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The Gearbox Podcast brings on industry professionals to explore the day-to-day operations of owning and operating a shop. From common frustrations to industry-wide shifts, this podcast covers it with fun and insightful conversations.
Jimmy Purdy [00:00:01]:
Some stuff out of it. Might as well. We're both.
Jim Mobley [00:00:04]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:00:07]:
I guess that goes right with the rhythm of what we wanted to talk about.
Jim Mobley [00:00:14]:
I kind of wanted David in it because he's been working for the dealers for a lot of years. He and I have had a lot of good conversation about the. A labor situation with dealers and independent shops and the aftermarket and all that sort of stuff. So I figured it would be a pretty good conversation. I got a lot of ideals on the shops and stuff like that, as far as getting labor set up for them and things like that, so I'm fine with all of that, too.
Jimmy Purdy [00:00:54]:
Yeah. We can roll right into it, then. I'm sure we'll entertain ourselves. I was wondering how it was going to be with three people anyway. I haven't done that yet.
Jim Mobley [00:01:02]:
You hadn't done that?
David Tang [00:01:04]:
No.
Jimmy Purdy [00:01:05]:
Yeah, the old menage to, as they call it. Right.
Jim Mobley [00:01:10]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:01:11]:
Well, we'll just roll into it. I'll let you introduce yourself.
Jim Mobley [00:01:16]:
Well, of course. My name is Jim Mobley. I'm with Sonx Transmission Company, and I've been in the business since 1975, right about when Vietnam was becoming over with, and grew up in East Texas. Worked on anything mechanical growing up, any bicycles, lawnmowers, tractors, appliances, anything and everything that needed repaired. So back in the early days, started out with AmCo and worked for Rudy Batsic in Shreveport, Louisiana, at an Amco shop for about a year, and the rest of it is pretty well history. Worked for AmCO for many years, back and forth with a few shops. Actually owned an Amco shop in Bowling Green, Kentucky for a couple of years. And after I got married and had a couple of kids with my first wife.
Jim Mobley [00:02:36]:
We got divorced in 87, and I ended up, after the divorce, heading out west to Arizona and California. In 2001, I ended up in California, in Los Angeles with Transgo and Gil Younger. I ended up working for Transgo for 20 plus years. And after Transgo ended up getting bought out by private equity groups, I moved on to Sunx Transmission company out of Vermont. And here we are today, 2023.
Jimmy Purdy [00:03:23]:
Been around the block to say the least.
Jim Mobley [00:03:26]:
Yes.
Jimmy Purdy [00:03:29]:
What made you stick with the transmissions?
Jim Mobley [00:03:33]:
Transmissions have always been profitable, no matter what part of the business. I worked with several remand companies in between 1980, 719 92 in Arizona. And no matter what part of the business I've been in, I've always made a very good living out of it. Financially. It's been very beneficial. As far as the industry itself. You can go to work for any part of this business and make a good living. You can afford to afford to purchase whatever you want, a home, vehicles and stuff.
Jim Mobley [00:04:32]:
You can live an american dream in the transmission and automotive business. Yeah, now there's a lot of.
Jimmy Purdy [00:04:39]:
Transmission was like the most paid or the highest paid skill.
Jim Mobley [00:04:45]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:04:51]:
I've always thought it was kind of like the pinnacle. That was like, if you could be a transmission builder, that's the thing no one else wanted to do. So maybe that's obviously, if no one else is doing it, do the things no one else is doing, and you'll make the most money at it.
Jim Mobley [00:05:06]:
Yeah. What I found in the transmission business is not everybody puts forth the effort to learn a lot of tech. A lot of guys are so busy every day working in a shop that they don't have time to study the workings of a transmission, how a transmission functions, the hydraulics. And now we've got electrical involved. We've had electrical heavily involved since about 1996. And when electronics became part of the transmission, that really separated a lot of the men from the boys. I'll say there was a lot of controversy. Guys would comment at some of the expo shows and stuff back in those days.
Jim Mobley [00:06:05]:
I'm out of it. When the electronics becomes a part of it, I'm getting out of this business. I'm going to get away from it. I can't deal with electronics. Well, here we are, 2030 years down the road, and we've got vehicles with heavy electronics nowadays. I mean, it's all solenoids, it's all computers and controllers.
Jimmy Purdy [00:06:30]:
Yeah. Fully controlled electronics, no longer spool valves actuated by shift solenoids, full on shift solenoid actuated shifts.
Jim Mobley [00:06:39]:
Yeah. So a lot of those guys that said they were going to get out of the business are now having. They're dealing with it.
Jimmy Purdy [00:06:48]:
Do you find the electronics easier? You've been in this longer than I have, and you've seen the techs go. The technical advice that you've given gone from a strictly hydraulically actuated unit, tv, cable governor pressure. Right. And now you're getting in electronics. Don't you find it easier to diagnose some of this stuff with the advent of the electronics, if you understand how it works?
Jim Mobley [00:07:12]:
Yeah, the electronics. The thing that a lot of guys don't understand is the electronics will tell you and give you more clues as to where the problem actually is. Here we go. We got David now.
Jimmy Purdy [00:07:32]:
Hey, welcome.
David Tang [00:07:34]:
Sorry, guys.
Jim Mobley [00:07:36]:
That's all there, David.
Jimmy Purdy [00:07:37]:
We started rolling, so you just come on in. Yeah.
David Tang [00:07:40]:
Hey, good morning.
Jim Mobley [00:07:41]:
Morning there, Dave.
Jimmy Purdy [00:07:43]:
Well, we were just talking about the advent of adding electronics and an automatic trans. But now that you hear. Yeah, go ahead and give a quick introduction.
David Tang [00:07:52]:
Hey, I'm Dave Tang over here at japanese service center two in Sacramento. How you guys doing?
Jimmy Purdy [00:07:59]:
Good California boys here. I like.
David Tang [00:08:01]:
Oh, yes, yes.
Jimmy Purdy [00:08:06]:
So he said, you're the man when it comes to this stuff sometimes. So, yeah, we kind of want to pivot into getting into techs, into the field. We were talking before we started recording about getting more interest into the industry, right. Because there's just not enough transmission techs in the world today. And so we were just talking about kind of going from hydraulic transmissions into electronic. And how do you feel that's made it easier in the industry to have the electronics added into these units?
David Tang [00:08:46]:
It didn't make it easier, but it made it more efficient.
Jimmy Purdy [00:08:49]:
Okay. Did it make it easier to diagnose? I guess was a better way to rephrase that, yes. Okay. I feel the same way. I get it. I do turbo, three hundred and fifty s and seven hundred s and four hundred s. And sometimes you can see a problem, it's just like just tear it out and tear it apart, right. But then you get into some of this electronic stuff and you can actually identify what the problem is without having to pull the unit out and put it on the bench.
Jimmy Purdy [00:09:14]:
Doesn't that make it easier? Everyone gets so scared. Jim was just talking like he talks to guys. Like as soon as electronics get into this, I don't want anything to do with it anymore.
David Tang [00:09:23]:
Why, that's Paluso, guys.
Jim Mobley [00:09:28]:
Yeah, back in the days of 96, when you go to the expos is what I was saying. You talked to a guy and he said this electronics is fixing to drive me out of the business. I'm not going to deal with this because hydraulics is my forte and I do not want to deal with electronics too. Uh, a lot of those guys, the Palusos, like Steve Paluso I'm sure is the one you're talking about. They're still working on a lot of those old vehicles today. And a couple of them, like Steve, refused to make a move over into anything electronic. He's still that know. But you got other guys, I guess it's okay to mention names, but you got Gary Mullins and people like that that have just dug into these electronics and are still cooking, still moving.
Jim Mobley [00:10:27]:
It didn't even phase them a bit moving into know well.
Jimmy Purdy [00:10:32]:
You got guys like Bernie Thompson at ATS and he's just phenomenal when it comes to diagnosing these electronic problems. And he even says, I'm not a transmission guy, but the guy can diagnose transmissions better than transmission builders. He's just spot on because he understands how the system works and he doesn't have to pull. I remember, as young as I am getting into the industry, it was like, if there's a problem with it, just pull it out and put it on the bench. That was standard. That was sop, right? Pull it out, tear it apart.
Jim Mobley [00:11:05]:
That's a big problem, though. I get a lot of guys I deal with that prematurely. Pull that transmission out of the vehicle, and the vehicle is your best dyno. If you've got a problem, leave that transmission or what have you in that vehicle for a little while. Let's get a scanner on it. Let's look at codes. Let's look at data, because once you get it on the bench, a lot of these contacts I get know I've got it all apart here. I don't see anything wrong, Jim, so what do.
Jimmy Purdy [00:11:48]:
Well, and, you know, like, David running the shop, it's like you have the anxiety, right? Like, this car's got to get back to the.
David Tang [00:11:55]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:11:56]:
And so your headspace just goes, tear it out. Right. Or for me anyway, same thing is like, just tear it out and let's look inside of, like, I don't want to play games. Let's just get it out. Because you just want to keep moving. Like, I got to keep doing something. I'm guilty of it, too. That was like the sop to start with.
Jimmy Purdy [00:12:11]:
Like, you got a problem, just tear it apart and look inside, see if we can see anything. What are you looking for? I don't know.
David Tang [00:12:17]:
Well, you're a scan tool, because if you know how to look at scan tool data, that helps you diagnose it. It points you in the direction of. It's going to be either transmission engine abs or some kind of communication issue. And you figure that out that direction. And then let's say it does point you in the direction of the transmission. Most of the time is I drop the pan. If I see metal and sludge in the pan, then, yes, the unit comes out.
Jimmy Purdy [00:12:51]:
Yeah, that's true.
David Tang [00:12:52]:
Before that unit comes out, I always check codes first thing. Check codes, check scan data, basically. Okay. They're complaining that it's not shifting right or slipping in a certain gear. Always hook up the scan tool, and I look at shift solenoids to make sure they're working. If all that's working and it's not shifting right, and you drop the pan, you'll find your mystery. But a lot of guys, like Jim, said, I was guilty of it in my younger days. First thing you do is you pull the transmission, take it apart, and then you're like, there's nothing.
Jim Mobley [00:13:29]:
That's a scary feeling.
David Tang [00:13:31]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:13:34]:
It makes you really good at it, though. I got really good with transmissions because I'd take them out eight times before I got it right. It makes you efficient, though. Like, I can get that trans out in 20 minutes. How did you learn how to do so quick? I screwed up a lot. Learned that way, too, I think maybe the tenacity, too. Maybe that's what we're missing in this future generation. Coming up, everyone wants to get in and make $100,000 a year in the first year, and they just don't have that tenacity, that getting behind that thing.
Jimmy Purdy [00:14:07]:
And you know what? I screwed up. I got to pull it back out. Or maybe I didn't screw up, but just get in there and figure out what's wrong with it. And maybe that is just learning the scan tool and learning how to check codes and knowing what you're supposed to be looking at and not looking at. Just broken cars all the time. That's one thing. They pull out the scope on broken cars. Like, what are you looking for? I don't know.
Jimmy Purdy [00:14:26]:
I'm just scoping it. What's it supposed to look like? Training is a big thing. How do we get guys trained or interested to learn this stuff? That's the big question.
Jim Mobley [00:14:40]:
That's what I wanted to get at. Talking about a shop today, trying to get labor and help and stuff like that. You've got to become proactive.
David Tang [00:14:53]:
Yes.
Jim Mobley [00:14:54]:
You cannot set in a shop today and put an ad on. Indeed. Or monster or wherever you want to put it, or pay some service to try to find you a mechanic. That is probably not going to happen. You got to become proactive. You got to visit your local parole department, church, if they've got any kind of organizations, whatever's locally in your neighborhood. You need to visit your neighbors. You need to find out what kids in school have a mechanical aptitude, because I guarantee you GM and Ford are down at that high school looking for kids that they can give a certificate to to go to trade school for half price, stuff like that.
Jim Mobley [00:15:54]:
So you got to become proactive. You've got to get out there and become active in the community and paroles, California especially. A lot of parolees in California are trained in automotive while they're in. You know, that may be a good answer for mechanic in the shop. There's nothing wrong with that guy necessarily. He's been in jail on drug charges or something like that. Well, so what?
Jimmy Purdy [00:16:30]:
Yeah, most of them don't stay in jail anymore.
Jim Mobley [00:16:32]:
No, they don't.
Jimmy Purdy [00:16:33]:
Just a catch and mean, they'll find a lot of them.
David Tang [00:16:37]:
Worldpac and a couple other companies, for many years has relied on prison industry. If you go to any of your local transstar parts houses, the guys that are working there are parolees, and the state gives the company a break, a tax break, when they hire parolees. So Transtar is one, Worldpac is another. And then there's a company that's based out of southern California, and it's up here in northern California. I don't buy from them. It's called fast undercar out of Ventura, California. All the drivers, all the warehouse pickers are parolees because the state gives them a tax break for a small business. And like Jim said, there's nothing wrong with hiring a parolee.
David Tang [00:17:26]:
It's just you got to find the right one. Just like hiring out of UTI or wild. You just got to find the right one where they're not expecting to make 100 grand a year. They got to start off, because the guys at UTI and Wildtech, they don't have real world hands on. Most of in the classroom, hey, this is how a system works. This is how you read hydraulic schematics. This is how you read this. But the thing is, once they get it out in the real world, they don't cut it.
David Tang [00:18:03]:
And they try and then, of course, pulling it out, ripping it apart, or damaging something in return. Because I've had trainees, I had apprentices when I was at the dealer world, be it at infinity, be it at Nissan, be it at GM or Ford. And they pull these guys out of UTI because they're desperate, just like everybody else. And this is what, 510 years ago, that they were doing this, and still that poor guy that comes out of school, they sing this beautiful song, and then your hiring manager thinks, okay, cool, this guy's capable. And then when they bring him into a dealership, it becomes a hazmat. Because I've seen things get broken. I've seen things get replaced that were not necessarily replaced. And I tell these guys, you guys got to slow your role, because, number one, what they teach you in a classroom is different than reality.
David Tang [00:19:03]:
You might think it's a wire issue. It might be a component issue. You think it's a component issue. It might be a wiring or a communication issue. And the few that did stick, out of ten apprentices, I only had, like, two of them that made it, and one of them still works right now. He works at Toyota, and the other one is at Dodge because he started with me at GM, and then he left GM because he got frustrated. And then he went to independent side here in Sacramento, a place called Scotty's automotive. He was there for, like, ten years, and then now he's with Dodge and those guys.
David Tang [00:19:43]:
That's like two out of ten.
Jimmy Purdy [00:19:46]:
Yeah. That's not good percentages. You think that it's a confidence thing where it's like, you got to be confident to be in this industry. Right. But you can't be arrogant.
David Tang [00:19:57]:
A lot of them are arrogant. Come out and say, hey, I got nine years of experience, but yet you can't dismount a tire.
Jimmy Purdy [00:20:04]:
Yeah. Nine years of doing it wrong doesn't mean you have nine years of experience.
Jim Mobley [00:20:08]:
Yes, true. One thing, that in Europe they purchase a starter set of tools for most of the apprentices in the mechanic world. And that's a big hurdle for a guy going into this business. We kid around and we say it's $60,000 worth of tools. Well, it isn't, and it isn't. For about $4,500, you can go and get a pretty good starter set of tools for a guy that's going to start out in this business, about $5,000. So in my opinion, if you're going to hire a guy and stuff, you've got to have something for that guy to work with. Now, there's a lot of shops in California now that are supplying tools.
Jim Mobley [00:21:11]:
You've got Toyota. Some of the bigger dealers are supplying tools for the technicians. You've got Penske. Some of those groups are starting to supply tools for technicians. So if you're a shop out here, an aftermarket transmission shop or automotive shop, you kind of might want to think about spending that $5,000 or so and at least getting something started for a guy that you're going to put to work from the schools or wherever it may be. Now, the other thing high schools have career day. Automotive shop owners should be at that school with their hot rod, diesel, whatever they own, classic car, whatever it may be. That comes back to the point of being proactive in your local community.
Jim Mobley [00:22:20]:
If your high school has a career day, you should be at that high school that day to show the kids what it's like with a hot rod, diesel or classic car. If it's a drifter, take your drifter down to the high school.
Jimmy Purdy [00:22:38]:
It's amazing. Whatever it may be, interest they still have in it, too. These kids are so interested. And I do the career day at our local high school, and they want nothing to do with electric cars.
Jim Mobley [00:22:48]:
No, it's amazing.
Jimmy Purdy [00:22:51]:
You would think they think they'd want it. And then the cool thing is you show them. We started this whole thing with electronics moving into the automatic trans, right? And I show them like, hey, and I bring my scope and I'll just do, like a demonstration on what the scope can do. I'm like, we can determine this thing is on time or off time by watching cam and crank correlation on this can. And you don't even need to get dirty. And it's all on a laptop. And it's like having that computer, because I'm sure you guys have seen kids with tablets, right? Like, they navigate that thing way better than I can. It's like showing them like, hey, this is the stuff that we use to fix cars.
Jimmy Purdy [00:23:27]:
And they're like, what? I don't just get in there and get dirty, and they all just want to go get dirty. They're like, I just want to go get my hands dirty and take stuff apart. It's like, actually, that's not really what we do. So I think changing the way people view the industry got to change, too. It's not just getting greasy and dirty and ripping stuff apart. It's using your mind and then saying, now I know what's wrong. Now I can just get in there and take it apart because I know what I'm looking for.
Jim Mobley [00:23:57]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:24:00]:
To get more kids interested in the industry or the younger youth, especially with the transmission field. How do you guys feel about the wave of the transmission industry? You see a lot of articles now talking about electric cars, and obviously, there's not going to be many eight or nine or ten speed transmissions. I don't know. Are they going to come out with an automatic 20 speed? I mean, what's the next level? When does this stop?
Jim Mobley [00:24:27]:
Yeah, I don't see the ev world taking over anytime soon. The electric vehicles have got a problem. They're setting on the dealer lots now. What it looks like is everybody that wanted an ev already has an ev, so the sales have dropped out. Interest rates have a whole lot to do with that also right now, because interest rates are so high. But you've got car dealers that are Toyota still, they're down to about 4% interest. So they're selling vehicles, but the vehicles they're selling are gas engines and a few hybrids. So you take a big diesel truck that hauls products across the country.
Jim Mobley [00:25:30]:
The battery system is so big in one of these trucks or a ship that goes across the ocean, we're not going to have the resources to do this. You take a company that buys, say, a fleet of pickup trucks that are all electric vehicle or electric trucks. They've got to put in a charging station for each one of those trucks when they're offline. So the investment into ten trucks that are evs, you can add an additional $4000 to $7,000 to each one of those trucks, because that utility company has got to have those trucks charged and ready to go every single day. So each one of those trucks requires a charging station at your local facility. And in San Francisco, Sacramento, you can forget about that because the real estate is so costly, you don't have room to install all those chargers, probably. So your utility company just bit the dust with electric pickup trucks that they need to service to any capacity. I'll add this.
David Tang [00:26:52]:
In the state of California right now, I have a good friend of mine that owns a construction company. He has a fleet of trucks. He has a fleet of six, seven power strokes because he's a Ford guy. And he just told me that in order for him to add another diesel truck to his fleet next year, the state of California mandates that he has to have a plug in electric truck before he could add another diesel truck. And this is Kevin over at Placerville. This isn't even in Sacramento. I mean, out in the hills. Their smog laws and all their emissions laws are very loose compared to what's down here, San Francisco and southern California, because you're in county.
David Tang [00:27:43]:
And he's like, yeah, man, they're going to make me buy a plugin. I said, well, just go buy a Chevy bolt.
Jim Mobley [00:27:51]:
A used one.
Jimmy Purdy [00:27:53]:
It's like when Chrysler bought it.
David Tang [00:27:58]:
State what plugin you have to buy. But the thing is, your hybrids is starting to be into technology, meaning that it's finally caught up where they're reliable. Your first gen Priuses had nothing but battery issues because they corroded and leached and all that stuff. And then of course, your first gen, a lot of people converted over to a plug in, or there's aftermarket companies out there that made a better battery pack with lithium cells. And then your second gen, the Priuses got better. And then the third gen. Right now, when I see those Priuses, all they come in for is a twelve volt battery fluid change services, brake plugs, that's about it. I've had maybe in the last 20 years, I've done ten engines because people don't change their oil on time.
David Tang [00:28:55]:
Outside that, the Priuses, out of all your Priuses are up to date on technology. But as far as plugins go, dude, we're still like, ten years technology. The battery sucks. I mean, when GM first came out with the plugin, the little spark, the sonic, we're replacing those battery packs, and right now, the Chevy bolts, they're getting battery packs because the batteries suck. And if you look at Tesla, you look at the new guys now, the new game, like rivian, that's coming in. What's the other?
Jim Mobley [00:29:39]:
Lucid.
Jimmy Purdy [00:29:40]:
Lucid? Yeah.
David Tang [00:29:41]:
The battery is not there yet. And everybody's buying these plugins, and I feel bad for them. And I got a guy that owns three teslas. He has a P 70 D. He has another P 70 D. That's all wheel drive, and he has a model three. He's an it GUY. So he's all over northern and middle of California.
David Tang [00:30:10]:
His charging time, when he goes down to the Bay Area, when he's in San Francisco working on a server, he has to go to Hayward to charge before he comes home because he won't make it home. And all the guys I used to work with in the dealer world are now working for Tesla because Tesla guarantees an hourly wage. So they jump ship. The benefits are BETTER. One of the things that Tesla does for their employees is they give them a wellness incentive, meaning that you work there for three to five years, they give you 125 grand. It's LiKE, the Hell did he call it? I got three buddies that work over at Tesla that I used to work with at the dealer world, and they give you this grant, wellness Grant. They give you like, 125 to 500 grand in a five year period. So basically, you work, you make 70 grand a year.
David Tang [00:31:14]:
That grant, LEt's make it a round number, 100 grand, they split in five years. They Give you an extra $20,000 a year for free. So it's like a payment package.
Jimmy Purdy [00:31:30]:
For health.
David Tang [00:31:32]:
They're on my Facebook, so they know that they can't beat this at any dealership, and that's why they're at Tesla. And then when I got into the insight of how they repair teslas, that's when they don't have service manuals. So if you get a Tesla in the shop as a Tesla dealership, the repair is on a cloud. So basically, your multi screen goes out. There's no diagnostic information. So they jump on the cloud and they see what all these other Tesla dealerships did to repair that issue so they could replace three or four parts before it fixes it. And sometimes they fix it, and then they replace a harness.
Jimmy Purdy [00:32:20]:
Sounds like an identity. Like identifix.
David Tang [00:32:22]:
Yeah. Identifix is good for helping, pointing you in a direction of, okay, what might be wrong, but a lot of guys that use identifix just, oh, it needs that ECM, or it needs that temp sensor. They throw it in and don't fix it. And it's LIKE, now what, BUDDY? GOOGLE's not helping. And it just sucks because a lot of the guys, like Jim, like Gary Mullins, there's a lot of guys out there that knows how to diagnose. And as we get older, we retire. And then the new wave that's coming in, they're relying on identifix. They're relying on that YouTube.
David Tang [00:33:12]:
YouTube. I even worked with guys at Dodge that relied on Google. And you sit there, you look at the guy, it's like, dude, you do know you got to diagnose it. But because warranty pay for diagnosis sucks so much, they only give you four tenths or seven tenths to diagnose an issue now you got to dive into a pin out. They google it even at the training center, at Chrysler's training center here in Sacramento, over at the UTI, that fucking guy tells you google it before you.
Jimmy Purdy [00:33:50]:
I mean, I get know it does.
David Tang [00:33:53]:
Help, but the thing should rely on.
Jimmy Purdy [00:33:56]:
And that's.
David Tang [00:33:57]:
That's the bad. That's the bad.
Jimmy Purdy [00:34:01]:
They don't know what to do when they come to the point when all the forums and all the googling and all the YouTube search doesn't give them the answer yes. And instead of watching these YouTube videos and learning, they're, like, skipping to the end to see what they.
Jim Mobley [00:34:13]:
Know. Here's what I predict. If a shop, say, like, a shop needs a transmission mechanic, they're going to have to offer that prospective technician more than what they think they're going to have to offer him. They're going to have to give him time off. They're going to have to also pay him a part of the profits, which is he has to be integrated within that business. If you're a shop owner, you're going to have to give up some of the financial benefits that you may receive to your technicians. They deserve a part of those profits. If they contribute to it anyway.
Jim Mobley [00:35:04]:
They should get some of the profits. They should get a portion of that now. I mean, you have a huge, big investment in an automotive shop or a transmission shop takes a lot of money for leases, lifts, and tools and things like that. Advertising, taxes, electricity. You've got all these costs, but there's nothing wrong with having your accountant set up a profit sharing program for all your technicians as time goes on and as you hire people and the business grows. I know automotive shops that hide all the finances from their employees, and they've got a constant group of employees coming and going every year because they don't get any bonuses, any profit sharing of the business. It's just a job. It's a McDonald's.
Jim Mobley [00:36:11]:
It's like a Burger king. Put that burger through the machine, and here we go. We'll get somebody else to put the burgers in the machine next week. So this younger generation is not going to be a burger machine. Poker, it's not going to happen. This younger generation has to have a lot more than that, and so did we when we were younger. So that's a part of how we're.
Jimmy Purdy [00:36:50]:
Into this field, too, is like being able to fix something.
Jim Mobley [00:36:56]:
And nothing else. Become a big brother to a single parent that has no father in the picture. Go down, and when I say, become active in your community. Be a big brother. Take a kid and bring him to the shop and show him what automotive is about. A couple of days here and there, see if he has interest in that. Your local college, where I'm at here in California, Citrus College, is the local automotive college for the automotive industry. And if you're a shop owner, you should be down at that college occasionally and see what's going on down there with new prospects.
Jimmy Purdy [00:37:52]:
Yeah. Or at least be talking to the instructors there and saying, hey, yes. You got any candidates in here that are a little above average, maybe a little above par? Or even if they're not, is there any that could use a little extra help, but are, like, extremely interested in it, too, because there's that side of the coin, too. If you have the time, and if you got a kid that's super interested in it and wants to do it, I feel like that's more important than the one that's naturally good at it, that doesn't want to show up, you know what I mean? Just like you said with the parolees, we're all guilty of it. We just haven't gotten caught. The difference between us and them is, like, for sure they got caught when it comes down to it, right? They're not that much different, and some of them don't have the same handouts or the same. I wouldn't say handout, but the same opportunities given to them. And, yeah, you give them a little bit of an opportunity, and they just take hold of that.
Jimmy Purdy [00:38:45]:
And idle hands is the devil's playground, so as long as they're not, you give them something to do with their hands. Yeah.
Jim Mobley [00:38:53]:
I caught my son and one of his high school buddies out in the street one day. I come home from work, and they've got a Honda Civic out in the street. Nice little red, fairly new Honda Civic. And they got their laptop and a little plug in obd two thing, and they're adding 50. This Honda civic with a laptop and this little obd two. That day, I knew everything was okay with my kid.
Jimmy Purdy [00:39:32]:
That's a lot better choice of time than anything else you could be doing.
Jim Mobley [00:39:36]:
Yeah, you got to get them interested. Like you were saying, jimmy, too many of these kids think that it's all dirt and grease and stuff, and it is. A lot of it is dirt and grease and stuff like that. But you can't.
Jimmy Purdy [00:40:01]:
On your point of being bored, you're not going to be bored doing this stuff.
Jim Mobley [00:40:04]:
No.
Jimmy Purdy [00:40:04]:
And you can have both of those things if you want. You know what I mean? And not only that, but the opportunity to interact with the clients. You don't even have to be in the shop if you don't want to. There's so many different avenues in the business itself to just say that, oh, I don't want to get in the auto industry because I don't like grease. Right. Or on the other side of it. That's all I want to do, is just take stuff apart. But my boss is always telling me to diagnose stuff, and I don't like that.
Jimmy Purdy [00:40:32]:
I just want to take stuff apart and put it back together. Well, you got to have both. You got to be able to want to do both those things. But the main thing is you're just not going to be bored. It's not a clock in and clock out job, especially with the transmission side of it. And I don't know, and that always makes me nervous, is bringing an apprentice in for the transmission side, because maybe I don't know it well enough to be able to teach it. You know what I mean? And so to overshadow someone rebuilding a transmission, it's like, well, I don't feel like I know it enough to teach that. Do you know what I'm saying?
Jim Mobley [00:41:08]:
Yeah, I don't know.
Jimmy Purdy [00:41:10]:
I don't know, David, if you brought any apprentices in to actually rebuild units or just general auto repair.
David Tang [00:41:17]:
I've had guys for general automotive and I've had guys for transmissions. First things first, you got to train them how to diagnose it, how to read a scan tool, how to read hydraulic schematics because every manufacturer has a hydraulic schematic in their service library or SI or in their repertoire of repair manuals, but have to learn how to read those first so they know what they're looking for before the tear down stuff. Because that tear down stuff is easy.
Jimmy Purdy [00:41:51]:
Yeah. Do you think the tear down, though, is what gets them interested, though? I feel like when they come in and I'm a transmission shop, that's the first thing they want to do is they want to walk back to the bench and they want to take something apart.
David Tang [00:42:02]:
Yes, it is, but the thing is they have to understand the dynamics of it first. Tear it apart because they don't. You're back to square one where the guy that pull it, rip it out, tear it apart.
Jimmy Purdy [00:42:14]:
Yeah, you're right.
Jim Mobley [00:42:15]:
Let's talk about another issue with employees. Now there's what's called self management, where you work for somebody and you've got some atmospheres where a boss is constantly telling you what you need to do and you've got other circumstances where you don't have that. You're on your own and you have to self manage what you do every day. Say, like you've got a job for RNR and transmissions. Well, it's pretty well understood if you're an RNR guy that that's what you're going to do every day. We're going to RNR our transmission today and we've got multiple vehicles we're going to work on. There's a part of the industry that we're not talking about that aptitude and self management issue. You've got to be capable if you're going to be a technician and be successful in the transmission business or automotive business.
Jim Mobley [00:43:34]:
Number one, you've got to have an aptitude for that business and that work. You've got to be able to comprehend at a great level or whatever level you're going to in that business. You've got to be able to do self management and self learning and you've got to be able to take an oil circuit diagram or an electrical circuit and you've got to be able to think about it and figure out where you're headed there. You've got to have the aptitude to do that. That's the difference between self management and self learning. And a guy that you've got to hold under your thumb and guide him through every circumstance that he gets involved in. Gil Younger told me many years ago, he says, if I have to manage you and tell you what to do, then there's no point in me having you hired as an employee because I don't have the time to tell you what you should be doing in our company every day. You kind of follow what I'm saying.
Jimmy Purdy [00:44:48]:
Absolutely 100%. Yeah, there's that fine line, too, though, between micromanaging and then having them obviously be completely 100% on their own. And obviously it comes to training, right? Like you mentioned, training them and then having your standard operating procedures and your processes well documented. This is what we do. And if something goes wrong, this is what we do. If something goes wrong, this is what we do. But I think on that point, a lot of guys don't realize that you're trying to prove your first hypothesis right. When you get an idea of what the problem is, you're not supposed to be proven that.
Jimmy Purdy [00:45:32]:
You're just trying to prove your hypothesis either right or wrong. You need to get in there, and for the most part, you really should be proving yourself wrong, finding any other option, because some guys, this is what the problem is. It's going to be a shift solenoid. So I just need to get in there and just test this. And then as long as it tests, it'll be bad. But then you get these test results, and then you manufacture in your head, oh, that's definitely not what it's supposed to look like. Instead of saying, maybe I'm wrong, and it's like that arrogance versus having confidence, and a lot of guys are just arrogant and like, oh, I know what it is. And as soon as they think that, before they even looked at the car, someone comes in, client says, hey, I got this issue.
Jimmy Purdy [00:46:12]:
And it shows from first to second, second to third, whatever the issue is. And they just, in their head, oh, I've had that issue before, it's probably going to be this. And that's it. That's their diagnosis. And even then, they go in and spend the time to diagnose the just, they can't get out of their own think. I think the younger guys, I see that a lot, too, because they'll read it on YouTube or Google and like, oh, I know what it is. And instead of trying to fix the car, they're just trying to prove that they're right.
Jim Mobley [00:46:39]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:46:40]:
You know what I mean?
Jim Mobley [00:46:41]:
I know. Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:46:43]:
And it's so hard to not micromanage that person. But then also, you got to have that confidence to do this work. So you're trying to, like, how do I use this? How do I utilize this guy and his confidence to fight the car? Not me. You're not trying to prove me right or wrong.
David Tang [00:47:13]:
We know a couple, they would jump on and ask tech support, Jim, Raleigh Alvarez, or any one of the tech guys just to go onto a Facebook forum to answer a question. Yeah, I'm not mentioning any of those names. But still, if you got to go ask someone for an answer, to answer something, you're in the wrong.
Jimmy Purdy [00:47:44]:
And that's that, too. Like reaching out for help when you need it, but reaching out for know. And I've talked to Jim before. I've definitely had my fair share of problems. He's been my night in shining know in situations to help me. It's like. It's like skipping to the end of the video to find out what the part is replaced instead of learning how the system operates. And I mentioned Bernie Thompson, and there's Paul Danner with scanner Danner.
Jimmy Purdy [00:48:10]:
And there's a lot of videos guys out there that are promoting this content, and a lot of guys don't like that. You're giving away the secrets. You're giving away all our secrets. Oh, man, there's so many secrets out there, I don't think you could give them all away. So I've always been on the other side of the fence. Like, look, if they can promote that education, that's fantastic, because that's less headaches that come into my shop. Because when a client goes and they spend $1,000 getting ten different parts replaced, that doesn't fix it. Or they say, oh, you need a transmission and they replace the whole unit and it doesn't fix it.
Jimmy Purdy [00:48:40]:
Man, they are mad at me for some reason. When that car comes to my shop, I already spent $8,000. What do you mean? It's going to be $400 to diagnose it. You want it fixed. And so the more competency we have out there, I think, is better.
Jim Mobley [00:48:58]:
All information, no matter where it comes from, is an educational process. In reality, whether it's YouTube, whether it's Google, whether it's an industry paid technical program or source or whatever it may be, any and all of that is part of an educational process, period. But you got to use everything with a grain of salt. You have to have back to the aptitude. You have to have an aptitude for this to discern what's good and what's bad in all of those processes of information. Just because something comes up on Google, don't by any means make it correct for the application you're working with. You can use AI. Everybody's been talking about this artificial intelligence, chat, GPT, AI, and all that stuff.
Jim Mobley [00:50:04]:
It may be good for the medical industry or whatever they want to put forth with it, but when you put automotive into chat, GPT, AI, and some of these other artificial intelligence programs, you can get basic information back. Like a code means this or code means that, but, I mean, that doesn't help you with an in depth issue on a vehicle, a vehicle that's got a weird electronic problem or a weird hydraulic problem, that's the end of AI. It's over with.
Jimmy Purdy [00:50:44]:
All you see is the problem child, right? So on your tech line, you see the worst of the worst, right? And so I get, a lot of people say, well, it works for me. I can just scan a code and put a part in, right? And it works for my business. I can make money do it. Are you slow, Jim? You don't have a lack of tech calls coming in. Right? So the amount of these hard issues that are out there that need a skilled diagnostician, there's a huge need for it, right. And I hear the other side of that story where, well, that's all I do. I just scan for codes, and I replace the first thing on the. And it works for me.
Jimmy Purdy [00:51:18]:
Nine out of ten times. You're not the exception. There's so much involved diagnostics that's out there that needs these skilled guys. Yeah. Goes to the question of how do you measure that aptitude? How do you find that special something in a technician?
Jim Mobley [00:51:38]:
I've got two kinds of clients. I've got regulars that call regularly that I deal with every day, every week, every month. And the other side of it is calls from guys that I don't talk to every week or every month. When I hear from one of those guys, they've got a vehicle that's been at three or four other shops before they got it, and the problem is still prevalent, and they're stuck. They've done tried everything that they know to try, so now they give me a call, and I'll take all the data that they've got, look at it, analyze it, and see if I can come up with anything. I don't fix all these vehicles by any means. Some vehicles are just simply. They're moving out of my world eventually.
Jim Mobley [00:52:44]:
I mean, one or two here and there. The shops put everything they can put into it, and this and that, and they don't want to spend any more money on it after they call me, if I don't come up with something pretty quick, that vehicle is out of that shop and moved on. They don't have time to work with a vehicle that is unprofitable to the business. So I'm the deciding factor. A lot of times, if I can't come up with something pretty quick there, if it's something I got to study and this and that takes two or three days, that shop moves on from that vehicle. It's out the door and on to somebody else. I've actually gotten vehicles from another shop that got the vehicle after that shop moved on from it. I'll get a call from another guy.
Jimmy Purdy [00:53:41]:
And you're like, I recognize this.
Jim Mobley [00:53:44]:
I know this vehicle. I know what's going on here. I already know. So that's the other side of the industry, the guys that know what they're doing every day, and they've already fully diagnosed a vehicle. And something outside that normal spectrum of diagnosis is what it is. The vehicle may have been in a flood or some extenuating circumstance where it's an off road vehicle or it's an abused vehicle. It's one of those 68 rfes that's a race vehicle that's driven on the streets, something like that, which you can dig into one of those vehicles, and you can spend weeks on it trying to figure out some kind of weird problem. Hell, it's a race vehicle.
Jim Mobley [00:54:42]:
It shouldn't be on the streets anyway. So a lot of those vehicles on that other side of the spectrum are not what you call everyday shop vehicles anyway.
Jimmy Purdy [00:54:58]:
Yeah. The profitability, I think, is the biggest point there, for sure. It's like, how do I have a technician take on this problem and be profitable? I can do it. Right. And I'm sure, David, you have the same thing. Like, you can do it, but I just can't pay a technician to spend that kind of time with this car. There's no way I can bill for it. So now I'm literally paying out of my own pocket to just run in circles around it.
Jimmy Purdy [00:55:27]:
And it's like, well, my time is not worth anything because I'm the owner, so I'll just go do it myself. But it's like, how much time do I then get into this? And then it's just like, when is it crossing from a business to just pride? When does it just turn into a prideful thing? I want to be the guy to fix it. Why?
Jim Mobley [00:55:44]:
Yeah, a lot of vehicles in shops end up being have to be fixed because there's thousands of dollars involved. There has to be an answer. So I get a few of those vehicles every now and then, which are heavy duty electrical problems, that a module is bad or wiring is bad, or the signal going into some module, the ABS is corrupting the signal. And then you have to train a guy with a scope. You spend weeks explaining how to look at that signal with a scope. He's never used a scope in his life. So those are extenuating circumstances. Luckily they don't happen every day.
Jim Mobley [00:56:37]:
Those are once or twice, two or three times a year.
Jimmy Purdy [00:56:41]:
It'd almost be better if it was every day though, because you do all this training for this once in a month or once in three month problem. And it's like we were talking before we started recording about 62 tes. I don't really want to build those, I don't want to stock parts for those. There are certain transmissions, there's no need for me to figure like the old AW 55 50 SN and the Volvo's, I don't care, they had all those solenoid issues. And you could get the side cover right and you drill the hole and it's like, I don't want to do all this stuff because it's like, I'm not going to see these every day. There's no reason for it. But if I did, then it would make sense. So it's like with the scopes, it's like you almost need these headaches so that you can train and gear up for it.
Jimmy Purdy [00:57:26]:
But on the other side of the coin, it's like, well, you don't really want those headaches either because they're not profitable.
Jim Mobley [00:57:32]:
But here's the other side of that. That's why I write articles every now and then, like for Sonax transmission Digest, so I don't have to deal with explaining a process to that guy over and over again. I can refer to a link on a website and he can go look at that data and read it and hopefully can benefit from it. And I'm sure that's why all the trainers in the automotive business, you mentioned Bernie Thompson, all those, they put all this information out there because they get tired of telling this shop or that shop over and over again, the process of having to diagnose that problem or do that procedure, you know what I'm saying?
Jimmy Purdy [00:58:31]:
Absolutely. It breaks down what it gives a service to it, right? This is why it's worth money, because look at all these things I have to do? Yeah.
Jim Mobley [00:58:43]:
You take that 55 50 sn. That's outside of pretty much every shop spectrum anymore. That's an old Volvo that's not going to be in service hardly anymore.
Jimmy Purdy [00:58:55]:
Right.
Jim Mobley [00:58:56]:
So it's not a profitable shop job, really.
Jimmy Purdy [00:59:02]:
But then you get the jiffy lube that pulls the plug out of the top to fill it, and they lose the band anchor. Right. So do you not fix it? You know what I mean? Well, all they did is service, and now I don't have third gear. It's like, well, I know how to fix that, but I don't really work on those. But do you, though? And it's like the same with bmws. I don't do bmws, but what if it's a five l 40 that comes in?
Jim Mobley [00:59:25]:
Here's what I want to know.
Jimmy Purdy [00:59:26]:
I guess. I work on bmws.
Jim Mobley [00:59:28]:
Here's what I want to know, Jimmy. Do you have kids?
Jimmy Purdy [00:59:31]:
Kids? No.
Jim Mobley [00:59:33]:
Well, I can't ask you this question. I was going to ask you if you go home and work on your daughter's little electric jeep, I would, yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:59:49]:
Whatever's got wheels, I guess I'll try to figure it out.
Jim Mobley [00:59:56]:
Yeah. But, oh, God, this automotive world is crazy.
Jimmy Purdy [01:00:04]:
There's just no right or really wrong answer. And that's kind of like what makes it so hard and all the shades. And just like you said, you got to have guys with aptitude. And it's like, well, how do I quantify that? How do I know this guy is understanding the process? You just see the glazed overlook in his eyes, and he comes out and all of a sudden I got the answer. How did you come to that answer? How did you figure that out? You know what I mean? Did you look through the hydraulic schematics and decipher exactly what's going on? Or did you just see video somewhere? And now you have an idea, and it's like the good and the bad thing about the Internet, and they're not going to tell you. I figured it out. How'd you figure it out? What's going on up there?
Jim Mobley [01:00:47]:
Yeah.
David Tang [01:00:48]:
Well, the way I used to interview guys call themselves an electrical specialist. Interview a fluke 89 or 88. No, 87 or 88.
Jim Mobley [01:01:01]:
Fluke 87. Yeah.
David Tang [01:01:04]:
And I lay in front of them and I tell them, okay, how do you measure resistance? So I hand them the leads, I hand them the meter. I said, just plug it together and then set it to measure resistance or measure amperage for parasitic draw. And it shocks me because I would sit there and say, so how do you measure for parasitic draw. This is a test light. It's like, okay, that works, too, because I've done it. But how do you know what's drawing if you don't know how many amps it's pulling to drain that battery?
Jim Mobley [01:01:40]:
Yeah.
David Tang [01:01:42]:
When they tell me, well, we got to unplug a bunch of stuff, and he's, you know, your dvom helps you out with that, because if you know exactly how many amps it's pulling or if you don't know how to use a Dvom even. There's a company called ess now that makes this little fuse buddy thing that you plug in place of the fuse, and it measures how many amps it pulls. When you look at that amperage, you know, if it's pulling high amps, it's going to be a motor. If it's pulling lower amps, you know, it's a module. So what to unplug, and then you don't have to go start taking seats apart and stuff like that. And that's how you tell the dude or the gal has the amplitude to do the work, the common sense stuff. And I don't beat them up. I just try to educate them.
David Tang [01:02:36]:
And if they still feel that that's their strong suit, that's when we bring them in for that department or we train them on other things on top of their specialties.
Jimmy Purdy [01:02:49]:
That common sense, that high level indicator stuff is what a lot of guys are missing. Yes. Most of the time, you don't need to pull the pan on a transmission. If it comes in for a diagnosis, like, yeah, it's a pretty good chance this thing's hammered. We don't really need to break a scope out. When it's a 460. It's got no third gear, and the flu is black. Okay, it needs to come out, but it's like that high level indicator, just like you said.
Jimmy Purdy [01:03:13]:
Being able to decipher if it's a high amp, where are you looking? If it's high amperage, why are you looking at low amp circuits right now? You're wasting time, which is wasting money. But how do you teach that? Instead of being kind of harsh with them and being like, look, dummy, why would you be doing this? What uses high amps? You know what I mean? Think about what you're like. How do you write that down?
Jim Mobley [01:03:42]:
Here's how you do that. Pepe Torres and I were talking about this. The new generation has their phone. You let them google it and see what comes up on Google.
Jimmy Purdy [01:04:00]:
As long as Google, if Google says it's right. It must be right. If it's on Facebook, then it must be right.
Jim Mobley [01:04:08]:
But Peffy Torres is know this new generation of employees, you have to give them the benefit of looking at that phone because they're using that phone to pick up information. They're not always checking messages and Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat and all that stuff. I don't know if I agree with that, but Peppy Torres says you got to at least give them 15 minutes, an hour or something like that every hour to look at their phone. I don't know about that.
Jimmy Purdy [01:04:44]:
Yeah, that's the other huge divide when it comes to the shops. When I started, we had lockers, and we had to put our phone in the locker. Can't do that anymore. They'll just quit.
Jim Mobley [01:04:58]:
That's over that day.
Jimmy Purdy [01:05:01]:
Yeah, I got to have my phone. Like, all right, have your phone. I don't care. Whatever. And then it's like they go on a test drive, and they break down, and their phone's on their toolbox. Like, really? You had your phone on you all day, and you decided not take it with you on the test drive? And now I'm, like, wondering, 45 minutes later, hey, where the hell did he go?
Jim Mobley [01:05:22]:
No phone call, no nothing.
Jimmy Purdy [01:05:24]:
No nothing. Yeah. And then I look over, I'm like, see the phone on the toolbox? And he bay is empty. Oh, I think I know what happened. That's why we have a designated test drive route. I'll just go drive the route. Find them. That's funny.
Jimmy Purdy [01:05:42]:
Well, this has been good. This has been fun.
Jim Mobley [01:05:47]:
I agree.
Jimmy Purdy [01:05:48]:
Yeah. Got some good information here. I got to make my drive up to San Jose now.
Jim Mobley [01:05:55]:
You have a safe brother.
Jimmy Purdy [01:05:56]:
Yeah. I appreciate both you guys coming on.
Jim Mobley [01:05:59]:
Yeah, we can do this again sometime. About another subject. There's many subjects we got in the transmission and automotive could.
Jimmy Purdy [01:06:09]:
Yeah. And that's what the information needs to get out there is. We're all thinking it, but no one's saying it. And it's, like, a lot. A lot of stuff we need to realize we're all doing the same thing, right?
Jim Mobley [01:06:18]:
Yes, we are.
Jimmy Purdy [01:06:20]:
None of us are special. All right, gentlemen, hang out for just a minute while this thing uploads. But, yeah, I appreciate you guys being here.
David Tang [01:06:31]:
All right, thank you.
Jimmy Purdy [01:06:32]:
Till next time.