Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
This podcast is dedicated to changing the automotive industry for the better, one conversation at a time.
Whether you're a technician, vendor, business owner, or car enthusiast, we hope to inspire you to improve for your customers, your careers, your businesses, and your families.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:00]:
Yeah, they are.
Russell Richey [00:00:02]:
So where are y'all from?
Lucas Underwood [00:00:03]:
I'm from North Carolina.
David Roman [00:00:05]:
Really?
Lucas Underwood [00:00:05]:
He's from, uh if you know where App State University is.
David Roman [00:00:08]:
Absolutely.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:09]:
Yep. That's the corner of my world right there. So live in the very top corner. He's from Kansas City.
Russell Richey [00:00:15]:
Gotcha. He loves the Kansas City flatter than yeah.
David Roman [00:00:20]:
No, not a Chiefs fan.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:23]:
You're not a Chiefs fan?
David Roman [00:00:24]:
Not a chief sin.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:26]:
But they're playing, so know somebody posted.
David Roman [00:00:29]:
Something like, who would you get rid of in the NFL? And it was like a picture. Andy Reid. Bill Belichick. Like Sean Payton. I don't know. Somebody else. Pete Carroll? Something like that. And the entire thread, it was somebody local in Kansas City.
David Roman [00:00:43]:
She's a real estate agent. The entire thread was Bill Belichick. Like, just over and over and over and over and over. Whole lot of peanut butter and jelly in this thread. Whole lot of peanut butter and jelly.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:56]:
Well, I mean, I don't know. The Pats aren't they'll be fine. He's a big Pats fan.
Russell Richey [00:01:04]:
Is he? Yeah. And we have some skin in that game. How's Mac Brown doing for you?
David Roman [00:01:10]:
Mac Jones.
Russell Richey [00:01:10]:
Mac Jones.
David Roman [00:01:11]:
Yeah. Sorry. He's doing good. He's awesome this year. He was good last year, too. Everybody kind of hated him, but he had no offensive coaching last year. He just had to go out there and wing it. It was terrible.
David Roman [00:01:23]:
It didn't look good. It was frustrating. It was the there's a bunch of great YouTube channels. Have you ever seen the QB school? I've not I can't remember the guy's name. He was a backup quarterback, and he does, like, very detailed breakdown with the quarterback, seeing what play they're running, how the defense is going to play. It why the throw is made in the game. It's insane to see the nuances and the intricacies of every single play, because you're just seeing giant men just smash into each other, right? And either they do well or they don't. And you're either cheering or you're like, okay, next play.
David Roman [00:02:00]:
But there's so much to each play. And so he breaks it down in a very concise fashion, makes it understandable. It's very interesting to watch. And last year, another quarterback that had done the same thing was Kurt Warner. He has a similar YouTube channel, and he breaks down the place, and he did the Pat's Vikings game, and the whole time he's like, there's no spacing here. Where is he supposed to throw the ball? This is the way that the play is designed. You have no spacing. You're stacking the receivers on top of each other, and there's just a massive, like, where do you throw the ball? And just play after play after play.
David Roman [00:02:40]:
Even the ones they did well on, he's like they got lucky on this play because a defender had made a mistake, and that's the only reason why that guy was open. But had the defender stayed on the guy properly or they had defended that properly, there would have been no spacing. There wouldn't have been any design in the play to get the guy open. There wasn't any. And it was like he's like, this is the most rudimentary offense I've ever seen anybody run.
Russell Richey [00:03:08]:
You guys know McElroy, the ex quarterback from Alabama, and he does a morning show down in Birmingham oh, really? With Cole Kublick and those guys, because Cole is a defensive lineman, I think. And then McElroy is a quarterback, and they are, like, you're saying, highly intelligent, how they break the game down. I understand kind of the high level what the play is called, but then they're talking about all these it's like linguistic code, and you got to go.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:43]:
Sit and Google it to understand what.
Russell Richey [00:03:47]:
It'S fun to get that sort of insider image. Yeah. The deep cut into that sort of thing.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:54]:
Well, that's kind of like, why you're here today. And so tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us your name.
Russell Richey [00:04:00]:
Russell Ritchie. I'm based in Birmingham. I work for Endeavor business Intelligence.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:08]:
That's different than Endeavor Business media. That's different than the magazine.
Russell Richey [00:04:11]:
It's a different division, same family. Endeavor Business Media owns Ratchet and Wrench and owns Fender Bender. They also own 90 other brands across buildings and construction, laser, military equipment manufacturing, fluid processing, healthcare, dental. It's sort of a B, two B media. I would call it an empire, but it spans a lot, and the Automotive Repair Group is one of the sort of the crown jewels of those properties because we've got a lot of great audience and a lot of great brands and great content.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:55]:
And so what do you do for that organization?
Russell Richey [00:04:57]:
I'm a research director. So charity starts closest to the home. I help our editors do their surveys that they leverage into article content or put it on their website. But then mostly what I do is paid research for custom customers. So we have think of the sponsors that are in this event. Some of them are my customers already, and we do market research for them.
David Roman [00:05:30]:
Okay.
Russell Richey [00:05:30]:
So we may be doing, if it's hypothetically, a product development project. We might be doing in depth interviews and showing key people schematics mockups of a new product and get their feedback. And then other times, we're doing things like survey research where a company really wants to find out where they sit in the perceptual landscape of a market. And that's kind of simple math for are you Coca Cola? RC Cola? What is your top of mind awareness? What is your aided awareness? What's the willingness to recommend across the market for your brand versus others?
David Roman [00:06:13]:
Very cool.
Lucas Underwood [00:06:13]:
Very cool. And so yesterday you did a presentation. Now, I had seen the PowerPoint a little bit earlier. We had shared that with the local high school because I thought it was really interesting. And as you were talking, the realization hit for me that we have something very unique in our community in, like, a big way compared to what you're talking about. It's very different. Right now, I can replicate what you're talking about in the study you did in all these other communities, but I can also see that ours is a standout, massive way.
Russell Richey [00:06:54]:
Okay? There's a distribution curve, and you're the one percenters on one side, and you probably ought to be kind of someone that people should be modeling best practices after.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:09]:
Well, and I've been telling our local school system this. I've been telling the local community college this, and we're going back and forth, and we're talking about ways we can accomplish that. So to give you a little bit of background, otaga County Schools had a phenomenal teacher in there, and he retired, and the program went right. Now, the high school was built to have co education classes in the trades, and so they have college courses and high school courses in the same facility. And so you walk into our automotive facility, it's got a Dyno in it. It's got millions of dollars worth of tools. It's got a brand new hunter alignment machine. It's got brand new hunter tire equipment.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:56]:
It's got every piece of equipment they're going to use, and it dwarfs any dealership you've ever seen. I mean, it is unbelievably nice. And so it was a shame, because after he left, you saw that there's nobody in the classes. And so this teacher comes in. His name's Eric, and Eric comes in, and he's a Volvo master technician. And he comes in, and he begins to take the program, and he gets people in, and then more people start coming in, and he's calling shops and saying, hey, will you be on the advisory committee? I'd really love for you to be on the advisory committee. Let's get some action here. So people started going to his meetings.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:37]:
At first, there were five or six of us, and then all of a sudden, we're having cookouts, and there's 200 people from the community at the cookout, right? And that's huge because most of these schools are not getting that kind of engagement. And I distinctly remember so the CTE director at the time, she's now the assistant principal, was telling Eric, whatever you need, like, whatever you need. You need to be in the newspaper. You need to be on a podcast. You need equipment. Here's the check.
Russell Richey [00:09:04]:
Here you go. What do you need?
Lucas Underwood [00:09:06]:
What do you need?
Russell Richey [00:09:08]:
Was it down to his initiative and his a lot of it made her go, hey, or was she already willing?
Lucas Underwood [00:09:16]:
I think she was really willing. She saw that there was massive opportunity there, and I don't know who got to her to explain that to her before he got there, but she saw there was massive opportunity there. And so he took this high school program, right? And he took it and he turned it from a class where you come and you read a book, and then you go out into the shop for a while and you talk about what needs to be done and how you do it. He took it and he turned it into a functioning auto repair shop for the teachers.
Russell Richey [00:09:45]:
Oh, cool.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:46]:
And so the student runs through the entire process exactly how you would speak to a client, exactly how you'd work on the car. And so they're learning not just how to work on cars. They're learning life skills, and they're learning responsibility, and they're learning that there's a safety aspect to this. We're not just down here hanging out working on cars. There's life principle in this, right?
David Roman [00:10:08]:
Sure.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:09]:
And I will never forget we're at one of these cookouts and one of the guidance counselors is there, and I hear somebody talking about the fact that technicians can earn $100 to $120,000 a year. And I see the guidance counselor's face just drop. And I said, why the facial expression? And she said, well, we've never sent folks down here that we thought would be responsible for this type of technology or had this type of potential. I'm realizing now that this is way more advanced than I thought it was. I thought they were just, like, turning wrenches.
David Roman [00:10:44]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:44]:
This is pretty advanced stuff.
Russell Richey [00:10:47]:
Stem all the way.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:48]:
Yeah, exactly. And so when you started talking about your presentation, I'm sitting there saying, wow, we're really lucky that we have something like this in our community.
Russell Richey [00:10:59]:
I would say you are in a minority from the overall population of academic secondary institutions. For every story like that, there's probably a lot more. We didn't study the schools themselves. We studied the parents attitudes towards the schools.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:26]:
Let's dig into that a little bit when we talk about those numbers, and David can pull it up and put on the screen if we need to. But what was the first slide you did? Because I just remember that first graph, it just went, like, straight down like that.
Russell Richey [00:11:41]:
Yeah. That was the average number of kids, the younger generation, going into an autotech training program.
David Roman [00:11:52]:
Right.
Russell Richey [00:11:53]:
And over ten years, it lost 30% 3% year by year.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:59]:
Right.
Russell Richey [00:12:01]:
Not only is the curve steep, but the rate of decline is consistent.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:06]:
Right.
Russell Richey [00:12:10]:
That's a problem.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:11]:
Yeah, for sure. So we've long said up until this point, and there's been data out before, but up until this point, I think we've all kind of felt like a lot of this was that parents and guidance counselors were not telling students that the trades or that blue collar work was a viable pathway.
Russell Richey [00:12:36]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:37]:
And I think that the school systems. We've got a local chamber, and the executive director of the chamber was on a while back that focuses solely on skilled trades.
David Roman [00:12:47]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:47]:
They focus on workforce development. For so long, it seemed like they were solely focused on four year degrees, and they were telling parents, you should teach your kids to work smarter, not harder. And I think we personally have some responsibility of that as shop owners, because what we did is we put guys in Bays and we kind of abused them. We didn't pay them the best, we didn't take care of them the way they were supposed to. And the real issue was, at the end of the day, there was very little opportunity. You hit 55, how many shops do you know that have a 401? How many do you know that have IRA plans? How many do you know that have full paid health insurance? Where do you go? And this is a very taxing job. You're talking about your personal shops that you use and they're still back in the Bays working. Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:36]:
And you have a relationship with these people for a span of years and you watched their health decline.
Russell Richey [00:13:44]:
Yeah, you're right. One of my mechanics went through a bad spell. He was unable to work. It's funny because he has a whole customer base that all know each other and kind of viral in our own sort of small peer group. But everybody is like, what's up with Sandy sick? What are we going to do? And God, do we need to go check on him and help him out or anything? And thankfully, he came through it. But you're underscoring yet longevity. And it's also that the ability of a good shop owner to create relationships with their customers absolutely. That are powerful.
David Roman [00:14:32]:
Absolutely.
Russell Richey [00:14:33]:
And that was kind of the sort of not the thesis of the PowerPoint, was you guys as shop owners are the grassroots of this all and your words mean something. And to get out there and well be a good person in the community, because people go, wow, he's an auto guy and he's a great guy, and then just them talking, just big up your gig the best, do it. And that's why those guys are the ones you have to make appointments with. Just drive the car off.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:15]:
Absolutely. Well, when we look at that aspect of our industry as a whole, right, and we look at that relationship and how important the auto repair shop is to small American communities all over the world, big American communities, right. You got to have your car fixed, you have to have transportation. When you talked to these parents and you were doing these studies, was there any indication they thought that their children could earn a good living?
Russell Richey [00:15:46]:
That was the misperception. There's a level of parent, there's a percentage of parents that do feel that you can make a great living. Right. But it was under 50%. It was about 40%. So two and five parents don't have that perception of the trade.
David Roman [00:16:10]:
Right.
Russell Richey [00:16:10]:
And I'm not saying I be kind of silly to say, oh, well, we wish 99% of people would say that, right. There's a big difference between 40 and 90. Somewhere in between would suffice.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:23]:
It would make a big difference.
Russell Richey [00:16:25]:
It wouldn't hurt, right?
David Roman [00:16:26]:
For sure.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:27]:
So one of the things that I noticed in the presentation and David pointed this out, was that when looking at community college, right? Because like in North Carolina, if you go into an automotive apprenticeship or a skilled trades apprenticeship program, you get out and they will give you an apprenticeship scholarship to a community college. So you get a two year associate's degree completely free of charge. Okay. Even if you don't get that, community college is substantially less expensive than a four year school.
Russell Richey [00:16:56]:
Oh, absolutely.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:57]:
Why in the hell is everybody sending their kids? That was a massive number. It was like, what almost 50% are saying you need a four year degree.
Russell Richey [00:17:10]:
Yeah. And the family or the kid are going to get in the whole $100,000 and the kid's going to come back and live in his basement.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:20]:
Right, exactly. And work at McDonald's.
David Roman [00:17:22]:
Yeah.
Russell Richey [00:17:26]:
It's a disconnect that's kind of you got to fight the good fight and go. What we saw in the data were actually younger generation are sort of attuned to this. They were more likely to believe that you can make good money in a trade than their parents are. But their parents are still pivotal in their upbringing. The parents are heavy influencers. The kids are out there ready to be molded. If there was just a less disconnect and the parents were kind of aligning with them, as you might say.
Lucas Underwood [00:18:15]:
And so is there any indication of where parents get this information? In other words, we know what the news says and we know that they get information from web sources and the nightly news or whatever media source it is that they choose to obtain their information. How is it that we as an industry could better educate that consumer?
Russell Richey [00:18:43]:
I think it's about awareness campaigns, and advertising is to build awareness through reach and frequency. And there are plenty of safe associations. Think maybe way back in the day, better living through plastics. That was the plastic industry putting a lot of advertising out there to humanize and explain the benefits of plastic. It's not all bad. Right. And I'm not a marketer. I'm a researcher, but I hang out with marketers.
Russell Richey [00:19:20]:
I think the industry is going to have to put energy, effort and money into awareness campaigns and just spell these messages out.
David Roman [00:19:31]:
Right.
Russell Richey [00:19:35]:
You could see a 32nd spot during the NASCAR races, but then it should be not only top down eyeballs on TV, it should be integrated with the shops themselves, the educational facilities and institutions, the big companies. And there are a lot of companies that sponsor the trades associations or the technicians associations. But I think you're all talking to yourselves in a way, right?
Lucas Underwood [00:20:14]:
We're just not reaching the key demographic.
Russell Richey [00:20:16]:
Yeah. The kid or the parent or just the general public. So that's just my take from the know.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:26]:
I remember Mike rowe testified in front of Congress a while back, and he said, I think we need a campaign for hard know. And this country was really built on hard work.
Russell Richey [00:20:35]:
Absolutely.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:35]:
And so much of the infrastructure that we have and the world that we live in I've watched for the past three days, David's, so frustrated by this, but I've watched for the past three days them take this crane up and down over here, okay? And I don't know if you've seen any of that, but I mean, these guys are out here 06:00 A.m., and they're putting the first crane together to take the other crane apart. And I've watched these guys I don't know if you saw it this morning, they're standing out on the very edge of that crane, up in the air, and they're just, like, dangling off the edge. And there's a lot of people who would absolutely cringe at the Idea Heights.
Russell Richey [00:21:10]:
I look up there and go, wow.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:12]:
Right? And so these guys are up here beating and banging and flailing around, and they're going to take home $150,000 this year. Right. And there's a whole crew of them out here probably making as good a money as you could in any office in America. And they contributed to a project over here that made America what it is. You know what I'm saying? There's a new building over here. There's a new apartment over here that's going to generate revenue and produce GDP for this community. Wasn't there before?
Russell Richey [00:21:43]:
Absolutely.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:44]:
And so I think that we've gotten away from hard work is important in our communities.
Russell Richey [00:21:51]:
I will say, I think in a way, the kids of today, maybe in the kids, just grew up in their garage messing around with a car, and now what they do is mess around with their computer in their room. So these kids are going into coding and software engineering, and in a way, someone who is not necessarily a software engineer building a brand new platform, but someone who's just maintenance, doing the maintenance. To be fair, they make really good money, too. It's almost like those guys are the mechanics of the present in the way that it's neither good nor bad, it's just what it is. But those guys, and I guess I'm from a generation where you go outside.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:44]:
And do stuff, right?
Russell Richey [00:22:45]:
Playing with a joystick or whatnot, but I do agree we need to get back to that outdoors. That hard work, for sure. Sun on you.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:56]:
That's it.
Russell Richey [00:22:56]:
Absolutely.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:59]:
What was the biggest thing when you looked at that study? Was there a moment where you said, holy cow. Was there one particular piece of data in there that was just or were you expecting it?
Russell Richey [00:23:14]:
I try to never expect what to expect.
Lucas Underwood [00:23:18]:
Right.
Russell Richey [00:23:18]:
But yet I expect it. If that's kind of a circular way of saying it. I'll be honest, what hit me was the lack of women in the industry, and I figured it would be a three to one ratio or four to one ratio. But it's under 10%. It's 9%.
David Roman [00:23:38]:
Right.
Russell Richey [00:23:40]:
And what was interesting is the older generations did not think that it was a great opportunity for women. But the millennials and the Gen Z's are more likely to think that. And it's just kind of a changing of attitudes as the generations shift. But I'm not a demographer, but I do stats for a living. Get 15% more of the women interested, and all of a sudden half your shortage is gone.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:11]:
Right. What was the number on the shortage?
Russell Richey [00:24:15]:
I want to say. So they needed to add about 120 per year.
David Roman [00:24:21]:
Right. I think the issue with the gender thing is that you're going to have to force the issue. You look at any country that pushes more equality in the demographic makeup of particular sectors. The more they force it, the more it ends up separating apart, and you still end up left to their own devices. Women are going to pick certain trades. That's why most nurses are women, teachers are women. HR positions are almost always women. Sure.
David Roman [00:25:00]:
And you don't see women going into automotive repair or the oil fields or brickling or any that's not what they want to do. Guys don't want to go into HR, although they can. Women can get into the automotive field. Were there barriers, I think, in the past, sure. I think it was very difficult for a woman because they just weren't in there. They weren't in the industry. Now we're at what, 9%? You're saying, I don't know that making that appeal is going to work. You'll be fighting you're going to have to do three times the work to get the same result as you would if you just did the awareness campaign.
David Roman [00:25:44]:
The awareness campaign. I think that's it. He's right. You just kind of said it like, oh, no, that's exactly what it is. You had the example of the Rolling Stone perception ad because, hey, I don't think you understand who's reading our magazine. You think it's this, it's not. We have very well to do older, influential people reading our magazine. You should take this seriously.
David Roman [00:26:14]:
You should be advertising with us. I think that's going to be critical. You don't see that, right? What association is running? Become an automotive mechanic, you can make a lot of money. This is the industry, the future cars aren't going to go away. The cars are getting more complex. This is more interesting work, for sure. Not oily greasy. I mean, it kind of is kind of.
David Roman [00:26:37]:
Sort of, but not like it used to be. You're not rebuilding engines. Right. You're putting battery packs in.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:43]:
Who would take that?
David Roman [00:26:44]:
Nobody's doing it. That's the point.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:46]:
Would that be ACA? Would that be somebody?
David Roman [00:26:49]:
It should be the it could be on the Auto Care Alliance. I don't know. Look how much money and effort and energy is put into something like all all these people get it's cool to go see SEMA and it's cool to go see the cool technology and the cars and all that stuff. And the show's awesome. And Apex, that whole thing is awesome. But there should be some aspect of it where, hey, we need the public to understand that this is what the industry could be. This is an opportunity, for sure. Let's get some people in here.
David Roman [00:27:32]:
Let's get some eyeballs on this. Ford is running that campaign. Be a Ford tech, I think is what it is, Beaforttech.com. But even then, I don't think they're appealing to existing technicians. They're not trying to create new ones.
Russell Richey [00:27:47]:
They're just singing to the choir. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
David Roman [00:27:51]:
Everybody's just talking to each other. Everybody's just talking to each other.
Russell Richey [00:27:55]:
And it was interesting, guys. After the talk, I was rapping with some of the guys in the audience, and so they were telling me stories about how they're having trouble getting technicians.
David Roman [00:28:05]:
Right?
Russell Richey [00:28:06]:
And so one guy was like, yeah, one of my competitors posts up at the coffee shop across from my shop, and when the guys come over to get coffee, he chats them up and.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:17]:
Tries to recruit them.
Russell Richey [00:28:18]:
I can believe it, he said. But then what I do is if someone left my company to go to another company, I keep in touch with them. And every three months, I email them and say, well, how's it going? You like where you at? We miss you. Those guys, they're humping it to do these tactics to retain what's there. And if everyone put that energy out to finding the new the new by changing the underlying perceptions, they wouldn't be I mean, it was kind of funny. It was like kind of spy versus spy, these guys, right?
Lucas Underwood [00:29:00]:
Yeah. As opposed to reaching out and looking for the new opportunity. So let's say we want to create a campaign like that because we're very much about solutions, right? Because one of the things that we've always said is that our industry has always just harped on the problems. Well, we've got a technician shortage. So, I mean, where do we start? What's the next step?
David Roman [00:29:22]:
But think one step ahead like, you do the campaign. Somebody that is out of the industry wants to get into the industry. And then they go down to Joe Schmo's Auto with the dirt floors, and they're like, you guys are throwing this campaign out there with making it seem as though automotive repairs is one thing, but I went down and applied for this, and it's not like that at all. I'm doing oil changes all day long. I'm not getting into this cool technology. There's a disconnect there.
Russell Richey [00:29:52]:
And that may be the reality that has to I don't know. That's tough to change. Right? Because you invest all this time to buy brain share, mind share, and then it's ruined by walking into an environment.
David Roman [00:30:11]:
Environment or you get these flat rate shops that are built on speed. And it's not technical work, it's get the work done as fast as possible. Not that it's not a bad thing, we still have to make money. But that's very much a factory mindset. It's a production line. Factory worker mindset. Shift starts at eight, the first breaks at 930, 2nd breaks at lunchtime. You get 30 minutes.
David Roman [00:30:45]:
Come on back, put your clock in, don't stop until you hear the whistle. And you're absolutely right. Like they're getting on their computers or their gaming devices or whatever. And software engineering is the most boring job.
Russell Richey [00:31:06]:
Zeros and ones all day.
David Roman [00:31:08]:
Yeah.
Russell Richey [00:31:09]:
And they work it's insane hours, code and code.
David Roman [00:31:12]:
And then you run it, compile it, and something's broken, you have no idea why. And then you're like, you have to figure out what you put the wrong.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:20]:
Squiggle in the wrong line, 455 pages back.
David Roman [00:31:24]:
Yeah, but it affords them some flexibility. I have a good friend who's a software engineer. Every two to three years, he switches jobs. He will learn the new code that's out, so he can go then apply for jobs. Because at the end of the day, the fundamentals are all the same. So he's like, I think the last one was Python. He's like, I don't know, I didn't know Python, so I taught myself Python. How long did it take you to? A few months.
David Roman [00:31:54]:
And I was entirely proficient on Python, that I could write code and then go apply for jobs. And when he wanted a raise, he would just go get another job. But he would sit in my lobby when he had a car, that he got a Tesla, but when he had his Subaru, he would come and sit in my lobby and he's like, I got to bang out some work. And he would sit on his laptop. He didn't have to go into an office, he didn't have to be there at 08:00 and you can't stop working till 915, and then you take and take a 15 minutes break. That whole structure is no longer appealing. I don't understand. We have to create something different, because otherwise we're going to be fighting the UAW for employees.
David Roman [00:32:42]:
You see what I'm saying?
Russell Richey [00:32:45]:
What you're describing is it's like that Gen Zers dream. You just walk around, throw up your laptop, bang out some emails, do your job, go to lunch, go to the coffee house, then go work. And they may, over the day, work eight or 12 hours, so they're putting in their time. How can you kind of shape shift that into your context?
David Roman [00:33:13]:
It works to a certain degree. You can put some guardrails up. The issue is the person coming in to that environment, because that software engineer is on a deadline, so he can work an hour today, 20 hours tomorrow, but the deadline is the deadline. You still have to have it delivered and you. Can create something like that within a shop. The problem is you hire the technician. They've got the factory mindset. They've got the factory.
David Roman [00:33:46]:
Unless I've got the foreman behind me watching me all day long to make sure that I'm not slacking off, I'm going to slack off because there's nobody behind me barking at me. Because they're not used to self actualization. They're used to being forced. You have to and all of a sudden, you give them this freedom and it doesn't work.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:17]:
Is this a demographic thing? So in other words, we know our clients. We know who would come into our shop. Do I have a client that is extremely focused on time and they want the cheapest price? What is their buying habit when it comes to auto service? And do I meet that client's demands? In other words, am I selling what they're buying? Does that play into what we're doing here when we go to market to the next generation of potential automotive technicians that I have to find out what it is? Because if you think about they're in our internal clients, right? They really are our clients. They're just on the other side of the business. And so now I have to redevelop my business and redevelop my strategy to change, to offer. And I think we've been doing that as an industry as a whole. I think we've been shifting in some areas not well, right? Or things would have gotten better, faster, curve.
David Roman [00:35:12]:
And we're at the 1%, right?
Russell Richey [00:35:16]:
There was a couple of the sponsors out there that we have client relationships. I do research for them. And I was just shooting the breeze with one of them, and he was like, Russell, we get all the data about how many lifts they have and maybe how much throughput and the revenues and stuff. Okay, I get all that. Can you go find me data about what they do on the weekends, what their lifestyle is? Do they hunt? Do they fish? What do they do? And it was interesting to me because in a kind of a B to B context, it's just product quality, price and brand. But this guy was coming to me. He goes, I want to sell my brand in a lifestyle vibe, in an emotional vibe, which is a real B to C paradigm. And I've heard that from other clients in other verticals that I work in.
David Roman [00:36:19]:
I'm like, okay.
Russell Richey [00:36:20]:
Yeah, sure. I'll do your brand awareness survey. So you know where your semiconductor company sits amongst others, amongst electronic design engineers, and they're like, now we kind of know that. I want to know what are those design engineers doing after hours? What do they care about? What do they listen to in terms of music and what TV watch? Yeah. And so you're getting into these kind of these prism data and that sort of that aggregated, massively aggregated data that helps you create personas and then those personas are what you build your marketing around. So every, every messaging decision you make is how is that going to relate to this particular persona?
David Roman [00:37:11]:
Right.
Russell Richey [00:37:12]:
But you know what you're trying to talk to.
David Roman [00:37:14]:
There are shops doing that. Yeah. Turbo Tim.
Russell Richey [00:37:17]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:37:17]:
Cool. He has created this whole brand and persona and vibe and my lifestyle aligns to his. That's why I take my card there. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely.
Russell Richey [00:37:35]:
Does that help him with his technicians and his recruiting and retention and employee satisfaction? Yeah, it sounds like it does.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:45]:
All right.
David Roman [00:37:47]:
Another dude down in, I think he's in Austin. I cannot remember that guy's name. He's all tatted up and stuff like that, but it was very much an Austin vibe.
Russell Richey [00:37:57]:
Got you.
David Roman [00:37:57]:
That's how he runs his shop. But he's got twelve technicians and the facility does $4 million a year or whatever. He's absolutely killing it. But you meet him and he's tatted up and he's got holes all over his face. And you wouldn't think that this guy is running a top notch operation where he's just but all of his technicians look like they look like his customers. His customers that come in all look like him and they all have this thing going. It makes sense to want psychographic information. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:32]:
So should associations be hiring you to do that? Is that what we should be looking at as associations begin to get that data? We've got associations all over the country and this one's in this state and this one's in this state. We've got a nationwide association ACA. Should, should we look at saying, okay, these small associations need to get demographic studies for their area or should we look at a broad level?
Russell Richey [00:39:04]:
I think there's that data out know how, how well it's integrated with other markets and other associations. What kind of data is it? Is it psychographic data or is it just name, rank, serial number, children in household, zip code, that kind of stuff? Yeah, we talked to one segment parents and they're one part of the picture and there's all these other pictures out there and one would be knowing the psychographics and the mindsets of the average technician. And of course they're already in the fold, but you want to know them for the retention aspect.
David Roman [00:39:55]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:56]:
And that unbiased data. Right. Because right now the data that we get is coming from the top 1%. And we have people who are in our groups that are technicians and they're expressing how unhappy they are. But they're probably the bottom 1% have the top 1%. But we're not seeing an adequate picture of the bell curve. We're only seeing the bottom and the top because they're the vocal ones. And so if we got the data.
David Roman [00:40:21]:
From the ones that are bitching are still in the 1%, but they're on the lower end of the 1%, I would not look, I know I've met those technicians that are on the bottom. And they are not engaged in any way, shape or form. They are just smashing things up left and right and just hopping from used car dealer to used car dealer to used car just only once I'll hire them because they'll work for $15 an hour. But you get like an association, like Asta. We'll put Mike Allen on the spot.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:51]:
Let's do it.
David Roman [00:40:52]:
Mike Allen needs to figure out a strategy because I don't think it needs to be nationwide. Because you're right that psychographic information is so important and it's so unique. The message that will resonate with people in North Carolina will not necessarily resonate with people in Florida or in Kansas City. And so you have local associations like Asta. Why not put together a campaign specifically to hit parents and young people, like leaving high school about the benefits of going into the trades, specifically automotive repair with an Asta shop.
Russell Richey [00:41:42]:
Don't just go to that's a good idea segment, track them to the shop that will appreciate it and it will top 1%.
David Roman [00:41:50]:
But then it becomes a larger because if you're an Asta member shop, they need to understand that, hey, part of the deal here is you're going to meet certain standards because we are going to be pushing, trying to get young. Instead of going to a four year liberal arts college to get a worthless degree in dance theory, they're going to go and get they're going to come and learn how to change oil and then tires and then alignments and now diag work.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:23]:
In some ways, we've laid the foundational groundwork for this. The problem is that especially with the apprenticeship programs, the curriculum for those and the schedules for those, it's very lax and it's very difficult to build structure for it in a way that you can maintain. Right. Because every shop is a little bit different. And then you have to teach the shop to be able to do that and administer that and make sure that it's actually happening.
David Roman [00:42:49]:
Because that becomes part of the deal, though, for an Asta shop. And I'm just saying asta because we can pick on Mike Allen. But an Asta shop is going to make a specific commitment towards creating a pathway for young technicians to come into the industry because we are going to make a concerted effort to reach out to parents. Because we understand that the demographic information is there, the psychographic information we understand. We can reach out to them. We can start funneling some of these kids that are going to UNC and racking up $150,000 in debt. They're going to come and showing up at your shop, Mike Allen. And Mike Allen needs to have something in place that meets a specific standard because otherwise you can't be an Asta shop.
David Roman [00:43:44]:
Right. Does that make sense?
Lucas Underwood [00:43:45]:
Of course.
Russell Richey [00:43:47]:
Why? Put a lot of energy into getting someone ready to only disappoint them. Yeah, make sure that it's reciprocated because that's what you those famous adages about the best way to ruin a bad product is to do a great advertising because everybody try it once and that's it. No more. One of the guys, a guy has an MSO, and I was chatting with him when he does his apprentice programs. They do the training, then the apprentice program, and then he says, we'll give you a $20,000 box of tools if you'll stay with us for four years. Right. And that seems to be I don't know. I wouldn't want to call it kind of indentured.
Russell Richey [00:44:41]:
You're stuck with them in a bad way, but it gives some incentive for loyalty. And those tools are expensive. Right, right. You probably have to take out a loan to buy the tools anyway.
David Roman [00:44:57]:
Right.
Russell Richey [00:44:57]:
But that was sort of their commitment to making sure that these guys know, we care about you out of the gate. We're committed to your growth and your opportunity within our shops, we'll move you up. And by the way, you don't have to pay for $20,000 for the tool.
David Roman [00:45:17]:
We're seeing more and more shops moving away from any type of technician has to buy their own tool. Oh, really?
Russell Richey [00:45:24]:
Okay, that's a good thing.
David Roman [00:45:25]:
And they're moving towards, hey, we can supply all the only you get a Seth Thorson. I think Seth pays for everything for his technician.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:38]:
He's got standard boxes that are mounted up.
David Roman [00:45:40]:
He wants the shop to look a certain way so he buys the box, and they're less likely to leave because it's like, well, what are you going to do? I'm not buying a $30,000 box to then put my tools in. Like, I'm stuck here. I'm going to be here forever. And so a lot of the dealerships in my area are doing the same, very something very similar and talking to those technicians. You have to tell them that, I'll buy you a box if you leave and come work for me, because otherwise they don't have a box and they have no way out. And your opportunity may be better, but they don't see it that way because I don't want to buy a box. Man yeah, okay. So I think that's definitely going to be a specific factor to it, where that whole model which the tool companies will lose their minds, but that whole model of, hey, I'm going to entice them to come under the tool truck and put them into this debt where they're paying 50 to $75 to $100 a week for forever buying these constant supply of new tools that keep coming out that 1% of shop owners run those tool truck guys off, and they call them whenever they need something, but the shop ends up paying for it.
David Roman [00:46:54]:
But some technicians want to own their tools, and I have no problem with that, so I like that, hey, and that's what we end up doing at my shop. I buy something, but if you within a year leave. You can either buy what you haven't, that vested portion of it is discounted off the price. But you have to pay me to keep the tool or you leave the tool here or after a year you can own it. It's yours.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:23]:
I think that the key in all of this is creating some type of structure that you can go back and you have a way I don't want to use the term enforce because I don't think enforce is the right term. I think we've talked about with Asta, for instance, we're going to start doing member onboarding so they understand these associations.
David Roman [00:47:44]:
That is a good idea.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:45]:
They have programs.
Russell Richey [00:47:48]:
Yeah, definitely.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:48]:
Mike Allen we've talked about it on and off for a long time and the reason being was there's a lot of programs that go on and the way that the association, like member dues for an association are not enough to pay the bills, right. It's not enough to pay the staff. And so what they do is they get you discounts from Advanced Auto Parts, from Napa, from a credit card processor, whatever it is, and they get you fairly substantial discounts. And when they get you that discount, they get a percentage paid to them on program share. And so the thing is, if your members use it, it'll save them a fortune, it'll save them a ton of money and then it'll make you money which allows you to do more for your members, right? And so the key is that if they're not engaging those programs, you just don't have the potential that you would have otherwise. And so with Asta, we want to make sure our members are aware of that. We want to make sure we take them and we set them down, we show them, here's how this works. And if you'll use this program and we get you signed up on this program and you're using this vendor and they're providing a good service to you, this makes you more profitable and it helps us do things that make your life easier.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:04]:
Right.
Russell Richey [00:49:05]:
Gotcha.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:06]:
And so maybe it's something like that that says, hey, if you're going to be an Asta shop and you're going to participate in the hiring program right. Because there's shops that aren't ready for that. There's shops that aren't ready for that change. That guy that was in my class.
David Roman [00:49:24]:
Know, but I guarantee you he's looking for help.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:28]:
Of course.
David Roman [00:49:29]:
So what then? You need help. We have a pathway but you're not listening.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:34]:
Well, but that's what I'm saying, is that until they meet a certain requirement, until they go through some type of training, I've had all kinds of people email me about the podcast and ask me to put you through sensitivity training. And just I think there's a way to put folks into a program where they understand. And and so there, again, to me, that comes back to data, because if we know what it is in a in a documentable way that we can provide to shop owners that says this is what technicians don't like, this is what's keeping them out of the industry, or this is what's pushing that's good.
David Roman [00:50:16]:
Yeah. What's driving them out.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:17]:
And so if we have that data now, we can look at that data and we can say, okay, here we are and here's what we're not going to do. Here's a pathway to fix this. And now you take your shops who are ready to commit to that and they sign a pact, hey, listen, we're going to do this and here's what this looks like.
David Roman [00:50:34]:
Sure. I like it.
Russell Richey [00:50:37]:
Larger companies do exit interviews, right? And if there was a way to collect data for people that have left the industry in a systemized way, maybe I don't know how you find a sample.
David Roman [00:50:54]:
You're the researcher. You're supposed to come up with this.
Russell Richey [00:50:57]:
Audience thinking how to do it.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:59]:
I've got a perfect strategy. I'll mute his headphones for just a second. I'm going to find a stack of his business cards and just everybody that.
Russell Richey [00:51:09]:
Quit here call this guy. I'm having trouble recruiting marketing researchers. We are in a crunch ourselves. And I know that you guys have a lot of analytical minds in your trade. If you're leaving automotive grease monkey, survey monkey. Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:51:30]:
That's it.
Russell Richey [00:51:32]:
Yeah. I think it's those mean my whole thrust was the only advice I'm giving you is grassroots oriented advice now. Yes. All of those messages, those proactive messages could be put on side of know side of town from Birmingham. So Talladega is right down the road from us. Put it on the hoardings around. It's great to be a technician, but then it also has to come from the word of mouth and just whether that's face to face or through social media. But the messages I don't know whether I cited my nephew.
Russell Richey [00:52:20]:
I'm not going to say his name, but my nephew is going to a four year college. He really likes metallurgy. He's got no business going, he doesn't care, and he's not doing very well. And it's like, my boy, man, you need to get your ass down to a trade school. I don't know whether he'd be like a welt, but something using his hands. He likes that kind of stuff. Why are you worried about and there's nothing wrong with literature. There's nothing wrong with philosophy.
Russell Richey [00:52:53]:
But why are you taking two years of these basic courses?
Lucas Underwood [00:52:58]:
Because I've always said energy is a finite resource. Right. And so if you're going to school for something you don't like, you're going to school for something you hate. And you're basically wasting this energy that you have a limited amount of. If we were focusing that energy in an area which we can do something and we enjoy and it creates results.
Russell Richey [00:53:19]:
In our lives absolutely.
Lucas Underwood [00:53:20]:
Wouldn't that be more effective?
David Roman [00:53:22]:
And 80% of degree holders are not working in the field. They got their degree within five years. Okay, but you still see the earnings, lifetime earnings of a four year degree holder versus somebody who just got high school. Over the lifetime, they make substantially more money.
Russell Richey [00:53:47]:
And I'm familiar with that sort of that dichotomy statistics. I don't know the actual numbers, but yeah, but I wonder, have they calculated that for auto technician, and where does that fall in between the curve?
David Roman [00:54:03]:
But I think up until this point, up until just very recently, I don't think the conversation never involved retirement.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:17]:
Right.
David Roman [00:54:17]:
You see what I'm saying? It never involved that like, let's build wealth while you're here. That is a very uncommon conversation in shops today, but at least it's being had by some. Yeah, I don't think that up until just a few years ago, that was even a thing. Like, maybe they had it, but they weren't forcing it, or they weren't pushing it. He brought in a financial advisor into his shop to have a conversation with his staff. That type of benefit, I don't think was available necessarily for most of your technicians. They just came in to do their jobs because there was nothing else available, and there was that kind of story.
Russell Richey [00:54:57]:
What's a day to day existence.
David Roman [00:55:00]:
A day to day existence. And I think you're right. I think maybe the numbers will shift. But I think even if you do want to get a four year degree and you know you're not going to use it necessarily, that you are going to there are schools, community schools that are community colleges that are offering four year degree in automotive.
Lucas Underwood [00:55:19]:
Sure.
David Roman [00:55:20]:
And so if you want to go work on cars, go get a four year degree in that. It's like Applied Sciences, bachelor's in Applied Sciences, or whatever it happens to be, go do that and leave with maybe $40,000 in debt. That's if you don't pay your own way, but $40,000 instead of 150,000 or 250,000, like, your local community college will have a two year degree or a four year degree for you that will allow you to then, like your nephew, go, weld or go work on metal or whatever, like whatever it is you want to do. But they have something available, but instead they're going to a state school or a private university and getting a degree, and these schools are expanding their diploma offerings to the most absurd things because they have all this money coming in, and there's all this grant and federal aid, and they're like, we got to spend it. We got to do something. We created a whole division on you.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:21]:
Know what's really interesting about that, though, is that, for instance, App State, right, and we met with the chancellor the other day, and she said, look, we're recognizing a shift in Americans. And she said, we're recognizing a shift in education. And she said, we're focusing on things like nursing degrees. We're focusing on things like vet degrees. We're focusing on things that Americans can put to work and can go to work with these degrees even in the time that they are here. Right. They can begin to get a job while they're in school. And she pointed out about our community, and I thought this was extremely interesting because you just would not expect to hear a school administrator say something like this.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:05]:
She said, I recognize that the students that leave App State University could not afford to live in this community. And I thought that's a pretty powerful statement because it's showing, yeah, we're in an affluent area, right. It's a fairly expensive area, but it's also showing that nationwide, the person that's coming out of school doesn't have the earning potential to go buy that house. And if rent is so high, you can't afford to live somewhere.
Russell Richey [00:57:41]:
Got student debt piling up.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:44]:
Right. I mean, eventually we've got to start having a little bit of a conversation here and say, maybe this isn't working. Maybe this solution. I'm not saying anything bad about her. I'm not saying that she was. It's just that I think it highlights the need to reevaluate the trajectory of higher education in the United States today. I think something has to happen.
David Roman [00:58:08]:
Yeah. Unfortunately, nothing's going to happen until the parents do something about it. Until these parents go, you know what, I'm not going to send my kid to Ku. Ku is like $30,000 a year. There's a community college a block away from my house. They offer four year degrees there. I can get my kid through that school for less than for four years. Four year degree.
David Roman [00:58:34]:
I guarantee you, no flipping employer in this country, with the exception of maybe three, will give two flips that my kid got a four year degree from Johnson County Community College and not from Ku. They will not care.
Russell Richey [00:58:47]:
My wife is a trauma Burns nurse, and she we're from Alabama. She went to Alabama and she hated the Bowheads there. She hated that vibe. We are Alabama fans. She kind of flitted about, and then she said, okay, I'm going to go into nursing. She went to Jeff State, jefferson State Community College in Jefferson County, got a two year nursing degree, and within a year she's working in the Neuro intensive care unit with neurosurgeons. I used to go up there and bring her dinner, and she would go, hey, me and a couple of the surgeons are going to drill someone's head open. You want to come watch? No, but it's to your point, she retired from nursing and went into another career after 20 years.
Russell Richey [00:59:43]:
But to your point, she came out of school, it was an intense, fun environment that she worked in, and she made great money at University of Alabama and Birmingham's Hospital, which is one of the top ten hospital in a lot of departments. And she didn't pay $100,000 to go to Alabama. She paid $10,000 to go to Jeff State College. Right.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:12]:
One of the things that I think back about, a family member of mine and Mike Allen and I have talked about this as a matter of fact, I think back about this family member who has been caught in this never ending cycle of schooling, and they went to school to be an ultrasound tech. And then that turns into another degree that they want to get and another degree they want to get. And they continue to invest. They never financially move forward. They never get to that next level. And I was talking to Mike Allen, he was talking know, his wife is a very highly trained dentist and extremely proficient, probably one of the best there is, I think she's in pediatrics. And he points out, like, her training that she has to constantly go through and her fellows that she has to accomplish and all of these aspects of this. When we talk about a lifelong career, boys, there's a lot of work and a lot of money that goes into investing into this.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:14]:
And I think a lot of students, they start on that pathway and they say, wow, I want to be a dentist, I want to be a doctor. And then it all of a sudden hits them in the face and they realize, I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life. I'm never going to be out of school. I'm never going to be moving away from this. This is going to be what life is now. And I'll make a lot of really good money, but I am going to invest a lot. We talked about mega earner CEOs, not having families and not having homes and not having a life because they wanted the opportunity to earn that. Well, the people who are going to reach those high plateaus or those high paying jobs, they're sacrificing more than just these little things.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:59]:
Like, I'm going to go to school for four years and it's going to cost me $100,000. The cost of that education continues forever. And I just don't think that a lot of people recognize that.
David Roman [01:02:11]:
You lost me on that story. So they go into school for forever and having to pay to go back into the school.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:17]:
Yeah, well, for instance, Mike's talking about his wife, and so she has to do continuing education that she has to pay for. She has to continually true technicians. Well, it is, but we're paying for.
David Roman [01:02:30]:
Is she has to pay herself.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:31]:
Yeah, they have her own they have to continue to train. They have to continue to otherwise they're.
David Roman [01:02:36]:
No longer valid in the field.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:38]:
Yeah. See what I'm saying?
Russell Richey [01:02:40]:
That sounds miserable, but they're always chasing another fellowship or some to get to.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:45]:
The next to get to the next level. And I don't even think it's necessarily earning capabilities, but it's just like even a general physician has to continue to learn and grow and develop as they progress. And so there's a lot of money associated with that. There's a lot of training that has to go back into it. It never stops. Education never stops. I hated school when I was in school. I don't want to spend the rest of my life going to school.
Lucas Underwood [01:03:15]:
It would suck.
David Roman [01:03:15]:
Yeah, but that school in a classroom setting I think I hated school, too. Absolutely hated every second of it. Was miserable. But now I read a lot of books. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I watch a lot of videos. The stuff that you watch these crane videos to learn about how these cranes work.
Lucas Underwood [01:03:41]:
I watch videos about everything.
David Roman [01:03:43]:
Exactly. You're just learning to learn because it's fun to learn. It's interesting.
Russell Richey [01:03:50]:
That's a mindset, and that goes beyond your vocation. I used to work in B to C, doing research for fishing lure companies, and a fisherman's journey is to always get better. And they're the best ever when they are having a good day, and when they don't, they're why didn't I have a good day? And then they're going back and watching the YouTube, watching going kind of deconstructing what they did wrong and whatnot and that's learning for their lifestyle, their avocation, their fun. But I think that mindset I'm a proponent of that mindset, for sure, but it's that what you're saying. I think Mike is they are forcing you to yeah.
Lucas Underwood [01:04:46]:
You have no choice. You will spend eternity forced to learn, paying to know. I think that's my issue with that. I just don't think that that would be an enjoyable career path based on that alone. Right. Made me want to learn. I'm not going to want to learn anymore.
David Roman [01:05:04]:
It's the same thing with automotive, though, I think the technicians that are interested in learning, what's new, what's available, what new techniques are out there, what new technologies out there, they are the ones we want in this industry. The ones that are watching YouTube videos to learn how to better fix this car, and they're trying to learn. The ones that are apathetic, the ones that are just like, It's whatever. I don't want to go to training. I don't want to spend the time. I have technicians. The only reason they don't want to go to the training is because they don't think that training is going to intellectually push them. They're like, I've already taken that.
David Roman [01:05:48]:
Like, what are they going to cover in that class? They need that class to be really hard, and then they'll be excited to go, and they're like, oh, yeah, I want to learn about that. That's interesting. I had Brandon, my tech, he goes, I think I need to take a Toyota EVAP class. I've been working on him for three years now on that. He thought EVAP was the most boring, and it is. But it is a constant. Problem on Toyotas.
Lucas Underwood [01:06:17]:
Right.
David Roman [01:06:18]:
And it is difficult to diagnose if you don't know the intricacies of the system.
Russell Richey [01:06:22]:
Just educate me quickly.
David Roman [01:06:24]:
Evaporative emissions control systems.
Lucas Underwood [01:06:26]:
Yeah, it's the gas vapor that's in your gas tank that the EPA doesn't want released into the atmosphere.
David Roman [01:06:31]:
Toyota has a very intricate and complicated system to not only trap it monitor that there are no leaks in the system, and then slowly introduce it into the engine to be reburned. And if there is even the smallest leak, I'm talking less than the size of a pin hole leak anywhere in the system, the system flags. It throws a check engine light. Customer just sees that, the check engine lights on. Well, now you have to find that leak. Well, maybe it's not that. Maybe the sensor that monitors that leak.
Lucas Underwood [01:07:02]:
Isn'T working properly, or the perch solenoids.
David Roman [01:07:05]:
Leaking, or the perch solenoids intermittently sticking. And that's what introduces, and there's a thousand little variables in there. But the first step you know what kicked my ass one time?
Lucas Underwood [01:07:15]:
What?
David Roman [01:07:16]:
First gen Prius EVAP Leak. Holy. That thing has a bladder inside of the gas tank. And the bladder can leak into the cavity between the bladder and the outside and the outer casing. That's a space there that is monitored. And then if you leak out of the bladder into that, it throws all sorts. And try to find that with a smoke test. Good luck.
David Roman [01:07:39]:
It's not going to happen anyway. There's so many small intricacies to that system you have to learn, and they're different from year to year and model to model. And he finally goes, I think I need to take an EVAP class. And I think PJ Walters teaches one, doesn't he?
Lucas Underwood [01:07:57]:
Yeah, PJ's got an excellent Evaporation EVAP class.
David Roman [01:08:00]:
Yeah. Anyway, this was good.
Lucas Underwood [01:08:02]:
It was. Thank you so much. Cool.