Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
My name is Jeff, and I'd like to welcome you on a journey of reflection and insight into the tolls and triumphs of a career in automotive repair.
After more than 20 years of skinned knuckles and tool debt, I want to share my perspective and hear other people's thoughts about our industry.
So pour yourself a strong coffee or grab a cold Canadian beer and get ready for some great conversation.
[00:00:00] Tanner Watters: We'll Talk. We'll ask everybody else in the group if somebody's having a problem and they're stumped, and just run it by everybody else. Like it's, our shop culture's phenomenal. Like we had so many guys from inside the store apply for the service manager job just to make sure nobody from the outside came in and screwed up.
[00:00:25] Tanner Watters: I'm very blessed to work in a very good culture.
[00:00:34] Jeff Compton: Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another exciting episode of the Jaden McKinney Podcast. It's, uh, kind of a balmy Saturday night here, um, and, uh, your, your boy had a, a tough day of fishing, so if you see me, like, um, you know, wince in pain every once in a while, my shoulder's a little jacked up from a lot of casting today, but that's kind of typical.
[00:00:55] Jeff Compton: Um, somebody reached out to me, a new friend of mine, Mr. Tanner Waters from Seiko, Montana, and he wanted to kinda talk to me about, you know, kinda his thoughts on the industry, and he kinda talked a little bit about the, the different age brackets that we find when we're working in this industry, and, and, um, you know, he wanted to kind of share his thoughts on that.
[00:01:19] Jeff Compton: So obviously me as somebody that's, like, getting to be one of them kinda elder senior guys within the industry, which is hard to believe at 50, but you know. Um, I thought, "Shit, yeah, I got some insight on that." So Tanner, brother, how are you tonight, man?
[00:01:35] Tanner Watters: Oh, not so bad.
[00:01:37] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:01:37] Tanner Watters: Spent the whole day with the kids.
[00:01:40] Tanner Watters: Finally, finally had a day off from harvest, so...
[00:01:44] Jeff Compton: Oh. S- see, guys, Tanner's in Montana, and then he was telling me before we got on about how, like... So, again, I learn a ton from my guests, is that he's looking forward to the upcoming ice fishing season, which, like, I don't immediately think Montana and ice fishing.
[00:02:00] Jeff Compton: You know what I mean? Like, I think about... When I think of Montana and fishing, I think more of, like, fly fishing. But he's like, "No, they're building a, an ice shack this year to spear northern pike," which I'm like, "I'd be down with that," because I hate those things. They're slimy little snots. But, uh, yeah. Um, and you came from Chicago originally.
[00:02:18] Tanner Watters: Uh, close. Like, it was, like, three hours south of Chicago.
[00:02:22] Jeff Compton: Okay.
[00:02:23] Tanner Watters: So I grew up in a little town of 90 people in central Illinois.
[00:02:27] Jeff Compton: Wow.
[00:02:28] Tanner Watters: So I've kinda been small town my whole life.
[00:02:32] Jeff Compton: Really? Yeah. Yeah. 'Cause you're saying, like, it's, like, a two-hour drive to you for a Walmart, and I'm like- Wow.
[00:02:40] Tanner Watters: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:02:42] Jeff Compton: That's pretty bitchin', man.
[00:02:43] Jeff Compton: Um, so how did you get into this?
[00:02:46] Tanner Watters: So I started, uh... First vehicle I ever worked on was my uncle's '77 Corvette.
[00:02:53] Jeff Compton: Mm.
[00:02:53] Tanner Watters: I was, like, 10 years old, and then he was restoring it.
[00:02:58] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:02:59] Tanner Watters: And then my mom met my stepdad, and they had a trucking company, so then I got into working on, on Kenworths that way, changing oil, tires.
[00:03:08] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:03:08] Tanner Watters: And then went to high school and kinda just worked on all my buddies' vehicles. Then one day I finally got a apprenticeship opportunity through a local John Deere dealer up here about three years ago, and I jumped on it and haven't looked back.
[00:03:23] Jeff Compton: Very cool. My, uh, you say '77 Corvette, m- a guy I used to work with at the dealer way back when, um, Bob was his name.
[00:03:32] Jeff Compton: We all called him Uncle Bob. He was-- He'd be an elder guy by now, for sure. Um, retired military, took a job in the parts department. I don't know why he would 'cause we were miserable back then. But he had a '77 Corvette, and, um, it was kind of a, a fun car 'cause it wasn't at all like any kind of numbers matching or, or worth anything, right?
[00:03:52] Jeff Compton: So the, the wrong engine in it, you know, all that stuff, but it was like I don't know if what you remember about the 77s, but they were like rated for like 150 horsepower, right? They were dogs. And this one had a warmed over one, uh, small block Chev in it that somebody had tuned up. So it was a lot more fun to drive, and it was like he didn't get too, you know, bent out of shape about all the other things about it.
[00:04:16] Jeff Compton: Like, the AC didn't work and stuff. He didn't care. He just wanted to have a Corvette, right? So I remember him, he'd be in the shop kinda monkeying around on, on Saturday mornings when we were in there working and, um, we'd rib him about it a little bit because it was like he wasn't a mechanic, but he was handy.
[00:04:32] Jeff Compton: And, um, we're like, "Oh, that thing's not even fast anyway, right?" And it was like, you go out in the parking lot and do big smoke and burnout, and it was like, "Oh, yeah, cool," you know. And then of course back then you'd be... You know, one of the Hemi cars would still spank it, right? Like they were- Oh, yeah ... they were something.
[00:04:48] Jeff Compton: And, um- They were just
[00:04:48] Tanner Watters: nice looking cars.
[00:04:49] Jeff Compton: Yeah. I, I mean, I can still remember the, when the first like, you know, 300C came off the lot with a Hemi in it, and we all drove it, and we were just like, "Holy crap." Like, not because... Like, we'd driven Vipers, and I mean, that's a different experience altogether, right?
[00:05:06] Jeff Compton: Yeah. But the Hemi C for what it was, for what it cost back then, was we knew something was changing in, within Chrysler, right? Because it was like, that was the first time a lot of us had had, you know, a rear wheel drive V8 car that you could enjoy driving, you know. Um, and it was, it was pretty cool when it would come in.
[00:05:28] Jeff Compton: The customers back then, they weren't like, they weren't pretentious, you know? They were just... It was a fun car to drive. Um, I really like-- I mean, I've always, I'm a little sick in the head. I've always liked the Chrysler stuff, so, you know. But, um, it was-
[00:05:43] Tanner Watters: Yeah, I finally just dipped my toe into, into Mopar, so.
[00:05:48] Jeff Compton: Yeah. What'd you get? Um,
[00:05:49] Tanner Watters: I bought a Jeep. I got a Wrangler.
[00:05:51] Jeff Compton: Good for you. Yeah?
[00:05:53] Tanner Watters: Yeah. What year? I got a Wrangler. 2012.
[00:05:56] Jeff Compton: 2012, yeah.
[00:05:56] Tanner Watters: Everybody says it was the worst year too. I mean- Everything I could. I've already done- It's- ... the oil cooler. Yeah. That one already, that one already crapped out, so.
[00:06:07] Jeff Compton: Yeah. I did, I did, uh, I did one on a 2015 Cherokee Trailhawk yesterday.
[00:06:13] Jeff Compton: Oh. I mean, they're super common, right? And, um- Yeah ... a gravy job. And what... Did you, did you put a Dorman one in it or?
[00:06:21] Tanner Watters: I put a Mishimoto in it.
[00:06:23] Jeff Compton: Mishimoto. Okay. Still aluminum housing though? Yep. Yeah. I, you know, I've never used that particular brand, but, like, I've put in, pf, dozens of the Dorman ones at this point, right?
[00:06:36] Jeff Compton: And, um, I did have one where it leaked after. Now again, we're not even sure it was a legit Dorman, 'cause it was a customer-supplied part, not my choice. And I, I kinda had a talk with my, uh, with my advisor slash manager after because, like, you know, she paid way more labor because there was no labor. She pro- provided it.
[00:06:57] Jeff Compton: Um, and but it was... It, it didn't matter what we did, it wouldn't leak, or it wouldn't stop leaking. Um, we changed the seals twice in it and, you know, the whole thing, and it still would, would puke oil out of it. So, um, it puked oil out of it worse than the one we changed. Mine
[00:07:15] Tanner Watters: was just- It- ... puking coolant.
[00:07:17] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:07:18] Tanner Watters: Yeah. Mm-hmm. And it, it, it was so bad it completely rotted the NOx sensor connector
[00:07:24] Jeff Compton: and- Mm ...
[00:07:24] Tanner Watters: yeah, I let it go way too long. I let it go way too long. I was trying to be cheap and
[00:07:31] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:07:31] Tanner Watters: I- So I ended up splicing in a new connector and...
[00:07:34] Jeff Compton: Yeah. It's, but there, it's, I mean, it's an easy job, you know. Yeah. It's not...
[00:07:38] Jeff Compton: It's, it's, like, you know, you see all the guys talk online about how, you know, they cuss that, and I'm like, I don't know why. Like, it was... Most of the guys I knew at the dealer did them within the warranty time after, like, the second time they did one. Yeah, I think I- And the retail time is gravy, you know?
[00:07:54] Jeff Compton: Like-
[00:07:54] Tanner Watters: I think I did mine in, like, two and a half, three hours. Like, it's- Not- ... it's not hard.
[00:07:59] Jeff Compton: Not difficult. Um, so what did you drive before you got the Wrangler?
[00:08:02] Tanner Watters: Uh, I had a Ford, 2012 Ford Fusion.
[00:08:06] Jeff Compton: Okay.
[00:08:07] Tanner Watters: And loved that car. Hate that I totaled it on a deer, but- ... loved that car.
[00:08:13] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:08:13] Tanner Watters: I, I miss the gas mileage. Yeah, it's...
[00:08:15] Jeff Compton: Yeah, it's-
[00:08:17] Tanner Watters: Especially when you gotta drive 100 miles round trip every day for work. Yeah, I miss the mileage.
[00:08:22] Jeff Compton: Oh, so you're that far?
[00:08:24] Tanner Watters: Yeah.
[00:08:25] Jeff Compton: Wow, man.
[00:08:26] Tanner Watters: Yeah. That's the closest decent-sized town-
[00:08:31] Jeff Compton: Uh-huh ...
[00:08:31] Tanner Watters: I would say is the town I work in, with real job opportunities.
[00:08:36] Jeff Compton: So you get some, you get some seat time where you get to listen to the podcast then, right?
[00:08:39] Jeff Compton: And just kinda like, yeah.
[00:08:40] Tanner Watters: Yep. And being a field tech, I do too.
[00:08:45] Jeff Compton: So what is that like? 'Cause you, you s- you mentioned, like, Kenworth. Is that who employs you n- or not Kenworth, excuse me, um, John Deere.
[00:08:52] Tanner Watters: Yep. I work for a John Deere dealership- So- Wow ... nope, I'm a field tech for them. I... Well, field and shop. We all, all of us techs kinda do field and shop work.
[00:09:03] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:04] Tanner Watters: But, uh, nope. So we get a lot of seat time. I mean, I drive... It's not uncommon for me to drive two, 300 miles in a day and even be 120 miles away from the shop. It's just so spread out out here.
[00:09:19] Jeff Compton: Yeah. What's, what's a lot of the calls? What's it involve?
[00:09:24] Tanner Watters: It's, right now it's a lot of combines. Okay.
[00:09:27] Jeff Compton: Um,
[00:09:27] Tanner Watters: I'm more the hay equipment guy-
[00:09:29] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm
[00:09:30] Tanner Watters: for our dealership, so this last... So July and beginning of August been really busy for me working on balers and the tractors that pull 'em. But, um, right now we're really heavy into combines, uh, any big tractor pulling grain carts.
[00:09:46] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:47] Tanner Watters: Lately it's kind of seems like it's been transmission problems with some of the tractors, so.
[00:09:52] Jeff Compton: Really, eh?
[00:09:52] Tanner Watters: Yeah. I'm getting ready to split a tractor once I can get splitting stands from another store.
[00:09:58] Jeff Compton: Wow. See, that's, that's something I've never done. I've never, I've never yanked apart a piece of farm equipment. It's... I've watched, uh, my stepfather, I couldn't even remember what it was. It's, um, uh, a New Holland I think, and he split his a couple years ago to fix an oil leak or something.
[00:10:19] Jeff Compton: Um, and I remember like, you know, a lot of guys that do it, like you say, the stands, he had blocks of wood jimmied up all over the place, and I'm like, "I want no part of that," like,
[00:10:29] Tanner Watters: This one's a little different 'cause I don't have to take the cab off or anything. I actually take the whole rear differential and the transmission and just slide it- Okay
[00:10:37] Tanner Watters: out from underneath the tractor with the rear axles. So I'm ready for it, I just need the stands.
[00:10:44] Jeff Compton: Uh-huh. Now, so I'm gonna assume you guys are probably doing that 12 months of the year, eh?
[00:10:49] Tanner Watters: Yep. Yep. Whether it's we're out in the field, whether it's 30 below or 105.
[00:10:58] Jeff Compton: God bless you, man. God bless. I can remember, I can remember road service like on highway trucks when I did that stint, and um, yeah, I can remember it seemed like in my memories it was more, more winter days than summer days.
[00:11:15] Jeff Compton: I don't know what- Yeah ... was, whether the shit just didn't break as much or people were getting it towed, but I can remember a couple hot days on the side of the highway for, you know, a few minutes, like putting a starter in or- Yeah ... well, that's a lot of what it was, right? It was starter, alternator, belts, batteries, you know, stuff like that.
[00:11:32] Jeff Compton: We didn't get to too much where, you know, we didn't, we couldn't get it going that way. They kind of... We were lucky, but man- Yeah ... like, you know, it was... We didn't, we didn't have to go to too many people and do too much involved, you know, at the site, thank God, 'cause, um-
[00:11:50] Tanner Watters: Yeah ...
[00:11:51] Jeff Compton: well, I don't, I don't love the cold.
[00:11:55] Tanner Watters: Wintertime's actually normally pretty easy for us in the field. It's mostly just, uh, ex- or after treatment issues is what- Yeah ... the wintertime mostly is for guys that are out feeding cows 'cause they can't comprehend the idea of letting a tractor regen Letting it run long enough to regen and then they wonder- Yeah
[00:12:15] Tanner Watters: why their exhaust filter's plugged. Then you'll get some guys that idle, they'll idle their tractor all night long.
[00:12:23] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:24] Tanner Watters: Just so that way it starts in the next morning, and then they wonder why the exhaust system's plugged
[00:12:31] Jeff Compton: Yeah, I don't, I don't understand that because I, I wanna think that sometimes it's just a situation of people think they're saving money by, like, not replacing the five-year-old batteries, right?
[00:12:41] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm. Or, you know, I went out and I boosted it, I let it run for eight hours, like, just, you know, to heck with it, right? I, I get fuel pretty cheap is what they might think. And I'm like, you're just... Like, it's not, it's not designed to do that anymore, unfortunately. And, um, you know, uh, I'm not necessarily a big fan of all the, the diesel emission stuff in terms of does it really have any kind of positive net effect-
[00:13:07] Tanner Watters: I'm really-
[00:13:07] Tanner Watters: on the environment ... not for it on farm equipment. Yeah. I think if you're running, uh, non-taxable fuel-
[00:13:14] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm ...
[00:13:14] Tanner Watters: then you shouldn't have to have emissions-
[00:13:17] Jeff Compton: Yeah ...
[00:13:17] Tanner Watters: is, is my belief. But as a representative for John Deere, I have to... I can't, you know, I can't encourage people to delete their machines.
[00:13:27] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:28] Tanner Watters: Um, but no, that's just how I feel is that if it's non-taxable fuel, you shouldn't, shouldn't have to have the exhaust treatment.
[00:13:35] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Now tell me how you got to go from Kenworth over to Deere. Like, how did... How, what was that transition like?
[00:13:42] Tanner Watters: So I, I grew up, like, an hour from Moline, Illinois, which is Deere's headquarters.
[00:13:48] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:48] Tanner Watters: So I've always been around Deere, and I've piddled with it, but I've always wanted to be a, uh, technician for Deere.
[00:13:57] Tanner Watters: And when I moved up here, every year I'd apply for the apprenticeship, and finally after applying for it for four years, I finally got it.
[00:14:07] Jeff Compton: Nice.
[00:14:07] Tanner Watters: So, well, just... Well, and my stepfamily for the trucking company, we also had an old 4020 John Deere, so I got to wrench on that and run it- Mm-hmm ... and do some mowing with it in the summertime.
[00:14:20] Tanner Watters: So I was already familiar slightly with how the systems worked.
[00:14:24] Jeff Compton: Right.
[00:14:24] Tanner Watters: But That was... I do miss working on Kenworths, though. I do miss working on KWs
[00:14:32] Jeff Compton: Yeah, I, I always thought they were a cool truck when I got to work on them. And again, it was one of that, that old brand, right? That some of the really, you know, when...
[00:14:40] Jeff Compton: I say it all the time, like, the slash owner operators up here, like, they're almost a, they're a dying breed. Like, everybody now is a company driver, right? And you drive a company truck, and whether it's a Volvo or, you know, an International or something, like, it's, there's no... Not that you don't see- There's no cool trucks
[00:14:56] Tanner Watters: anymore.
[00:14:56] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Yeah. You... It's not that you don't see a nice truck once in a while, you still do, but it's like they're all... You know exactly what I'm talking about. They've all kind of gone that, you know, plastic clad, aerodynamic- Yeah ... you know, modern junk. And then you'll see somebody, you know, it seems to be more in the construction guy's stuff.
[00:15:19] Jeff Compton: He's hauling, you know, a big cat behind him on a, on a loader- Yeah ... or something like that, and they've got an old- Around here
[00:15:24] Tanner Watters: it's the bull haulers.
[00:15:25] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:15:25] Tanner Watters: Guys hauling cattle pots. They're all- Mm-hmm ... 379s and W900s.
[00:15:31] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:15:32] Tanner Watters: And they run great.
[00:15:32] Jeff Compton: And I
[00:15:33] Tanner Watters: mean...
[00:15:34] Jeff Compton: Yeah. And so we don't, we don't see that as much around here anymore, like the old stuff as we used to.
[00:15:40] Jeff Compton: I can remember, you know, 2001 it seemed like everybody was still running an old Pete or an old K Whopper or, you know, or an International Eagle, and it was a nice truck. And now- Yeah ... like, it's like all of a sudden everybody was like, all you could buy was a Volvo it seems.
[00:15:59] Tanner Watters: Yeah. Them old International Eagles don't get the love they should either.
[00:16:02] Tanner Watters: No. Those are, those are cool trucks. I worked for a feed mill-
[00:16:06] Jeff Compton: Yeah ...
[00:16:06] Tanner Watters: just in the town to the west of us, and they had one that I was driving around to feed the feed mill, you know, for, for grain. It's just an old straight truck, but man, was that thing cool.
[00:16:16] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Yeah. They were-
[00:16:17] Tanner Watters: Just a fun truck to drive.
[00:16:19] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:16:19] Jeff Compton: And I can remember they used to always rip on everybody that had an International like it was a, as if it was a a lesser truck. But I mean, I remember seeing them and it was like,
[00:16:29] Tanner Watters: well- It's all about the power plant.
[00:16:32] Jeff Compton: Yeah. It was, it was a good truck, you know what I mean? It really was. And, um, but yeah, Zeb Beard, he's got an old K- Kenworth too, and he loves it.
[00:16:40] Jeff Compton: Like, he just-
[00:16:41] Tanner Watters: Oh, they ride like a Cadillac.
[00:16:43] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:44] Tanner Watters: Oh, they ride so good. Yeah. Way better than an old cab over.
[00:16:47] Jeff Compton: Oh.
[00:16:50] Tanner Watters: We had one when I was growing up
[00:16:52] Jeff Compton: Yeah. We had a, we had a... In my fleet we had s- uh, a couple of, um, Freightliner cab-overs. Oh. 'Cause where I worked for, the shop I worked for, we had the local Kenco Steel fleet, and they'd haul steel up and down.
[00:17:04] Jeff Compton: And, um, they had a couple Freightliner cab-overs, and I can still remember, you know, the guy not having his TV secured in the back, and he, you know- Mm-hmm ... we'd tilt the box, the bed, the cab up to service it, and I could still remember hearing that TV hit the windshield.
[00:17:22] Tanner Watters: The worst part was the passenger seat, especially in the old ones, 'cause they weren't air ride back in the day.
[00:17:27] Tanner Watters: Oh, those were rough.
[00:17:29] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:17:30] Tanner Watters: Well, and these- Cool looking trucks, but, oh ...
[00:17:32] Jeff Compton: and these guys almost never had a passenger. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, almost never, so they didn't care. But, like, I can still remember that TV bouncing around and calling the boss, 'cause I thought I was gonna be in shit. And I called the boss up, and he's like, "Nope."
[00:17:47] Jeff Compton: Don't worry about it. They're not supposed to leave it in the c- in the truck." And I'm like, "Okay."
[00:17:50] Tanner Watters: Yep. I
[00:17:51] Jeff Compton: didn't-
[00:17:51] Tanner Watters: It's on them. I didn't even- It's on the driver.
[00:17:53] Jeff Compton: Yeah. So, you know, I don't think the driver probably got anything more than like a, a stern talking to because it was a, it was a tough company to, to haul for.
[00:18:01] Jeff Compton: Like, uh- Yeah ... hauling steel was like a heavy load, big load and, um, you know. But, uh, they had a hard time always hiring drivers it seemed. Everyw- everybody... So back then, and I think it's even worse now, um, there was a real shortage of them too. But what, um, what was it like to come into John Deere as an apprentice?
[00:18:22] Tanner Watters: Um, so luckily the group of guys in my shop are fantastic.
[00:18:27] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:28] Tanner Watters: Absolutely fantastic guys. And, um, they've always really helped me. Um, I was smart enough, I went to Harbor Freight and bought probably $2,000 worth of tools.
[00:18:39] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:18:39] Tanner Watters: And then our dealership does a nice program where when you join the apprenticeship, you can get $7,500 worth of John Deere tools and toolboxes.
[00:18:49] Tanner Watters: Mm-hmm. So I got all that, so I really wasn't in it for very much for tools. And I just sh- they just threw me to work, kind of just threw me to the wolves and, um, did one... My first big project I did with our master tech in the shop was a head job on a 9530.
[00:19:10] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:10] Tanner Watters: And did that with him. I pretty, I mostly d- I did most of it.
[00:19:14] Tanner Watters: He was just kind of there over my shoulder the whole time.
[00:19:18] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:19:18] Tanner Watters: And it came out good. But no, it's, it's been a, it was a really easy transition into it.
[00:19:25] Jeff Compton: I find that that's sometimes... Like and, and we, we were talking before we got on, you know, last week you and I back and forth a little bit about techs, you know, through tech, excuse me.
[00:19:35] Jeff Compton: And I, I think a lot of that, the older genemem- generation used to be we judge them, like your tool investment kind of showed how serious you were, right?
[00:19:46] Tanner Watters: Yep.
[00:19:46] Jeff Compton: Like, and, and I can relate to that because I can remember like I joked, you know, we had lots of apprentices that had, you know, a Snap-on toolbox and nothing in it, no tools.
[00:19:57] Jeff Compton: I- No vice grips, no hammer, like, you know.
[00:20:01] Tanner Watters: And I made the old-fashioned rule for myself, if I have to borrow it more than twice, I'm going to buy it. And-
[00:20:06] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm ...
[00:20:07] Tanner Watters: so that's what I did. Anytime the Snap-on truck would come, which is once a month at the time, now we have- Yeah ... two tool trucks come. But, um, I'd get on there and buy whatever I could afford that I was borrowing.
[00:20:19] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:20:20] Tanner Watters: Now we have Cornwell, so it's a little bit cheaper as well, but
[00:20:24] Jeff Compton: Yeah, we, see we don't get Cornwell up here. I've often... I would like to see some of their stuff up close just to, to see what it's like. And I can remember seeing it, you know, on the, on the Saturday morning hot rod shows. It seemed like at some point some- they were sponsor- Cornwell was sponsoring somebody.
[00:20:41] Jeff Compton: Um, but I've never had one of their tools in my hand ever in my life. I'd like to, to, to just try them. I
[00:20:45] Tanner Watters: have one ratchet. Well, I have two ratchets from Cornwell, and I like my Snap-ons better.
[00:20:50] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:20:51] Tanner Watters: I, I like, I like how the head feels better. Toolbox-wise, I like Cornwell's looks better.
[00:20:58] Jeff Compton: Really, eh? Yeah.
[00:20:59] Tanner Watters: Yeah.
[00:20:59] Jeff Compton: We have a lot right now up here in my area, there's a lot of Matco toolboxes. A lot. Like-
[00:21:05] Tanner Watters: Those are very good toolboxes. Very expensive toolboxes.
[00:21:10] Jeff Compton: Yeah. And I've got an old school Maximizer, um, top and bottom from '98. It's a Jeff Gordon commemorative. Not that I'm a Jeff Gordon fan, it was a used box. It was a trade-in.
[00:21:21] Jeff Compton: And, um, for me it was a lot of storage for a good price, that's why I bought it. And, um, uh, y- you know, and again Shoot, it's been paid off for only 15 years, right? And it's to the point now where it's, it's crammed. Like, there's a Harbor Freight roll cart, the one that we all buy, right? Like you see all over the place.
[00:21:42] Jeff Compton: Um, and it really... I should have two lockers for the Maximizer, but I'm, like, looking at it going, "You got less than 10 years left to go probably. Like, do you really wanna buy two lockers?" And I'm like, "I really don't want to." Um, it would help organize the mess for sure. Yeah. But, you know, it's already heavy enough that
[00:22:03] Tanner Watters: moving it would- I just ordered a toolbox from Cornwell.
[00:22:05] Tanner Watters: Um-
[00:22:05] Jeff Compton: Okay ...
[00:22:06] Tanner Watters: uh, it's limited edition for, uh, America's 250th.
[00:22:10] Jeff Compton: Mm, nice.
[00:22:11] Tanner Watters: It's just a, it's just a roll cart, but it doesn't make sense for me to go out and spend 20, $30,000 because all of my tools are in a truck all the time. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The only time my tools come out of my truck is when it's gotta go get maintenance done.
[00:22:25] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:22:25] Tanner Watters: So it's, it's tough for me to justify the investment. This one I'm just getting a crazy good deal on- Mm ... and I'm not gonna say no to it, so
[00:22:35] Jeff Compton: Yeah ...
[00:22:35] Tanner Watters: and it's a cool box to have, but...
[00:22:38] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Yeah, we don't, we don't-
[00:22:41] Tanner Watters: It's a hard investment for me to make.
[00:22:45] Jeff Compton: I think it's, uh, getting to be a hard investment for all of us to make, honestly.
[00:22:49] Jeff Compton: Oh, yeah. You know? I, I, and I, I, I've said it before, you know, I'm so, I'm so thankful that I see so many more tool buying options for the young guys that are coming in now. Yep. Because coming up, I didn't have that, you know. Like, we never had a Harbor Freight here. We still don't. We had, uh... You know, I talk about we had a company called Princess Auto.
[00:23:09] Tanner Watters: Yep, I've heard of it- And their stuff- ... from a Canadian YouTuber that I watch.
[00:23:12] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Which YouTuber is that?
[00:23:14] Tanner Watters: Uh, Zip Ties and Bias Supplies.
[00:23:16] Jeff Compton: Okay. I know him, yeah. Yeah, I've watched him. He's... Yeah. Yeah, he's- He's
[00:23:22] Tanner Watters: hilarious.
[00:23:23] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Um, and there's another guy, um- Oh, what do they call him? The dangler guy or whatever, the snowmobile guy that everybody knows Oh, yeah.
[00:23:33] Jeff Compton: Yeah Um, he's kind of a, a famous one at this point. He's made it pretty big, um, doing all the jumps in a denim, like a Levi's denim jacket You know, like a helmet on an old, something old two-stroke. But yeah, it, it's... Their quality has gotten so much better in the last five years, too, like Princess Auto. Yeah It used to be, it used to be junk.
[00:23:56] Jeff Compton: Like, it used to be even the guys for DIY didn't buy it. They went to... Everything bought was at Canadian Tire Mastercraft. But Princess Auto's really stepped their game up in the last five years, so. Harbor Freight's just-
[00:24:07] Tanner Watters: Me and my buddy are talking about going to Canada just to go to Princess Auto, just because of zip ties and buy supplies, 'cause he talks about it all the time.
[00:24:15] Jeff Compton: Well, and then my, my buddy, um, Tobatech, Mark Elliot, um, he filmed a little short at the new one that opened in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which is like... Winnipeg, Manitoba is ground zero for Princess Auto. That's where it all started is in Winnipeg. So they built this new giant store, and they even sell outdoor stuff like, so hunting and fishing and archery and all this kind of stuff in the store.
[00:24:38] Jeff Compton: And he did a little walk through the store, and I was like, "Holy crap," like it makes me wanna get on a flight and go to Winnipeg, and there's not too much that makes me wanna go to Winnipeg other than Mark and this new store, so.
[00:24:50] Tanner Watters: I don't think I'm that far from Winnipeg.
[00:24:52] Jeff Compton: You're probably not, honestly.
[00:24:54] Jeff Compton: You're probably a
[00:24:55] Tanner Watters: lot closer- I can't remember what one's above me. I think I'm decently close to Regina
[00:25:00] Jeff Compton: This is Saskatchewan, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, you're not, you're close-- You're substantially closer than me. It's, it'd be... My brother did, um, my brother was a former pro MMA fighter and he- Oh ... he flew into, yeah, he flew into Winnipeg for his last fight.
[00:25:16] Jeff Compton: This is going back 10 years ago at least now. And, um, I think it was winter. Yeah, it was. Landed, you know, went to this hotel, um, had the fight the next night, and he's like, I'm like, "So what was Winnipeg like?" He's like, "I don't know. I didn't see much of it." Like he said, "I saw the tarmac at the airport. It was snow.
[00:25:34] Jeff Compton: Uh, we went to the hotel, snow. Um, went and saw a movie the night before the, the, the fight, snowy." And then he's like, "We came home." So he, he, he beat the guy in the third round and then came home. So yeah, he was, uh- How cool. Yeah, and I- that's, so that's the farthest Any of us in my family have been, like, uh, flight-wise, you know?
[00:26:00] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Um, my, my parents have taken some road trips and, and gone to the East Coast, but never going anywhere west, and I'm like, that's the only time my brother's ever been on a flight was that one flight, and, uh- Yeah ... hasn't been back since, so yeah. So-
[00:26:14] Tanner Watters: Well, we have our newest apprentice in the shop's doing MMA.
[00:26:18] Jeff Compton: Really? He's,
[00:26:19] Tanner Watters: he's trying to go pro in it, yeah.
[00:26:22] Jeff Compton: It's, uh, it's a lot different now than, than even when my brother was coming through. Like, um- Yeah ... he'll tell you that, like, the guys that we grew up around, um The amateurs now are, are better than the pros were when we were coming up. Yeah. Like, they're just, they're so well-rounded, so, so, you know, 'cause back then it was like, you know, it was a guy that did one thing, like maybe he was a wrestler and some of the- It was like Matt
[00:26:49] Tanner Watters: Hughes.
[00:26:50] Tanner Watters: Yeah.
[00:26:50] Jeff Compton: Yes. Yeah. Yep.
[00:26:51] Tanner Watters: My, I, my cousins have met Matt Hughes a few times. They're really big wrestlers.
[00:26:56] Jeff Compton: Yeah. So- He's, Matt's ... Yeah, my brother's met him. Yeah. Um-
[00:27:02] Tanner Watters: I've, I've met him at a open wrestling meet down in Southern- Yeah ... Illinois when I was with my cousins.
[00:27:07] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Well, he's from that area, right?
[00:27:09] Tanner Watters: Yeah, he's from Southern Illinois.
[00:27:10] Tanner Watters: Yeah.
[00:27:11] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Um, he-
[00:27:12] Tanner Watters: Super nice guy.
[00:27:14] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Uh, and then he had a, he had an accident on the farm there. He was, uh,
[00:27:18] Tanner Watters: uh- He also got hit by a train.
[00:27:20] Jeff Compton: That's, yeah. Yeah. That happened. Yeah. Um, and he's made a ... Like, he wasn't supposed to live-
[00:27:26] Tanner Watters: No ...
[00:27:26] Jeff Compton: um, by all intents and accounts, and he was not supposed to walk again, and he wasn't supposed to speak again.
[00:27:31] Jeff Compton: Like, he, they thought he was gonna be, like, bedridden for the rest of his life. And, um, what he's been able to do is pretty fricking incredible. Yeah. Uh, a lot of that is, like, he, he can go, he goes to Mexico, I think, almost once every two months for stem cell- Yeah ... treatment, which is a big part of how he's been able to come back from it all.
[00:27:52] Jeff Compton: Um, but yeah, an incredible, incredible recovery, uh- Yeah ... or on his way to recovery. Like, he'll never be the same as he was, um- No ... but-
[00:28:04] Tanner Watters: He was wrestling with Jon Jones the other day. I don't know if you saw that.
[00:28:07] Jeff Compton: I did.
[00:28:08] Tanner Watters: Yeah. Those guys were wrestling around. I was like, "Man, it is incredible that he's even alive."
[00:28:14] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Un- unbelievable.
[00:28:15] Tanner Watters: Let alone doing that.
[00:28:17] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm. And it's, you know, he, he was, he was known to rub a lot of people the wrong way, the way his, um, y- his demeanor was. Like- The,
[00:28:26] Tanner Watters: yeah, the way he acted and yeah, and he's said that to-
[00:28:30] Jeff Compton: Yeah ...
[00:28:31] Tanner Watters: me and, uh, my cousins. Like- Yeah ... after he got hit by a train, he kinda learned that he needed to treat a lot of people better.
[00:28:38] Jeff Compton: And see, as a Canadian ... See, I'm gonna love this conversation 'cause as a Canadian, right, like, the big rivalry was him and Georges St-Pierre, right? Yep. Yep. So it was like you can't live in Canada and not like Georges St-Pierre. You're not allowed. It's, like, sacrilegious, right? And I can remember when, when he fought Matt the first time, Georges- A lot of people still didn't know really who George was.
[00:29:01] Jeff Compton: And then Matt, Matt beat him in like, you know, caught him with two seconds to, to, to go, and, and Matt, you know, and, and George submitted. Well, then when they came back it was like you saw that transition within a year, and George, GSP was just at, on a whole other level. Like he- Yeah ... hit that platform where he was, like he was untouchable.
[00:29:23] Jeff Compton: I mean- Yeah ... you know. And, and then that was kind of the changing of the guard. Like Matt was on his way out then after that, and, and GSP just kept going up and up and up. And I mean, I've met George a couple times. He's a pretty cool cat too. He's, he's a good guy. Um, but, uh, you know, when I met Hughes, he was just kind of like he was friendly, but he's, he was all about, you know, the competition, right?
[00:29:49] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Like, I think he was a guy that-
[00:29:51] Tanner Watters: Just super competitive.
[00:29:52] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Very uber... And, and again, you know, people ask like, "Why is that?" And it's like, um, Matt's got a twin brother, Mark. Mm-hmm. And my brother's my twin. So when I see people that like talk about the kinda the way he is, I know exactly why he's that way.
[00:30:12] Jeff Compton: Like it was- Yeah ... my brother and I came up, coming up as kids, every, we competed against each other nonstop. That's
[00:30:18] Tanner Watters: how, that's how me and my brother still are to this day, even though he's thousand miles away. We-
[00:30:23] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm ...
[00:30:23] Tanner Watters: I'll call him and just be like, "Hey, can you name these four guys that were on the New York Yankees in 1972?"
[00:30:29] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:30:30] Tanner Watters: And I know there's no way he's gonna be able to do it- Mm-hmm ... but it's just we'll, we find ways to compete still.
[00:30:36] Jeff Compton: What does he do?
[00:30:38] Tanner Watters: Uh, my brother just got promoted to, uh, he's one step below a store manager at a Walmart back home.
[00:30:45] Jeff Compton: Okay.
[00:30:45] Tanner Watters: So he just got promoted to that.
[00:30:48] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Right on. Not- Yeah ... so he's not any kind of mechanic at all?
[00:30:52] Tanner Watters: No. No, far from it. Mm-hmm. Me and him are polar opposites.
[00:30:56] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:30:57] Tanner Watters: My brother and I- If we were standing next to each other, you wouldn't even know if we were brothers.
[00:31:01] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Um, so how old are you in this industry? Like how many years you got in?
[00:31:06] Tanner Watters: Um, so in November it'll be three years-
[00:31:09] Jeff Compton: Okay ...
[00:31:10] Tanner Watters: turning wrenches professionally.
[00:31:12] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:31:12] Tanner Watters: So I started when I was 25. Yeah, 25 I started.
[00:31:17] Jeff Compton: Yeah. So you're a young guy then.
[00:31:19] Tanner Watters: Yeah.
[00:31:19] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Yeah. What do you think about that, like when you ... What's the age ra- brackets in your, in your shop right now?
[00:31:28] Tanner Watters: So right now our shop has four apprentices.
[00:31:31] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:32] Tanner Watters: Me... Well, I'm getting ready to graduate here in like a month, so, um, we'll have three apprentices.
[00:31:39] Tanner Watters: I- I'm like middle of the pack. Okay. There's four guys younger than me and, uh, three guys older than me.
[00:31:49] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:49] Tanner Watters: So I'm kinda middle. But the three guys that are older than me are way older than me.
[00:31:54] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:31:55] Tanner Watters: You know? So they're 40s, 50s.
[00:32:00] Jeff Compton: Yeah, 'cause you kinda said something like there was like a, a, a 10-year gap you kinda found in your, your experience, right?
[00:32:07] Jeff Compton: Like it would seem like the guys that are that age group, like there's nothing from 30 to 40. There's 40 and up, which I can completely relate to because, you know, most of the guys that I run with now are 40 to 50. And then, you know, I'm seeing brand new young, and I'm not seeing a whole lot of like... It's like around here, the 20 to 30s, we lost them.
[00:32:31] Jeff Compton: You know? Or I'll say the 25s to 35s. And now you're seeing some- Do you think flat
[00:32:35] Tanner Watters: rate has something to do with that?
[00:32:38] Jeff Compton: I
[00:32:38] Tanner Watters: think- Like, like so we're hourly- Yeah ... is how we are. Like you couldn't flat rate what we do.
[00:32:43] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:44] Tanner Watters: But, um, do you think it has something to do with that?
[00:32:47] Jeff Compton: I think it's, I think it's a huge...
[00:32:51] Jeff Compton: So I think there's a great question by the way. I think there's two things going on. I think that like, and people have heard me talk about it and a lot of the listeners don't like it, but the reality is, is like there's no kind of what an independent shop looks like on this corner, there'll be another one down the street and it's a completely different environment.
[00:33:09] Jeff Compton: You know what I mean? From the way they do things to the appearance, to the how it's set up, to tooling, what kind of jobs they do. So I mean it's like a lot of the young people I think they don't know how to... How do I say this without sounding like a dick? They don't know how to, uh, to get into the right kind of aftermarket shop, so a lot of them get plucked off by the dealer.
[00:33:34] Jeff Compton: And then again, the dealers all of them still here around here paying flat rate. And you know, when you're starting out they don't necessarily pay them flat rate, but by the time they get them to where they've got three years in and they're doing their Canadian apprenticeship here, um, they wanna get them flat rate because...
[00:33:53] Jeff Compton: And you know, it's the, the old line is, "Oh, you'll make so much more money." Well, no you don't because like if you, you know, like, 'cause like your head job that you're talking about, for instance when you started like our guys will come in and they probably won't get to touch that until like year three, year four.
[00:34:13] Jeff Compton: Yep. And you know, so they're doing a lot of tire changes, a lot of tires, a lot of oil changes, a lot of like if we could teach them how to do the next shitty recall that comes out, like that's a thing in Canada we seem to get them on recalls fast. And I don't know because it's, it's so funny like I talk to other guys that have been like dealer master certified and they're like, "Oh yeah, like I had to do this recall 'cause I was the only one certified to do it."
[00:34:38] Jeff Compton: I've never seen a recall yet up here that, you know, they couldn't give to anybody. Like it just went to all of us. And I think it's like-
[00:34:48] Tanner Watters: We don't have recalls in our industry. Our recalls are a little different. They- Yeah ... we don't call them recalls, we call them PIPs. Makes it sound better. Yeah. Product improvement program is what they call it.
[00:34:58] Jeff Compton: Yeah. And-
[00:35:00] Tanner Watters: Yeah. You don't have to be certified here for it either. It's- Mm-hmm It's-- And most of them are stupid, honestly.
[00:35:07] Jeff Compton: Well, I think a lot of it is just like little things that they maybe missed and they found it in engineering, right, and to prevent a warranty claim, like go and do this now. We get that.
[00:35:16] Jeff Compton: But like-
[00:35:16] Tanner Watters: We had to do a brake pedal. We had to change a park brake pedal.
[00:35:20] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:35:21] Tanner Watters: And like, it's just silly things like that. Granted, it's a safety concern.
[00:35:25] Jeff Compton: Sure.
[00:35:25] Tanner Watters: Yeah. Um, on John Deere Gators anyway, is what it was for. So it was definitely a safety concern, but I, I guess I didn't understand why they put it out.
[00:35:34] Tanner Watters: Like, all... I never ran into one that didn't function.
[00:35:37] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:37] Tanner Watters: So they, they never really said what it was for, at least I never read what it was for, but-
[00:35:42] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:35:43] Tanner Watters: Our guys- But nobody's gotta be certified.
[00:35:46] Jeff Compton: Our guys, it was like, you know, they did a pile of the door latch recalls. Like I say our guys, like up in Canada, they did a bunch of the Ford door latch recalls.
[00:35:54] Jeff Compton: They did a bunch of the, you know, um, everybody was doing Takata airbag recalls. It seemed it didn't matter what car brand, like somebody put a Takata airbag in it. And then there was like, I can remember at Nissan, like everybody was doing them. Um, so a lot of the young guys, you know, going back to the flat rate thing, by the time they come up in the dealer, a lot of them, I think as soon as they go completely flat rate, and then they see that what I've talked about, those, those lean months where there's no work coming in.
[00:36:24] Jeff Compton: And I mean, and it's like everything else, all the conversations, all the, you know, comments are like, "I don't know what you guys are talking about. Like I, I make routinely 10 to 12 hours a day flat rate." They're the outliers, man. There's so many more that work in dealerships or shops that like eight hours is a good day.
[00:36:43] Jeff Compton: Like that's enough work that came in that they hit eight. And most of the time, a lot of them, it's like, no, it's six. You know? So... And it can be six easy hours, but there's not enough cars, or it could be six really hard hours of like diag or something like that that you lost your butt on. And, uh, it's easy to see why you put a young person through that for two, three years and they're trying to build a family or trying to pay tools, trying to buy a house, whatever, and they go, "No, man, I'm, I'm going over to HVAC."
[00:37:14] Jeff Compton: So it happens a lot like going back to what you're asking me, but like there's that, there's that window, I, I keep talking to my area. So many went to work at the Goodyear Tire plant, it wasn't even funny. Like there's gotta be 50, at this point now, licensed top, like trained technicians from the automotive shops around my area that are now working at the Goodyear Tire plant Because they just, they, they'd had enough, you know?
[00:37:42] Jeff Compton: And they didn't all come from dealers. Like, there was the last guy that I heard make the shift, he worked at a tire store that I used to work at.
[00:37:50] Tanner Watters: Oh.
[00:37:50] Jeff Compton: But it was like... And the tire store was busy, but it d- by far didn't pay top wages in the city. Yeah. And, you know, it's a tire store, you're not gonna get exposed to, like, a constant steady diet of ever-changing challenging stuff.
[00:38:06] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm. Like, it's a tire store. You're gonna get twice a year feast or phantom, fa- famine, blah, you know, tire work, and then you're gonna hope that there's enough work coming in the rest of the year to keep you... And, and he left.
[00:38:19] Tanner Watters: Wow.
[00:38:20] Jeff Compton: He's like, "I'll, I'll make more money starting at the Goodyear plant, and I won't have to bring nearly as many tools in with me."
[00:38:27] Tanner Watters: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:27] Jeff Compton: And, um, you know, pension. It's, yeah, it's rotating shifts, it's nights, it's weekends, it's hot. Um, but it isn't like, you know, you're not getting dripped on by cars for an oil change at 8:00 in the morning, you know?
[00:38:42] Tanner Watters: Yeah.
[00:38:43] Jeff Compton: So I think that's been a big part, flat rate, uh, is why the young people have not jumped onto our industry.
[00:38:50] Jeff Compton: And, um- Yeah ... you know, I've had a lot of different content guys and creators and stuff on, lots of conversations with them and, you know, they all wanna talk about how it worked for them, or they agree that it's not optimal. But everybody's talking about it, but nobody is making the changes, you know? Yeah.
[00:39:12] Jeff Compton: You still have these guys that, like, they interview, like Jim Farley or somebody like that, and it's like that, that one has such legs on it because it's like Jim Farley's numbers are a little off. He doesn't have that many $106,000 a year jobs waiting, six-figure jobs. But the reality is, like, we in the industry all know why he can't fill them, and it's because guys have left and they're, they're not coming back, you know?
[00:39:36] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Um, and I think that that's what we need to really, if we're gonna look at what, if we save this industry, um, the, the problem is staring everybody right in the face, and it's just gonna take somebody to- ... you know, I don't know who's gonna be the first to do it. Right. Um, I can tell you that, like, one of the big wins was, I don't know if you've seen it discussed, um, guys will talk about in certain states now there is no warranty time.
[00:40:03] Jeff Compton: Like, they have to pay you the book time even if the car is under warranty.
[00:40:06] Tanner Watters: Oh.
[00:40:06] Jeff Compton: That's, that's set down by the labor laws in that particular state. Um, and that's been a big plus for a lot of guys. Um- Which is good. I think it should have probably always been that way. Yeah. Um, I think a lot of people don't wake up and realize that like, well, wait a minute, all of a sudden like they can pay you that way, and yet we know that the OE is not paying them the full time, but you're paying out as the employer, and they're not going bankrupt.
[00:40:35] Jeff Compton: So you gotta wake up and go, "Well, they always had that money." Yeah. "Why didn't I get it?" You know? And there's a big talk right now, Tanner, where everybody's like, "We're gonna price ourselves right out of the industry if we keep- the prices keep going up," you know?
[00:40:50] Tanner Watters: Yeah.
[00:40:51] Jeff Compton: I'm not sure about that, you know? Yeah.
[00:40:54] Jeff Compton: I mean, like, I don't know anything about what... But what's it cost at your shop for, to get a tractor worked on?
[00:41:03] Tanner Watters: Uh, it's 175 an hour in the shop, and then 200 in the field.
[00:41:08] Jeff Compton: Yeah. What's the... And the typical-- Like, if you had an average, like we- you hear the ARO, average repair order, how many hours does most of the stuff start out at?
[00:41:18] Tanner Watters: Um, it all depends. Like our-- I got a really good service manager. He gives us three hours diag time for pretty much everything. He's like, "That's standard," especially like, especially in the field, it's three hours diag time is pretty much standard. Mm-hmm. If it's in the shop, maybe an hour, maybe two, depending on the issue, you know?
[00:41:37] Tanner Watters: Um- Right
[00:41:40] Tanner Watters: I just lost my train of thought
[00:41:42] Jeff Compton: And see, so in the field that's, that's kind of three hours diag time, plus they're paying a service call, right?
[00:41:49] Tanner Watters: Yep. They're paying service call, they're paying mileage, and that three hours diag time doesn't even count my drive time.
[00:41:55] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:41:55] Tanner Watters: So there's, there's some places I'll drive an hour and a half, two hours to go to.
[00:41:59] Tanner Watters: Well, that doesn't count towards my, towards my efficiency- Mm-hmm ... 'cause that's kind of how our... That's, that's how we run our whole shop is based on tech efficiency.
[00:42:08] Jeff Compton: Right.
[00:42:08] Tanner Watters: Um, so yeah, so drive time isn't included. I get to the machine, I have three hours to diag it. If I figure... If, if it's just, if I'm just chasing my tail, then eventually it like, if I get to an hour and a half, two hours, I just get ahold of Mother Deere- Mm-hmm
[00:42:25] Tanner Watters: as we call it. And actually we have our own thing called, uh,
[00:42:30] Jeff Compton: DTAC-
[00:42:30] Tanner Watters: Okay ... dealer technical assistance center. Um, and each John Deere dealership, dealer group is required to have their own DTAC guys to filter through, try to help, and then if they can't figure it out, send it to Deere.
[00:42:44] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:42:44] Tanner Watters: So basically if I hit two hours and I haven't figured it out, I send it straight to those guys, and then I can get that...
[00:42:51] Tanner Watters: Then I basically have an hour to kind of save my efficiency. Right. If we still can't get it figured out, then we can obviously bill the extra time.
[00:42:59] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:43:00] Tanner Watters: But we're, we're very heavily efficiency-based.
[00:43:03] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:43:03] Tanner Watters: But, um, still paid hourly.
[00:43:06] Jeff Compton: And I, and I think everybody like thinks as soon as, you know, a technician is paid hourly that they're not gonna be efficient.
[00:43:12] Jeff Compton: And I mean, I just- That's
[00:43:15] Tanner Watters: how we get raises. Yeah, well- Like we have certain tech levels our, in our dealership. So it starts at a... Some guys start at a tech- like if I started out as a tech one- Mm-hmm ... but you can go all the way up to a tech eight, which would be a master tech.
[00:43:28] Jeff Compton: Right.
[00:43:29] Tanner Watters: So right now I'm a tech three just getting out of my apprenticeship program.
[00:43:33] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:43:33] Tanner Watters: But yeah, efficiency's all what, how I get my raises. If I don't get my training done, then that's obviously... If, if my manager hasn't given me the time to do it, then that's on him.
[00:43:45] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:43:46] Tanner Watters: But, um, but yeah, my, my raises are mostly efficiency based- Yeah ... on a rolling 12 basis.
[00:43:53] Jeff Compton: Yeah, and see that's the thing.
[00:43:55] Jeff Compton: Like I always looked at it so much and it's like efficiency tells, to me, tells way more than production, right? Like i- if you look at... Going back to, say, your oil cooler job on, on your own car, like your own Jeep. If we started looking at how oft- how fast some of the guys eventually do that job, well, that shows that they're efficient at the job.
[00:44:15] Jeff Compton: It's the production-based idea. There's so many more variables that come into can you actually produce or not, because everybody makes the assumption that there's, there's perfect workflow coming in that they can produce hours on. It's not. It's not. There's some jobs that are coming in that like- Going back to recalls or going back to diag, you just-- like you're lucky to be, you know, at 100% efficiency on that recall number because the, the price is-- the price, the time is just ridiculous, you know?
[00:44:44] Jeff Compton: I hear guys talking at the, the Chrysler store or Stellantis or whatever they wanna call it. I had a guy on a, a couple months ago, and he talked about the curtain airbag recall, and I don't even know what it was on. I'm thinking Pacificas, Caravan, stuff like that. Um, like it was enough to make him quit.
[00:45:01] Jeff Compton: The time was just absolutely ridiculous, and he's like, "Nah, it didn't matter how many times you did it, you weren't gonna hit the time. You had to drop the headliner and the damn thing." Like it's just... You know, so think about that from a production standpoint. Like if you walk in and that's one of your first jobs of the day Right?
[00:45:19] Jeff Compton: And it sucks, and you get it done, and then the next thing you might go to the tower dispatches another one. Like, how many times do you think that's gonna happen before you're gonna be like, "I can't produce"?
[00:45:28] Tanner Watters: Yeah.
[00:45:29] Jeff Compton: You know?
[00:45:29] Tanner Watters: And I'm, I'm really lucky. My-- Our-- We just got a new service manager. My old one, he, uh, went to actually be our parts manager in the same store.
[00:45:37] Tanner Watters: Okay. But our new one, he used to be a tech. He was working- Mm ... in the shop with me when I first started. So he knows... Like, he knows how to filter through what is bullshit when it comes to looking at a work order and looking at the notes and looking what someone did- Mm-hmm ... and seeing if they were actually, you know, screwing around or if all of that time is most definitely justifiable, and then get all of that time billed.
[00:46:06] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:46:07] Tanner Watters: So it-
[00:46:07] Jeff Compton: Is-
[00:46:08] Tanner Watters: It, it really saves us as techs, you know, especially having him in there. Nothing against my old service manager. He's really good. Yeah. Really good dude, really good manager. But he liked-- he enjoyed parts more.
[00:46:21] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm. It-- Do you guys get a lot of tractors though that have kind of been, like, through the wringer of somebody else trying to fix something and then it comes in, or is it-
[00:46:28] Tanner Watters: Um, so there's a few independent guys in our area, and the customers that typically choose to use them, those guys are really good.
[00:46:38] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:46:39] Tanner Watters: Um, and they can figure it out for the most part. So we really don't deal with anything from independent guys.
[00:46:46] Jeff Compton: Right.
[00:46:47] Tanner Watters: We really don't even do any, hardly any oil changes either.
[00:46:51] Jeff Compton: Hmm.
[00:46:52] Tanner Watters: Most guys just do it themselves. Like a combine labor-wise to do a full service on is nine hours.
[00:46:59] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:46:59] Tanner Watters: I mean, you couldn't-- Like I said, you couldn't flat rate what I do.
[00:47:03] Tanner Watters: Yeah. I mean, you couldn't flat rate an oil change that way.
[00:47:06] Jeff Compton: Yeah. And it's, it's so funny, right? We, we look at, like, how cars are built now and it, and it still makes me laugh about how we're still doing oil changes for half an hour and it's like, you know, they've got a cartridge air, you know, filter on the top and three skid plates or sh- or shielding that you've gotta take off from underneath just to get at the oil drain plug, right?
[00:47:29] Jeff Compton: And then all the bolts up here, like, they bolts, those bolts break off and then it's like you always... The joke is like, you know, I was driving down the road and my, my under shield fell off, and then it's... Or like, how does that happen? Well, it happens because it's three years old and it's like all the... You know, it used to have 20 bolts that held it in, and now, you know, f- 10 of those bolts are snapped off in there, so people are getting creative with tie straps, putting them back on and everything, and then it's like They fly off because somebody's yelling at that technician to get that oil change done on that three-year-old, four-year-old, five-year-old car, and he's trying to figure out how to get the skid plate, you know, the under shield back on creatively with tie straps because nobody's gonna pay to drill out screws and, you know, all this kind of stuff, right?
[00:48:16] Jeff Compton: And then we go, "Well, shit, they can't even do an oil change right." And it's like, no, they're-- we're, we're tasking them with jobs that take more and more time, but we're so scared to frigging charge to do an oil change properly in this industry that we have shit like that coming off. And then the customer says, "I'm never coming back there because my underbody thing blew off and, you know, I, I, I have post-traumatic stress disorder because of the, you know, thing flying down the highway."
[00:48:42] Jeff Compton: And it's like, first of all,
[00:48:46] Tanner Watters: you know- But, you know, if you were-- uh, y- and if you had a good service manager who understood and like in my case, like if say that happened to me on a John Deere Gator, like I can-- I could get all of that billed.
[00:48:58] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:48:58] Tanner Watters: And just be like, "Look, this is what I had to do. I had to do two hours dicking around drilling out holes- Mm-hmm
[00:49:04] Tanner Watters: rethreading the holes Getting bolts- Yeah ... and doing all that. Like, maybe not exactly two hours, but...
[00:49:13] Jeff Compton: But up here it'd be the customer's waiting, what's taking so long to get that undercover back on? Just get it... And, and, you know, it's that famous word, just get it on. Yeah. Get it out. And then it blows off and they're like, "How did you let that happen?"
[00:49:26] Jeff Compton: Like, that's what this industry does to its young people. And again- Yeah ... you know, um- They,
[00:49:31] Tanner Watters: they criticize too heavily on the mistakes and not make them teachable moments.
[00:49:36] Jeff Compton: Ex- Man, that's, what you just said is powerful there. That's, that's exactly what it is. And I mean, if we could slow down a little bit, there'd be so many more teachable moments every day in the shop with the young people that are like, "I understand, you know, workload and pace is this."
[00:49:52] Tanner Watters: Uh-huh. "
[00:49:52] Jeff Compton: But like, this is what has to, we just have to stop." You know? And it, you know what it is? It's too many young people, like, weren't They weren't like me where they just said like, "Yeah, I really don't care that she's in a hurry, and she's..." Like, it's gotta be this is where we are and this is what's gotta be done.
[00:50:10] Jeff Compton: It's gotta be done right. And it's gonna leave so that I know that it's not gonna fly off on her.
[00:50:15] Tanner Watters: Yep.
[00:50:16] Jeff Compton: And, and too many, like they just don't have that, you know, willingness necessarily to talk back. Yeah. And, um, I'm not saying everybody should, but I think that that's where we're at now is the, the younger generation isn't like me, where maybe they...
[00:50:35] Jeff Compton: Like, I wasn't a, I wasn't a hard ass or I wasn't a, a jerk, but I mean, like, if I knew it was gonna take me another half hour to do the job right, I didn't flipping care if the thing was on fire.
[00:50:45] Tanner Watters: Yeah.
[00:50:46] Jeff Compton: Come see me in 30 minutes. Like, I don't- Yeah ... and don't bother me at 29 or you're, we're gonna have a problem.
[00:50:51] Jeff Compton: And you know, a lot of the young ones now, I think it's just like that overwhelms them. Yeah. And then they don't know how to, and it stresses them out. Me, I could flick it off and the next day come back in and everything was like, "Let's do it again." You know? Yeah. I didn't, I didn't take it to heart. I didn't like worry that he didn't like me or she didn't like...
[00:51:11] Jeff Compton: I didn't care. Like, it was part of the job had to be done, and we're just doing the job as best we can, and that's all we can do.
[00:51:18] Tanner Watters: Yep.
[00:51:18] Jeff Compton: I remember- And I think now everybody gets into their, they get into their numbers too much, Tanner.
[00:51:24] Tanner Watters: Yeah.
[00:51:25] Jeff Compton: And I think that that's like the numbers are overshadowing the, the growth of, of our people.
[00:51:31] Jeff Compton: And, um- Yeah ... I don't necessarily know What the fix is, everybody thinks that like I'm anti-flat rate and I'm not anti-flat rate. I'm just like when you start to peel back the layers and you look at most places I don't think are run well enough and are qualified to be able to actually pay flat rate.
[00:51:53] Jeff Compton: They're like, "What do you mean? We've been paying flat rate forever." Yeah, and what's your attrition rate? What's your turnover rate? Well, it's not good. Okay. So maybe there's a whole lot of things in your processes that are inefficient, ineffective, um, and it's costing you people. You've gotta fix that first, you know?
[00:52:12] Jeff Compton: Um, it's, you know, I, I man, I get some of the service riser- writers pretty mad, um, because what I say, but it's the truth. A lot of them, it's like they come in and their primary focus, I think, Tanner, was like they had to be good customer service reps. Yeah. And the customers had to really like them. Okay, that's fair.
[00:52:34] Jeff Compton: They might be terrible, inefficient, like, you know, forgetful, like y- and, and everybody just kinda looks past them 'cause the customers love them. Well, in the back, if all of a sudden that's killing the whole shop production, I don't give a flip how much the customers love them. You have to address that. We can't go any faster in the back if you can't remember to find a wheel lock key, or you can't remember to get good notes from the customer, or if you, you know, forget to phone them.
[00:53:03] Jeff Compton: Like we can't, we can't be any more efficient, right? We're waiting. Parts is the same. You know, parts are-- They get a brunt of it, too, and I, and, you know, their job is hard because I know that sometimes you punch in and we had just a set of brake rotors yesterday on a Qash- a Nissan Qashqai, which they don't call it a Qashqai in the States.
[00:53:24] Jeff Compton: They call it something else, a Kicks whatever or something. I don't know But the parts fiche is wrong. So literally, like he-- by VIN, I should have these rotors, so he orders these rotors. Well, they're not right. So now it's, it's a 20-minute wait for Jeff to get two more rotors sent over. It's not the end of the world, but frig, like if you're in a shop that like doesn't get service that fast or is like you, could be an hour away, you might have just screwed the morning because the parts is wrong.
[00:53:57] Jeff Compton: Yep. Like your whole flow for the morning on that bay, 'cause that's what it is, it's a bay-by-bay flow thing, you might have just screwed it. So everybody sits there and goes like it's... Like Zeb's famous for that. Zeb has an incredible system because he's got so much room for everybody that there's no shortage of work, there's no shortage of space.
[00:54:21] Jeff Compton: You know, everything is run like a finely oiled machine, and it's like, "Okay, well, while we're waiting for parts to go, take your toolbox over there and get on that job." Like everybody wants to go one tech per bay. Okay. It could work if everything else is working right. But when we start to see shops and there's like, "It works really good when our, my techs have got three bays," well, I would argue that maybe you don't have the support team in place for the amount of bays that you have.
[00:54:50] Jeff Compton: Yeah. And that's why they're, they need three bays, is because there's all these times where the wheels are falling off the cart literally, and, you know, they're able to g- to roll on to the next one. Um, how big are you guys set up? Like what's, what's a typical thing when you bring a machine in at your place?
[00:55:10] Jeff Compton: Do you know kinda when it gets there what it's gonna need or?
[00:55:13] Tanner Watters: Um, so sometimes it's somebody went out into the field and diag'd it. Mm-hmm. Um, like me and another guy, our master tech, I went out into the field with him two weeks ago to pull a rotor drive gear case off of a combine. Mm-hmm. Got the gear case off, looked in there, and we gotta pull the whole rotor out.
[00:55:35] Tanner Watters: It's the whole main guts of a combine got pulled out. So it's, it's mostly stuff like that, and most of the time everything's diag'd in the field for the most part. Right.
[00:55:45] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:55:45] Tanner Watters: Um, you'll get some of these cowboys out here that are just like, "Well, it's broke, fix it. I don't, I don't really care. I need the tractor back.
[00:55:53] Tanner Watters: Just fix it."
[00:55:55] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:55:55] Tanner Watters: So, no, for the most part, that's how that goes. It's diag's all done in the field.
[00:56:01] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:56:01] Tanner Watters: Um, the one thing I will add to what you said, um, we, all of us techs in our shop, we pretty much sell our own work. Okay. We make the calls directly to the customer. Um, and for me, like when it comes to balers, that's kind of my main thing is round balers.
[00:56:20] Tanner Watters: I'll quote the work order And put all the parts on, build the quote. I will call the customer and go through it with him over the phone. Mm-hmm. I think that is a way more efficient way, which sucks for-- Like, we don't have really a service writer.
[00:56:35] Jeff Compton: Okay.
[00:56:35] Tanner Watters: We have a position in our store. It's-- We're getting ready to hire somebody.
[00:56:40] Tanner Watters: But ever since I've been there, they've never actually done, like, a service writer job. It's always just been on us as techs, and I kinda like it that way better 'cause it kinda cuts out the middleman.
[00:56:53] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:56:53] Tanner Watters: And I feel like it's more personable that way, and you can answer the customer's questions right away
[00:57:00] Jeff Compton: I guess if you're-- But w- w- I'll challenge you with what if your personality type is a type that you don't want to talk to a customer, you just wanna f- fix the machine?
[00:57:11] Tanner Watters: See, we don't really have any guys in the shop like that.
[00:57:13] Jeff Compton: Really, eh?
[00:57:14] Tanner Watters: So that's what's, that's what's pretty nice. We're all-- We all get along with all the customers really well. You know- Mm-hmm ... half of the customers, they'll come walk back into the shop with a cup of coffee in their hand, and they'll bullshit with us for- Mm-hmm
[00:57:28] Tanner Watters: 20 minutes in the mornings, and we'll all get to work after that. And so, yeah- Yeah ... we, we have really good relationships with our customers.
[00:57:37] Jeff Compton: See, I think, I think it going back to the, the whole pay thing and everything, you know, 'cause we hear them, you know, so many shop owners in the groups have said like, "I would never want my mechanic talking to the customer."
[00:57:48] Jeff Compton: Like they're, they're so abrasive and they're so mad and angry and whatever, right? It's a joke. And, and, you know, I have to keep them in the corner where they don't mess with anybody. I wonder if the pay way we've always been paid or the way we've been evaluated and judged and, you know, the whole things, if that hadn't been the case, if a lot more of us would be just comfortable talking with people.
[00:58:11] Jeff Compton: Yeah. You know? Like if I wasn't-- If I didn't think like every six minutes that I spent talking to a customer was costing me money, I probably would've talked a lot more, like I'll talk their ear off. And I've been always one of those technicians, like if the customer... Like if the advisor needed me to talk to a customer, I would come out and do it.
[00:58:33] Jeff Compton: Now, it had to really depend on the customer, right? And, and they kinda knew, "Yeah, Jeff's not gonna gel with this one. Don't have him talk to 'em." Um, but you know, I spent a lot of time on the phone sometimes with a customer trying to get, "Okay, what's it actually doing? What are you here for? Because like you say, it runs rough, but it runs great right now, right?
[00:58:54] Jeff Compton: Like, what's, what's happening? What are you doing?"
[00:58:56] Tanner Watters: Yeah, I need more- And it was just more- ... than just it runs rough. Like I need- Yeah ... I need condition.
[00:59:01] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:59:01] Tanner Watters: What, what, you know, what, what's the barometric pressure outside when it's running rough? You know, like you need, you need more details than just it's running rough.
[00:59:10] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Um-
[00:59:10] Tanner Watters: And our customers are just as bad.
[00:59:13] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[00:59:13] Tanner Watters: They won't tell you the full story until you're four hours into a diag, and then they're like- ... "Oh, well, I was, I was pulling a hill when it started throwing turbo actuator codes, and- Mm-hmm ... then it goes away once I'm on flat ground." It's like You could have just said that other than, "Well, I have code showing up."
[00:59:33] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[00:59:35] Tanner Watters: Makes dia... It's, it's cheaper on you for you to just tell me the whole story.
[00:59:39] Jeff Compton: I
[00:59:39] Tanner Watters: hear you. Whether you did it and it was an accident, I'm not gonna judge you, dude. I'm here to fix it and get your machine back up and going- Mm-hmm ... as fast as possible.
[00:59:49] Jeff Compton: Yeah. I don't know why they do what they do sometimes where they fail to...
[00:59:54] Jeff Compton: Like, I can remember so many times it was like car has brake noise, and then you rack it and it's got new brakes on it
[01:00:06] Jeff Compton: Okay. Like, how did this happen? Like, what, what's going on here, right? What, what's... You know, 'cause then it's, from a flat rate standpoint, it's a real slam dunk at that point. Like, it's got new brakes that we didn't put on and it's, and they're noisy. So, like I know that if I do my process, which is put my parts on it and do the way I always do, it should be good.
[01:00:24] Jeff Compton: Has that already been pre-authorized by the customer? Well, no. Okay. Well, why didn't we have that conversation at the counter And they look at you like, "Uh, I don't know." Like, to me it's always so simple. It's like, "Hi, Mrs. Smith." Like, "How can I help you today?" "Oh, my, my car's got brake noise." "Oh, okay. Um, do you know how old your brakes are?
[01:00:45] Jeff Compton: Like, how long ago has it been since you had brake work done?" And if Mrs. Smith says, "Well, I just had it done last week at..." whatever, another location or another franchise, whatever. "Oh, okay." Um, the next question becomes, "What did they do? Um, why are you not going back there? And what would you like me to do?
[01:01:05] Jeff Compton: 'Cause, like, a brake job in my facility looks like this. Price," blah, blah, blah. All that shit can happen before it's ever dispatched to a tech. It should never be dispatched to a tech unless the tech has an idea about what they-- what's the end goal. Install new brakes on this, uh, because they bought cheap junk or who knows what, or they just don't wanna go back there.
[01:01:26] Jeff Compton: That makes my process so efficient and streamlined, it's not even flipping funny. But we don't have that routinely happening because people are just like, "It's a brake noise. Check it out." "Okay, I checked it out. Yep, it's a brake noise. It's got shit parts on there. What do you wanna do here?" Now, then it stops, and we have to make the phone call.
[01:01:47] Jeff Compton: Like, there's so many things that it's... Man, I, I've said it before, there's so much we could do if we just, like, pre-authorize a lot more at the counter. Uh, you know, my... I don't know. Transmission isn't a good example 'cause we're get- we're talking tens of thousands of dollars now. But I mean, let's, uh, let's just play, you know, devil's advocate here.
[01:02:11] Jeff Compton: Somebody calls you up with a Chevy Silverado out of warranty, and they've got a transmission complaint. Like, you could probably get-- That's gonna be a fair bit of money. Like, we're talking thousands. Like, you know, um, because what- Especially if it's
[01:02:24] Tanner Watters: a 460, 460LE.
[01:02:26] Jeff Compton: Yeah, 6L80, like anything eight- Or 6L80, yeah.
[01:02:29] Jeff Compton: Yeah. 8L80, 6L80, whatever the, you know, six and up, like, if you wanna talk about them, you're probably into several thousand dollars. Like, so the conversation becomes, uh, what's the history on the truck? Like, that's all they should have knowledge of before it ever gets dispatched to the technician. And because, like, what, what's the tech expected to do?
[01:02:51] Jeff Compton: Drive it and scan it? Yeah, it's... He's driven them before. Like, it's got another torque converter that's coming out of it or the tranny's shot. Like, what do you wanna do here? That's kinda one of those things where it's like we can really save a lot of time if we start say, getting some kind of confirmation from the customer that yeah, they're in it to fix it.
[01:03:11] Jeff Compton: Not just like, what's this gonna, what's this gonna look like? It's gonna look bad, you know? Um, and, you know, we can probably save a lot of time if we don't, uh... I'm not saying don't evaluate it, but, like, make sure the customer's on board to realize this isn't a flush is gonna fix this, a flush is not gonna fix this.
[01:03:32] Jeff Compton: Like, you know, be prepared
[01:03:34] Tanner Watters: for- It's, it's gonna require to, or it's gonna require to tear down the transmission, figure out what exactly's wrong.
[01:03:39] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Um, I always thought brakes could've been handled the same way. Check engine light eval, yeah, should've been, you know, check engine light on. Okay.
[01:03:50] Jeff Compton: And then I always had question mark, question mark, question mark. Does it run fine? Does it run look terrible? Like, or, or am I looking at an EVAP problem here? Am I looking at a misfire, right? There's two different things. And they, and they never asked that. They just wanted to stamp it and get onto the next customer.
[01:04:07] Jeff Compton: That part always frustrated the heck out of me. And, uh, I know- And, and
[01:04:10] Tanner Watters: people just assume, oh, you can see the code, you know exactly what's wrong, put that part on. It's, it's not always that easy.
[01:04:18] Jeff Compton: Well, no, and, and, you know, it used to be, I joke all the time, like When I worked for Chrysler way back when, you never hardly saw an injector go bad.
[01:04:27] Jeff Compton: It was not a thing. Now, they're way more common, like your... Going back to your Jeep, my Jeep, like 3.6 and 3.2s, the Pentastars, way more common for injector problems than anybody ever thought, I think, they would be a thing. And, um, is it always the injector? Hell no, it's not. Is it always the camshaft though? No, it's not either.
[01:04:48] Jeff Compton: Um, and again, it's one of these things where something that seems simple like a misfire is now taking a lot longer to, to flesh out and diagnose properly so that we're not, you know, putting four cams in it and 16, you know, rockers to find out that the injector was the problem. Like, we shouldn't have to do that.
[01:05:11] Jeff Compton: But it can take a lot more time now than it used to, to determine what's actually causing the misfire, you know? And, and yet, you know, diag should take an hour. Like, that just drives me nuts.
[01:05:23] Tanner Watters: Yeah. That's- You know? That one shocks me, that everybody's like, "Oh, diag's an hour." It's like, no, it's, it's not that simple.
[01:05:30] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:05:30] Tanner Watters: Especially for the stuff, like that I work on. Even cars, it's not that simple.
[01:05:34] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:05:34] Tanner Watters: You could be hunting a wire that's barely rubbed through and touching the frame rail somewhere-
[01:05:40] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm ...
[01:05:40] Tanner Watters: that you are never gonna find.
[01:05:43] Jeff Compton: Yeah. And, you know, I, I, I've talked so many times about, like I've seen, especially intermittence, 'cause intermittence bit you a lot, because it was like we had lots of software updates, right, that were supposed to address intermittent things.
[01:05:59] Jeff Compton: And so you would go maybe drive the car for 10 minutes, and it didn't... It felt fine. Do you go down the, the road of, like updating the software? Well, that's how we got trained way back when, was that that's what Chrysler told us. That's the first thing you do, update the software, and then retest, reevaluate.
[01:06:15] Tanner Watters: That's what we're told.
[01:06:17] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:06:17] Tanner Watters: That's a pretty good telltale though, 'cause if it fails, then you pretty much know it's either a controller or wiring.
[01:06:22] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:06:22] Tanner Watters: For us anyway.
[01:06:24] Jeff Compton: Yeah. But we got, we got tasked with so much, it was like the, the no-code stuff is what I always said was the hard stuff. Like customers, you know, rough idle but no code.
[01:06:35] Jeff Compton: Like, um, you know, shift sag but no code. Like that was always then it's like, well, yeah, it's getting software update every time no matter what, and then the customer can drive it, monitor it for themselves. If it comes back and everybody goes, "That's a comeback." No, that's a first step of a process, thank you.
[01:06:53] Jeff Compton: Um, you know, and it's, it's the Maybe frustrating for the customer, maybe hard to show value because, like, they paid $180 for an update and it didn't... You know, there's still something going on in the machine or the, you know, the ghost in the machine that we have to flesh out. But if it didn't work more than 50% of the time, we wouldn't be doing it.
[01:07:13] Jeff Compton: Like, the process wouldn't be a process 'cause it does work a lot of the time. Um, you know, now I'm not saying that, like, if you have an oxygen sensor heater fault and, you know, you're going in there and flashing for, you know, misfire, is it gonna fix it? No, it's not, right? But guys are, are trained now to always make sure the software is up to date, and I'm all about it.
[01:07:41] Jeff Compton: I think it's the right thing to do. I think that too many times people get down a, a, a rabbit hole of diag because they're, they're ignoring that, you know? I worked with lots of technicians that didn't look at TSBs. You've probably seen them too, and then it's like the car comes back and you walk over and you do the, the TSB for an update after it was tuned up, and all of a sudden it finally runs right, you know, the way it was supposed to.
[01:08:06] Jeff Compton: Or, you know, that's another one. You put a battery in it or you, you know, you, you take it on an extended test drive where it sits in idles a long time, and then you watch the battery voltage start to drop off 'cause the alternator can't keep up. And then you finally fix what the customer was complaining about, which was not gonna be fixed with, you know, a throttle body cleaning and a tune-up.
[01:08:27] Jeff Compton: It just took some time to get the, the-- to exercise the demon on the machine, I guess you could say. And, you know, people think that that's like, "Oh my God, that took forever." No, but it took a lot longer than an hour, you know? And, and it's again, everybody with these prices going where it is, everybody's scared to sell, and I, I think it's like we have to have a real talk in this industry with our front counter and our customer about what is real expectations here, you know?
[01:08:59] Jeff Compton: Um- Do
[01:08:59] Tanner Watters: you want
[01:08:59] Jeff Compton: it
[01:08:59] Tanner Watters: fixed right or what do you want? Yeah. Like there's, there's two way to do things. There's the right way and the wrong way.
[01:09:06] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Or-
[01:09:06] Tanner Watters: Or you can say the right way or again, like it's depending on the scenario, like it's-
[01:09:11] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Or you could just- ... customers
[01:09:12] Tanner Watters: just have to realize that
[01:09:14] Jeff Compton: You could be very upfront with the customer and say like, you know, "Do you wanna update your maintenance because you've never done any?"
[01:09:21] Jeff Compton: Like going back to the transmission thing. People come in and it's like, "I want a transmission flush." Oh, why? You know, why, why, why? And, and sometimes they just say, "Well, it's, it's at that high mileage and, you know, higher mileage and it's five years old, and I just want it done for peace of mind." Cool. But you and I know a lot of the time there's something going on there that they didn't bother to share or somebody go- It's slipping going
[01:09:46] Tanner Watters: into third or something like that.
[01:09:49] Tanner Watters: Yep.
[01:09:49] Jeff Compton: Yeah. And, and it's like you might not have caught it with the test drive, right? Because again, transmission services are not sold with diagnostic time, they're just a transmission service. Somebody's like, "You didn't catch that." No, 'cause I-- You didn't tell me to go after looking for a problem. You know, and that's one of them things where the customer doesn't give all the information 'cause they're scared we're immediately gonna sell an overhaul when it might-- when they just wanna try, try a flush.
[01:10:19] Jeff Compton: Well, I have no problem if you wanna try a flush. Yep. Sure. Okay. Do I think it's gonna be successful? Probably not. But, you know, if we come in with every time they come in wanting a transmission service, there's com-communication that has to happen there where they have to say, "Okay, so why? Are you f- are you experiencing something?"
[01:10:38] Jeff Compton: "No." "Okay, that's-- You're not experiencing anything? I can breathe a little bit. I can go do the service that, you know, be $200 and $300, whatever it costs now, I guess." Like if you're talking the Silverados, like they're... That flush that they do now is a lot of money 'cause they're do- pumping like 18 liters of OE fluid through it and it's, it's a lot.
[01:11:01] Jeff Compton: You know, close to, close to 1,000 bucks.
[01:11:04] Tanner Watters: But,
[01:11:05] Jeff Compton: you know, as soon as you start to interrogate the customer and ask them, "Why are you doing it?" Well, now we have to move away from that, "Well, shucks, I might be talking them out of doing some service here because I'm selling some diag time." And that's goes to that when we get to that free diag thing That's where this industry's still so wide open on that, and I'm not sitting here saying it's, it's all wrong and shouldn't be happening because, you know, there's, there's, there's some gray area there, and there's some people that are saying, "Yeah, I do free diag."
[01:11:37] Jeff Compton: You do a free inspection, you do a free evaluation of maybe up to an hour. But, you
[01:11:42] Tanner Watters: know- I'm gonna pull codes on it, tell you what the- Yeah ... codes are, what the most likely things are- Mm-hmm ... and then that's it.
[01:11:48] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm. That's
[01:11:50] Tanner Watters: your out. It'd be one thing, it'd be one thing to say like, "We do free code reading."
[01:11:54] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:11:54] Tanner Watters: But diag is a whole separate thing-
[01:11:57] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm ...
[01:11:58] Tanner Watters: to, in my opinion.
[01:11:59] Jeff Compton: Yeah. And see, we use those terms interchangeably, right? Like we use... Diag is even not a really popular term anymore, um, you know, but everybody, it's the buzzword. I, I like that, you know, we'll do a free evaluation, we'll do a free inspection, but I don't like it when we say we do free diag, because that means like the customer's eyes, I'm gonna bring you a communication can network problem- Yeah
[01:12:22] Jeff Compton: and you're gonna diagnose it for free, right?
[01:12:24] Tanner Watters: Good
[01:12:24] Jeff Compton: luck. And you're gonna go to your star connector if it's a Chrysler and you're gonna s- no. Nobody's doing that for free. Like my diag that I'm giving you for free is maybe I'm gonna s- go out and scan it, pull a topology on it, print a report, look at all the modules that are not online, or look at all the stored codes, and then we're gonna start to maybe assess and figure out a plan of attack here.
[01:12:44] Jeff Compton: That's not completed diag. That's an evaluation.
[01:12:49] Tanner Watters: Yep.
[01:12:49] Jeff Compton: You know?
[01:12:49] Tanner Watters: I, I, I definitely think the term needs to change in the auto industry when it comes to free diag. Yeah. It
[01:12:55] Jeff Compton: needs
[01:12:55] Tanner Watters: to be, "We will evaluate."
[01:12:57] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Yeah, I like that too 'cause, you know, like was there a lot of stuff that I could diagnose in 20 minutes?
[01:13:05] Jeff Compton: Oh yeah, all the time. Constantly. Still. Still. Um, you know, I had somebody reach out to me yesterday about an AC problem and like my brain is so now where it's like they go, "My high side says zero." Well, where does it say zero? Are you saying on the scan tool it says zero or are you saying on the gauges it says zero?
[01:13:26] Jeff Compton: Which, which is it? Like there's so many... When people ask me a question now, excuse me, I have so many questions for them that I think they just wanna stop asking me because it's like, but no, it, it matters, right? Excuse me. And, you know, and it's, that's the frustrating part, you know? It-- from a communication standpoint to an advisor or to another tech, well, where does it do it?
[01:13:50] Jeff Compton: How does it do it? Like it, it's, you know, because a lot of the stuff, if you slow down and back up and give people more information, they can help you better. But it's like, "Oh, it's, it's reading zero PSI." That doesn't show me anything. It doesn't help me at all. You didn't answer the rest of my question, right?
[01:14:07] Jeff Compton: Um, you know, going back to like your customer saying, "Well, it's like it's throwing turbo actuation codes." Well, when did this happen? Three months ago, you know. And, and it's been fine since? Yeah. So what were you doing three months ago? Oh, we had the RV... You know, we had a trailer on the fifth wheel, and we were on a road trip, and it was four hours into the trip.
[01:14:27] Jeff Compton: I can still remember Paul Danner put up a video years ago, and he showed how he was on a long trip, and, uh, I can't even remember what it was. I don't know if it was a turbo fault or not, but it was, like, in his own vehicle, and it was super intermittent, took forever to duplicate. That... Not that he shotgunned a part in it, but he went, like, it was...
[01:14:50] Jeff Compton: He pretty much shotgunned a part in it. And sometimes that's just gonna be, like, the reality. We have to ask the customer, "What were you doing?" "Oh, it's a pretty extreme situation where this happened." Okay, now, so-
[01:15:01] Tanner Watters: It's requiring a lot of power. The vanes are getting stuck wide open.
[01:15:06] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:15:06] Tanner Watters: Like, it's-
[01:15:07] Jeff Compton: Yeah. So do you wanna fix it?
[01:15:11] Jeff Compton: Or do you wanna leave it till, you know, it might happen next year when you take the trip again? What do you wanna do here, right? Because like with the parts quality the way things are, we're also backing ourselves into a corner 'cause we could go and hang a turbo on that thing because the actuation fault, and everything seemed good for six months, and then they go on the next year's annual road trip to grandma's, right?
[01:15:36] Jeff Compton: And they go up pulling up through the, the mountains or something, and the same thing happens again. And then it's like, did you diagnose it wrong? No, you probably did diagnose it right, but maybe your part's letting you down. Yep. Like, do you guys-- I'm thinking probably with John Deere, you probably don't see a lot of parts issues the way we are rife with in the aftermarket right now.
[01:15:56] Tanner Watters: Um, not really. Don't really have a lot of parts quality issues.
[01:16:01] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:16:01] Tanner Watters: Um, but like with a turbo actuator, I can... It's, it's so easy to diag. It's-
[01:16:07] Jeff Compton: Mm.
[01:16:08] Tanner Watters: You look at it, if it's throwing the code, like, okay, go look at the wiring. Test the wiring. If that tests fine, your actuator's messed up. Yeah. And with a John Deere, you'd never just change the actuator.
[01:16:20] Tanner Watters: Yeah. You just change the whole turbo, 'cause nine times out of 10 the actuator's not actually bad, it's the vanes-
[01:16:27] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm ...
[01:16:27] Tanner Watters: on a VGT anyway.
[01:16:29] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:16:29] Tanner Watters: Um-
[01:16:30] Jeff Compton: It's carbon up. Yeah.
[01:16:31] Tanner Watters: Yep. And there's nothing you can do. Like, that's what I... I was out diagnosing one the other day- Mm-hmm ... and I got there, the code wasn't active.
[01:16:39] Tanner Watters: I told the customer, I said, "Go run it. Go pull the hill," 'cause he was trying to bale. "Go, go up that hill while you're baling 'cause that should be enough if it's truly a problem to trip it." Never did. I told him, I said, "Call me if it starts doing it again."
[01:16:53] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:16:54] Tanner Watters: Like, it's, it's not worth me standing here chasing my tail for something that just might be some intermittent sticking right now.
[01:17:02] Tanner Watters: Just-
[01:17:02] Jeff Compton: It could've been a v-vibration in the machine, you know, wiggles the pin loose. Yep. Right? Like, I... That used to never be a thing, and now it's, like, s- become such a part of my process where it's like I'm unplugging it like I always used to do and look for corrosion, but now I'm unplugging it, checking pin drag, and plugging it back in.
[01:17:20] Jeff Compton: Yep. Like, that's just now one more step that I have to do because the pins got smaller. And then again, like I know enough about equipment, like the vibration that they, those machines put out is, is... It's crazy what it'll do to electronic stuff sometimes. Like, it's nuts. Um, I, uh, you know, there's so many things that I never thought I would say, "Oh yeah, they're...
[01:17:43] Jeff Compton: That's a problem now." I, I joke all the time, Nissan was... I never saw so many, you know, poor pin fitment issues till I started to work at Nissan. Never saw so many bad grounds till I worked at Hyundai. Like, it's just was a thing. Now, Chrysler has a lot of bad grounds too, but it's like you can see they're bad.
[01:18:02] Jeff Compton: Hyundai was like, the bad ground was, it was like on painted factory paint But they didn't, it didn't... Oh yeah, it was, it was junk. They'd come in and the horn would be weak, and you're like, "The horn's weak." And, you know, some- somebody put horns on it, still the exact same weak horn. You go, just take the bolt out, buff the paint off, and put it back on.
[01:18:22] Jeff Compton: It was always... And it hadn't been touched from factory, but it was just whatever was their screws and the way they were putting it on it, it didn't, it didn't work. Um, it was weird shit like that. You know, I saw so much that way. Um, the engine stuff now is where guys are getting into a lot of problems.
[01:18:43] Jeff Compton: Somebody was just talking about that new, um It's not that new, but the Tornado, the four-cylinder in the Jeeps, and it's in like the Renegade right now, and it's got an oil leak coming out of the back of the block 'cause there's a port there with a, with a fitting, and they don't put enough sealant around the pipe plug.
[01:19:01] Jeff Compton: So now they're yanking trannys out of Renegades to reseal this stupid pipe plug that doesn't have enough sealant in it. Like, that kind of s- nonsense would drive me crazy, you know, if it was... Like, it wasn't as common when I worked there. Now if I knew that it was like, holy crap, like, it-- The build quality has to improve, I think if...
[01:19:22] Jeff Compton: That's the other thing, if we're gonna get young people to come into this, is because, like, the build quality is worse than I've ever seen it, and then now we're still trying to pay them flat rate, and it's like they're not gonna stick around for that, you know? And we're certainly not gonna be able to fix it at the factory level in terms of holding them accountable.
[01:19:39] Jeff Compton: They're, they, they've got their own issue to try and solve. So I think, like, if we're gonna get ahead of this thing, the, the way we pay our people has to be reevaluated so that they just go back to fixing the car. I know it sounds all the time, like every week I'm saying it's a craftsman thing, but it really is.
[01:19:58] Jeff Compton: Like, if you just wanna go to work every day like you do and, and put out a really, really, really high quality repair, that's all that we should all be trying to do every day. That's it. And when you bring in the pay structure conversations to it, we compromise that.
[01:20:16] Tanner Watters: You know what I mean? I just think- And that's another thing I like about being hourly is I don't...
[01:20:19] Tanner Watters: I, I care about my efficiency, but I care more about the quality of the work that I do. Mm-hmm. So if my... If I screw up my efficiency for one job, but yet that tractor is running better than it was even when it was brand new at times-
[01:20:34] Jeff Compton: Yeah ...
[01:20:35] Tanner Watters: like that's, that's more important to me than, than my numbers at the end of the day.
[01:20:39] Tanner Watters: Mm-hmm. Granted, 'cause I know I'm still getting paid-
[01:20:42] Jeff Compton: Yeah ...
[01:20:42] Tanner Watters: no matter what. But no, I think that's also another part of it is people get lazy too on, on flat rate. Some people. Mm-hmm. Younger people.
[01:20:54] Jeff Compton: So you, you and I kinda wanted to talk about that. How do you find the young people coming in now?
[01:20:59] Tanner Watters: Um, I tell you what.
[01:21:01] Tanner Watters: I have-- There's one apprentice that started a year ago, and this kid grew up on a farm, and this kid is... He's gonna go places.
[01:21:10] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:21:10] Tanner Watters: He is fantastic. He's had plenty of experience. The other kid, the one I was telling you about, the u- kid who's trying to go pro in MMA.
[01:21:18] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:21:19] Tanner Watters: He's, he's pretty green to it, but he's really willing to learn, and you have to have that willingness to learn, and he takes criticism very well.
[01:21:28] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:21:29] Tanner Watters: But at the same time, I also let him make mistakes Uh, granted, I'm not gonna let 'em make a major mistake.
[01:21:37] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:21:37] Tanner Watters: But you have to let... Sometimes you have to let somebody make a mistake to see what they should do.
[01:21:45] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:21:45] Tanner Watters: Like, I will, I will guide them. I will give them, uh, a direction to go, but I won't give them directions.
[01:21:57] Jeff Compton: Yeah. '
[01:21:58] Tanner Watters: Cause you, I mean, you just can't do it. You're never gonna teach a young guy that way if you're just telling him exactly how to do it all the time.
[01:22:04] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:22:05] Tanner Watters: They have to learn their own process.
[01:22:07] Jeff Compton: Yep. Do you find that some of them don't take criticism well?
[01:22:13] Tanner Watters: Um, so we had a former tech in our shop. He was a little person, and- Mm
[01:22:19] Tanner Watters: he was, granted, he was really handy, but he wasn't necessarily willing to learn.
[01:22:27] Jeff Compton: Mm.
[01:22:27] Tanner Watters: And there towards the end before he got fired, he just didn't care. Like, I've never seen somebody take a pair of, uh, Knipex pliers and a rag to a camshaft to torque it
[01:22:42] Tanner Watters: And when he went and told, when he went and told the master tech that, that was the funniest reaction I have ever seen out of him.
[01:22:51] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:22:51] Tanner Watters: And I won't say it on the podcast, but God, it was funny.
[01:22:55] Jeff Compton: What was his-- what was the thinking though on why he would use that instead of the proper tool?
[01:23:01] Tanner Watters: I do not know.
[01:23:03] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:23:04] Tanner Watters: Like, truthfully, I don't know. Like, he's a nice kid. I still talk to him to this day, but he wasn't- Mm-hmm. They couldn't take him off of lawnmowers and Gators because he just would not improve.
[01:23:16] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:23:17] Tanner Watters: And he didn't seem like he had a willingness
[01:23:23] Jeff Compton: It's... Yeah, and that's funny, eh? Because it's like, I don't know.
[01:23:27] Jeff Compton: I don't know, some people like You show them, you know, you show them the path up the mountain, and you go, "At the top of the mountain is like, that's the place to be. You know, it's the best pay, it's, you know, all the accolades, all that stuff, and, and, you know, see this path up the mountain that somebody else has already like, you know, built a stairway and, and, and put up signs?
[01:23:50] Jeff Compton: You just gotta go up that mountain that way." And I think-- I don't know if it's some people look at it and go, "That's just too much. I don't-- I can't ever see myself getting there," or, "I don't wanna put the work in," but there's really, there's only two things there, is I don't wanna do the work or I can't see myself there.
[01:24:07] Jeff Compton: If you say to me, "I don't wanna do the work," the conversation's done. We don't... Like, I can... You f- you fill this role perfectly, good, we're done. We don't have to talk about... It's the same old thing with technicians that, you know, guys are like, "I got A techs, I got B techs, I got C techs." That's so wide the perspective there.
[01:24:27] Jeff Compton: But, like, guys are always like, "How do I get my B tech to become an A tech?" How do you even know your B tech wants to be an A tech? You know? Like, what, what does that look like? They might be just happy doing what they're doing, you know? They're good at whatever it is, and they, they don't wanna become an A tech.
[01:24:46] Jeff Compton: Like, they see what the A tech- They're
[01:24:48] Tanner Watters: comfortable where
[01:24:48] Jeff Compton: they're at. Yeah. They see what the A tech goes through and they go, "That ain't for me. Like, I like working on cars, but I don't wanna be, you know, laptop in hand six days a week, all day long, pulling my hair out, stressing myself, looking at data, analyzing.
[01:25:03] Jeff Compton: I don't wanna do that. I wanna come in and, you know, knock some ball joints out or, or knock some brakes apart and throw some struts in a car or do a steering rack, or I wanna do heavy line, you know, and then I wanna go home." And, and that's where I think, again, everybody has this idea that it's like a shop has to look like this to be successful, and it doesn't.
[01:25:28] Jeff Compton: But you have to have people that, like, if they wanna be-- get to the top of the mountain, you have to be committed to them together then to get to the top of the mountain. You can't, "I expect you to want to be there." No, he doesn't wanna go to the top of the mountain. Like, he's good. Like, his view from here is fine.
[01:25:47] Jeff Compton: He doesn't wanna be up there. Um, and I think that that's something that we need to start looking at too when we look at so much turnover in this industry, is like we're trying to sometimes push them into the realm of this industry that they don't even wanna be in. Like, they just wanna come in and... I, I worked with a guy at Nissan, and he had been like 15 years, he was just doing tires and oil changes, and he had no interest in becoming a mechanic.
[01:26:18] Jeff Compton: And I was like, "I don't understand how anybody like that's good enough." But for him it was good enough. Yeah. You know? And I'm like I would, I would-- he had a little Ford Ranger and I would do some jobs on it for him, help him out. And he wasn't interested in learning, you know, how I did his thermostat, you know, that housing that always leaked on those.
[01:26:42] Jeff Compton: He wasn't interested in learning how I did it so fast or whatever. He just was like, "Thank you." You know? He didn't wanna become a, a superstar tech. He was in a role that he was good at. He filled the role at the shop, and they left, left him to be. And I think that's, that sometimes a lot of us are trying to...
[01:27:01] Jeff Compton: You know, we're trying to push a rope. We're trying to make a fish fly, and I, I don't think it's, it's healthy for all of us.
[01:27:08] Tanner Watters: No, it's not.
[01:27:09] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:27:10] Tanner Watters: Some people
[01:27:10] Jeff Compton: just- What about, um- ... don't wanna
[01:27:11] Tanner Watters: go up ...
[01:27:13] Jeff Compton: what do you see the future looking for-- well, looking like at your shop?
[01:27:18] Tanner Watters: The future looks- Like
[01:27:18] Jeff Compton: you have a
[01:27:19] Tanner Watters: hard t- The future looks really good.
[01:27:21] Tanner Watters: We, we do have a hard time finding techs to hire- Mm-hmm ... when we're looking, but typically management. So we don't have a very high turnover rate at all.
[01:27:32] Jeff Compton: That's
[01:27:32] Tanner Watters: good. We had one guy that got hired a week after me, he left because his wife was really homesick from living in the mountains, so he left. He left on good terms.
[01:27:43] Tanner Watters: And then we had the guy I just told you about. Yeah. Those are the only two people leave the shop or leave the company Uh, specifically. Not counting- Yeah ... my current service manager when he stepped out of the tech role. He went to a different role before this one. But, um, no, we don't have a high turnover rate at all.
[01:28:05] Tanner Watters: Like we're in a- And so- ... pretty good spot. We're treated pretty well. Of those,
[01:28:08] Jeff Compton: of those two that you left-- lost, excuse me, it's probably fair to say one's gonna probably gonna stay in the industry, whereas the other one probably won't make it.
[01:28:17] Tanner Watters: Yep, yep. Yeah. So the one that left on good terms and went back to the mountains, he works for another Deere dealer over there.
[01:28:24] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:28:24] Tanner Watters: Um, and then, yeah, the other one, he ended up going to be a laborer for an electrician, and I think now he's working at a tire shop, last I talked to him. Yeah. So he's kinda still in it, but not in the same industry that I'm in really. It's kind of two different worlds.
[01:28:44] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:28:44] Tanner Watters: Still turning wrenches, but two different worlds.
[01:28:48] Jeff Compton: Yeah. And maybe, you know, maybe equipment's not for him. Maybe automotive would be better suited to him or something.
[01:28:55] Tanner Watters: And, and it could be. Yeah. And if it is, good for him. I just hope he has the, the care that he he didn't have when he was working with us.
[01:29:07] Jeff Compton: And that's tough, right? Because if you're-- Like, I look at that and it's like, if you're already...
[01:29:11] Jeff Compton: Like I say it all the time, we talk about where I work, like nobody's looking at my production except me, you know? Um, if I have to do a major job at a, on one of our cars, and say I put an engine in a Nissan a couple months ago, like I know how long it took me and I know how long the book paid, and I did great on that job.
[01:29:29] Jeff Compton: But like nobody else even knew what the, what the time was supposed to be, right? In terms of like... So nobody cared. But I was hard on myself going, "I wanna get this done within this timeframe." Um, if we're already in a situation where we're not paying them on a, on a, you know, you gotta be 100% efficient type thing, and they're still not taking care, and they're still not...
[01:29:52] Jeff Compton: Like that's, that's a, it's a huge red flag for me. Yep. You know? Because if they're, if they're, if they're just paid to show up and do good work, and they seem like they don't care enough to do good work, I don't see a fix for that. Yeah. I really don't. I think it's like... I think that's probably more a young person that is trying to find their way in life and doesn't know where they wanna go But they know that, like, this isn't for them, they just haven't found their way out.
[01:30:24] Jeff Compton: And I think that we need to have a real conversation at some point in this industry about like, what does that actually look like and how do we handle it? Yeah. You know, the, the quick to hire-- or slow to hire, quick to fire, you know, people shout that from the rooftops in some conversations. It's not that simple.
[01:30:44] Jeff Compton: Um, you know, people, you need to really look at their motivation. You gotta lead them. It's, it's-- leadership's the buzzword, but you really gotta lead them, you know?
[01:30:55] Tanner Watters: Yep.
[01:30:55] Jeff Compton: But, um-
[01:30:56] Tanner Watters: We've, we've had great leadership at our shop.
[01:30:58] Jeff Compton: Well, who's the leader of yours?
[01:31:00] Tanner Watters: So we have our master tech. He's the one-- the, the master tech, so the highest tech, and then our service manager now.
[01:31:08] Tanner Watters: Um, everybody, if we got a problem, we bounce back and forth depending on piece of equipment. Like if the apprentice that's under me, he doesn't work directly under me, but he's gonna-- I'm training him to be the next or the other baler guy. Mm-hmm. He'll come straight to me for that. I have even my service manager straight to me for that.
[01:31:29] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:31:29] Tanner Watters: The only other person... The-- If I can't figure it out, I go straight to the master tech, and he can typically get me-- He, he can typically at least get me pointed in the right direction or get his opinion on what I'm maybe missing seeing. But yeah, we've-- our leadership is fantastic.
[01:31:48] Jeff Compton: Now, does, does Deere make it almost like mandatory that they have to have a master on staff?
[01:31:54] Tanner Watters: No.
[01:31:55] Jeff Compton: No?
[01:31:55] Tanner Watters: No. No, he's just-- he's been doing this for 20, 25 years now.
[01:32:01] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:32:02] Tanner Watters: So he's... And he's super smart. He, he could go run his own independent and make a- Right ... killing. Granted, he makes pretty, pretty good money now.
[01:32:11] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:32:12] Tanner Watters: But, um, no, he's, he's great, great to have around. Deere doesn't require it.
[01:32:18] Jeff Compton: Okay. That's good to know.
[01:32:20] Jeff Compton: You know, because I think like that's, that's the-- sometimes I think when we talk about what goes on in the automotive side, in the dealer side especially, sometimes that master certified tech They can become really toxic and get away with murder- Mm-hmm ... because they need them just to, to going back to what we were earlier in our conversation, a certain recall or a certain, you know, um, warranty, you know, there's the only s- only certified EV guy or, you know, hybrid guy.
[01:32:54] Jeff Compton: Gotta have him.
[01:32:55] Tanner Watters: Yep.
[01:32:55] Jeff Compton: No.
[01:32:56] Tanner Watters: No, he does have a certification that we have to have to sell a certain type of equipment-
[01:33:02] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm ...
[01:33:02] Tanner Watters: for our area, for our dealer area. But, um, other than that, no. Like Deere does... So Deere has three tech levels, and then the company I work for has their own- Mm-hmm ... base for pay. Like I'm a certified Deere technician.
[01:33:20] Jeff Compton: Right.
[01:33:21] Tanner Watters: But I don't have, I'm not, I don't have a master specialty completed yet. I gotta go off to Arizona at some point to do my hay equipment. Right. But like my, our master tech in the shop, our tech eight, he's fully qualified for, they call it see and spray technology for sprayers, where it sees a weed out in the field and it sprays just that weed, and that's it.
[01:33:45] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:33:45] Tanner Watters: He had to have that qualification for us to be able to sell them, so.
[01:33:51] Jeff Compton: That's pretty specialized tech.
[01:33:53] Tanner Watters: It is.
[01:33:54] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:33:54] Tanner Watters: It is.
[01:33:55] Jeff Compton: Is there, is there any tech coming down the, the line that you guys see coming into the, the, the agricultural stuff that makes you just kind of shake your head or s- does, scares you or, you know?
[01:34:08] Tanner Watters: I'm scared of the... I'm worried about the autonomy. I think it's a great idea. It's al- well, autonomy's already here.
[01:34:17] Jeff Compton: Right.
[01:34:18] Tanner Watters: It's already being used. I'm just nervous about it as well as, uh, electric. I see certain applications. I, I see a way where it can work, like Edison Motor Company. Mm-hmm.
[01:34:30] Jeff Compton: If
[01:34:30] Tanner Watters: you have a diesel engine driving a generator, I think that would work for an ag implication or- You froze
[01:34:36] Jeff Compton: up there for a minute
[01:34:37] Jeff Compton: ag
[01:34:37] Tanner Watters: application.
[01:34:38] Jeff Compton: Yeah, you mentioned Edison Motors, and that's kind of cool 'cause they're like, they're another Canadian company that's doing some pretty neat stuff. But, uh, and I did see somebody talk about the autonomous, um, combine somewhere, how that was... They thought it was gonna be pretty easy to implement in, in farming because, like, you can literally grid out, you know, the whole thing, and then it goes- Yep
[01:34:59] Jeff Compton: and just does it right by itself. I don't... The, the amount of technology that that's going in for, I'll say it, to try and save on just the cost of the operator- Yeah ... I don't know if it's actually worth it, you know what I mean?
[01:35:16] Tanner Watters: Talking with and knowing our customers and knowing farmers in general, I think they would be really, really, really hesitant for autonomy in combines. Yeah. Especially up here because, I mean, the risk of fires, 'cause there's so many rocks out in the field- Yeah ... and we're all wheat, so... Well, we're all wheat and canola, all that stuff, so it catches on fire real easy compared to, like, corn and soybeans in the Midwest-
[01:35:42] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm
[01:35:42] Tanner Watters: that guys would just be really, really nervous, you know? Yeah. Like, you got 20,000-acre farmers up here and bigger that I don't think would ever do it. Um, the Midwest, I think autonomy works for tillage. I think that works great. It's, it's pretty dummy-proof. I mean, you just tell the tractor to go. I think it works good for that.
[01:36:06] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:36:07] Tanner Watters: Um, and the other thing I was saying I was worried about is, like you said, the electric-- or the electric tractors.
[01:36:14] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:36:14] Tanner Watters: I think, like I said, mentioned in Edison, you could make it work in, like, a sprayer application because it's already a hydrostatic system with four-wheel motors.
[01:36:24] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:36:24] Tanner Watters: So all you would have to do is, I mean, just put four electric wheel motors on it and a generator on the back of a nine-liter John Deere, and then you pretty much have your electric sprayer.
[01:36:37] Tanner Watters: Yeah. You do it in the way Edison does it. That, to me, makes the most sense. But anything fully electric, I am very, very, very hesitant on, and the autonomy. Mm-hmm. Those are the two that I really worry about technology-wise.
[01:36:51] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Like, uh, and, you know, it's-- I think- Like, I think EV should be more pushed
[01:37:01] Jeff Compton: in some of the industrial applications than it should necessarily be pushed in the automotive sector. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, I think it's an easier... Like, what Edison showed, like Edison Motors, is that, like they really could bring about a lot more efficient trucks without having to completely, like, throw away the f- the playbook.
[01:37:23] Jeff Compton: You know what I mean? He's saying, "We have existing technology that's already been here, and, and using existing power plants and existing retrofitting older trucks-
[01:37:32] Tanner Watters: Yep ...
[01:37:33] Jeff Compton: and, and it works." But-
[01:37:34] Tanner Watters: And it makes more power.
[01:37:36] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:37:36] Tanner Watters: More power, more torque. Like, that, that to me is the most logical way to do an EV.
[01:37:43] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:37:44] Jeff Compton: And it's how, like, if you look at mining, uh, that's how most of their equipment's been built for years. Like, it's not like a straight, you know, uh, all... Not all of them, but a lot of them are using that, the diesel engines just firing a generator, which is electric static steer, all four independent wheels being able to do whatever it does underground.
[01:38:06] Jeff Compton: You know, even the haul trucks. Like, I remember- Yeah ... Mike Esley- Right ... like, they've got haul trucks that are fully autonomous that'll drive themselves.
[01:38:13] Tanner Watters: I think that's Cat that's doing that.
[01:38:15] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Yep. So, I mean-
[01:38:17] Tanner Watters: And I think- But y- mm- ... they even make electric ones now, too, fully.
[01:38:20] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:38:21] Tanner Watters: In a- Right ... in a way, and I think it's the same design.
[01:38:23] Tanner Watters: I'm not exactly sure. I'd have to get ahold of my buddies that work at Caterpillar back home. Mm-hmm. But.
[01:38:28] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:38:29] Tanner Watters: Yeah.
[01:38:29] Jeff Compton: But the, the idea of going full EV on a car, I think, is just, like... I think it's, it's... Are we there that... Oh, obviously we're, we're already here. Sure. We've proven that we can make it somewhat work.
[01:38:43] Jeff Compton: But I mean, it's like, you know, I, I joke all the time about people can't even get in a Tesla and really drive it, you know, and somebody'll probably correct me. And I say, "You can't even drive it 200 miles without, you know, charging the damn thing again." Somebody's gonna say, "Oh, listen, uh, it goes 220." Okay, I get it.
[01:39:01] Tanner Watters: But, I mean, like- It would never work, like, it would never work where I live.
[01:39:04] Jeff Compton: No.
[01:39:05] Tanner Watters: It's, it's too cold in the wintertime. Yeah. And it's, it's too rural out here. Mm-hmm. Like, I think the closest Tesla charger to me is four, five hours away.
[01:39:16] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:39:17] Tanner Watters: Granted, I know there's guys that live in the town that I work in that have Teslas.
[01:39:22] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:39:22] Tanner Watters: But they don't ever take it out of town.
[01:39:24] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:39:25] Tanner Watters: They just use it to drive around town because they don't have to pay for gas.
[01:39:28] Jeff Compton: That's right.
[01:39:29] Tanner Watters: Maybe they'll take it two towns over or whatever. Mm-hmm. 'Cause once you start headed east, it gets a little bit less rur- well, less There's more towns the further east you head.
[01:39:41] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:39:41] Tanner Watters: The easiest way to say that. Um, but yeah. Like I've even thought about getting a Tesla just for driving back and forth to work 'cause-
[01:39:50] Jeff Compton: Yeah ...
[01:39:51] Tanner Watters: Jeeps are about as aerodynamic as a cow. And-
[01:39:55] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:39:56] Tanner Watters: Yeah ... I
[01:39:57] Jeff Compton: mean,
[01:39:57] Tanner Watters: I only get 15 miles a gallon.
[01:39:59] Jeff Compton: Same.
[01:40:02] Tanner Watters: And then once I take the tops off, then it's down to 12. Like
[01:40:07] Jeff Compton: it- Yeah
[01:40:07] Tanner Watters: especially around 70 miles an hour, like the speed limit is here, like it-
[01:40:11] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm
[01:40:12] Tanner Watters: I've thought about it, but it's just, I still don't trust it in, you know, 50 below with wind chills- Yeah ... feeling like it's 70 to get me to work and home from work on a single charge.
[01:40:24] Jeff Compton: Yeah. It, and, you know, I see, every week I'm seeing more and more on the Jeep thing, the, the hybrid Jeeps- Yeah
[01:40:32] Jeff Compton: or even some of the EV Wranglers up here, and I just, I just shake my head because, like, there's so much weight in that frigging thing now.
[01:40:42] Tanner Watters: It just- Like, the- That just doesn't seem like a Jeep, to have it be a hybrid or an EV.
[01:40:46] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:40:46] Tanner Watters: That's like the EV Hummer.
[01:40:48] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:40:49] Tanner Watters: There's a doctor in our town that has one, and- Mm
[01:40:52] Tanner Watters: it, it looks cool, but it just, it just doesn't feel like a Hummer.
[01:40:58] Jeff Compton: Even the EV Mustang, like, look at that
[01:41:00] Tanner Watters: thing. Yeah, that thing is hideous.
[01:41:03] Jeff Compton: And that, that's a Ford Escape, I'm sorry.
[01:41:05] Tanner Watters: It, it's, it's- It's a- Why would you call it a Mustang? '
[01:41:09] Jeff Compton: Cause it sells.
[01:41:10] Tanner Watters: Yeah. It-
[01:41:11] Jeff Compton: You know? It's- That's a, that's a flipping Ford Escape EV, is what that is.
[01:41:16] Jeff Compton: Yep. Body-wise, the whole thing, it's not a Mu- it's, it's a joke to call that a Mustang. It's not a Mustang.
[01:41:22] Tanner Watters: It would've been one thing- You can't- ... if they would've left the body the same.
[01:41:24] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:41:25] Tanner Watters: But-
[01:41:26] Jeff Compton: Well, look-
[01:41:26] Tanner Watters: They basically turned it into a hatchback. It's like they tried to recreate the Fox Body, and- Look at the-
[01:41:31] Tanner Watters: it just didn't work.
[01:41:32] Jeff Compton: Yeah, look at the, and again, there's me waving the Mopar flag again, but look at the Charger EV. Like, at least it looks kind of like-
[01:41:39] Tanner Watters: Yep ...
[01:41:40] Jeff Compton: the Charger did.
[01:41:41] Tanner Watters: That is, I will give Dodge credit, the, with the Challenger, that is the best modern muscle car. Mm. It actually looks like a muscle car.
[01:41:49] Jeff Compton: Yeah. I
[01:41:50] Tanner Watters: mean- The Char- to me, they ruined the Charger by making it- Mm ... a four-door. The Camaro is hideous.
[01:41:55] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:41:56] Tanner Watters: The Mustang, it, it just looks too modern.
[01:41:59] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:41:59] Tanner Watters: Like, I like the boxy design of a Challenger.
[01:42:02] Jeff Compton: Yeah. I, yeah, I mean, I, I, you know, that's the end goal for Jeff, is to someday be able to have, like, you know, uh, just one of the SRT8 cars or a Scat Pack or something, or a Demon.
[01:42:17] Jeff Compton: I'm probably 20 years away from being able to afford it, but I mean, by, by then they'll be, you know-
[01:42:22] Tanner Watters: By then they'll be a dime a dozen.
[01:42:24] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:42:25] Tanner Watters: It'll be- They're, they're gonna be so overly priced that it's ridiculous.
[01:42:29] Jeff Compton: Yeah,
[01:42:29] Tanner Watters: and it- Like the Dodge Super Bee was back in the day.
[01:42:31] Jeff Compton: Yeah. But I'll then be able to buy, like, a Hemi car and put all the parts on it and, and tune it- Yep
[01:42:37] Jeff Compton: and it'll do the same thing, and it'll cost me one-third. You know what I mean? That'll probably- Yeah ... how I'll get there, is because, like- Do I give a shit if it's a Numbers Match car? Hell no. No. You know? What I want is the performance out of it and the, you know, if it, if it can look like it and sound like it for one-third of the price, I'm all about that.
[01:42:55] Jeff Compton: You know, I don't... We- It's like I was talking about, we had a, a guy s- uh, bring to us to sublet sell, um, a Demon and a TRX truck, right? Because he's, he's using us to kind of get it in front of more people that will see it. And I think we sold the TRX truck, but the Demon still hasn't gone. And that's the one I was talking about a couple weeks ago.
[01:43:18] Jeff Compton: The, the, the Demon has not even 1,000 miles on it, right? And the TRX truck has got, I think, 6,000 miles on it, right? So- Yeah ... and they're both a couple years old and, you know, he'll probably make money on selling the two of them maybe, I don't know. But I just like I'm not somebody that, like, is when you come into me and you go, "Oh, yeah, I got this car collection," like, I don't immediately go, "Oh, you're cool."
[01:43:48] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Right? I, I like the guy that comes in and is like, "Um, you know, I got a Demon, but, like, I was at the track and, you know, something happened." Like, you're my people then, right? Like, you're like-
[01:44:00] Tanner Watters: Yeah, it's like you're using the car for its intended purpose. Yeah. Like, you're not just letting it sit there and you're spit-shining it every-
[01:44:06] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm
[01:44:07] Tanner Watters: two weeks 'cause it got dust on it.
[01:44:09] Jeff Compton: And that's, that's why I like the Jeep people, you know what I mean? Like, and I know I got a lot more ducks on my Jeep than I used to have, and you know, it's a running joke.
[01:44:18] Tanner Watters: I, I took 'em all out. I took 'em all out. I couldn't do it anymore. I know, right? I had a buddy I work with, he was giving me so much hell for it.
[01:44:27] Tanner Watters: I was like, "Dude, I will take 'em out just for you." It helps that he's my best friend, but...
[01:44:32] Jeff Compton: It was... And I, I joked about it, and then again, I, I caught some crap, but my boss gave me a, a Trump duck, and of course that had to go on my, on my dash 'cause, like- Oh, yeah ... and then my, my friend, she gave me, um, one that's Optimus Prime-
[01:44:48] Tanner Watters: Oh, really?
[01:44:49] Jeff Compton: from Transformers, and one that's Bumblebee from Transformers.
[01:44:52] Tanner Watters: Oh, that's cool.
[01:44:53] Jeff Compton: And I was like, "Okay," so now, like, uh, you know, I'm up to, like, five just generic ducks, and then I've got these really cool character ducks.
[01:45:02] Tanner Watters: Everybody gives me orange ducks- Yeah ... because mine is bright orange. Yeah, mine's a bright orange Rubicon.
[01:45:09] Tanner Watters: Like, it's- Yeah. And then my other buddy I work with, he has, like, the neon green-
[01:45:15] Jeff Compton: Oh, okay ...
[01:45:16] Tanner Watters: Jeep, so.
[01:45:17] Jeff Compton: Yeah. I have an olive
[01:45:19] Tanner Watters: dr- He
[01:45:20] Jeff Compton: doesn't ever drive it, but... Yeah. I have an olive drab one, so I mean, it's pretty drab. Yeah. But I mean, like, you know, it's, it's kind of a, I don't know, I just... They're my kind of people for the most part.
[01:45:32] Jeff Compton: Like, I still get it. Like, I, I genuinely enjoy the community of, of Jeep people, you know? Yep. Um, it's, it's neat to be driving one and somebody just give you the wave or the salute or whatever. Yeah. I think that's pretty cool. Um, it's the same with motorcycle guys. It's the exact same, you know? Oh, yeah.
[01:45:47] Jeff Compton: That's- Like, you see them. And I don't know, l- like-
[01:45:53] Tanner Watters: That's the most fun I've had is having the top off a Jeep. I did it for the first time this summer. I've had it two year- a little over a year now.
[01:46:01] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:46:01] Tanner Watters: Almost two year- it'll be two years in February, and this summer was the first summer I took the top off and the doors.
[01:46:08] Tanner Watters: Oh, man. Yeah. I wish I could leave them off all the time. That is so much fun.
[01:46:13] Jeff Compton: It's, uh, I'm... People are gonna hate on me now and my comments will blow up, but I've had mine four years, I've never pulled the top off.
[01:46:20] Tanner Watters: Really?
[01:46:21] Jeff Compton: Nope. I don't want the water leaks that are gonna come after I
[01:46:24] Tanner Watters: take the top Honestly, we just got two, three inches of rain right befor- right after I put the top back on.
[01:46:30] Tanner Watters: Never had an issue.
[01:46:31] Jeff Compton: Yeah. And I, I'm probably completely paranoid and, and, you know, have nothing to worry
[01:46:36] Tanner Watters: about. That's what everybo- that's what everybody told me too, and I'm like, "You know what? I have a Jeep, and- Mm-hmm ... Jeeps are made to take the top off. I'm just gonna- Yeah ... I'm gonna do it, and if it leaks, then I'll figure out- Fix it
[01:46:47] Tanner Watters: a way to fix it, and I'll never do it again."
[01:46:50] Jeff Compton: Yeah. And I
[01:46:51] Tanner Watters: probably won't- Do you ever take, do you have the T-tops?
[01:46:53] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:46:55] Tanner Watters: Do you ever take those out?
[01:46:57] Jeff Compton: No.
[01:46:58] Tanner Watters: No?
[01:46:59] Jeff Compton: No. I've never taken-
[01:47:01] Tanner Watters: That's- Yeah ... that's how I got my start in taking the tops off. I'd, like, last summer, that's all I ever took off was the T-tops 'cause it takes- Mm-hmm
[01:47:07] Tanner Watters: four seconds to do.
[01:47:08] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:47:09] Tanner Watters: And they have always sealed right up.
[01:47:11] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and it's probably because I can remember when they first brought, when they first redid the Wrangler, and they f- came out with, I can remember they called it the Freedom Top back then. Every flipping one we sold leaked. Really?
[01:47:26] Jeff Compton: Every one. Yeah. And now, so we're going back to, like, what is it, 2007, 2008? You know, was when they did the-
[01:47:35] Tanner Watters: Was that the start of the JK?
[01:47:37] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:47:37] Tanner Watters: Was that '09?
[01:47:39] Jeff Compton: Something like that.
[01:47:40] Tanner Watters: Eight- Something, it was, it's like '07 to '09 or something like that- Yeah ... was the start of the JK, yeah.
[01:47:45] Jeff Compton: And they're probably a lot better now, and I probably have nothing to worry about, but I can remember my service manager bought one of the first JKs back then.
[01:47:53] Tanner Watters: Yep.
[01:47:54] Jeff Compton: It was red, and h- we were fixing the top on that thing every stinking week. Wow. And he didn't even take the top off. It just leaked water like it was a submarine. It was ridiculous.
[01:48:05] Tanner Watters: And I think that's where the whole thing comes in with the JKs with the top was the early ones, I think.
[01:48:10] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:48:10] Tanner Watters: The later ones are a lot better.
[01:48:11] Tanner Watters: I was, like I said, I was plumb nervous about it. Taking the full top off, but after this major rain we had-
[01:48:18] Jeff Compton: Yeah ...
[01:48:18] Tanner Watters: I'm not even worried about it.
[01:48:20] Jeff Compton: Yeah. And I probably shouldn't, like, I probably should just get over it, but I'm also like, you know what? I made it through. It's almost the end of August, and I haven't had to take them off, so I, I tell myself that, like, when the AC stops working, it's probably when I'll get really good at, like, fixing the top leak because it's, uh, it's not 134, it's 1234.
[01:48:41] Jeff Compton: Yeah. So, like, it's a little more expensive to, to service versus the old 134. Yeah. Um, yours is probably 134 still. Yeah. Yeah. It should be. It was a '12. Yeah. So- 'Cause 1234 didn't come out in the auto side until '17- So in- ... for some manufacturers. Yeah. I
[01:48:55] Tanner Watters: think it was in '14
[01:49:05] Jeff Compton: It was Chrysler started to embrace it, you know, by '14. So, 'cause I, I thought for sure when I bought my '15 it was gonna be 134, and then I get under the hood when I bought it, I'm like, "Well, it's 12, 1230." Oh, well, and there's- DEER's
[01:49:19] Tanner Watters: going to 1234 here in the next few years.
[01:49:23] Jeff Compton: And s- I th- Yeah ...
[01:49:24] Tanner Watters: I think by 2030 it'll all be 1234 for us.
[01:49:28] Jeff Compton: And see, they're talking in cr- in the automotive side where we're gonna roll into something else in, they think, in the next two, three years.
[01:49:35] Tanner Watters: Oh, I'm sure. It's, it's always something. Yeah. And it's probably gonna be something that's gonna be stupid high. It's gonna be higher pressure than the 1234. I'm
[01:49:43] Jeff Compton: sure it will, yeah
[01:49:44] Tanner Watters: And-
[01:49:45] Jeff Compton: Like, we're already doing way more EVAPs than we ever used to do- Yeah
[01:49:48] Jeff Compton: because they just, it can't contain it. You know, the, the leaks are a lot smaller, harder to find. The molecules are... Molecularly they're smaller. You know, more involved testing. Again, it, it goes back to that again, where it's like AC is one of them things, like, I'm not good at, I don't like to do. I'm not good with
[01:50:06] Tanner Watters: it either
[01:50:06] Tanner Watters: And everybody goes, "Why?"
[01:50:06] Jeff Compton: It's like, it's like, it's not that I don't understand the concepts. I do. But I've watched so many people, again, like, 'cause- Everything's
[01:50:14] Tanner Watters: at a pain in the ass spot to fix, too.
[01:50:17] Jeff Compton: Yeah. And it's, you know, you come in and the customer's got, like, a system that's not performing well.
[01:50:23] Tanner Watters: Mm-hmm.
[01:50:24] Jeff Compton: And then you go and you evaluate it, and it's like, "It's low." Okay? So it obviously had a leak Well, you go and, you go and pull the refrigerant out of it, and you address where the leak is in terms of you let them know and they say, "Okay, I don't wanna fix that. Uh, it's got rear l- rear heat, rear ev- you know, rear evap in the caravan.
[01:50:45] Jeff Compton: It's leaking." Couple thousand dollars to fix that. "Okay, I don't wanna do it." What they want you to do is put the refrigerant back in the car so that at least they had what they had. You're not allowed to law- by law to do that up here.
[01:50:58] Tanner Watters: Yeah.
[01:50:59] Jeff Compton: Once you've condemned a system as having a leak, you can't pump Freon into it.
[01:51:03] Jeff Compton: Well, now your customer's pissed off, right? Because you, you, like the... You ripped me off. Like, I had a somewhat working system, and now I've got a completely, like, my kids are sweating, you know? Um, and that's why to me it was just never worth to have the conversation over and over and over again, right? Yep.
[01:51:21] Jeff Compton: Like, I watched... And I know a lot of shops up here make a lot of money, like, doing an eval in June and saying that, you know, it passed the leak test and they can't find the leak, so they throw a full charge in it, and by Labor Day it's, you know, some of it's leaked out again, but the customer's happy 'cause they got through Labor Day.
[01:51:40] Tanner Watters: Yep.
[01:51:41] Jeff Compton: And then next year maybe we do it again, and then they make a lot of money doing that. I don't want any part of that.
[01:51:47] Tanner Watters: Yeah. Like, that's- It's just, it's just gambling.
[01:51:50] Jeff Compton: And it's not from an environmental standpoint. Like, I, you, I'm not so sure that you could convince me that that stuff leaking out into the atmosphere, uh, is causing polar bears to lose their ice flows or what.
[01:52:02] Jeff Compton: I'm, I'm not sold on that technology yet. Um, but it's just the, it's the conversation of having to the customer, right? Like, when I go and fix a misfire, right, I've fixed the car.
[01:52:14] Tanner Watters: Yep.
[01:52:15] Jeff Compton: When I go and do an AC repair, to me it always seemed like a temporary band-aid thing, and it, and it strains the relationship between me and the customer.
[01:52:24] Jeff Compton: I didn't want that, you know? I know a lot of-
[01:52:26] Tanner Watters: It's so hard to guarantee an AC fix.
[01:52:28] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:52:29] Tanner Watters: Like, luckily- Well, I don't- ... I don't know about you guys, but, like, all of our, all of the refrigerant we get at the shop is dyed-
[01:52:37] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm ...
[01:52:37] Tanner Watters: with UV dye. Yeah. So that, that does help, and I always... Like, I just bought a brand-new Coast flashlight that's got the UV light in it and-
[01:52:47] Jeff Compton: Yeah
[01:52:47] Tanner Watters: I will go through a whole system after I fix it and charge it and check it, but I still just, I still just have something in my stomach telling me that- Mm-hmm ... it's still messed up.
[01:52:57] Jeff Compton: Do you... Are, are some of the, the customers the farmers, are they the type that they'll go and buy a can of that stuff themselves and put it in their machine?
[01:53:06] Tanner Watters: Yeah, I had an issue with that this summer, and I tell everybody I know, "Do not touch that stuff with a 10-foot pole."
[01:53:13] Jeff Compton: Yeah. '
[01:53:14] Tanner Watters: Cause they overcharge the hell out of their system, and we're like, "Well, why isn't it working?" Yeah. "We keep putting it in it. It's leaking out." It's like, "Well, maybe you were a tad low."
[01:53:26] Tanner Watters: But now you've just overcharged the system.
[01:53:29] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:53:30] Tanner Watters: So now I have to come out, recover the whole system-
[01:53:34] Jeff Compton: Yeah ...
[01:53:35] Tanner Watters: and then fill it back up. Well, I have to go out there, I have to obviously recover it, vac the system, make sure there's not a leak, and then fill it back up, and it's like, just, just stay away from them.
[01:53:50] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:53:52] Tanner Watters: Yeah. It's, it's a dangerous game.
[01:53:54] Jeff Compton: I, uh, and I don't understand how we can have all this legislation and everything, this is a conversation for another time, somebody smarter than me can probably answer it, why we can have all this legislation that says, you know, you must y- like you, you gotta buy it and you gotta go through this process, and then somebody can take something that's, uh, mostly propane and blend it with something else and put it in a tiny little can and sell it at AutoZone for 20 bucks and tell everybody it's perfectly fine to buy, purchase, and put in the car.
[01:54:23] Tanner Watters: But I don't think you can do it for your own home though.
[01:54:26] Jeff Compton: No.
[01:54:27] Tanner Watters: Yeah. You have to be a certified HVAC technician to, to touch a, you know, a central air unit. Yeah. But for a vehicle, it's plumb fine.
[01:54:35] Jeff Compton: And I know some states are probably a little bit different in the sense that you probably can go and buy it somehow.
[01:54:41] Jeff Compton: Um- Yeah ... I just, I don't see them marketing it. Like, I wouldn't even begin to tell you if I needed to buy home refrigerant where I would go buy the gas. I would, I wouldn't-- couldn't even begin to tell you. Like, I don't know where my- I have no idea. My friends that do HVAC, I don't know where they buy it.
[01:54:58] Jeff Compton: Yeah. But they must go to some distributor, and I think they show them, you know, up here we call it our ozone depletion card, and they show them that certification that says they took the stupid test that, you know- Oh ... how not to vent it to the atmosphere, and then they get to buy all the canisters. Here, like, I'm supposed to have that when I buy refrigerant 1234 from the parts store, but I can call any parts store in my area and say, "Drop it off to this shop," and they'll drop it off and not once do they ask for any paperwork.
[01:55:28] Jeff Compton: Yep. It's just- It's
[01:55:30] Tanner Watters: like the whole right to repair. Like, I can't work on my home AC unit.
[01:55:34] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:55:34] Tanner Watters: But I can go buy a little can of it and put it in my car.
[01:55:40] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[01:55:42] Tanner Watters: Like a r- right to repair should really stem to a whole bunch of other things other than the automotive and ag side. That's a whole nother topic.
[01:55:51] Jeff Compton: Well, and then y- you see how, you know, like people don't even wanna necessarily talk about certification in our industry. Mm-hmm. Like they're, they're so scared of the government coming in and demanding that we all be pass some tests and show some basic level of competency. Everybody doesn't even want that.
[01:56:12] Jeff Compton: They're like, "I don't want the government involved in it." And it's like, I don't want the government involved in it either, but it's gonna happen. But-
[01:56:18] Tanner Watters: I am certified through John Deere, and that's all- Mm ... John Deere cares about. Yeah. I am, I'm certified to do all work on a John Deere machine in John Deere's eyes.
[01:56:26] Tanner Watters: Yeah. Through my dealership's eyes, there's some other stuff I have to do obviously, 'cause there's, they have more tiers of tech levels, but-
[01:56:34] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm ...
[01:56:34] Tanner Watters: through John Deere, I have a whole plaque and everything saying I'm a certified John Deere technician.
[01:56:40] Jeff Compton: But yet in the automotive side, like everybody wants to be able to buy all the tools and do all the things, you know, all the refrigerants, all the chemicals.
[01:56:51] Jeff Compton: You know, uh, if they decide that, you know, they wanna start doing ADOS, then, you know, you can buy some targets and, and a, and a s- a laptop, and all of a sudden now you're, you're perfectly fine to go do ADOS.
[01:57:05] Tanner Watters: That's-
[01:57:06] Jeff Compton: And, and like part of me is like Okay. I appreciate anybody's-- Like, there shouldn't be obstacles if people want to improve their business, improve their skill set.
[01:57:21] Jeff Compton: But at the same time, how do we know that they know what they're doing?
[01:57:26] Tanner Watters: Yep. That's, that's what concerns me. I don't know if you've seen the whole lawsuit thing with John Deere and the right to repair.
[01:57:35] Jeff Compton: So I've been hearing things about it for years. Uh, Vice-
[01:57:38] Tanner Watters: So it just got settled-
[01:57:40] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Okay ...
[01:57:41] Tanner Watters: in, in court, and customers can now have access to software-
[01:57:47] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm
[01:57:47] Tanner Watters: which John Deere's reasoning-- I, I get both sides of the spectrum. Yeah. I-- We have John Deere tractors here on our ranch. Um, but John Deere said, was trying to say that they own the software-
[01:57:59] Jeff Compton: Mm ...
[01:58:00] Tanner Watters: not the customer.
[01:58:01] Jeff Compton: Right.
[01:58:01] Tanner Watters: Which to me, I-- There's a part of me that agrees, part of me that doesn't. But there's some software bundles that we have that have to be installed in a certain order.
[01:58:14] Tanner Watters: If not, you can fuck shit up.
[01:58:17] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:58:19] Tanner Watters: And that's, that's my biggest worry on the customer side, is like they're just gonna start just throwing random software in it at a time and mess something up. Which as a tech it's like, "Oh, great, I get to go out and fix it."
[01:58:33] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[01:58:33] Tanner Watters: But at the same time, it's like this wouldn't have happened had- Mm-hmm
[01:58:37] Tanner Watters: they not had access to it. Yeah. And there's other reasons I think that it shouldn't be out there, and I understand Deere's reasonings. I get both sides. It's, it's a give and take. I don't disagree with the court ruling. I don't agree with it. It's easier just to stay neutral, but- '
[01:58:54] Jeff Compton: Cause I remember seeing Vice TV did a documentary on it, right, years ago- Yeah
[01:58:59] Jeff Compton: and it was on YouTube. And it-- Vice TV was a pretty big deal at the time for them to, to catch notice of it, right? Yep. And, and, you know, they made the argument about how, like, there's so many farmers out there that necessarily-- like, they fix the machine all the time themselves. They don't even go to your facility- Yep
[01:59:17] Jeff Compton: right? Or they don't have you come out. They fix it. They wanna be able to, like, they wanna be able to log in, get a pass-through device, get the software, put it in the machine, fix the machine. And, and I'm-
[01:59:30] Tanner Watters: Now I can send software from the shop. Mm-hmm. I don't even have to go out there. If it's a new enough machine, I can just say, "Hit send to equipment."
[01:59:38] Tanner Watters: Right. Tell them to go turn the key on, put a battery charger on it- Mm-hmm ... if it's a big update, and hit start installation and walk away.
[01:59:46] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[01:59:48] Tanner Watters: So we, we have the ability to do that now, which most, most people up here aren't gonna buy... I, I haven't talked to anybody around here who has bought the diag software- Yeah
[02:00:00] Tanner Watters: the, the dealer that we have as a dealership to fix their own stuff. Well it's- People just, farmers just don't wanna mess with it anymore.
[02:00:08] Jeff Compton: I heard of a lot of people talking about on the Deere stuff, like there was guys were getting, you know, hacked programs and, and, you know, um, was... Did you run into that, ever see it or?
[02:00:20] Tanner Watters: No, I never saw
[02:00:22] Jeff Compton: that. Yeah. Yeah.
[02:00:23] Tanner Watters: No. And there's ways like on a TopDon or is it TopDon or TopCon? No, it's TopDon. So
[02:00:31] Jeff Compton: TopDon's one company, yep.
[02:00:33] Tanner Watters: Yeah. I think TopDon you can have Deere software on it if you pay for it. Okay. And I think you can on Autel's, and there's another one out there. Um, my- My local dealer has it, but-
[02:00:45] Jeff Compton: My launch tool, my X431 HD, I'm pretty sure there's John Deere software in it too.
[02:00:51] Tanner Watters: Yep.
[02:00:52] Jeff Compton: I just have never, like, again, I mean, I have the tool, but like, I don't
[02:00:56] Tanner Watters: You're, you're never gonna use it.
[02:00:58] Jeff Compton: I don't even know who's got a, a, a John Deere within my local area. I mean, they're allowed. Yeah. But I don't know anybody that's got a modern one. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I'm just, I don't run in that circle.
[02:01:09] Tanner Watters: Yeah.
[02:01:09] Jeff Compton: But I'm pretty sure my launch tool has it.
[02:01:11] Tanner Watters: Yeah. Yeah. So. Most do. Yeah. And they can't do everything that I can do as a dealer- Mm-hmm ... or as a dealer technician. But- Yeah ...
[02:01:18] Jeff Compton: you know,
[02:01:19] Tanner Watters: it's the whole right to repair thing is I'm on the fence. I'm, I get both sides of the, of the aisle on that one.
[02:01:26] Jeff Compton: I th- I think the bigger issue facing our industry isn't the right to repair, I think it's the technician shortage and the, and the- Yeah,
[02:01:33] Tanner Watters: I think so too
[02:01:34] Jeff Compton: and, and shop culture than, than right to repair. I think right to repair is like, it's- I'm
[02:01:39] Tanner Watters: not worried about losing business over it. It's just a topic that people don't like to talk about.
[02:01:44] Jeff Compton: Yeah. '
[02:01:44] Tanner Watters: Cause I think- And it- ... I think it's even gonna end up in the auto industry eventually with software.
[02:01:49] Jeff Compton: Oh. You know, when, when like the guy from Hedrick's and somebody else went to see Trump last month, right?
[02:01:57] Jeff Compton: And kind of, you know, Daddy Trump told them, you know, kind of shook their head and laughed and said, "No, you know, we're not taking the citizen's ability to fix their own car away from them," as much as like maybe everybody thinks that that's a good thing in the industry. I'm not for that. No. Um, but you know, it's a situation of- We, it's not the biggest issue facing our, our industry- No, it's not
[02:02:25] Jeff Compton: is, is access to information. It's, it's the lack of people that even want to, to do the work is the bigger telling thing. You know, um, we got talking last week about, uh, uh, in my last c- there's so many more updates that we should be pushing that can be done over air like the way you do it. Yep. You know? Um, because these people come in, you know, and, and like they're coming in and some of the recalls or the bulletins or whatever are taking a technician like hours 'cause it's gotta stage the car and it's a big one and all that kind of shit.
[02:02:59] Jeff Compton: If we could just, you know, and it's easy to do in the EV 'cause it's already plugged in anyway, so the battery ain't gonna go dead. If we just like tell the customer, "Okay, plug it in and tonight you're gonna receive a software update." Like I got into What the hell was it? S- s- a little Equinox thing the other day, and as soon as I get into it, it's telling me that there's updates that can come via, you know, over the air.
[02:03:24] Jeff Compton: Uh-huh. Do I wanna allow them to happen or not? And I go-- I click off no, because I just wanna drive the damn thing and for a road test for a brake noise. Like I ain't looking for, you know, updating software. But I mean- Yeah ... that tech is already there, so I like- Oh, yeah ... that idea that we can get less of that stuff in the bay and, you know, it can be done without having to come to the facility.
[02:03:43] Jeff Compton: Yeah. I like that. I,
[02:03:44] Tanner Watters: I, I don't think it should be in vehicles. Like I get it- Mm-hmm ... on the ag side because the amount of technology and precision stuff that goes into ag is absolutely ridiculous. Like GPS technology in the ag, especially Deeres, is ridiculous. Yeah. They have sub-inch accuracy going for 10 years right now-
[02:04:06] Jeff Compton: Geez
[02:04:07] Tanner Watters: on the same line that somebody made. It's, it's accurate- Mm ... within an inch of what it was when it was first made. Like it's absolutely incredible.
[02:04:15] Jeff Compton: That's nuts.
[02:04:16] Tanner Watters: They have- Um, I don't wanna d- They have 10 cameras on combines nowadays just to see the crop.
[02:04:22] Jeff Compton: Yeah. It's... And you know, we, we talk about, you know, lane change cameras and, and you know, ADAS and Smart Cruise and all this kind of stuff, and it's like the technology's so neat to see it trickle down to everywhere, right?
[02:04:35] Jeff Compton: Like, I like that.
[02:04:36] Tanner Watters: Yeah.
[02:04:36] Jeff Compton: But I mean, at the same time, like we're probably gonna see a real shift pretty soon in the automotive sector where people are gonna get into a revolt and say, "I just want a basic flipping car."
[02:04:46] Tanner Watters: Yeah.
[02:04:47] Jeff Compton: And I think we've already got past the point of where we can necessarily are allowed to sell them a basic flipping car, you know?
[02:04:54] Jeff Compton: Uh- Yep ... it scares me when the amount of people, like we were joking, you know, Tesla self-driving. Well, if you go around for four months and the car drives itself and all of a sudden you decide you're not paying for, you know, self-driving anymore, are you as good a driver as you were four months ago? No, you're not.
[02:05:10] Jeff Compton: You're out of practice.
[02:05:11] Tanner Watters: Yeah.
[02:05:12] Jeff Compton: You know? But now-
[02:05:14] Tanner Watters: That's, that's a whole nother thing was- Yeah ... subscription thing for self-driving.
[02:05:19] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[02:05:19] Tanner Watters: Like I think if you order the car, you either pay for it when you order it with self-driving- Mm ... or without it. Yeah. Whether that's a $10,000 option or $20,000 option- Mm-hmm ... so be it.
[02:05:30] Tanner Watters: But I don't think it should be based on a subscription thing. That just seems kinda
[02:05:37] Jeff Compton: Yeah, I don't like it 'cause I think if the hardware is already in the car for whatever feature you want it to work- Yeah ... I think when you buy it is how it should be that way. You know, I don't, I don't believe that the subscription idea shouldn't go, to me, shouldn't go past the radio.
[02:05:52] Jeff Compton: That's it. Yeah. You know, I think it, it's, it's, you know, heated seats or remote start or... I don't like the self-driving idea at all, but I mean, the, the very real reality is like with the amount of dri- cars that are continually, we're putting more and more people on the same roads every day, and, uh, they're not driving as good as they used to.
[02:06:13] Jeff Compton: They're driving worse 'cause they're distracted. Um, self-driving is gonna become a very real thing, and it's gonna be that situation. I mean, we're already building highways up here with that intentionally in mind. When we're putting the concrete in, we're putting the markers in and everything that allow the car to self-drive.
[02:06:29] Jeff Compton: Because, you know, if we're gonna continue to start sending thousands of people home on the same stretch of highway every night at 5:00, and they're distracted and they're not paying attention, we might as well let the car drive because it can probably drive better than most of them. Yeah. It's just, it scares me when we can't even get people to fix an ABS fault on some cars.
[02:06:48] Jeff Compton: They'll just keep driving. How all of a sudden they expect that they can drive on that highway and the car doesn't accurately self-drive anymore because they're too cheap to pay a $500 repair for an ABS fault. You know, like it just... Or, or TPMS or something. Like if it were up to me, the thing shouldn't self-drive if it's, if it's got a, a tire fault or, or an ABS fault.
[02:07:11] Jeff Compton: It shouldn't, it should be disallowed. Yeah. But I'm sure that, you know, I don't know enough about Tesla, but I'm pretty sure if it's got a low tire, it'll still self-drive.
[02:07:19] Tanner Watters: Yeah. I've never really been around with Tesla, especially- Yeah ... living where I live. I've just seen a couple of them in, in the town I work in.
[02:07:26] Tanner Watters: It's, it's not a very big town. It's like 3,000 people. Yeah.
[02:07:29] Jeff Compton: But,
[02:07:30] Tanner Watters: but no, I've... I-
[02:07:31] Jeff Compton: They're, they're, they're cool to ride in, but I, I don't, I don't enjoy working on them. I just, it,
[02:07:37] Tanner Watters: just- It's a really, really, really cool concept of modern engineering.
[02:07:41] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[02:07:42] Tanner Watters: The concept is cool, but it's just not feasible to make every vehicle electric.
[02:07:48] Jeff Compton: No. The grid doesn't support it. Not yet anyway, so.
[02:07:52] Tanner Watters: I don't know if it ever will.
[02:07:55] Jeff Compton: Well, that's, that's a whole other conversation. Um, Tanner, I won't keep you any longer, man. I appreciate you having, come on and, and, you know, spending your Saturday night with us. It's been a good time.
[02:08:07] Tanner Watters: No problem. Anytime.
[02:08:09] Jeff Compton: But, um, any closing thoughts?
[02:08:11] Jeff Compton: Just...
[02:08:13] Tanner Watters: I don't have any.
[02:08:14] Jeff Compton: No?
[02:08:14] Tanner Watters: It's been fun.
[02:08:15] Jeff Compton: What do you... How do you guys, like, I mean, it, it, like, we talk about Aston, the different, you know, shows that I get to go to- Yeah ... and the events and all that kind of stuff. Does that happen for you guys in ag?
[02:08:27] Tanner Watters: Um, like, there's the National Farm Machinery Show that takes place.
[02:08:33] Tanner Watters: It alternates every other year between a spot in Iowa and Illinois. Okay. But we really... It's kind of at a crappy time for us. It's typically going on right about now.
[02:08:44] Jeff Compton: Okay.
[02:08:44] Tanner Watters: So f- it's hard for me to leave this area during harvest.
[02:08:47] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[02:08:48] Tanner Watters: But other than that, no, we really don't have anything- Okay ... like ASTA or anything like that.
[02:08:54] Jeff Compton: Yeah. Have you... Are you... You feel like you can finish your career out with Deere?
[02:08:59] Tanner Watters: I think so. I- Yeah ... I like it enough. Yeah. That's good. It's something I've always wanted to do. I enjoy it. As long as I, as long as the shop culture stays what it is.
[02:09:09] Jeff Compton: Mm.
[02:09:10] Tanner Watters: And, you know, by the time, even if it does change in 10, 15 years, by that time I'll be making enough money that I really don't care either way.
[02:09:19] Jeff Compton: Yeah. I- You
[02:09:20] Tanner Watters: know.
[02:09:21] Jeff Compton: Yeah. It's-
[02:09:22] Tanner Watters: Like, I work with my best friend, and I, I, all, all of my coworkers are pretty, we're all pretty close. We, we stay after work, have a couple drinks in the shop, and-
[02:09:32] Jeff Compton: Yeah ...
[02:09:32] Tanner Watters: we, we all do a lot together, so.
[02:09:36] Jeff Compton: That's, yeah, that's important. You know what I mean? That's when you truly get to the whole where you're a team, like, you know what I mean?
[02:09:44] Jeff Compton: And I, I think if, if we can kinda find that again in more of the automotive stuff or go back to it, um, I think we can really start to make some headway. And then I think, like, the young people are gonna wanna come in and see that, you know? Um, 'cause I think it looks really cool if, like, all of a sudden...
[02:10:02] Jeff Compton: Like, I know I worked at a Bobcat dealer a long, long, long time ago, early in my career. And, um, yeah, every Friday night we all went to the same bar after work and, you know, had some chicken wings, shot some pool, and drank some, some pints and, and talked about the week, you know? And that was, uh, everybody got along and together pretty good in the shop and, you know, would help one another and, you know.
[02:10:26] Jeff Compton: It was kinda-- We had, like, a whole fleet of road service guys, 'cause again, Bobcats were, like, in Toronto, were all over at all kinds of job sites. So again, seat time and going from here to here. It was sometimes the only time we would see them other than, like, 10 minutes before 8:00 in the morning when they went to the parts department and walked out with, like, arm loads of parts for their day.
[02:10:47] Jeff Compton: You didn't see them. So it was kinda cool to see them Friday night and, you know, talk about, like, "Oh, I was at this site and this guy tore up this machine this way," and like, "Yeah, I'll be back to fix it next week," or stuff like that. Like, it was, it was cool. But it was, it was neat because they were seeing some of the first Like failures in the field right away, and then we would see it in the shop like a couple months later, right?
[02:11:12] Jeff Compton: Like they were already... Because they were, they were some of the first people to get the, the machines out and see them fail in certain ways. But they saw some of the first failures of the machine, and then so it was like, it was cool to sit there on a Friday night with them and say, "Oh yeah, this 853 just like...
[02:11:30] Jeff Compton: Your guys are gonna see this," that's what he'd say. And um, it was, it was a good time. I genuinely enjoyed it. I don't know, you
[02:11:37] Tanner Watters: know- No,
[02:11:38] Jeff Compton: we do
[02:11:38] Tanner Watters: a morning meeting every morning. Mm-hmm. We're supposed to start work at 8:00, but we... Everybody gets there at 7:50. Okay. Do a morning meeting, talk about what we're gonna do today, and if our plans change, service advisor or the service manager will be like, "Hey, instead of doing this, you're gonna go here this morning," or, "I need you to jump on this right away this morning-
[02:11:58] Jeff Compton: Yeah
[02:11:59] Tanner Watters: the customer needs his machine back." But no, we, we talk about what all... And we'll talk, we'll ask the, everybody else in the group if somebody's having a problem and they're stumped, and just run it by everybody else. Like it's, our shop culture's phenomenal. Like we had so many guys from inside the store apply for the service manager job just to make sure nobody from the outside came in and screwed up shop culture.
[02:12:24] Jeff Compton: That's-
[02:12:26] Tanner Watters: Like we... I, I'm very blessed to work in a very good culture- Mm-hmm ... in- inside that shop.
[02:12:32] Jeff Compton: I think, yeah, I think that's pretty cool. It says something very powerful when you said like so many people applied within to, to not screw it up by bringing an outside person in. I think that that's... A lot of us have to think that way, right?
[02:12:46] Jeff Compton: And maybe, maybe we take an older technician and, you know, when they're starting to hurt or slow down or whatever, we, we do look at how it can move them into a leadership role because they've already got the respect. The respect's already there. You know what I
[02:13:02] Tanner Watters: mean? From the employees and the customers alone.
[02:13:04] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[02:13:05] Tanner Watters: Despite, like in my field of work, yeah.
[02:13:07] Jeff Compton: Mm-hmm.
[02:13:08] Tanner Watters: Like we, we even had a guy tell the vice president of the company that's why he applied for it-
[02:13:14] Jeff Compton: Yeah ...
[02:13:14] Tanner Watters: was to keep somebody f- from the outside coming in and screwing it up.
[02:13:18] Jeff Compton: Yeah.
[02:13:19] Tanner Watters: And they listened, so And the vice president, he, he already knew we had a really good culture in the shop.
[02:13:26] Tanner Watters: He's a really good dude. He comes around once every six months. Yeah. Really good dude.
[02:13:31] Jeff Compton: It's good to see, man. I think there's-- I think we need to get more of that. So well, everybody, I won't keep Tanner any longer. I, I thank you for all, uh, listening as always. Um, we're probably by the time you-- some of yous might hear this, we'll all either be at AASTA or I'll be just getting on a flight to go.
[02:13:51] Jeff Compton: So, um, you know, AASTA just released again. It's, it's still got a, uh... There's, um, some discounts out there if you wanna get to AASTA right now. Um, you know, you can log in. Uh, I hope to see everybody there. Um, I understand I'm not gonna see Tanner there, but that's okay. Um, but there'll be a lot of other people going.
[02:14:12] Jeff Compton: Um, you know, if you cannot make AASTA, the next time I'll be going will be, uh, Apex in V- Las Vegas. Um, that's-- everybody should see that once. It's pretty amazing. And then, you know, I don't know where I'm gonna be in 2027, but, you know, hopefully I'll be seeing more and more people. Um, you know, and then going forward, as always, everybody, I love yous, and thank you to LaunchTech USA, and thank you to TechMetric for sponsoring the podcast and making me, you know, able to do what I can do for everybody.
[02:14:45] Jeff Compton: And, um, you know, as always, anybody you wanna have a conversation, reach out to me just like Tanner did and, and, you know, um, we'll discuss, you know, the important stuff that has to be discussed. And, um, Tanner, you know, as always, I hope I can have you back on at some point. Oh, yeah. Thank you for coming on.
[02:15:02] Jeff Compton: Just let me know
[02:15:03] Tanner Watters: anytime.
[02:15:04] Jeff Compton: And I, I- It's fine ... love, I love to hear how, you know, you're, you're, you're happy where you are and you've got a good culture. I think that that's like people in my industry that are listening to, you know, that's not by accident that happens because they want it to happen that way.
[02:15:19] Jeff Compton: And, um- There's no
[02:15:19] Tanner Watters: gatekeeping in our
[02:15:20] Jeff Compton: shop ...
[02:15:21] Tanner Watters: you
[02:15:21] Jeff Compton: know, you know, it just because it's an ag doesn't-- an ag shop doesn't mean it can't work in yours. So listen to what he's talked about tonight and, uh, you know, think about what it's gonna take to, to make the culture better where you are. Sometimes it starts with you yourself, you know?
[02:15:37] Jeff Compton: And, um, yeah, if you're one of those people that are gatekeeping, try not to do that, okay? So... And everybody, I love you. Have a great weekend, and I'll talk to you all later. Tanner, thank you, brother.
[02:15:49] Tanner Watters: Yep, no problem
[02:15:51] Jeff Compton: Hey, if you could do me a favor real quick and like, comment on, and share this episode, I'd really appreciate it.
[02:15:58] Jeff Compton: And please, most importantly, set the podcast to automatically download every Tuesday morning. As always, I'd like to thank our amazing guests for their perspectives and expertise, and I hope that you'll please join us again next week on this journey of change. Thank you to my partners in the ASAP Group and to the Changing the Industry podcast.
[02:16:16] Jeff Compton: Remember what I always say, in this industry, you get what you pay for. Here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10 millimeter, and we'll see you all again next time