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This podcast is dedicated to changing the automotive industry for the better, one conversation at a time.
Whether you're a technician, vendor, business owner, or car enthusiast, we hope to inspire you to improve for your customers, your careers, your businesses, and your families.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:00]:
Three, two. There you go.
David Roman [00:00:06]:
You look just as stupid as I do. Clapping.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:09]:
Honey, I'm gonna tell you something. If anybody looks as stupid as you do, they should probably just go ahead and offer themselves. I'm just kidding. I don't mean that.
David Roman [00:00:24]:
What's that?
Lucas Underwood [00:00:25]:
I don't mean that. I mean, I kind of do.
David Roman [00:00:27]:
Like, after the night, this particular episode demonetized when YouTube scrubs it and goes, blip.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:35]:
Who would put this in there?
David Roman [00:00:37]:
I'm gonna leave. I leave it all in there.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:39]:
You know that's lazy, right?
David Roman [00:00:41]:
I'm just telling you, I don't like to cut anything out.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:43]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:00:45]:
Start recording the audio. I know it takes time to sync it. I have to sync it. You think that takes time? Gotta sync it. Make sure it's all good, and then let it go.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:59]:
Play close. Doop, doop, doop, doop, doop.
David Roman [00:01:04]:
Play 24 frames a second so you're moving it.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:10]:
Mouse wheel control. Zoom in.
David Roman [00:01:14]:
Yeah, I know, but, you know, like, a lot of people don't enunciate with their mouths, so sometimes I talk like a hick.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:23]:
You're gonna be mad about.
David Roman [00:01:24]:
Yeah, it's you. And what the hell is he saying? And I gotta, like, zoom in and go.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:35]:
You get really good at going. Looks like you're a pro. You know what happens. So the deal here is, is that if you get him too tired, he acts like a lunatic. Okay? And so typically, when we go to dinner at night, it's just him and I. And, like, we go eat and we go our separate ways, and life's great, right? But if he gets too tired and you have to put him with other.
David Roman [00:02:04]:
People, I get grumpy. It's not. It's not.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:07]:
No, it's not grumpy. He go. He goes full sinned, right? And he shares these, like, radical opinions, and he just runs his mouth nonstop. And if anybody.
David Roman [00:02:17]:
Radical opinions? What she was telling me was radical. And I was just trying to correct the record. I'm like, those people are not going to. I'm sorry, you. You cannot tell me that it's. I'm not. Let's not get into that. I don't want to piss a bunch of people off.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:36]:
You know, Cecil pointed out that a lot of people hate us, and I started to say that it's really just David. I mean, some people hate me, but the number is much smaller for me than David. David. And I take great solace in that. Like, I feel much better knowing that more people hate David than me. I mean, I've got plenty of people that hate me, but the people that hate David. There's a lot of them, right? There's a lot of.
David Roman [00:02:57]:
Introduce our guest. Come on, we got to get this moving here.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:00]:
Don't introduce yourself because I can't say your last name. I'm from the country.
Dominic Marquez [00:03:04]:
Marquez.
David Roman [00:03:05]:
It's Marquez, right? Super easy.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:08]:
Marquis Omar Quayes.
David Roman [00:03:11]:
Who do we have yet? Gilbert. That was a hard last name you nailed. No, no, I said Gilbert. No, I didn't say.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:19]:
When you said his last name, I didn't say it.
David Roman [00:03:21]:
I'm like, no, I said, dude, I can't video you. I'm telling you. I didn't. Maybe I didn't. I don't know. Anyway, sorry. Dominic Marquez.
Dominic Marquez [00:03:30]:
Yes, thank you. Marquez. Dominic. I have a tenure within the automotive industry and have witnessed quite a bit on a lot of different areas throughout my tenure. Initially went, you know, the standard route, went to a junior college automotive science program, and at that point, fell for the hole. The only way you can get a real education is if you attend a technical training school.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:02]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:04:02]:
At that point, made the choice to go to Wild tech, which I was part of the group that was in the class of the class action lawsuit that just got settled about two or three years ago. So I can say that luckily, I did get my money back from that after paying majority of that off. But it was the scam that I feel a lot of it has been pushed towards, which is the guarantees. So you were told there you were going to go to your training, you were going to get that education, and you were going to be the tech that was coming out making $25 an hour. And I could tell you at 18 years old in 2006, 2007, that sounded great. The reality was, in those years, you couldn't step foot into a dealership. You couldn't step foot into the automotive industry.
David Roman [00:05:05]:
2006, 2007, they were closing.
Dominic Marquez [00:05:08]:
Exactly.
David Roman [00:05:08]:
They were just.
Dominic Marquez [00:05:08]:
So not only was there many shops available, but if you didn't know someone, you weren't getting it. And that pushed me out and out to where I was working on whatever I could in my garage at the time. And, you know, offer. Only offer that I got in the entire automotive industry was from a Midas, and at that time, it was $16 an hour. And you supply every single tool that you have. And I was.
David Roman [00:05:37]:
I don't know that they're any different now.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:39]:
No, they are.
David Roman [00:05:40]:
No, I think they are.
Dominic Marquez [00:05:41]:
It's a pretty vicious cycle through those places also. And I ended up from all the side work that, you know, I was doing where most people start ended up getting a job at engine rebuilding machine shop, and that ended up being a really good base and core for me to start with from the inside out of a vehicle, everything from model a's. And I was brought on for the more modern day vehicles import, to be specific. And that ended up going, you know, really well up until the point that the ownership was then given up by the father who was retiring to his son. Once his son took that over, it was, let's cut out who's making more out of the four people we have hired here, and we're going to end up liquidating and selling the business. So I got pushed out, not understanding why until I saw the business starting to close. But at that point, I was your typical, you know, 20 year old that just had a true passion for cars.
Lucas Underwood [00:06:47]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:06:47]:
And I said, well, I could do this, you know, let me. I build race cars on the side, so let's make it happen. And so that was followed for a couple years, and that was rough because it was jumped into with passion, and passion only.
David Roman [00:07:06]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:07]:
No money, no nothing.
Dominic Marquez [00:07:09]:
No clothes, nothing other than the tools that, you know, we had at the time.
David Roman [00:07:14]:
That's ever a race car shop, ever. Every single month, it's the exact same story.
Dominic Marquez [00:07:19]:
And, you know, I had a business partner at the time when I took that on because I felt that was the safest route. Right. Someone that was motivated into it. But the problem is, a passion for vehicles is not the same as a passion for being a business owner.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:37]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:07:37]:
So once that opened, he had his own life issues that he was dealing with. And basically the way most of that got wrapped up was it was on Christmas Eve. We went down south to visit my wife's family. And when we came back from that Christmas vacation, half of my shop was empty.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:02]:
Oh, man.
Dominic Marquez [00:08:03]:
Lifts were taken. Customer parts were taken. His stuff was all cleared out. And at that point, we had to make a choice to close doors. And had he said anything? No. And to this day, I have not.
David Roman [00:08:19]:
He took it and sold it so he could get his money out of the business or.
Dominic Marquez [00:08:23]:
I cannot tell you his money. There was very minimal money in the business to begin with. Right. It was more of a month by month basis to begin with. So something like that was kind of.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:33]:
Was there any. He was disgruntled, was there?
Dominic Marquez [00:08:36]:
Uh, no. I mean, he. He was going through a divorce at the time. And I can't tell you any of the mindset behind the actions, because there was no coming forward or anything along those lines with it, um. It was done in the most shady way on a Christmas Eve. I don't know how they had the time to do that, but, yeah, when I came back, the only reason I knew was I saw this stuff was missing. Some of my neighbors from the nearby shops were like, oh, yeah, you know, we saw your partner over here with his cousins and they were grabbing a bunch of stuff, but we didn't think to call you about it.
David Roman [00:09:11]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:09:11]:
And so that, that was the route.
David Roman [00:09:14]:
Technically, half his stuff. So it's like, yeah, probably not the best way to handle it.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:20]:
No.
Dominic Marquez [00:09:21]:
No, definitely not. There would have been an easier way out of it, but wife was dealing with complications at the time with some leg issues and stuff that weren't being covered by insurance. So we had to make that change at the time, but we survived. So the learning lessons out of that and being able to get out of that hole is probably the most motivational factor in why I'm actually here right now. So from that point, ended up getting into CNC, machining, five axis programming, all of that stuff, because that was something I wanted to integrate it into my performance shop.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:04]:
Right.
Dominic Marquez [00:10:05]:
But actually from there, ended up relocating to Clovis, California. Great area, one of the few community. So we should now be. The goal for a lot of, uh, people coming into the industry is, man, if I can get into a dealership that I've made it. Right. There's. There's some sort of mindset of security with being in a dealership where it's like, well, no matter what, there's going to be cars coming.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:36]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:10:37]:
Which in a sense is true, but the guarantee is with warranty work. Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:46]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:10:46]:
And, and we all know how rates have gone with warranty at this point.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:51]:
There's so much bureaucratic and political b's in most of those organizations.
Dominic Marquez [00:10:58]:
Yes.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:59]:
Right. And so we've talked about it before. You know, I've got a friend who works in a big dealer group, and one of the things he pointed out was, and, you know, you've heard me say it, but that what a lot of these guys were trading for these really high flag rates with security.
Dominic Marquez [00:11:16]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:17]:
And he's like, I'm not. I'm not loyal to anyone except myself.
Dominic Marquez [00:11:22]:
Yes.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:22]:
And my job is to make that business profitable. And I will give you that. As long as you're making me money.
Dominic Marquez [00:11:28]:
Correct.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:28]:
The moment you stop making me money. Goodbye.
Dominic Marquez [00:11:31]:
Yeah, right.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:31]:
That's just what it is. Like, it's a machine to them.
Dominic Marquez [00:11:34]:
Well, and. Yeah, and the problem is there's. There's no care of how that money is made. It's just if that money is made, right. There's no justification as to why those hours are where they're at or why your production is where it's at or the quality of the work. Right. It's just a matter of, are you giving me the one thing that I'm looking at? And I was able to start to see things from that side. I mean, I'm sitting in this room because I consider myself a pretty motivated person.
Dominic Marquez [00:12:06]:
And so I went from technician, worked my way up into a shop foreman position. They had actually, they had a workshop coordinator at the time cut him out. I said I wanted the role because I knew that I could benefit with that. So took over the workshop coordinator and shop form position, which meant I was then in charge of the dispatching of work, which we broke the shop down into teams at that point, skilled trades and stuff, and then began service management training. And it was a completely different outlook on what the expectations were. And I think best thing for me, because I was able to see what are the requirements of running a business, not of operating a shop, but of actually running a business. And there's positives and negatives to that. Negatives is seeing what the true requirements are of at a dealership and the true expectations and value of the people that you have there.
Dominic Marquez [00:13:12]:
And with Jaguar Land Rover, when I was brought onto the shop foreman position, you know how easy it is to ruin a shop, having one or two cancerous people within a shop?
Lucas Underwood [00:13:32]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:13:33]:
The one thing I don't do is personalities, because it takes everyone out of their. Their role to do their job. And with dealerships, they don't care if. If that person is not of good quality to the shop and of. And of the team that you want inside the shop, if they have hours, they could care less.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:55]:
Yeah, yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:13:56]:
Well, deal with it, you know, is basically the mindset.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:59]:
I talked to a dealer service manager a while back, and it was a situation where we had a car that their service advisor had told this lady we, like, super duper took advantage of her. And so I called and I, like, laid all this data out to this service manager, and he's like, holy crap. And I'm like, what? He's like, this documentation is insane. He's like, you didn't damage their car. I can't believe my advisor would say that. Like, it's clearly documented here what happened.
Dominic Marquez [00:14:30]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:30]:
And everything that went down. And so we kind of formed a friendship through this. Right. And he goes, on to tell me. He said, what can I do to find help? He's like, I think we run a fairly good dealership. And he said, we have good culture. He said, it's not like a lot of dealerships. And he.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:47]:
He's going through this story and he's telling me, he said, you know, he said, I really think I know what it is. And I said, what do you think it is? He said, I have got this one person and he names this guy, and I'm like, everybody knows this guy, right? He's nowhere near us. And I've heard the name. Right.
Dominic Marquez [00:15:03]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:04]:
Because the dude will scream and yell at people and he's like, super duper toxic. Right. People that worked for this dealership eight years ago know who this guy is, right? Like, he is nasty. And so I'm like, dude, you got to get rid of him. He's like, they won't. He's like, the dealer principal will not let this guy go because he is making money.
Dominic Marquez [00:15:25]:
Yeah. You know, and on top of, you know, if they're making their hours, that's what's of most value to them. They're the. With the dealership model within the shop.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:35]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:15:35]:
The training is really pushed.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:37]:
Right.
Dominic Marquez [00:15:37]:
Which kind of brought me into one of your guys prior videos that you were doing about dealer training.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:43]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:15:43]:
And for them, it's. If they have the certifications, you know, if they've gone to the training, that's really our value because they're. They're getting their percentage break at the end of the quarter or at the end of the year.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:55]:
Right. Right.
Dominic Marquez [00:15:56]:
Off of having those certified technicians within the shop. And it opened up my eyes even more when I was able to take over the hiring process for technicians at the shop. And I would get people in and I, you know, I'm a. I'm a Ford senior master technician. Been in the industry for, you know, 20 plus years, which autumn. Obviously, the red flags are up right away. Well, because if that were the case and you were that valuable, why would you not have been retained? Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:24]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:16:24]:
So, I mean, you're taking that with. With a grain of salt. But I could bring them into the shop. They could tell me everything with a sit down and an interview. And ultimately you hand them a vehicle with the check engine light and it's like whiteface.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:41]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:16:41]:
No, no. Where to begin or with Ford, you have what they call their pinpoint testing. And with Jaguar Land Rover, it's like, these are your possible failure points.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:54]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:16:55]:
Figure it out.
David Roman [00:16:56]:
Right.
Dominic Marquez [00:16:56]:
So because they have such financial constraints, they don't have the money to pay someone to sit down there and draw a pinpoint test and everything for all of their stuff. And that's literally owners that own those.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:10]:
Cars after, you know, second and third owners. There's no Japanese.
David Roman [00:17:12]:
What are we hearing from the guy from Mercedes? Wasn't that the guy from Mercedes who was telling us that, hey, the people writing the testing and the manuals don't know anything about the cars. Don't know anything about.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:24]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:17:24]:
Not just the cars, the engineer, they don't know anything. They're writers. And so they get this pile of information from the engineers and they go, all right. And they write something up. It may not be correct. Yeah, they don't know.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:38]:
It was Peter Orlando years ago. And Peter said, he said, we had this whole deal with Ford, and he said everybody kept having all these issues with the trouble codes and Ford. And he said, you know, we're having this engineering meeting and everybody's talking about this huge problem and how none of the trouble codes are the right trouble codes. And he said, so we started looking through the list and he said, I beamed up from the back of the room and he said, everybody thought I was just a genius because of this. He said I'd worked on enough cars that I realized every code number was off. One number. And he said, so they had mistranscribed the numbers. He said, so every description and every scandal was one number off.
Lucas Underwood [00:18:18]:
And he said, so if you went to one number back, you would find the right trouble code.
Dominic Marquez [00:18:21]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:18:22]:
Scanner. Danner Paul was doing a video on an alternator on a Chrysler.
Dominic Marquez [00:18:26]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:18:26]:
And he looked up the diagram and he goes, that diagram doesn't match this car. Oh, that's like he's in service information. And he's like, I can just tell because this alternator does not have this internal wiring that is showing on this thing. It can't be right.
Dominic Marquez [00:18:43]:
Yes.
David Roman [00:18:44]:
It was like. So I'm going to have to guess. I mean, he's just like, I'm going to have to figure out how this thing is actually put together.
Dominic Marquez [00:18:50]:
It's way too common. And even with me still having a toe in right now with Ford, I, you know, dealing, for one example, not a couple months back, there was a C max with a no start condition, and I had no comm on one of the high speed networks. And looking up the wiring diagram, you know, right away noticing, well, I don't have this connector. I don't have this connector. Start digging through it. And this is on Ford pts using their wiring diagrams, which should be your end all source, you know, not correct, not there. So at that point, you're contacting technical assistance. Hey, what's going on? I don't have the correct information for this van.
Dominic Marquez [00:19:34]:
I searched another year, make a model. It's still not coming up. I'm not showing what I need. Their response is, I'm not sure why you either sit there in the, you know, for days on end waiting for an answer of sort. I actually ended up going to pro demand and checking in there, and there was two different options. And I said, well, I haven't seen this wiring diagram. Pull that up. And pro demand has the correct wiring diagram, but Ford does not.
David Roman [00:20:03]:
Oh, are you saying that sometimes you got to look at more than just the OE wiring diagram and not just go automatically to the OE wiring diagram?
Dominic Marquez [00:20:11]:
Go.
David Roman [00:20:11]:
I don't look at these other wiring diagrams because they're not oe.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:15]:
Kind of like buying just oe parts.
Dominic Marquez [00:20:17]:
I can guarantee you do not. Especially with. You guys have a Jaguar Land Rover vehicle in there. Do not expect that that wiring diagram is going to be correct either, because they will. They will magically be missing one wire on a three wire connector or missing multiple sensors. And they run into this a lot.
David Roman [00:20:35]:
Going, that connector is showing backwards on the. Or, you know, those two wires are switched.
Dominic Marquez [00:20:42]:
Yep.
David Roman [00:20:42]:
What are you talking about?
Lucas Underwood [00:20:43]:
What?
David Roman [00:20:43]:
The wiring diagram.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:45]:
Wasn't it Nissan that started just randomly having networks go down and they started sending out field service engineers and they were pulling down, like, something in the center console and unplugging something. They're like, yeah, but it's been plugged up all along, and it was working. And they're like, yeah, about that. Sorry. And just put the center console back together. Bye.
David Roman [00:21:07]:
What?
Lucas Underwood [00:21:08]:
Yeah, there was something.
David Roman [00:21:10]:
I can't remember the whole pennies. Right? There was a TSB for pennies that would fall from the center console, that there was a little tray. They designed a tray on the dash. So what do. What do people do? They. They put change, and the coins would rattle down into. Into the dash on the inside and short out this module, which would then take out half the car.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:33]:
So this one was in, like, one of the overhead consoles, and the car would all of a sudden stop communicating. And techs would try for weeks on end to solve these cars, and they would call the field service engineers, and they would come out and they would, like, literally walk right to the car, pull the overhead down. They would reach up, they would unplug a connector. And I know some Nissan techs that went through this, like, he would just pop it back up and you'd be like, well, what was that? He's like. And they're like, what? What's it connected to? And he's like, well, what? And he's like, we would even take it back down. It's not in the Wiring diagrams. It doesn't. But it was pulling the network down, so they didn't even know to look for it.
David Roman [00:22:13]:
I don't necessarily blame the Field engineer. At my technical school, my instructor, he worked at GM, and he worked at GM when they introduced the Suzuki's into the GM line. It was a Metro or whatever. There's a Zookees and completely different layout service information, different wiring diagrams. It's a completely Different Manufacturer. GM is just selling them as GM's. And so he would go in and be like, I'm missing information. He would call the Hotline and be like, hey, what's going on? They'd go, you don't need to know that.
David Roman [00:22:48]:
What are you. What are you talking about? Like, we designed a good Car. You don't need to know that. No, no, I do need to know something here. You guys need to help me out. We'll send somebody out. Don't worry about it.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:58]:
Yeah, I've seen it.
David Roman [00:23:00]:
Divulge the information or admit that there was a problem with their.
Dominic Marquez [00:23:04]:
Yeah, no admitting takes too much work and too much liability to. You'll never see that part. So. And, you know, back to the training portion of things and taking that with. With a grain of salt during the hiring process. There's really only been one manufacturer. When I was with JLR, we had picked up a Volvo dealership locally and brought that on board. And Volvo was one of the few manufacturers who I've gone to their training and was like, they are actually doing things the right way.
Dominic Marquez [00:23:38]:
And Volvo's a fine car. They took.
Lucas Underwood [00:23:43]:
That might be a bit of a stretch.
Dominic Marquez [00:23:45]:
I'm not going as far as saying that. I said their training process was. Was a lot better than any other manufacturer.
Lucas Underwood [00:23:51]:
I met the western vice president of Volvo cars a while back, and I, you know, like, sometimes you meet an executive or somebody like that and they. It feels like lip service. It feels like they're saying, oh, yeah, we love our people. We did an episode one time with somebody and they said, it's. It's people before profit. And we got, like, all these messages for people saying, do you think she really believes that?
Dominic Marquez [00:24:15]:
No, it's. It's the truth. With that brand, I mean it. If you're anyone actually working for, like, Volvo North America, for instance, when a family member or a wife goes on paternity leave, they tell the husband you're taking the full time off with her.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:31]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:24:31]:
And so that's a sweet. They have representative. Yeah, exactly. And so their time off, how they take care of their actual representatives is awesome, but a lot of that is deal down. And, like, I know they're. They're technical trainers because actually, one of the trainers that they hired was one of the prior ones from Jaguar Land Rover when I was there and shout out to Chris if he ends up listening to this. But, yeah, you know, at, with JLR, a lot of the instances, it'd be like, hey, we know this material is not where it needs to be, but our hands are tied.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:05]:
Right?
Dominic Marquez [00:25:05]:
Like, we are given such a small and strict budget that we can't even modify the training resources if there's issues with it because we don't have the money to change it. Right. And with, with Volvo, which, like I said, one of, one of the instructors ended up going to Volvo, they're like, hey, here's. Here's a car for our trainer here. Thanks for coming on board. You know, and they, they take care of them and that transfers down to the techs that are going because they actually want to be there teaching.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:38]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:25:38]:
And, and the structure is broken down really well. And I won't say, I won't say a name, but a training that I went to and I was telling you was one of the stories of just unbelievable is I went to a hybrid and electric vehicle and it was an entry level class into that. So identifying components and all that. And once you've been to one, all hybrids, all EV's are all the same. You're just different acronyms for the components. Right? Yeah. Now, going to the class, first day we show up. Technical training instructor shows up about 25 minutes late.
Dominic Marquez [00:26:24]:
You want to get me going on the wrong foot. If you say show up at eight and you show up after eight.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:31]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:26:31]:
Dude, I'm not believing anything that's coming out of your mouth. Okay. And so we start the class, we're told, these are your workstations. Go through the workstations and answer the questions that are in there. And he walks out the room and there's not a single lap, single helping anyone within there. So next thing I know, I'm finding myself walking around and helping people with questions that they have. Day two, we show up. He's only 15 minutes late that day.
Dominic Marquez [00:27:03]:
Great. That's an improvement. And we start the class, and very first thing that comes out of his mouth is just letting you guys know, I am probably going to have to leave a little bit early today, so we'll see where we finish off. And everyone's looking at each other. We don't know what early means, but maybe we'll be leaving at 03:00 instead of 04:00 or something like that. And we end up sitting in the class for another 15 minutes. And he says, okay, I've got to head out. We'll take care of all the rest of the material tomorrow.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:38]:
What in the world?
Dominic Marquez [00:27:40]:
Again, we're talking about high voltage systems, hybrid and electric vehicle components. We're not talking about a brake class, which you can still say how valuable and how important the safety issues are with that. And we're talking what's supposed to be to our consumers, the highest tier of training straight from the manufacturer, the best quality stuff that you're supposed to be getting. And we sat in a hybrid and electric vehicle class for 15 minutes and were told to leave.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:12]:
What a waste of time, though. I mean, like, the things I could be doing.
Dominic Marquez [00:28:15]:
Yeah, well, luckily, I mean, I was in southern California at the time, and my wife and kids were about three and a half hours out. So I said, hey, we're going to universal studios today. Come on down. So I'm going to make the most out of the day. But I truly felt bad for the people in there because there's a lot of people in that class that know nothing about hybrids or electric vehicles. And what is the expectation when you go back to the dealership? The expectation is, well, you went to the class, you know, now, right? So here. Here's the car. Figure it out.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:45]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:28:46]:
And yet we're also still pushing these flat rate pay structures, and you're asking someone then at that point, almost forcing them to, hey, flat rate this electric vehicle, flat rate this hybrid. I know you're supposed to power down this system, but if you just take off these bus bars over here, you can go ahead and remove your BCCM and call. Call it a day, you know, even though the system's still live.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:14]:
Yeah, yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:29:15]:
And it's. It's ridiculous that when we were at, when I was with Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo, I told them straight up, I said, if it's a high voltage repair, they're on the clock hourly. Whatever their flat rate, hourly rate pay is, that's what they're getting paid for the job. And I was also told, because one of my Volvo technicians was. Was told, well, he contacted me and said, hey, I need a secondary hook person. I'm about to power down the high voltage battery, disconnecting the bus bars. So this is what you're taught at training, right, that there's supposed to be a secondary person with that hook in case you make the wrong move. You're not sitting there getting cooked.
Dominic Marquez [00:29:58]:
Service manager wanted to basically send him home because he was upset, making excuses that he needed someone else to work on the car and he was just trying to avoid working on the car. I had to explain to them what the process is and that it's outlined in the workshop manual.
Lucas Underwood [00:30:17]:
This is what we're supposed to do.
Dominic Marquez [00:30:19]:
Yes. And again, now then you go back to warranty times. Right. In that warranty time, you're not paying two people to do a job, but yet you're required to have a hooked person to sit there and save the person's life. These are all things that aren't being looked at and forcing people to have to take this backdoor when repairing vehicles. And that's why I pushed and I said, no, we're paying hourly no matter what. It can't be an option because of the issues that can arise from attempting.
Lucas Underwood [00:30:53]:
To flat rate, I can tell you that. And I've mentioned this on the show before, but there is a particular dealership, and they've been bought out. They're not the same place now, but they went and they hired a 65 year old, well seasoned technician to come work for them. All this technician was, to them was the certification. Right. And so he didn't work on cars. In fact, his entire job was taking the test for the other technicians because this is an older gentleman, he's partially disabled. They're paying him really good money because they can't find any other top tier techs.
Dominic Marquez [00:31:34]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:35]:
That are credentialed. And so one of the things that I've always thought was so weird about that is they would send us cars to pull disconnects on. And I'm like, okay, we're talking about a super basic thing. Yeah, right. Like, open trunk. Yeah, here you go. It's off now.
Dominic Marquez [00:31:54]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:55]:
And they're sending us cars, and the text in the shop don't even have a clue how to do that.
Dominic Marquez [00:32:00]:
There's a.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:01]:
Just a little bit of a problem with that.
Dominic Marquez [00:32:03]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:03]:
Right.
Dominic Marquez [00:32:04]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:04]:
Like, and. And, you know, sometimes, especially when we're talking hybrid and ev, it worries me a little bit because there's a lot of people saying, well, you don't have to have all that knowledge. I mean, these cars still need basic service, man. If that car is in your shop, if nothing else, you should know how to disable the high voltage system.
Dominic Marquez [00:32:25]:
Yes.
David Roman [00:32:26]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:26]:
Like maybe not like in the battery itself, to be able to disassemble and pull the bars off of it. I get that.
Dominic Marquez [00:32:33]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:33]:
But you should at least be able to disconnect it to the point that if you pull an orange cable off or a squirrel chewed it in two, nobody's gonna die.
Dominic Marquez [00:32:41]:
Yeah, right, exactly. No, it's just common sense. Yeah. And I mean, with Ford you're doing very limited open lid repair. Except for now, like you have the lightning and the mach e or because there isn't a mass production for it, you're having the technician open up and replace a single battery cell. Yeah, or battery.
David Roman [00:33:06]:
Can I have them serviceable like that?
Dominic Marquez [00:33:07]:
Yes.
David Roman [00:33:08]:
Really?
Dominic Marquez [00:33:09]:
Yes. And that was the same thing with Jaguar Land Rover.
David Roman [00:33:11]:
Do you think that's a good idea or would you prefer it? You ever seen a Tesla, the way they make their battery packs? Like they know servicing, that I do.
Dominic Marquez [00:33:20]:
Think that it is a good thing to be allowed for that single module replacement because it makes it more capable for a consumer to have a single repair than a full replacement. But that's if there's availability. So with like the Jaguar I pace, there is not availability of a full battery replacement unless you have to have a full battery replacement with, with Volvo for a long time, they said, no, we don't want you guys opening up the batteries if it needs repair. Internal. We're sending you a new battery. You're sending us the back one. Now you can say that's the safest, you know, way of going at a high voltage system. Cause then you're not worried about someone connecting a bus bar to, in, in the wrong pattern to the wrong module and yeah, possibly sending it up arc flash.
Dominic Marquez [00:34:14]:
Yeah, yeah.
David Roman [00:34:15]:
But aren't you just like, I mean you're just kind of, you're, you're thinking so little of the service department or the ability to, of the people doing the servicing to actually do it safely. They like, oh, we need to move it to a controlled setting like a factory. Well, are they the same thing?
Dominic Marquez [00:34:34]:
Are they thinking, are they thinking little of it? Or do they actually know the reality of the dealership? Because like I said, the reality of the dealership was the response that one of my texts I got was he doesn't need a hook person. Right? He doesn't need anyone monitoring the fact that he has.
David Roman [00:34:50]:
But is the one that takes his battery pack.
Dominic Marquez [00:34:54]:
Well, yeah. Well, instead of 30,000 would be a nice figure of putting at it. Is it more than that? Is it way more than that? And you're talking about so these vehicles being under a longer warranty. All that's being justified is the fact that this vehicle is just gonna be thrown in the trash.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:11]:
Yeah, it's a throwaway. It's the big glider.
Dominic Marquez [00:35:12]:
Of course, you can't do anything to repair that after the fact. There's not gonna be anything that's justifiable of repairing on the vehicle. At that point. When you have a $50,000 battery pack that needs to be replaced in order to just get this vehicle moving again down the road, why would you not buy something new?
David Roman [00:35:30]:
You know what's going to jack all that up? So China is circumventing the tariffs because they build $9,000 ev's in China. BYD build your dreams. They have $9,000 ev's. They want to come into the market and just blow up the EV market in the US with $9,000 ev's. Well, there's huge tariffs that are blocking them from being able to ship them in directly from China. So what they're doing is they're going to build a factory. They're doing this right now. They're building a factory in Mexico because the NAFTA agreement allows them to then just bring the vehicles in from there, Mexico into the US with no tariffs.
David Roman [00:36:10]:
So now they can just, hey, we're gonna build $9,000 ev's in Mexico, bring them into the US if it's $80,000 to replace that battery pack or buy a $9,000 ev, they're throwaway cars, but they're $9,000. Like, I'm gonna drive them for five or six years and then chuck it, or I'm gonna eat $9,000 of depreciation in the first three years for this Ford EV.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:36]:
Yeah, I had this. I won't call it disagreement. We had a very interesting and heated discussion in the group the other day with one of the Volvo engineers and he said, you know, I don't believe that we're trying to build planned obsolescence. I. I'm not going to say that. That they're planning obsolescence and automobiles, but prove me otherwise. Might they be making it difficult?
Dominic Marquez [00:37:04]:
Yes. Yes.
David Roman [00:37:05]:
You think Toyota's trying to do that?
Lucas Underwood [00:37:07]:
No, I don't. I think Toyota's trying to go the opposite direction. I think. I think Toyota's business strategy has long been serve the consumer well and do what's best for the consumer.
David Roman [00:37:17]:
In case you didn't realize what we are, I'm sorry. We love our toyotas.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:22]:
I do.
David Roman [00:37:23]:
I don't own a Toyota. I love my Toyota.
Dominic Marquez [00:37:25]:
I don't really know anyone that has disliked them. I mean, there's. There's. There's not really much that you can hate on. What have they. They choosing over their consumers very much.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:36]:
Yeah, they've got history.
David Roman [00:37:38]:
The very fact that their philosophy, it's part of the brand identity to make long lasting, reliable vehicles. That's the brand identity. And so that's the direction they go in. Not, I'm going to make them faster, fancier, nicer, smoother riding, technologically advanced, none of that long lasting, reliable vehicles. And so you get the. The head of Toyota coming out going, we're not going down the full ev. Nonsense. That's not going to be a thing ever because it's unsustainable.
David Roman [00:38:11]:
He's absolutely right. There are not enough precious metals available, sustainably available, without going down some really dark paths. Yeah, some really dark paths, which for.
Dominic Marquez [00:38:23]:
The most part, we, we choose to not look at it. Yeah, I know. Right, right.
David Roman [00:38:27]:
No, no, these idiots. Well, yeah, no, I look at it.
Dominic Marquez [00:38:31]:
Yes, yes.
David Roman [00:38:32]:
I'm saying the way these companies getting.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:35]:
Around it is that he just, like, kind of somewhat called everyone but him an idiot. Did you see that? I mean, you noticed that, right?
Dominic Marquez [00:38:42]:
Yeah, these idiots. But, I mean, I looked at it.
David Roman [00:38:45]:
These idiot companies, they're like, they're sloughing off responsibility by buying it from these depots without looking at where these depots are getting the materials. Cause they're like, hey, this depot says everything's cool, and we're buying it from the depot, and the depot is cool. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. No, it's not. And at least Toyota, to their credit, I don't know about this new tundra with the coolant. Did you see the layout of this thing? Turbos and the EV setup?
Dominic Marquez [00:39:12]:
No.
David Roman [00:39:12]:
It's like, it's a 18 hours job to replace this little coolant pipe on the backside of. Anyway, it's all thing. I don't know about these new ones, but historically, them coming out and saying, hey, there's just not enough materials to go full ev. It's just not going to be a thing.
Dominic Marquez [00:39:31]:
Yeah, well, you talk at the same time, we talk about, you know, obsolescence by manufacturing electric vehicles. I have a hard time not seeing it now in modern day vehicles as well.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:43]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:39:44]:
You have 36 plus modules on a vehicle. Your $2,000 to replace any one of those single modules on the vehicle, or you have a full integrated headlight and one of those leds goes bad. Right. And you're. Yeah, you're $3,000 easily. Right? If you're talking about a JLR vehicle.
David Roman [00:40:04]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:40:05]:
Way up from that point. But even me, myself, I can't justify the purchase of a new vehicle nowadays. Right. I don't see the long term investment. I mean, there's definitely not a return on owning a new vehicle with all this. But then the expectations are still the same.
David Roman [00:40:24]:
Expectations are the same. That's exactly the problem. That is 100% the problem.
Dominic Marquez [00:40:29]:
We've put now an entire living quarters on four wheels, and the expectation is still, we can have that person with minimal knowledge, minimal pay, and minimal skills, but still have the same expectation of what they are to be producing.
David Roman [00:40:48]:
That's because the consumer believes that. The consumer still thinks. I can go down to my local oil change shop that take five shop will be able to do this oil change on this JLR vehicle with no concept of what goes into it. No idea that, hey, you are. You are putting the wrong oil in there. You're putting the wrong oil filter in there. There was a flipping Chrysler had a code for wrong oil viscosity used or whatever, like that would blow the mind of any consumer. And that's been around for ten plus years.
David Roman [00:41:25]:
Like, you have no idea how sophisticated these cars are. You still think you drive a 96 Toyota Camry? It's not a 96 Toyota Camry.
Lucas Underwood [00:41:32]:
Correct.
David Roman [00:41:33]:
That is insane. So they still think that, hey, I just need a headlight. Okay? It's $6,000. Whoa. What do you mean it's a six? It's a. It's a module with leds and freaking lasers can turn and it can see the reflection and adjust on the fly. Like what? You drive this car, you see the lights, what it's doing. What the hell did you think? You thought it was a $30 light bulb?
Dominic Marquez [00:42:00]:
Yes. And you know, I don't blame the consumers for that.
David Roman [00:42:05]:
No, they are being willfully ignorant. Yeah, they're not looking at it.
Dominic Marquez [00:42:12]:
I can tell you the expectations does need to be delivered on the service side, because when has a consumer ever read their owner's manual? Never. Right. They don't know what they're buying. They just know what it has and when. So I would have to sit down for a lot of the consumer issue resolving at the dealership. If someone had, they wanted their vehicle buyback go through lemon law and all that stuff, which never happens with JLR vehicles ever.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:45]:
No, that's not a thing. That is not a thing.
Dominic Marquez [00:42:48]:
Not that you have to wait a month, which is the limit for lemon laws in California, just to get apart from the UK. But I would have to sit down and I'd have to speak with the customer. And, you know, the first statement every time is what they said, which is, you know, I've owned a Ford for 15 years and I never had a single problem, which I have a hard time believing, but. But. Right. That's their statement. And they just say, you know, I just bought this vehicle and it was at your shop for two weeks and you. You guys still couldn't fix it.
Dominic Marquez [00:43:29]:
Right. And I would have to sit down and explain to them of what it is that they purchased and what it is that requires for that vehicle to operate. Now, I would pull up vehicle wiring diagrams with. Yeah, I would over complicate a little bit, but it'd be full wiring schematics of the entire vehicle, entire. All connectors, everything. Right. And I would tell them everything behind all of that leather that you're looking at is right here. So what you're asking of the technician within the shop is to use their skillset and their best capabilities to find the one wire, the Navy station in this entire image that you're looking at.
Dominic Marquez [00:44:13]:
Where do you think we should start? Right. And obviously, we. Our approach is not like that within the shop, but for them to see, you know, complexity of the vehicle and that, you know, we're not dropping fuel in a carburetor anymore. There's a.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:29]:
There's a situation, though, that in some ways, because there's a disconnect, especially in the new car world, between the sales side and the repair side and the maintenance side. Right. And sales says whatever they have to say to sell the car.
David Roman [00:44:45]:
I don't blame sales. They're just not trying to sell a car.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:47]:
Right.
Dominic Marquez [00:44:48]:
No, I blame them because when you're graded on your reviews within a service department and the expectation that was given to a customer is that every single time you bring your vehicle in, no matter what, guaranteed you're gonna have a vehicle owner and a car for you of the same value. Not even close. You know how many on hand Range Rovers we would have to have to supply every single customer coming in with an intermittent fault condition that's covered under warranty, a loaner vehicle. Right. Well, it would be physically impossible if.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:25]:
You knew the number of times in the past year that I've had to have a conversation with a client that says we do the one year follow up call and I keep getting these messages that says, I bought a Tesla. They don't have to be maintained. They don't need anything. And so I call them back and I'm like, I just want to make sure we're on the same page here. You should probably talk to Tesla about the maintenance schedule on that car. It needs maintenance. Uh huh.
David Roman [00:45:51]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:52]:
Has the coolant been replaced? Coolant, it's an electric car doesn't have coolant.
Dominic Marquez [00:45:58]:
Yep.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:59]:
Yes it does.
Dominic Marquez [00:46:00]:
Yeah. The look on people's faces when their maintenance, their eye pieces is being towed in and you tell them that, well, your battery needs to be replaced and they're looking at you now, well, how could my high voltage battery go bad after only two or three years? It's like, well, you actually have a standard car battery, a twelve volt battery as well, that's running all of your accessories. Well, why would I have a twelve volt battery if I have a high a battery of even more volt? Like, it just, this is not stuff that's ever told to the consumer that like, hey, there is still some sort of standard maintenance on your vehicle. No, instead it's, hey, you won't have to take care of any of this maintenance anymore. You know, the usual issues that you're dealing with you're not going to have to deal with anymore, when in reality the usual issues that you're dealing with you are still dealing with on an electric vehicle. Now, the major repairs, some of those are obviously going to defer, but your standard, you know, coolant exchanges, fluid of any sort, exchanges break. Yeah. You're still dealing with, with all those, your battery and everything.
Dominic Marquez [00:47:10]:
So there's still money there, but the customers don't have that expectation. So the moment they have an issue because there wasn't an expectation of maintenance, then it's like, you know, well, this is horrible. This is horrible. I should never be dealing with this. Yeah. And it's not an anger issue of, well, why wasn't this explained to me when I purchased the car? It's always, it's just, well, this the service department's fault. I shouldn't be having to deal with this.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:37]:
Yeah. And we talked yesterday a little bit about calibrations and how the, the word on the street is, and I'm gonna make some dealer guys mad, but the word on the street is, is that 95% of dealers and boys, every dealer around me, right. That car doesn't need calibration. It doesn't. It just needs an alignment. Send it out. Are there lights on? No, it's fine.
David Roman [00:48:00]:
Yeah, no lights, right?
Dominic Marquez [00:48:01]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:48:01]:
Good to go.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:02]:
And so, like, now I'm the bad guy because I'm over here saying, hey, for me to align your porsche, I have to do a calibration.
Dominic Marquez [00:48:10]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:11]:
I would take it to the dealer and get them to do the calibration. Yet I'm still the asshole because I sent them to the dealer and the dealer tells them that I'm lying to them.
Dominic Marquez [00:48:21]:
Yep.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:22]:
Here's the service information. Read it for yourself. Well, the dealer is the authority. Yeah, well, the dealer is trying to get you killed, so have fun with that.
Dominic Marquez [00:48:29]:
Yeah, no, that's, you know, the common misconception. And the one thing that when I first started watching your guys podcast, I think is great because it needs to poke at a completely different aspect of the industry. As I was telling David, the mindset of people within a dealership is, if I'm not happy with the way this dealership is ran, I need to find a new dealership.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:01]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:49:02]:
When they're not realizing the root of the problem. The root of the problem is the way that dealerships are ran.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:07]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:49:07]:
And if you can't handle all deals you don't enjoy, that all doesn't make you happy. It's gonna be the same.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:13]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:49:13]:
You will have bad service managers. You will have better service managers. But the concept, the requirements, and the expectations will always be the same. And the outlook has always been, oh, you went to an independent shop. What happened? You must have used up all the dealerships. And I think that mindset needs to be changed to where? If you don't want that toxic environment, if you want an opportunity to truly be passionate about cars again and not passionate about just strictly flagging hours and being that number of the dealership, the independent field can fill that.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:56]:
Yeah, for sure.
Dominic Marquez [00:49:58]:
But the mindset has to be changed to where it's independent is bottom of the barrel. And I was always looking at that from a technician aspect, but at the same time, it needs to be looked at from the shop owner aspect, because I can tell you there was times I did look at independent shops, and when I saw dollar 28 an hour, I shook my head and I said that there's my reason not to go right there.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:23]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:50:23]:
You know, because ultimately, you. You still have to make a living. You still have to get paid.
David Roman [00:50:30]:
And in California, folks, $28 an hour may not be bad in your area.
Dominic Marquez [00:50:34]:
Yeah. This is not in reference for all shops and all locations. But when you. When you have dealerships that are paying out, you know, $40 an hour, but.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:42]:
It'S typically on flag, and so you don't get that 40 hours guarantee.
Dominic Marquez [00:50:46]:
Correct. Right. I refuse to go flat race. So where I'm at right now, I'm strictly hourly. But that was because they approached me and. And offered me the position. I said, I'm only doing it at a straight hour rate, but I do. I just.
Dominic Marquez [00:50:58]:
Drivability and nothing else. That is kind of a dime a dozen now. Which also tells me about the training and everything within the industry. Right. Because no one even wants to do drivability in the dealership world. Don't. I don't even want to be trained on drivability.
Lucas Underwood [00:51:14]:
Well, because, I mean, what happens to them? Right. What happens to that?
David Roman [00:51:17]:
They're not going to negotiate an hourly rate. They're going to be flagging. You got to do drivability. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:51:22]:
And then, and on top of that, the problem is, is that they continue to get more advanced, train more, they get paid a little bit more, but then they're only getting that .5 or that one while everybody else is banging brakes and making a fortune at a lower rate.
Dominic Marquez [00:51:39]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:51:39]:
And they feel taken advantage of. They were taken advantage of.
Dominic Marquez [00:51:43]:
Do you guys know who the most valuable person aside, if you take out the Lublin in a dealership, who the most. If that dealership is broken down to specific labor work types, the most valuable person to that dealership is going to be someone from the heavy line side.
Lucas Underwood [00:51:58]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:51:59]:
Now, I may be a little biased in that instance. Have nothing biased. I think being a mechanic is still a skilled trade, and there are people that are way better mechanics than me. But I think one of the things that has hurt the industry is the fact that everyone randomly turned into technicians about five years ago. There's no longer mechanics, there's only technicians. And I 100% disagree with that statement. I see mechanics and I see technicians, and technicians are people who use diagnostic equipment and specialty equipment to assess and repair vehicles, and there's mechanics who use mechanical hand tools to remove and replace components. And I have had some disagreements with that, but I have seen firsthand that there are differences with it.
Lucas Underwood [00:52:58]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:52:58]:
And you have different values to be based upon each other. And in dealerships, they don't know the difference. They refuse to look at the difference, because the only thing that is a value to them is that flagged hourly rate.
Lucas Underwood [00:53:11]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:53:12]:
Now, if you're doing engines, and you've been doing engines for 20 years, your flagged hours are going to be high because you're taking those same parts off, putting those same parts on every single day, in and out, in and out. And.
David Roman [00:53:24]:
But that, that becomes. And that's. If that's what you enjoy doing, fine, whatever.
Dominic Marquez [00:53:28]:
But that's factory work, correct?
David Roman [00:53:30]:
It's factory work, yes.
Dominic Marquez [00:53:32]:
There's a reason I never got into.
David Roman [00:53:34]:
Factory work is the most mindless, boring, and maybe you like it. There's a lot of factory workers, they make good money, but it's like, hey, I worked in a factory. I tried. I used to put h vac boxes together on brazilian chevrolets, and we would build them in Illinois, and then they would get chipped off on pallets to Brazil, and then they would put them in the cars in Brazil. Anyway, my job was to put the little foam in between the flaps on the h vac box. So all day long, it was like, unstick it, line it up.
Dominic Marquez [00:54:06]:
I can see where a lot of your over come from now.
David Roman [00:54:09]:
See?
Dominic Marquez [00:54:10]:
Yeah, that is never.
David Roman [00:54:12]:
And you couldn't, like, I remember, like, I was young, so, like, so, David.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:17]:
Is the flat foamer.
David Roman [00:54:19]:
The flat foamer. I screwed up so many of those. Anyway, I would, I was leaning up against the counter and the head person came by and they're like, it is a sign of disrespect in the japanese culture for a worker to be leaning while on the job. And I'm like, I'm like 19 years old, and I'm looking at, I'm like, what are you even saying? Get up and get back to work. Yeah, I couldn't do it. I didn't last very long. I also did rotors for Nissans. I drilled the holes.
David Roman [00:54:56]:
I did.
Dominic Marquez [00:54:57]:
Surprisingly no recalls.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:59]:
Yeah, I know, right? Nissan Maximus 255,000 Nissan brake rotors don't fit.
David Roman [00:55:04]:
They had a picture of the, of the Maxima model that we were making rotors for. It was cool. Anyway, my point is, it's, it's just, it's repetitive, mindless work. And if you're on the line at a dealership doing airbags on.
Lucas Underwood [00:55:20]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:55:20]:
So Honda, Hondas or engines on Hyundai's and Kia is like, all day long.
Dominic Marquez [00:55:25]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:55:25]:
The same components, the same unplug, replug it back in, fill it up with fluid out the door it goes. Next one. Yeah, you can get really, really fast.
Dominic Marquez [00:55:33]:
But my point with that is when you look at the requirements of performing that job, that's, that's how I look at, at value. So if you're, if you're doing heavy line you have a guarantee of for at least four years, you're doing the same thing, right? Because that's the standard break between, you know, model years to where you're going to at least have a guarantee of that drivetrain and those components being on that vehicle. So, yeah, you get one new engine or a timing repair and that first one's going to be slow, then it's going to be faster, then faster than. Faster than faster, and then you're just doing the same thing right now with drivability, you're relearning your entire job every four years.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:21]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [00:56:21]:
And if not so, and every vehicle that comes in, unless you work for Ford and like 40% of the diagnostics are purge valves.
David Roman [00:56:30]:
Is that a thing?
Dominic Marquez [00:56:32]:
It's way too common of a thing. But, you know, aside from that, you're getting a different problem, a different issue to assess, a different process to have to do your job. And the moment you stop with that.
David Roman [00:56:51]:
Education now just take it one step further and imagine you have to do all the car lines and then it's not, they're not engineered faults or engineering faults because that purge welfare was poorly designed and so you're going to end up replacing 40 of them. But instead it's a time and weather condition failure. The reason why that part failed is because it's been exposed. The evap valves on impalas, before they switched that new swoopy body style, they put them next to the filler neck above the rear wheel, and as the wheel moved, it would throw up salt and debris. And what would happen is that perch valve, there's a hose, would eventually get the weather and all the crap. It would split apart and would cause a leak. Sometimes it was a small leak, sometimes it was a gross leak, but that's what happened. Now, that would never have failed under warranty because there just wasn't enough time.
David Roman [00:57:54]:
And, you know, you get to learn all of the car manufacturers, it's like, oh, today I get to learn minis. This will be fun.
Dominic Marquez [00:58:03]:
Well, and, but that's, that's why to me, training is so important because guess what? On, on that JLR vehicle, on that Volvo vehicle, on that Ford, on the Audi Porsche, the wires are still a wire. Yeah, right. The components are still a component and in fact, a lot of them are the same, right? A lot of the sensors are the same. And when you take the time to actually learn to become a technician and not a mechanic, you realize that although those wiring diagrams may sometimes be different, you know, through manufacturer, you can still fix that vehicle because you understand how that system works, what the expectations are of, you know, an electrical circuit. And when you take the time to learn that, that is, to me, the value of a technician and the difference between a mechanic. And I think the issue is, because we've just called the entire industry, it's rude to call someone a grease monkey, which I'm not saying, don't call anyone a grease monkey. Yes, I think we've all moved past that stage, but it's not rude to call someone a mechanic. But yet I see people within the shop that get offended if you call them a mechanic.
Dominic Marquez [00:59:19]:
And it's like, well, let's take a step back and look at this.
Lucas Underwood [00:59:22]:
Are you.
Dominic Marquez [00:59:24]:
Because I am such a non believer in manufacturer training. The dealership that I was currently with, I do training for the technicians. I put together my own training program with them workbooks. We'll do a class session on theory and the subject matter that we're going to cover. Then we'll go on car the next day. That's the only way you learn in this industry is hands on. Which is why I think it's absurd that the expectation is these people go to training to learn about hybrid and electric vehicles in three days, and then you come back and you should know it. And yet they have tests at these trainings and everything, and it's like, well, what is the test for? To show that they know how to read a book and circle and answer.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:14]:
We've upset so many people because we've called that out. Right. And I upset a friend of mine, um, and, and we were talking about dealer tax, and I, I really was just trying to say that aftermarket training is far superior in a lot of ways.
Dominic Marquez [01:00:30]:
Yes.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:30]:
Not, not always. Right. But in a lot of ways, the type of training.
David Roman [01:00:35]:
Aftermarket training.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:36]:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's the key. And, you know, some of the conversations we had, we, we talked the other night about Chrysler's pinpoint test.
Dominic Marquez [01:00:44]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:44]:
It's like, why am I checking resistance on a wire? And if you're asking a technician to check resistance on a wire, it's pretty clear that you don't expect him to understand how electricity works.
Dominic Marquez [01:00:55]:
Nor do you. The person that's writing the big one, it's terrible.
David Roman [01:00:59]:
Just a writer, just a guy that he doesn't know anything about cars.
Dominic Marquez [01:01:02]:
When I sit down in my classes that I put on, we're now on six months of just voltage drop testing.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:12]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [01:01:13]:
Why? Because they're never trained. Even when you go to a standard, basic electrical class, for any of the manufacturers, never with one single manufacturer that I've been with did they train voltage drop testing.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:28]:
Yeah, it's correct.
Dominic Marquez [01:01:29]:
If they did mention it, it was so overly convoluted that the first thing that any of those people reference you. I'm just going to resistance testing because I know all I need to do is turn this knob to the ohms, and I can check right here, and I know if I have a high number, it's bad. And if it shows ol, then it's bad.
Lucas Underwood [01:01:46]:
Is there a chance, though, that manufacturers do that on purpose? Because if at some point you're training your competition, right. If you're a manufacturer and you have dealers, then at some point you're training this technician to be able to go out on his own and take the knowledge that he learned with you to be able to implement that. And the more knowledge you give them, the more likely self sufficiency. Yeah, he can go out and do this, and he can take business away from you. And maybe it's not thought that deep. You know, that technician that I upset when I. When he confronted me about it, he said, you know, I don't know if you know this, but, I mean, we're using oscilloscopes to look at flex ray on automobiles. And I said, I took a Mercedes class in 2009 with Ian Lebbe on how flexray works and the entire concept of fiber networks and Ethernet and automobiles.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:39]:
And, like, this was in 2009, and it's just now making it to them. Yeah, and it's like, guys, it's not us saying that. It's that a dealer tech is bad or they're not properly trained. It's more us saying, hey, are we sure they're giving you the information they should be giving you? Are we sure they're training you to build competence?
Dominic Marquez [01:03:00]:
Well, I think it's. I think it's a bit of both. The. I would say that they ask for the self sufficiency because they get upset if you're opening up too much technical assistance claims. So if you have people opening up technical assistance claims asking for help, they say, well, did you follow the pinpoint testing? So then I say, okay, well, if the expectation was that they are to follow the pinpoint testing and by following that route, not have to reference anyone for help, then the pinpoint testing should be right now, why would you tear apart? So the pinpoint testing? What it will say is, disconnect this connector here, disconnect the connector at the PCM, and do a resistance test on the wire. It's good. Okay, put it back together. Is the fault still there? And again, it's not telling you run the vehicle or do specific cycles or anything like that.
Dominic Marquez [01:04:01]:
It says ignition on clear. The DTC's. Is the fault still there? If not, give it back to the customer and let them know that it was probably fixed by disconnecting and reconnecting the connector.
Lucas Underwood [01:04:12]:
Yeah, yeah, that's a very talking about.
Dominic Marquez [01:04:15]:
Right. And I have not seen one single test where it says with the vehicle operating, you know, perform a voltage drop at this connector back probe.
Lucas Underwood [01:04:27]:
This.
Dominic Marquez [01:04:27]:
Back probe this. Is there a difference in voltage? Never. Never. And when I have my training class, the thing I tell a Texas why would you care about what the vehicle is seeing when it's off? That check engine light is on because of what it's seeing when it's on, when it's attempting to do its job.
Lucas Underwood [01:04:49]:
The Dodge pickups with Cummins in them. And I want to say it's a P 2509. It's basically a PCM ECM power supply fault code. Right? And they would throw a check engine light and consumers would take it to the dealership and they would say, well, the trouble tree, if you look here, you type in that code, it comes up and it says there's a power supply problem to the ECM PCM. We need to replace the ECM. Yeah, that's what that means. And they would replace it. And the trucks that had automatic transmissions, then the next thing that would happen is they would say, well, that didn't fix the problem.
Lucas Underwood [01:05:30]:
And it also says PCM. So maybe we should replace the, we should replace the PCM. And so they'd put a PCM in the truck and then I would get the truck. Right. And if you dig into that code, you find that it is just an ECM fault code. It's not a pcm, it's that the trouble tree is written with this like super generic language. And as you go into it, you kind of like start figuring out, huh. It just means that supply voltage on key on is not where you expect it to be.
Lucas Underwood [01:05:58]:
Well, they have 100 amp grid heaters in them, right? So what happens when you cut the keel? Well, it's going to draw the current in the battery. It's going to, current's going to go up, voltage is going to come down. And especially if your ECM has a voltage drop to it. Because diesel truck owners, for some reason, I guess because it's got two batteries, they don't maintain the cables or the batteries. And so I would say, I fixed 100 of those trucks that had had ecms and pcms put in them with batteries or battery cable ends. Right.
David Roman [01:06:25]:
That's a Jim Morton thing. He used to tell a story that he, he'd have 25 cars lined up to do diag, and he's like, I'd fix 60, 70% of them with new batteries.
Lucas Underwood [01:06:36]:
Yeah.
David Roman [01:06:36]:
I was like, what?
Dominic Marquez [01:06:37]:
And then that's still something that is pushed back so hard at dealerships. Car will come in with a dead battery. And I'm like, I'm not diagnosing anything on this. No start condition with a bad battery. May they have other issues? Yeah, possibly. But what. What am I chasing? Well, can't you just put the battery jumper on it? And it's like, no, okay. Your job is to not tell me how a vehicle is to operate.
Dominic Marquez [01:07:01]:
Right. Replace the battery and fix it. And these are arguments I've had with ownership.
Lucas Underwood [01:07:06]:
Right?
Dominic Marquez [01:07:06]:
And it again, that, that disconnect.
Lucas Underwood [01:07:10]:
I've been watching the service advisor subreddit quite a bit, and I need to.
David Roman [01:07:16]:
Stay off the Internet, dear.
Lucas Underwood [01:07:18]:
You know what you need? Never mind. I shouldn't say that. One of the things that stands out to me, and I think maybe it's not just dealerships, maybe it's a larger business mentality. But in that subreddit, it appears that the entire culture of these organizations and these service advisors are from all over the country, sharing their perspective. They're from Canada, they're from other countries, and it really seems like all they care about is, here's my bonus structure. How do I hit that number? Yeah, I don't care about, like. And there's open conversations. I don't care about what the client wants.
Lucas Underwood [01:07:56]:
I don't care about what the client needs. The only reason I care about the client is because I don't want my survey to be bad. They have a problem with the technicians, they have a problem with the ownership. And people on the Internet, especially when nobody knows who you are, they get super vocal, right? You don't say those things to people's faces because that's how you lose teeth. David is much politer in person because he still has his teeth. You see?
David Roman [01:08:20]:
There you go.
Lucas Underwood [01:08:21]:
But I wonder if that is a. Either the culture or if it is a byproduct of compensation pay plans. You know, just last week, I had this really nice lady come in and she came in and she said, I just left Honda. I had my vehicle at Honda. I've been going there every year for over ten years. And she said, I go in, and they say, you need to do this, and I do it. She said, I spend $1,800 a year with them, and it's. I look at the ticket.
Lucas Underwood [01:08:56]:
It's tire rotation, dual pump, fluid, transmission fluid, fuel system service, power steering system, service, brake system, service. Right. It's this list of things. And she said, all I really care about is, are the tires safe? Are the tires pumped up? So I walk out and I look at the car, and she seemed off about it. So I look at the car, go around the back. One of the things I check is that the spare tire was flat. So, you know, probably not the end of the world, but if you were to break down somewhere, have to put a spare on, you wouldn't have one.
Dominic Marquez [01:09:25]:
So at that point, it is the end of the world.
Lucas Underwood [01:09:27]:
Right? Yeah, exactly. And so we talked for a few minutes, and she said, I really appreciate you taking the time to look at this. She said, you know, I don't mean to speak poorly of someone, but the guy at the, at the dealership, it just felt weird. And I said, well, what felt weird about it? She said, he kept saying, now, when. When you need these things done, these aren't really urgent right now, but when you need these things done, you got to talk to me. You can't talk to anybody else here. You don't want to talk to anybody else because I've worked you out a really special deal. So you need to talk to me.
Lucas Underwood [01:09:56]:
Don't talk to anybody else. Don't talk to the other people at the dealership. I gave you a really good deal.
Dominic Marquez [01:10:02]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [01:10:03]:
And you can like the. The experiences that my consumers that come into my shop, that have been to the dealer. You can tell when the dealers are slow because the entire experience that they get is different. Right. If they're busy, what's the experience? If they're busy? They come in, they say, man, they just. They were so busy, and they didn't call me. They didn't follow up with me. They didn't recommend anything.
Lucas Underwood [01:10:25]:
They just said, here's your car, and if we're slow, it's, oh, my gosh. You need to just talk to me. Don't talk to anybody else. There's some bad people here, so make sure you talk to me. You know?
Dominic Marquez [01:10:34]:
Yeah. The number one loss in dealerships of customers, the number one issue of customers coming in upset is that lack of communication. And, you know, being here at, at the Mars event, you know, thanks to your guys podcast and with Cecil, you know, given the opportunity of the ticket, the independent industry has such an opportunity building that true customer relationship. Majority of your consumers, and I say majority because you're always going to have that small percentage that no matter who you are, no matter what you do, they're going there with the objective of finding something wrong. Those are the ones you just deal with. But being able to retain those customers that are just tired of the not being able to have their vehicle worked on at the dealership, not having contact for five days because that advisor took in 40 repair orders. That is the key component in the independent industry to start building that customer relationship.
Lucas Underwood [01:11:41]:
The relationship, yeah.
Dominic Marquez [01:11:42]:
And it doesn't even have to be that. Well, I can't. It doesn't mean drop everything we're doing so we can get that customer in today. It's maintaining the relationship with them and giving them that expectation upfront. Because in the dealerships, that's not the case. In the dealerships, it's tell them to come in now.
Lucas Underwood [01:12:02]:
Right.
Dominic Marquez [01:12:03]:
We can't see them now. Everyone's scheduled already, right, for the next week and a half, and at some of the luxury places, two months plus. Right. But they don't care as long as the car's in there. And then what happens is they play them. They play them and it goes off and off and off. Next thing you know, the customer's like, it's been two weeks and I haven't even heard anything on my car. What's going on.
Dominic Marquez [01:12:27]:
Right. And that's the one thing they don't want, is that. That question of, am I having my leg pulled or you just taking advantage of me? What's the situation that's going on? And.
Lucas Underwood [01:12:39]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [01:12:39]:
And with the independent side, you can take away that. The mask over the face that I always feel that dealerships have, which is where it's that mask that puts on that you're. You're coming to the best once you're here. We're. That we're not worried about it. Right. But we're gonna make that beautiful building. We're gonna put, you know, all the lipstick on the outside of it so that you think that you're guaranteed the best service here.
Lucas Underwood [01:13:04]:
Yeah.
Dominic Marquez [01:13:05]:
It's not the case. It's not. Not even close.
David Roman [01:13:08]:
Very nice. Nice.