Yeah, she shouldn't have.

35:12She'd be like, sir, we don't charge by the minute. Uh, you wouldn't want us to do that. We charge by the testing protocol. So they adjusted the price to 130. Oh, dude, now you conceded. This was a training opportunity, wasn't it, Brett? Yeah, we don't see this. This is the— oh yeah, that service writer doesn't work for me anymore. Yeah, I'd say not.

35:34She wouldn't work for me either. I'm not even gonna ask the name. Never mind. There was a dude, but yeah, no, it was— yeah, if I hadn't stood up and questioned it, I would have been overcharged. See, you confirmed his bias by Lowering the price. I bet, guarantee you that dude came from the dealer. Guarantee you that dude came from the dealer.

35:56Oh, you complain? Yeah. Let me go ahead and lower the price for you to shut you up. So basically I paid $138 just to be told that what I had already suspected because somebody randomly said something and the actual issue wasn't even looked into. No, you didn't leave it there long enough. I left feeling pretty frustrated. Uh, it just didn't seem like a smart or efficient way to handle things.

36:18So, you know what I got in the habit of doing is when, when I get these calls or they show up and they say, yeah, I've already had it diagnosed somewhere else, I have a diagnosis, say, okay, great, go ahead and bring all the paperwork in that shows the test that they did. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they say, well, wait a minute, they didn't give me anything.

36:37They didn't do jack shit that time. Okay, it's printout, I understand, but, but the printout is giving us a diagnostic trouble code, and the diagnostic trouble code is like a zip code. It's going to get us to the right town, but it's not going to get us to the mailbox. And so I need to know like what wires they tested, what information they gave you, how they came to the conclusion they came to.

36:55If I'm going to use that, I would need that information to determine. And then I can, I can form a second opinion by driving and doing some, some light testing myself. And I, you know, if it's accurate, that's great. Oh, I don't have any of that. Oh, huh. That's funny. Right. And most shops, and I think that's one of my problems with the documentation that we see on repair orders today is because most shops aren't even putting it on there.

37:19And it's like, why wouldn't you put it on there? I mean, we're going to the trouble of saying this is the circuit number, this is the color of the wire, and this was the reading on the wire, right? And this is what was expected on the wire. So somebody could follow up after me and say, here's what we did. And I think that a lot of it is that we're not building value in the testing that we do.

37:38And, and I've learned that that becomes exceptionally difficult when the advisor doesn't understand the testing that we're doing. Like, if I'm on the front counter, I can say, hey, this wire right here had a voltage drop. It was half a volt, and it's a very low current wire. So for it to have half a volt of voltage— you know why that's happening though, Lucas?

37:56What? Is because your technicians are typing shit out. Don't do that. Don't do that. So if you have a— no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So take a screenshot of the wiring diagram Have them circle the circuit tested or the wire checked, and then post that on the Shopware. Yeah. And then write your note. So when they look at it, they're like, oh, they tested this wire, this one circled here, and they found that this wire has a voltage drop of 1.3 volts when it should be 30 millivolts or less.

38:35And that's what's wrong with the car. Oh, okay. See, it like the picture makes all the difference. And then you take a picture of the actual equipment hooked up to the, so they know that like this was your vehicle and you take a big wide picture and a little closeup. And then maybe you show the break or whatever, if it is something that obvious, but it's something internal to the wire.

38:55Like sometimes you don't even see it, right? You just measure it and you know there's something wrong with it. So if you do all that. Especially when the customer's like $400 for testing. Well, yeah, but look what we did. Like, I guarantee you no shop is providing you wiring diagram screenshots with little circles around the circuit that's bad or the section or the wire or whatever.

39:17Or sometimes like my tech will write down, you know, 12V, 3V, 12V checked. Okay. Like they'll, they'll write all that out. Like you can see the scribble where they did it with the hand or whatever. It's a dog and pony show at the end of the day. I get it. They should be able to just read the thing and read the notes or whatever.

39:36But like having those pictures like that and then posting them out to Shopware for the, then the service advisor can better understand and then translate it over to the, to the customer. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. And that's what I always did. It's hard to get that level of consistency and to get it right time after time. I have found I struggle with getting them to consistently do it unless I'm like right there watching every ticket coming through, right?

40:05Yeah, I, I struggle with that for sure. Details are, are a massive oversight. It's just we have— we— I have every end of the spectrum here. Like people that are just like, it's like they don't know how to articulate it. They don't know how to say what they did. Like they said, check this, did that, blah, done. Whereas I have other guys that they like every single step— the wire did this, this did work, this didn't, this did— and, uh, finding that middle ground is damn near impossible.

40:36But, um, yeah, to me, I'd rather have way more detail than not enough. And that's the thing about Shopware is that you can have it cleaned up. So you hit the little AI button and it makes it easier to understand for, you know, the layperson, right? Have either of you used WhisperFlow at all? It is a really, really advanced, uh, transcription device, right?

41:03Okay. The voice detection on it is unbelievable. Okay. Um, I mean, it can even translate my redneck voice and accent like nobody's business. You just didn't train your Google. Just gotta train your Google substantially better. It is, it is thousands of times better. It's not, it's not even comparable. If it's that good, Google's gonna buy it or Apple's gonna buy it and then integrate it into their junk.

41:25Picks up on— it picks up on punctuation, it picks up on, on paragraphs, it picks up on separations. Like, if I send you a long text message, it's through WhisperFlow right now, right? And so it, it's— I mean, it is very, very advanced. And, and the cool thing is, is like when you're having complex conversations like this stuff, it seems to do a much better job at getting that data on paper.

41:50It seems to do way better. So I, I would try it at least and have your guys try it and see. But like, if you have them pull it up and they're on their phone and they're in the Shopware notes, you open WhisperFlow, you talk to it, you tell it what you want to say, hit the button, it drops it in, and then you have it clean it up, man.

42:06It, it's sick. And a lot of these guys are able to communicate Like, I've got guys who can communicate very, very well via writing it out and can tell an amazing story, and they're the guys who read. And then I've got guys who can verbally convey it. I'm not saying that the others can't read, David. I'm saying they're the ones that do read.

42:29Okay, they are avid readers. I like the way he said it better. Yeah. He's much more diplomatic. Much more diplomatic. I'm just saying that your policy should be, if you can explain it via a picture, take the picture. Don't type out the story. I don't care about the story. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, if you can take a picture and have it explain what the hell it is that you did, just take, keep the words to a minimum and take the flipping picture.

42:59Okay. And then you put it like we put it under. The testing, it's just like simple. Sorry, I'm going to be completely blunt here and honest and transparent. I wonder if WhisperFlow would pick up on your dad voice. I'm pretty sure that it would tell somebody to piss off, um, in the most David of ways. I really am quite confident at this point.

43:19I, I'm saying that I want the okay to bear mace people that come into my shop and try to tell me that I already had it checked out at a different shop and It just immediately blew up right in the face. The bear mace, was it— was that in LAX that the— I got stuck because of the bear mace? Was that— I think that was in LAX.

43:38It may have been bringing air bear mace onto an airplane. This would be my question. Dude had come through and he had bear mace in his bag and forgot about it. He panicked, he threw it in the trash can, and the lady's like pulling the trash bag out, and when she does, it breaks the end of it off. Out this whole part of the terminal and everybody freaks out, man.

43:59I don't, I don't know what it is with me and airports, but like, it's almost every day that I hear shop owners talk about credit card processing and credit card processing fees. And I'm gonna tell you right now, if you're that worried, you're stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. What do I mean by that? When it comes to credit card processing, it's all about the service.

44:21It's all about the support and the great rates at the same time. And that is exactly why I use 360 Payments for all of my payment processing needs. They are the best payment processor in the automotive space. So don't wait, go to the link in the show notes and get set up with 360 Payments. They're integrated with all of your favorite shop management softwares, and it makes your life so much easier.

44:48You know, there was the bomb threat in Kansas City, there was the bear mace in LAX, there was the— Oh my God. In other words, don't travel with Lucas. Yeah, I, I try to fly completely different times than Lucas because I know that airport's going to get shut down for some reason. Yeah, dude, I, dude, I'm telling you, DFW is the one though.

45:07Like, everybody keeps trying to route me through DFW and I'm not, I'm not doing it. And they're like, why? I was like, because it doesn't function wet. It's always raining in Texas, evidently, at least when my flights are going through. All right. Oh my God. What review is next? I want, I like, we have to make it through these. Some of 'em are nonsense.

45:29Like they charge me double. Like what the hell does that mean? Yeah, I'm sure that it was listed off there twice. Double of what? Yeah, double of what? Uh, oh, and then there's Rashad. That's a good one. If you could, if you got down to him. Ooh, Rashad. I got Rashad. Yeah. Yeah. So been there twice, both times had horrible service. And we met twice.

45:50Yeah. A $199 oil change. Oh, and fuel filter. So this is a diesel. Oh yeah. When I came back to the shop, it was $717. Yeah. Did you offer a guy an oil change and fuel filters on? Absolutely not. No. The entire premise is— you know what, Paul? This is the funniest thing. I'm gonna go. To all the shops I hate in Kansas City.

46:19And I'm going to walk in there and go, hey, I'm the owner. And then just shake the random customers' hands. And I'm just going to hand them a little business card. So they'll go into the business and just grab. I'm not going to do this to you, Telly Tire. I'm not going to do this to you at all. Anyway, I'm just going to walk in and just grab a whole bunch of business cards.

46:37And then I'm going to be like, hey, I'm the owner of Telly Tire. How you doing? And then I'm going to shake the customer's hand. And I'm just going to write down like $5.99 oil change, $5.99 oil change special. And then I'm just going to scribble on the bottom like I'm the owner and just hand it to them and be like, hey, I really appreciate you coming in.

46:50Hand this next time you come in. They're like, oh wow, this is going to be great. And then they, when they come up to the counter, they'll be like, what are you, what are you handing? This is not the owner. The owner walked in here and it's like, do you know how big this organization is? There's like 800 of these. The owner lives in freaking— No, a Telly Tire, dude.

47:09They bought, they bought Hart Automotive. And the guy, remember the guy that won the, the, it wasn't Tully Tire. I can tell you that. They just bought a bunch of locations of random shops here in Kansas City. Like a bunch. The guy, do you remember the guy when we went to Ratchet and Wrench, the conference? And I gave the guy a bunch of crap because he was standing up there saying, hey, for my employees, we give them free loans.

47:37Like we loan them up to $600 in case they get in trouble. And I said, who are you hiring that is needing short-term loans for $600? Like, what are they doing with their money? Like, this is not, this is not the flex you think it is. This is like a terrible policy. Like you're hiring shitbags or people that can't handle their money.

48:00Like what the fuck happened to them? Or you're not paying them enough to make it a policy. Wow. Yeah. And yeah, they thought that was a great flex. Who was it? It was Tuffy Tire that just went bankrupt. Yeah. It wasn't, it wasn't Telly. Telly probably just bought all the Tuffys out. Right. Just took it out. Yeah. Anyway, so I'm not, definitely not doing this to Telly Tire, but I'm going to walk in.

48:20I'm going to say I'm the owner and I'm just going to start handing them $5.99 oil changes and I'm going to wait for the— oh, and I'm like, that's a BMW owner or Land Rover owner. I'm gonna walk in there and be like, hey, we just, just wanna say thank you to the community and then just walk out and they're not gonna know.

48:36They're not gonna know I'm not the owner. I'm gonna walk in there with lots of confidence. I'm gonna have a little Telly Tire shirt maybe, or just the same colors. 'Cause then that, that, that would, uh, that would be hilarious. Yeah. I'm just thinking that would be everybody. And what could they say? Right? Like you're in and out before anybody. Yeah. Nobody's gonna know.

48:54They'll eventually catch me on camera. Like, do you see this bald guy with a beard? Walking in and tackle him because he's handing out $5.99 oil changes. It's not against the law, right? Like impersonation. I don't know, dude. That's, uh, I would love to talk to a lawyer. And if they're like, technically they like, they could hit you with trespassing if they, they don't want you on their property.

49:17I'm like, oh, okay. So I could hit them up a few times before they catch me. Yeah, exactly. You'd have to, there'd have to be a pattern present. Don't do that, folks. That's, that's, don't do anything illegal. Anyway, I drive a 2020 diesel truck. So he knows, he knows, he knows that these, this is a $700 job. He knows it's a $700 job.

49:38$1.99. Now that's after he applied a $70 discount to the oil change. Biggest thieves and crooks in town would never recommend because you wouldn't do his $700 $700 fuel filter and oil change for— so he books an oil change a day or two prior, talked to him on the phone, blah blah blah. He's still— I'm a customer that— or the— I usually go to the dealer, I want to try you guys out, blah blah.

50:03Okay, let's try that. So whatever, give him a price for the oil change. The day of, he comes in and like, this guy's shit doesn't stink. Like, this is— that's— he is very like, just, I am the man. And it's not like first thing in the morning, it's like, I don't say midday, maybe 1 o'clock in the afternoon or something like that.

50:23Um, and says, hey, can you do fuel filters for me too? Absolutely, we could do whatever you want. I'll add them to the work order here, sign right here, put it on. We have the tablet, right? It's all there. And then he asked, also asks us to, I think there's some, uh, I think the same customer, but there's some fuse and some wiring anyway, something he needs needed fixed.

50:45And then proceeds like, oh, get it, I need it by the end of the day. Okay, okay, well, I can't promise that. We probably get this stuff done for you, the oil service and the fuel filters, absolutely no problem at all. And then, then he comes in at the end of the day to pick it, and we got it done. We absolutely got it done.

51:02Everything was fixed. The bill— and that $717 is including some of that electrical work. And he just flies off like, I can get this done at the dealer for $300. Then you should have gone there. That's the only time in my life I've ever been called a see you next Tuesday was this guy. And I will always remember him. That's awesome. It's those people that it's like they're just trying to see what they can get.

51:30Yeah. It's not even— they just make all human beings look like douchebags because The reality of it is like, they— you can see them coming a mile away, right? Because of how they act about it. Hey man, I'm gonna bring you a ton of business if this works out. If they ever tell you they're going to tell all their friends to come to your shop, just go ahead.

51:46Yeah, like, man, we don't have them. Yeah, like, I've got a ton of people I'll refer over to you. We, we had one the other day, okay? I sent him a picture of his tire. He, he has been in one time, okay? He's been in this shop one time. And it was an Audi that was, I think, the Q3. It was under warranty, starter motor generator.

52:07They didn't have any, or it was going to be months before they could do it. We fixed it, got him back on the road. He paid for it. Everything was good. It was 4 years ago. His wife comes in. He sends me this email about how he's told everybody to come here and he can't believe how we treated him and he'll never tell anybody else to come here ever again because he comes in and we gave him an estimate for a tire.

52:27Now, our tire estimate was higher and I explained why that was. We don't buy a ton of tires. I don't have a ton of volume. Volume discounting on tires. This is a tire that's not in our network brand, right? Because we buy from ATG, so I don't have access to this particular tire at a great price. Completely understand. We told you that.

52:45We told you that we, we aren't the cheapest on tires because we don't buy them in high volume. And so he goes to another local shop and they're like, yeah, we'll just plug it, dude. There's nothing wrong with it. We've got a picture in the sidewall where like it's clear it's leaking out of the tread block. So I send him all the information, send him the picture.

53:04He said, that picture is misleading. It's actually leaking in the middle of the tread. And I said, well, if that's the case, I'm very sorry. It's either that we've had a miscommunication somewhere. We're talking about a different tire. My team's not communicating clearly. How about you ride by and let's take a look? He's like, no, I don't want— no, I don't want to do that.

53:24Right. And it's, it's those people who come in with the attitude of I'm going to send you all these people, I'm going to do this, I'm going And, and they automatically think that they're going to get something out of this deal. They're angling to get something. And I, I just— right, like, maybe that's a mentality, maybe that's a personality, I don't know what it is, but I don't deal with those people.

53:45I just tell them straight up, hey, I really appreciate it, man, but we're as busy as we can be right now. So, uh, you know, appreciate your, your offer and definitely send folks over if you want to, but it's not going to change the outcome of your visit. I don't say it like that, but you know what I mean. More or less.

54:02Yeah. I mean, what else are you supposed to do? But those people are problematic. And so let me ask you this, listening to this, just know they're, they're not going to bring their whole fleet of vehicles to you. They don't have 75 vehicles sitting at home. They don't have any friends and family. Yeah, that— it's, it's, it's noise. Just go ahead and ignore it.

54:21Yeah. Did you guys— do you guys have them sign the estimate before You start work? Always. So they— so he saw the bill up front and signed it? And yes, I, I told him how much it was going to be. Like, it's just— it's— yeah, yeah, just bad words. I'm gonna say bad words. Have the dealers created this world for us? Because they're so apt, like the CSR scores, right?

54:55Like that, that is everything to them. And so advisors are just discounting and managers are just discounting to maintain the CSR scores or CSI, whatever you want to call them. It's very possible. And what ends up happening as a result is that they've taught whole generations, like if I just go to the auto shop and bitch about something, they'll give me what I want.

55:16Is that like what's happening at this point? Well, I think that's usually how it works. Like, is it the squeaky wheel gets the grease? So the first people that complain, that's what people are taught from a very young age, in fact. Yeah, no, but the dealers, there's sometimes the dealers are more money and we all have seen this, like, you know, that they have higher rates or this or that.

55:37And, you know, the independents often come under. One thing that I've, we've experienced, and this has only happened to me once because the customer was super transparent about it, And we were recommending all of these maintenance services that need to be done on his truck. So he went to the dealer, I think he came from the dealer with all of these prices for all these maintenance services.

55:56And they were like bargain-based and cheap, like oil, like diff drain and fills, like transmission service, like that kind of stuff. And I mean, I worked with him, he showed me the paperwork. I'm like, okay, well, I mean, it's not how we would normally do it. And, but I mean, he's a good customer. I was like, well, I mean, we'll do this for you.

56:15I mean, he spends a lot of other money in repairs, so let's work with him on this. Didn't lose any money. But, uh, yeah, I mean, I know there's some things that they're just cheaper on. I mean, there's— I'm sure there's still a few here that are doing like a $75 oil change. But again, we don't, and I don't want to. But that's— well, I mean, it differentiates you from your clientele, right?

56:38Like, and that's my thing. Is I don't want that clientele. I'm not interested in that clientele. So I don't, I don't really care that if a person who wants the cheapest oil change in town doesn't come to me, right? Like, that doesn't bother me that much. And, and like, I can see trying to compete in convenience. I can see trying to compete in quality.

56:58I can't see trying to compete in price. And I get that a lot of our, our friends in the industry do it. Right? I really do. I, I can understand it more now than I've ever been able to understand it before. I used to get really bothered by it, but I also had 3 bays and it didn't take a lot to fill 3 bays.

57:14Now I got 10. It's a whole different ball game. And I understand trying to fill those bays and put cars in the door and the whole 9 yards, but it's, it's, it's not the type of client that I want to work with. I, I think that it's easy to become disconnected from the front counter and disconnected from the base. If you start discounting like that and you're not the one who has to deal with that person, you're not the one who has to experience, yeah, what, what that creates in your business.

57:44Yeah, buddy, let me tell you, it's really easy to do it then. But the minute that you have to sit on that front counter for 5 days a week or 4 days a week, whatever it is, for about 2 months, and every one of them is beating you up, yeah. Nah, you'll change your mind really quick. Like, yeah, I just— yeah, just my opinion.

58:04No, I don't disagree with you at all. I said the only reason I worked with the guys because it was like, it was quite a bit of work. I mean, there was probably 6 or 7 different services needed to be done. I know, like, and I, I know how much I'm paying my guys to do it. So I mean, I know, or don't— I realize that the other staff maybe don't know that, but so I could still do it, make the money, make— and he'll be happy, he'll come back.

58:26He's already, you know, it's, it's no different than cutting him a break on whatever, on roadside assistance or something like that. We'll do that every once in a while, throw some of that in, in there. So it's just, you know, I, I was willing to do that, but not monkey see monkey do down there. They don't do what I say, thank God.

58:44Or they do what I say, they don't, they don't do what I do. But that's also the reason I don't go to the front counter. Yeah, who the hell knows? They read these reviews and they're like, like, nah, man, the boss is the boss. Yeah, right. Yeah, well, I don't, I don't mind necessarily. It depends on the car, the vehicle. Like, we get a Honda in, like a Honda Pilot that needs the transmission service, rear diff, oil change, power steering fluid, brake fluid.

59:12Like, the dealership might have that at a rock bottom price, but I also know, like, all of that's gonna get done in an hour. Because they're literally starting from the back, going to the front, drain, drain, drain, drain, drain, and then fill, fill, fill, fill, fill, and then do the power, the brake fluid while the other ones are draining. They're done in less than an hour.

59:33And so the amount of time that I'm going to have in that car is going to be minimal. So even if the dealership comes in at some stupid price, I know that, hey, the only reason why they're doing this at a stupid price is they're going to be in and out in 30 minutes. We might do it in 45. Well, and, and like, Shopware gives us the ability to pull up the profitability on it and see it, and that is one advantage of straight hourly, right?

59:56I, I think, you know, I made a video the other day talking about how it's not necessarily how you pay, it's the ethics of the pay, it's your morals, it's your behavior. And so a lot of shops that pay flat rate, like, I talk to these techs all the time and they're like, dude, they don't pay us for the DVI, they don't pay us for, um, specific services.

1:00:16They don't pay us for going out and reading the codes. They don't pay us for pushing the vehicles. They don't pay us for any of that. But we're only paid flat rate. And so I think that the, the morality of that is skewed a little bit. And they, the shop owners, say, well, this is your opportunity. You're just paying for your opportunity.

1:00:32No, I don't believe in that, right? Like, if you show up for work, you get paid. And so, like, we run hybrid, so I don't think it would be fair. I would have to I would have to offer some type of discount on top of it as opposed to reducing the hours. Because, right, like if that's what it calls for, that's what I want them to get bonused on.

1:00:50Now they're hourly and they make good money on their base, but still I don't feel right about, you know, I don't think that the discounts should come outta the technician's pocket, if that makes sense. Yeah, no. And, and it, this, this wouldn't have been a situation where it would have affected them anyway. I mean, I left the hours where they were because I wanted to make sure that it's accurate, that we're, we know how long it's gonna take.

1:01:11Mostly. And I just, like I said, I played with the rate. Like if it was, if the regular labor rate is like $185, I put it to $120 or something like that. So we work off a similar system to you guys. It's not a, I wouldn't consider it a full hybrid. It's just, it's hourly pay plus a production bonus. Meet these hours, here's some money kind of thing.

1:01:33So yeah, and we don't, I don't bonus DVIs. It's zero because I don't want, I, I also want my reporting to be accurate in Shopware. I want my build hours to be actual build hours. I don't want to see a build hour for $0, which is what I was doing about a year and a half ago. That's kind of cooking the books though, no?

1:01:51Like, because when I did that, when I set that up, I was coaching with Rick and he's like, nah, man. He's like, you can't do that. I'm like, why not? He's like, because it's skewing your effective labor rate. He's like, it's making it look like you're doing better than you are. Oh, that's just accounting trickery. Is all that is because it's on the, like on the P&L is what you would calculate the effective labor rate on, which would then— it sort of does.

1:02:16Yeah. Like, I mean, my, my effective labor rate since, but since I started doing that, my effective labor rate is like, I'm getting, you know, within 5% of what I'm charging door rate. So it's working out really well. So what we're doing is you're not putting the cost. In other words, if you're not putting 0.5 on there, it takes them 0.5 to do it, or it takes them an hour to do it.

1:02:38Yeah, you're not charging the client, so it's $0. Yeah, it's causing— when you take that out, it causes your effective labor rate to go up. And so we should be making that up in, you know, hey, like, we, we charge more for testing, we charge more for European cars, we charge more for complex jobs. Yeah, what I mean, right? That's, that's where, where I'm going with that.

1:03:01Are you zeroing out the hours or the dollars? Hours. So on my DDI, zero hours. He's— Lucas is right. Yeah. So if you put in the hours, but just make it a $0 labor rate, right? Yeah. And I, I do the same thing for warranties because I don't want to— I don't want to bill for the warranty, and I, I don't want to show— you make a payment type for that.

1:03:26You make a payment type and you pay the full price for the warranty. Yeah. And yeah, that way you can track Because everybody talks about your warranty should be below 1%. Well, that's how you track your warranty, is that you bill it at full price and you make the payment. Because that's— okay, see, what, what that shows you is it shows you your lost opportunity cost.

1:03:43Because if that job wasn't in the shop, that's the opportunity that just walked out the door because you're working on something you had to redo. Um, okay, right. So, well, I'm just categorizing it specifically. I, I've created its own categories, and I have a canned job for warranty work. So they clock into that, it goes there. Yeah. So it just, yeah. And then discounted on the bottom.

1:04:04Yeah. The, it's, there's certain things I don't like to see, like with payment types is, is a bit of an annoyance for me because I don't like showing payments. 'Cause I look at my reports at the end of the day, oh look, I took $20,000 worth of payments today, but like $5,000 was like internal expense. This is, I, I don't like that.

1:04:21Uh, I, one thing I wish Shopware did better was more, I guess, uh, internal controls, like, like, you know, GL accounts, like that. My loaner stuff goes to a specific— it's a— I bill it out a certain way. It doesn't get paid for at Shopware, so I'm not showing sales. I don't like showing that stuff in sales because it will— I'm doing— I do an oil change on one of my loaner vehicles and it says I made $158.

1:04:52Would in fact, it cost me $100, right? Yeah. But I mean, that, that's on your P&L, right? Like, isn't that? It is. Yeah. Oh, it's, it categorizes everything on the QuickBooks side of things, but it's also like, I also don't like overinflating my sales numbers either because that's why, that's why I use, that's why I use payment types and then I just download my XLS, right?

1:05:16Yeah. Yeah, so I pull out my CSV or XLS, however you want to do it, and then I separate it right there and can look at it and see. Yeah, because like, but, but the reality is, is that that's still yet, right? That goes back to cooking the books. Because if you don't attribute this thing— quick, quick click on cooking the books.

1:05:33It's not cooking the books. It, it evens out on the P&L. It evens out on the P&L. But if you're for reporting purposes It can, it can throw your KPIs off. Yes. But that depends, that entirely depends on what you want to look at on your KPIs. Because if you want to look at like, what am I actually bringing in actual dollars that I can spend?

1:05:57And like, how many hours is it taking to do that? Including the fact that I have to maintain my loaners and I have to do warranty work. What does that actually look like? And like, that's how I do it the way he does it is I don't, I don't zero out the hours, never zero out the hours because my time, like somebody spending time on that vehicle.

1:06:18However, I categorize the labor as, you know, warranty work or whatever it happens to be, or loaner vehicle, whatever. And then just discount it on the bottom. The only thing that it doesn't take into account is parts. Parts do throw that in. Yes. So like, if you want to, if you also, if you don't want a slightly inflated cost of goods sold in your parts percentage being slightly higher than what— that's why when I look at my parts percentage, I don't, I don't stress out that it's a little bit high.

1:06:50Like I know what range it's supposed to be in because I'm also factoring in the fact that, hey, this includes all warranty work and loaner vehicles. So it's going to be artificially higher. But then you also get a sense of what that KPI should look like. Does that make sense? Yeah. But if you want it clean, clean, clean, it's going to have to be, it's going to have to be a payment type and then it's then fixed on the P&L.

1:07:12Yeah. And yeah, like those internal controls are fine, but it's not accounting software at the end of the day. Like, yeah, no, no, exactly. Yeah. My thing. And so the conversation is a type of discount, a type of discount, it would be the best way for it to fix. Like, how do you want to categorize this as customer courtesy? Um, or like this mailer.

1:07:35Um, and then having that separated for labor and for parts. So then you can go to your discounts and say, hey, I've had to discount $25,000 in warranty work this month. And I discounted $5,000 in loaner work. And then this is like mailers. And then this is yada, yada. Cause they all get jumbled in the or dumped into one big bucket. The only problem— so when you bill out your parts on warranty lines, say, are you zeroing the dollars of the part or are you zeroing the part itself, the quantity?

1:08:07No, no, the quantity has to go through because otherwise it'll show inventory. So that has to go through. I'm just discounting the very bottom line. All the way at the very bottom. I understand that. So like, so just because, because my background is very much— I mean, it's parts, it's inventory, it's that kind of thing. The problem by doing that, by zeroing the quantity on hand, is now— so you've— you're trading a part for part.

1:08:29So we're taking a part off the vehicle, it's coming off, we're putting another part on, but I still have a part. It's still physically in the building, it's just a defective part. I have to now send that back to my, my vendor, right? So then you create a return, and then you create a return, balances your, your— right, exactly. But you can't create a return if you zero the part.

1:08:49No, he's— if you don't zero the part, you never, you never zero the part ever, ever, ever, ever. That's the— that's what I'm saying. If you, if you don't zero the part and you sell it out to the customers, that part is now out of inventory and now Shopware has nothing to send back. It's because it's nothing. You're not showing that part on hand, right?

1:09:05But you should be showing something on hand. Original ticket. Yeah. Original ticket. Yeah. And then I buy another part and then I, yeah, I can manually adjust and pull back. Right. But that's what I don't want to do. To me, the manual part is the problem. You shouldn't need to— the, the system, I, I should be able to bill out a part and credit a part on Shopware on the labor line most the time.

1:09:28Because you're, if you're dealing with 2 separate vendors, if I have to replace a NAPA part with a dealer part, I now have to credit the customer back that part that they paid for a year ago and bill them out for the, the dealer part now. So there's a dollar difference. Of course. I, I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying.

1:09:45Yeah, that, um, but then, then that's where the payment type takes care of it by doing it my way. But it doesn't take care of it out of inventories. My issue is still going to be off. Yeah, the inventory is still going to be off. I make manual adjustments, right? Right. Inventory count. And I, yeah, that's frustrating. Yeah, the, the system should help you automate everything just like they do with all— with looking up parts and bringing stuff in.

1:10:11And you know, that's I've talked to, um, I've raised this with Andrew McAllister a couple times. I actually have a call with Shopware tomorrow. I want to show them how this works. I feel like this is kind of a— because I was trying to get around it by using hazmats and fees. I was crediting the part there at the dollars they paid for it, but it still doesn't— I still have to go manually make that inventory.

1:10:33Yeah, it just doesn't work. I wouldn't wait. Your face was manually adjusting the part in, and to me that That's a failure. It should not work that way. Uh, maybe there, there, there's, there, there has to be what the easiest fix is to just be able to mark the line warranty part. Yeah. Because then it's going to be, look, it's going to essentially put that part back in the inventory and look for a return to offset it.

1:11:01Yeah. Yeah. Have a, have a do not, um, in the NAPA world on that, you have like a do not inventory or it doesn't. When you sell something, it doesn't affect the inventory. We do that with paint cans. Like when we sell a can of paint, um, we don't want it to, you know what I mean? I see that. Yeah. There's a category of somehow.

1:11:19So I like that. Um, that's a good idea. Yeah. The only time that would be is on paint. Every other time you're gonna, when you warranty swap something out, it's pulling it outta inventory and then expecting something back. Yes. Somehow, some way, whether I, to me, well, that's what I'm talking about. Debits and credits. Sell it. Yeah, return it. If you, if you've got a warranty line, if you've got a part that you're installing, some pads and rotors, yeah, there, that has to be like you either mark the ticket as a warranty repair or the job as warranty repair.

1:11:52And that automatically knows that, hey, that inventory needs to be put back into inventory as a defective part. And then now you've got a whole subset of inventory that's sitting on your shelf as defective. That then you would then create a return in the system for. Yes. So you could at least track it. Yeah. Yeah. I think that would help some clerical errors.

1:12:13That would be the fastest, cleanest way to do it. Well, I mean, if you don't want to have any kind of inventory, you just like, like you just sell the part and then either manually adjust it in or now you just have the defective part in there. It's not being tracked internally. Yeah, you then have to write it out on the slip and make sure that you get the credit back, but then that can create a whole other mess if you're moving enough parts.

1:12:36Can you imagine 70% of the shop owners, service advisors, or technicians in our industry right now trying to navigate this properly regardless of software? Yeah, like these are people who don't even have basic processes, policies, and procedures. These are people who barely can turn on their computer in some cases. Okay. Yeah. You boys are like, I get, like, I completely get wanting this to like, see Brett.

1:13:05No, no, I'm not. I'm gonna, I'm gonna get on the other side of this because I'm getting dumped into Brett. Brett, Brett, you are, you are trying to solve a 1% problem here. We need to focus in on the 99%. Get good, get good shop management software like Shopware. So you know what the hell you're doing, and then you can worry about these 1% problems.

1:13:27Exactly right, because it solves the point that this matters. But right now, you don't even know what your inventory is. Yeah, I don't know what— why inventory matters to you. Well, my tax bill, $50,000 more dollars last year. Oh no, no, we sell off our inventory every year on December 31st. Oh yeah, there you go. All the inventory gets sold. I'll talk to my accountant about that one.

1:13:50Yeah, yeah. And what it does— see, you just create one giant uh, credit memo for all, all of the inventory and then just take it off the books. And then you buy it back. Just buy it back on January 1st. There was a— there's a machinist, this old man, and he, he's, uh, he's got a YouTube channel. And so he talks about the, the way that inventory works.

1:14:15And, and I, I had been watching his machining videos, but he talks about the way inventory works and how he works worked around it. And he said, so here's the deal. He said, we, we have all this steel out here. And he goes out into this big yard behind his machine shop, and there's huge, huge pallets of steel all over the back of the shop, you know.

1:14:32And he said, now here's the deal. He said, my accountant says that if I buy this, that I have to pay tax on it because I'm owning it. And he said, so what I've done is, he said, I took my money, my personal money, And I bought all of this steel for $5,000. He said, now it's about $125,000 worth of steel that we bought at an auction, but we only gave $5,000 for it.

1:14:55He said, so then as I sell the steel, I sell it to the shop from myself personally. And he's like, got it. Later, I'll find the video and send it to you. But I mean, it's about understanding exactly how the process works and getting it right. And I don't think that 90% of shop owners are ever gonna know. Like, they don't even know that Shopware counts their inventory.

1:15:20Yeah, they don't know that exists. They don't know that they should be counting their inventory at the end of the year. They're supposed to report all that. They're, they're lucky. They're lucky if the hours actually got put on the ticket. And the chance of the actual part being on the ticket, according to what I hear, is about 50% maybe. Okay. Oh, that's scary.

1:15:41I'm just telling you, like, I, I, I've been going through the whole Kaizen onboarding process and they're like, wow, your Shopware is so clean and so neat. Most shops don't do this. And I'm like, huh, looks like a mess to me. And they're like, nah, man, like, we're seeing shops that have hundreds of thousands of dollars of part purchases and $50,000 of part sales.

1:16:03Like, this is good. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right, amazing, amazing. Yeah, I agree. I appreciate you. Thank you for listening to the Changing the Industry podcast. If you enjoyed the show, do us a favor and leave us a review on your favorite podcast player, and don't forget to set it to automatically download the latest episode. Our efforts with this podcast, the YouTube channel, and the Facebook group wouldn't be possible without the support of our awesome sponsors, so please take a Take a moment, check them out by clicking on the links in the show notes.