Why Flat Rate Is Failing Today's Technicians with Dustin Stutzman

0:06I learned an entire brand and everything with not having a single mentor at all, right? And so I just had to organically learn all the information. And because of that, I will know not only what failed, but I know why it— but whenever you get into a dealership setting and you're basically taking a flat rate technician, there's so many things, processes, and tests that I'm doing multiple Like there's multiple tests involved in this one test, and I'm gathering all of that data for all of those tests at one time.

0:35And you're trying to teach this to, you know, a kid effectively. He's not processing all of the data that you're actually collecting. All right. Well, Dustin Stutzman, I actually got my start, I guess, if you will, Um, I was an engineer. Uh, I, I had a full-ride scholarship to be an engineer. Um, and after 2 years and talking to a bunch of engineers, I figured out that that was not going to be something I wanted to do.

1:11So even though I had straight A's and a scholarship, I transferred automotive. Did you find it boring? So I found— I knew it was going to be so that I was going to have at a 5-year minimum, if not more, before I was into an interesting, well-paying field-type position. And I also found that— and I have a lot of engineering buddies, a lot of engineering.

1:43I was, I was second in my class. My— the valedictorian was my best friend. He's an engineer. He works for Riot Games, League of Legends. And, and I knew from talking to engineers that like the ability to work after hours and to, and to kind of grind and that's just what it was. They were like, you're going to have to move to a big city.

2:05You're going to be probably stuck in a cubicle for 60, 70 hours a week and you're going to make $60,000 a year. That's just what it is. Sign me up. And I'm like, yeah, that's— I'm not doing that because that's, that's one of the things I've always, I've always known That like, I'm going to work my 40. Yeah. And it's going to be a hard 40 and then I'm going to go home and I'm not going to— I'm not going to like— and like I've done maybe 20 or 30 hours of moonlighting in my entire career.

2:40Wow. Yeah. Because I, I want to be 100% at work and I want to be paid well enough that I'm not— I don't need to moonlight. And I told myself that, and I said— and I felt like that someone with my level of physical skills and intellect could do really well and should do really well in the automotive industry. Yeah. Because the cars are getting more complicated and it moves well, meaning I can go— I can do this at a high level and be paid well in California, in Podunk, you know, Illinois, where I live.

3:19And so that's, that's inevitably why I went down that path. And I mean, honestly, it actually, from a pay perspective, it's done me better than engineering ever would. Wow. I, I have, I have So that engineering buddy that I, that I was talking about earlier, he worked in Chicago, inner city Chicago, lived in Chicago for an engineering firm. He worked there for 10 years.

3:51He never made more money than I did, right? Ever. Yeah. And this was straight out of college, right? So I had already— I'd been in the dealership for probably 2 or 3 years at that point. And he Luckily, he ended up— the only time he started making actually more money is when he got his job in California, in Santa Monica. And at that point, he was paying $3,000 a month just to rent a 1-bedroom apartment.

4:18So it didn't really matter. Cost of living would obviously in Chicago or California isn't great. I think, you know, Chicago is probably less, but it's— I mean, you're in Chicago, no offense to anyone who listens in Chicago. It's not It has its flaws, I guess you could say, as does anywhere you're living. But California, I wouldn't like that to me. I don't— how is that not at this point just a vacation state and not someplace that people actively seek to live?

4:45And now he lives, he actually lives in Seattle now working for the same company, obviously. And right now he tells me all the time, he's like, with AI and all that stuff, he's like, it's It's a slaughterhouse. It's crazy. That whole industry. I have another buddy who's actually NVIDIA certified with AI. And he always telling me about the latest, you know, AI innovations and stuff.

5:12And it's crazy. The gap of where Pete, where C-suite guys think AI is. And where actually AI is. And it's turned into like both— all of them that I know are literally just fixing the AI garbage, basically. That's their job now. Yeah. And you see that, you know, because it's a hot-button topic now, right? And I mean, it is. Somebody post about, um, you know, somebody made the comment AI is going to replace service writers, and everybody said no, it's not.

5:49And they said actually I think in time it will, because I remember somebody speaking with me once and they said they've literally, their AI can do up to a 10-minute phone call question and answer based on somebody trying to get placed in a job placement, right? So when you figure the amount of tech that's already there that they can do the 10-minute, which most of the time fields 90% of their phone calls, they don't have to go past that.

6:15They get all of the stuff booked and billed and That's incredible. So the idea that people think that we can't replace an advisor with it eventually, right, to me is ludicrous in the sense that the traditional sense of what we think an advisor does. Now, it's different roles and different shops, and, you know, it looks very different. Some looks more like a concierge, some it looks like a receptionist, right?

6:40It just depends. But I mean, right now when you see how you can punch this stuff in and it pulls labor or orders, you know, uh, finds it, it, yes, very much. And then makes a phone call, an automated phone call, right? A lot of that can be streamlined from the traditional quote-unquote service writer's role. And, um, I'm all for it. I think it's going to really help because I think then if we're going to get back to the idea of serving the customer, Dustin, I think it's going to improve that because it'll free up some Uh, people, time and people.

7:13Yes. Yeah, for sure. More because I can go ahead. I can definitely see that. And that was actually whenever, whenever we started first discussing video multipoints, I literally went to my director and said, A, you're going to need to pay the technician because literally all you're doing is you're turning the technicians into the service writer to be able to replace. So, so now even if you exclude AI, all you're doing is creating the situation where service writers can now service more technicians because the technicians are doing most of your job for you.

7:56And, and obviously, which, and the other, my point with video multipoints than that specific argument was, 'cause he's still, we still are, It was new. He's like, well, I haven't really decided on what we're gonna do for pay and everything. And I told him, and he said to me, he's like, well, you know the metrics, like you've seen the metrics for how much the upsells are improved with video multipoints and all that thing.

8:18And I'm like, what you're saying is not wrong. I don't disagree that you're going to sell more, but I've been 2 to 3 weeks out for 6 years. So me taking more time out of my day to, to, to sell more work whenever I can't get the 3-week backlog done. Yeah, it's irrelevant. So I, I have to get paid, right? And, and that's, and, and that's what inevitably we basically got to a situation where we, I, we don't really do video multi-points because, I mean, we're 3 weeks out.

8:54So like, so I, we don't necessarily need to sell. I'll, I still send pictures. Like, I have My phone is obviously full. Like, I'm— every car that comes in gets 6, 7, 8 pictures of, of, well, here's the where the mouse chewed through this, here's the leak, here's the whatever, right? And that's all uploaded through our— we have a software, um, it's called Text2Drive, and, uh, it uploads directly to the ticket.

9:20So every time they come in, it's going to be, hey, here's that leak you ignored last time, do you want to deal with it, whatever. Um, but yeah, that's, that's, uh, and you and I are old enough to remember when, like, working in the dealership especially, but even it happens in the small shops probably even more, is that like you'll see the advisor walk the customer out underneath the car, point them to something and say, because the, you know, customer wants to be informed, goes, I don't really understand, show that to me.

9:48Now when we have all this visual evidence and a technician is literally filming a mini movie showing them, yes. This is your car. See, there's your license plate. There's your leaking axle, all your loose tie rod. There's your chopped tires, blah, blah, blah. They don't have to be walked out and see that now. They don't even have to be in the building.

10:07So the idea that we're like, I'm not going to pay the technician now to go into more of that detail and film it, to me, it's just because— did I used to inspect the cars all the time? I used to just write everything down, hit send on the estimate, right? Yep. Was going out and getting another set of keys. I wasn't filming anything because you know how it is.

10:26We can walk under a car and go bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Yes. You know, and then tabulate the estimate and, and we're off to the next car. Now when I have to slow down, pull out my tablet or pull up my phone and start documenting tread depths, tread, you know, tire heat, it's a setup. It's, it's 100% a much more involved inspection.

10:46Process, but yet we don't want to pay anybody for it. Because why? Well, we still want to run this loss leader oil change game that we run throughout the industry. I'm not saying it's good or bad, hit or miss, right or wrong, right? But when we add the inspection to it, we're trying to sell the value of the inspection. I think it becomes our front counters and our, our service writer, customer-facing, whatever you call them, to say, this is what we're going to do today on your car.

11:09It has a value. If you do not want it done, simply say you're not interested. I could tell you the thing's going to catch on fire, you're not even going to listen. Dump it, right? And out it goes. But if we, if we tell the customer we're going to do this free comprehensive inspection and, you know, it's going to give you all this information back and a 300% rule and all this kind of stuff, by God, you got to pay the person doing it because the time— absolutely.

11:33And if it's so responsible, obviously, for generating repairs, generating profit It has a value, which means then that the person doing it should be paid. Yes, you should be paid. So run me kind of through, like you were talking about earlier before we got on, you kind of come in in the morning, you said you diagnose 5 cars. Yep. So every day I come in, I usually diagnose about 5 cars, sometimes more, sometimes less.

12:01So I'm actually our shop foreman. And the way my structure works is I have— it's a flat foreman bonus every month. Right. And it works out approximately with efficiency and everything. I get about 23 hours a week. Okay. That I can be a foreman effectively. Right. And then 90— it's about 92 to 93% of my pay is flat rate technician. Um, and so even with that diag number, um, being what it is, um, I usually run at, uh, about, um, 100— between 150 and 170% efficiency.

12:52Good for you. Um, but that being said, I, I, I tell this to management all the time. I tell this every time we talk to— we try to train new technicians, whatever. I don't expect literally anyone to do what I do. Yeah. Um, I, I am fully of the opinion that we should, we should be able to take a guy who wants to do, you know, brakes and shocks and throw in a transmission every now and then and let him do that and pay him to the max level of what that means and not try to force him into learning electrical.

13:37And that has always been, I just don't get it. Like, why are so many places trying? They're like, well, we need to, you know, he needs to keep getting trained. He needs to keep getting learned up. He needs to figure out electrical. He needs to diag. He needs to, And it's like, dude, you're— there are not that many people out there that can, that can rebuild an 8-speed and then go over to a hybrid and replace the internal batteries.

14:00And like, that's, that's not something that's just normal. Those people are honestly very rare. They're the unicorn. So yeah, and we do that because I'll tell you exactly why. You kind of, you know, and I'm going to say it anyway. It's because it's a logistical nightmare if we all of a sudden say that there's really only one person in the shop. That can determine what repair needs to be done, but I have 11 people that can get the repair done, right?

14:23Right. And that becomes a logistical nightmare. That means that everybody doesn't know how to dispatch. And then all of a sudden, it was like I made the comment this morning with Lucas's post. When we don't dispatch properly on the front counter, in the front counter, left hand talking to right hand, we're dispatching, you know, tires to our A-tech unicorn, and we're having the— this GS go out and pull codes in the parking lot Because that parking lot diag is, is a waiter or, you know, whatever, right?

14:51Long, and it's going to be picked up in an hour. And you've got your highest paid, which kills your ELR, um, out there doing tires. Like, it makes— that doesn't make sense. It doesn't make— it makes zero sense. So our— we actually have that— actually, that rider that I was discussing who was manager, um, he does dispatch and he works with me directly on dispatch.

15:14Um, and, and I tell him, and there's not, again, there's not very many people that are like this. Um, but I tell him every, all the time, dude, that's going to be a tough diag. Give, give that to me and I'll figure that out. And give, you know, give that, you know, flush or whatever to, he needs ours, go give it to him.

15:37Or, and, and knowing, and he knows all the time, you know, where everyone's hours are. And if anyone's low or anyone's whatever, well, I'm gonna throw some flushes his way, I'm gonna throw. And honestly, I've always been of the opinion, I don't want, like there's no reason to have me with my skillset doing a bunch of tires and, you know, a bunch of flushes or what.

16:05I'll sell all those flushes that you want. I'll sell all that work that you want. But I am going to give that away. I'm going to say someone else can make a day and have money. And the thing is, is that when you give that, when you give like the diag stuff and the harder stuff to someone who struggles with it, it's a lose for everyone because, yeah, I could have, I could have gone over there and figured that out, plus figured out their other problem and told them all this other stuff that was wrong with the car.

16:37And I could have sold all of that stuff. And I, because I've been doing it for so long, I know what I need to sell and how I need to sell it and what an hour is worth, if you will. So I can go to the rider and say, and there's no question, I'll be like, hey, this is where we're at. This is the data we've gathered in the initial diagnosis.

17:00We need more time for X, Y, whatever test. And it's easy, it's simple. It didn't take me much time to figure that out. It didn't take them much time to, to call and say, okay, this is where we're at, this is all the data we've done, you know, relative compression, we've done injector analysis, we've pulled— he's pulled out the scope, he's done this, uh, all right, this is where we're at, we got to take this apart.

17:21And instead they have— I mean, I have— we had a car, so this was it, it went to basically the technician who's been directly beneath me, um, after a technician had already— I mean, he put— so it came in with a converter completely melted. The inside of the converter is gone. Yeah. And it's all melted. And I walk— I, I, I— he was told to ask me about it and he didn't, but I happened to walk by and I was like, yo, what are you doing?

17:55Because it seemed kind of odd. Um, and he's like, oh, this converter is trash, man. It's completely melted all the way through. And I said, I said, you, you realize that that's a symptom, right? That's not the actual problem. Yeah. And he's like, well, I mean, I got to start here, you know. I'm like, I, I'm, I'm not saying that you do or don't, but I am saying that that is not the problem.

18:17You understand that? And he ended up— so it ended up getting that, got the converter, and of course It still, you know, didn't run right, did all this other stuff. And, um, it ended up he comes to me and he— and that's another problem I have with, um, helping, um, is that you can't, you can't flat rate teach. Nope. And so if I, if I'm a flat rate technician, if 90% of my, my pay structure is flat rate I will help.

18:51I have a certain allotment to help, but I am not going to do. If I, if I get into doing, I'm getting paid. That's how, that's how it works. I used to say that all the time, right? Like, I'll go over and, and give them a bullet once in a while or say like, hey, you know, I see a lot more of these kind of complaints than you do, right?

19:10You're normally a transmission guy, but there's no trans— they give you that. Here's something I saw last time. But if I get in there and start lending you tools to do it, for instance. Like, right, remember a guy used to want to borrow my compression gauge all the time, right? Nope. Like, just put my number on the ticket. You don't have the tool and I'll go and I'll come.

19:28You can have the car back for the rest of it. I don't even care, right? And they, you know, they would get upset. But if I have to go start doing tests for you, um, just give me the ticket because it's— it's— I'm now spending time. I'm not— yeah. It's different if he comes over to you and says, hey Dustin, this converter's melted and I have these fuel trims or I have this code that came up.

19:50What do you think about that? And you can go, I'd probably look at whether an injector is shot or I'd look for a stuck O2 that's overfueling or something like that. I'm not going to get in there and go, okay, let me have the scanner and let me go drive it for 20 minutes and come back and tell you what to do next.

20:06That's dispatch wrong. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that, and that car specifically ended up— so it ended up going to that other technician after he couldn't really figure anything out. And he put a, he put a PCM in it, he put a new set of spark plugs in it, he put a, um, obviously the converter in it. And then so they're like, well, it should probably go to Dustin.

20:29And they're like, but— and then they were like, well, he's the highest paid, so we really don't want to because we've already lost on this car. Yeah, sure. And I'm like, you know, and I, I stayed out of it. I said, I can figure it out. There's no, there's no question that, that I'll be— I can figure it out. It's just going to take time, and I'm going to charge you for that time.

20:45And so they ended up giving it to the other tech, and he messes around, and, uh, his familiarity with scope is not that high. Um, so he ends up actually creating a case with the manufacturer, like what they told him to do. And, and he was kind of thinking maybe timing or whatever, because what was happening is It wouldn't start cold at all.

21:07It wouldn't start cold, like at all. And then once it got up to a certain temperature, ambient, it would start. And it would, it would just sit there and crank, crank. And then when it did start, fuel trims absurdly rich. Yeah. 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.

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22:16TechMetric isn't just managing shops, it's transforming them. Measure up by every measure with TechMetric. Hit the link in the show notes below for more. And then it would drive fine and eventually everything would clear itself. The fuel trims would come back down and it would be fine. But then you let it sit overnight and come back the next day, it's not going to start.

22:35Yeah, every time. So he— and I think he ended up maybe putting a fuel pump in it and eventually it got— he basically got to a point he basically bowed out, right? Sure. He said, dude, I'm— I don't know what else to try really. They're talking about scope and realistically You're going to be the best for that anyways. So, you know, that's where— this is where we're at.

22:57And then the manager came over and said, we need to figure this out. This customer's already spent this much money. Like, you're going to have to figure it out. I'm like, I said, okay, so what am I getting paid? And they said, well, just, just keep track of your time. We'll figure it out. I said, okay, fine. I will keep track of all my time and then I will get paid that amount.

23:18And I got started. So after obviously boatloads of testing, whatever, I figured out that what was happening was a reason it wouldn't start is because it was still in cold start. Um, yeah. And so it was, it was firing the injectors and holding them open a little longer, which is, which is obviously completely normal. Like, right? Like, that's completely normal. But what was happening is they had aftermarket coils and these aftermarket coils were collapsing and firing in such a way that it would cause a second firing of the injector during startup.

23:56So it was just overfueling. We ended up putting a set of factory coils in it and it fixed the car. Crazy, crazy. And so, and I have the scope captures, I have all the information. Obviously I did leak down, relative compression, timing analysis, like, because, you know, you don't know, right? And so I come to them and I say, hey, you know, these are all the tests.

24:16And I gave them a play-by-play, like an update every so many hours. I'd be like, hey, this is what I've tested. This is what I've done. This is what— and, you know, I got it started here and I monitored the fuel trims here and I did this. I did whatever. Like I did all of that. And I said, all in, you're looking at about 10 hours for the fix for everything.

24:31And they just said, well, we can pay you for the fix, Dustin. They said, well, I mean, you're— you do get a— you do have a thing set up, a bonus. And I'm like, okay, but that wasn't, that wasn't for that. And I was like, and they're like, well, we'll have to, we'll have to discuss it. Inevitably, after discussing it and me telling them everything I said, I said, I told them, I said, you had 2 technicians spend upwards of 15, 20 hours and thousands of dollars in repairs.

25:06And I was, I'm able to fix it for a set of coils. And that labor number. I think that's pretty cheap if you ask me. It's a bargain. And, and inevitably they, they did end up agreeing with me, if you will, um, and they paid me. But like, it's, it's, it's such a fight and I, I just, it's, it's when they— and I don't mean to interrupt, but it's when they begrudgingly do it, right?

25:31And that's the thing that has so shaped my attitude because it's not just about like I get it. I, I, I got paid. Like, I, I took the high ground, I stood my ground, and you paid me. But man, that, that fight acknowledged and appreciated and compensated is what wears me down. It does. And so that's actually— and it's funny that you say that because so we've only— I've only been with this group for, for now a couple years, and before that it was an individually owned owner.

26:01Yeah. And he kind of always had that policy of like, you know, if you're the top techs, my office is always open. Yeah. And when we'd have a situation like this, right, he would come out and he'd be like, hey, I know that, you know, we're not going to charge the customer for this, right? He said, he's like, just tell me a number and I will gladly pay you it.

26:28I literally, for him, and I, and I've, and I've gone through this with, with my director, and every time I've discussed pay and all that stuff, I said, when it was him, my, my monthly bonus, I wrote a number on a piece of paper and walked up to the office and said, this is how much you owe me this month and for my bonus.

26:44Yeah. And he said, yeah, okay, here you go. He writes a check and he hands it to me. And that's, that's why I work where I work. That's why I got there. But then inevitably they got bought out, bigger dealer group, and they don't— this, it's, it's a little more, um, obviously corporate, right? Um, and they don't see it that way. And I— and, and they, they think more or less that I'm just overpaid.

27:09But see, and it— and I always talked about, and I've heard other people do it, and I don't know whether it's all that effective or not, and I guess it would depend on the individual. But like, say I'm working for a dealer owner and they say, you know, I can't necessarily bonus you for this, but here is Here's an SRT for a demo for the weekend, right?

27:27Sure. Or I've got, you know, box seats at the— for the hockey game. Here's my tickets for tonight, right? I appreciate you. Thank you. You know, I can't go and lay $1,000 cash on the desk every time, but here's something to acknowledge that you saved us, you saved me, and that's the value. And, you know, but they don't want to do that anymore.

27:50And I, I sit there and look at it and it's like, we have at a dealer especially, we have all these cars that sit there and some people would just love to be able to like, I don't know, drive it, you know, drive home for the weekend or, you know, and, and I'm not talking tear it up or damage it or whatever.

28:06No, just, just take it for a weekend. Yeah. But do we allow them? No. Do we throw them a $100? And I know shops do, but say it's like, okay, here's a, you know, $100 gift for, you know, Outback Steakhouse or whatever, you know, St. Chris or whatever. Like, just go enjoy your thank you for that. That's worth so much more to me sometimes than the dollar amount I'm just gonna spend on fishing gear or, you know, right?

28:33Whereas if I— if you give me something that is a memory that, that counteracts that negative that I had to fight, man, that's worth so much more than just money that I'm gonna spend on, on toys and frivolous stuff, right? Yeah, I mean, my— and I go back to that, that same owner. I— and I told the— this whenever we got bought out or whatever, I told them, I was like, I never, literally never asked for a raise.

28:59He just came out and said, hey, I don't want you to leave, so here's a dollar amount. Or I would present a problem, right? Like I would say, hey, I'm doing this right. Like, this is what I'm doing and this is going to equate to most likely a little bit of a change in the hour number or whatever. My product, my efficiency is going to go down because of the way that this is structured.

29:21And he would look at me and go, well, how about I just give you more money? I'm like, yeah, that'll fix it. He's like, okay, then I'll just give you more money. And that's it. Like, I had never had to ask for a raise from him. And again, that's why— that's why I— that's literally why I work where I work. And then now that it's more— it's— and I knew it was going to be this way, right?

29:42Like it is. It's part— it's the nature of it. Um, and they've, they said many times like, everybody's a number, everybody's replaceable, everybody's, you know, and it's like, uh, it's like, dude, I understand that. But my thing has always been like, when I talked, when another dealership tries to poach me or another, another repair facility, whatever, I literally, whenever I came up, when I came here to the dealership I'm at, um, I had another dealership shortly thereafter try to poach me.

30:12And when I told him the number that it took me to get me to where I was, he literally goes, yeah, no, yeah, no, yeah, no. That's just not, that's not, I mean, good for you, but yeah, we can't do that here. And you wanna know what? He was, so he was an individual dealership. He hated the dealer group meetings and the, like he didn't go to any of those.

30:40He didn't talk to other dealerships. He said, He said his— he's like, I don't necessarily care about how many cars we sell. I just want my service department to be so good that I can hand them anything and I know it's going to get fixed. I know it's going to be done right. And, and that's, and that's why I came. And, and whenever— and I remember, so if I go back to the, to the dealership I worked at before that, I was forming there as well.

31:10And it was a, it was a, it was a sales-oriented dealership, right? So much so that like 80% of our work at that dealership was internal. And an 80% internal number is bananas in my book. But that's what it was. And I came in and car sales were down, whatever. And so I came and so I looked at my— we was, we was the end of the first quarter.

31:37And at that time, I think I had made— this is, this is 7, 8 years ago, 9 years ago now, probably. I made maybe like $75K a year that year. And I was looking at my first quarter numbers year over year and I was like, dude, if this trend continues, I'm going to lose $20,000 to $30,000 this year because we're not selling cars.

32:02Yeah. And so I went into— it was a meeting with my manager and the owner's son, basically. And they were discussing whatever. And I said, hey, can I, can I talk to you guys for a minute? Yeah, sure. It's like I was like, so, you know, all of our numbers are down. Like, yeah, yeah. I mean, we're just, you know, really not selling cars right now.

32:20And I'm like, okay, cool. But like, if this trend currently that is happening right now continues, I'm slated to lose about $30,000 this year. And he's like, oh, well, I mean, you know how it is, man. I mean, You know, if we can just sell some more cars, we'll be great. And I'm like, yeah, I get that. But I'm telling you, I am not going to lose $30,000.

32:42That's not gonna happen. Like, that's not— like, I didn't do anything different. This is not my fault. So I'm not going to lose that money. So what are you gonna do about it? How are you in service responsible for car sales? Right. And he said, well, I mean, you know, our internal number's so high, that's gonna take a big hit. So if we can just sell some more cars, then, then it'll, it'll turn itself around and it'll get fixed and blah, blah, blah.

33:07And I was like, and I said, okay, so that's, that's, that's where— that's your stance? That's what you're— that's the fix? It's like, I mean, realistically, that's all we can do is just try to sell more. I'm like, okay, that's fine. I literally left that meeting and walked out to my toolbox and put up my resume. And the— so the owner I was just discussing about, um, in less than 20 minutes He says, he calls me directly and he said, I'm looking for someone.

33:34If you are who you say you are, I got a job for you. And I'm like, okay, well, what do you, what do you, what do you mean? You got like, what this is? I said, I said, you're a little bit far away because at the time it was going to be like a 50-minute to an hour drive one way. Right. And I was like, that's— and I was like, I don't want you to waste your time.

33:53I'm not trying. Like, this is going to do this. Whatever I do land on, it's just, it's going to be significant. Like, I know what I can do. I know what I'm like. And he's like, listen, if you can do everything that you said you can do and you are who you say you are, the only question you're going to have is if you can make the drive.

34:14Money will never be a problem. Right. And I was like, that's, that's great. And he said, and, and if you, even if you're not who you say you are, You know, you're, you know, fully certified. I'm so I'm fully GM certified. I'm fully Chrysler certified. And he's like, you can, you can pretty much go wherever you want to go. If this doesn't work out, he said, listen, we're gonna, we'll set up basically a 90-day.

34:38This is how much you're gonna make for 90 days. And after that 90 days, go where you want. Yeah, you can, you, we can, we can negotiate, we can set it up. And I think at the time, oh, what was that? The 90-day number was, uh, $30,000, $35,000, I think, um, for 90 days. He said after that, we'll, we'll, we'll negotiate however you want to negotiate because you'll have an understanding of what this— what you can do here, and then we'll move forward.

35:12And, uh, after that— and that was— and then Needless to say, the rest is history. I, I never went anywhere else. I worked with him for 6 years and I never had to ask for a raise. And every time that another dealership tried to talk to me, I told them what I was making and they just go, oh yeah, no, we can't do that.

35:31We— the maximum we ever pay any technician ever is this number. And I'm like, okay, well then sorry, but why are you talking to me? Yeah. Now the manager and the manager's son that you left, or the owner and the owner's son that you left, excuse me, whatever happened to them? Where, where did they wind up? So, so they owned 2, 3, 3 dealerships on top of a power store, power sports store.

36:00And then they also had car washes. Okay. And so the problem with that situation specifically was We were the loss store. Yeah. And so I had meetings with the owner and because my new owner effectively was actually interested in buying something in that location and his exact words were because I was, I was, I was at the point at that dealership where the only way I was going to make more money was if we did some sort of profit sharing.

36:40So I was actually looking at like profit numbers. And every single time we posted a profit, let's say it was $100, yeah, our fixed ops would go up $150. And, and, and so I got— obviously got to a point where I was just like, this is, this is, this is very clearly, you know, this is not working. But either way, and whenever we discussed like actually selling and potentially buying the store, he basically said, he said, I mean I will entertain a number, obviously, like everything's for sale per se, he said.

37:12But I will say that store is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. And I— oh man, you just touched on something really cool there because I have a friend that got really high up in a dealer group here and they just bought the local GM dealer that— or Chevrolet dealer that had been family owned for 50 years, right? Yeah. And he came in and bought it and he said to me, he said, a lot of these dealer groups keep some low performers on intentionally to play with the curve and drive the number down and, and all that kind of stuff.

37:44And he said some of it is just the situation of it is the location is what it is, the market is the market, and they're never going to— for instance, like where I live, they're not going to put up the kind of numbers that you put up in a major city like Ottawa. Just can't happen. Yeah, it just— exactly. But it brings the average down and, and, and makes everybody goes, well, you know, you just got to keep hustling, man.

38:03Like, we, we think you guys can hit the numbers that You know, Ottawa's hitting, so keep pushing and maybe next year, you know, you'll get $2 bump. Meanwhile, it's, it's never gonna happen. My Mac tool dealer told me a really cool thing. He's like, in your area right now, we're at my city I'm in, there's like 250 approximately shops. And he talks about like the one up the road for me, 30 minutes, little town, hardly any people live there, not even 10% of my population.

38:32It's probably like 3%. And he's going, there, there's almost 50 shops. So he says, do the math. He says, it just waters down the market because it's all these people. And he says, that's legit places. Everybody, he says, we know that they come in, somebody gives an estimate, and the person walks out of there, goes to the parts store, buys the parts, and they're at some backyard place getting those customer-supplied parts installed by somebody that's charging for $80, $60, $50 an hour.

39:00Yep. Some markets just suck. And I believe that the dealer groups are intentionally playing that game now. They are. I know that some shops, uh, hang on, multi-store owners hang on to one for that very reason. Not because they want to see it bleed money, but because it keeps like, at the end of the day, maybe the real estate's worth more than whatever is going to turn as a business.

39:21And I'm just waiting for, you know, a development to come along and then I'm going to offload. Yeah. And I know, I know that shop specifically, all major purchases went through that shop. Every single major purchase, whether it was a, whether it was a skid steer, whether it was a, it didn't matter. That shop bought it all. Yeah. Your auto repair shop doesn't slow down and neither should your tools.

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40:47It was a town of, you know, 5,000 people, 6,000 people. And it was just a dealership there that they, like he said, he's like, it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do. And I'm like, that's— I mean, I get it. I understand. I do. But man, it's frustrating to be in that situation. And inevitably, the move was probably the best thing that I could have done anyways, because I was inevitably— I had pretty much outgrown that situation overall.

41:14Like I, I did, I did pretty much everything right. Like I was the IT guy, I was the, you know, and I to this day, I still I— there is not a person in our dealer group. So we— I think we have 4 Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealerships. There is not another person in the dealer group that knows labor operations as well as I do, that knows the parts catalog as well as I do.

41:43And then obviously from the actual repair side, there's, there's no one there either. So like I, I've been— because I was in that smaller store, it allowed me to. And then another thing, and this is going to be— this is kind of a tangent, I guess, that I kind of— I feel like when it comes to teaching, so I didn't like specifically Chrysler.

42:11The reason I am a Chrysler Dodge Jeep certified technician is because one didn't exist, right? Like the guy that they— so they bought out a Chrysler store that was just down the street and we all moved to Chrysler and GM. And I had most of my GM certification at that time and I was young, right? And they were like, well, we got one senior, senior Chrysler tech and we have a younger Chrysler tech, but he's older than you are.

42:38And the younger one, he left immediately. The older guy, it was like 6 months and he's like, I'm— I've been in this too long. I'm going to a fleet. Um, I'm out of here. This is— this— I can't do this because, well, and the biggest reason is because he was paid basically a salary plus bonus system. And when the new dealership came in, they're like, no, no, no, everybody's flat rate.

43:02And so he was like, I can't. Obviously this guy was— I mean, he was, he was probably 50, 52, 53. And he's like, I'm not— this isn't— I'm not doing this. Yeah, right. Like a whole life of pretty much no flat rate and then you're dumped on flat rate at 50 whatever. Like that's— he's like, nah, this isn't— this isn't for me.

43:19I'm out. And so then they— this was actually right around the time that— and you obviously, you probably were familiar with it where Chrysler was. So they had just been bought out by Fiat and they were doing— going away from the 5-star program, like 5-star uh, teaching or whatever, and they were turning it into the levels, right? And they— and you had to have a certain level technician in order to do repairs, right?

43:42And they were like, well, we don't have anyone, um, so we need someone. Um, how about— well, you know, they asked me, they were like, will you do it? And this will be, you know, this is— we're looking for someone who's going to do the training and get it done as basically flat rate training. Yeah. And so I went from zero, level zero, no Chrysler certifications, not even an SID login, to Chrysler Master Certified in under a year.

44:07Yeah. Um, and, and I was still doing my GM training at the time too. Um, and so I had— I remember I had a, I had a 1-day class, um, in Des Moines, Iowa, which is like a 6.5, 7-hour drive. I made it a 1-day class. I left at 1 AM. I got to class at like 8, had the course, and then left and drove back home because I, I was just training so much that I, I just— and I would do the web-based trainings in my hotel while I was waiting for the next day of class.

44:44And I had, I had trained, I had trainings all over the Midwest effectively, um, that I was just all the time. There was a year, there was a solid 6-month stint that I spent like 2 weeks in the dealership. Um, and I— but I got— I obviously, I got all my trainings done, and I've maintained all those trainings ever since. Um, but I am primarily— and that's why I ended up going to only a Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealer— is because, um, well, actually what it came down to was the only reason that I worked on GM products while I was at that dealership was if it was a problem car, right?

45:23Like if it was a really goofy, like they're like, hey, nobody else can fix this. We need someone, whatever. I was like, you know, whatever, that's fine. And I had one. And this is the reason I will not work. And I actually advise— there's one car brand that I will tell people to not buy, and that's General Motors. Wow. And it's purely because of the technician side.

45:45And I legitimately, I don't even have a technician to reference people. Like I can tell you, like someone comes up to me and they say, hey, I've got a Toyota. Um, who should I take it to? Yeah. I'm like, actually, I know a guy. He works here, blah, blah, blah. I do not have that GM reference because every single one of them, I, I worked with a guy that had a Chevy bow tie tattooed to his chest and he works at a Ford store.

46:11Yeah. Like, I'm not even joking. This guy has, has 4 big block Chevys. Yeah. In a Chevelle, a Nova, an '80s box truck. And like, he, he won't— he doesn't do it anymore. And it's purely because of the way GM pays. And GM is the only one that I've ever had do this. They had a— it was so it was right around the era that GM was introducing their— they just had gotten into diesel exhaust fluid, diesel emissions.

46:39And, uh, they were having a heck of a time with their, um, NOx sensors and like getting them to read appropriately and actually get them to pass their, their SCR efficiency tests. And so obviously I had one, I was the guy that was in charge of this. And so I, I had to work directly with field, uh, with a field service engineer and talk to GM about what to do.

47:06And they literally told me, they said, hey, this is what you're gonna have to do. You're gonna have to do the stationary test, then you're gonna have to do a stationary regen, then you're gonna have to go drive it. And then if the light comes back on, you basically have to redo that sequence. And then you keep doing that sequence until it passes.

47:27And I was like, okay, so how, how long is this going to take? Like, what are we talking here? And they said, oh, this can take upwards of 4 to 5 hours. And I'm like, okay, well, I guess if that's the case, then, then that's the case. You know, I got to fix this car. And that's always— and that's kind of always been my mindset when you're running your dealership, which is honestly one of the things I like is like, this is your brand.

47:49You have to fix it there. You have all the tools, you have all the resources, fix the car. And so I clocked in. I have I have, I have notes that are, that are, that are multiple pages long of every step of the process, right? And so it ends up being like 6 hours of doing these tests, doing regens, doing calibrations, going and driving it.

48:15I have the total mileage in and out. I have receipts from the amount of diesel fuel I used. Yeah. And we submit all this. Right? And I submit all the time. I submit the story, submit everything. And my manager at the time comes about and he says, hey, uh, they're only going to pay you 2 hours. And I said, no, no, they're not.

48:36I, I have literally clock time of 6 hours. And he said, I, I do. I'm fighting. I'm doing everything I can. And I'm— and so we ended up escalating the case as high as we could within the structure, right? And so this is a GM guy, and he And exact words were, we know it takes that much time, but the maximum we will ever pay you for that repair is 2 hours.

49:03Yeah. Ever. Yeah. And, and so I looked at, I looked at my manager and I said, buddy, if I'm working on a GM product, you are paying me whatever I tell you you are paying me. And I don't care what it is. I don't care what you get paid. I am getting my time. Well, I've had that conversation 100 times with people on my comment threads and in conversations like this, if I've had it once.

49:30You don't work for the OE, right? So when they come to you and say, I can only pay you this, what they mean to say is they're only paying us this amount and I have to come good for the difference. That's the second half of the conversation. We're going to come up with the other 4, Dustin. Right. Right. Not expect— we're not going to hang you out here and go too much.

49:50But see, people— and I'm almost frustrated to the point where it's like I don't want to hear it anymore because it's like the, the go-to answer I'm telling everybody, and there's some truth to it, but there's also some caveats, is you're standing and accepting it, which means that they will do it to you over and over again. You have to sit there and politely say to them, no, I understand, and this is— it's all documented just like you just did.

50:15You know, or it boomeranged around the shop and nobody else fixed it and I fixed it. I don't care that you paid it blah blah blah blah blah to those. It's irrelevant. This is— yeah, my time on it is 4 hours, you're paying me 4 hours. That's it. Yep, that's it. It's not for discussion. I don't work for the OE, I work for— and let's cut— let's just round numbers.

50:34$50, right? $50, 4 hours labor, $200. If that person in the dealership that owns the dealer It's coming down from the head office, whatever office says they can't find $200, F off with that. Go sell some t-shirts and hats in the parts department, right? Best market margin of anything in there. And right, and get me my money, right? It's as simple as that.

50:56And it sounds terrible to say that, but that's really where we are at this point. That is 100% where we are in the industry. And that's always— and, and I go back, so my big thing that I, and I keep, and I preach it to the technicians all the time, and this is with anything, is you get it on the front. I get it, like I tell, like before I touch the car, before I take the keys, I ask, hey, how am I getting paid for this?

51:24I just did, I just had another situation actually just last, just this last week. Another technician did 2 alignments in totaling of 6 hours worth of work. And he couldn't, and he couldn't get this car to drive straight. Right. And I, and so the guy comes back and obviously the guy's frustrated and obviously they're frustrated because the alignment, that's a menu item, right?

51:48Like they're only paying an hour to do this. And they hand me the keys and say, hey, this guy's, you know, mad. We need someone who can actually, you know, do a real alignment on this. And I'm like, okay, fine, I'll, I'll do it. And I said, I said, but before I do this, How am I getting paid? And he, he goes, we already talked about it.

52:07You're getting paid whatever you asked to get paid for. I'm like, okay. I grabbed the keys and I go do the alignment. And he ended up— so he ended up having it so badly messed up that I effectively had to do 2 alignments. I had to adjust everything and then recompensate and then readjust everything. Um, and so I charged for 2 full alignments at book time.

52:26And the menu time, the menu item, all that, I don't care. That's That doesn't matter. Like, again, I go back to, you are effectively a contractor. That is how much it pays. If you wanna figure out how you're gonna pay that, that's fine, but that's not my problem. Yeah. Real world time is real world time. And that's like, if I take the real world time to fix the car, you owe me the real world time.

52:54Not, you know, because let's be real, It's like any labor study, whether we call it menu pricing or labor study for a warranty or whatever, right? It's enough of them that eventually— like, I was talking with somebody the other day and it's like, people are forgetting in this industry that most of these people, I watch them, and after they do the repair 2, 3 times, they can normally hit the time warranty, right?

53:14And so yes, they get cranked when it's like the job pays this much retail, but all of a sudden it goes warranty. We're not arguing now oftentimes that it's like, I lost my shirt. We're arguing because it's like the job has a stated value of 18 hours, say, to reenroll. Transmission or engine, excuse me. And all of a sudden now I'm doing it for 9.

53:33I can get it done in 9. That's not the point. But you took 9 hours away from me because that's how I'm technically paid. If we're all paid just to show up and— right, it doesn't matter anymore. I don't care. I'm not arguing, right? Right, man. They just— they have to stick to that because it's— if it works for them, they want it.

53:51But when you stand up for what is yours, what's deserved, and you fight them on it, then it becomes this big big to do. It does. You're jaded, asshole. You're, you're argumentative. You got— you're toxic, whatever. I know. I, I— yep, I have those conversations every single day. I mean, whether it's extended warranty, whether it's whatever, I'm like, I don't— it is— we didn't sell the warranty.

54:16We didn't sell the car. We are just telling them what it's going to take to fix the car. And, and that's another— that's, that's another big thing that I talk about when, you know, when I say you get it up front. The best and the best paid technicians are the ones that are able to predict the failures of the car and the failures of the repair before they happen.

54:39Yeah. And, and I do it, I do it every— I do it almost every day where I, where I, I tell someone, hey, I need 4 hours up front, and if I only use 2 of those hours, That's fine. I'm only going to charge you 2 hours. Yeah, but I don't want to be 2 hours deep and then you say— and then I say I need more time and then you say, well, we can't afford more.

55:01So, and now your car is just kind of half torn apart and I'm, you know, halfway into diagnosing your harness break. Yeah. Um, and, and that's— you get it up front. Like, I, I, I— if you think a bolt's gonna break, you get it up front. Because if, if you go in and everything comes apart great, that's fine. They get a cheaper bill.

55:23That's perfectly fine. I'm not— but I'm not pulling seats and part of the dash out to look for a CAN problem, right? Like, right, the, the splice pack or the, you know, right, comb or whatever, you know. And then all of a sudden it's like you say, no, I can't go any further than this because now I've got it terminated. I've got, say, 8 modules eliminated as being the problem.

55:42There's I don't know, 10 more to do, but I've got 8. And you say, I don't want to put any more money into this. The right conversation has to be is that this could be like, this could be a butt chewer and it could be terrible. And are you committed? Yes or no? And this is, we're probably not going to need 10 hours, but it's probably going to be 5 minimum.

56:03Right. Instead of having this like 1 hour, 2 hours call again for another 2. Yeah. And that the nickel and diming part of a lot of things. And technicians do it all the time on, on normal repairs, right? Like they, they're like, oh, I didn't forget, I didn't remember the, these bolts or I didn't, you know, or like I didn't see that this was, you know, I didn't actually look and see if this was rusted like this.

56:26And so I'm actually going to need more time for this. And like, it's like, dude, you should have figured all that out up front, man. If you would have figured it out all up front, because when you come from the back end, every single person loses because now we're discounting the labor, we're discounting the parts, and what was a good ticket turns into a loser.

56:47Yeah, that quick. Yeah, like the margins aren't really that great to be like, oh yeah, it's fine, just throw another $1,000 at it, it's, it's, you're good. No, it's no big deal. And, and, and if you can get it up front, that's what— and it also, the other thing is, is it prepares the customer, right? Like, so when you do tell them Hey, that bolt that we told you was gonna break, well, it broke.

57:10Um, and they go, yeah, I mean, it is what it is. Go ahead and get it fixed. We're good, you know. But whenever you come back, when you're like, hey, this is going to fix your car, and then you call them back and say, actually, now that it flips, everything's flipped. They're like, wait, I thought my car was going to be fixed for $2,500.

57:29Yeah, you're telling me I needed to find another $500? Well, wait, wait, so this is And now their, their mind immediately goes to like, okay, so how deep am I going to go? Do I need another $500? Like, are we going to be $4,000 deep before my car's fixed? Yeah, but if you prepare them up front— I do it, uh, one of the repairs I, I use as a great example for this is, uh, is, uh, uh, turbo actuators on, on like the 6.7 Cummins or whatever.

57:53Yeah, like I tell every single time I do one, I'm like, hey, I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna move your— the vanes in your turbo and I'm going to make sure that everything is mechanically sound when I'm in there. And if it's not, you're going to buy a turbo. Yeah. And that turns— so it takes what is already like a $2,000 repair and turns it into, heck, sometimes a $10,000, $11,000, $12,000 repair.

58:16And so I quote both up front and I say like this, I'm— I am— I will gladly do the cheaper repair. And that's what we— that's what we're going to try. But let— this is a try because if this happens, this is the outcome. And if you're able to do that on almost every single repair, you're going to sell more. The customers are going to be happier.

58:39And you also get the situations where you come in looking like a hero because they had in their head, you know, this might cost $10,000 and it ended up only being $2,000. Yeah. And that's where it's so important that your advisors actually are reading the tickets. What did the customer— what did the technician finally do to fix the car? Oh, you know, that's the 3rd 6.7 I've seen come in this quarter that, you know, has a turbo actuation fault.

59:07Uh, we went in there, started doing the turbo actuation, figured out the vanes are stuck or, you know, right, playing the impeller wheel, and it's getting a whole turbo. Like, they should be able to, after they read 2 or 3, be prefacing the customer when it comes of those trucks going, hey, this is how this could very well go. And if you do that, then, you know, we don't have the conversation on the back end with the technician where it's like, uh, I can't— customer, yeah, right.

59:33Or now we're going to parts and going, I know list on that turbo, you know, you guys should be getting $7,000 for it. Uh, we got to ship it out at cost because it— we, we effed up. We didn't eff up. I mean, as a collective department, we effed up. But really, it's who effed up. Speaking, uh, dealing with the customer. Speaking on, on the, the whole department, that's another thing that, um, that, uh, uh, it gets me, uh, because, because again, I go back to the, the corporate stuff because before we weren't, and now that we are, every department is a different department.

1:00:11And it's infuriating to me because I want the, the entire service department to be on what I call Team Fix Car, right? And we have it now structured in such a way that parts is in parts. Sure. And they are very much like, nah, yeah, like that, that wasn't our mistake, we're not eating it, basically. And it's like, wait, wait, this customer just spent with you guys $5,000 And, you know, this happened and you're not going to like— what?

1:00:48What? How? Yeah. Like, how? Like, well, I mean, or like we've had situations where we'll be like, hey, customer approved this. Why is this not here? Oh, well, we ordered it and it went to backorder. It's like, okay, so, so what happened? Well, I mean, if we, if we, if we do any special handling or anything, that's going to cost us more money and we're not, we're not going to just eat that.

1:01:10It's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, that wasn't the customer's fault. And again, they just spent this much money. You just made $3,000 in parts and you're not going to— and, and it's like, why are we— again, I, I— every single person in— and, and this is a, this is a big dealership problem, is everybody has what, basically competing pay structures?

1:01:33Yeah. And it's like, dude, Why don't we all get on the same, like, if a car comes in and gets fixed, we all make money. Like, why is that not the way it is? Because you've got so many people on commission that it's all of a sudden, it's like, it nothing. And I'm sure it infuriates you too when it's like, you know, that the part's sitting at the depot.

1:01:53It's like, they're not gonna ship it. It's Monday. It's Monday. I need a, you know, I need a steering rack for this truck. And you know it's sitting there at the depot, but they don't put it on overnight order. We have our stock order coming in on Thursday. I'm gonna put it on that so I don't pay extra shipping. Hello, you're gonna— I now have to call my customer and tell him he's gonna know his vehicle 3 extra days because we don't want to, like, yeah, want to maximize the profit on the part.

1:02:24Yes, keep them in his— in a loaner. Keep them in a loaner so we're paying, right? Eating that cost, but that's okay because service is eating that cost, not parts, right? That pissing the customer off. And that you want to ship it on a stock order, that should be— if I had a parts manager say that to me, he'd be, he'd be gone.

1:02:40Does the, the general manager should be terminating that guy. But I know why they do it, because it's like, listen, you guys are— inventory's killing me here. Like, you know, I want— because you know how it is, general managers love it if everybody would just wait one week and the part would come in on stock order and never had to pay additional shipping.

1:02:57They're like, do you know how much I paid in shipping last month? Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, because that's what your margin's supposed to be, right? Right, right. No, they don't want to do that. And that, that just drives me freaking crazy because it's like CSI score. Oh, they kept my car 5 days, right? The car 5 days, part wasn't back for— oh, they didn't want to put— that's got nothing to do with service.

1:03:19It has everything to do with the logistics of how parts was handled. And yet Who gets the shaft? Well, the whole deal, but who's responsible for getting the shaft? Parts. I, man, I, I was such a, you know, I talk about, I grabbed a parts guy by the collar, dragged him across the counter one day because I just, my buddy Dean's gonna laugh.

1:03:41Um, because I can remember when I kept saying to them, your job is to serve us, the tech. Yes, that's what you are there for. We are your biggest customer. And that's 100%. You're going to fill up with hate. It's like, I don't want, you know, but the reality is, is especially like when you look at collision parts, especially they're making so much money selling body panels to, to body shops.

1:04:02Sometimes they don't even care if they have to order in all the ESIMs or all the recall parts for the, for the service part, because they're making their nut on body shop stuff. Right. Care, even though they do it for a discount because it's insurance work, blah, blah, blah. They don't care. They're moving all these units. They don't give a crap about the service department.

1:04:20Yet the people came and bought the car from us and expect us to be able to fix their damn car in a reasonable amount of time. And I can't because we don't have tires. It used to drive me nuts. Customers come in, 5,000 miles on their car, blown out tire. And it's like, what's the right thing to do? Put an exact matching tire on that car.

1:04:41Right. Did we have to wait for that sometimes 3, 4, 5 days for it to come in? Why? Why can't we have one for everything that we sell? Oh, sure. I'm not saying have a full set, although that would work, right? But let's have one for each car. Let's— if, if I'm selling a Ram with 18s, I want to have that Bridgestone in 18 sitting in my parts for when the guy has a blowout.

1:05:02I can put on a matching tire. Good, simple, in and out, quick turnaround, done. None of this drove it in, put the spare on, put it back out, 3 days later, you know, I got to get that turned around because the advisor put promised to be done by 10. It's now 9:45 and it hasn't hit the bay. None of that shit. None of that.

1:05:21Yeah. But you said something earlier too that I wanted to touch on, how its team fixed the car. Because when you're at the dealer, you cannot get out of fixing the car. And now the comments are going to blow up on this because everybody's going to go in like, I took my car in and my friends are going to be like, Yeah, that's another, that's another.

1:05:43I, I want, now that you're saying that too, I always talk about, and I tell this to like family members and whoever, like you can have a really great experience at a dealership and you can go to that exact same dealership and have a completely terrible experience. And it was, could literally be just the technician you got that day. 100%. How was, who's it dispatched to?

1:06:08Who's it dispatched to? Like, that's going to be the— who was your rider? Who was it dispatched to? And you can have people who are like, man, I always take it to this guy. He does this and it's great and my— and everything's perfect. And then someone else comes to that dealership and they can tell you about some of the terror. And I mean, obviously I've worked in the industry long enough and you can see the technicians and, you know, like, that's not going to go well.

1:06:33That whole repair process is just not going to go well. And yeah, I used to do it too. I'd be like, you're giving that to him? Yes. And I would be that way. Like, I was that asshole where I'd be, oh yeah, no, I do. Trust me, I do. I'm going to next month, right? Or next week when it's towed back in again.

1:06:53Yeah. And it won't start. It's going to just let me have it now. Just let me have it. Exactly. And that's always been, especially when it comes to diag stuff, like they'll be like, oh, well, we're going to let him you know, try to diag it. I'm like, dude, you're literally just wasting his time and mine because I'm gonna get involved in it sideways first.

1:07:13Yeah. And then I'm actually going to come at it from the front. And that's one of my— oh, it's one of my biggest pet peeves whenever I'm helping people is like, you come in and you say, you'll say, oh yeah, I checked this, this, this, this, this, this, this. And I'm like, oh, okay, so cool. So what was your number for this?

1:07:29Or what was the compression? Or what was the ohm reading? Or what was the— and they're just like, I mean, it was good. The grounds are good, they're tight. The ground, it was good. Okay, what was, what was leak down? I mean, it was good. What's field trips? They're good. It's like, what was the number? What was the actual— I give me the data.

1:07:48I had, I had one, and then he got, he got honestly, he got really frustrated with me because he, he asked for my help And it was, uh, it was one of our newer brands. And so obviously you're familiar with Chrysler. We haven't done— we don't do— we haven't done mass airflow in, you know, God. Well, so now we have twin turbo, direct injection, we have mass airflow, we have— and so all these people who aren't familiar with mass airflow, they don't have a clue because they've grown up on Chrysler without— and, and obviously I coming from GM and then also diesel world, um, I'm, you know, I'm pretty familiar with it.

1:08:21So either way, that to be said, I know how big of a deal it is to have a messed up air filter, to have a whatever, right? And we had one of our new ones come in and, uh, it's, you know, dying at idle, running weird, whatever. It's only got 5,000 miles on— or yeah, 6,000 miles on it. And technician comes over and he's like, dude, this is a weird one, you can feel it, blah blah blah.

1:08:42And I'm like, did you read all the bulletins? Because there's a bulletin on this, obviously. Um, and he's like, yeah, yeah, I read the bulletins. I'm like, okay, cool. Um, so, uh, what all have you checked? He's like, oh, well, so I looked at this, I looked at the, looked at the air box, didn't really see anything, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay, so what did the air filter look like?

1:09:00Well, I mean, you know, it's there. And I'm like, okay, what did it look like? Yeah. He's like, oh, and I, so, so I said, give me your wrench, popped up the box. I see an aftermarket air filter folded in and laying down in the bottom. And I said, put a factory air filter in it and put it in there correctly and it'll be fixed.

1:09:23And I walk up to this, I said, who's the rider? And he told me. And so I walked up to the rider and I said, hey, I get half that time, that diag, that, that's, that's half, at least half mine. And he ended up getting mad about it. Yeah. And, uh, he, he ended up being like, well, I mean, he's, he, you know, he's, he's foreman, he, he should be helping, whatever.

1:09:44And I'm like, buddy, I did. I, I, I walked up to that advisor after they came back to me and were like, he's, he's upset about you taking half the DIAC. And I said, that's fine if he wants to play that game, I'll take all the DIAC. Yeah, I think half is more than fair, you know, just for, for teaching him what I taught him and telling— because I, I, before I even did that, I was like, did you look at the bulletins?

1:10:07Did you look at— and I, and I said, what about this airbox? And I looked at the airbox, immediately saw an aftermarket screw. Yeah. And I was like, this is a brand new car with an aftermarket screw. I'm like, guaranteed it's a crappy air filter, probably not installed correctly. And lo and behold, there it was. That was the problem. Puts, puts the factory air filter in, fixes the car, and then he's mad because he lost half the diag.

1:10:31But see, and, and when he says, well, you're supposed to be helping me, this is where I've always had these conversations where it's like, I'm not I'm not helping people by giving them the bullet. I mean, I am because it can help you get that car out of your bay, but there's one of them life lessons that kind of smacks you in the head where it's like you're gonna have to slow down and, and start to look at what the data look is telling you.

1:10:52Yes, do the testing, do your observations, do your inspections, and you'll probably fix the flipping car. Yep. Run over and go, Daddy, help me, bail me out of this. Then yeah, Daddy should get paid something, if not all of it, because right I got to be where I would take the hard line and go, okay, I'm just gonna stand over there and watch the circus unfold, right?

1:11:11I enjoy monkeys in the cage are, you know, sure, entertaining to me. And then when it comes back, then I'm going to really— hey, when it comes back, I'm not gonna hustle. That's the other thing we don't talk about. And, you know, it's a very real thing. When it's your problem now, it comes back and it's on you because you dispatched it wrong.

1:11:30I'm not kicking it down into overdrive and going as fast as possible to help you out. I'm going to be diligent. I'm going to be relaxed. I'm going to be slow. I'm going to laugh a little bit about how you guys keep failing to learn this lesson that I'm watching unfold over and over again. And that's where I get that militant attitude that, oh, he's so toxic.

1:11:52I'm not. But the reality is, is like, I'm old enough and you're old enough to remember when the dealer had to be the one to fix it. They were the last resort. Yep. And we all worked there and it was like we'd see these cars because in a bigger city, yeah, it'll go over to Smith's Chrysler, but it'll come back to Capital Chrysler because couldn't fix it.

1:12:14Yep. So you think you fixed it. This tells shop owners all the time and they get mad at me for saying that. You think you fixed it and then it rolls out of here. Well, yep. The reality is, is lots of us are in the know and we talk to people all over the continent and they go I had this car come in and all of a sudden you're like, oh, I remember that car.

1:12:34Yep. I worked on it. Went somewhere else. Just because somebody doesn't come back in your face doesn't mean you fixed it. And yelling and demanding a refund does not mean— and in fact, most people do not. Do not. Most people say that didn't work. I'm moving on because it takes a specific type of person to actually come in and confront and be like, you guys did this.

1:12:57You guys didn't repair it. You guys need to fix it. So most people just go, and I mean, we obviously, and every dealership has, and every shop has these stories about it's been to 5 different dealerships, been blah blah blah blah blah, and we fixed it. You know, we were the ones we blah blah blah, and and like, and every I'm sure every technician has those stories.

1:13:19But the only way you actually know is if it. If it does come back, but not for that problem. Yeah, well, and that's it. You and I have seen it where you do the pin drag, right? You find that— you find the loose terminals, you're chasing your mitten, you tighten the terminals up, you swap the connector, you do whatever, and it's gone 3 months and it's completely out of your mind.

1:13:39You're like, man, I feel good. You've broke your arm from patting yourself on the back. Then it comes towing on a tow truck again, or it comes in and there's— there's that flipping correlation fault, right? And you're like, yep. I can remember, you know, early, early on, the old, old Dodges. You remember this too, when the alternator would put a ripple through and it would cause TPS faults.

1:13:58Yep. I can remember the first time I ever saw that. And I say that because at the time nobody knew what was happening. They put in another Ram with a Cummins and they started— they hooked up a fuel line, jumped the fuel line from that truck to that truck like they were swapping everything. And nobody caught that the TPS— because you wouldn't have caught it without a scope.

1:14:18And I, I talk about that all the time. The guy back then, we only one guy in the shop that knew how to use a DRB3. There, I'm dating myself. Uh, I've got the emulator, trust me. I'm, I'm all— I'm, I'm the only guy that works on anything that comes in that's, that's DRB. So there's only one guy that knew how to use a scope function on that, and they didn't hook it to that car.

1:14:37And it was after I'd left that dealer and a couple years later when somebody all of a sudden started talking about this, and I'm going That's what was wrong with that truck that we never fixed. I think they ended up buying it back from the customer because they couldn't fix it. You know, it was, it was, this was, this was an old Cummins.

1:14:53And I actually have a funny old Cummins story, very similar where it was basically, it would, it would, it was, it was like a, it was effectively like a torque converter shudder intermittent that was caused by RFI on, on the, the cam sensor. Or something like that. And I ended up isolating the alternator power feed from the harness. And, and I told the guy, I actually told the customer, I was like, dude, I understand, because he, he loved the truck, didn't want to get rid of the truck.

1:15:23And it was obviously, it was super old at that time. And he's like— and I was like, listen, I've done a lot of research and I think we should try this. I'm going to dissect your loom and I'm going to separate this out and I'm going to wrap it in basically HVAC tape to try to get some of that interference away. And we're not going to charge you.

1:15:44And we— it was, it was again, this was a small dealership. I was like, we won't charge you, but if it fixes it, come back in 6 months and pay your bill. Yeah, he, he, he came back in 6 months, paid his bill. See that? I got a story for you. So, and I think I've told this before, but if not, so I remember we had a First-gen Neon.

1:16:06And I was like, oh yeah, right? And this little lady comes in, she says, I have a squeak, I have a squeak. And, and, and everybody had driven it, you know, put out— well, I had 2 sets of control arms probably put in by that. And it's, you know, a couple, maybe, you know, some sway bar end links and bushings off. And the squeak was still not there.

1:16:25And my foreman at the time had come from a straight-time dealer, and he gets in and he goes for a drive with the customer, and he hears it, and he's like Oh, I know what that squeak is. It's coming from the cushion of the seat. Now, you and I and everybody else would go, okay, the seat's just going to have to wear in before the squeak noise went away.

1:16:43Colin, God bless him, takes the seat out, takes the seat apart, takes the seat cover off, pulls a plastic bag over the seat, the foam, puts it back together, fixes the noise for the customer. Now, you and I know there is no labor op that pays for that. So you say that, you say that. So this is, this is, this is another reason I work for, I work for Chrysler.

1:17:05I, and I'm not joking when I say this, I have multiple straight clock times where I've fixed what would be what even Chrysler considered a normal concern. Yes, I have. I have one specifically. I got paid, Chrysler paid me And this paid because I made sure it paid. They paid me almost 40 hours to fix a rattle in a dash. They called that— they— so the customer comes in and he's like, I've got this rattle in my dash, whatever, and I can duplicate it.

1:17:43And so that was kind of the big key, right, is he could duplicate it. He said— so he goes up to his dash and he kind of just punches it a little bit and there's like this really faint little rattle, right? And he's like, man, and it really annoys me. I'm like, okay, well, let me kind of do some digging, whatever. And so I, you know, I'm like, it's— I can kind of hear what he's talking about, whatever.

1:18:03And then so I go and I grab— it was a brand new truck, brand new Laramie Ram, whatever. And so I go out to another— I go out to every single Laramie Ram, same noise, same noise, same noise, same noise. And he's like— so we tell him, you know, we're like, sorry, sir, we've done everything we can. There's just literally nothing we can do.

1:18:21We could order you a brand new part. And it's not going to fix your rattle, right? Like, it's irrelevant. And he's like, man, that's— so eventually he ends up calling CARES and Chrysler and all this stuff. And, uh, one day I get a phone call from the field service technician and he's like, hey, do you— what do you know about this Ram or whatever?

1:18:39And I was like, oh yeah, I know about it. He's like, uh, so he's— he— the customer is really concerned about it because I guess this customer, he lived on a brick road. And every single time he drove down this brick road for, for it was 6, 7 blocks of brick road. It just— it was the perfect resonating frequency and it just rattled and it annoyed.

1:18:58This is, you know, at the time an $85,000, $90,000 truck. And he was just so mad. He said, every single day I wake up getting mad because I'm getting in my truck and every single night I go home mad at my truck. Yeah. And so he had— obviously he had escalated it to the point where this guy's calling me and he's like, hey, so You know the noise, right?

1:19:18I'm like, yeah, yeah, I can duplicate the noise. I know exactly what it is. Like, I know where it's at and I can duplicate it regularly. He's like, so Chrysler's asking, do you think you can fix it? I said, well, I mean, I can duplicate it, so I mean, I can disassemble everything and I can probably fix it. Yeah. And they said— Chrysler said, well, um, you've got one shot.

1:19:39That's it. One attempt. And they told the customer, they're like, well, you have one time. You drop your truck off, it will be with them for, you know, it ended up being there for like 2 weeks, um, and he's going to fix your truck. This is the attempt. If it's not fixed, we are never addressing this concern with you ever again, fixed or not.

1:19:59Yeah. And so I kept obviously detailed notes. I, I did everything. So I ended up basically disassembling this guy's entire dash down to, to the bare. When what it ended up being was so the defrost ducting was injection molded to the IP, and between the vent of the duct and the IP was a void. And there were little— where the injection molding clamp, where it ended up getting fabricated together, there was little bits of plastic that were still there, right?

1:20:33But they would flutter, right? Like, so they'd just sit there and and flutter. And so I filled all the voids with great stuff. Mm-hmm. And I've— every void. And so I got to the point where I, you know, I tap on the dash after I filled it all up, I tap on the dash, noise is gone. So I obviously at that point I put the dash back together and we went and did several extended test drives, made sure that nothing came back, made sure that everything looked right, made sure, you know, all this stuff.

1:21:01And That customer, so I ended up getting paid almost 40 hours for that job from Chrysler. And that customer drove a new Laramie Ram every year for the next 3 years. And every single one of them had the noise. And so he brought it back and got in his truck. And he, every single time we saw him in service, he was like, you know, my truck is literally, he said, I have friends with the same truck.

1:21:23My truck's the only truck that exists that doesn't make that noise. Yep. Yeah. And that was, And so, and you put that same, so, and I, if talking about Chrysler, I honestly, to this day, I still believe Fiat was the best thing to happen to them. Like, it's not even close. Like, they created YTEC, which is hands down, like, it's won, YTEC software has won PC-level awards, right?

1:21:51Like, for how good it is. Like, I come from GM world, We're like, GDI, oh my, the GDS or whatever, it was a nightmare. I spent so many hours reinstalling different, like backdating my Java and just like, oh my gosh, it's such a struggle. Every time I ever had to use GDS, I, and GDS is so bad that to this day, GM technicians still, they'll be like, oh, I just go grab the Snap-on scope.

1:22:21I don't even touch GDS if I don't have to. You hear them talking how many times, like, people go to log in on a Monday and, and want to flash on the— the GM site's down. Like, that's the site, not the, the hardware. I, I, I brag about Chrysler all the time because it's like, who was putting topology in a scan tool before the WiTEC?

1:22:39No one. No. Why? Everybody in the industry, if you don't put it in your scan tool, they don't want to buy your scan tool. So people rip on Chrysler, but I mean, like, Why? Because the, the Hemi cams go flat? Because the 3.6 cams go flat? Uh, the LS? So honestly, and the thing is, is you go, you talk about that, and I've had, I've had, I've had builders talk to me, and I, and I, and, and I, and I tell them the same thing.

1:23:03I'm like, so, and this is honestly, this is, and I've, and I have, uh, other senior technicians that I've discussed this. I fully believe that about 90% of repairs wouldn't even be repairs if you maintained your vehicle the way you were supposed to and you had people who knew what they were doing working on it. Yeah, like, like you'd go, go to the Pentastar.

1:23:26If you have, if you have someone who knows what a torque spec is, take off and install your, your oil filter. I've seen those plastic adapter housings go 400,000, 500,000 miles without ever being needing to be replaced. But then you'd go to one, you know, down the street lube place and you're grabbing a breaker bar. Yeah. And it's like that. It's done.

1:23:52It's plastic. It's done. It's over. It doesn't matter if it only had 50,000 miles on it. That adapter housing is gone. It's over. My 15 Wrangler has the original filter housing still in it. Well, my— so my '16 Caravan has the original filter housing and it's at 200,000 miles. And I, as long as I'm the one doing the oil change, I didn't— and the same thing with oil with drain plugs, right?

1:24:16Like, and I tell, I tell lube techs all the time, if you ever get the first oil change on a car, pay close attention to how easy that filter and that drain plug came off. Like, that's how it should be basically every time. Yep. And you go and you talk about the Hemi. Yes, I mean, there, there are problems with MDS systems, and, and, but if you change your oil the way that I— what I would say you're supposed to, um, and that's the— that's another— I mean, it's a hot— it's been a hot button topic for a long time, right?

1:24:55Like, because, because inevitably the manufacturer— so, so you have to, you have to put yourself in the, in the and through the lens of the manufacturer, they, they're trying to do 2 things. They're trying to sell a car new, and they're trying to sell you a new car as soon as possible, right? So like, if you, if you use that as your, as your lens to look at their, their intervals, all of their intervals, I, I say, I like— my rule of thumb is every one of the intervals are wrong by at least half.

1:25:26Yep. Like If you actually, like, I use oil change frequency, right? Sure. So when someone asks me, I'm like, first off, what's your intent? Like, what are you doing with this car? Are you going to drive this car till it's basically out of warranty and then get rid of it? 'Cause if you're gonna do that, just listen to what the manufacturer says.

1:25:47And I mean, realistically, you will be fine. The next owner's not gonna be great. And I don't prescribe to that 'cause I'm, I mean, being in this industry, being just that mindset, right? Like, you're like, I want to make everything last as long as I possibly can. But that's you. That's what— that from a cost analysis perspective, that's going to be your best option.

1:26:06But if you're trying to make this vehicle work and work well for you, you use the oil life monitor because it is a monitor that actually accurately depicts your driving. But change your oil at 50%. That's the number. And see, in 2005 they told us 3,000 miles, 5,000 kilometers was still what you were supposed to be doing. And you and I can remember when the 2.7s would come in, right?

1:26:29And they were fleets especially, so they got extended oil change interval, a lot of idle time. They were all gummed up, sludged up. Now we can talk all we want about advancements in engines and all this kind of stuff that have happened since 2020, 2005, years later. Oil has not kept up, I feel, with the technology of the engine. And what it does is it puts more emphasis on good, clean, quality oil.

1:26:53Yes, that's exactly what it does. That's, it's 100% what it does. And the big thing is, is like, like oil, like, so the other thing that I don't get when I see, you know, whatever, these influencers, these whatever saying, you know, you don't have to change. Like some people are like, you don't even have to change your oil. What are you talking about?

1:27:10Blah. And I'm like, Dude, oil, we don't make money on oil changes. We literally lose money when you change your oil. So it is not, it is, and not only that, and I told this actually, this is a funny story. It's my, uh, my mother-in-law. She had like a, uh, uh, an Ecotec GM, whatever, um, the 2.4 Ecotec. And I honestly still to this day, I believe that was a perfectly good engine and just nobody changed the oil.

1:27:33That's right. Their owners as a whole didn't change the oil. And she, so I told her before she even bought it, I was like, hey, You know, honestly, as long as you, as long as you change your oil, you'll be fine. You know, listen to the old— to what I tell you to change your oil, and you're not going to have a problem.

1:27:47Well, inevitably, she did a lot of highway driving, and there were multiple times where she'd be like, hey, I know you're going to be a little upset, but I think I went over on my oil change. I'm like, what do you mean? Oh, well, the oil light's been on for the last week, and I just haven't gotten in. And I'm like— and, and she's like, so are you mad at me?

1:28:03And I, I, I told her, I'm like, listen, I am giving you advice for your car. I don't care. I will make more money if you don't listen to me. That's right. Because you're going to pay me to put an engine in it. So I don't care. Like, I don't want to change your oil. Like, it's— and so when I'm telling you this, it's literally just to save you money.

1:28:27And guess what happened? She did that so many times. And at like 130,000 miles, the engine went out. And I— she ended up paying me to put an engine in it. And that's what— when I, when I explain that to people, it's like, it's like I'm not making any— like, it is, it is actually against my best interest to tell you to change your oil more often because I lose money when an oil change happens.

1:28:50And you're not going to come in for some crazy repair because you changed your oil. Yeah, I'm not putting cams in a Pentastar because it's not right. And that, like, you use exactly that, like cams in a Pentastar. I've seen I've seen some of these, some guys go 300,000, 400,000 miles without ever putting a lifter. Yeah, one lifter, no failures. And like, and, and I see it all the time.

1:29:12I tell, I, I obviously I talk to a bunch of other shops and like, you can, like, I go into, I'll go into an engine to do, you know, like a timing cover reseal, whatever. And it'll be at like 50,000 miles and everything inside the engine is already starting to tarnish and has that, has that browning varnish all over it. And, and this is a 50,000-mile car.

1:29:33Yeah. And then me, in the inverse, I, I'll work on a car that does regular oil changes at, you know, 4,000 or 5,000 miles, and I'll go in at 200,000 miles. I'm like, this thing looks brand new. There's nothing wrong here. This is, this is all great. And, and, and that's the other— and there's also like cascading benefits, right? Like you're gonna do less gaskets, you're gonna have less leaks, you're gonna have less PCV problems.

1:29:57You're gonna have— and that's another big, big one, it's PCV. Like, people just kind of ignore it. I'm like, no, actually, that if you, if you just keep up on that maintenance, you're actually going to save so much and you're not going to consume— like, you're, you're going to have higher, better oil levels. I mean, I personally, I drive a 2.4 MultiAir.

1:30:16Like, I've got 200,000 miles on mine. It doesn't use oil. Yeah. And I've done— it has been the cheapest car that I could possibly I paid, I paid $16,000 for it when it was, it was 1 year old, and I've owned it, and it was used obviously, uh, and it had 30,000 miles, and I put all those miles on it, and I've literally, I've done 1 oil pressure sensor, 1 set of brakes, tires, and oil changes.

1:30:44That is the repair history, the entire repair history, and I averaged 31, 32, 33 miles to the gallon And it's been a phenomenal car. Yeah, but it gets dumpstered on because of the oil change. Like what they advise everyone, what they, what they say to do. And if you look at it through the lens, they're just trying to sell more cars. So why, why listen to them?

1:31:09They have a vested interest in you not taking care of your car. You get it out of warranty and then it dies. That's, that's what they want. That's the end goal. So when they say filled for life or they say That, that, that's the life of a car is a relative term, believe it or not, right? Like, like the life of a car is in their terms when it, when basically it leaves warranty.

1:31:32Yeah. Yeah. And if when you're talking to a, a normal person, the life of the car is as long as it could possibly go. Well, those are, those are 2 very different lenses and, and you need to recognize that. And a lot of people don't. So can we talk for a minute kind of to shift the— when you see the young people coming in or they're coming into your dealership and what's the biggest obstacle you see in terms of like, because you hear us talk all the time, Dustin, about the, the shortage and the rate and all that kind of stuff.

1:32:03Where do you see it failing or why are they— so I, I think honestly the— they get pushed too far too fast. And the other thing is, and I go back to one of my previous comments, is that you can't flat rate teaching, right? And so you stick them next to a flat rate tech. And honestly, I feel like that's another— that I go back to kind of the way I learned, literally not having a technician.

1:32:33So like, I learned an entire brand and everything with not having a single mentor at all. Right? And so I just had to organically learn all the information. And because of that, I will know not only what failed, but I know why it failed. Yeah. And but whenever you get into a dealership setting and you're basically taking a flat rate technician that— and I've actually, I've heard you talk about it— there's so many things, processes, and tests that I'm doing multiple.

1:33:00Like, there's multiple tests involved in this one test. And I'm gathering all of that data for all of those tests at one time. And you're trying to teach this to, you know, a kid effectively, he's not processing all of the data that you're actually collecting at that one. You just show them, well, I'm looking at this, this, and this, and they're this number.

1:33:17And so it needs a blah, you know, it needs a, it needs a, it needs an oxygen sensor. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. How did you get there? I, you know, I'm flat rate. I don't have time to tell you that. Just put an oxygen sensor in it. And so that's how they learn. I've seen so many junior guys going to dealerships and they, you know, they basically like, well, I mean, when it has that code, we put it, we put this in it.

1:33:36It's like, but, but, but that's not, that's what, yeah. Like, that's not a thing. You can't do that. And like, again, you're, you're throwing flat rate technicians out there and saying like, just because you're a really good tech, that doesn't make you a really good teacher. And, and even if you are a really good tech, you can't be a tech, a really good tech.

1:33:57While being a teacher. Yeah, like the, the two— like, you're not going— like, no person, especially starting off, and I don't even— most people who work in the dealership around me are like, even the, the seasoned veterans are, are not able to keep up when I'm full-speed diagging, right? Yeah. And so expecting a kid to come in who has— doesn't even know what I like He doesn't even— like, I'm all— I, I could talk about emissions, right?

1:34:25And like, I— they'll come get me about, about trying to help them with an emissions test, and I'll be like, okay, so what did you do? And one of the first things that almost always gets told me, well, you know, I kind of walked back there and, you know, I got to the gas cap and, and I opened it up and twisted it.

1:34:39It was a little off, so maybe that might have been— I'm like, you already messed up. Yeah, you are. You already screwed up. Like, you, you messed up before you even started. What? And you try to explain why they messed up and you try to explain what they should have done and you try to explain how now your test data is, is maybe not wrong, but it's inaccurate.

1:34:59And like, and it just, again, it just goes whoop. And but, but you're trying to, during all that, you're still trying to turn hours. You're still trying to make a paycheck. You're still trying to, you know, get cars fixed. You still have a waiter over there that's That's a diag from— it's the environment is not conducive. And then the other side of it is most places don't actually have a real— yes, what, what I would say is a path to success, right?

1:35:28Like they don't say, hey, you can do this training and once you reach this level, you're going to reach this pay structure. And once you do this and what it's like, hey, do all these trainings and when you're done, We'll talk about it. It's like, okay, so what's the carrot? Like you said, there's— you basically implied that there's a carrot, but I don't actually know what the carrot is.

1:35:51And so they spend a year, 2 years, maybe even 3 years, and they're just like, I don't know. All my buddies are working at Costco making more than me, and I'm dealing with waiters. I'm dealing with this. I'm dealing with— like, what's the point? Like, because, and you and I know, like, they can sit there and take all the online training they want, all the, the, the dealer prep, the— yep, actually provided.

1:36:16It doesn't help them break down a process to, uh, interrogate a wiring problem better, right? Right. From all this Ohm's law and basic circuitry, which is fine, but it's like, until they can look at it and go, if I remove that relay, I generate all of these codes. Yep. Or if I just cut this one leg off, I generate these codes. That doesn't click for them until they've been solving problems.

1:36:42I use welding a lot as an example. You can be like, you can literally have every single welding book read. You can know what it should look like, the temperatures, the amount of gas, every numerical, everything that you could possibly know. About welding, you could have, you know, all stored. It's all right there. It's all fresh. That, that doesn't mean you're a welder.

1:37:07No, because go, go climb underneath the machine, cramp your body up into that situation. Now, right, the headwind blowing across the thing, right? And your gas is blown away. Like, all of those— again, I, and, and I, and I'll be the first to say, I'm— I, I don't classify myself as a welder. Can I put 2 pieces of metal together and it's going to hold?

1:37:25Yeah, probably. But I'm not a welder. And I've done a significant amount of welding and I've also done research on welding, but I'm not a welder. And it's the same for cars. Just because you have the information, just because you can say the right things doesn't mean you can just drop a car off with them and it's gonna get diagnosed properly and it's gonna get fixed and the customers and all of these things.

1:37:48And that's the parts and trying to, inevitably teach that, like you have to have someone whose pay is not reliant on them still fixing cars. Yeah. Because you have to be able to, I don't mean to interrupt you, but you have to be able, if there's a pivotal moment in their teaching right there, you have to be able to go over there and work with them until you see that light bulb go off.

1:38:15Then you're done. That's that particular incidence. That's, it's done. The lesson's been taught and you can go back over to what you were doing. We can't be in a situation as this environment where like, okay, gotta go. No, go over here, like, look at this and touch that and see how that feels. That's, that's not it. We have to be going, watch this, slow down.

1:38:33This is what the scan tool for you. Let's go over and pull this page up on the service information. See how that's written there? This is how we attack this. If we don't have time to do that in any shop, dealership, independent shop, it doesn't matter. We can't bring up the next generation. And, you know, it goes back to If everybody's running around doing these DVIs for free or these oil changes for $0.30 or $0.40 or whatever, we're not harboring a culture where everybody can slow down, help one another, teach one another, that one another up.

1:39:06We're not doing that. We're, we're not. It's against each other, dog eat dog. It's 100%. That's ex— and that's when you talk about bringing up the next generation. It's just, it's just like— and, and I know it's been obviously it's been discussed so much. And it's just like, dude, you're, you're asking, let's say, an 18-year-old kid, hey, you've got a, a $20,000 buy-in.

1:39:28Yeah. To make basically, you know, less than you can make at pretty much any warehouse, any factory, any, you know, whatever. Like, all your buddies are going to be making more than you for probably the next 5 to 6 years. And this— all of that investment is so that you can eventually get to a point where you can make it. And the other side of that is too, is you, in order, in my experience, and honestly, more people I've talked to that are successful, um, is you in this industry specific.

1:39:57And when this is, I would say it's all industries, but this industry specifically, you have to not only be good, but you have to self-advocate so hard. Like you have to prove how good you are in not only in the day in, day out, but you have to prove it in the numbers. You have to present Like I used, I still do it.

1:40:17Like every single year I initiate the interview to the analysis, to the bonus, to the pay, to the like, and I bring all of the numbers. And you're asking again, for most part technicians, like I'm not, and I'm not, I don't want to put technicians in a box, but like when you're asking a technician to more or less be confrontational, like to go up to a bigwig and be like, hey, You know, I know that your name's on the building, but, uh, these are all of the— this— the— and then you're asking them to not only be able to understand all the numbers and the metrics inside the dealership or the repair facility, but then

1:40:55able to be able to put into perspective what they bring in that— in that number, in that subset, and then advocate for themselves for this number based on, you know, total United States market analysis. Like, that's a big ask. And, and I'll tell you, I think you're a lot like me because what did it for me was like when I was the hourly guy and they handed me everybody else's comebacks, and I told this story before, I started keeping a logbook with the photocopies of the original work order, what it came in for, how many times it came in after that, and my notes that showed what I actually did to fix the damn car.

1:41:34And because when I would go to them and say, this is why I'm worth more, or this is the raise went through the shop and you left me out of it because you gave the raise to the flat rate guys, but you didn't give it to me. This is why I'm worth at least what the raise was, because I had that evidence.

1:41:48I had that information that was, you couldn't argue it. It couldn't be disputed that I was worth at least what they were. And I was worth more than like what I was getting paid and worth what I was asking because I had it. If you don't have it and you just sit there and go, I know I do these things, but I can't really prove it.

1:42:07I just know that I'm worth more. They just kind of look at you and go, hey, sorry, based on your, you know, your level and your age and the market, you're evenly paid. We don't have time for, you know, we don't, we don't have money in the budget for— and that's the big thing, especially now that I'm with a corporation more so, is like they're, they're big into like, well, you're paid above market.

1:42:28So I mean, you're, you're And it's just like, but you don't understand, like I bring— this is the level, like, like you obviously. And I, and I, in my last performance interview, I brought all those numbers and they inevitably, they said, but based on, you know, the market, it's still— you're paid well enough, basically. And, and I was just like, all right, well, all— and I told them this actually.

1:42:52I was like, well, literally all you're doing is you're opening the door for a competitor. And if that's what you want to do, that is fine. I'm not going to lower my productivity, my efficiency, my repair strategy. Like, I'm going to keep performing because that's just what I've done my, you know, basically my whole life. But like, all you're doing is allowing someone else to come in.

1:43:13But that's also when you talk about dealer groups and stuff like that is that's kind of their thing is like, well, if we own all the dealerships, you're not doing it here. Well, and that's— oh man, you just We're running out of time here and you touched on something because that's how you get blacklisted, right? Yep. You might find yourself a better fit on a better brand with a better manager, right?

1:43:32In the group. And that's why, but like, man, I have a friend that I worked with at Nissan and he talks about how it is out in the province that he moved to. You've got essentially 2 dealer groups that control everything. Everything. Buy a car in that province, it's through that group. And he said it does not matter. Like, that's why he finally got out of the dealer rat race and went to, what's he fix now, ladies and gentlemen?

1:43:55He fixes Ford. Forklifts because I've got several, I've got several buddies that they fix forklifts, they fix school buses, they fix like because they're just like, I was so tired of, of the— I mean, inevitably the dealer politics, the constant like, well, what, you know, basically what they're saying. And I know that's what— and the thing is, is they're not technically wrong, right?

1:44:18He's basically saying find something else. Yeah. Good luck. And I, and I know based on what I make that all what I would have to do in order to make more is I would have to basically make a lateral shift to another dealership and promise them my capabilities. And then whenever I produce that, they would have to backpay me the amount that I basically made them because I was who I said I was and relying on a dealership to not weasel out of that money.

1:44:47Um, that, that's probably unrealistic. And so obviously with whatever, if, if and when the move happens, and I've, I've said for years, I, when I hit, when I hit 40, um, I would really like to, I'm almost there. Um, but when I hit 40, I'd really like to pivot because the, like working at the efficiency that I said, the numbers that I said, um, I mean, it's just hard.

1:45:12It's just hard on the body, right? Like I mean, you know, you know just as well, obviously, you know just as well as I do, man. It's just I really don't want to be that grumpy old tech. And it's tough not to be that grumpy old tech sometimes. And it's only getting tougher, you know, like every time I— the amount I sat down an advisor the other day because he did kind of what we were talking about earlier where like he, you know, he hands me the ticket that I already quoted a whole bunch of stuff on.

1:45:37And he said, hey, it's aftermarket warranty, got it all approved. I'm like, you got all of it approved? He's like, yep. And I'm like, okay, good. So I worked, did the job, and then the next day I look at my stub and it's 2 hours short. And I'm just like, so I walk up there and I'm like, hey, what happened here? Oh, so yeah, they said the warranty said that, you know, this is all they're going to pay, blah, blah, blah, blah.

1:45:59And I said, you don't get to do that. I said, that is not how this works. I said, if this is what you're going to do, I am not going to work on your cars, the cars for your customers, until I know the dollar amount and you're going to pay me that. Like, this is not how this works. And like, that just, it wears on you, right?

1:46:20Like it just— Sure. Because here's the thing. He calls up Mrs. Smith then and says, Mrs. Smith, they covered 18 out of the 20 hours. Your bill for this repair is going to be $160. Right, Mrs. Smith, uh, or $300, whatever, you know, whatever your rate is times 2. And Mrs. Smith goes, well, that's not really what they said when they sold me the warranty, but— right, like, and, and again, I understand it's not the technician's job to have the conversation, but we shouldn't even have to ask that anymore.

1:46:48It should be, right, Mrs. Smith's going to be on the hook for the difference because the job has a value, the technician has a value, everybody's going to get paid their value. I wanted to, you know, going back to what you were saying, and then we gotta— I gotta let you go. People are talking about, you know, in the dealer group, and they go, well, you're above market value, right?

1:47:08And, and, and, and, and, you know, I don't need to do anything. You do need to do something right now because they're vacating the dealerships, vacating the shop, hitting the industry in a rapid, rapid exit. So that's, that's, that's— so when they said that to my face, right, like they said you know, well, you're, you're already above market. And I said, but the market's wrong.

1:47:31People are leaving in droves. And I said, I said, there are going to be a million empty bays in the next year or two. And yeah, we've got to figure out a way to fix that. Ford's got 100,000 if you believe Jim Farley, right? And I was like, and, and we have to fix that problem. And part— and the big— one of the biggest parts that problem is the pay.

1:47:53So you telling me, I was like, as the market, whatever, I frankly, I don't care because it's wrong. And, you know, and basically he just said, well, I mean, at this time, that's just where it's at. And I'm just like, okay, that's— and they whatever, make it make sense to me then where it turns around and I lose technicians because I don't want to pay them another $10,000 a year, but then I'm going to take corporate money and I'm gonna dump $100,000 into a high school program or a program.

1:48:23Tell me how that makes sense, right? Everyone that signs up in that is not a slam dunk gonna catch, you know. No, most are not. I mean, if you went through, if you went through the high school program or a college program or whatever, I, I, I know, I know the numbers on my college class, my graduating class of, of 35 kids through the program when we graduated.

1:48:44Um, there are 2 technicians. Yeah. And only one of them is actually working on cars. The other one's working on forklifts. Every other one is in some tangential HVAC, um, a family business, uh, you know, whatever, right? And, and so it's like, so if we're missing out on 95% of the kids that come through anyways, like that, that Like, and the thing is, is like people talk, right?

1:49:12Like we talk, like, uh, and so when you talk about, actually, I'm making a lot of money and I'm doing really well and the, and the, and everyone around me is happy and we're all, you know, we're all on the same team and this is great. And if you're saying stuff like that, well, all of a sudden people are like, hey, maybe I want to go do that.

1:49:28Maybe that sounds— but when people come and ask me, like, should I go work on cars? I, I give them a list of all the reasons that are potential downfalls, basically, right? Like, I'm like, dude, this is how it's going to be. And I'm not saying it's right. And I'm— but you're going to have to advocate. There's going to be a point, probably year 3, where you're going to look around and you'll be like, I'm worth way more.

1:49:51And you're going to go to your, your, your whoever, your dealer principal, your manager, whatever. And he's going to decide right there if you're going to be in the industry or not. Yeah. Because if you're good, he's going to go, yeah, you're right. We've been underpaying you for the last 3 years. Here's a little bump. Or he's gonna be like, I mean, you haven't— you've made a little progress, but you're not really there.

1:50:12Uh, sorry, we can't really do it right now. And then you're gonna pack up your box, you're gonna leave. And that happens time and time and time and time and time again. And there's so many just missed— like, there's, there's, there's so many missed opportunities in that. And it's just— it is, it is just frustrating. And I mean, it's And I go back to the engineering thing.

1:50:32It's not just this industry. It's a lot of— it's a— there are a lot of industries that are struggling in that because, I mean, I mean, it's kind of the nature of where things are right now, right? I mean, we have super billionaires and inevitably that wealth comes from somewhere. But it's just, man, the boots on the ground, the day-by-day guys, it's just— it's only gotten more difficult.

1:50:55100%. We're gonna have to come back and do a part 2, Dustin. All right. All right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've been, I've been doing this a long time and I talk a lot. So is there any chance you can make it to one of the Destination events that we talked about? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could, I could definitely make it to one of the Destination events.

1:51:12I'm, I could definitely make that work. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I've done this a long time and I'm pretty integrated into all the systems and I know a lot of numbers. Well, then the next 2 coming up are ASTA in September in Rockville, Carolina. And then of course, like, I'll be at Apex, SEMA, and Vegas, which is, you know, every car guy should see that once.

1:51:34Okay. But it, you know, there's going to be something closer to you if you can't make it one of them. And, you know, you and I'll talk probably before then if we're not talking about those 2 events. And, and we got to get you to one of these because I, I keep bringing on, you know, the, the dealer guys. And, and I'm sure it's probably some of my audience is like, we don't care, they can't fix anything anyway.

1:51:56I have to keep having this conversation because I hope at some point somebody in one of these big dealer groups hears my show and understands what the boots-on-the-ground people are talking about, the very real problems that they're facing. So when you're sitting there going, you know, we've run an ad for 6 months and we can't hire a technician, and there's no, there's no techs in my town that'll come work here, or they can't— man, they're, they're out there.

1:52:20There's technicians all over the place, but they're They're not going to play the game anymore, right? They're tired of it. They're tired of the game. They're tired of the politics. They're tired of it. And I said, I go back to my previous owner, like, I didn't have to do any of that. Like, he just gave me raises and said, hey, man, I genuinely appreciate you.

1:52:39Then, I mean, I remember having a conversation during COVID and he was just like, I don't want you to leave. You're too good. And will this number keep you? And I'm like, and I said, I told him, I was like, man, I will tell you this, you have been nothing but good to me. And at the end of the day, if there was ever a situation that I would be leaving, I would 100% give you the opportunity to make it better.

1:53:04And, and that's, and that's it. That's all. But when you go back to dealer groups and they talk about all the time, you're just a number, you're replaceable, you know, you'll leave and we'll just, we'll just find someone else. And it's like, brother, no, you won't. It's not like you don't— again, you don't understand. And it's— they won't, they won't hit the numbers when they let a tech like you leave.

1:53:26They won't hit the numbers. So whatever you think they're saving by not giving the open pay, you're not making up all of a sudden. So obviously we get numbers all the time, right? Like every week, every day, all the time. And like I— so just labor alone, I'm doing a about $60 grand a month in labor, just my stalls, just me. And that's on top of all the other duties.

1:53:52Like, that's on top of going to the parts counter every single time and showing them the parts I need because they can't do their job. Like, so like when they tell me, like, I literally have to help them with, with, with— again, I go back to labor operations and getting stuff paid. And they come to me and they say, well, I don't think that's going to work.

1:54:10And I say, listen, Submit it. I know it will work. I have the story, I have the punch, I have all the stuff. I know it works. And then they're like, okay, yeah, it paid. Go, wow, that's great. I've never seen that pay before. And I'm like, trust me, I know the game. I know all of these things. Yeah. And then again, and like you said, they just don't— it's— there's so many things that are not measurable for my value on a spreadsheet.

1:54:36Yeah. But when you talk to the people that I work with, right, like, like the riders and stuff, they know that if I'm gone for a week, they're going to lose $30,000 in labor. Like, that's just, that's just how that's going. Or 2 weeks or whatever. Like, that's a $15,000 hit for labor alone for one week going on vacation. Right. And if I look at— so if I look at parts and labor sold on my tickets, I'm at like $1.2 to $1.3 million a year.

1:55:05And they're like, you're overpaid. And I'm like, okay, sure. But how dare you want $12,000 more next year? How dare you? Right. I, I would— that's above market, right? And I'm like, okay, cool. Dustin. Yep. Thank you, brother, for being here. Yep. Everybody, um, you know, this has been a fun one, and, uh, he'll be back. I like these just like this.

1:55:28Um, I'll see everybody at Asta. I'll see everybody at Apex. Um, you know, everybody, thank you for people that make this possible. Launch Tech USA, TechMetric, you know, all my friends. Um, I can't, I can't say enough about how important it is that I represent you guys and speak for you. So as always, people, like, I love you all. If you want to have a conversation, reach out to me, get a hold of me.

1:55:51Um, you know, you don't have to record it if you just need to bend an ear and be heard and, and, and get over something. Just get a hold of me. Don't, don't suffer without having a conversation. I will always be here for you guys. So everybody, thank you. I love you. We'll talk to you all soon. Dustin, brother, thank you very much, man.

1:56:09I can't wait to do this again. Yep. Had fun. Let me know, man. Hit me up for sure. Hey, if you could do me a favor real quick and like, comment on, and share this episode, I'd really appreciate it. And please, most importantly, set the podcast to automatically download every Tuesday morning. As always, I'd like to thank our amazing guests for their perspectives and expertise, and I hope that you'll please join us again next week on this journey of change.

1:56:36Thank 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. Here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10mm, and we'll see you all again next time.