Flat Rate Doesn't Match the Real Repair with Josh Forbes

0:16I learned very quickly that what I was willing to do in my youth was plunge myself into depth to gain that extra 2 degrees of swing arc to make that job a little bit easier on my body. When I first got in the industry, I bought Canadian Tire tools, and they're good for, you average Joe who's doing it on the weekend, but that's the argument.

0:35You're a professional mechanic, you need professional-grade tools. You got to pick and choose your battles where it comes in handy. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another exciting episode of the Jaded Mechanic Podcast. It's a muggy Friday night here in Canada, um, at least in my part of Canada, and, um, we're sitting here with a new friend of mine who is not familiar to us, but where he works is familiar to us.

1:04Young Josh Forbes works at Maxim Muffler, which is home of the infamous Mr. Tobutek and his boss and owner Marco, who have both been on the podcast. And Josh reached out to me and kind of wanted to share— he's recently completed his apprenticeship and kind of wanted to share with me his, his journey up through the apprenticeship. In Manitoba and what that was like and all that kind of stuff.

1:33And then we've got some other things we want to touch on. So, uh, we tried to record this last week and we had terrible Wi-Fi, so we're back at it for take number 2. So Josh is here after a long day at work, and I want to say thank you, Josh, for joining me tonight. How are you, brother? Uh, long week. I'm just happy to be down to one more.

1:52Just have to get through 7 hours tomorrow, but Oh, so you're open tomorrow? Yeah, we're open 6 days a week. So, uh, if we're not working overtime, uh, we get a day off during the week. Mine's Wednesday. So nice. That's a good split though for the, for the week, right? You get it in the middle. That's not terrible. I kind of like that, right?

2:13That was a big brain pick by me. I was just like, well, I work 2 days, then I get a day off, and then I work 3 days and I get another day off. Yeah. It's not terrible. It's not terrible. I was done at the shop by 3:30 this afternoon. We kind of ran out of work. So, and my boss was perfectly fine with— I stuck around for a few minutes, changed the oil in my mom's Equinox, and then I'm like, oh, I got a recording to do tonight, so I might as well go home and like catch a short nap and then, and get that done.

2:42I've got 3 to do this weekend. So what's it like in Winnipeg today, Josh? Busy still? Busy still weather-wise. We're on the 3rd day of like rain showers all day long. Okay. Like it's, it's kind of, it's kind of a cloud will blow in, blow a bunch of rain in, then 45 seconds later it blows away. Yeah. Another, another, another cloud in a couple hours, same thing.

3:09It's just been on and off, a little bipolar. Uh-huh. So what We kind of touched on, you had, I won't say it's a classic car, but you kind of, we got talking last time. Not a classic, just, just an old, an old jalopy. What was your first car, Josh? The '93 Ford Tempo. Technically, it was an act. My first car was an '87 Crown Vic that my grandfather left me, but was not able to salvage it whatsoever.

3:41My mouse got into it, chewed through the main harness, just Yeah, kind of a total write-off at that point. So we just hauled her to the— hauled her to the junkyard. Yeah, but a '93 Tempo— we got joking last time about like it had been so long since I'd seen a Tempo, um, actually. And I got thinking between when I— when I worked at a shop here, one of the loaners that they still had in the fleet was a— was an old Tempo.

4:10And I can still remember like every time you would shift it, the shocks were so shot, the body was just like You know, um, but so are you— was the family a Ford guy then? Like, because you said, yeah, yeah, like Grandpa Dick, and then you wound up with a Tempo. Like, are you a Ford? There was no real brand loyalty in until we went to Toyota, okay, when my dad bought an '07 Tundra and then my mom got an '08 Sequoia, and then when I got my first big boy truck because after college I bought an '03 Ranger.

4:44So you can make the argument that we were a Ford family at one point because there were, there were a couple of Fords. And then before my parents got their, uh, Pontiac Montana when they had me and my brother, they had a Ford Explorer. So it's kind of hit or miss with the Fords in the family. Um, but, but yeah, my first big boy truck was a, uh 2014 Tacoma.

5:08That was my first adult purchase. Loved that thing until I moved to the city and I was driving, driving 40 minutes across the city and I had to, uh, fill up every 4 days and I was putting up $80 into my tank every 4 days and couldn't justify paying more in gas than I was in rent. Yeah, they're not— yeah, it's, it's tough, right?

5:29Like, I, I did that when I, when I went off to college. I was driving an old square body Chevy with a warmed over small block in it. And I can remember, and so I'll really date myself, this is back in 2000 and it was still crushing me, the price of gas back then. And gas was around a buck a liter, right?

5:50So for people up in our friends to the States complaining about your $4 gas, $4 a gallon. That's been— that's been Canada for a long, long time, right? Price of gas, we've been paying that. But I can remember like, you know, paying and it was again, it was, it was terrible on gas. It was not fuel efficient. It was a piece of shit truck when I think back to it now.

6:16But it was like the first— it was the first truck that I ever drove that had some power to it. And I was like, I was in love with that thing, even though when I bought it, I didn't realize how rotten it was. It had one of them like Really cheap paint job sprayed over it. And, you know, I remember dropping the tailgate, opening it up a few times, and then realizing the box was so rotten that the tailgate wouldn't stay on because— and I was like, shit, I just bought this thing like 6 months ago.

6:45And I was like, fuck. Well, and, you know, so I drove it around with a net and had no tailgate. So when you think about it, 2-wheel drive truck. Yeah. In the wintertime with no tailgate, what are you going to put in there for weight? Right. You kind of get a little creative with like, so I got stuck a lot in, in, you know, the winter because it just 2-wheel drive.

7:07It's funny you say that because I had to do the exact same thing with my Ranger, except it was, it was too light because all the weight's in the front. So I had to put, I had to put patio stones and cinder blocks in the back so I could have traction in the winter. Yeah, my brother had a Ranger. Same thing. We would load it with patio stones.

7:25And even with patio stones, it was still a 2-wheel drive truck. It was useless in the wintertime. It was terrible. You know, I hated that truck. I mean, he loved it, but I hated it. The day he brought it home from the dealer, I remember I'm like, you got what? I'm like, why didn't you get 4-wheel drive? Oh, it was like, you know, $10 more a month.

7:43I'm like, so it's But he didn't know he didn't need it in the winter. He'd never driven it. Everyone before that had been a Cavalier front-wheel drive. So he just thought, you know, I won't need a four-wheel. He just he was under the impression that four-wheel drive trucks were hard on gas. And I'm like, the old stuff that's in four-wheel drive all the time?

8:04Sure, right? The new stuff? No. But yeah, you live and learn. Not not a Ranger either because they're so light. Yeah. Well, and that's it. Like spring spring spring through the extra ten bucks. Like you're not even going to notice it on your gas bill the amount of times you. Need to actually switch it into 4x4, but boy is it nice to have.

8:22So what kind of lessons did you learn on this Tempo from the young Josh to now you're a licensed mechanic? What did it teach you? Uh, it, it, it— I credit it as the car that turned me into a mechanic because like it broke down habitually every 6 weeks. Yeah, like every 6 weeks I was fixing something on it. And like at that point in my life, I had no idea how to fix cars.

8:47I was, I was never a gearhead. Uh, when I got brought— when I was growing up, um, I was a hockey player. That's all I cared about growing up, playing hockey. Um, never learned— I took a shop class and they just kind of taught you how to change your oil and that was about it. And, uh, yeah, so once, once things started breaking on it, I quickly realized that I could not afford to send it to the garage to fix it.

9:16So it was Google and trial and error and try to fix stuff yourself. Like, I remember I had an overheating problem and I was watching, I'd watch the temp gauge and it would go all the way into the red and then the engine would start lugging and I had to pull over and let it cool down and get it home. So I went online and I Googled cars overheating, what, like, what are some symptoms?

9:42Uh, first, first thing was thermostat. So change the thermostat, change the rad cap, good to go. Nice. Yeah. And then, yeah, one of the other ones was, um, this is when I started getting a little bit more mechanically inclined because I got a job at the local Ford dealership when I was 18. So I started to learn on other cars as well as my own.

10:08I remember the wheel bearing seized on me coming home. I saw smoke coming from the tire, and small town, I was just like, I can get it home, I can get it home, I don't need to pull over here, I can get it home. I got it home and the rotor was red hot. Yeah. Uh, so I jacked it up and I got the wheel bearing out, um, that night, and then I came back in the morning because I I just, I didn't have the part.

10:38I just wanted to get it apart so when I could get the part, I could just put it back together. In the morning, the jack stand had gone through the pinch weld into the carpet. I don't mean to laugh at you. It's just, that's the, oh, the joys of Canadian rusted junk, right? It just goes through the pinch weld into the carpet.

11:00So yeah, I mean, I'm just like, do I even want to put the fucking knuckle back on? But we, uh, spray foamed it, put the wheel back on, drove her for another— drove her for another year, barely noticed it in the winter. Well, that's spray foam. Like, I mean, you know, it's hacky, but I mean, it— I've seen— I'd be lying if I said I hadn't seen a lot of cars come in with it in, you know, creative spots, right?

11:31Um, it's, uh It's amazing what people have been able to do with it. You can see YouTube channels where guys are literally like, you know, filling up holes in rockers and quarters and then like, you know, scraping it off smooth and like painting over. And I'm just like, wow, you know, I mean, I guess if you do what you have to do.

11:51So, but whatever happened to the truck? Oh, I sold it for a case of beer to my college roommate. He turned it into a smash car. He would just take it on his back 40 and smash it and drive over, drive over, uh, his little, uh, sand mounds and sideswiped a tree with it. Pretty good return on investment. I bought it for a grand, sold it for a case of beer.

12:21And what replaced it? Uh, I went to college for the next 2 years, so I didn't have a vehicle. Uh, my dad did loan me his '07 Tundra because he had upgraded and he kept the '07 for the business. It was a business truck. So, uh, when I was finishing up college, he let me take it from Sioux Lookout to London, Ontario to move myself back because our houseboat tourist business opening month, uh, is April-May.

12:47So all the prep work needs to get done in April. So my parents couldn't help come move me back, so he just sent me down there with that truck and I moved myself back 20 hours from London to Lookout. And you were going to college? Yeah, I went to Fanshawe College for Motive Power, which is just nice. It's the apprenticeship program in a 2-year course.

13:11Yeah, essentially. Yeah, yeah, good for you. Yeah, it's a good— it's a good course from what I hear. Like, it's supposed to be a good college. It's a really good course. They— the building was a year and a half old when I went. Like, I was one of the first classes first few classes to graduate from that program in the new building.

13:32It was Chevy and GM sponsored. We got all the wrecked insurance write-offs to practice on. The second year, they brought in and outfitted the whole shop with Snap-on. Each class, like each, so for transmission, engine, electrical, fuels, and, um, and suspension each had their own 7 boxes filled to the brim, foam, every tool you could ever need. Yeah, so the college spent some pretty hefty money on outfitting it.

14:15Very cool. Um, so what kind of You didn't— so you didn't come up in a traditional way of a gearhead, but what was one of the first— like, you talked about the thermostat, but what was one of the first repairs that you did where you really felt like, well, I could actually maybe see myself doing this as a career? When, uh, I had to change the CV axle because the, the C-clip had worn out and it kept popping out of my transmission.

14:39I remember I was driving to school one day, and it was when I was in grade 12, and I got out of my driveway and about uh, half a kilometer down the street, and then the car just stopped moving. I, I thought I blew the tranny. I thought like I was on the side of the road and not knowing what was going on, but I knew the engine was working because I could shut the engine off, turn back on, rev it, all that.

15:03And I was just like, I, I fucking grenaded the tranny. Great, awesome. Uh, so I got it towed to the high school, uh, Not by a tow truck, but by my dad and his Tundra. Small town, you don't pay for tow trucks. You just, you just get a tow strap and you get your old man to tow you down to the high school.

15:23And then got it up on the hoist and saw it was the CV axle that had popped out. So I got a new CV, uh, with a new clip because I asked the shop teacher, obviously, because I'm just like, do I need a new axle? He looked at the, um, the C-clip and he's like, the C-clip's worn out, you need to replace the axle.

15:39So I replaced the axle by myself, and then that was 2 weeks till high school graduation. And then I kind of was just like, I think I could make a career out of this. I, I— because I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I had a couple of ideas of potentially being a lawyer or maybe a police officer. I actually did a co-op at the police detachment my grade 12 year, and then on my last day of the co-op, I got pulled over in the Tempo because my windshield had frozen over because I was dealing with, uh, an intermittent non-working blower motor and it was the middle of winter.

16:17And the cop pulled me over and the cop knew me from the detachment because I'd worked at the detachment all semester, uh, for 4 hours a day. And he gave me a seatbelt ticket because I was leaning out the window with no seatbelt off trying to get this thing home. And then I realized, hey, I don't want to be this asshole. Yeah, so the cop thing pretty much went away that day.

16:39And then, uh, like I said, 2 weeks before graduation I had to change that CV axle in the Temple. And I'm just like, well, my dad's pushing me towards a trade. I don't know which trade I want to do, but this seems like it would be a good one. So 2 weeks ago, guidance counselor came and asked me, like, the next day not just out of pure coincidence, like, we're, we're doing the ceremony, we need to know like what your plan is to announce it when you cross the stage.

17:06I'm just like, oh well, I'm gonna go to Fanshawe and I'm gonna study how to be— to— for motor power. I hadn't applied yet, but that was the plan. Sorry to cut in everyone, but this is really important. As a tech, I've seen firsthand how frustrating it'd be to work in a shop bogged down by outdated systems and inefficiencies. It happens all the time, right?

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18:13Measure up by every measure with TechMetric. Hit the link in the show notes below for more. And, and you wound up at Fanshawe? I wound up at Fanshawe the, the next year. And yeah, I did that for 2 years. And then a funny little anecdote about that is when I told my mother that I was going to be a mechanic, she kind of looked at me and she's like, you'd make a terrible mechanic.

18:36I just looked at her, I'm like, excuse you? Yes, Mom. So, so yeah, that— the, the choice to be— the choice to be a mechanic was twofold. It was It was, I think this could be a lucrative career. I think I could do it. And it was also despite my mother. Right. Wow. So you graduate from Fanshawe and you wind up at a Ford dealer.

18:59Yeah, I wound back up at a Ford dealership. Um, that one was in Dryden and then typical, uh, young kid into a dealership, right? You're stuck on the lube rack. I, I knew that going in. You don't, you, You're not born an ATEC, right? Right. Uh, you gotta work your way up. So I applied for— they had an open job for lube tech.

19:21I applied for it, and, uh, because I went to college and I had a background in fixing cars, they took a chance on me, and I'm extremely grateful that they did. Um, so I stayed at that Ford dealership for just over 2 years. Okay, that was 2021 to 2020, or no, that was 2018 to 2020 because I left during, I left during the pandemic.

19:49Yeah, so yeah, uh, very typical, uh, of what you hear at a dealership though. Not that, you know, it was their fault entirely, but they just stuck me on a lube rack with no real training. And for most Most of the time I was there, I was by myself. There was no one else in the other, on the other bay. So I'm kind of just teaching myself and getting help when I can from the other master techs.

20:17But the master techs in that dealership were 200 feet away from me. Right. Yeah. 'Cause they were like, they had a dedicated quick lane that I was working in. There were, at times there was somebody beside me, but I'd say for a solid 8 months of my time there, or the 2 years, I was by myself. Yeah. And, and see, that quick lane thing has always made me laugh because I know like Ford, it was a big part of like every dealer had to have it, right?

20:46And it was called the quick lane and that was just the way it went. And I've heard of how they use it for inspections and then they would send the work into the back of the shop and all that kind of stuff. We, we tried it at the Chrysler dealer I was at. I mean, try— when they initially built the new facility, they had one in there.

21:03With a pit and everything else. And I can tell you that like 15 years later, they filled in that pit and they don't have one anymore because they realized like it was not like they were losing money on just doing an oil change, right? We talk all the time about a proper inspection of a car and yet, you know, you've got, we had 16 techs in the back that could be inspecting cars and we had this quick lane, which was everybody was all fast, fast in out.

21:30And cars were leaving with only an oil change. And then the advisor would come out and be like, hey, um, I need some brake fluid to add to this because the brake light's on. Well, if the brake light's on, it's got to go to the back of the shop. Like, somebody should be inspecting the brakes. No, no, they know they need brakes.

21:44They just don't want to do them here, uh, today. And, uh, we should be topping the brake up, the fluid up, because they want the light out. And I'm like, there's no point, man. Like, just get them, you know, sell the brake job. But again, you know, failure to convert, um, left us with, you know, that happened a lot. Or I can remember like it would pull in and, uh, the guy in the quick lube, he got pretty good training to understand that like a lot of them needed tie rod ends, right?

22:13Chryslers were bad for tie rods. So he learned to start pushing up and he would feel the tie rod and he'd like, hey, it's got a loose tie rod. Then it would come in the back. But eventually we would like, it would come in the back for a tie rod and you look the rest of the car over and it's like It needs way more than a tie rod.

22:26Like, it needs work. And it just— it snowballed to where it was causing people issues with like, you told me I'd be in and out in an hour. And, you know, it just looked like the old bait and switch, right? So thank God they finally filled it in and they don't use it anymore because it's just— I don't think dealers— I don't think that's the right way to do.

22:46And of course, people are going to blow up the comments and say, oh no, you got to offer it. No, you don't. No, you don't. You can have— you can have a dedicated quick lane, but you need to have your techs trained properly on how to do an inspection. Like when I first got there, I was next to a licensed tech, but he was off every Friday because of his back.

23:06So there was a day every week that I was by myself when I was just starting. So anytime that I thought something was wrong, I'd have to walk all the way across the shop and get a master to confirm. But just because he's confirming what I found doesn't, Am I missing other things? Like, am I not showing him the other things? Like, now granted, it was at a dealership, a lot of the trucks coming in were newer, so there wasn't a lot that could have been wrong.

23:34But I look back and I'm just like, how much did I actually miss? Because I wasn't trained properly, right? It's a balancing act for sure. You know, and that's the other thing we forget too. Like, everybody loves the idea of, you know, complete these big, full, you know, inspections, all this kind of stuff. You and I know from working in dealers, when there's a warranty, like, you're not necessarily supposed to be— uh, I know for— it was a long slippery kind of time at Chrysler where they were telling us, like, if the customer's not complaining about it, you can't rebuild that car under warranty, right?

24:09So you can't, like, oh, the power steering rack's got a little bit of seepage, you can't change it just because of that, because they, they knew the customer's not complaining about it. And yet you're using it to generate hours. Right. And, you know, how do you find that fine line where you're looking after the customer while the car is under warranty, but you're not like using warranty hours to float your whole business?

24:32That's what they didn't want happening. Right. And I mean, that's just stupid to me. Like they have enough money. If the customer needs the repair, get the friggin repair done, you know. And not that I know a lot of it because like my, my experience was somewhat limited. With only the 2 years at the Ford dealership, but similar, right? They, they had to go through a warranty approval process.

24:54You needed pictures, you needed like— they— if you didn't have— I know if you didn't have the throwaway bolts from the workshop manuals that Ford says are one use only, like caliper bracket bolts and anything, anything like that, right? And you don't have them in the quote, they'll deny the whole claim. Yeah, yeah, it's funny. It's like them, you know, Sherwood made that video.

25:24We were— you and I were talking about him before we got on the air, but he made that whole video about the Ford Transits, you know. And there's so many— when you do a brake job on one of them, there's so many bolts that are one-time use for a brake job, you know, in the caliper and the— all that stuff. People don't even read that.

25:38They don't even know. And it adds a substantial value or excuse me, substantial cost to the job when you actually do it right and quote it right. And I think that's, you know, it's one of them things where people say, oh, the dealer quoted me $1,000 to do a set of front brakes on my whatever. $200 of that could be bolts that are supposed to be replaced.

26:00Right. And then somebody goes, oh, you don't need to replace them bolts. I hate that shit. That just drives me You know, according to the manufacturer, you do, like, right? And, and it's so stupid to me because it's not like— and again, the comments are going to be awesome because everybody's gonna— that I have so many trolls that just like, you know, want to follow me and tell me that, you know, they hate the industry and they hate the dealership, but they wouldn't be like— they don't want to spend any more money than they have to on warranty.

26:32So it's like, when they built the damn thing If they could have got away with reusing the bolts, they would have, but they obviously can't. And that's why they tell you it's got to be replaced. So, you know, it's just, it's one of those things. I hate that. It's like, oh, the dealer wanted— yeah, they, they're just doing the job the way the book says.

26:51Now, does it get done at every dealer that way? No, it doesn't. You know, uh, because just because it's a dealer doesn't mean that immediately everybody has the same processes. And, you know, you'd think it'd be the most consistent within the industry, but it's not. And that's a whole other conversation we could have about why is that. It just goes back to, like my friend Brian says, right?

27:13Read the flipping manual. Nobody's reading the manual. Nobody knows that it's supposed to be done that way. You just take the bolt out, put it on your bench, you maybe wire wheel it, you put it back in. You know, there's a time to read the manual and there's a time to know that the manual is kind of not right in that circumstance, right?

27:32Because by the manual, you're supposed to remove the entire transaxle anytime you do a Toyota lower control arm on a V6. Yeah, I know, that's by the manual. It's 18 hours for a fucking control arm. Pull the engine to do the control arm. Well, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to remove the engine mounts, I'm going to jack the, jack the engine up, and then I have enough room to get that control arm out.

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28:58Tell them the Jada Mechanic sent you. Yeah, yeah, 100%. And that's, you know, that's, that's such a funny thing because it's like, you know, it shows you how sometimes the, the OEs, the engineers on that side don't necessarily know the best way to, to do a repair, right? They only know one way. No, they know how to assemble it. Yeah, they know how to— they know how to assemble it.

29:25And that's like, it might be a repair manual, but who's making the repair manual? The engineer. That's right. Um, that control arm thing is, is funny because we've heard it talked about forever, right? And then it becomes a situation of like, well, the book says it's supposed to be 18 Everybody can do it much faster than $18 because you don't have to follow the manual to do the job successfully.

29:48What do you then charge? And that's like, what do you, what do you think you should charge for that, Josh? Like, obviously not $18. Not, not $18, but it like, and then Chris on TikTok talks about this too. It's pay me for my time and experience rather than pay me how long it takes me to do the job. Because the first time I did that job, it didn't take me 2 hours.

30:10No, right, 2 hours for both arms. But I— it's hard to say because like, what, what is fair? Like, the first, the first time I did it, it took me, we'll say, 5. Yeah, by the time I figured— because I looked at the, I looked at the manual first and I said, there's no way I'm pulling the engine. Yeah, no. And then I, I just, I looked at it and I was able to figure it out.

30:37So it took me, you know, 5 hours of trial and error to do it. And then the next, the next time I do that job, I have it down to a system where I can do it in, you know, hour and a half to 2 hours down out the door aligned. And I think that's where, like, if you could make the argument that like everybody kind of consult your local dealer, ask them, you know, perfect world.

31:01If we were all friendly enough, you'd be able to call up like somebody in parts or somebody in the service drive that you've you know, dealt with before and say, what are you guys charging for this job? And if they say, you know, our guys never get more than 6 for that, then that's what you charge. You charge 6 because you're— and I think that is what we charge on something like a, like a RAV4 that needs that, needs both lower control arms.

31:26I think we charge 6 hours for both lower arms because most of the time that we're finding that we're doing it, we're torching them out. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in Winnipeg, you guys got some rust for sure. But, and that's why, you know, again, it goes back to that thing like my famous reel with Sherwood where everybody's like, you know, you can't do this and you can't do that.

31:49If we had a little more uniform, like we could share and people wouldn't be so blown out with the idea of going back to it. It's like, well, the dealer wanted to charge me $1,000 and I took it here and they reused all my bolts and it was $500 and they're my hero. Like, that's not what we want in this industry, as crazy as it sounds.

32:08You know, we want to be able to be like— all of us should be doing the job pretty similar in terms of quality and, and accuracy of doing the repair, right? It doesn't matter where you work, you should be doing it that way. Now, a repair procedure— yes, where the costs change is parts that you put on, labor rate. But I mean, ideally I would love to see like, you know, it always— guys were talking about diesel fuel systems and how, you know, some guys will do them for 40 hours and other guys do them for 18 and charge only 18.

32:45And the 18 is like half the book time, right? And it's like, what are you charging only 18 for? Well, because I can do it in that time. Well, you can do it in that time, but like that guy that's charging 40, he's not necessarily just putting 20 hours extra in his pocket. It sounds like that to the consumer, but the reality is, is like that other 20 might— he might be spending a lot more time doing quality control.

33:07He might be spending a lot more time doing, oh, I don't know, the actual proper alignment that's supposed to be done after the cab's off, right? He might be doing an ADAS calibration within that 40 hours to, you know, hypothetical stuff. Whereas the guy for doing it for 18, he's not, you know, and he looks like he's the, the, the hero. Because all these customers drive from out of state to come and get them to do this repair.

33:31But like, and if you want to do that, your business that way, that's fine, do it that way. But don't dare call somebody that's charging what the book says to charge in that regard. Um, because when you do, when you do go by the book, like, and you're able to, you know, bank a little goodwill, what, what happens with that guy that just does it at that 18-hour, 18-hour, 18-hour.

33:56He has no buffer if something goes wrong. That's right. Yeah. Right? Like you need to make a goodwill repair for a customer and you've been charging book time and you've been doing it under book time. You've just, you have that cushion for yourself. That's right. Right? You have that cushion to goodwill that part or goodwill that labor or whatever the circumstance, right?

34:17Yep. It's— that's where you're, you know, because everybody wants to say, well, it's all— it's just profit. But no, that's where that operating expense comes of being able— like Chris was saying, uh, you know, I can offer a 3-year warranty on a part that the dealership provides me with that only has a 1-year warranty. Well, we know that after year 2, if he has a, a claim, he's not getting any help from the dealer for that repair, obviously, because they only warranty the part for 1 year.

34:44But it's his profit That's able to take care of his customer, right? That's all, like you said, buffer. I really should get somebody on from Toyota at some point and ask them, like, how do you— what do you guys— like, how do you come up with a number? Because I'm sure there's guys out there that are still like, I want my 18 hours.

35:01Well, well, no, Mark posts his videos on how to do it, and apparently the guys get mad at him because he's fucking with their warranty times. Well, you know, Mark's not screwing with their warranty times because No, that's Toyota. That's Toyota. Yeah. Poor— when we talk about Mark, we're talking obviously people that maybe are new to the channel. We're talking about Toba Tech, the infamous world famous Mark Elliott, my good friend that, you know, he's been on a bunch of times.

35:29And last time when we were talking, Josh, he's got a Subaru that's kind of chewing his butt. Have you guys made any headway on that or? It hasn't been back, but he did introduce himself to the customer and said, hi, I'm married to your car. Right. Yeah, that's funny. So as far as I know, it's, it's taken care of. The, the phaser fixed the problem.

35:53But for Mark to have to go in, I think it was 3 or 4 times, take the front cover off and, and, you know, fuck around with it to that degree because of inadequate parts. Yup. Yeah. Now you told me you were kind of excited when, when you saw him walk into Maxim. And you've never met him before and you saw him walk in and you're like, holy crap, that's kind of— tell me, what was that like to meet, to meet him the first time and, and figure out that you were actually going to get to work with him?

36:24Well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't use the word surreal, but it was pretty fucking cool. Like, he, um, I knew of him through TikTok. I mean, like, Winnipeg's not that big a city. We— it's a small town city where everybody kind of knows everybody. Never met him, but he came up in my channel, in my, you know, feed a lot because we do the same thing.

36:44I don't— I was never a content creator before, but, um, just seeing how, uh, transparent he is in his videos made me really like the way he approaches how to repair vehicles, his knowledge base, and how he's always willing to continue to learn. And he's very adamant that he doesn't know everything, but he has a good attitude about wanting to learn the things that he doesn't know, right?

37:14And then he's very gracious on imparting wisdom to his apprentices. Not that we're— I'm signed up under him, but he's, he's a licensed tech in the, uh, garage where I work. So yeah, he's a super guy. And like, it's so funny, he's, he's A lot smarter than he gives himself credit for. Like, he is very, very, very good at this kind of stuff.

37:36And he's a very good all-the-way-around tech. Like, I mean, from bending exhaust to like, man, if you got any question about brakes, he knows it all. You know what I mean? Like, he did because he worked in a brake-heavy shop for so long. But like, man, he's like, he's getting good with a scope. Like the diag stuff, he's strong on that. Like, he's doing really good.

37:58I'm proud of the guy. If there's something that I need a set of eyes to look at, Because I'm not quite sure about it. Him or Brian are who I'm going to. It's like Brian— Brian's— I believe Brian's the actual guy that I'm under for my apprenticeship, which is hilarious because I'm a year older than him. Yeah, it sometimes happens that way though.

38:18Yeah, it really does. But like, yeah, there's been the last couple of days I've had some— because we're a custom exhaust shop, I've had some exhaust jobs where I'm looking at it and I don't like what I see So I go and consult Mark because he worked, uh, in an exhaust shop in BC for all those years, and I'll get his opinion on it.

38:38Like, what do you think we can do here? Do you think we can heat this up and bend it, or should we take it to the bender? And usually his answer is take it to the bender. Yeah. Um, so what, what made you decide to strike out away from the Ford dealer? Like, what, just not getting enough experience? It was a combination of things.

38:59It just like the straw that broke the camel's back for me was we kind of went under a management change, and the manager that hired me wasn't the manager that was continuing on. So on the first day that— and the, the manager that was taking over was a former tech, but he wasn't, uh, he wasn't from was from Southern Ontario and he'd kind of just relocated to the town that I was working, and he'd only been there— I don't even think he'd been there a year yet before this all happened.

39:33And it turned into quite the fiasco, uh, just for, you know, dealer— dealership politic reasons. But I went in there the first day that he was acting manager and like I asked him about the apprenticeship because like I was Under the old manager, I was promised an apprenticeship. I was just in the quick lane. I wasn't an apprentice yet. I hadn't received any kind of formal training other than the 2 years of school that I put myself through.

40:00Right. So when I went in there, he kind of had a talk with me. He's like, I don't really see you as anything other than an alignment tech. So I'm not gonna apprentice you for another year at the least. And that would've been 3 years that I'd been there. I just— and then he's like, what I want to happen is I know I need to get you into the shop, so I'm gonna hire a couple of lube guys and I want you to train them, and then we'll reevaluate this in about 3 months.

40:28And I just— and between the pandemic and, um, I had just gone through a breakup at the time, it was just done. I like— that was the last thing I need. That was the last thing I needed to hear to get me to stay. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. And then the next day I was calling garages all over the country because I was— I had kind of grown tired of, uh, living in the area that I was living in, in northwestern Ontario.

40:57So I called, uh, a Ford dealer in, um, uh, it was in Alberta. I'm just drawing a blank on the, uh, Fort McMurray. Okay, yeah, yeah, Fort Mac, because they were advertising, you know, 2 on, 2 off, great pay. Yeah, but it was, it was for a licensed tech. They didn't want a lube tech, so, uh, I couldn't, I couldn't swindle an apprenticeship out of them.

41:25I tried, but, um, and then I'd gotten a tip from my uncle who was a former fire chief with the city of Winnipeg that one of his buddies that owns Uh, local garage here called TransTech. They, they're heavy, heavy into transmission rebuilding, like they're transmission specialists. They're one of the biggest in the country, I believe. But he was looking for guys to hire because he had a help wanted sign in his window.

41:53So I called him and he hired me over the phone because he knew my uncle. Nice. So that's what got me to the city. It didn't work out there Unfortunately, uh, but I do credit him with taking a chance on a kid through a cell phone call. Yeah. Um, and getting me into the city. And then I worked at another place for about 4 years.

42:17Um, didn't end too well over there. Um, won't get into it, but then got, uh, hooked up with Marco through Indeed. 'Cause I needed a job and I applied to anything I was remotely qualified for. 'Cause at that time I had just gotten my, I'd finished level 2 in school. So I'd just gotten my, I was a level 3 by the province's standards.

42:41And then, yeah, I got hired on by Marco and I've been here for just over a year now and can adamantly say that I've never had a better boss than Marco. That is a guy that I will go through the wall for. Any day of the week. And I can honestly say that I do not want to work for anybody else like that.

43:03Like, he is— he's the exception to the rule of it's not, uh, it's not a career, it's a job, you know. I want— I want to stay here for the rest of my life. That's— that's how highly I hold Marco in regard. He's— he's a phenomenal human, phenomenal boss. He genuinely cares about his employees, which, and he appreciates every single one of his employees.

43:28So it just makes that, it makes it that much better for a working environment. Yeah. It's key, isn't it? Like it, you know, it's a lot of, a lot of words to say it's, it's culture and, you know, it's the buzz phrase, right? Oh, you gotta have culture. But a lot of people don't really know what that looks like until somebody that just gets it, just does it, right?

43:51And, and that's the thing, like, I, I got to really, you know, Marco and I had a great conversation, and, you know, Toba raved about him too, right? And I mean, and you were raving about him before we recorded, and I— but I was like, when him and I had a conversation, and it was like one of the longer ones, and I was just like, I felt so good because it was enough time to talk to him to get that— you felt that vibe.

44:15That he's a legit good guy who gets it, who appreciates his people. You know, he's not high on himself. He's not, oh, I'm the greatest shop owner in the province. He's just like, you know, I owe it all to my hard work and I owe it all to my people, right? It's the team that I have that allows me to have the success.

44:37And he talked about, you know, going into the new building and all that kind of stuff. Like, he's I talked to a lot of owners and a lot of the owners get it that I talked to, obviously, but you could feel it coming from him. It was pretty cool. So, well, it's just like, he's just so personable with his, with his people and, and with his customers.

44:57Like, he, he says that his customers aren't customers, they're friends with car, car repair needs. Yeah, right. Like, he's just, he's just a genuinely good human being. And I love them. Um, like the other day we were out for dinner because we're, uh, branching off into trying a little bit of in-house content creation with me, Toba, and him, where I'm gonna be doing a lot of the capturing and editing and coming up with ideas for videos, and I'll be using Mark for anything that needs, uh, you know, technical explaining.

45:32And then Mark always wants to be involved because it's his business. Obviously. Um, so we're gonna try— we're just starting that. That just happened this week. So on Tuesday, me and him went to Best Buy to buy some content equipment, and then he took me out for dinner. And, you know, he's just one of those bosses, right? Like, it's not— it's not, you know, enough that I, I'm offering to do this, uh, to try this for him, and we're gonna give it a try.

45:58Like, no, let's go get like some good equipment. And like, let's go out for dinner. Oh, I want to have a one-on-one with you. And then like, it got brought up that because my parents are still in my hometown, but they come in because we have family here. My mom's, uh, sister and brother both live here. He's like, when am I gonna meet your parents?

46:15Like, he's just one of those guys, right? Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool. That makes you feel good because, and you know, we forget sometimes we spend more hours waking hours every week with our coworkers than we do with our family. That's just the reality of it, right? And so, when you work for somebody that genuinely like you genuinely really enjoy their company, it makes it so much easier.

46:44I'm not in a job where it's like I'm getting all the challenges that I used to get or it's a small operation. So, it's cramped. It's tough. I have to suck my big fat gut in to get in on some of these cars when I pull them into the hoist. And between walking between the hoist and the wall, it's tight. Like, I can't— my one big drawer, my toolbox, my maximizer, like, I can't open it up all the way.

47:08It bumps the noise. But man, I have never worked for somebody that, like, is just so appreciative of me coming into work every day, you know what I mean? It's just— and that is— that's cool because You know, it's like you said, yeah, I'll run through a wall for these guys, you know what I mean? Like, because they— are they the highest paying shop in the area?

47:30No. Could I make more money somewhere else? Yes. But it does— it would come at the cost of my attitude and my health. It really would. Because I would not be a happy person if I was to go back and chase that other, you know, $5 more an hour in the shop, or, you know, it— which wouldn't even be that. But it's like in my area.

47:49So it's like, what, what is your— what's your, what's your mental health worth? Well, it's worth a lot. Exactly. Because my, my mental health at the last place I was at, bottom of the barrel. Hated coming into work every day. Just, just— and it was— it wasn't who they were as people, because I, on a personal level, I got along with my old bosses and they were, they were good guys enough.

48:13It's just how they were what kind of work culture they had cultivated in the shop and how they were running things. And, you know, when you're going into a place that just is like, oh, I do not want to be here, and that's your first thought at 8 in the morning, you're not setting yourself up for a good day or a good week or a good life, right?

48:33Yeah. And not that like I come to work with a hop, skip, and a jump in my step every morning, but like when I see Marco, like I, like I smile. Like Marco comes in, he says hi to everybody when he gets in in the morning, and, and like it it's just known that you're appreciated, which makes coming to work so much easier.

48:51Like, I just got off of 7 weeks straight of overtime because the shop's open 6 days a week and we're entire season. Yep. And I was not complaining one bit about it because I know on the other end I'm going to be taken care of, and I know I'm appreciated for my efforts. Yeah, it's That's it. It's that key, right? Because like, I've worked for guys that like at 5 o'clock, if you'd have come to me and asked me to work late for you, I'd have told you like, you must have hit your head and to think that I'm going to— because like, I didn't want to, it didn't matter.

49:29And, you know, and it's not that I was always a jerk. It's just there's, you know, after a little while working for somebody, whether they really appreciate you or not. And it's not about the pay, right? Like I can work late and they'll pay me. That's not a problem. But it's like when I know that the next day they don't even acknowledge it, say thank you, they don't care, they just got whatever they needed done out of me, that doesn't make me want to bend over backwards.

49:55And, you know, and we are, we're dealing with a new generation of people out there that it's not about the money. They don't care, right? It's like, you know, I need to be appreciated. And some of the old heads will say, oh, listen, you go to work and you get paid and that's it. You don't have to cushy-feely huggies, you know. Smooch on the cheek type shit.

50:16I'm not saying right or wrong. I'm not smart enough for that. But I do know that the young people younger than myself, your generation, it's more important to feel appreciated than it is to be in the absolute top pay. And to me, if you're in business, if you embrace that, think about it for a minute. All you got to do is be a nice person and you can save money on your payroll.

50:40Why wouldn't you just be a nice friggin person? You know, it costs more to train a new employee than it is to keep someone happy. That's right. It costs way more in turnover than it does in, you know, showing an appreciation to your employee and giving them an extra, you know, buck an hour, we'll say, or whatever the case. Or like, prime example with Marco is we just went to a Bomber game last night.

51:04For— he has, he has season seats through the shop, and he, and he takes people from work to the game, right? So like, he go— he goes around and he, he asks like, who wants to go to the Bomber game? Like, he tries to rotate through everyone and keep it fair, right? Yeah. But that's just like prime example of feeling appreciated is like— and that's what, like, I just worked all day without a break today because it was one of those days where just nothing was going right.

51:32I was fighting with everything, and I worked from 8 to 4 without taking a coffee, without taking lunch, anything, because there was, there was a guy waiting on a front-end rebuild, and then I was also on, uh, a warranty exhaust job at the same time that I was bouncing back and forth between. So like, and like, that's— would never do that at my old place.

51:54Yeah, but I'll do, I'll do it here to make sure that the cars get out, because again, being appreciated and showing that you're appreciated makes you want to work harder for your boss. Makes you want to make your boss more money. Yeah, we had a customer yesterday, a good friend of my owner. So he'd been in Kuwait for the last 18 months and he comes back home and of course he's got a Ford Edge sitting in the garage, hasn't run in 18 months, battery's stone dead, right?

52:22And he tries to boost it and of course it just won't go. It's— the battery's toast. Well, by the time he gets it towed in, it's like quarter to 12. Lunch is from 12 to 1. Most other places that I've worked, I— if you'd have tried to hand me that thing at quarter to 12 and say, and I know I'm not going to have it done, and then it's going to be— I would have told you like, well, you're gonna have to tell the customer to, you know, get effed because like I'm taking lunch from 12 to 1.

52:48The fact that my boss doesn't care if I take lunch half an hour maybe at 12:30, or he doesn't care if I take my lunch at 1 Okay, um, so like it— like I was saying, previous places my boss had asked— expected me to like work through my lunch to get that because the customer's waiting. I would have been like, well, that's a you problem, right?

53:13Like, who lets people at lunchtime? But I got it. I got the battery in this stupid— it's, you know, an Edge, so it's buried under the cowl. I had it done 12:30, and then I took my lunch, and he was so appreciative because Again, it's a friend of his, so they're sitting in the office. So I'm looking and it's like, okay, so the guy's waiting.

53:31I might as well get it done and not— because why keep him until, you know, after 1 when I can get him there? Because my boss appreciates it. If somebody didn't appreciate it, I'm going to be the hard one and I'm going to be like, nope, lunch is from 12 to 1. Because, you know, we've all worked for people that like they get militant about that.

53:52Work lunches from 12 to 1, like, but You know, they'll expect you to work 10 minutes into lunch to get something done if it's a waiter, the wrong part up or something like that. But heaven forbid, you know, you take lunch at, uh, 12:20 and you come back at 1:20 and they have a waiter waiting, and then you let them down because lunch is like— it's that double standard is what I'm trying to say, is what kills culture.

54:16It's that, you know, not being able to be flexible is what kills culture in a shop. So Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of what killed it at my last place. Like, not saying that I was perfect by any means. Like, they, they, they had to put up with some stuff from me. Um, but none of us are perfect. But I, I consider myself a good employee.

54:36I'm a hard worker. I always have been. Um, but what eventually just— it just starts withering away at you just the longer you're in that environment. Like, prime example, was like we would habitually stay, you know, 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes bringing in cars at the end of the night unpaid. You were expected to stay because on the flip side, in the summer, we— they would let us go at 4 o'clock.

55:04Well, then that got taken away for whatever reason because they wanted— they wanted to stay open and make the extra money, but we were still expected to, you know, stay and bring in cars. Yeah, right. So like, it just, it slowly, you know, withers away at a relationship. And then they, they, uh, had stated like, you're like a minimal effort type of guy.

55:27And I was just like, well, that's because you've turned me into somebody that is a clock puncher. Yeah, right. Like, I'm only like— they're, they're got to a point where I'm just like, I am 8 to 5 because that's all you pay me for. There's no, there's no opportunity to make any extra money. There's There's no bonus system. So it, it doesn't fucking matter to me anymore.

55:47Like, I'm 8 to 5, I put in my 8 hours and I'm done. And like, yeah, you'll get your 8 hours out of me, but I'm not, I'm not staying anymore. I'm not working through my lunch anymore. I'm like, I'm the definition of a clock puncher. And then eventually it just withered away where we couldn't— we, we didn't even have a good enough, good relation, good working relationship anymore.

56:12And then I got let go, and then I found Marco. So like, but again, the way Marco treats me like is indicative on how I perform at work, because like I go above and beyond. Like if there's like a waiter at lunch, like I'll work through lunch. And today, work 8 to 4 with no break just to get cars out. Um, what— anytime he needs me to come in or work late because we have 2 shifts, the 8 to 5, 9 to 6, days I stay late, I don't even, I don't even like say that I stayed late to get paid for them because I know like it's gonna even out in the end.

56:48Like, I'm, I'm not chasing, you know, oh wow, I worked an extra hour so you need to pay me an extra hour on my pay. No, I just do it because the way Marco treats me, I, I know it's gonna work out. Like, I'm not even concerned about it. It's gonna reciprocate. Yeah, it's, it's called being a leader. That's what a leader's supposed do, you know.

57:08That's, that's awesome. So did— maybe I had it wrong— are you— did you write your license yet? No, I have 2 more levels of schooling. I have all my hours. I'm going for my Level 3 in schooling of January, and then I have to wait a little bit, and then I can go back for my Level 4 and write my Red Seal.

57:26So I'm still coming up through the apprenticeship program. Um, it's supposed to be 4 years. I think I'm going on year 9. I, at this point, I just call myself the forever apprentice because you're never done learning in this trade. Like you could, you could take a guy that got his Red Seal 25 years ago and put him through the apprenticeship program again and be interesting to see if he could pass.

57:52Yeah. You just touched on something really, because again, I've had mine 20 years, right? I've had my, my license 20 years and I, I didn't get it in 4. I, I dragged my feet on it too because way back in the day I was trying to make less money, as crazy as that sounds, for a reason that's nobody's business. And, um, so it was like, you know, I, I didn't care.

58:15I just pumped out hours. But I was like, oh shit, if I get my license and level up, like my, you know. So, and it was funny because like, you know, they never said to me, oh, he's the apprentice. They knew by the time I had 3 years in, I was doing the advanced stuff in the shop. Nobody ever referred me to that, but it would drive my one service manager nuts.

58:35He's like, why don't you just go get your fucking license? Because do you know how much money you're leaving on the table? And I'm going, I'm more valuable to you this way, so don't you worry about it. Like, my money is my problem, not your problem. You're getting the work done. But are you actually leaving more money on the table? Because more license means more pay.

58:53More pay means more more taxes. Yes. Yeah. And that's without the— and it was better than it is now, let's just say. That's kind of why I was dragging my feet for a while. Like, I'm like, I'm making good money doing what I'm doing. Like, when I first got to Marco, I was just like, I might not even finish my ticket because I'm— because of how much extra money I was making through performance bonus and overtime.

59:20I was like, does it even make sense to get my license on paper. So I'm paying more in taxes and I'm taking home less, but you do want your license so you can be able to sign off on safeties and shit. So, and yeah, and I know you wanna stay there forever, but you know, the reality is, is like I tell every technician, you know, if you're gonna start in this trade, understand the apprenticeship sucks, but the end goal is to get that license because then It's so much easier to get hired anywhere.

59:51So much. You can go anywhere, which is the big grab. So, you know, stick it out and get it done. Uh, it sucks. I, man, I can remember. I can remember. And the classroom thing got really boring for me too. That was the hard part, right, was to go back. And it was like, because by then, once you get some time in the shop, they start teaching you fundamentals, but you're already like Oh, like, I already, I already know what to do here.

1:00:17Like, you know, it's got an EVAP leak. Yeah, you know, I know what to do, right? Or, or it's got an AC problem. Yeah, I know where that leak is. Like, and you just, you, you stop paying attention to the fundamentals. So I mean, I, I wish I'd have paid more attention, but I'll tell everybody that, like, you're not— you're never done learning.

1:00:36There's— if you just get your license or you get your job or you level up to whatever level of cert in the— in your job, dealer master, blah blah blah. If you think that that's all the freaking learning you have to do, you're crazy, because you're never done learning in this trade. And I think we were talking about it last Sunday, we're like, what?

1:00:55Like, our trade— our trade constantly changes. Like, every— like, vehicles are getting smarter and smarter and more complex every year. And then the pay scale between us and the other trades is an absolute joke compared to the changes in their trades, which are basically nonexistent. What's changed in plumbing in the last 50 years? Shit flows downhill. Payday's Friday. Yeah. And it's like, so we go and we put PEX lines and everything so they don't even have to learn how to solder anymore.

1:01:24Right. You just have to— it's like, I mean, and the old school guys are like, I don't, I don't use that stuff. Well, that's good. But everybody else is building the new houses. They're not running copper and steel pipe. They're running PVC pipe. Yeah, because it's, it's cheaper and probably harder to find guys that can still solder a decent connection, you know.

1:01:45And listen, I'm not saying they can't learn. I'm not trying to say that. But the way trends go determines the skills of the people that are, you know, doing the work. And the building trades change. But I mean, it's like, how do you make a 90-degree with 2 pieces of wood? Like, it's— that's, that's, you know, if any— if anything, it's getting easier for them because of the technology, because of the tools, right?

1:02:12And then we talk about a technician shortage where, uh, you know, the CEO of Ford said in the States they have somewhere between half a million and 3 quarters of a million empty bays across their dealerships. Well, why do you think that is? Are you making this trade glamorous to like, or appealing. No, you are not. You're pushing people that would want to do this trade because you— as much as I have a love-hate relationship for it, I genuinely do love what I do.

1:02:44I do too, right? Like, there are days that kick, kick your ass, but that's, that's just life, right? But it's, it's hard to put into words, like, what I would say to incentivize somebody to join this trade over a building trade, right? Like, are you gonna get paid as much? No. Do you have to buy, buy more in tools? Absolutely. Are you gonna work just as hard, if not harder?

1:03:14Yes. Do you have to be— I'm not saying we're smarter, but do you have to have a, like, a bigger knowledge base for this trade? Yes. You can see, do you get compensated for it compared, compared to those other building trades where, you know, a level 3 plumbing apprentice could be making $80 an hour? What's, what's high side for an automotive tech?

1:03:34$55? Yep. Yeah. And, you know, you see all this sometimes in the TikTok comments. Oh, it's because you guys aren't unionized. Well, firstly, there are contingencies of the, of the industry that are unionized. Guys, but it's never taken a hold. Secondly, it's so funny because the other tradespeople that laugh and brag about how much they get paid are some of the worst customers in the sense that they devalue what the mechanic does.

1:04:04Every guy I know that gets paid $100 or $80 an hour to be a plumber or electrician, he is always looking for the cheapest guy that he can find, or girl, to fix his truck, or he's hamfisting himself. Because he can't see the video. And he's getting parts from Rock Auto and he's fixing them with Maximum Tools from Canadian Tire. And listen, you know, I appreciate the hustle, but like I was, I was next door at our parts store yesterday, this week, and a guy walked in and I'm nosy, right?

1:04:34And I'm standing there and I'm just there to pick up some wiper blades because we don't have them in stock. So, and he comes in and he wants to buy 4 rotors and 2 sets of pads for a '22 Silverado. You know, he has to tell the guy Trail Boss Edition. I'm like, oh, here we go. Like, you're one of them, are you?

1:04:51But anyway, so he's like— I'm like, oh, '22, hey, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, okay, um, electronic parking brake. He goes, yep. I go, did you read the bulletin about that? And he goes, I'm not a tech, I'm just gonna do this myself. And I'm going, oh, you might want to Google what you're about to do here because I said there's a, you know, you can have a very good chance of, of hurting the ABS module if you don't know what you're doing.

1:05:14And he kind of looks at me and he goes, no, man, I'm gonna be fine. And I went, yeah, what the fuck would I know? And I just stood in line and it's like he's looking at me and I'm looking at him and it's like, dude, do you think I'm just trying to pick on you? Like, I'm genuinely trying to give you some warnings about— I'm not trying to sell you to come into my shop.

1:05:33I don't want you coming in my shop. Firstly, if you're going over and buying the parts, I don't want you in my shop to get them parts put on. Secondly, and I'm not just like shooting my mouth off because I don't think you should be fixing it yourself. I'm giving you a warning that if you don't know what you're doing, spend some time on Google to figure out that you might want to take the cap off the reservoir before you figure out how you're going to get the rotor, the calipers to push back, or you're going to be into a truck that is not going to drive right when it's done.

1:06:03And he, and he, he just was attitude. And I'm like, yeah, what the fuck would I know? Yeah, you really gotta have fun putting your brand new master cylinder ABS module. Yeah, because, because you, because you blew it. Drywall. Because you didn't look at the procedure. That's right, you're a drywall contractor, you're gonna do your own brake job, and I'm a mechanic at the shop next door.

1:06:23You definitely must be smarter than me. Like 25 years ago you could get away with that. Yes, right? And like, absolutely. And we were just talking about like the right to repair and, and how you know, the manufacturers are locking people out of repairing their own vehicle, just like how ag— like John Deere is with their tractors, right? Like, you can't even change an air filter on a John Deere anymore.

1:06:48So it's, it's imperative now that, you know, we get people into the industry. So We are— they're learning as this stuff is coming out. Yeah, right. Instead of being set in their ways like that drywall contractor. And you know what? For all I know, maybe, maybe he had tried to be a tech at one point and maybe he got burned out on what he was paying and buying tools.

1:07:20Maybe he was in the same situation as you. He got, he got stuck in a quick lube and nobody ever took a shot at him and he went to a different trade. You and I know, like you see Toba, same thing. If you want to talk about the technicians that are on social media complaining about the standards and the work conditions and stuff like that, that's one thing.

1:07:38The other part that we never even see a lot of the time because it's just— is the guys that like post in the, in the socials how they quit the industry, walked away from it and are doing something else and they got a home shop and they're like, you know, building some drift car or whatever and they think they're the greatest thing in the world because it's got, you know, shiny floors in the shop and they're the greatest.

1:08:01You know, and, and they're the ones that are really like, the industry needs to be listening to everybody, but the industry needs to be listening to them and why they got out. Now, a lot of them, I say all the time, they're washouts, but there's some talented guys that left the industry because they just were sick of the culture of the industry, right?

1:08:21Yeah. And, and that you, you hit it on the head there. Like, the culture does burn it out. How many creators on TikTok are— have left the industry because they got burnt out. Like, they— and they're skilled guys. They're not— they're not guys that just got washed out by the industry because they couldn't keep up, right? There's a lot of guys in mobile vans, and that— that's— that's another trend that I'm starting to see is like, uh, on the pay scale-wise, like, if you don't— if you're constantly trying, fighting to get paid, or you're on flat rate and you're not turning any hours, or your garage isn't giving you any hours You can make just

1:09:00as much or more as a mobile guy. Like, is it gonna be twice the headache? Yeah, especially around here. You think I wanna change brakes in -35? I, again, I shout out to my friend Lindsay. You know, she's Feminine Auto on TikTok. That girl goes out every day of the year in the snow, in the rain, everything, and is fixing stuff. You know, in a parking lot somewhere.

1:09:28And like, her and I talk quite a bit now. You know, I think she's great. I think she's a real good example of, you know, resilience and fortitude that this industry needs. And, you know, someday Lindsay's gonna share her story with me about why she took that route. But same thing, she just got tired of being held back. You know, didn't want to make— they didn't want to make her into a mechanic even though she had the skills.

1:09:52So they put her as a service writer. And then like, that's just like a meat grinder of a job, right? And until she's just like very adamant— when I see like problem customers dealing with our service advisors and like I witness the interaction because I'm up front for whatever reason, I'm just— I look at them, I'm just like, I couldn't do your job.

1:10:11There's a reason I'm in the back. Yeah. And you know, I get— I get— I catch a lot of flack because I'm hard on service writers, right? And now They— there's— I've had service writers that I'd run through the wall for them, you know what I mean? They were good, good at what they did. And they— and but then I've had other ones that were like, their job sucked and was hard because they sucked at their job, right?

1:10:37They did minimal and they had no backbone and no spine, and they let the customer walk all over them. And that's why the customer is going to continue to walk all over you. You have to be like in charge. It's your— you represent the business. It's your, you know, this, this nonsense of, you know, the customer's always right is, is crap. It's not.

1:10:57Customer's not always right. The customer's not the expert. We are the expert. And, you know, Marco understands all this, right? This is what I want to talk about with Marco. He gets it all, you know. You want his advice? No, there, there, there's time— there's times to, you know, to make a sale discount something. And there, and there's times where, like, you know, you're— we're not in the wrong whatsoever, or this is what needs to be done and you need to stick to your guns and not get walked over.

1:11:24It's, it's a funny job in the sense that a lot of people just off the street with no prior knowledge get into it. Yeah, right. Like, you think, you think of some of the service advisors that I've met over the years, they, they have— not that before I got into this, I had a background, but like, they're off the street with no background, maybe a background in sales, but that's it.

1:11:48But they're trying to, you know, be the point man to the customer and explain what this report means. Yeah, you have to be a little versed in our industry and, and have a little bit of a knowledge base on cars to explain, you know, why this repair needs to be done this way, why we're using this part. Why it costs this much, right?

1:12:09Like, but all the time you can't be at the core— at the counter at Tim Hortons last week and now somebody decides to make you a customer-facing service writer at the dealership because it's just across the parking lot and you thought that they had really good soft skills. That is horseshit and needs to stop because yes, soft skills are important and the right people that have— understand customer service will be successful service advisors.

1:12:35But if you don't have a flipping clue about how a car works, then I don't care how great you think your customer service skills are, you are not going to go out front and lead at first. You are going to have to learn this shit. And this is why I love seeing that there's more and more programs coming out that's for training for service providers.

1:12:55Now, here's the thing. You got to make your service writers take the training. Because technicians are— it's mandatory training at this point for technicians. It's just a given. You have to be training some way every day, every week, or every month in this industry if you're going to succeed as a technician. It's just a given. But the idea that these service writers just get by on the same handful of loyal customers and the same smile and the same BS, that, that crap's got to stop.

1:13:21They need to actually start learning and understanding why a bolt is a one-time use bolt. Like, every advisor I've ever talked to, if you said what's a torque-to-yield bolt and what's it normally mean, they'd have no flipping clue. Why can't you use that bolt? They'd have no idea, right? I had a, I had a service advisor that I— my recommendation was pads and rotors for a front, for a front brake concern, and I had noted that the pads still had a lot of life left But you need to— you don't pad slap nobody.

1:13:56Like, unless you're it, you're doing it on your own vehicle and you don't care that there's going to be a squeak. In a professional automotive repair facility, you do a proper brake job. That's right. I had a, I had a, I had a service advisor that sold just rotors because the, because the pads were still good. Yeah. And then I I get the work order, I was just like, why are there no pads on here?

1:14:21He's like, well, the customer saw in the report that the pads still had a lot of life because I try to be transparent in my reports. Like, they're, they're digi— they're digital. They can— if the customer has any knowledge base whatsoever, they can see that those pads have 8 mil. Yeah, right. And then the, the service advisor— and it wasn't here was at one of my old jobs.

1:14:45Um, he was, he was like, well, the customer didn't want to pay for pads because they, you know, the pads were still good. I was just like, it doesn't matter. We, we need to be doing a proper brake repair. You need pads and rotors because now those pads have high and low spots from the old rotors. That's right. Yep. Did you, did you at least sell them with no warranty?

1:15:09On noise or any— like, I, I get it, you might not have the money for the pads. Yeah, and if you want to take that chance and you want to drive with a squeak or drive with a squeal, by God, go with God. I mean, I do it. I, I know what I can get away with on my car. My car is— it's never in, in mechanically pristine condition.

1:15:35I, I— it's a daily driver. I know what it needs to be fixed when it needs to be fixed. But the, the customer— you, in a professional repair facility, you should not be pad slapping. And, and see, the advisor, because they don't know the consequences of doing it a different way, they can't vocalize. And that's where the training comes in. Like, if, if the customer wants to draw a hard line and goes like, listen, I got a pulsation and I want the pulsation gone, and, and, you know, the pulsation is there Because I pad slapped it 3 months ago because I was cheaping out.

1:16:10And now I, you know, somebody warned me then and I didn't listen, and now I got a pulsation code overheated. It's like, you know, I want rotors. And you can play the game all you want, and I'm by no means am I telling people, you know, let that customer go, kick them out the door, because it's whatever. There's a customer for everybody.

1:16:27But the reality is, if the service writer doesn't know the consequences of doing it when we break policy, when we break process, if they don't know the consequences, they can't vocalize that to the customer. And then everybody comes back and the customer goes, well, nobody told me it would do this. Yeah, and then you're eating a complete brake job. That's right. Then I'm having to go in and I'm putting— I'm beating up my vendor for another set of rotors.

1:16:52I'm buying pads and putting it on and I'm eating the labor. Maybe I'm punishing the tech. From an incentivized pay, all because the advisor doesn't have a flipping clue about how a proper brake job is done and why we have to do it that way. I'm sorry, there's where some of my jaded attitude towards advisors come from. Why? Because we took somebody that had really great customer service skills and didn't know a flipping thing about a car job and put them at that counter, and then we left them just like you when you started out.

1:17:24We left them to sink or swim by themselves. That's why training is the— training's the secret sauce in this industry. I hate to say it. And the advisors, you're like, you guys and gals, you got a free pass for too long. Buckle in, it's going to get worse. You're going to have to learn a lot more of this stuff because the, the DVI is going to do wonderful things for showing customers things, but at the same time, the customer is going to have questions.

1:17:51And the questions have to be answered by the technician to the customer because you don't know. If you don't know, yes, ask your flipping technician so that we don't look like a fool by saying untruths. And, but here's the reality. Like every time you have to ask the technician about a certain subject matter, as an advisor, you should be learning that subject matter going forward.

1:18:15That night, you should start to do your homework and understand. Don't just think you're going to get it through osmosis or the next time you'll know better. The next time might not be a next time. Right, we might have pissed that customer off. We don't have it next time. There's my little rant for that. Now, you touched on earlier Sherwood talking about— from Royalty Auto Service, shout out to Sherwood and Sherwood, uh, good friends of the podcast, former guests, um, about their video that they'd done.

1:18:40And you kind of wanted to talk about that, the right to repair and, and Trump and Roger Penske, you know, talking about that. What do you think about all that? I think it is absolute horseshit that those vehicle manufacturers are meeting with the President of the United States saying that they don't want the owners of the vehicle— because you're buying it, it is your property— to be able to repair their own shit.

1:19:07Yeah, that to me is complete bullshit. And the way they're justifying it is saying, well, it's a security concern if any— if a hacker was able to bypass the autonomous security for any of these gateways and gain control of the vehicle, that's a huge security risk. They can take control and there could be deaths. There could be scenes out of Fast and Furious 8 where they're hijacking cars and driving them out of parkades.

1:19:32But the reality is, is they should not be locking you out of anything that the common man can repair. Why are they locking you out of brake modules? Why are they making electronic parking brakes secure gateways so that only their software can get in to retract that brake so you can do a brake job? And you can, you can talk justification all you want.

1:20:00It comes down to planned obsolescence. They don't want anybody fixing their own shit because they want to sell you a new truck every 3 years. And here's the reality, if they know that their culture sucks at the dealer And they know that they can't even get as much of the revenue done. Like, I think in that video Sherwood was talking about they're down from whatever it was Penske said.

1:20:21There's something they're down. They're down from— I remember they were— they dealerships used to be 33%. They're making 28, 29 now of all repairs across the industry. So they're down 4 points. Right. Which 4 points is several billion dollars probably across the industry, right? So I can understand. But isn't it pathetic that they have to go to the government, the president, and say like, we want it locked out instead of fixing the flipping culture in their, in their dealerships that would allow some of the customers would get better service and in turn would start to fill up some of the bays and some of the technicians may stay there.

1:21:02But it's, it's so funny to me that Jim Farley's video Man, it's got some wheels on it, man. It's got some legs because people are still talking about it, you know, going on 6 months later. And the reality is every OE is facing the same problem. It's just he went up there and, and talked about it. Now he talked about it kind of like as if it's not our fault, we don't understand why.

1:21:26You flipping know exactly why. You, you know exactly why you chased— how you chased probably half those empty bays out because you weren't paying them. You were slashing their warranty times. You're making so the technician never ate, but everybody else in that dealership ate. There's a line from one of my favorite movies with Matt Damon and Christian Bale about the 40 Hours Le Mans when Ford made their push to beat Ferrari.

1:21:57I'm drawing a blank on the movie, but Uh, Carroll Shelby, who Matt Damon plays in that movie, says to, uh, Henry Ford II, I was just sitting in your, your lobby waiting for this meeting, and I saw that red folder that's on your desk now get passed through 11 sets of hands, or something like that. And that's how, how it works at a dealership too.

1:22:19That repair order goes through, you know, 4 or 5 sets of hands, and all those hands have to get paid. Yet the guy that's doing the actual work is eating probably the least amount. Yeah, who has the most investment in tools, the most investment in training, and the— if you want to make the argument for it, is the one with the God-given skill set to get the repair done.

1:22:46Mhm. You know, like, you can have the, the nicest, sweetest service writer, uh, receptionist, the coffee can be delicious, You know, shuttle bus drivers, fantastic. If the car doesn't get fixed, they're still not coming back for the coffee. And this is what everybody— and it's not just a dealer thing, the whole industry has got to realize that you can paint it and shine it and have great coffee.

1:23:16And if you cannot fix the car for the customer in the way that it's expected to be done, It's all a waste of money. You're not gonna have— they're going somewhere else. It only, it only takes one burnt bridge for them to never come back. And it could be, it could be as— it could be as something as simple as, you know, the, the tech leaving, not putting a torque reminder sticker in, not putting an oil change, not putting an oil change sticker in.

1:23:46Just, it, it's the simplest things. And that's where procedure comes into place. And that's where training your techs come into place and not burning the good techs out of the industry because you're not paying them. Yeah, that's where that idea— like, and I, I love my brother Lucas for this, and, and, you know, other shops are doing the same thing— where you have that quality control person where— so it's like, you know, you can get really mad at the technician because they forgot to put the oil change sticker in the window.

1:24:16But if you have a quality control person that washes the car or vacuums the car, road tests the car, looks at the car, wipes the handprints, whatever, the service advisor, I don't care, somebody does it and they see that the sticker's not there. It's bad enough the sticker got that forgotten, but it's like you said, if 11 other hands touch it and, and 11 other hands didn't catch the sticker missing, what good is it in giving anybody crap?

1:24:43Because it just becomes this, you know, everybody's pointing across the, you know, uh, well, I didn't do it. Well, I'm not getting paid to do it. Well, I, well, I didn't see it, but yeah. And that's where you can, you know, the advisor can grumble and, and begrudgingly stick the sticker in it because that's what the customer is. You're the forward-facing for the customer, you, not the technician.

1:25:07And then go have a talk with the advisor or excuse me, the technician and say, hey, I need you to remember to put those stickers in. Yeah. And that, that's all, that's all it is. It's just a simple conversation, simple reminder. Because, you know, at the dealership level, how many bays does that tech have, right? Like, it's just like, it's not that he doesn't know.

1:25:27It might, it might— he might have been across the shop doing something else and the car porter saw that the, the hood was closed, so he took it. Yes, right? Like That's, that's where communication and proper procedures come into play. And then that technician might've been just like you today, just slammed, trying to get everything done. And you forgot an oil change sticker or you forgot to reset the oil life monitor in the car.

1:25:51Right. That's where that kind of stuff is. Like, you know, everybody wants to write up somebody anymore or discipline them or, you know, I love that, you know, be slow to hire and quick to fire. What a fucking stupid thing to say. Like, here's the reality, right? If they're, if they're dropping the ball on stuff, you either didn't hire the talent or you're working them at a level that quality is going to be sacrificed.

1:26:18And if you're good with it, be good with it and take the money from working them like that and enjoy it. But if you're not good with it, look at the process as to why this got to happen. Like, why did the sticker get missed? Oh man, I was, you know, like I was about to write the sticker and then the advisor came and asked me about this and like the wrong part showed up late.

1:26:40So I worked through my lunch and I just forgot, you know, the porter drove it out. I didn't get a sticker on it. Okay, well, thank you for— the right thing to say is, well, thank you for getting all that other shit done. Not like, okay, I need you to improve on that. Yeah. Like you're gonna focus on the one thing I did wrong rather than the, 9 things.

1:27:00The 9 things I did right. Like, like, I got that— I got that truck out and under book time, but I forgot the sticker, so you're gonna reprimand me because of the sticker? It's just like, hey Josh, you forgot the sticker. Okay, next time double-check before, right? And that's where— that's where training comes in. And like, I'm adamant that not everybody's born an A-tech.

1:27:21You have to be made into an A-tech. You got to be trained into an A-tech. Where that, where that process leads everybody is different. How me and Brian learned, because again, I know I've known Brian for a year and I'm amazed at how he's become the level of tech that he is, because him and Mark are on very similar levels. Like, I, I wouldn't— I'm not even gonna discredit one of them by saying one is better than the other because they're both just very good techs.

1:27:48They're good A-techs that, like, you give them a work order with a problem that is out of the scope of an apprentice, they figure it out and get it done. And they're, and they're very good about their, uh, how they do it and how, how their thought process and procedure on getting the right repair done works. But he's self-taught. Yeah, he's taught him.

1:28:11He's like— and I'm not a person that learns through self-teaching. I learned by watching and doing and trial and error and, and, you know, making mistakes, which in this industry you're going to fucking make mistakes. You're going to make mistakes every day. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, 100%. You know, it's— you're going to— what am I thinking of? You know, you're going to put an engine in and forget to plug in the AC compressor, right?

1:28:42Or you're going to put an engine in and forget to like We're gonna put the wipers on and forget to tighten the nut that last quarter turn so the wipers don't, you know, and somebody's gonna come back, oh, I just had an engine done and I don't understand why my wipers don't work. Oh, 'cause you didn't realize that we had the whole wiper cowl out of there and the arms off and all that jazz.

1:29:00And like, and I get it, but this is that thing somebody was asking the other day and it's like, it goes back to our 18 and 40 hours. If somebody wants to charge 40, If every car that they do, they charge $40 for and not one little thing gets missed and a quality control gets done, then there might be a really good argument to argue that they really should be charged out at $40, right?

1:29:25Sure. When you're doing them for $18 and there's no quality control— there's no quality control, right? It's just, it's, I can do it in 18 hours and I'm on to the next one. Yeah. And that's that flat rate mentality, right? Oh, Jeff's flat rate again. But that's that mentality. Like, we had one today. We had a Chevy Cruze in, 2018, was at another shop within the company, uh, and the other shop addressed an oil leak and they changed the valve cover.

1:29:53Well, it drove an hour from where they are down to here for a customer to look at it, which he was maybe going to buy this Cruze. Well, I get it up in the air and it's like the splash shield on the bottom is dragging on the ground, making all kinds of god-awful noise. And it's like, okay, so I got to remove the splash shield or reattach it in some way.

1:30:12That's really good quality control. And then I get it up and I put it in the air and I'm like, holy flip, this thing's covered in oil. Yeah, excuse me. And I'm like, what's the history on this? Well, somebody just put a valve cover on it. Well, then you go, okay, so what's— I don't know, that's a completely different shop, don't know their processes.

1:30:31Did they shampoo it off? So there's me now with a bunch of degreaser degreasing the whole engine bay because it's covered. The whole bottom just covered, and pressure washing it off took me a good hour to get it clean. Well, we go drive it now this morning, we put 50 clicks on it, it's not the valve cover. It never was the valve cover.

1:30:50It's a turbo feed pipe that's going down from the, you know, upside of the engine behind the cat, behind the compressor, down to the oil cooler. It's that pipe somewhere is leaking. Like, it was never the valve cover, but because some couldn't even be flipping bothered to check it as to before they did their dye egg or do quality control after. It added so much time onto my side of it that it's just like, it just kills my attitude to even want to do the job, you know what I mean?

1:31:21I'm just like so frustrated. And, and that's where, you know, proper procedure can come in handy because here, and this is the only place that I've ever I've ever done this, if we spot an oil leak, we recommend an engine shampoo and dye. Yeah. Every other place I've worked, it's pick the highest point. That's right. What's the most— is it— yeah, yeah.

1:31:44Does it look like it's coming from the valve cover? Is there— is it— is it high enough to be coming from the valve cover, or is it more off to the timing COVID side? And then you just— you kind of just pick where it looks like it's leaking from, and that— and shit like that happens, right? Where it's— that's not where the leak was.

1:31:58So we, before we even repair an oil leak, we shampoo, add dye, have the customer come back 2 weeks later, check where the dye is. There's your leak. There's the confirmation. Proper procedure, proper repair procedure. This is such a big leak that literally like under pressure, it's spraying the oil out of that fitting over to the top of the transmission. Like top of the tranny's getting soaked with engine oil.

1:32:25I have never seen— like, for the valve cover to do that, you'd look for a hole in the valve cover. Not like— there's just not that pressure there. But again, it comes back to fundamentals. People don't have them and they go, oh, it's a Chevy Cruze, it probably needs a valve cover. Hey, it probably does need a valve cover, right? Because it's probably a PCV issue.

1:32:43It's number 3. It need— it needs the valve cover with the PCV. But it isn't— that's not where the oil is coming from. Right? So it just, it drives me nuts because it added so much time to me before I can even— like, I'm just supposed to be checking the car to see if we can safety it. I can't safety until I spend 2 hours investigating an oil leak that somebody else already got paid to do that they didn't do anything.

1:33:06That's the part of this industry. It goes back— here's Jeff on the soapbox again. Here it goes. I agree with the flat rate thing because it, it, it breeds the culture of I'm not getting paid for it, fuck it. This is what I think it is. I need my hours. I'm not going to— I'm not going to take the time if I'm not getting paid for a diag.

1:33:25And it's not a flat rate thing. It's an incentivized thing. If I have to spend 2 hours that somebody spent 2 hours on a repair that wasn't— didn't— wasn't successful, I'm not going to say it wasn't necessary. Don't know. But it wasn't successful. Then that 2 hours wasted, it's not about pay. It's about 2 hours that somebody else has to get credit for.

1:33:48Credit is the thing. And again, it comes back to culture in this industry. Why is— why are so many technicians so bent on pay? Because it's the only recognition we get. Thank us, some of us, right? You don't appreciate us. Well, damn right then we're going to be all about them Benjamins, people. We're all going to be at that pay. And it may be, just maybe, people, if you fix your culture, everybody, every technician out there won't seem so greedy, won't seem like they're always trying to nickel and dime you for every minute that they worked.

1:34:19Crazy concept. But, you know, that maybe is what— and that's gonna be the fix. It's not a flat rate thing. It's an acknowledgement of superior skill, superior care, more give a fuck. There's my language again. And that's just the way it's gonna be. And if you're not acknowledging those people that have that, they ain't gonna stay in the industry. No, they're gonna— they're going to go into business for themselves.

1:34:47Yes, because you can arguably make more money doing it yourself. Like, like, the, the headache to, you know, reward ratio may be more askew into the headache territory because you're doing it all on your own and you don't have those built-in fail-safes where you— with the garage, where you have that support system in place through, you know, service advisor management, all that.

1:35:11But if you're not taking care of the guy that's actually doing the work and actually sacrificing his body, because this fucking trade is not easy on anyone's body, right? How are you feeling? You're like— are you 30 yet? I'm turning 30 in November, and my physiotherapist says I have the back of a 64-year-old arthritic man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, I, I'm hard-ish on my body.

1:35:37Like, I try to take care of it. I, I still uh, workout. I'm training for a marathon that I'm running next Sunday. So like, on top of what I put my body through, you know, anywhere from 40 to 50 hours a week, I'm, I'm also training for a marathon. But there's guys that, you know, they're out of this industry at 40 because their body can't take it anymore.

1:36:02They've, they've, they've got arthritis, they've twisted their— they've tore their back, they whatever it is, and it always comes off. It's never— it's never you tear your back because you're, you know, planked over an engine for 8 hours and you're doing— you're doing whatever, right? Like you're changing plugs on a— on a Chevy and you're planked over the engine trying to get the plug in at the back cylinder.

1:36:25No, it's tearing your back from lifting up a tire. Yeah, it's— it's— it's something stupidly simple, and then that's your career. And I've talked to a lot of mechanics that had injuries at work, and I'll ask them, how did you feel that morning? And they're like, I was a little sorer than normal. Had to— I had to go in. We were swamped.

1:36:46It was busy. And, you know, I'm not trying to tell everybody, you know, when you feel like that, don't go in. But that's your body telling you, hey, like, I'm on the— I'm right on the cusp of either I'm going to really get hurt Or I need to take some time to recuperate. And, you know, it's that post that somebody made where they showed the young man carrying 4 tires out and, oh, let's look at that hustle.

1:37:13Like, I love that place. You know, they— and I'm like, that poor kid is carrying 4 tires out because he's flat rated trying to hit his bonus. And I'm thinking there's probably 11 other sets of hands that that work order went through. That could have helped him carry the tires out to the machine or could have had the tires waiting at the machine when he pulled the car in to do the job.

1:37:36Everybody thinks that, like, look at my tech, how he hustles, how he, he stooped over crippled up like a pack mule. That's hustle. That's not flipping hustle. Let's cut the shit. What's hustle is look at that technician that's able to go out there and like Knock that job out labor-wise, kill the time, right? It leaves, quality control is done, satisfied, hustle. He walks out there with a scan tool and he comes back in in 15 minutes and he knows what's wrong with the car.

1:38:06That's hustle. Breaking yourself physically to try and race the clock on a mundane, basic, basic, undervalued, undercharged-for job, that's not hustle. That's being foolish and it's being short-lived in this industry. I have an arm that lift higher than this, right? I'm 50 years old. Do I regret? I don't have one regret about this industry. It's been very good for me. But there are lots of days that I, I got my back a little tweaked because when I woke up, it was extra stiff and it was telling me, Jeff, don't go to work that day and lift tires onto a Titan.

1:38:47Well, that day you're lifting tires onto a Titan. Or a Ram or Chevy or whatever. So when I see all these comments online about the guys that have got those tire lifters now and they go, oh my God, like, I can't imagine that you guys have soft hands and you bunch of wusses. Man, shut up. We're trying to build technicians that are going to last into their 50s and be healthy.

1:39:12And you know what? One of the greatest skills you can have as a technician is availability and longevity. Are you, are you like, if you're a skilled tech but you, but you're out of the industry when you're 35 because you were turning 100-hour weeks for 20 years straight. Yeah. Who's that benefit in the long run? Not you, not you, not your family.

1:39:34No. Where'd all that money go? Yeah. Snap-on Tools. Yeah. Right. And, and that we're gonna have to have you back, Josh, because like there's so much more to talk about, but like Now, Toba didn't work with you when he came to Asta the first time, but when he came to Asta the first time, he hit up Harbor Freight Tools. And, um, you know, I don't know when that— when Toba's gonna come back to Asta.

1:40:01Uh, I don't know if it's gonna be this year. It might be, you know, it might happen in 2027. I'm thinking when I talked to him last. But have you ever had a chance to hit Harbor Freight? I've never had a chance to hit Harbor Freight, but we have a comparison called Princess Auto. Yeah, yeah, I have Princess Auto tools in my toolbox.

1:40:21Is it a very small percentage? Yes. I learned very quickly, um, that what I was willing to do in my youth was plunge myself into depth to gain that extra 2 degrees of swing arc to make that job a little bit easier on my body. Because I, I, when I first got in the industry, I bought Canadian Tire tools And I bought a tool brand from my local, uh, my friend's parents owned the local auto parts store in my hometown.

1:40:52They carried a brand called Westward. It was out of Calgary, I think. And I bought those tools, and they're good for, you know, the average Joe who's doing it on the weekend. But that's the argument— you're a professional mechanic, you need professional-grade tools where it makes sense. Like, can you get away with using, you know, just anything? Absolutely. Mark doesn't have an entire box full of Snap-on.

1:41:14He's got Olsa. He's got got— he's got, um, Princess Auto, he's got Canadian Tire. It's— you got to pick and choose your battles where it comes in handy. Like, I personally, when I bought my Snap-on ball joint press, I was doing 3 sets of ball joints on Chevy pickups a week. It just made sense for me to spend that $1,000 and have it so I'm, I'm in and out with a ball joint in 35 seconds.

1:41:41It's a nice kit. Yeah, it's a great kit. I love that kit. I didn't break down and buy it yet, but, you know, because I don't, I don't do a lot of ball joints anymore, but I did. But I mean, when we used to do Chrysler ball joints, you didn't even use a press. Like, you just did that old method of like putting the jack stand underneath it.

1:42:00You pounded it out. Yeah. Hammer it in. And I probably shouldn't have admitted that because now the trolls will come after me and be like, well, that's why I'm You know, um, closing thoughts, Josh. What do you think of like, what's— so you're gonna run a marathon next week. Yep. And then you're going to school in July. Is that what you said?

1:42:21January, January next year. So it's June. So 6 months. Are you excited to go back? I am excited to go back because it's going to be the next level of schooling where I really focus on diet, which is something that I am lacking. Yeah, and that's— I, I feel like a lot of people don't get that diag training in the shop. Like, you need to get that base in school, and then you need to be getting dispatched those work orders to improve upon your abilities and skills.

1:42:51Because if you're never getting those work orders, you're never getting that dispatch, it just goes away. Like, I, I was having that conversation with Marco at dinner because, like, he was asking me, like, you do a lot of a little bit of everything in the shop. I was just like, I do a lot of a little bit of everything, but not really any hardcore diag work with a scan tool like Mark and Brian do.

1:43:13And I, I've taken classes on it, but if you don't get that practical application where you're actually troubleshooting, it just goes to the back of your mind and it gets forgotten about. Or at least it does with me. I, I— but I would assume that's— it has to be with everybody else. That's, that's one of the only skills that you— skills are learned through repetition.

1:43:34Yeah, I'll tell you what, what the, what the school fails to do, and even failure might not be the right word, is, is what makes you good at diag is a process. What makes you good at, in, in this mechanic period, is having a process. But what makes you good at a diag is having a process of being able to, you know, and, and it's really hard to teach a classroom of kids or young people a process because it should be somewhat tailored to your own style of how you learn and how you think and all that kind of stuff.

1:44:06Um, my good friend Brian is, is, you know, they're trying to build a class that teaches process, and it's the hardest thing he's ever tried to come up with. Because once you do it long enough, Josh, it becomes— a lot of it is just intuition and understanding, and, and it's, it's, it's very fluid and flexible. But that'll be the key for you, is when you come out of there, is you, you've got the fundamentals of understanding Okay, this is how an oxygen sensor works, and this is how, you know, a fuel injector is supposed to maybe look like on a scope.

1:44:36That's all great information to have, but your process tells you, helps you know whether I even need to look at this injector on a scope or whether I need to look at the fuel pump, right? Or do I look at the ignition, or do I look at— you can look at a whole bunch of stuff, and it's not nothing wrong with that, but man, like, if, if you start just, you know, looking at things that don't need to be looked at, it becomes very hard to always justify the time in it.

1:45:04Now, we give all kinds of, you know, everybody's got it all, you know, they want to give the customer all kinds of evidence. They want to give the customer all kinds of results from testing results. The customer, some customers appreciate that, but a lot of them don't. You're speaking a different language to them. Goes right over their heads. They have— yeah, they just want to know, are you sure that that's what's going to fix it?

1:45:30Because it sounds expensive. And what's the warranty? What's it cost? And when can I have my car back? So, you know, I don't have a problem if somebody goes out there and they hit the switch and the starter doesn't start and they rap on it with a hammer and it starts. Diag's done. I don't have a problem them doing that. I really don't.

1:45:49And I don't want them to be like, if you're an owner and you think that like, oh, I don't want to pay my tech his diag time for that, pay the flipping diag time because that's part of the process that they've developed and it worked and it's successfully. I don't care if you want to show the customer like some screenshot of a volt drop, they don't care, right?

1:46:10You condemn the starter. That's what it's for, that the diag is successful, sell the job, move on. And, and because it's— that goes back to the buffer. If you get an hour allotted and you do that in 15 minutes, that's 45 minutes I put in my pocket. The next one that takes me an hour and a half and I had an hour sold, if you let me keep the 45 minutes, I'm not going to complain to you because it all comes good at the end.

1:46:36But if you take my diag away or cut it in half because I did it in 15 minutes, you punish me. And then I go over. Well, of course I'm going to be militant when I go over because I'm going to want more because I'm trying to balance it out. See, that's all it is, guys and gals that are listening to this.

1:46:51It's just balancing. This is all just a balance. So, you know, but work on— pay attention. Brian, Brian, Marco, you know, and Toba, smart guys. They'll help you understand your process. You know, Mark and I have had that conversation before. What's his process? His looks very different than mine. And that, that's the general consensus I get from anybody that I've talked to as a diagnostic tech or like a master tech in a dealer.

1:47:18Everybody's process is different. Sometimes Mark is able to diag just on gut feelings because he's been there. Oh, same, same. I put my— yeah, all the time. Yeah. And watch Check Engine Chuck sometimes. His process is the most fluid I've ever seen because again He goes in there knowing a lot because he sees so many vehicles. And he'll tell you that, like, yeah, if I just saw one last week and it was this, you can damn well write I'm gonna check that first.

1:47:48Sometimes it's a waste of time, but it doesn't matter. It's his process. And that's the whole thing is like, watch as many people as you can, you know, pay attention, learn, and It'll become one day you'll just be like sailing through them. You'll be like Toba 2.0 and you'll be like, how did that— that's going to be my handle when I get there is Toba 2.0.

1:48:13Uh, when our hair falls out. Yeah. Do you ever see the pictures of him with the dreads? I have seen him with pictures of dreads and, uh, he constantly makes fun of me because I, I have my hockey flow still and I'm just like, dude, like, if I want to, I'll grow out dreads just to, just to troll you. Like, what are you gonna do?

1:48:34You're bald. He sent it to me, he sent the picture to me, and I was like, oh my God, that's awesome. I didn't share the photo. I probably should. Um, it's a good look. I— he, like, he, he told, he told me that he was like, if I'm ever gonna do it, it's gonna be now because I'm losing my hair. And he went and did it.

1:48:52So I'm like, Props to him. And like the puka shell necklace, like, oh yeah, yeah, you are Rasta Manitoba. Yeah, Rasta Manitoba. Well, I want to thank you for coming on, Josh. It was really cool to talk to you, man. You know, thank you for having me. People are going to be sick of hearing the Canadians say they're going to be really sick.

1:49:16Like, you know, it's so— but our accents are the best. Forget about it. Uh, you heard my friend Riley there from a couple weeks ago from Gant, you know, Goose Bay, Newfoundland. Oh well, the, the new— the Newfie accent is one of— it's, it's its own thing. It's its own thing over there. God bless Newfoundlanders, but holy fuck, do they talk weird.

1:49:40Oh my God, he sent me, he sent me one and it was this woman at this, and I, I messaged back, I'm like, whose mother's that? You know, it's like, and the first time him and I recorded, the Wi-Fi sucked again, right? And he'd had a couple, he'd had a couple of drinks. Yeah. God, was it thick. And he was talking the way they talk and I was busting up and I wish I'd have got some of it because it was just hilarious.

1:50:06I, my, my Canadian brothers and sisters, I gotta say, I love you guys to death. I really do. You make me so I'm so proud to be accepted by you guys and represent you. And I listen, I'll represent you as your technician guy or gal, doesn't matter, all over the world I represent you. But I have such a soft spot for my, my fellow countrymen and women because like you just— the what the challenges that we face is a different level.

1:50:32It really is. And you know, from how long we wait for some parts to get there to the rust to the snow to the cold, to what it does to our bodies, the customers, the roads. Tabernakus, you know, like it's the French that comes in once in a while. It's a challenge. So I love everybody, all my Canadian friends. And listen, I love my American friends too.

1:50:57Like, I'm, you know, I love everybody. So thank you everybody for listening. Josh, we'll do this again, man. I had a blast. We'll definitely do this again. Say hi to Marco for me. Say hi to Toba. Um, let's get Brian on at some point. You know, maybe he comes on. Be cool. I'll, uh, I think he's working down in the shop right now, uh, working extra hours, so I'll run it by him.

1:51:21All right. I appreciate you. Um, if you need anything, as always, reach out to me. You know, when you know how to— let me know how the marathon goes. Uh, let me know when you get back to school. I'm kind of always curious about that. Um, and thank you for being on, man. I had a great time. So I had a great time too.

1:51:38Thanks for having me. All right, everybody. Thank you for all my family at Launch Tech, my family at TechMetric. Thank you. Without you guys, we wouldn't be able to do this. We've had a really cool video or picture go up today, guys, from the merch store. Again, Riley, the Newfoundlander with his daughter in the onesie. So the store right now, the prices are a little high.

1:51:59I apologize for that. That's tariffs and shit. But what we're trying to do with that merch store is we're trying to raise money to send some people to some training events and in the tail end of '26 and '27. So I understand that the prices are high, and if you can't afford it, I appreciate it, I understand it. But that's— the money's not going into Jeff's pocket.

1:52:18The money is going to be to go back to you guys. So just think about that when you're looking at a coffee mug or a onesie for your baby or hat. That's where it's going, is to help other techs. So I love you all. I'll see you again in a week. 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.

1:52:42And 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 ASAR Group and to the Changing the Industry Podcast. Remember what I always say, in this industry, you get what you pay for.

1:53:03Here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10mm, and we'll see you all again next time.