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Confessions of a Shop Owner is hosted by Mike Allen, a third-generation shop owner, perpetual pot-stirrer, and brutally honest opinion sharer. In this weekly podcast, Mike shares his missteps so you don’t have to repeat them. Along the way, he chats with other industry personalities who’ve messed up, too, pulling back the curtain on the realities of running an independent auto repair shop.
But this podcast isn’t just about Mike’s journey. It’s about confronting the divisive and questionable tactics many shop owners and managers use. Mike is here to stir the pot and address the painful truths while offering a way forward. Together, we’ll tackle the frustrations, shake things up, and help create a better future for the auto repair industry.
[Bryan Pollock] (0:00 - 0:42)
I'm just a stupid grease monkey and I'm going to tell you how tire sales work. Somebody comes in your shop and they want to buy a set of tires. The first thing you do is you get off your ass and you walk with them.
Is the vehicle here? Yes. You get off your ass, you walk out in the parking lot, you look at what they have, you put your hand on the tire so you know how it was wearing, you ask them, hey, how did these do for you?
Yeah, were you happy with these tires? Because if they were happy with them, why would I switch them out of something? If somebody's got a set of Toyo Open Country AT3s, I'm not going to try to sell them some Nittos.
If he's like, oh man, I love these things. I got 65,000 out of them. They're quiet.
We're done here, right? That's how it's like selling tires is too easy.
[Intro] (0:45 - 1:05)
The following program features a bunch of doofuses talking about the automotive aftermarket. The stuff we, or our guests may say, do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of our peers, our sponsors, or any other associations we may have. There may be some spicy language in this show.
So if you get your feelings hurt easily, you should probably just move along.
[Jim Cokonis] (1:06 - 1:16)
So without further ado, here's your host, Mike Allen with Confessions of a Shopper, presented by Tecmetric, the best software ever invented for any purpose, ever.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:17 - 1:52)
Ah, one mic back and forth with the finger. Have you RTFM'd today? This is Brian, live on the expo floor, pointing out different attendees.
Which class did you take? No. No.
I sat in a little bit of Jim's class. Yeah, he was getting into GDI waveforms. It's good.
It's very good. It's good. Somebody had a concern.
I sat. I reported you. There's not a problem with the, it's not the class.
[Mike Allen] (1:52 - 1:53)
It's not a content issue.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:54 - 3:36)
It's the Toyota, it's, in my opinion, it should not be named beginner. And you know what? If that's the only thing you can find wrong with a class, what a knock out of the park.
Sure. So, so do we actually have a topic? No, we don't.
Yeah. So I mean, if I start out and say, Mike, as someone on the outside, what's your view of intelligence in the automotive? Artificial intelligence?
I think we should, I think we should just allow Chad to do the diag for us. I didn't put artificial on the front of that. Just let Chad do the diag.
As we discussed with Chris Enright earlier today, it would appear that intelligence in the automotive industry is optional. And the, the, the gathered wisdom at the table at the time, which by that, I mean, Chris and Brian agreed that roughly 5% of independent aftermarket automotive repair facilities are good. To their, you know, very, you know, non-scientific measurement.
Considered good by the consumers or by the, well, by their experience going around and visiting other shops and problem solving and diagnostic help. And 85% of people think they're above average. So 35% must be statistically wrong.
That 70% of the time, 70% of the time, which is made up 90% of the time.
[Jim Cokonis] (3:36 - 3:37)
Yeah, exactly.
[Bryan Pollock] (3:38 - 3:41)
Yeah. Yeah. You dropped in 9.2% stat.
[Jim Cokonis] (3:42 - 3:43)
That was a true stat.
[Bryan Pollock] (3:43 - 4:09)
That was totally made up. You just pulled that right out of your ass. No, I have, I have, I actually did the work one time.
Is that the percentage of automotive technicians who are ASE certified? ASE, A1 through A8. If you go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, you look at all the automotive technicians that are A1 through A8, or you look at all the automotive technicians.
To get your sample, your full sample. The number of automotive technicians employed. This is Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers, which where else are you supposed to get the numbers from?
[Jim Cokonis] (4:10 - 4:11)
Gotta start somewhere.
[Bryan Pollock] (4:11 - 5:30)
Gotta start somewhere. That's where we started. And you go through ASE and you get the number of automotive technicians that are A1 through A8 certified.
It's 9.2%. It is under 10%. I still say you made it up. I didn't.
I have the piece of paper. I have it. I have the citations.
There's one thing about Brian. He's not one of these people that speaks confidently without the knowledge to actually do it. Unfortunately, we have a lot of people who speak very confidently about things they don't know.
Confidently incorrect is the way to get through life. Yeah. I wish they were as accurate as they were confident.
That's been one of your other sayings. You know what? This is really dangerous because it will ruin my cherub-like demeanor that I put out there.
Everybody does hold you really high up on a pedestal. No, they're delusional. There's a good friend of ours who is constantly saying things like, you know, he introduces me as one of the smartest people in automotive he knows.
And I'm just like, oh, that's a sad state of affairs. Because I know a ton of people that are way smarter than me. I know a lot of really smart people.
[Justin Allen] (5:30 - 5:51)
Well, I think if you were to say, on average, where are most automotive technicians getting their information? Where are most of them learning from the day they showed up till today? Well, no.
Hey guys, Chris Vicks here. Thank goodness it exists now, but it's always just been the guy beside him. Look, you're right.
Maybe whatever. That's literally where most of the knowledge comes from.
[Bryan Pollock] (5:51 - 5:53)
You're right. That's where a lot of bad habits come from.
[Justin Allen] (5:53 - 6:01)
And he learned it there, too. He learned it from the guy beside him seven years ago. And he only remembered half of it.
And that part, at least half of that was crazy.
[Bryan Pollock] (6:01 - 6:02)
Seven years ago?
[Justin Allen] (6:02 - 6:04)
You know what I mean? Maybe eight.
[Bryan Pollock] (6:05 - 6:23)
He forgot the D? I ain't quite there yet. That's just what we've done as an industry.
Well, here's how I used to tell it. Ezekiel taught Jedediah. Jedediah taught, you know, Bosephus.
Bosephus taught John, and John taught Mike.
[Mike Allen] (6:23 - 6:24)
Right.
[Bryan Pollock] (6:24 - 6:26)
And that's why Mike is in the state he's in.
[Justin Allen] (6:26 - 6:36)
Yeah. And each of them only passed along like 70% accurate data. And so it just kept dwindling and dwindling and dwindling.
[Bryan Pollock] (6:36 - 9:49)
Now that's a made-up stat. 9.2 is true. But then when you think about the less than 10% retained just from listening.
The learning. There's a gap. There's going to be knowledge gaps.
Yeah. And so the only way somebody's going to get past the knowledge gap is if they go seek out the truth. If you just sit and believe it, then you'll get some of the responses that I get.
We might talk about that in a little bit later. But we will definitely talk about that tomorrow. You don't know it yet?
But when I get feedback on a question, right? And we look at care and understanding. Justin and I were joking around about ADOS and why he's wearing this shirt.
Basically the British thing of keep calm and carry on. If you're trying to do ADOS and you messed it up, slow down. Because you probably missed an instruction.
It said close the door and you're doing it with the door open or whatever, right? There's some little step somewhere. And so one of the concepts that I have tried to teach is when you're evaluating a system, you split it down into sections.
The theory of halving. Anthony Amoroso, Guido, used to teach this years ago. You keep cutting the car down into pieces going, well, it's not on this half.
It's probably on this half. It's probably on that half. And you keep getting smaller halves until you find an answer, right?
So I will ask a question. Um, about a vehicle is hard to start or has an extended crank or something. It's specifically an extended crank question.
So I ask a question to try and teach the thought process of splitting the car down into segments. So the question is basically, what can cause an ex... What non-fuel, non...
Sorry, I'm doing this off the top of my head. What ignition related concerns can cause a vehicle to be hard to start? That's the specific question.
And the distractor to see if they're actually understanding the scenario is low fuel pressure. And people will pick low fuel pressure, get it wrong. And then argue.
And then said absolutely low fuel pressure will call an extended crank. And you say, read the question. Ignition related.
And I can't tell you how many times that specific question has gotten that type of feedback. And so when I see these things, I can like look at that and look at that one question. And I know where that one particular technician needs work.
And it isn't about ignition systems and fuel systems. It's about a mental thought process, diagnostic thought process to be careful in what they're reading and what's being asked. Just because you've uncovered that that's something they need to work on.
How can your tool get them to work on that?
[Mike Allen] (9:50 - 9:50)
I'm the tool.
[Bryan Pollock] (9:50 - 15:09)
Slow the fuck down. Wait, back up. We know each other.
Who are you and in what capacity do you work in the industry where you're writing questions and having people not read them thoroughly and complain about it? So my title is technical director for today's class. So all of the content that has anything to do with technical accuracy gets filtered through me in one way or another.
And then when feedback comes in, I'm developing tools to sort it, to try and identify where the cores are so that I can focus on a student that could benefit from some individualized responses. And so I will take the time and reply directly to that student and explain to them why the question is worded a certain way. I will tell you that even so, again, it's typed out and it's written and sometimes they don't always get that message.
So if need be, I'll set up a phone call and I'll have a conversation with them. And I have found when somebody pushes back on a question and then I talk to them about why the question is worded that way. This is not a test.
This is teaching through questions. So, you know, Mike, why do you not charge for diag or something? I will ask you a question and get a response and then try and identify where that knowledge gap is.
And I find a lot of people are fascinated when I explain to them the thinking behind the question. Here's another one, right? What one sensor primarily on an engine gives you speed data, right?
Engine speed data. And one of them gives you precise location data, position data, right? So one's the crankshaft sensor and one's the cam sensor.
And these people will not select that camshaft sensor as giving precise engine location. No, they get that off the crank sensor. I'm like, some engines can do that.
Like some Chrysler products can do that, right? They can start without a cam sensor. Yeah, but they will tend to have an extended crank.
But that's because they've got a patterned tone wheel on those engines and they can watch that pattern. They have to see it a couple of times. They try one sequence and it's like, that didn't work.
So the next time the pattern repeats, they try the opposite sequence and then it starts. Right? So sometimes it'll start normal.
Sometimes it'll be extended crank. It'll start on companion or whatever. Yeah, and some of them gangfire and go for all of it and then see what cylinder accelerated.
Right? So there's strategies behind there. But the reason for the problem is that I'm missing a piece of data.
And if they don't understand the core uses of those pieces of data, now I have something that I can help explain to them. So that's one of the more challenging parts of how to do that. Because if you have tens of thousands of questions answered every day and enough people send in feedback, then I can be buried under a pile real quick.
So we'll put other things out. But that's what I do. That's what I'm built in.
And I've been studying adult learning and those sorts of things and getting more fascinated all the time as it goes along. Give me the two minute summation of what today's class is for those that don't know what it is. So today's class is an app-based training application that employs gamification so that the entire shop can take questions.
The questions can be tailored toward their job role. So we can do things for service writers and managers. We can do things for technicians.
And then we also will build content that gets the service writers talking the same language that the technicians should be using so that they can help understand each other. And it's designed to be consumed in primarily daily questions. So you'll get four to six questions a day.
And when you answer them, you get points for it. The points can be used. One shop used to do like a world championship belt every month for whoever got the most questions.
Some people pay out money to their top placement people. But then there are also, because we're dealing with adults, you can also pick a topic. If you want to go through disc brakes, you can choose disc brakes.
You can go read all the information and then you can take the questions. And if someone answers all the questions in all the areas, they graduate the topic. Doesn't mean they'll never see questions from there again.
They will graduate the topic. And if they're above 80%, they'll be ranked as an expert on that topic. So that's basically how the platform works.
But then we do a lot of other things, but I can't get into those right now. Say it's not a test. It's not a teaching through questions, but there's scores and a leaderboard with your co-workers.
Correct. So because it's a game. Damn it.
I want the points. It's an open book test. It's an open book test.
[Jim Cokonis] (15:09 - 15:10)
Guess what?
[Bryan Pollock] (15:10 - 16:26)
I haven't done mine today. This is great. It's an open book.
Oh, I read your questions out loud. I want to know if I can guess your questions. Hold on.
Hold on. Because I bet they're not the entry level technical questions. They are.
They're basic. They're basic white bitch questions. Oh, let's see.
Hold on. We're in the basement. Start.
Okay, what's our subject? I want you to look at this. Hey, look at that.
Oh, it doesn't. Which of these HVAC control system components are controlled by module output circuits? This goofs a lot of people up.
Module output circuits. I'm going to go with... You're taking way too...
Resistors are not. And so I'm going to say the other three are. You know what's really annoying?
Is you got that right, but you got it right for the wrong reason. So you don't even understand. Why is the resistor not controlled by a module output circuit?
Because the resistor is not controlled. It's just part of the circuit, right? No, no, the resistor is...
Why is this resistor not controlled by a module output? I'm giving the output. Do you know why?
Because the module doesn't really output to the resistor. The resistor typically provides the voltage from the resistor side, and the module will duty cycle to ground. So what I'm hearing is I got it right.
[Justin Allen] (16:29 - 16:36)
And welcome to the industry. You're going to get certified because you guessed appropriately.
[Bryan Pollock] (16:36 - 16:41)
You guessed... You don't know why that's wrong, though. You don't know why that wasn't right.
[Justin Allen] (16:41 - 16:52)
That's what's... Gosh, it's annoying. That is tricky.
I just turned it off. That annoyed the shit out of me. I have seen dealership technicians, just multiple choice, just keep picking, and they'll go retake the test and retake the test.
[Bryan Pollock] (16:52 - 16:54)
He got it right. And what's funny is...
[Justin Allen] (16:54 - 16:55)
Sure.
[Bryan Pollock] (16:55 - 18:14)
That question, I'm sure, is a sticking point for many people who think they understand how stuff actually works. You are so far away from understanding... I wish you had your computer so you could see how many people get that question right.
I know you have the data to say... He'll know off the top of his head that question is probably a rubbing point. I can tell you how many times that question was asked.
Not necessarily the number of people, but I will have questions... Yeah, the same person get that question wrong eight times over the course of three weeks. I've had people answer a question correctly, answer the question incorrectly the next time they get it, send in feedback.
The question will come back again. Now they're mad. I've already flagged this question once.
Then the fourth time they see it, they'll answer it correctly. Then they'll answer it correctly. Then they'll answer it incorrectly.
And I guarantee you, they get it incorrect when they're distracted or driving down the road from the shop taking their questions. I'm looking at you, big guy. You can ask Jim.
I also never get butthurt with my feedback, though. You get butthurt when other people get questions right. That fucking irritated me because you don't know.
You know, I haven't gotten today's class question wrong all year. Because you dropped off the platform.
[Justin Allen] (18:14 - 18:15)
I've done one.
[Bryan Pollock] (18:15 - 18:52)
I've done one of those questions so far this year. Do that one, smarty pants. On a car with a caliper integrated EPB...
I don't even know what that is. Exactly. Hill hold assist.
The dashboard shows the park brake, car on hill, and traction control warning lights on. Which component may be at fault? Don't mess up my score.
The brake pedal position sensor, the brake light switch, the transmission temperature sensor, or the wheel speed sensor. So, electronic parking brake. I will give you a hint.
I don't need a hint. I'm going to get this. No, no, no, no.
I need to give you a hint that's not going to be an answer. When you see square boxes, that means there's multiple choices.
[Justin Allen] (18:52 - 18:53)
Okay, I'm just making sure you know.
[Bryan Pollock] (18:54 - 19:43)
Because I get screwed up on that sometimes. It's got caliper integrated electronic parking brakes and hill hold assist. EPB.
The dashboard shows park brake, car on hill, and traction control warning lights on. Which component may be at fault? I'm going to say two of these four.
Just pick. I'm going to say the brake pedal position sensor and the brake light switch. There you go.
I don't know. What do you think? Go ahead.
How confident are you in that? I'm going to go with high confidence. Confidently incorrect.
Confidently. Oh, well, the two that I got were right. I just missed wheel speed sensor.
Yeah. So, I got two out of the three. Now, Mike, have you ever ordered parts?
Have you ever ordered a wheel speed sensor for a 16 F-150? Surely, you would know. There's a different wheel speed sensor part number for one with hill start assist and not.
So, certainly, you should know.
[Jim Cokonis] (19:43 - 19:44)
Surely, I would know.
[Bryan Pollock] (19:44 - 20:13)
Certainly, you should know that the wheel speed sensor would play into hill start assist. Don't call me Shirley. Freaking parts ordering guys can't even get it figured out.
But do you see where there's an opportunity to learn just from a question? See, now you got it wrong. You got it wrong.
You got it wrong, but there's an explanation. The EPB system shares data from multiple sensors across CAN bus. Wheel speed sensor fault or a fault from any sensor reports, position, brake pedal.
You need to read it out loud. They're listening. I'm not going to read the whole thing.
Yeah, but it tells me how the system works.
[Justin Allen] (20:14 - 20:14)
Are there also links?
[Bryan Pollock] (20:14 - 20:28)
You can flag this and I can say, Mike got this one wrong. Give me my points. Mike got this wrong.
Wasn't me. Give me. So, you're going to have a pop-up when you log into work.
How many of those? How many flags do you get a day?
[Justin Allen] (20:30 - 20:47)
That's criteria information. Oh, yeah. Thousands.
I did want to say, I mentioned earlier that I'd seen dealership technicians like multiple joists and that stuff. And I want to be sure that everybody understands that that's, hallelujah, dealerships have been trying to at least train something. They've been trying to do a path, right?
[Bryan Pollock] (20:47 - 20:50)
It's better than not. It's better than not doing anything.
[Justin Allen] (20:50 - 20:51)
I was thinking about us as the...
[Bryan Pollock] (20:51 - 20:52)
Maybe not much better.
[Justin Allen] (20:53 - 21:18)
This was the IGONC, right? Independent Garage Owners of North Carolina at one time. It wasn't really for dealerships, quote unquote.
There's some dealership people here today and I love that. But the IGONC needed to support the Independent Garage Owners because the dealerships do at least have some kind of a function. I was at Ford and they were doing all kinds of training for the technicians.
But it was still a lot of that, like, I'm just going to guess until I get it through it kind of thing. Then suddenly you've got plaque on the wall, which is tricky.
[Bryan Pollock] (21:18 - 22:29)
There's some people that see the value in this type of training so much. So, I know a guy. I'm just going to say he's a field service engineer.
I'm not going to reveal what manufacturers work. He's a field service engineer for a major automotive manufacturer. He is currently putting together a paper, something to present to his boss and his boss's superiors to advocate to get dealer technicians to independent aftermarket training events like this.
Because that's where he gained a ton of his knowledge and he sees the value in the training we do on the aftermarket side. He sees it. He sees the value compared to what the manufacturer training is because on the aftermarket side, there's a lot of outside the box thinking.
And there's also a very large focus on the aftermarket side of understanding systems versus understanding if this, then that. Right, right. And doing pattern failure.
And doing pattern failure. We get them when the second set of pattern failure is when they've stopped going to the dealer.
[Mike Allen] (22:29 - 22:29)
Yeah, yeah.
[Bryan Pollock] (22:29 - 24:24)
And I see that when we work on older stuff. Somebody will ask me a question. I go, well, you know, this is what we've typically seen but this vehicle is 20 years old.
We see things break on these that didn't break before. Right, absolutely. A 7.3 power stroke has never been as old as it is today. So, I'll give you an example. I'm working with one technician specifically on diagnostic process. And so, I'm teaching him PDCA, which we will have in our classes tomorrow.
And so, he's got this vehicle that basically anytime the load comes up or anytime the loads on the vehicle electrically come up, the alternator is not keeping up. It's an 03 Mazda. Okay.
23 years old. Mike wouldn't even work on it. It's too old.
That's true. I go 25 years old. And it's a Mazda.
He's got a soft spot. Yeah, so that's true. That's true.
But if the people that are listening to this can't tell, all of us in here know each other. So, this is kind of, there's a lot of hidden sub-currency here. But I'm talking to this guy just on the phone.
I was talking to him yesterday driving here. And I said, so what type of system, it's got a voltage regulator in the alternator. He knew that.
I said, what type of voltage regulator is it and how does it get its sense to know what the output is? And he says, well, let me get a, I got to look at a wiring diagram. Like, yes, yes, good, all right.
But as we're talking, I'm like, you know, does the alternator have an external wire coming over to tell it what sense is? I don't memorize all this stuff. I don't have it.
[Jim Cokonis] (24:24 - 24:25)
Neither do I.
[Bryan Pollock] (24:25 - 25:35)
Is it an internal source? I would have done the same thing to determine what system it was. I would have likely gone to a wiring diagram first.
So, guess what it actually has? I don't know. It's just, in that era, Mazda and Ford.
So, the Genmon, Gencom, it's got output and it's got feedback. Now, you being the scope jockey more than me, currently, as I recall, and this is me off the top of my head because I've got one of those memories. Currently, it's an electrical geocode.
I know, I know. Good job. Continue.
Oh, see, I missed that. But one of those signals will only change when there's a command or a change being sent. It gives it, the best way I've been able to explain it to people who don't understand the system is it will say, hey, do me a favor and do this for a while until I come tell you to do something else.
Correct. That's how that works. It's not a constantly changing thing.
It's like, hey, go do this for a while. I'll come get you when I want you to change what you're doing.
[Jim Cokonis] (25:35 - 25:37)
Yeah. That's how Genmon and Gencom work.
[Bryan Pollock] (25:38 - 26:32)
Gencommand only changes when the PCM decides that it needs to change what it's doing. So if you select a C request, the moment you do that, the PCM knows that I'm going to need a higher current. And so it's going to command the request before or at the same time that the air conditioner changed.
But people that don't understand that will look at this flatline signal under steady state conditions and think the computer's bad. Think the computer's bad because it's not sending an output. So then there's the conversation and there's the depth of understanding that can come about through asking questions live.
Yeah. So you try and simulate that through an app. What's interesting to me is how excited the two of you have gotten in the last 10 minutes talking about these technical aspects that Justin and I are just trying to keep our eyes open.
[Justin Allen] (26:32 - 26:33)
Trying to hang in there.
[Bryan Pollock] (26:33 - 26:34)
Yeah, just trying to follow.
[Justin Allen] (26:34 - 26:35)
Way over my head.
[Bryan Pollock] (26:35 - 26:48)
Yeah. No, it's not over your head. Let's start talking that, right?
Let's start talking that. What can contribute to accelerated tire wear? Yes.
[Mike Allen] (26:48 - 26:48)
Right?
[Bryan Pollock] (26:49 - 26:51)
And so we're going to give you some alignment angles.
[Justin Allen] (26:51 - 26:55)
The gas pedal. Sure. Yeah, right.
Horrible driving pattern. Gas pedal. Lack of rotation.
[Bryan Pollock] (26:57 - 27:54)
What about the speed rating of the tire? If it's a performance tire, right, isn't that going to be harsher on this? Well, it's like we're talking about suspension wear.
Isn't that going to be harsher on the suspension? It could be. That's a distractor because think about it like this.
Now we're getting complex thinking. Yeah. Right?
Multi-layered. If that is a correct answer, then that would be telling a service advisor, well, if you want a softer ride, put this other tire on that's not as harsh a ride and has a different aspect ratio or different sidewall structure. But that's incorrect because now the vehicle does not have the tires to perform the performance that the car is built for.
So handling and all that stuff will be degraded. So the tire selection is the tire selection. That's not a default.
[Justin Allen] (27:55 - 27:57)
That's not a defect. It's engineered into the whole experience.
[Bryan Pollock] (27:57 - 28:03)
It's engineered into the process. And that tire will wear appropriately on that car if all these other things are correct.
[Mike Allen] (28:04 - 28:04)
Correct.
[Bryan Pollock] (28:05 - 29:31)
So I mean, that's the type of critical thinking that we need service advisors to have and they need to understand what the techs are telling them and they need to be on the same page so they aren't making BS recommendations to clients and getting the shop sideways. Well, a service advisor shouldn't be making recommendations at all other than what the technician has presented to them. The tires are worn down to 230 seconds.
So are you recommending tire replacement and alignment or is there something else going on? I'm recommending tire replacement. Is it the tech's responsibility to go tell the service advisor which tires are to be sold?
So in my world, you're going to sell the size and speed rating that the vehicle was equipped with and you're going to give them a good, better, best option, typically, of tire choices. Do you have good, better, best for a Corvette? No.
I mean, how many Corvettes do I work on, right? Well, they're not Miatas, that's true. Yeah, so I mean, there are definitely more options for Miata tires, no doubt.
But I mean, there's always going to be outliers to every situation. But being knowledgeable about tire sales is a different skill set than being knowledgeable about service and repair sales, I think.
[Justin Allen] (29:32 - 29:36)
So what I'm clearly saying is that we need more training.
[Bryan Pollock] (29:36 - 29:37)
Translate.
[Justin Allen] (29:37 - 29:40)
We need more training on even that, right? Like the, what is it, TIA?
[Bryan Pollock] (29:41 - 32:38)
Tire sales are easy. I'm just a stupid grease monkey and I'm going to tell you how tire sales work. Somebody comes in your shop and they want to buy a set of tires.
The first thing you do is you get off your ass and you walk with them. Is the vehicle here? Yes.
You get off your ass, you walk out in the parking lot, you look at what they have, you put your hand on the tire so you know how it was wearing. You ask them, hey, how did these do for you? Yeah, were you happy with these tires?
Because if they were happy with them, why would I switch them out of something? Why would I switch them out of what they got? As long as they're the right speed and load rating, all that, size, blah, blah, blah, right?
If somebody's got a set of Toyo Open Country AT3s, I'm not going to try to sell them some Nittos. If he's like, oh man, I love these things. I got 65,000 out of them, they're quiet.
We're done here, right? Selling tires is too easy, because they'll give you the answers. Do you know what spring rate is?
Yes. Now, I'm going to go technical again, but I'm going to bring it. Is that jounce testing?
Similar. Similar. Good word.
So spring rate is the ABS system monitoring the wheel speed sensor. When a vehicle hits a bump, the wheel speed sensor is going to detect a slowdown and an acceleration. Okay.
If the tire is proper for the vehicle and inflated properly, I shouldn't see like the front tire hits it, the back tire hits it. If the spring rate is vastly different, this one slowed down a lot more, that tire is probably low. And that's how new generation indirect TPMS can detect that.
Yeah, the later model Hondas can do that. Not just later models. I was at a used car lot that kept getting TPMS lights on a Honda Civic that they had sold.
Everything was working the way it was supposed to, and it was a direct TPMS system. Indirect? No, it was direct.
It had sensors? It had tire pressure sensors. Oh, okay.
Okay, gotcha. And it kept setting a light, even though everything was properly inflated. I started looking at the tires, and then I looked up the spec on the tires.
They had standard passenger car tires on a vehicle that was supposed to have speed rated tires on. So the tighter sidewall and all that stuff. Told them, did you all put these tires on?
Yeah. Trying to save some bucks? Yeah.
You need to change over to speed rated tires. Because I knew about spring rate, sure enough. Put the speed rated tires on that car, and it stopped setting TPMS lights.
And there is nothing in service. There's some stuff you didn't know, Brian. I didn't know that.
There was nothing in service information. But if it's direct, if it's got sensors in the tire, then why does spring rate matter? Because it measures both ways.
Because they're using ABS as a backup data to compare and contrast.
[Justin Allen] (32:39 - 32:45)
And that tire compressing a little bit differently over those bumps is causing it to slow down and speed up at a different rate than what it's expecting it to do.
[Bryan Pollock] (32:45 - 32:45)
Correct.
[Justin Allen] (32:46 - 32:46)
Because of the lights going on.
[Bryan Pollock] (32:47 - 34:14)
So it's calling BS on the whole kit and caboodle. This guy's got a piece of PVC pipe in the trunk with four TPMS sensors in it, pumped up to 35 PSI. We're done here.
If you've ever seen that BS. Those are the kind of things that sometimes you just have to find by beating your head on the wall, because they don't always tell us absolutely everything. That's a frustration I hear from technicians from time to time.
It's like, why don't they tell us this? Yeah. Who's the they that should tell?
Sometimes the manufacturers keep some. The engineers don't put that stuff into service information. Like back in the day with Lincoln air suspension and curb strategy.
They didn't tell you about curb strategy, right? Like Lincoln air suspension would, when you shut the vehicle off, if it had four wheel air suspension on like a Navigator, it would jack the front up after you shut the vehicle off one way, and some people thought it was broke. Some engineer had a demo vehicle.
This is literally how, I know the guy that developed curb strategy. This is how this went down. Some engineer had a demo vehicle, and he pulled up to the curb, front valance, scrapes over the curb, fine, goes in the grocery store, comes out, backs up, rips the front valance off.
That's where curb strategy came from, because some engineer had a demo vehicle that didn't, and that's why they jacked themselves up freaking half an inch while you go in the store. And they don't tell you about curb strategy.
[Justin Allen] (34:14 - 35:28)
So without knowing what Mr. Enright and y'all talked about earlier today, I do want to say that an interesting thing that I've discovered lately, that may or may not relate because I'm not trying to relate, is that in class when I will say something about alignment, and two of the guys will be like, wow, I had no idea. I've been doing this for 15 years and didn't even know that. And I think to myself, this is great.
We are changing lives, right? Like there's someone in here doing something. I love that.
What I've discovered is that going on site, classrooms hide what they don't know a little bit, or you know what I mean? Like, because everybody isn't like, oh yeah, I didn't know that. Going on site has been blowing my mind lately, in terms of the things that are actually happening.
And I love us, and I love the people in our industry, and it's not a lack of... Intelligence isn't optional. It's just lack of information and or application of information.
But lately, I am thrilled to go on site training, although I don't have the time or whatever to do it as much as I'd like to. I'm thrilled by it because the things we see people do in real life, as you know, it's wild what is actually happening. And then you ask them, well, why are you doing that?
And it's exactly what we've already said. I'm doing it because this guy said, well, he said to do it.
[Bryan Pollock] (35:29 - 35:47)
Justin Allen is one of the most positive. Glass half full. Put a silver lining on that cloud, guys I've ever met.
And what he just said is, you go into these shops and these motherfuckers don't have a clue what they're doing. That's not what he said. And it is the wild, wild west.
He's finding that, no.
[Justin Allen] (35:48 - 35:55)
There's a lot that happens. That's a lot. That is a lot of information.
And it's just because...
[Bryan Pollock] (35:55 - 36:04)
Well, you have a thought on that, Brian? I don't want to smush it. It makes you wonder, are they uninformed or are they misinformed?
Or is it a combination of both?
[Justin Allen] (36:04 - 36:06)
It's a combination of both.
[Bryan Pollock] (36:06 - 36:19)
Or is it they're not taking the time to learn how to do it right? There's a lot of people who think they... I'll tell you what.
How many times have you seen a brake caliper hanging on the hose? Thousand. Thousand times.
[Justin Allen] (36:19 - 36:19)
Right.
[Bryan Pollock] (36:20 - 36:20)
Thousand times.
[Justin Allen] (36:21 - 36:21)
And is that a good idea?
[Bryan Pollock] (36:21 - 36:25)
Do you want to see me come three feet off the ground and hit Mach 2?
[Justin Allen] (36:26 - 36:26)
Yeah.
[Bryan Pollock] (36:26 - 36:27)
What is that?
[Justin Allen] (36:27 - 36:28)
And they just don't know.
[Bryan Pollock] (36:29 - 36:41)
Or they don't care. Because this is faster and I'm being paid by the job. Yeah, that's probably a don't care situation.
There's other things they just don't know.
[Justin Allen] (36:42 - 36:42)
Correct.
[Bryan Pollock] (36:42 - 36:46)
There's so much they don't know. Like pushing the brake calipers back on those Chevys.
[Justin Allen] (36:46 - 37:01)
If I had to put a rough estimate at it, just as a kind of, for instance, of things that just are not being handled the way they probably should be handled. Alignment racks. I would say right now, 85% of them in the field are not working appropriately.
[Bryan Pollock] (37:01 - 37:08)
Yeah, they're not working appropriately right now. I am very proud to say that my rear plates move on all of my alignment racks.
[Justin Allen] (37:08 - 37:09)
I am very pleased with that.
[Bryan Pollock] (37:09 - 37:14)
And actually, when somebody... There's one more... There's one more accolade to go in here.
[Mike Allen] (37:14 - 37:14)
Okay.
[Bryan Pollock] (37:16 - 37:29)
Brian lives in the Great White War. And I live in the Rust Belt. You live in the Rust Belt.
They move so well that I almost went ass over tea kettle because somebody forgot to put the pins back in on one of the rear plates. And I hopped over the alignment rack in the barn the other day. It's like a dryer sheet.
[Justin Allen] (37:30 - 37:31)
Oh, I thought I was going down.
[Bryan Pollock] (37:31 - 37:33)
I recovered. I was okay.
[Justin Allen] (37:33 - 37:42)
I'm just saying, like, the things you see upon walking into a shop. I think most of us... You're just gonna be startled by the things going on in real life out here sometimes.
[Bryan Pollock] (37:43 - 39:29)
One time in one of my former careers, as an instructor, I was taken in to a shop by a parts store because they were trying to develop and start a training region in their area. And they took me into a shop. And we were going to invite this guy to come to a class on fuel control.
He's got a Dodge Caravan on the alignment rack. And he's doing brake pads. He's taking the wheel off, jacked up over top of the front plates.
And all the shit's going on the plates. So there's strike one. He's taking one bolt out of the caliper.
Strictly rolling it up. Strict to upside down. Squeezing the caliper back in.
Throwing the brake pads in, throwing it down. Running a Dodge Caravan bolt back in with an air ratchet, which is like 17 foot pounds of torque. Right?
Not the 90 that you get out of a Ingersoll Rand air ratchet. And then he is putting the wheel on and running the wheels down with an impact wrench. And I'm talking to him about, you know, we're gonna have this fuel trim class.
You know, do you use fuel trim? Oh yeah, I use them. I said, how do you use them?
I'm curious. He says, I look at them. I'm like, okay.
And you have a brake class. And I looked at this salesman and I went like this to end the conversation when the guy couldn't see. And I took the salesperson back out and I said, here are all the technically inaccurate things.
I said, let me guess. You get a lot of complaints about squealing brake pads and comebacks.
[Mike Allen] (39:29 - 39:30)
Brake warranties are high.
[Bryan Pollock] (39:30 - 39:35)
Absolutely. And I said, you just, if you knew what you were looking at, you just saw the reasons why.
[Mike Allen] (39:36 - 39:36)
Yeah.
[Bryan Pollock] (39:36 - 40:29)
That brake job was not done in any way to industry standards or what should be industry standards. And unless that person changes, they are not. And that was the guy's lead tech that they were taking me in to talk to.
And so then I had a conversation with this salesperson. I said, we're looking for shops that do this and this and this. And I gave him some examples of being technically accurate.
Then he took me to four or five other shops and we got 80% of those to come to class. So you know your customer, you know? But I would see that stuff all the time.
I had a guy that used to complain about brake noise and he always put wheels on with an impact. This has been some years ago. But a person has to be ready to learn.
Right? So you need a teaching moment. And if I'm filibustering here, you smack me in the head.
[Justin Allen] (40:29 - 40:29)
Yeah, you're doing great.
[Bryan Pollock] (40:32 - 40:42)
But this guy did not want to hear it. He's putting wheels on with an impact. I said, Randy, you got to torque the wheels.
I said, you warp the rotor. I've been doing this for 25 years. Wrong for 25 years.
[Justin Allen] (40:42 - 40:44)
Right, yeah. I mean, now...
[Bryan Pollock] (40:44 - 40:46)
It takes no skill to do something wrong for 25 years.
[Justin Allen] (40:46 - 40:47)
Now I would say...
[Bryan Pollock] (40:47 - 40:48)
I've been eating wrong for 25 years.
[Justin Allen] (40:49 - 40:50)
I understand you've been doing it wrong.
[Bryan Pollock] (40:52 - 41:26)
So he didn't want to hear it. And this guy was a friend of mine. We mountain biked together.
We went whitewater rafting together. We played tournament paintball together. We were friends outside of work.
And he didn't want to listen. His name was Randy. I walked in one day.
He's finishing up a head gasket on a Honda. And he's torquing the Honda's head gasket down. I said, hey, Randy, what you doing?
He said, finishing up a head gasket job. I said, why are you torquing them bolts? He says, you got to torque the bolts or you'll warp the head.
I said, Randy, that cylinder head is this thick. That brake rotor is this thick. If you can't warp that brake rotor, how are you going to warp that cylinder head?
[Mike Allen] (41:28 - 41:29)
Yeah, learning moments.
[Bryan Pollock] (41:29 - 41:30)
And he goes, asshole.
[Mike Allen] (41:30 - 41:30)
Yeah.
[Bryan Pollock] (41:31 - 41:33)
But we changed him when we got him fixed.
[Mike Allen] (41:33 - 41:33)
Right.
[Bryan Pollock] (41:33 - 41:45)
And he started not having the problems with the brakes. Oh, really? But we needed that moment.
Magical, isn't it? For the lesson to stick. And then six months later, he gets a job with the postal service and goes to work there.
[Justin Allen] (41:46 - 42:10)
Yeah. And similarly, you know, you have so much focus on customer service and front counter operations and stuff like that at your shop. Shops that, same idea.
You walk into just some random shop on the side of the road and hearing the things that they're saying to customers and or they're not responding to people. It's just fascinating. And I think the pace at which our industry moves, like people don't feel they've got any time for training.
It's part of it. They really don't. Right.
[Bryan Pollock] (42:10 - 42:12)
I think you're right about that.
[Justin Allen] (42:12 - 42:12)
Yeah.
[Bryan Pollock] (42:12 - 42:20)
I think there's a, we've been living our lives. We've been selling our souls six minutes at a time for a very long time. Yeah.
Yeah.
[Justin Allen] (42:20 - 42:21)
Yeah.
[Bryan Pollock] (42:21 - 43:15)
When I interview applicants, service advisors or technicians, it's way worse with service advisors, actually. But one of the questions I ask is, you know, in the last year, how much training have you attended? Right.
And more often than not, the answer is they don't really care about training or none. Right. Have you done any training personally?
Definitely no. Right. I can't remember the last time a service advisor said they had been to training in the last year.
Some technicians, they go to the Napa class, they go to the O'Reilly class or whatever, that kind of stuff. I mean, they got really good baked ziti. Who doesn't watch ziti and pork chops, man?
But there is a dearth of desire to improve oneself and one's own skill in this trade.
[Mike Allen] (43:15 - 43:15)
Yeah.
[Bryan Pollock] (43:17 - 44:09)
And you guys. I feel like it's extremes. There's either.
Yeah. Well, I guess now that I think about it, there's some people. Do you even work on cars?
No, I'm just kidding. He does. He just doesn't fix any of them.
No, I'm just working on them. Fixing them and working on them. There's two different things.
Yeah, I'm fast. I have a lot of repeat customers when I work on cars. I'm fast at math.
I'm not good at math, but I'm fast. Always remember, every comeback is another sales opportunity. So are you saying that we either have the people that are like rain man level, where they go home and study stuff all the time?
Or do you think that comes from who gets funneled to our trade? To a degree. From the school system?
[Justin Allen] (44:09 - 44:14)
Yeah, we're defective. I think that's been the case since the 80s.
[Bryan Pollock] (44:14 - 44:41)
I think it is being less. They were pretty much like, we got to get this kid out of the classroom. We can't have him around the others.
He's fidgeting too much. He's doing this too much. He's doing that too much.
Let's tell him to go take auto repair. You don't like math. You don't like science.
You don't like to read. Go fix cars. Go build houses.
And then they sell it to you. What are the three skills you need to fix cars now? Reading comprehension.
I need to be able to read and understand technical information. Need to do math. I need to understand how things work.
[Justin Allen] (44:42 - 44:58)
Well, and I honestly, I think part of it may be, having a lot of children and things that happen. Sometimes it also along those lines has to do with maybe a little bit of like ADHD types of behavior, right? Like a little bit twitchy, a little bit fidgety.
Oh yeah. And the good news is.
[Bryan Pollock] (44:59 - 45:00)
You're the one with somebody who's got a diagnosis. You ain't got to tell me.
[Justin Allen] (45:00 - 45:17)
Yeah, yeah. Well, a lot of folks with ADHD can hyper fixate on things. And just that's part of the circle of skill set, right?
And maybe they're all, what I'm saying is maybe they're being underutilized in our industry because we haven't tapped into that appropriately. And again, maybe they've not been diagnosed or whatever either.
[Bryan Pollock] (45:17 - 45:21)
This conversation easily moves into the education system.
[Justin Allen] (45:21 - 45:21)
Oh yeah.
[Bryan Pollock] (45:21 - 46:10)
And how we've dealt with people, how we've judged. With a ton more nuance than I'm going to put here. We've judged an elephant's value by its ability to climb a tree.
Or however you want to say it. Right, a fish to climb a tree. Yeah, whatever animals you want to talk about doing, whatever those animals don't do.
Right. It's happened to many people. And we can go down the road where even fundamentally as a general rule of thumb, boys learn differently than girls.
As a general rule, like not even, but we're all got them all in the same classroom doing the same shit most of the time. So there's a whole rabbit hole you can go down with that. Sure.
Actually, here's a question for you guys. All y'all.
[Justin Allen] (46:10 - 46:11)
All y'all?
[Bryan Pollock] (46:11 - 47:17)
That's the plural of y'all. Yeah. So if I have a shop and I want to train somebody to do diagnostics on computerized systems or any system that is monitored, controlled by a computer.
Who's my best candidate? The 25 or 30 year tech who has a flashing VCR light. I'm sorry.
I'm pre-qualifying the question. Flashing VCR light makes them 65. And makes this the 90s.
Or do I want to choose the younger tech who grew up with an electronic device in their hand and they're comfortable with that world, but it's not how they're going to do it. How we normally select and promote people. I mean, obviously, the way that question is formatted, obviously, there's one answer.
[Justin Allen] (47:17 - 47:19)
I feel like you're guiding us toward a particular answer.
[Bryan Pollock] (47:19 - 48:04)
Well, I'm asking... He's pointing out. He's identifying our blind spot and pointing it out to us.
Sometimes we have blind spots and you need your friends to point your blind spots out. Give that to the experienced guy. Don't give it to the young kid.
Yeah. Don't give the young kid the... Who's gonna pick that up?
Huh? Who's gonna pick up that type of system? More naturally is what you're saying.
That's the question. Who's gonna navigate the scan tool faster? The guy that can't set a VCR clock or the iPad kid.
Right. Sorry, they're all touchscreen now. I shouldn't say they're all touchscreen.
Many of them, many of the very popular ones we see in most shops are touchscreen. Out of the 35 Altels that are currently registered in your name, how many of them are touchscreen? Yes.
34, sorry.
[Mike Allen] (48:04 - 48:04)
34.
[Bryan Pollock] (48:04 - 48:19)
Is that a valid thought to present to shops? Maybe. If you're talking in generalizations, I think, yeah.
I mean, the younger generation is gonna be more well-adapted to advanced technology.
[Jim Cokonis] (48:20 - 48:21)
Every generation.
[Bryan Pollock] (48:21 - 48:34)
Could that technician be started down that path as the one that does all the pre-scans on all the vehicles? Earlier, earlier as compared to later. Not, oh, you're 18 years old.
Let me get a bike lock. I'm gonna lock your ass to the tire machine for the next three years.
[Justin Allen] (48:35 - 48:35)
Only change oil.
[Bryan Pollock] (48:36 - 49:00)
Tie him to the lube rack for the first seven years. Now, there's some that aren't gonna have the will to get there, right? Because it takes a lot of will.
You have to want to will yourself into doing that. But as a general rule of thumb, they're going to be easier to adapt for sure. Yeah, I agree.
Who picks up ADOS training the fastest in your view?
[Justin Allen] (49:01 - 49:05)
I mean, the people who are detail-oriented, the people who enjoy technical stuff.
[Bryan Pollock] (49:05 - 49:06)
I was waiting for him to say women.
[Justin Allen] (49:09 - 49:32)
So for sure, technically-oriented, detail-oriented. Yeah, people that just enjoy the specificity. You know, they tend to.
It's fun watching because that's one thing about our industry is when we talked earlier about the funnel of like what the school systems have sent us. They have, but then still the people who are just genuinely interested in fixing things or whatever, they're here too. Sure, right?
And boy, they stick out.
[Mike Allen] (49:33 - 49:33)
Yeah.
[Justin Allen] (49:33 - 50:00)
God, they stick out. And it's fun being around that too. So I would say that it's a mix, right?
People that just, I love to fix things. I love to find out why it's not working and make it better. Those people are a riot.
And that's the people that we need to be funneling in early. Anybody who's been around me forever has heard me talk about that. But that is the fun stuff.
So the people who are drawn to it are the people who want to fix things, right? They want to figure it out.
[Bryan Pollock] (50:00 - 50:05)
Hey, we're an hour in and we asked Jim to say who he is and what he does. Who are you and what do you do?
[Justin Allen] (50:05 - 50:34)
Oh yeah, my name is Justin Allen and I am a regional field trainer for Hunter Engineering Company. And I go, generally people come to me to learn a little bit in Raleigh, or not Raleigh, Charlotte and Atlanta and Goldsboro, North Carolina. And I have a big focus on helping humans reduce stress at work through the kind of things we can do with their learning with Hunter equipment, of course, and I'm a promoter of chicken wing joints and good times.
[Bryan Pollock] (50:35 - 50:57)
Perfect. He did have a picture of some chicken wings the other day and I told him if he ever posted that again and called those chicken wings, I would call the cops. So if any of you guys ever come to my neck of the woods, we're going to take a trip to B&B Marina, which is 10 minutes from my house.
Do they have good chicken wings? And they do have very good chicken wings.
[Justin Allen] (50:58 - 51:02)
What's the problem that they were whole? Because I know, I remember that. And those were the whole wings.
[Bryan Pollock] (51:03 - 51:03)
That was the whole wing.
[Justin Allen] (51:03 - 51:04)
Is that the problem?
[Bryan Pollock] (51:04 - 51:58)
Nobody does that. That's nonsense. I don't think they should be called chicken wings.
It should be called chicken and a half of wings. And you should cut the price in half. I almost ordered some chicken wings last night and I was talked out of it.
I was like, they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, but you're in North Carolina. You better not do that. Really?
Justin Morgan talked me out of it. He said, you have no idea what you're getting yourself into right now. So I would think up in New York, you'd get pigeon wings, but we have, oh no, that's New York City or what?
Probably New York City. Yeah, I don't know. So I always want to talk about alignment and ADAS conversations when you're in the room, Justin.
What percentage of the cars on the road right now can be aligned without calibrating any system?
[Justin Allen] (52:00 - 52:33)
Oh, the answer I would have to that would be what percentage of the cars on the road are non Ford or CDJR? Honestly, because Ford and CDJR are the two biggest ones that want you to do something post alignment of the current stuff. Otherwise, most of it kind of handles itself.
And I love that you asked that question too, because the other side of it is that it's no, and we may have said this before, but it's not just about alignment. Like, because I'm afraid that some people think that ADAS stuff is something to be worried about with alignment work. No, no, no.
[Bryan Pollock] (52:33 - 52:36)
You gotta take a bumper off to replace a radiator.
[Justin Allen] (52:36 - 52:50)
Whatever, right? All that stuff. So it certainly turned into that.
But as far as alignment work, whatever that is, I don't know how big the numbers are for Ford and those other groups, but I'd have to speculate that's at least like 35% of the cars on the road between those two brands, all those brands.
[Bryan Pollock] (52:51 - 52:51)
Possibly, yeah.
[Justin Allen] (52:52 - 52:55)
Yeah, it's a pretty big number. Yeah, Jim's going to look it up. Everybody else will be fine.
[Bryan Pollock] (52:56 - 52:57)
Because now he's interested.
[Justin Allen] (52:57 - 52:59)
In the moment, but yeah.
[Bryan Pollock] (53:00 - 53:16)
Because I'm just wondering, you know, Hunter's in the business to move metal, right, ultimately, and help keep cars on the road and everything else. Is it reasonable to sell alignment machines without calibration technology attached anymore?
[Justin Allen] (53:18 - 53:55)
Oh yeah, because also all those calibrations we're talking about that are post-alignment are dynamic. Okay, so it's the thing about the ultimate ADAS, since you brought it up that way, is that people need to be, you need to have a strategy for ADAS, right? Like I don't care what it is.
Are you guys doing that in the house yet? Okay, so you need a strategy, whether it's a mobile guy, it's your next door neighbor, it's a collision shop across town, whatever it is, people, we can't, because see, this goes back to, and I love you, Michael. This goes back to the idea that people don't really know.
I promise you, dude, if we go to your parking lot today, we could see repairs have been done in the past month or whatever, that it might've slipped through.
[Bryan Pollock] (53:55 - 53:57)
You should've gotten a calibration and did not.
[Justin Allen] (53:57 - 54:19)
Should've gotten a calibration and didn't. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So you gotta have a strategy and get more comfortable with the reality of it, because it's been a whole lot of just pretending it wasn't happening for a long time.
And so the ultimate ADAS allows the most hilariously easy and efficient way to do calibrations, if and when a person is ready to do it. But having to do it post-alignment isn't the issue. It's just as an industry.
[Bryan Pollock] (54:20 - 54:43)
Have you ever seen my spreadsheet I have? This is your ADAS spreadsheet? This is my ADAS spreadsheet.
What do you want to know? What manufacturer? Let's see.
I have a whole ADAS. Just scroll through that for fun. Yeah.
Check out that thing I got. Nothing about that looked fun. Did you make this yourself, by the way?
This was a combined effort between probably 10 people. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a collaboration, really.
[Justin Allen] (54:43 - 54:53)
It's a wildly moving target too sometimes, right? And that's, you know, the idea of them being dynamic sometimes sounds beautiful and lovely. Like, let's just make everything dynamic.
You're right, Buffalo.
[Bryan Pollock] (54:53 - 55:46)
Yeah. Or are you familiar? It's called FU Glass.
FU Glass. Do you know there's a glass company? Okay.
And it's like, I call it Lord Farquhar. It's like Farquay or something like that. If you have, if a glass company has installed Farquay or Farquhar or whatever it's called, glass in a Honda.
Good luck. You will not complete the calibration. Is it the right thickness or something?
Well, I should say, yeah, because we don't actually know what the problem is. We 100% don't know scientifically what the problem is. We speculate that it might have to do with the type of camera being used and the fact that the FU Glass is not polarized.
We suspect possibly. We don't have any proof. We just like have kind of come together and like been talking about it and everything else.
It's possible that that could be.
[Justin Allen] (55:49 - 55:53)
I also have to correct my statement from before, by the way. What have you got here?
[Bryan Pollock] (55:53 - 55:58)
General Motors is 17.5% of the car park. Right. Ford Lincoln Mercury is 16.
[Justin Allen] (55:58 - 55:59)
Look at that.
[Bryan Pollock] (55:59 - 56:04)
Toyota's 15.5%. Jeep Ram Dodge is 14.5%. Yeah, man, you were freaking on, man.
[Justin Allen] (56:05 - 56:14)
I did pretty good on that. Yeah. But I did forget because I was just thinking about like average people, average shops.
The people that are big on it is the Germans. Germans post-alignment, calibrate everything.
[Mike Allen] (56:16 - 56:16)
Yeah.
[Justin Allen] (56:16 - 56:30)
So there is that. And that's not your average run of the mill shop. Because boy, if you're going to get on board on that, you got to be prepared, right?
Because there are so many different things. Like there's some Audis that you're supposed to recalibrate like nine different systems at the end of the alignment.
[Bryan Pollock] (56:30 - 56:32)
It's pretty crazy.
[Justin Allen] (56:32 - 56:34)
Is that a $700, $800 alignment every time?
[Bryan Pollock] (56:34 - 56:35)
No, you can't get it done that cheap.
[Justin Allen] (56:36 - 56:42)
No, no, that's too grand. Yeah. I mean, if it's really going to be done right and everybody's going to be compensated perfectly, those are really big deal alignments.
[Bryan Pollock] (56:42 - 56:47)
And their dealerships, when they sell a set of tires and do an alignment, are they doing those eight calibrations?
[Justin Allen] (56:47 - 56:54)
You'd like to think so. All their service information says they're supposed to. So I don't know what they're doing, but I'd like to think that's part of it.
[Bryan Pollock] (56:54 - 57:13)
It's hard for an aftermarket shop to say, Miss Jones, you need to do this. Yeah. Here's what the service information says.
You need to do this. I understand that you don't have any problems and that you're just coming in for regular service and you're replacing the tires and doing an alignment. And then they call the dealership and the dealership says, they're ripping you off.
You don't need to do that.
[Justin Allen] (57:13 - 57:28)
Yeah. It's terrifying, right? And again, that's people not knowing what they're supposed to do.
It's wrong information. Like, whatever you want to do, argue with your upper engineers at Hody or whatever, right? Like to say that it's not.
[Bryan Pollock] (57:28 - 57:37)
When I hear this conversation, I'm hearing, you're familiar with AMRA map, right? With what? AMRA map.
[Justin Allen] (57:37 - 57:38)
Oh, yeah, yeah.
[Bryan Pollock] (57:38 - 57:57)
Okay. So if you subscribe to that and you agree to follow map, the deal is if a part of a service is required by the standard and the customer declines it, you are supposed to decline the entire job.
[Mike Allen] (57:58 - 57:58)
Yeah.
[Bryan Pollock] (57:59 - 59:09)
Did you know that? No. Okay.
I didn't know that either. So if the brake rotors are below minimum specification and they say, I just want to do pads and calipers, you decline the job. I didn't know that.
Unfortunately, in practice, I'd rather get the calipers and replacement and the pads and get that portion of the money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the thought process behind it is...
40% or 50% GPI. If you're willing to walk away from the whole job, now they know that that's your standard and that's what you're sticking to. But the minute you back off and do the reduced cost, then you've actually given them ammo that, oh, you were just trying to take me because you agreed to do it without doing the stuff you said was required.
Right. And that's the difference between a truly regulated process, which we are not, and get the sale. Yet again, third person today is saying it.
We need government intervention. Oh, here we go again. That's not what he said.
[Justin Allen] (59:09 - 59:12)
There's his rage bait. Being an advocate for big government right here.
[Bryan Pollock] (59:12 - 1:00:04)
Big government. Well, you've heard my stance on that, and I'm not going to repeat it again. Government does not make things better.
No, I'm the government. I just don't know the answer. And I want to know the answer to how do we create consistency and accountability.
We talked about the answer. We promote events like this where people come to get trained and they change one, even if they just come here and they change one thing when they go back. That's one thing that's changed for the better.
That wasn't changed for the better before. And it's a game of you eat an elephant one bite at a time. You've got to get a higher percentage.
Can I get more people coming? The people coming to this. I would say that the people that are here, maybe 20% are first time attendees.
Maybe. That's not terrible.
[Justin Allen] (1:00:05 - 1:00:08)
That'd be a great number if that was true. I'd be excited about that.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:00:08 - 1:01:18)
So if you can retain the people that you got and get 20% new every year and have that kind of growth, I said we represent such a small fraction of the automotive repair sector. And the aftermarket services most of the cars in operation. The large majority of the cars in operation we take care of.
100%. And the large majority of the people taking care of those cars say, my shop doesn't care about training. My shop doesn't care about certification.
No, I don't do any studying or self-improvement outside of work hours. No, I've never heard of Scanner Danner. No, I've never heard of today's class.
Last night, there were like four different things happening around Raleigh last night because they knew there were people coming in from all over the country for this event. And I was at two of them. And at both of them, there was someone there for that vendor's event that had never heard of ASTA Expo and didn't know it was happening three miles away for the next three days.
[Justin Allen] (1:01:18 - 1:01:23)
Oh yeah, yeah. It's amazing. It's amazing.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:01:23 - 1:01:37)
One of them is here now because I gave him a ticket because one of our ticket winners had to back out at the last minute, had an emergency pop-up. We gave away like what, 10 tickets? Eight.
Eight tickets, eight tickets. No, no, it was 10. I brought eight guys from the shop and we gave away 10 tickets.
So I remember I bought 18 tickets.
[Jim Cokonis] (1:01:38 - 1:01:38)
Yeah.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:01:39 - 1:02:01)
Thank you. We gave away 10 tickets. And yeah, you gave that guy that ticket last night.
Yeah, yeah. And he has been in service and then management and now opening his own shop in this market for 20 years. And he had never heard of this event.
[Justin Allen] (1:02:03 - 1:02:04)
It's wild.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:02:04 - 1:02:40)
His previous employer is a previous president of this organization, never heard of this event. So it's just like, man, how do we get the word out? How do we get people in here?
Because if government intervention isn't the answer, then collective training and is it peer pressure? Do we need to peer pressure everyone in the donor the right way? All the cool kids are doing calibrations.
All the cool kids are doing iterative learning. All the cool kids are scoping the purge valves.
[Justin Allen] (1:02:44 - 1:03:07)
You went there. I did, I went there. In our circle, I like it because it feels that way.
You know what I mean? Heck yeah, we're all here. We're all learning.
We're growing together. Yeah, when we talk about the number of humans here at this event and how I posted a video about two, three months ago about how to get a straight steering wheel with like half a million views on how to get a straight steering wheel.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:03:07 - 1:03:09)
Take the airbag out and you pull that bolt out and turn it.
[Justin Allen] (1:03:09 - 1:03:14)
Yeah, that's all you got to do. But that idea of like there's hunger for the information.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:03:15 - 1:03:17)
I've never seen a steering shaft I can't out muscle. I'm going to be great.
[Justin Allen] (1:03:17 - 1:03:39)
There's hunger for data, hunger for ways to grow and improve. And I don't know. I mean, the in-person stuff, you'll never beat the in-person stuff in a lot of ways, but getting the word out any way we possibly can.
I love what you're doing. I love the fact that you get to give people actual feedback and interact with people and try to help them understand how to get it better. That is awesome.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:03:40 - 1:04:40)
Well, and not to knock any kind of training, but I can show you students that have been put on a focus. And I need to show you this too, because you're in a position to be able to utilize it. But I was talking with one shop manager and he has students that are on a break focus right now on our platform.
And I said, look, level one. The first time they go through the questions, they get a knowledge base. As they continue to go through the questions and answer them the second time, it updates their score.
And you hope you see a positive number in growth. And I said, here's one of your people. 27% on level one of this topic, 32% on level two of this topic.
That's real growth in knowledge from going through questions for five or six minutes a day.
[Mike Allen] (1:04:40 - 1:04:40)
Mm-hmm.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:04:41 - 1:05:06)
Right? That's literally all it takes. He's not exaggerating.
You know, here are the questions where they struggled. And here's how they answered them. What does that answer tell you about what their knowledge is and where they've got an opportunity?
All these places that do the video training and things like that, how do you know whether the person, right, learning management systems are terrible.
[Mike Allen] (1:05:07 - 1:05:07)
Yeah.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:05:07 - 1:05:25)
They're terrible. Did you watch a video? You turned it on and you walked away.
Yeah. And you got credit for watching a video. It can't be far from some of these, where you have to turn your webcam and it tracks your eye.
[Mike Allen] (1:05:25 - 1:05:27)
Like the cars. The cars are already tracking your eyes.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:05:28 - 1:05:32)
And as soon as you click out of that box to do something else, video stops.
[Mike Allen] (1:05:33 - 1:05:33)
Right. Right?
[Bryan Pollock] (1:05:35 - 1:05:58)
Microsoft does it to me when I'm playing solitaire. Right? You're supposed to watch this ad.
Go try and do something else. The ad stops, waits for you to come back, watch it. So I don't know.
I think when I'm playing card games, I will turn things over because I can do them mindlessly.
[Justin Allen] (1:05:58 - 1:05:59)
Yeah.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:05:59 - 1:06:01)
Because it calms my brain.
[Justin Allen] (1:06:02 - 1:06:02)
Right.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:06:03 - 1:06:44)
And boy, you want to talk. I'm a firm believer that for people who do diagnostic work, games where you have to find matches and pattern and understand what you have and what you don't have. Minesweeper.
Things like that can develop. It's a great game. That was my jam back in the day.
You can develop that in your brain and you can pick up speed. You ever customize your Minesweeper? Just do 99 mines.
Do you remember you could customize it? Yeah. However many mines.
Now there's a new one with cats. So if you're a cat person. Meow Doku.
I have Meow Doku. It's Sudoku, but it's cats. If there's one here, there can't be any around it.
[Mike Allen] (1:06:44 - 1:06:47)
Or in that row or in that column. And there's one cat per color.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:06:47 - 1:07:46)
Oh yeah, he has it. Now we know what he does in the office. What kind of time do you guys have?
I don't have that time. I just do that when I'm driving. You know, there's a difference, Brian.
There's a difference. Some people do that and other people have 26 active chats going in Messenger while they're working. That's what happens when you have ADHD.
And you'd be surprised at how little I screw up messaging the wrong chat. Talk to text has really revolutionized my daily operation. Yeah.
Earbuds and talk to text. If he leaves a voice message to you on Messenger, you hear him talking and you hear ding, ding, ding in the background as he's getting new notifications for other people he has to answer. I don't know how you do it, man.
It's actually because I had this conversation with a friend of mine and we both have the same condition. And it's actually like staying, like being in all that all the time is how you stay moving and not space out.
[Mike Allen] (1:07:47 - 1:07:47)
Yeah.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:07:47 - 1:08:14)
That's how you do it. Yeah, the demand. That's how my friend, my friend John is the same way.
We're identical. We are identical in that aspect. We have to be doing, we have to have seven things going at the same time so we can get anything done.
And the seven things we're doing doesn't have anything to do with the tasks we're accomplishing right now. But we're doing these seven things and doing this all at the same time. Just like when I shop for gooseneck trailers while I'm driving and get pulled over for being on my cell phone.
[Justin Allen] (1:08:15 - 1:08:16)
What does relaxation look like for you?
[Bryan Pollock] (1:08:17 - 1:08:19)
Like if you want to unwind and unplug.
[Justin Allen] (1:08:19 - 1:08:20)
Walking Luna.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:08:20 - 1:08:57)
Walking the dog. Flying his airplanes. That's yeah, that's a good one.
Because when you're focused on flying an RC airplane. You cannot have seven chats going at the same time. Yeah.
If he's at the flying field, I'm not going to get a response until he takes a break. And that's the, that's the truth. Yeah.
Text him during work hours. No problem. You'll get an answer.
Yeah. And you'll hear the car run in the background. You'll hear the door dinger from this one and me getting out of this one and getting into another one and everything else.
Yeah. We still get a bunch of cars done. But when he's flying, he's unplugged.
And that's, that's good.
[Mike Allen] (1:08:57 - 1:08:58)
That is good.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:08:58 - 1:09:16)
Yeah, that's good. And you have to be, because there's actually four directions you can move though. You're actually doing more than one thing at a time.
Yeah, exactly. The thing's moving four directions and I got 17 switches on that thing. They're doing 27 different things.
You're controlling in directions. And then you've got multiple selections for conditions. And you've got to be dialed in.
Yeah.
[Justin Allen] (1:09:16 - 1:09:19)
You have to be dialed in. And you're evaluating the wind speed. And you're thinking about what's that other guy doing.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:09:19 - 1:09:33)
When are you guys going to get one of those first person cameras where you wear the goggles while you fly? I think I'd get seasick. I think that.
No, I probably wouldn't because I can fly in a regular airplane. Well, I didn't, I didn't open the window when I was flying here.
[Justin Allen] (1:09:33 - 1:09:36)
Yeah, no, I'd probably be okay. It is an interesting idea.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:09:36 - 1:09:54)
I think if you were to open the window on the way here, it probably would've made the news. It did before. No, no, the shade.
I'm sorry. Whatever. Mr. Technical Difficult over here. Oh man. So you guys going up to the free party? Yes.
That's the last thing we got to put on here.
[Justin Allen] (1:09:54 - 1:09:55)
Is that an optional question?
[Bryan Pollock] (1:09:55 - 1:10:09)
We're here at ASCA. We're here at ASTA. We're down on the show floor as they're setting up.
Jim and I were supposed to teach two classes tomorrow, but I've seen Mrs. Burris's class and I'm probably, she can just take my part. I'm just going to watch her teach. She's got an awesome presentation.
[Justin Allen] (1:10:09 - 1:10:11)
Would you expect anything less?
[Bryan Pollock] (1:10:11 - 1:10:33)
No, but like, you know, you know that it's going to be good. So I'm proud of myself. Knowing that it's going to be good, but then seeing what it is are two different things.
This makes three people. I have now talked into doing a presentation at ASTA over the past three years. That's awesome.
I got Brian. This year I got Zeb and Christy roped in. We need more data.
[Justin Allen] (1:10:34 - 1:10:34)
We need more people.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:10:34 - 1:11:00)
I'm really excited. I have been that way with promoting other people to do teaching. I've had opportunities in my previous career where I was asked to go teach somewhere.
A Christian Brothers event or something like that. And I would have identified another one of the instructors in the stable that I knew could teach that class and could do it well. And they need an opportunity to get their name out.
[Justin Allen] (1:11:00 - 1:11:01)
Right, right.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:11:01 - 1:11:38)
And I won't drop names as to who it was. But one of them now has come from being a contract instructor to holding a position now. And he's good at it and I'm happy for him.
And I've just always been about that. It's not about me teaching. It's about growing the stable.
There are a ton of really good instructors out of there out here. And there are a ton that are still teaching captures from 84 Chevrolets and not explaining how they set misfire codes properly.
[Justin Allen] (1:11:39 - 1:11:48)
Well, because just like the technician side of it, we've got a lot of trainers that are aging out and we don't have a lot of trainers coming in. So we need to be actively looking for people who have the energy and the personality.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:11:48 - 1:12:43)
Great young trainers that are coming in. And then I feel like it should be prefaced with a preemptive apology that there's also Lucas Tanika and I are doing a class Saturday morning that is going to be a disaster. So by the time this is released, it will have been a disaster.
That's right. So if it really starts to spiral badly, Lucas and I will just go out into the lobby and hang out and we'll let Tanika do it. Probably a wise choice.
I got an idea. How about you start with it? I'm just kidding.
Yeah, I think it's a great idea. Assuming Tanika's class and we'll sit in the back and like throw spitballs. Zeb and I are going through this slideshow, which I guess we can talk about this because nobody else.
Well, everybody's got to know the pop-up classes. Does everybody know that yet? How's that work?
They won't hear this before it happens.
[Mike Allen] (1:12:43 - 1:12:47)
That's right. Oh, yeah. Yeah, this is not being released tonight, Brian.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:12:47 - 1:12:48)
Yeah, it's not live.
[Mike Allen] (1:12:49 - 1:12:50)
We're doing something different.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:12:51 - 1:15:36)
Brian, we're doing something different this year at ASTA. There were a couple of classes. Tell me what I'm doing.
That are going to be pop-up. Like, hey, by the way, so-and-so is doing a presentation on this if you want to go catch it in this room, right? And so nobody could sign up for your class.
Ah. Okay. And so there's going to be a couple of events like that.
That's something new this year. And I'm going to admit I've been trying to talk Brian into writing some content for diesels. Okay, because he's a diesel fitter from the ladies lingerie.
Diesel fitter. Diesel fitter. But he's good with diesels and so is Zeb.
And so like you roped us in years ago, saying we should teach a class called shit you don't know. I wrote Brian. Which they've changed this stuff.
I don't like that. Anyways, sorry. It gets changed.
It's okay. But they're teaching that class. And then I went to an event at Frog Pond Performance and talked with Christy Burris about something she's doing with her team with individual development plans.
And the difference with what she does is that it doesn't have to be strictly for the shop's benefit. I need you to get better at alignments. I need you to get better at selling brake services and flushes and whatever.
It's not that. What does that individual person want? To develop themselves personally.
They will sit down and make a plan. Have a meeting. Determine what good looks like.
When's it going to be completed? And what do you need from us to help support you getting there? Could be financial literacy, meal plan.
It could be anything for that person's needs on the hierarchy of needs. Because if you develop the person, you create engagement, right? Where you create the connection, which drives engagement, which drives performance.
And apparently her team loves it. And they pick something, three to four things a year that they work on. And they sit down together.
They determine what it is. And they have checkpoints along the way. And when it's done, they sit down and pick the next one.
And it's really helped the culture. I hate that word. But it's really helped.
They already have a spectacular culture in their business.
[Jim Cokonis] (1:15:36 - 1:15:36)
Well, they do.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:15:37 - 1:16:30)
Because they do things like what you're describing. Well, and that's it. She's got a background as a teacher.
So I suggested to her that she should teach that. And I invited her to join Brian and I in the Control-Alt-Delete-Reboot-Your-Problem-Solving-Process class tomorrow afternoon. She put a presentation together.
I feel bad about my presentation now because hers is colorful and has all kinds of nuance and stuff in it. I saw her presentation for the first time today. That's how much I trusted her.
I was a little bit blown away. That's awesome. She's like, I'll go as fast as I can.
No, you won't. Yeah, we both told her. I go, you will not go fast.
I said, I will be sitting in the back of the room going, slow it down. Slow down. Have fun with it.
Because she's got a ton of good stuff. It's next level.
[Justin Allen] (1:16:30 - 1:16:30)
When is it?
[Bryan Pollock] (1:16:31 - 1:16:48)
It's tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow afternoon. Man, I got a bunch of recordings.
I got four recordings tomorrow afternoon. Nice. I am going to learn about individual improvement plans tomorrow afternoon.
[Justin Allen] (1:16:49 - 1:17:29)
Well, since nobody's going to hear any of this until it's all post, I would like to say that what a beautiful crowd of people we have here this year at ASTA. Lunch was beautiful. Today's the first day.
And the lunch space was filled wall to wall. People that seem to be having a good time from all over the country. Some people from around the world.
I've heard some of this, right? With some international travelers. We got Canada, Mexico, England, and Australia.
The food was delicious and a plenty. And man, such a beautiful event coming together already. We're just at the end of day one.
It really fires up tomorrow.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:17:29 - 1:17:40)
And the pre-party is tonight. Pre-party is happening right now. It started 20 minutes ago.
I have not had anything but trail mix all day. So I'm kind of hungry. All right.
[Justin Allen] (1:17:41 - 1:17:46)
So those of you who weren't with us this year, go ahead and make it on your planner. Because you missed it. Sorry, right?
You missed it.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:17:46 - 1:17:47)
Not sorry.
[Justin Allen] (1:17:47 - 1:17:49)
Plan ahead for next September. It's going to be amazing.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:17:50 - 1:18:01)
Stay tuned. And if you come up with an excuse, we're just going to say whatever made your loser. I can't believe you just did that.
That was so good. I seen Anna do that.
[Justin Allen] (1:18:01 - 1:18:05)
Perfect. I wonder what that was about. Perfect.
Lots of practice.
[Bryan Pollock] (1:18:05 - 1:18:47)
On that bombshell. What a way to close the deal. What a way to close the deal.
Thanks for listening to Confessions of a Shop Owner, where we lay it all out. The good, the bad, and sometimes the super messed up. I'm your host, Mike Allen, here to remind you that even the pros screw it up sometimes.
So why not laugh a little bit, learn a little bit, and maybe have another drink. You got a confession of your own or a topic you'd like me to cover, or do you just want to let me know what an idiot I am? Email mike at confessionsofashopowner.com or call and leave a message. The number is 704-CONFESS. That's 704-266-3377. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, or follow.
Join us on this crazy journey that is shop ownership. I'll see you on the next episode.