Simple Changes That Make an Auto Repair Shop More Professional | Frank and Margarita Wiebe

0:12That kind of infuriated me a little bit because I was like, you wanted me to think it was me that was the issue because you didn't want to pay for that because you didn't want me to know you had an accident. I don't care if you got in an accident. It happens to everybody at some point or another, but just be honest about it.

0:28And that's the thing. If the customer would do that, maybe we would help them out a little bit. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the JD Mechanic Podcast. Um, we're here still in Hershey, Pennsylvania at the Tools Conference, and I'm sitting down with, um, some really good friends of mine who this is their first venture into a destination training event.

1:02You might recognize Frank. Frank's becoming a big deal pretty quick. Frank's got his own podcast, and he brought his beautiful blushing bride. That's right. Margarita. So Frank and Margarita Weave, how are you guys this morning? Good. I think we're doing good. You guys are— you're holding in there. You're not too tired yet. Yeah. Overwhelmed a little bit, I think, emotionally from all the learning.

1:24But it's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot to take in at one time. And you got, you made a great big Hershey. Did you make a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup or did you make a giant Hershey? Oh, we did, we did. We did both. I made one for my son-in-law who saved my cat. Right, so we did both. We had a good time at the park yesterday.

1:41It was a lot of fun. And you guys drove, like, you're like me, Canadian. Cheers for Canada. Yeah, woo! And you drove down even farther than I did. Like, I drove, my drive come from Kingston. 6 hours of stop plus a gas stop to stretch and gas. So about 7 hours. You guys drove down from Elmer, Ontario. Yeah. How long was your total trip coming?

2:02Well, the GPS said 7.5 hours, but then of course with the— I have to stop at Harbor Freight and, and a lunch stop. So we ended up about 10 hours. Yeah. Yeah. So it was, it was, it's a long drive, but it's, it's easy drive. It's, yeah, it's nothing. And it's pretty right now to come down that way, right? Pretty. Yeah. You guys kind of come down around the Buffalo side and down across.

2:23Yep, that way. Yeah, yeah. Which is— I come down 81, but, um, I'm always amazed. Like, even just— we're talking, we went for breakfast this morning and I drove to Cracker Barrel because as Canadians we don't get Cracker Barrel. And, um, I was just amazed sitting looking out the window at Cracker Barrel, just the rolling hills in Pennsylvania, all that kind of stuff.

2:42The hills coming through here. I was, I was like, we're behind a trucker and I'm like, oh no, he's downshifting. And he's like, now he's like going I guess, what, 25 miles an hour up the hill? I'm like, I got to pass this guy all the way up the hill. Finally we get up the hill and then he was nice enough to pull over, let me pass.

2:58So by the time we got to the next hill, I was way gone. Now, are you like me and you find that some of the people drive slow here? Yes. Yes, same. Yes. And you have all the opportunity to drive fast, like you're getting on the highway and it's 75 miles an hour. And if we do that back home, we're in jail, right?

3:16Yeah. 75. Let's go. But everywhere that I'm going is like 55, and I look down and I'm cruising 70, you know what I mean? Which is, for us, our highway speed back home is normal. Like, if you're doing 70 back home, they don't even really look at you, right? Depending on time of day and where you are. But most of the time, if you're driving on any of the 400 series highways and you're doing 70 miles an hour, you're not even getting noticed, you know?

3:36It's exactly— they're, they're looking for the guys doing 90, right? Um, so this is your first Destination event, and I kind of, you know, because you and I have been talking for a while now, Frank, and you kind of like— I rave them up and I brag about them and all that kind of stuff, and, um You guys finally— I, I didn't guilt you into it, but I'm like, I sold it to you.

3:54Oh, you know what? You almost had me sold for ASTA, but I only— I literally found out about 2 weeks beforehand. I think that if I would have known earlier, I would have gone. Yeah. But this year, I, I was sold on it a long time ago to go. It took me a while to convince her. And when I told her that it was at the Hershey Park and at the Hershey factory, she said, okay, let's go.

4:16That's the only reason I came. But She said, I got to make— you got to make sure that I get to that park one day. So we went and we had a great time. But that's the only way I got to go. Margarita, you were a little nervous at first coming here. You were like, I don't want to people too much. And I'm, I'm basically a hermit.

4:34When I'm done at work, I want to be home. I want to shut off my phone. I don't want anyone to talk. So now, like, I've been actually an extrovert here this whole time. Like, I feel like I've, I've made more connections here than I have in my whole, like, last 10 years. So I, I hardly recognize her. Like, like, she's, she's, I don't know, happier than I can make her apparently.

4:59But it's— she makes— you make her pretty happy. I think so. But, but I have never— I haven't— it's been a long time since I've seen her this engaged with people and, and this excited to actually be like, hey, I want to go talk to somebody, or I want to go— and I was talking with a, with a guy at break time earlier And he said, yeah, just people here actually give a shit.

5:19Yeah. Can I say that? Of course you can. People actually give a shit. Like, it's all about community here. Not like when you go to some of these other places and it's like, I have my little group and I have my little— you still see that a little bit. But I understand that, you know, some of you guys have been going here for 10 years or whatever, 20 years.

5:38And they have their friends. Now you got someone completely new like us coming in. Yeah. And the fact that even we were welcomed, even we went to dinner the other night, right? And it felt really good to be like, hey, these people, they care. Yeah, right. So it's— that's been really good. And, and that was the thing I wanted you to— because Frank warned me that, you know, you were a little on the fence and not all that comfortable.

6:01I'm like, she's gonna be fine once she meets some of my, my friends. And especially because you went to the women's dinner. I did, the first night. And Like, you're not the first lady that has told me when they walked into there, they completely felt like just enveloped, you know, in acceptance and appreciation and all that kind of stuff. And I don't know, I've never been to one of the women's dinners, obviously, but I mean, everybody talks about the vibe is just so friendly and helping and, you know, supportive.

6:29It's— Well, I went with Corley because she invited us. Well, she invited me through Frank and I was very apprehensive. I'm like, what did you do to me? Like, why would you do this without asking me? Right? But I get there and I'm like anxiety overload. Right? And Carly's like, you're fine. You're fine. You know, I'll stay there. You're fine. Right? And then Anise kept texting Tanika, you gotta say hi to Margarita.

6:56You gotta say hi. Right? So finally Tanika's like, who's Margarita? And I was so embarrassed. I was like, oh, are you kidding me? This didn't help my anxiety at all. But she's like, don't be embarrassed, it's fine now, we all know who you are, right? And everyone was just so kind. So I ended up staying longer than I had told myself I was gonna stay.

7:15Um, I met another girl, her name was Jess. She sat beside me. She was the identical personality to me, so we got along really good. Good. And she saw me today, she's like, I haven't seen you around all day, right? So we kind of just chit-chatted a little bit today. It was kind of cool. Yeah. And I spent like— Coralie kind of hung out with me last night at the meet and greet and just like hung out with me and watched me like meet people that had come to see me at the, at the meet and greet.

7:44And, and, you know, I was so like— I just felt, I felt comfortable because it's the first time her and I've ever met, but we talked online a lot. And I was like, she's a really cool lady. She really is, right? And then it was just nice to have a fellow Canadian. Yeah. Um, to kind of just stand there and listen to me rant at the people that just wanted to have a conversation about, about anything, right?

8:05So it's, um, this, like I said, this, this show has got some really good vibes to it, right? And that's about what you're all after. Um, same with Asta, right? Like, I was really hoping, um, to get more people coming down to this show because I think it's like when they especially the Canadians, because this is a short drive to come. Yeah, really, from the greater standpoint, like, you want to go to ASA, that's a long drive.

8:30That's like 10, 12 hours, right? Yeah, then you'd be flying out. Yeah. And, and so for this, I keep saying to Anis, like, man, you know, and he's not able to make it, which is too bad because I met him at Tools last year and him and I clicked instantly, you know. So, which, because you guys have a podcast together. Yeah, you and Anis.

8:49It's called Shop and Tread Talk. Shop and Tread Talk podcast. Yeah. You're in about 15 episodes. Actually, I think 21. I was— I wasn't sure yesterday. And then a guy beside me, he was like, nope, you're 21. I was just listening to it. All right. Good. You know more than I do. Really? It goes fast, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. It's been a lot of fun.

9:11Sometimes it's a little bit challenging if you like— if we have a guest, we try to have a guest on each time, but yeah. Doesn't always happen. So sometimes it's challenging getting a guest and other than that, you know, it's just fun. We just, we just have a dynamic. We just chat about whatever's going on. And I don't know, some people probably think it's boring, but it's just kind of interesting.

9:30A little bit of a look into the world that, that we, we are in every day. Well, that's it. It's having a conversation and sharing what we do so that people understand it better. And Margarita, you're not just a pretty face at 3D. You actually sometimes go out and get your hands dirty and Like Frank brags about you like doing tires. You're like the best tire person he's ever had.

9:49Well, he's kind of got to say that, but yeah. No, it's true. You should see her slugging these, even these— These 20-inch, like the big tires, the 20-inch tires. Those ones are about half as big as me. And so when I try to lug those, those are more difficult. But sometimes after 2 or 3 sets, I'm like, all right, I'm done with these for a minute.

10:12I need somebody else to do it. But yeah, I can do it. And they're hard for me to lift now, right? Even like me, I'm a big guy, but like it's been 30 years of lifting heavy stuff. You know what it's like. It takes a toll on your body. And it's now, so like with this gimpy shoulder, like I have to get really creative about how I even lift them.

10:29It's almost like I'm lifting one hand and then putting them across my knees, right? Bending my legs and kind of— But if you do it the way that he's taught me where you hold the tire backwards and then you flip it up. That's what I do. Yep. And it's just so much easier than trying to lift them like, sideways. We made a TikTok video on that.

10:46Yeah. And man, we got a lot of crap for that. People are like, that's the wrong way to lift it. You got to lift with your back. You got to lift with your knees. And it's like, go ahead and try it. Prove me wrong that this isn't the best way. And I see so many people lifting it that way and it's like, that's the best way.

11:01Roll it on your— roll it onto your lap, kind of your shins, and then you can use your hips to thrust it up and off you go. And it's— it's— anyway, if you haven't found it, Yeah, find it on my TikTok because there's a really good video. Well, I had a customer actually come by to our shop because she found out that I was working in the shop.

11:17So she's like, I came to support another woman in the industry. So that made me feel good. Now, was she in the industry as well? No, she was just a customer. She was like, you know what, I think women in the— in this industry are not supported enough. So if I find that there's a woman in the shop, I will purposely go there just to support another woman, which I thought was cool.

11:37Yeah, and, and that was the whole thing about the, you know, what's so great about these shows is they always make it a point at the shows to always have something geared towards the women because a lot of them, you know, they're the, they're the wives. They're not just always the wives of the owner, but sometimes they work in the shop as a, as an advisor and they need, you know, a different perspective and sometimes a different ear to listen to when it's like this is the stress or the nervousness they feel of being in the shop with a bunch of men because it is male-dominated, right?

12:06It's— we're trying to even the balance. But I mean, we can't get a lot of young ladies to, to pick this industry, and it's too bad because everybody's heard me say like some of the women are just absolute like naturals at some of the diag and the— you're detail-oriented, right? Frank has said that about you. Like you have a— the way you work on an engine or something is you don't even think about the, I gotta get this done real fast.

12:30You're completely zoned in on doing it right. And that's a That's a hard skill to teach. It really is. And I think, I think I always say that I think women have that natural ability to just take that process and think it through from one end to the other. Whereas we as men, we're like, okay, well, I can— I got 5-minute attention span, so what can I do in 5 minutes?

12:50That's how— that's honestly how I do my job. Yeah. It's like, what can I do in 5 minutes if I have a job that's looming over me that's going to take me like 5, 6 hours? Yeah. And it's so hard to start it. But what can I do in half an hour? What can I do in an hour? And that's how far I process.

13:05Women are the other way around. I think they can, they can look at the whole picture and think that whole thing through and be like, oh, you know what, I'll work this and this and this. And then— and they break it down into little segments, but their attention span never leaves from that segment. Exactly. You know, like when they're in the middle of torquing head bolts, they're in the middle of torquing head bolts.

13:21Whereas like, I'm bad now. Like I can be in the middle of doing anything and then somebody will advise or come out and talk to me and— or, you know how it is. It happens in every shop, right? And all of a sudden, like, because I want to be polite and everything and I I don't want to get upset. I put down what I'm doing and I'll give them my focus.

13:40Well, then I lost my complete focus on where I was and then I have to back up and like, did I torque the bolt again or not? And I'm going around again and again and again. So, and I do that just out of habit because we've talked, that's how wheels come off, right? You're in the middle of torquing 4 wheels, you're at wheel number 3, somebody comes over and asks you how much longer, what about this, that on the, on the job that we didn't get to, or what do you think?

14:00And Before you know it, you spent 5 minutes and then you go shut the hood and drive the car out and the lugs aren't torqued. Yeah, that happened to me when, when we were first— one of— well, first married. He was working and I came in just to bug him while he was doing my wheels. And then I took my daughter to the dentist and all of a sudden I'm hearing this awful noise.

14:21So I'm calling him. I'm like, what's this? What am I supposed to do with this? And as soon as I described the noise, he knew. He's like, I didn't torque those lug nuts. So I had to go to the nearest Tim Hortons, and sure enough, they were all loose. Yeah. And I couldn't figure out where the bar was because I— back then I didn't know anything, right?

14:39So I'm like digging through my trunk. There is 20 men standing there watching me struggle. Yeah. Not a single man came and helped me until I figured out where that bar was. And I was doing it, they're like, can you help me? And I said, absolutely not. You stood there for 30 minutes and watched me struggle While I'm on the phone and you could hear my conversation and you guys just stood there with all of your tools on the back of the truck.

15:02And now that I can do it myself, you want to help me? No, I don't need no one's help. Sorry to cut in everyone, but this is really important. As a tech, I've seen firsthand how frustrating it can be to work in a shop bogged down by outdated systems and inefficiencies. It happens all the time, right? That's why here at The Jaded Mechanic, we're partnering with TechMetric to help change the industry and your shop.

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16:07Yeah, I know, it's a weird world, eh? It really is. So kind of tell me, Marguerite, what What kind of classes have you taken while you've been here? I took Rick's course. Rick White from One Group Biz. Yeah, I took his course on shop management, which I didn't think I was going to learn anything in this class. Mind you, that's the mindset I came in with.

16:28And boy, was I blown away. Like, yeah, he stumped me on a few things like I had never even thought of, right? So yeah, he totally challenged me. I took Cecil's class today. Good for you. About, um, being the best advisor you can be and the different, um, conversations you can have with people. And it's not about always about, well, that's going to cost this much money.

16:53It's about what do we bring to the table. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's been a really good eye. A lot of psychology, right? In both, both the way that both Rick and Cecil teach, there's a lot of psychology involved, which, I mean, sales is psychology. But what they're, they're not just like teaching you how to make more money. They're really, really teaching you how to like show your business as a commodity and a service and it has a value and how to project that onto the customer.

17:22That's what they're both so effective at. Like, cause you know, I sat when I first started coming here, Lucas to me is like, oh yeah, take some of the training classes for business. And I'm like, oh man, I'm never going to be an advisor. I don't have the patience. Right. Which maybe going forward I will be an advisor, but even to just sit in there from the technician's perspective and understand better the frustrations and the obstacles sometimes that the advisor or a manager has.

17:49As a tech, I started to appreciate it better, right? Okay, every shop owner is not as evil, vile as I thought. But then you realize that it's like when you see them doing it right, It's like so motivating to go home and kind of share. I share with my advisor all the time, like, this is what I've heard people do and this is what, you know, and I'll sometimes take them printed material I have and say, this is how they approach this and I approach that.

18:14And they're so receptive, right? It's so cool. And you took— you— I talked to you last night and you took Ira and Tim's ball joint to ball Lab scope for the ball joint guy. Lab scope for the ball joint guy. I, I didn't know what they meant by that, by that, uh, title. And I understand now because, man, it was such an informative class.

18:41And, and yeah, I think it was Ira. I was talking to him a little bit later and he's like, what scope do you have again? And I showed him and I says, and you see the dust that's on it? So that's how much I know how to use it. Yeah. And I've had it for like 4 years. And I've never learned how to use it.

18:55And I'm thinking, man, if I could take home half of the information that they gave yesterday and implement that, man, I'll be like the best diagnostician in my town. Because it's unreal. And it's like— so I was just blown away by it. So I understand why they— And you're probably already the best diagnostician, like from when we talk, right? Because like your shop is known for one of those shops that will do things right and spend the time to diagnose the car properly and not shotgun parts at it.

19:24And if you do shotgun parts at it, You're not punishing the customer by paying, you know, exactly all that. You're not going down wormholes. Yeah. But a lot of that comes from a lot of years of experience. And a lot of times, you know, a car comes in and you already know what the issue is, but you still do your due diligence and check it and make sure.

19:41Right. And my apprentices sometimes are like, how did you know that? I'm like, I've been in this for 30 years. I know. I know what that feels like. Yeah, I've been, I've been doing test drives with my apprentice. And teaching him the difference between a tire noise and a wheel bearing noise. And then the other day, we had one. And I said, OK, here's a good one for you.

20:03Let's drive this. What do you think it is? And he says, oh, well, that's obviously a wheel bearing noise because of what we had already talked about. And I says, no. This is one of those situations where it is not. It is actually a tire noise. But it presents as a wheel bearing noise. And this is why. So as soon as I do that to him, he's like, OK, that kind of makes sense.

20:22And it's just that you can't— you have to teach that. And you have to learn that kind of stuff, right? It's just not— it's so different, every single vehicle. Every tire is different. Every wheel bearing is different, right? It's not in a book. No, there's no book. And it's a situation of it's like, they'll all eventually learn it when they make the mistake, when they get it wrong, right?

20:44And they put a wheel bearing in, and they put the tire back on, and they drive it again. And then they go to the other side. And they go and do all 4. And then it's like— you got one tire that's got something shifted inside the tire. Yeah. And all of a sudden that's that noise, right? Because we've been there, we've done that so who knows how many times.

20:59Yeah. And it's like, no, you know what, now we've learned, we don't want to do that again. And going back to the lab scope thing, like you'll see them when you get into the advanced stuff, they'll buy, uh, like the Pico has a whole NVH kit so you can put an NVH, not, um, vehicle harmonics and start to look at it as a waveform.

21:21What's that wheel bearing looking like on a scope? Oh, and back sound-wise. Yeah, yeah. And it's just like, you know, because we were old enough to remember the stethoscopes. Yep. And the, you know, headsets that you go on, you put your microphones out at the wheel and listen, and you know how they're hit and miss at best, right? Yeah. Um, the new way of doing everything is just— it's very exciting.

21:41I really like it. So You know, it's like anything else, getting the people to, in Marguerite's shoes, to sell the time to the customer to do it properly. That's the trick, you know, right? Valuing what you're going to sell to the customer as dye time, that's the, that's the magic mystery of how we do it. So, um, yeah, and Ira and Tim are that— everybody I've talked to that's taken that course has just loved it.

22:05Oh, it's phenomenal. It's phenomenal. I haven't sat through it yet, but I was going to, and then you get here and you get busy, and it's like, you know, um, what, uh, what did you feel about the facility? What do you think? Like, I mean, I know you love the, the chocolate, it's obvious, but what do you think about the— it's kind of a neat vibe here.

22:27Well, you know what, I honestly am amazed at the Hershey Lodge. I have a gluten allergy, and My biggest fear when I go anywhere is what am I going to eat? They have been absolutely amazing with accommodating me to be able to have food. They didn't have food for me one day here this week. So one of the staff members is like, well, just go upstairs and eat with where the nurses are.

22:52There's food that you can eat. And then just grab some food and go and eat because you obviously can eat that. Or they'll be like, oh, well, we have some gluten-free stuff so I can make you a hamburger. Like stuff like that has been amazing. Yeah. So I would highly recommend anybody to come here if you have some sort of an allergy because they don't just say, well, it's gluten friendly.

23:16They make sure their grills are clean. And like if you're celiac and you're sick, they make sure that you have what you need. Like it was amazing. Brings that whole vibe that this place really cares about it. I think it goes back to when we did the, we did the trolley tour. Of the Hershey Village or whatever. And they talked about Hershey himself that started all this and how much he cared.

23:38And I think that this whole place is really just an extension of that. And like the staff is so friendly here. Like you ask them a question, even if they don't know, they try to help you with it, which is really nice. And when I walk down my hallway, you see the lovely ladies always cleaning rooms and all the carts are out and everything.

23:56And every time they see me, they say hello. Yep. You know what I mean? Like, which is— when I stayed last year in a different— they didn't even look at you, right? Which I'm not always saying they have to, but the joke is the Canadians are always so friendly, right? And yet we come here and they're just as— like, I feel completely comfortable.

24:14Like, it's— there's none of that, you know, rude American thing going on here. It's a nice thing. So not that I think Americans are rude, I have to say that. Yeah. But, you know, everywhere that I've ever met Americans, it's been, it's been a good, good, good, uh, vibe and a good experience, right? Yeah. So that's— we don't want to talk politics.

24:32Um, what, uh, because we always talk about when we're at these events and we come home and you— so you kind of talked about, you know, Rick's class and Cecil's class, and we talk about, you know, if you're going to implement one thing, do you have one thing after you come out of the class, Margarita, that you feel like you're gonna start in the next, like maybe Monday or next week when you and Frank have your huddle, like things you're going to change from?

24:56My one biggest change that I'm going to implement is we get a lot of customers that call, so what's the price of this, what's the price of this? So we had one just before we came where, um, one of my advisors had priced out a transmission fluid change. Well, we didn't realize he— we didn't get a VIN. So what we didn't realize, it had a plastic pan that couldn't be reused, and then inside the pan there was another filter.

25:18So it went from being a you know, a $300 job to a $900 job. So now you have a customer that you're trying to explain this to. Yeah. So something I learned this weekend is you say, why don't you bring it in and let's look at it? Let's see what it needs first. And then once we know, I can sit down with you and I can give you an accurate price.

25:41Normally that's how I would approach things, but when I'm not there, that's something I want my other advisors to look at it. It's not always about the price. No, it's more about how do you sell the job. So that's something I'm going to really push, um, us to do is instead of saying, well, it's going to cost you this much and this much and this much, just say, well, let's bring it in, you know, let's— when can you come in?

26:06Let's look at it. Let's sit down. Let's talk about it. And then you're more likely to sell the job than if you're giving them quotes and then you got to backtrack it, you know. Your auto repair shop doesn't slow down, and neither should your tools. When diagnostics get more advanced, systems get smarter, and vehicles get more complex, one name keeps shops moving forward: Launch Tech USA.

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27:05So if you're ready to work faster, diagnose better, and stay ahead of the curve, visit our website at www.launchtechusa.com. And Frank and I know we've talked about it too, like it's because you can say you could be really nonchalant, go it could be anywhere from $250 to $1,000. And what they don't want to hear is $1,000. No. And they've probably been already maybe told $250 and they're wondering if it even goes cheaper.

27:31Right. And then so you scare them off with it could be anywhere. What? I don't know. Blah, blah, blah. I need your VIN number. Right? If you say it like that, they just immediately like, this guy doesn't want to help me. Well, the other thing that we had a while ago is, um, we had quoted— he said, give me a ballpark, right?

27:47So one of us had said it was between $200 and $600. Well, he only heard the $200 mark, right? Just hear the $200. And so now it was— now it was more like the $600, but he's like, well, you said $200, and you said— and, and you know what you said. Right? So then you have that kind of, uh, argument, whereas I don't do ballparks anymore.

28:09People are giving me a ballpark and I said no, I will not. We're already off on the wrong foot with the customer in that case, right? Because they want to think it's a bait and switch, and it's not a bait and switch. A bait and switch would be, it'll be $250, put your hand on the Bible, and then you get in here and you call up and go, hey, it's actually going to be $399.

28:25That's bait and switch. Yeah, telling them it's going to be in a realm of this and they only want to hear something is not bait and switch. It's— but again, as our job as an advocate for them and their vehicle, we have to communicate effectively so when they get off the phone, there's no confusion about what is actually intended. We're not intending to make it as expensive as possible.

28:47We're not intending to be as cheap as possible. We're intending to do a job, and I can't quote the job accurately until I know what the vehicle needs. And the other thing Cecil said is we don't do oil changes. We don't do oil changes. We sell a service where, yes, we can change your oil. Yes, we can change your filter. But we also go above and beyond and we do the whole entire inspection of your vehicle.

29:13And then we then go and bill it all out. These are the things you need to do with this in order to maintain your vehicle, or these are the things you need So let's sit down and have that conversation. You never say we have an oil change service because if you want to be an oil change shop, then why don't you become a quick lube?

29:33Exactly. That's something to me. I think I want to change the wording of we don't do oil changes, we do an inspection, but we can also do your oil and filter while we're doing this inspection. So I think that also just brings our shop up to the next level. Yeah, I'm excited for you guys because I think like from as soon as you and I first started talking, I knew you had the right mindset to be forward-thinking and open.

30:01You're not— you weren't closed off. Like, that's what I love about you and Anise is you're not closed off about it's always been this way and it'll never work in my area and my customers won't like you. I've never heard you say that, those excuses. I've never felt that way. I know enough shops that are that way and I'm like And I've worked at those shops.

30:18Well, that's what I was going to say. You and I came up in those kind of shops. Yeah. And I'm like, we— there's, there's different ways and better ways to do this. So why don't we work towards that? So yeah, I was always like, if I— when we run our own shop, it's going to be different. It's going to be different than, than, than what we've— what we know.

30:36And in our, in our area, I don't know. One of the things I said just to be different is even our logo, our shop logo. I didn't want it to be— to look like a freaking clown car. Yeah, because there's, there's at least 3 shops in our town and they're— part of their logo is a goofy car. Yeah, it's— and I'm like, you know, that's all fun and games and stuff, but I wanted to look professional.

30:59That was the first thing I, I said to Margarita when we started this. I said, I want our shop to look professional. I want to have a professional logo, a professional sign, so that when somebody sees it and I had my brother-in-law message me, I don't know, a couple of months ago. And he says he was walking. He's in Alberta, which is like 36 hours away.

31:18And he was walking in the mall and someone said, hey, I know 3D Auto and just recognized the sweater. He was wearing one of my sweaters. And I'm like, that's what I want people to be like. I've seen that logo before. Yeah. And I want that logo to be associated with integrity and honesty and professionalism. Yeah, I was going to say, you were talking about your logo.

31:39I was going to say we also pride ourselves on being honest with our customers. And if we do screw things up, we are more than willing to make it right. Yeah, you have to be. Now, what— so from the more of the technical training that you've taken since you've been here, is there anything you're going to implement when you go home today?

31:56Because you kind of shared with me how your one tech right now, he didn't come with you. He's at Mark Lemay at AutoAid's training on a LabScope training course that I took. That's right. So you have anything that you came away that you're like, I'm going to maybe do some, a little window of training every week with the, in with my techs in the shop, or are we going to try a different process on, on a diag?

32:17Like, did you take anything away from that that you're like, I can really use that? Well, I've kind of been doing that already because I've always, I've always been really wanting to teach. I don't know, maybe not teach because she says I should be a teacher, I should go be an instructor at a college or something like that, but I I really don't have that, but, but I always have a love for, um, a young person coming in out of the, out of the high school system, out of the co-op program or something like that, and teaching them at least the very basics of how we do things and how the job done.

32:45So I'm always very much like, when we run into a problem in the shop, um, or especially like, like a hard diagnosis, I'll gather all the guys and I'll be like, hey, listen, yes, this is, this is what we're do— this is how I'm going through this process. And this is, this is the steps that I took and this is the result.

33:03So that's something, I mean, that was definitely discussed in Rick's class this morning about, you know, you got to lay out those kind of processes. And I think I'm just going to build on that so that not just be like, hey, okay, you're the ball joint guy or you're the brake guy or you— I want everyone in the shop. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

33:23I'll have your strengths and you have your weaknesses, but I want everyone in the shop to be able to do what I do, right? Because if they can't do what I do, I'll never be able to step back and, and let the shop run. Yeah, the way that, the way that I want it to and the way that we want it to, so that, so that we can step back and actually— and you never want your shop to be in a situation where if you've got a dieg guy and he takes a week of holidays, all of a sudden you have to start telling your customers like, you might have to wait a week before

33:53That's where we're at right now. Or, or, or you, you know, or you can do the other thing, the other option, which is you dispatch it to another tech and the efficiency drops off. And maybe they spend more time, maybe they get a diag wrong. You're, you're on the hook for that. To do the right thing is to like, well, you know, it wasn't— and then you break it down, you're like, was it even really worth booking them in right now and instead having them wait a week?

34:16You know, it's that balancing act that's so tough. Which I'm the same way. I've worked with lots of guys that like weren't necessarily as great as I was at diag. But man, like if we'd have just spent a little bit more time trying to explain to them, this is how you know for sure whether it's the starter or the battery, you know, as an example, or this is how you check a charging circuit at the basic level.

34:38We'd have had way less comebacks in the shop. We had that yesterday in our lab scope class. No more carbon pile for testing batteries and starters. It's all done with a lab scope. Yeah. And I'm thinking, wow, that's incredible. Like a lab scope and a couple of amp clamps and all of a sudden you can do a full test on an alternator and a battery in 5 minutes.

35:00I'm like, you know what? I think that that's good. And then, and then of course, I was saying, you know, everything you do with when you have a computer-based scope, you can save all this and you can print all this and you can attach it to the DVIs and you can attach it to the ROs and you can do all that. And it's like, you know what?

35:19That's definitely one of the things that you asked what I'm going to implement. Definitely one of those things. So that everything that we do gets documented, gets attached to the RO, so we can send that file to the customer or just keep a file and be like, you know what? This is why we came to this conclusion. And not it's just us guessing or us knowing.

35:38We're proving it. We're proving to you why you're going to give us your money. Yeah. And that's the thing because batteries up in Canada are such a tricky thing because— Lots of shops, their process is every time you do the oil change at a certain time of year, you load the battery up. And I mean by load the battery, like you do a conductance test on it.

35:56We don't put a carbon pile, because you and I know if a battery's right on the marginal and I do a carbon pile in it in the bay, and then they throw it outside and they come to pick their car up, it's dead. It may not start for them. And then they go, what did you do to my car? Whereas so that those conductance tests are a little safer for that, and they give everybody a nice fancy printout, but you and I know That's not a really good test.

36:17No. Right? It doesn't do what the carbon pile does to actually physically make the battery do some work and prove whether it's good or not. So we've been always looking for an in-between. How do you do it, right? That you don't drain the customer's battery down on an oil change, right? But we have to get back— going back to what you said, if we're going to do this the right way, then it's not just a 20-minute oil change.

36:43You know, we should be bringing the car in, throwing a quick scan on it, throwing a maintainer on it, doing whatever battery test that we want to do on it, giving them a printed result that says, okay, your battery's 4 years old and it tests at only 50%. It may start for you for the next 3 months, but by whatever, this time next year, you're going to need a battery.

37:03You know, my good friend Becky Witt, she talks about like she compiled all this data that showed that even though batteries are warrantied for 5 years, At 36 months, so many batteries don't even go above 50% capacitance, right, of ability to start the car under certain conditions, that she just wrote it right into her policy that at 36 months old, when that battery's 3 years old, they start recommending to the customer, we should replace your battery.

37:27Not because it's not working right now, but because under— do you want to be— she says all the time, do you want to come out to your parking lot, you know, at dark by yourself and have your car not start? No, right? Middle of winter, in the middle of anything, right? As she says, especially as a lady, like, we forget that we're in a parking lot.

37:46Yes, the tow truck driver is gonna be dispatched. That's still sometimes very scary situation for somebody that's not always comfortable, has a little anxiety, all that kind of stuff. So she sells a ton of batteries just on preventative. Yep. You know, we can do more of that in this industry if we actually slow down and Stop thinking that it's just an oil change and actually look at, okay, so this is the car you got.

38:09This is the mileage. This is what I can tell by these tests that the car's at. What do you want to do? Like, we all make it a big deal. Like, oh, I checked your filters, I checked your air filter, checked your cabin filter. Those drive me nuts. I hate that because it's like half the airbox screws are stripped or the screws are missing or the clamps are broke.

38:28And the cabin ones, like, you know, when I You're my age almost. And it's like, actually, you're a little older than me, so that's good. I don't think about that. But you don't want to be under the dash every time contorting and yanking out, you know, cabin air filters that have bird's nests on them to take it out and take a picture out for the customer to say no.

38:50That's a pain. That is a pain. Some of those are so difficult. The leaves drop into the blower motor. And now you got to pick them all out. But we get— when we do check our filters, Probably 60% of the cabin filters that we check have never been changed from factory. We had one vehicle, it was 15 years old. That's crazy. Had the original filter in it.

39:1015 years. Imagine the mold and mildew that's sitting on top of that filter and you're breathing that in. But then think about the other ones we see where they live at— they go at the quick lube places and they're getting a new cabin air filter every 3 months. Yeah. Like, that's a little overkill. That's unnecessary. Right? That's unnecessary. I always look at it like we need to slow down and get to know our customers and go, what's the end goal here?

39:34Well, I just want a flip and oil change. OK, then we're not going to be the shop for you because we're going to be looking at the tires, looking at the ball joints, looking at the brakes, checking all the lights, scanning the car. If you've got a check engine light on, we're going to know and we're going to talk to you about how long has that light been on?

39:49What can we do to fix that? Yeah, or why are you not fixing it? Not interested? Already had an attempt. Like, these are all conversations we can have that are not sales pitches, but it's like getting to know. Why do you not? Well, somebody just told me it's a gas cap. Well, now we got a transmission fault in there. Did you know that?

40:05Yeah, it kind of felt like it was shifting a little funny, but I mean, I never had a diag done because somebody told me it was just a gas cap. Yeah. And then how— like, we have to do better in the industry. That's my point. So, you know, we have to really— like Lucas taught me, you're not just a mechanic, you're an advocate for them.

40:22Exactly. And when you decide that you're going to be an advocate for them, it's a completely different mindset. And it's not about making a bunch of money off them. Yes, you'll make good profit, but it's like you have to be invested in their car. And you also— also, the other thing I've learned is you cannot be like, oh, you know what, I've got to give them this doom message now that, you know, it needs $2,000 worth of work.

40:46And it's not the gloom and doom. Yeah. Road. You know what? No, they knew that they needed to do maintenance. They didn't do maintenance. And if you don't do regular maintenance, it becomes an expensive repair. Like, we've had a few customers now that they've always gone to a shop that closed their eyes when they did safeties, right? So now they're, now they're here.

41:05And we had a fleet come through and it was like, yeah, in the $40,000, like, oh, close to $40,000 by the time he was done his whole fleet. And he was like, oh, this is so much money, right? And I keep telling him next year it will be less. So he, he actually had me calculate, and, and this year, from year to year, no, he had saved almost $15,000.

41:27And I said, and then by next year we'll have all those glitches ironed out, so then it'll come become less. So he's finally starting to see that, you know what, I can go to this guy who, you know, just shuts his eyes and writes the safety Which he really can't do anymore with the new drive-on stuff. But he learned, you know what he said?

41:48I broke down only 3 times with my whole entire fleet throughout the whole year versus me being in the shop with one truck or the other almost every other week. Like, so I'm like, it pays to do the little extra things. Like if we have a brake job and I'm like, okay, they're at 20%, they're going to be here in 3 months.

42:08Why not just have that conversation with the customer and say, let's do this now? Yes. Because in your busy season, you don't want your truck to be down. No. So let's, let's do these things while we're here. It'll be a little bit more money up front, but then you have this whole entire summer where you don't have to worry about— that's right.

42:26Unless it's something— air conditioning stops working, or, you know, you have one of your heater hose blows like the other day. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, those kinds of things, right? So And that's like, we've talked so much, even Anise talks about it, like with the tire season, right? And that always would drive me nuts because at the last shop, big shop that I was at, like it was a mad rush.

42:47And we were all about the DVI and the 300% rule. But he would book so many that we just couldn't effectively execute on it. And then it was like all these customers, because you know what happens, like if you don't get your pricing right, you only see that customer twice a year for tire work. Yep. And then they're going to Quick Lube for the oil change, or they're going back to the dealer for warranty work at the same time, and they get all that maintenance done.

43:11And I'm sitting here going, we just did a fantastic DVI on this car and told them that the strut is leaking oil and the tie rod's, you know, bad and the brakes are at 20%, and we don't see that car again because we don't even have time to write the flipping estimate. Yeah, you're not able to sell the job. What the hell was the point in being open and taking that on?

43:29And I guarantee you, for what the the cost. Like, I'm smart enough to break it down, and I know if they pay me this and we charge this for the service, they didn't make any money, right? So what was the whole point of booking it in? Well, we booked tires in to sell work. You didn't flip and execute on the work that the car needs.

43:43See, and that's, that's, that's just sad on the service advisor not doing their job. And that's the other thing that Cecil talked about. He's like, if you get a customer that you'd be like, okay, let me call you back in 20 minutes— in 20 minutes they've probably called 3, 4, 5 shops. So now you've lost them. So you need to take the time when they call you to be like, hey, when can I get you in?

44:04When can I do this? And then we can book it in instead of trying to do all these estimates over the phone. Way rather have the conversation. When can I have you come in? Tomorrow? You know, he always used the example Tuesday or Wednesday. And I said to him, your Tuesdays and Wednesdays are going to be overbooked. And he just kind of laughed.

44:19But that was the example he used, right? But I'm like, those are the kinds of conversations we need to have instead of writing estimates that we don't even know because somebody else diagnosed it. You don't know. So we had this customer went to another shop and they told him he needed all these ball joints and control arms and stuff like that, but he didn't want me to actually look at it.

44:43And I said, we don't look at— we don't just do repairs, we make sure that what you need is what you need. And so he was like, well, I already have this, and he brought it in. And I said, yeah, but maybe that tech didn't do a good enough job. I said I always like my techs to look at it to make sure.

44:59So then we did the 2 control arms, the upper and lower one on each side. But then we also noticed it had a tie rod that was loose. So when he would have gone for that alignment, had we just taken his word for it, we wouldn't have been able to do the alignment. And he was like— and the alignment shop originally lost the job because he went in for an alignment and they did an oil change and they changed sway bars and they had changed everything.

45:25All the stuff he didn't ask for. Right. But they never addressed the thing that he asked for. Right. So then he came to us and then now I ended up having to take it to the alignment and stuff because he didn't want to deal with them anymore. Right. So those things are also important. If a customer comes in for a specific job, we have to make sure we do the job that they come from, not something that we've just— oh, well, I forgot what he said, so I'm just going to go with something.

45:49You know, it's tough. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing. Like, for me, the longest time people would say, I want an oxygen sensor put in. Why? Yeah, why? Well, because I read a code. Yeah, I read a code. Or, you know, it's running rough when I first started up and Dad said it probably needs an oxygen sensor. That's it. You know, let me tell you a story.

46:09My uncle, God rest his soul, he had a Crown Victoria. I remember. Okay. And he, he changed an engine in it one time. There's 2 stories I'll tell, but one story is it didn't run right. And, and he figured out that the idle air control motor was dirty. Okay. And then the one day I was working on my dad's Ford Explorer, 4-liter, and, and it was, it was, I don't know what it was doing exactly, but my uncle comes over and he says, oh, it's definitely that.

46:41That's what's wrong with my car is 100% wrong with that car. And I said, well, how do you know? Well, because it's a Ford, it'll be the same thing. I don't know, I don't remember what it was, but it was just so funny because he was under the mindset that, yeah, well, that fixed my car, so it's definitely gonna fix that car.

46:59And people get that idea, they're like, oh, you know, I saw that on YouTube. Well, that's exactly what— back in the day, it used to be we'd call that coffee shop conversations, right? Sitting around, the old guys would be sitting around the coffee shop and say, I took it down to, you know, I took my Ford down to Frank's and they changed out my idle air control motor or cleaned it or whatever, and that fixed it right up.

47:18It's never run so good. And then they show up with a Toyota or something completely different and go like, I want my idle air control motor cleaned. Oh wait, it doesn't have one. Wait, it's got an electronic, you know, like, uh, doesn't use it anymore, right? Completely electronic throttle. Uh, what do we do now? Like, that's the kind of thing that would always make me laugh.

47:37And You know, if you're trying to tell the customer about, well, we have to diagnose the car. I don't want a diag. I just don't even have the patience anymore to have that conversation with them about— and I know we should, but it's like, my God, like, what? Okay, what do you want to do when that doesn't fix it? How are you gonna act?

47:58Are you gonna drag my name right through the mud locally because what you thought you needed and you wouldn't let me prove or disprove what it really needed? If you, if you're gonna do that, sign here and say you will, and we can part ways. If you're not gonna do that, sign here that promises you're not, because otherwise I want to sue you for liable, right?

48:15Because it's like my friend Brian Pollack, who you— I introduced you to, he's got a story where they had a red flag customer come in and a transmission problem in this guy's Silverado. Shit, crazy that Silverado would need a transmission. Yeah. And the guy's giving them all kinds of red flags because, oh, I got an estimate here and I got an estimate there and everything else.

48:33And they're telling the service writer and out front the office, like, this guy's got a red flag. Like, we shouldn't really— well, anyway, they do their thing and they do their due diligence and they sell them on a diag and they diag it. And sure enough, it needs a transmission. Now, his shop doesn't rebuild transmissions. They have a local rebuilder that they sublet it to.

48:50He does everything. They drop the truck off to him. They pick it up in 2 days. R&R and everything? Yeah, R&R and everything. They give them a warranty. They stand behind the warranty. And that's it. Well, the guy had the truck a month and the camshaft goes flat. The guy's now been dragging his name through the mud. That shop can't fix it.

49:08And then they screwed me, all this kind of stuff. Other shops are calling Brian. What happened with Mr. Jones's truck? Like, this is— we're hearing the most incredible— Brian has to tell them over and over and over again. So what they decided is to make it right. And this is the beauty of profit in the shop is they're just going to Brian, going to buy a camshaft, lifters, pushrods, head gaskets.

49:29Brian will have that job knocked out by 1:00 and they're going to hand the keys back to the customer, no charge. Don't ever pull into this parking lot again. You know, we've had, we've had customers like that too. It's frustrating, isn't it? It really is. Or you have customers that demand a refund. Yeah, right. And I want a refund. And I said, fine, you know what, I'll give you a refund, but then you're no longer welcome here.

49:52I had a customer, my service advisor had quoted brakes. And I was like, well, I'm not doing half aftermarket and half dealer, right? So if I can't buy rotors and calipers aftermarket, why am I going to put aftermarket pads on it? So I quoted him dealer pads. And that guy started screaming and hollering and going on and on and on, verbally being abusive over this whole thing.

50:16And I finally said, OK, fine. You know what, I'll do it for you. But I said, once this job is over, you are no longer welcome here. So now, just a couple weeks ago, he called up and I answered, and he's like, well, I'm just wondering if I can get brakes done. Like, because he already knew, right? And I said, well, that depends.

50:36And he's like, depends on what? And I said, are you gonna be okay with how I price my jobs, or are you going to be like, well, I want this and I want that? I said, I don't need customers like that. I said, I refuse to do this I did it for you for this truck, but I said, and if you're going to come back and tell me blah blah blah blah blah, like, well, why didn't you do this?

50:55These brake pads don't last. I don't want to hear any of it. So with this one, he's like, you know what, I'm okay with however you do it. I will not say anything. And he came in with the biggest smile and he was happy to pay it. And, and he knew. And I said, this is it. Like, one, one outburst, one Karen word to me, and like, you're just never coming back.

51:15So he's been playing the very nice game because I think he realized when he went to other shops that, you know what, they don't do the efficient work that I'm used to, and I just messed up by being really mean here. And if they don't take me back, like, what am I gonna do, right? So, and that goes back, hey Frank, to the customer's not always right.

51:37Like, that's something that I've said forever in this industry, and Yes, the customer always has to be respected and listened to, but they're not always right because they don't know nearly as much about their car as we do. All they know is— all they know is the symptom. Yes, they know what's going on. They don't know the repair and they don't know the result.

51:57Or I guess they know the result after— is the symptom is, hey, I've got this noise. The result is, hey, the noise is no longer there. Right, right. What happened in between? Yeah, and that's where you and I come in and We fix it and then she sells it to them. And that's how the process is. So as long as we can get that from the customer, like, what is your problem?

52:16Okay, we'll figure out why that problem exists and what it's going to take to fix it. She's going to tell you how much it's going to be and you're going to say yes. Yeah. And everyone's going to be happy. Yeah. And that's really the process. And then when a customer, like you said, when a customer comes in and says, oh, I just want an oxygen sensor put in, Okay, well, it's not going to fix it, so then what?

52:35Yeah. And I always— I used to, when I would be a lot more active in the different forums and stuff, people would say, well, listen, if the customer wants that, I'll go ahead and put that part in. Like, the money's the same color, I don't care. We know because they always never are not truthful. They're going around saying, this guy, you know, charged me blah blah blah to do this and it didn't fix my car.

52:58Even though what they did was exactly what they asked them to do— install this oxygen sensor that I bought at the parts store and walked in here. We put it in, the car's still not fixed, and he's mad or she's mad. Well, we dropped the ball so many different ways by that, even allowing that conversation to happen, that it's no wonder people don't respect us, right?

53:19If we act like professionals, they'll respect us eventually. They may begrudgingly hate us about the cost, but they'll learn to appreciate the cost of their vehicle. And they'll appreciate the, the expertise that we bring to that ownership of that. But if we just cow down and we'll go, yes, yep, okay, no problem, yes, oh, we'd be glad to do that— I— that mentality just like drives me crazy.

53:41So my, my other question then to a person is, you know, they tell you they can't afford their car repair, but then you meet them at Starbucks, and then you meet them at the mall, the tattoo parlor. Yeah, so you have money for that, but you don't have money to fix your car. You need your car to get you to all those places, but that's the last thing you want to spend money on.

54:00They're in front of you at the gas station scratching lottery tickets. Like, I mean, and I don't— whatever people want to spend their money on, right? But it's like, I got the brand new iPhone. I don't have an iPhone. I'm not an iPhone person, right? But I mean, you know, you'll see them, they'll come in here and like, I'm flat broke, and they've got the brand new $1,000 phone.

54:18Yeah, like, or they got a $1,000 handbag on, or You know, they've— they're wearing $400 Nikes on their feet. Like, you don't— you're not broke. Your priorities are just backwards. Yeah. Like, and I can't— maybe in the old days we'd have started bartering for your sneakers or your cell phone, and in turn we'd have gone out and fixed your car. People don't want that now.

54:40So the reality is, is like, I can't help you. You need a transmission. A $200 service is not going to fix your transmission. You need an $8,000 transmission. This is where unfortunately the real problem lies. How do we, you know, because you have to have thick skin. They're gonna go away hating the answer. They're gonna go away thinking you don't want to help them.

55:04But the reality is, is you don't want to give them the opportunity to sling your name all the way around when what they chose and wished for and hoped didn't give them the end result that they wanted. Right? You can drive it, you can look at the data, you can go, it's a whatever, it's going to need a tranny, and that fluid service not going to fix it.

55:23Yeah, but, and as a service advisor or writer, whatever you want to call it, you also have to remember that people will go not come back to your shop because they don't necessarily like you because of how you are, because you're too blunt or you're too loud or you're too everything. But at the end of the day, when they leave It is what it is.

55:43Like, you know what, this is what you have to do, and you have to be okay with people not always loving you. But there is always those that still do, and then there's those that, you know, you might never see them again because they don't like how, how you fix their car. But they're happy that their car is fixed, but they don't like the fact that you wouldn't do it for free.

56:00That's right. Yeah. And I don't— like, I never told anybody I would do anything for free, so they shouldn't come in expecting for free. And that gets into that argument in this industry about like Do we do anything for free? Do we put a bulb in for free? Do we put a wiper blade on for free? Right. And I, like you and I came up in the same way where you did a lot of stuff like that just because it's good customer relations.

56:22Good customer relations. I say that to my techs a lot. Sometimes I'm like, you're underneath this car and you see, like, let's say there's a little plastic that's flopping around. All it takes is one zip tie to put it up. That's right. They may never notice it. And but now you just prevented a noise. Mm-hmm. Whether they complained about a noise or not, all of a sudden they're like driving down the road and they're like, oh, that little bit of noise is gone.

56:49Yeah. And then if— and it has happened— they come back and be like, you know what, there was this noise before and it's gone now. Oh yeah, well, we saw that that cover was a little bit loose and put a zip tie on it. Yeah. Oh, well, that's really nice. Thank you. Or the underbody shields are all smashed up and I just had it on the weekend.

57:06Like she came in and she said, um, 3 weeks after we changed her oil, her car had a smell. And I walk around the front and I notice the bumper's kind of messed up from the last time I looked at it. Young lady driving her Kia. And, um, so I go on a road test and I start to drive it and driving around town, no, no smell driving around.

57:25I get it on the highway and I run up the first to the first exit and I start turning around, it starts to make that smell. Then it makes a noise at the same time. She had hit the bumper in such a way that the inner fender had— was sometimes touching the tire. And that was the smell. Radio was up so loud she didn't hear the noise, but that was the smell, was the tire.

57:46Well, eventually it just like— as I'm on the way back, the inner fender came right out of the car. Really? Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So never heard it but smelled it. So I come back and they're like, well, what's it need? I said, it needs an inner fender for smell. You mean like vapors are getting— no, it was rubbing on the tire.

58:03Now the oil, it's on the side of the 401. Oh, okay, cool. And that was it, right? Like, simple as that. So people always want to say, ah, I just had an oil change and now I'm smelling something. And the reality is, is they don't tell you, I just drove into like 3 cement barriers in the last, you know, 3 weeks. Yeah.

58:20And I— because I'm not good at parking. Parking's tough. And, uh, you know I'm smelling something. Yeah, that goes back to getting the right information from the customer. What has happened between now and— I was listening to a podcast that talked about, you know, you brought it, they brought a car in and did a diagnosis on it, and then a part was going to come in in 3 days.

58:41Then they were going to come in and fix it. Then the question is, did you do a DVI on that right after 3 days? Normally I would say no, but they said, well, what happened in those 3 days? That's right. Like they could have hit 10 curbs by that point. Yeah. So if in those 3 days, all of a sudden they ran over some speed bumps and hit some curbs, now you've got a bent rim and you got something like that.

59:01All of that's on you now because you didn't do your due diligence. And see, they laugh at me sometimes because like, if I, I might road test the car on Monday and prep an estimate, right? And do a DBI. And then on Wednesday or Thursday, so when the car comes back in for the work, I road test it again before I even start the work.

59:18Because just like you said, yep, they could do something or Last week it wasn't here for a brake noise, but now I'm feeling— I'm hearing a brake squealer that I didn't hear 3 days ago because they put 200K on it in 3 days. Say they drive a long distance for a commute, and all of a sudden that brake wore down to where the squealers— I'm not allowing them to come back on me and make me either do a free inspection because, oh, why didn't you catch that on Monday?

59:44Like, it's not happening that way, you know. I'm gonna road test it and make a note Brake noise that wasn't, you know, is now here. Didn't hear it on Monday. That way it's up to the advisor to have the conversation with the customer. Something is different from 3 days ago. Are you aware something's different? Oh no, I'm not. Okay, well, we are letting you know.

1:00:01We don't have to inspect it. If you don't want to inspect it, whatever, no problem. Well, we had an older gentleman come in. We had just done recharged their AC, and 2 weeks later they came back and it was empty. And we were looking at it, and I was like, well, is there something we missed? And Frank comes back and was like, Can you call them and find out if they had, like, a minor accident with it?

1:00:21Because there is evidence of that on the front. Right. So then I called, and the wife gets on the phone. She's like, yeah, he rear-ended somebody with it. But he did not mention that when he dropped the car off. He just said, well, we just got the AC done. Now it's empty. Right. And so she's like, well, he doesn't want you guys to know that he did that.

1:00:42Like, well, the evidence is there. Yes. Right. And so here we are thinking, Like, what did we miss? Right. And then when this comes back and then he comes in and I mean, he had the condenser got shoved in and got a hole in it. Right. So of course it's going to leak out there. But I was like, that kind of infuriated me a little bit because I was like, you wanted me to think it was me that was the issue because you didn't want to pay for that because you didn't want me to know you had an accident.

1:01:12I don't care if you got in an accident. It happens to everybody at some point or another, but just be honest about it. Yeah. And that's the thing. If the customer would do that, maybe we would help them out a little bit, right? Maybe we would just look at it and go, we don't have to go through the whole diag process of finding a leak.

1:01:27Like, like we're going to treat this as an— as a condenser replacement because it obviously needs to be replaced. It's damaged, it's folded in, whatever. Right. And instead, I don't know whether it's how they were raised as kids or something, but like, I don't want to say nothing and hopefully I can get it for free. Like, why is the double standard there that we have to be absolutely flipping perfect?

1:01:46But they're the same type of people now, I think, that would be like, I'm gonna buy a new TV and then I'm gonna put my old set in the box and I'm gonna send it back to Amazon and say that the TV is defective. Mm-hmm. Why do we allow that? You know, and, and we cower down and we go, oh well, you know, it is what it is, like win some, lose some.

1:02:05Because we've been conditioned to the fact that we have to beg for the customer's approval and we have to beg for their work and we have to beg for them. No, we don't. We just have to present them with what we find. And if they choose not to fix it, that's fine. Just sign your name here, sir, and let me know that you chose to decline this.

1:02:23This is where DVIs are so amazing. You can say, nope, they declined this work. Well, then it's out of your hands. And this is also where TechMetric has been amazing because I can send the estimate and it shows they have to sign the— once they decline or approve the work. So That has been also— that's still my best part of TechMetric. I'm not a big fan of TechMetric, but that has been the biggest fan of that part.

1:02:48The customer part of it's great. The other side, not so great for me. Yeah. And you're new to TechMetric. So we are since January, actually. So you'll come on, you'll, you'll start to understand it because I mean, like, they're— they sponsor me. They're great. You know what I mean? I miss having it at the shop that I'm at now to be able to use because it was such a powerful tool.

1:03:06Well, see, I think the only thing is it's US-based, right? So in Canada, Canada, we have to have taxes on both ends, and their program doesn't have taxes on the one end. So on an accounting perspective, it's, it's more hassle when they don't have it. So I wish they would adjust that part. Have you spoke to anybody? I have not yet. I mean, no, I have talked to their, um, customer support and our rep, but not— we should have somebody here.

1:03:35No, I think maybe we'll make it to the trade show again and let's talk to the TechMetric guy there. And if you don't get anywhere with that, I will reach out and see if I can get somebody there to contact you because I'm sure somebody at Canada at some point has had the same complaint and there probably is a workaround. Everyone we've talked to, we've talked to a few people that have TechMetric and we asked them about this because we do all our bookkeeping in-house.

1:03:58She's a registered bookkeeper. And when we asked them about this specific situation, their answer is always, oh, we just send it to the bookkeeper. Or we send it, or we send it to the accountant. We're like, we are the bookkeeper, we want to know. But, or even I've spoke to somebody who has used this for 4 years and they're like, what do you mean it doesn't charge taxes?

1:04:15So they've never even comprehended that part of it because they send all their stuff to the bookkeeper. But even when they— but even when they put the taxes in, like, you can just mark receive and then you just assume that it's in there. But if you don't pay attention to those numbers at the bottom of the screen match your invoice, you you're paying way more HST at the end of the quarter, whatever, or year that you need to.

1:04:40And you say you'd send it to the bookkeeper, the bookkeeper just looks at your general ledger. It— they don't go through invoice through invoice through invoice to make sure that it has taxes on it, right? They don't have that manpower. So if you're not doing your due diligence, your HST at the end of the year is going to be way more than what you need to be, and your cash flow gets tighter and tighter and tighter.

1:05:02So in that sense, I would love for that to see them fix that part of it. We've been learning through it. We've been learning a lot through it. Like, even as far as doing like DVIs, we never— I mean, we did DVIs in our own aspect of doing it, just with paper, whatever. We had a general inspection that we went through, but this is a lot more in-depth, which is great because that way it It teaches the techs and it teaches them to look for stuff.

1:05:29Because I'm always like, when it's up in the air and we don't have a drive-on hoist, all ours are 2-post hoists, so it's everything up in the air. You can shake that wheel. You can check to see if it's— now it's like, here's a checklist of this and this and this must be checked. We drive in the bay, beep the horn, somebody runs over, does a light check, and then up she goes.

1:05:50Yeah. Right? But on the customer end, TechMetric is phenomenal, hence why we still have it. Yeah, um, but like I said, there would be a few little issues that, um, like even on the accounting side that I wish that they could incorporate maybe QuickBooks instead of having BackOffice, but that they could incorporate it all so you could run just TechMetric and you didn't have to have that external because it would save shops like us a lot of money.

1:06:14Now what's coming up in the near couple months at 3D Auto? What's— what are you ramping up to do? Like, do you guys— you kind of mentioned AC. Is it a busy time for you for that? Oh my, it's— yeah, again, so We were one of the— I think we were the second shop in our town to do 1234yf, right? Yeah. And so we do a lot of, we do a lot of air conditioning work.

1:06:40We don't, we don't do— I mean, we don't do a ton of tires. We do tires, but not a ton of tires. But we, our bread and butter is safety checks. Yes. Which is like all year round. But we just went through a huge round of of, uh, annual inspections, a lot of, um, fleets that we do that way. But yeah, air conditioning is, is a big thing.

1:07:01So we do both the 133A and the 1234YF. I can tell you a trick that we did when I was at the fleet shop is the way he set his fleets up is for his annuals, he would stagger them. So like he would have so many units that were like they had one in January, the next one in February, the next one in March.

1:07:17So that because instead when we were sitting on a fleet of like, we had 40 buses of our own. If they'd all come due in the same month, oh, it's, it's unreal. Like, Margarita was real good about it this year. She, she, she knew that we had at least 3 fleets, 3 different fleets that we had to service. So in like, was it November or something, she's calling them saying, listen, no, I did February, March, no, January, February, March.

1:07:40She said, this is the month that we want to service your vehicles, so this is the month we're booking you in. This is the month. And it worked out really well so that we had one fleet coming in January, one fleet came in February, and then one in March. And it, and it was all fleets that are more summer-based, right? So there, this is kind of their slow down spot.

1:07:59Yep, a lot of lawn care stuff like that. And it worked out really well. And, and that made it, that made it in the lull time when, you know, stuff is always a little bit slow, we had all of these people coming in. So we didn't have any downtime this year. Good job. And speaking of fleets, you met Buckaroo Bob, John Fern, my buddy.

1:08:17Like, he is the fleet master when it comes to— he's built his whole business on being fleet only. Really? Yeah. So what I'll do is, um, we might try and get you and him on at some point to discuss some of the finer— how he does it, right? Yeah, that'd be cool. Yeah. And he's, he's the wizard at it. But I wanted to just thank you guys for joining me here today at this.

1:08:37You know, I'm so happy you could be here and You know, I know you kind of talked with Anise before last week about you didn't know if you went to or when ASTA is happening. That's a busy time for you guys. But, you know, I was so happy to see you guys come down to this event. I think a great, you know, great.

1:08:53And I know that you're going to be at more events going forward. I can just tell because it's— I see it the same as Anise is addicted, right? Like you went to a bunch last year and I see the same love for it in your guys' eyes too. And that's awesome. Because I think it's, it's, it's only like, yes, you got to leave, you know, you— if you shut the whole shop down, which you guys didn't do, but eventually if you bring your whole team, it's an expense.

1:09:17But if we go back and just keep saying, if you go back and just put $5 more on every work order, these strips then pay for themselves. Yeah, it's $5. Like, if you can't— I don't want to say that the wrong way, but I mean, there's always ways to put $5 more on the work order. For a training budget. Yeah. And that's just how you have to approach it.

1:09:37You know, $5 is not going to lose you a customer that, you know, values you. And I think that if my techs would learn the information that I did this week, yes, it would be well worth it. Oh yeah, 100%. And even as a service manager, our service manager, we're going to get him into some courses. If he could learn some stuff that Margarita has been talking about that she's learned this week, yeah, it would make the shop that much better.

1:09:59Like, you met Jim Kokonas with today's class, like gym. Like, that's a great program to set up too, that, you know, look into that kind of stuff. There's so much available out there that, like, training doesn't have to be, you know, from 7 to 10, you know, at a restaurant somewhere or a bar or, you know, in the back of a small hotel.

1:10:22And, you know, you're taking a conference room and you're trying to stay awake and you're eating some crappy pizza. It doesn't have to be that. It can be one of these events, but it can also be 20 minutes every day, you know, or like you said, you, you've, you, you, you get your process and you find your thing and you call it the eureka moment.

1:10:38You go out and you show everybody in the shop. That's training. So guys, thank you for joining me here today. Um, I was really pleased that when Frank told me you guys were going to make it. So Margarita, I think you're a superstar. Like, it's so cool that you came down and you were like a little apprehensive and now you're like, you're loving it.

1:10:54So I can't wait to see you guys back here next year. So I can't, I can't wait to be back. We're looking forward to it. And this was a great opportunity. So thanks for having us. Thanks for Thanks for being here, guys. We'll do this again. Hey, if you could do me a favor real quick and like, comment on, and share this episode, I'd really appreciate it.

1:11:11And 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.

1:11:33Here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10mm, and we'll see you all again next time.