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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.
David Roman [00:00:00]:
He had me muted. That's what he did. He thought I was being cute and cheeky. He was being stupid.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:09]:
Oh, well.
David Roman [00:00:10]:
Oh, well. So let's talk about this new EV truck of yours. Who's gonna work on it when it breaks down?
Jonathan White [00:00:20]:
I can. I'm fully capable of doing that, I'm sure. Major battery pack.
David Roman [00:00:25]:
Unless, I don't know, you don't have service information or parts availability or anybody even knows what the hell you're talking about when you say, oh, look, I.
Jonathan White [00:00:32]:
Got a rivian, I mean, the same thing was true of Tesla. We fixed those for years without service.
David Roman [00:00:43]:
No, no, he had to buy one and disassemble it. Okay, well, nobody else is doing that. Are you going to disassemble your rivian?
Jonathan White [00:00:50]:
Nobody already had one for like almost a year now. So if I need to get advice, I always can from him.
David Roman [00:00:56]:
But he's had one for a year. He doesn't talk about it that much?
Lucas Underwood [00:01:02]:
No, he didn't say anything today.
David Roman [00:01:04]:
Yeah, he's ashamed of it. He talks about the Tesla constantly because.
Jonathan White [00:01:09]:
The Tesla brings money.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:11]:
I know, right?
David Roman [00:01:12]:
Oh, the Rivian is just so reliable. It hasn't broken down yet.
Jonathan White [00:01:15]:
It's great. He's only had issues with his powered Tono cover. I have the SUV, so I don't have that.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:22]:
Do you like it?
Jonathan White [00:01:23]:
I really like it.
David Roman [00:01:24]:
He's been getting yammer about this whole time, talking about great it is. I've learned thousands anything. That's because you've been, like in your bubble.
Jonathan White [00:01:33]:
No, it's because some you talk a lot.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:37]:
That's what he's trying yes, exactly.
David Roman [00:01:38]:
You know what we got today on the YouTube channel? Somebody goes, I'm trying to listen. You guys keep interjecting and going off on these tangents and ad hoc comments. I can't even listen. This is unlistenable.
Jonathan White [00:01:54]:
Have they not listened to the podcast?
David Roman [00:01:55]:
That's what I said. That's what was my comment. I'm like, Dude, that's the show. What are you talking about? This is the entirety of it and always has been and always has been.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:06]:
It always has been. We had some serious episodes.
David Roman [00:02:11]:
I think if the guest didn't get it and we were going to offend them, I tended to just mute myself the whole time.
Jonathan White [00:02:19]:
There were episodes where you were really quiet.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:22]:
If I pissed him off at any point during the week, I was carrying it by myself and he would just sit there and he wouldn't say a.
David Roman [00:02:30]:
Word or that was maybe one episode.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:33]:
Or he would get super quiet and you'd be like, send him text messages and he's falling asleep at this point.
David Roman [00:02:39]:
He's just there were some that's like, dude, I don't want to do this. Why'd you book this person? This is awful. And it was mostly because we're not going to be able to talk about stupid stuff like rivian trucks. No, actually, I'm super jelly. They look cool as hell.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:00]:
They really do.
David Roman [00:03:00]:
If I could afford one, which I can't congrats on being able to afford one. If I could afford one, I would totally buy a Lucid. I would buy one today. They are utilities, too. I don't know why. There's several of them in Kansas City. And every time I see OOH that's pretty.
Jonathan White [00:03:20]:
I have the luck of knowing a pretty well known YouTuber, so I get to see lots of vehicles.
David Roman [00:03:30]:
Who's? The YouTuber.
Jonathan White [00:03:31]:
Yeah. It's Kyle Connor. Out of spec reviews.
David Roman [00:03:35]:
I don't know.
Jonathan White [00:03:37]:
He does basically everything.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:39]:
EV isn't he the one that has.
Jonathan White [00:03:42]:
The.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:44]:
Does he have a Hummer?
Jonathan White [00:03:46]:
No, but I got to see that truck.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:50]:
Oh, nice.
David Roman [00:03:51]:
Does he just come by and show them to you?
Jonathan White [00:03:52]:
No. So my brother in law because my wife's sister is anyways, long story, but my brother in law runs a high end detail shop and so Kyle uses that detail shop to take care of his fleet.
David Roman [00:04:14]:
Sure.
Jonathan White [00:04:14]:
And so he always brings them there for like they do quality build series and any fit and finish issues and all stuff like that. So I get to see the cars there go for rides and stuff like that. That's actually how I saw the Rivian a year ago.
David Roman [00:04:36]:
Okay.
Jonathan White [00:04:36]:
After I'd already put down a deposit because my friends that work there and it was refundable.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:43]:
What do you like most about it?
Jonathan White [00:04:47]:
It can do pretty much everything. So it can go off roading like a Jeep stock. Jeep Modified is a different story. It's as fast as a Porsche. It can handle as good as a Porsche if you don't have the all train tires for an SUV. That's 8000 pounds.
David Roman [00:05:05]:
Right? It's 8000 pounds, yeah.
Jonathan White [00:05:08]:
Which also means you probably could buy it if you have about if you want to take the tax write off through the business.
David Roman [00:05:13]:
The business can't afford that nonsense. What are you talking about? That's cute. He thinks I make money.
Jonathan White [00:05:22]:
It's section one seven nine. It's 50% of purchase price?
David Roman [00:05:26]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:27]:
Really? What was the purchase price?
Jonathan White [00:05:29]:
81 five.
David Roman [00:05:30]:
That's rude. You can't ask that. I just did. I know, it's rude, though. Hey, how much did you pay for your house? See?
Lucas Underwood [00:05:38]:
Was that rude?
Jonathan White [00:05:39]:
I mean, it's Colorado, so about half million.
David Roman [00:05:45]:
Is it the Californians? Did they ruin it?
Jonathan White [00:05:49]:
That in Texas.
David Roman [00:05:51]:
The Texans moved up here.
Jonathan White [00:05:53]:
Oh, yeah. Because oil. Gas. Yeah.
David Roman [00:05:57]:
So they found a whole bunch of oil here and they went bananas. But then oil was cheap. It was $19 a barrel. It went negative for a while.
Jonathan White [00:06:10]:
It did? Yeah. That was weird because the market went fast, but then like, I don't know, six months later it went well.
David Roman [00:06:22]:
Yeah. The election happened.
Jonathan White [00:06:25]:
Pretty much.
David Roman [00:06:26]:
That was rude.
Lucas Underwood [00:06:27]:
David.
David Roman [00:06:27]:
What? Talking about politics? I have a friend who lives in West Texas, and she was telling me that when gas hit or when crude hit $100 a barrel what? Ten years ago or whatever, the first time, it was like it was really spiking. She said that all of a sudden this little town of 1000 people turned into a town of 100,000. And it was all people coming in for oil and all of the support and the infrastructure and yada yada yada. And then when gas came back down or the crude came back down, she's like, it's all a ghost town now. And this all like half built apartment complexes and this, that and the other.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:11]:
That is a freaking hard job. Those dudes that do that job, the.
David Roman [00:07:16]:
Pump crude is great.
Jonathan White [00:07:18]:
I mean they make great money, but they're also working usually 60 to 80.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:23]:
Hours, if not more than that. And we talk about auto repair being physically demanding. That's a whole different level of physically demanding.
David Roman [00:07:34]:
Did they come in and they stayed because crude?
Jonathan White [00:07:38]:
Yeah. Where I live, where the shop is, there's lots of AG support, so it's pretty steady even when we get these big booms. And then because of all the tech sectors in Boulder, Fort Collins, loveland that's blown up through the moon in the last couple of years. It's kind of when it's slumped in the oil field, it's just ended up filling up with people that are commuting because they can't afford Fort Collins, Boulder. It's why all these towns that used to be tiny had blown up like crazy. There's a town next to Fort Collins that's called Severance. It used to have like maybe 5000 people. It's like up to like 30,000 in just a couple of years.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:29]:
Holy wow.
Jonathan White [00:08:30]:
It's crazy.
David Roman [00:08:33]:
Other than the driving, because Texans are crazy. They drive like psychopaths. Other than that, I mean, I have customers that are Texans and they're cool. I have no problem with Texans. Right. Californians, however, how many people listen to this podcast from California? It's going to be zero here in a minute. Here's the problem. Whenever we have a problem in the shop, we have a really difficult customer and we're like, man, this person is obnoxious as all get out.
David Roman [00:09:13]:
We just assume they're an import and they almost always are. They talk a certain way, they act a certain way. It is their world and we are just occupying some temporary space in their world and they do not recognize anything else outside of it. It doesn't exist.
Jonathan White [00:09:37]:
Yeah, most of reality for everything.
David Roman [00:09:40]:
That is not a generalization. That is an accurate depiction of an overwhelming majority. Not the people that listen to this podcast, but everybody else. I don't know what it is. You know what it is. It's weather and terrain snobbery. That's what it is. They won the lottery and where they were born in some of the most beautiful country you will ever like.
David Roman [00:10:18]:
Colorado's pretty. It is. It's gorgeous. But you have temperature extremes and you have temperatures. But like the first time me and my wife honeymooned, Napa Valley the first time you're like leaving San Francisco and you're going up into those mountains and you see these beautiful rolling hills and it's 70 degrees all the year round, and it's sunny. You cannot describe it. I saw it for the first time, and I'm like, I need to move here. This is insane.
David Roman [00:10:51]:
Then I saw the prices and I said, nah.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:55]:
I do want to make one observation.
David Roman [00:10:57]:
What's? That it's.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:58]:
That all of the things and the people in this world that you hate are very similar to you. It's like you hate yourself.
David Roman [00:11:11]:
That's true. That part's true. There's a lot of self loathing, but that's not no, I don't hate anybody. I'm just pointing out how they are, and they are difficult to deal with because you're used to that doesn't mean there's hate there there's no hate. There's no hate.
Jonathan White [00:11:28]:
I'm just pointing out difficult to deal.
David Roman [00:11:30]:
With because you're I'm not difficult to deal with. I'm very easy going. I am very easy going. I don't like to do anything, so you ask very little of me. It's like, hey, I need you to be at this place. That's a problem. Don't ask me to be somewhere or do something. Do you understand?
Lucas Underwood [00:11:53]:
What, you were joking?
David Roman [00:11:55]:
I'm not joking. Don't ask anything of me. I will disappoint you as a lesson to never bother me again. I'm just saying that we have gotten bombarded with Californians fleeing, and they turned my beloved county a certain way, and all of a sudden, all of a sudden, things are not the way they.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:25]:
Used to be, and they are progressive now.
David Roman [00:12:37]:
Yes. In everything culturally taxation.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:46]:
Yeah, I'm sure you appreciated that.
David Roman [00:12:49]:
I don't this is a problem. This is a problem. I don't understand the logic, the mentality. I don't get it. They leave. It's just crazy. We can't live out there, and then.
Jonathan White [00:13:03]:
They do the same thing, and then.
David Roman [00:13:05]:
They move into your town and they're like, hey, you know what we need to do? We need to give away free money to people, and we need to tax the people that are making the money to do that. That sounds like a good idea. You know, the school administrators in my area gave themselves massive raises because the people that had moved into my area, they believe in education. Not just education, because I believe in education to a certain degree, they believe in public education, and they believe in heavily funding public education. It's like, okay, that's fine, whatever. So they pass a resolution to add to the property taxes and to the sales taxes because we need more money for the teachers. So the administrators found it appropriate to give themselves ten plus percent raises due to inflation right after COVID. So these people went from making $175,000 a year to 200 plus thousand dollars a year in Kansas flipping City.
David Roman [00:14:24]:
You are living high on the hog at those prices. Insane. The administrators, the administrators, they don't teach anything, by the way. They push paper. That's what they do. They push paper. They don't teach my kid now, none of them teach my kids because they're all insane. So now I've got my kids out of the public schools, so I still pay for it, by the way.
David Roman [00:14:46]:
I still pay for it because how can you not pay for it? You know who thinks that? Californians. They think that they moved into my area. You know what would have probably not been the case? Me having to pay for my kids not to attend public school. That probably would have gone away, probably. But now, no. Now I have to move. Now I have to move. Not them.
David Roman [00:15:09]:
Not the people that listen to the show. They're wonderful. Everybody else, especially transplants, they can screw off. You know where they can go? They can go back to California. Go back to California, buddy.
Jonathan White [00:15:24]:
They may.
David Roman [00:15:25]:
They are not going to. It is insane there. They can't who can't? Look, they cash out on their $800,000 house, which is $60,000 anywhere else in the world. They get out $800,000. And they're like, I'm rich. I can buy a $400,000 mansion in Kansas City and still have $400,000 left over. This is insane. I want to have my house scot free with two acres and a white picket fence.
David Roman [00:15:55]:
And I can have chickens. I can't have chickens in my 10th of an acre plot of land on top of each other in California. That was $800,000. You know who else ruined it? Airbnb heirs. People who bought up properties in droves in Kansas City to turn them into airbnbs. You know what Kansas City did? They said, you can't do this anymore. They banned them. It just rolled out.
David Roman [00:16:26]:
They were banning airbnbs in Kansas City, ruining the neighborhoods. They're ruining the neighborhoods they were renting out. Because it turns into a business you've got to have in order for it to be profitable. At least, like eleven days or 15 days, rent it out. Otherwise it's not going to work. Right? So then they rent it out to whoever, including stupid kids. And the stupid kids blow up the house with these wild parties. And the neighbors are like, this is a house.
David Roman [00:16:56]:
It's not a party house. It's not a hotel. It's a house. My kids live here. I don't want any of this nonsense in my neighborhood. Sarah complaining to the politicians. Politicians did something good for them.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:08]:
You know, I envisioned him in about 30 years yelling at somebody for driving past his driveway, looking at his lawn, anything. Right. Just standing out there.
Jonathan White [00:17:20]:
Movie where he's on the porch.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:22]:
Yeah, exactly. Either that or it's either that or Mr. Oto.
David Roman [00:17:30]:
Right. Mr. Oto.
Jonathan White [00:17:32]:
That's pretty good.
David Roman [00:17:32]:
I don't get that one. What is that one?
Lucas Underwood [00:17:35]:
The Tom Hanks movie.
David Roman [00:17:37]:
Oh, Auto. Yeah. Oh, that movie's depressing. That movie was depressing.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:42]:
So I didn't watch it.
David Roman [00:17:43]:
You didn't watch it?
Lucas Underwood [00:17:44]:
I just figured it was too much like you, and I just didn't want to.
David Roman [00:17:47]:
In the movie, he tries to kill himself over and over and over. He keeps not succeeding. Something happens. Of course, the movie like, it's, oh, it's Serendipity. And he meets and he ends up living life and yada, yada, yada. But throughout the movie, sure, you can.
Lucas Underwood [00:18:02]:
See the commonality that there will be serendipity. No, not that part.
David Roman [00:18:09]:
The roof caves in when I try to hang myself. It'll be the shop too. It'll be in the shop.
Lucas Underwood [00:18:15]:
What was it that you just told me that your fitness help, David, has been exercising?
David Roman [00:18:26]:
I go to the doctor and they tell me I'm pre diabetic. And she's want, do you want a pill? I can give you a pill. And I go, I don't want your pills. She's like, I figured. Just say that. She didn't say that. She did offer me pills. And I said, no, I'll fix this, I can fix this, I can fix this.
David Roman [00:18:49]:
So I try to fix it, and I've been trying to fix it, and I've been really pushing myself, really pushing. Everything hurts. Everything. Your arm constant pain. Yeah, I've had to have surgery. Look at that. Without surgery. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, constant pain, too.
David Roman [00:19:09]:
And so I'm thinking, I got a little pedometer here. I count my steps. I count my steps, right? I don't want those monstrosity. I can't deal with that. That's too much anyway. It's too much information. It's texting me. I have that all turned off.
David Roman [00:19:24]:
I just need to check my steps. That's all I wanted to do. But it's like, hey, get the app. It'll keep track. I'm like, okay, well, I'll give China a little bit of information. Just a little bit. So I get the app or so I've been really good, and it says, do you want to know your fitness age? And I said, yeah, I want to know my fitness age. So I put in my information and it sped out an age of 61.
Jonathan White [00:19:52]:
I don't want to do mine.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:57]:
I'm proud of you, though. Like, you fit in the seat.
David Roman [00:19:59]:
Can you imagine what I was before?
Lucas Underwood [00:20:01]:
That'd be rough. That'd be rough.
David Roman [00:20:05]:
70S.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:06]:
Yeah, probably. Eighty s you act like an 80 year old man.
David Roman [00:20:12]:
Why did the 80 year olds get away with it?
Lucas Underwood [00:20:16]:
I guess. Ask Dutch. Jonathan White. Yeah, how are you?
David Roman [00:20:23]:
We didn't introduce him. It's 20 minutes in.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:25]:
I wonder why. Yeah, I mean, I'm just pointing out that sorry.
David Roman [00:20:31]:
Jonathan from Eaton, Colorado.
Jonathan White [00:20:34]:
Yeah, that's where I live. See, it's not where the shop is, but it's where I live.
David Roman [00:20:38]:
Where's the shop at?
Jonathan White [00:20:39]:
It's just south in Greeley.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:42]:
Nice.
Jonathan White [00:20:43]:
I live in a smaller town.
David Roman [00:20:44]:
I moved away to get away from the Californians.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:48]:
He doesn't want to look at what you went and did.
Jonathan White [00:20:52]:
No, I just like smaller towns.
David Roman [00:20:54]:
I can't wait for the comments. I'm going to enjoy them from the Californians. Like, it's great here. You're just jealous. You jealous of your weather and your terrain. I am. It's beautiful.
Jonathan White [00:21:05]:
The beaches but not your barbecue.
David Roman [00:21:07]:
There is no barbecue in California. There are some phenomenal restaurants in California. They are epic. The food is just otherworldly. It is to I used to drink. I used to drink. Don't drink anymore. But we went to Napa Valley.
David Roman [00:21:29]:
There's a winery there. It's called mum. Are you familiar? Have you been you went to the winery?
Jonathan White [00:21:35]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:21:35]:
So they have a tasting, and they have tastings everywhere there, but they have a fancy tasting. It's more expensive. And we were on our honeymoon, and they bring out cheese, like this cheese was made by monks in Spain, and it sits in a basement for 30 years. And then they ship it out. And then we have some here, and you try it with this wine and oh, by the way, sit here overlooking this vineyard with these rolling hills. It is nuts. And you just sit back and go, okay, I could get used to this.
Jonathan White [00:22:11]:
Yeah. What was that charge? I don't care.
David Roman [00:22:13]:
Yeah. The price is irrelevant at that point. The experience is so good. The wine, if you drink I don't drink any wine again. But if you drink, the wine is fantastic. We joined the wine club. They started shipping it, and I was paying the $150 a month or whatever for them to ship me wine just so we could get a taste of what we experience there. Because if you're in the wine club, by the way, you don't get the stuff that they sell at the grocery store.
David Roman [00:22:43]:
The grocery store has the $25 bottles they ship you the fancy reserve stuff that they charge you $100 for. And it's ten year old or whatever. It is so good. It is fantastic. Cook with it, too. I still have a few bottles left. It is so good.
Jonathan White [00:23:02]:
It's better than me. I get something I like and it's gone. It's gone.
David Roman [00:23:09]:
Yeah. Even then we didn't drink that much. But they're expensive bottles of wine for the most part, because you can buy a decent bottle of wine for $15, right? This is $100. So you kind of want to save it for something, right? Am I boring you?
Jonathan White [00:23:28]:
He's bored now.
David Roman [00:23:30]:
I am. I'm boring him with this. It's a food coma. I am riveting. It's a food coma. So we're at Shanahan's, and he cuts into this steak, and I keep seeing him rip it apart, and he's got this mound on the side of the plate. And I'm like, Dude, just you eat the meat and the fat together. And he's like, Dude, that's all gristle.
David Roman [00:24:02]:
How much was that freaking thing? $70 for that piece of meat? And it was like 30% gristle.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:08]:
Yeah, it was pretty rowdy. We went to 801. 801 was good the other night. Really good.
David Roman [00:24:13]:
801 is always good. Go to the one in Kansas City.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:16]:
Yeah, we went to Double Eagle last night. That was good.
David Roman [00:24:20]:
Del Frisco's.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:21]:
Yeah, but it's the del frisco's. Double Eagle it's not delphi frisco difference.
David Roman [00:24:26]:
Yeah. There he is.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:27]:
Yeah, it was good.
Jonathan White [00:24:29]:
Really good.
David Roman [00:24:29]:
That one was good.
Jonathan White [00:24:30]:
There's lots of good places. Not as many out here, but go farther into Denver.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:36]:
Yeah, Denver does have a lot of really nice restaurants, for sure.
Jonathan White [00:24:39]:
And then there's lots of you might not enjoy some of the people there, but there's is it all Californians. It's just progressive. But they do lots of those restaurants that have the it's where you get a bunch of people and it's just all shared plates.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:00]:
Oh, yeah.
Jonathan White [00:25:01]:
You can try a ton of food, but it's not like your own individual plate, which is, I mean, like that, and some people don't. But there's a restaurant I can't think of their name, but it's basically in a bunch of shipping containers. It's fantastic, but I can't think of the name.
David Roman [00:25:19]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:25:19]:
Somebody told us about an Italian restaurant in town that was, like, in somebody's house. Like, it was a converted house.
David Roman [00:25:27]:
That's the whole restaurants here, they're weird, right? We went to one, it was called Fruition, and it was off the beaten path a little bit. And then you went into this addition to a house, and that was the restaurant. It was packed, and we had asked a waiter at a fancy downtown restaurant, hey, where's the foodie? He's like, oh, yeah, you need to go to this place here, because everybody in the know that's where they go. Because it's not on the main drag or whatever. It's in the addition of somebody's house. It's abducted. It was fantastic. It was really good.
David Roman [00:26:11]:
I have no problem with progressivism. I have no problem. I have no problem with Californians. I just don't want them to move into Kansas City or anywhere near me, that's all. Hey, we have sponsors that are in California. They're wonderful. I love all of them.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:31]:
I have a suggestion for True.
David Roman [00:26:34]:
I love them. They're sweet people. What?
Lucas Underwood [00:26:36]:
Why don't you ask him about some of the developments that have been happening in his life recently?
David Roman [00:26:43]:
Did you have more kids?
Jonathan White [00:26:45]:
I mean, I'm up to three, and that's it.
David Roman [00:26:48]:
You're done?
Jonathan White [00:26:48]:
Yeah, my youngest just turned a year old.
David Roman [00:26:52]:
Okay. Yeah, congrats on that.
Jonathan White [00:26:55]:
Thank you.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:57]:
What else has been going on in life? I hear you've got some changes work wise coming.
Jonathan White [00:27:01]:
Yeah, buying out my data from the shop.
David Roman [00:27:05]:
Congrats. Do you see the wrinkles strain and the white beard?
Jonathan White [00:27:12]:
I like the shop.
David Roman [00:27:14]:
Sure.
Jonathan White [00:27:19]:
I've been being able to make a lot of the changes that I want to make a little bit faster than I used to, which is good. I mean, we had our first company ever, 20% net month, 2% last month.
David Roman [00:27:34]:
It's very good.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:36]:
Let me ask you this. You said that you just kind of got some leeway to make some changes. What were those changes? What were the first couple of things you went for?
Jonathan White [00:27:48]:
Well, I raised our oil change price. What's it now it's $60 an hour instead of 50 for a paper. Synthetic is like 80, 89 ish.
David Roman [00:28:02]:
Yeah.
Jonathan White [00:28:03]:
So not crazy. And then I got rid of all the other labor rates because we had like bulbs were $100 an hour and alignments were $100 an hour. And then we had a $50 labor rate and this labor rate, and I just got rid of all that because the effective labor rate was never where it needed to be.
David Roman [00:28:25]:
Right.
Jonathan White [00:28:26]:
So we're finally to 10% erosion on our labor rate.
David Roman [00:28:32]:
Nice.
Jonathan White [00:28:33]:
Change some of the optimizer settings because I use shopware.
David Roman [00:28:39]:
Hey, we're getting the labor matrix.
Jonathan White [00:28:41]:
I know, yes. You got to remember.
David Roman [00:28:47]:
Oh, you in with the cool kids. I am not.
Jonathan White [00:28:49]:
I get to do a lot of the beta testing.
David Roman [00:28:51]:
I'm not in with the cool kids.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:53]:
He tells we kind of tried to.
David Roman [00:28:56]:
Keep whatever because they're from California. I do bulbs for free.
Jonathan White [00:29:05]:
I don't.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:06]:
Yeah, me either.
David Roman [00:29:07]:
Really? Is that why I'm poor?
Jonathan White [00:29:10]:
I mean, most of the time we don't do the bulbs anyways because they don't value paying a technician. That's fine, but I'm not going to do them for free because I'm going to pay my guys to do well, I pay them.
David Roman [00:29:23]:
My guys, I mean, they're getting paid.
Jonathan White [00:29:24]:
That's why you're not making money and.
David Roman [00:29:25]:
That'S why you can't afford know david, I told you.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:31]:
I told you, David.
David Roman [00:29:33]:
You told me what? Start charging for balls and we'll get a rivian. Yes. I hate.
Jonathan White [00:29:42]:
Just I actually finally got a really solid crew of people. That was a big factor there. I mean, everybody hit their goal for hours this week.
David Roman [00:29:56]:
That's awesome.
Jonathan White [00:29:57]:
We're four day work week, right. And everybody hit over 40 hours. Even my younger, he just graduated tech school. He did 35.
Lucas Underwood [00:30:10]:
Now, the last time we talked, I don't remember this being an option that was on the table because it didn't.
Jonathan White [00:30:18]:
Seem like it was right. My dad didn't seem like he was ever going to want to retire, and I was getting tired of not being able to grow more or less.
David Roman [00:30:30]:
Yeah, but he did at least see, like, hey, there has to be an end game here. I don't need to retire, but I can't also stay in the same capacity for forever.
Jonathan White [00:30:41]:
Right. But I mean, some of the changes that I wanted to make, I was constantly shut down on or not really allowed to, or I had to run it past him and then modify those changes.
Lucas Underwood [00:30:55]:
Never trusted fully to yeah, I mean.
Jonathan White [00:30:58]:
When he'd hired people and granted, some of those hires are still there, and there were actually really good hires, but his philosophy was you were hired for a job and you do it. It's an old mentality, and I don't think it really works that much anymore.
David Roman [00:31:19]:
Now you hire them, they don't do the job, you still have to pay them. It's terrible.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:25]:
That might just be you man.
David Roman [00:31:28]:
That's not what you meant.
Jonathan White [00:31:29]:
No, I mean, I have expectations.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:32]:
Yeah, sure. If we really dig in, what was the conversation between you and dad like? Was there a pivotal turning point in this?
Jonathan White [00:31:47]:
Yeah, I basically told him I was going to leave or he needed to figure out what he wanted to do because Dang really?
David Roman [00:31:55]:
Yeah. Had to come to that.
Jonathan White [00:31:57]:
That's usually the best way to get my dad to ultimatums. To ultimatums, yeah, more or less. He's slow to just react, more or less. He doesn't, like, change a whole lot, so he likes kind of stay in his own lane. I mean, the shop did for eight years did, only it never grew, which obviously you should always grow because the cost of everything goes up every year. I was slowly able to make changes.
David Roman [00:32:37]:
How long did he have it?
Jonathan White [00:32:38]:
How long is he the shop's 38 years old.
David Roman [00:32:42]:
He started it.
Jonathan White [00:32:44]:
Yeah, basically he fell into it. So he was just working there out of college. He had a marketing degree, liked tinkering with cars, was working for a guy who basically went bankrupt and more or less just gave him the business and then he kind of Kept with it and he really developed A really good reputation, which is one of the reasons that I was able to kind of maximize going forward, getting profits where they needed to be, to actually be sustainable and stuff like that. We also made a really good move in 2014 when he sold the old building to a pot shop. So we actually moved downtown, Greeley, which at the time I thought was terrible, but we couldn't put together a new building at the time because the shop had never really made money, so therefore.
David Roman [00:33:47]:
We couldn't get a loan and all.
Jonathan White [00:33:49]:
That, do the capital to do that. Plus we almost had the capital and everything to do it. But then our city came back that it was going to cost a half million more than what we had planned on. Planned on, just because we had to make basically all these things that now there's chain stores that came to our town that didn't have to do any of that, all that fun stuff.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:16]:
But dude, that's frustrating.
Jonathan White [00:34:19]:
Automotive is a dirty industry. That's how it's referred to. So it's hard to in my town to have an automotive shop. Like there's very limited places you can have one. So either build out new or and have the right people to get that to happen, which the only places new that have been built are Christian Brothers and Schwab. So I'd like to have another location eventually out west and have two locations in Greeley. I don't think I'd ever want to go beyond that.
David Roman [00:34:52]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:54]:
Tell us a little bit about the conversation with dad when you began to kind of dig into that. When you made the ultimatum, what was it that dad came back with?
Jonathan White [00:35:06]:
Yeah. So I had had my third kid, and I'd been making the same money since 2019 and realized that I needed to make more to afford health care primarily, and the quality of life that I want for my kids and things like that. And so I either needed to make a change at the shop so that I could grow, or I had to go somewhere else.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:43]:
Right.
Jonathan White [00:35:45]:
So basically just had a flat out conversation with him that I either need a way to advance myself here or I need to leave. And so he started taking more time off, and the shop didn't burn down, and also the fact that he started letting me do things. So I really started making changes. In late 2018, we went from 1.2 million to 1.4, and then we went to 1.6, and then we did 1.8 last year, and we're on track for 2.3 this year.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:33]:
Nice.
Jonathan White [00:36:37]:
And realistically, that's actually with the same amount of text every how many texts do you have? Five.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:44]:
Nice.
Jonathan White [00:36:48]:
And he's been able to actually withdraw money from the business and cash out in a way. And so I think that has also put him at ease, that he can kind of let go and he's also been taking more trips and he's seeing the other side of not working all the time.
David Roman [00:37:07]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:08]:
A couple of things that it makes me think about is he clearly trusts you, because if he didn't trust you, there's a couple of scenarios in some of the groups we run in where dad clearly doesn't trust and Dad's unwilling to take his hand off and whether that's warranted or not. Right. I think from my perspective outside looking in, thinking about that, I grew up in a family business. In our case, that family business was owned by my grandparents. It's not just for my dad. It's a legacy bigger than just his own. Right. And so I can really see from the outside looking in that your dad clearly really trusts you and it was so important to him that you had it that he was like, all right, let's see what happens, right? I'm going to back off.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:11]:
I'm going to see what happens. And so I think that's really interesting. I think it's really cool to hear that story. I almost wonder if he was waiting for you to make the ultimatum, you know what I mean? All along he was just waiting and knowing one day he's going to come and say this, and I should be expecting this, right? What's taking so long? Why is he taking so long? But to see that growth and see that change and to know that sometimes it just takes that outside perspective. Right? Because you've been in the groups for, gosh, what, ten years now? Something like that. Has it been that long?
David Roman [00:38:47]:
It's been a long time. Really? That long?
Jonathan White [00:38:50]:
Yeah. I joined. It would have been I want to think like 2016 was when I joined and I started making small tweaks here and there, mostly to I was writing a lot of service at that time. So I tried to be the best service advisor that I could. And then I was allowed to basically I want to try and do this. I finally got my dad to move off Ro Writer in 2018. Yeah, that was my first.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:29]:
I remember that big. Yeah, I think I got like five or six Facebook messages over that. You'll never believe this. My dad's going to let me, or like something like know I remember that very clearly. That was a big deal, and that felt like a massive change, you know what I'm saying? Like, from the conversations we'd been having about what was going on in the shop, he's going to let you implement a different SMS. And I remember thinking back, like, Whoa, that's pretty big. And now to see all the change that's happened between now and then, I think that's pretty intense. If one of your kids wanted to take over the shop, you can have it.
David Roman [00:40:10]:
You can have it now. So my daughter can have it. Ten years old, she can have it. She'll do a better job than I will.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:21]:
I mean, Brandon's kind of your kid. I mean, does he count?
David Roman [00:40:24]:
They're all my children, all of them. So how were you able to maximize the revenue out of each technician if you were doing five techs at one point, too? That's not good productivity.
Jonathan White [00:40:43]:
Well, I mean, back then I had a really good tech that got burnt out and left. And I saw him two years later still kind of burnt out, but him and me always kind of went back and forth because I did stuff as an advisor that I shouldn't have, took hours and things that I'm helping the customer. You didn't really things that I shouldn't have that I know better now. So we'd go back and forth, and I'd always want to understand why he did what he did. And I saw him several years later and asked him, what happened? Why'd you get so burnt out? And I knew you were making good money because I knew what he flagged and all that, and he's like, honestly, you guys never raised your labor rates and never really gave wage increase beyond, like, a 25 cent raise. And I thought about it, and I started learning more about KPIs and things like that, and I started really analyzing the business and why the fact that we would do 1.2 and not make a dime, like 1% net. I really started looking into that. And in the last two years, the shop's gone from 115 an hour to I'm going to 175, actually, next month.
David Roman [00:42:22]:
Nice.
Jonathan White [00:42:23]:
I'll be actually probably more than any dealer in my town and probably more.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:27]:
Than any independent in my town, on average. Like, if you look at those other shops and a how are you finding.
Jonathan White [00:42:33]:
Out what they are calling and getting them to give me price quotes on something that's relatively simple?
David Roman [00:42:41]:
Right, they give you the price quotes.
Jonathan White [00:42:44]:
Oh yeah. That's a bad thing.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:45]:
In our town, just about everywhere. I mean, most dealers will just pop off.
David Roman [00:42:51]:
The dealership will, but the independence, I don't know. No, I should probably do a phone shopping in my area.
Jonathan White [00:42:57]:
Do it later in the day when they don't want to do convert a customer for 20 minutes.
David Roman [00:43:05]:
Oh really?
Jonathan White [00:43:05]:
Oh yeah. You'll get prices.
David Roman [00:43:07]:
Nice. That's a good trick.
Jonathan White [00:43:09]:
And it's a thing that I have to train my staff not to do because they do the same thing. I was guilty of doing the same thing. Because you don't want to do you don't want to do the 20 minutes conversation. Why are you asking that person thing, qualifying the customer, figuring out what's really going on. Did they just get told by Joe Schmo that they need this or did they actually go someplace or whatnot, you know? But yeah, I got price quotes and figured out where everybody's labor rate pretty much everybody's, right. About 135 to 150. Some of the guys are 160. I'm the biggest independent in my town, like as far as square footage, building size, everything.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:54]:
How big is the bill?
Jonathan White [00:43:55]:
Like 10,000 sqft.
David Roman [00:43:57]:
Wow, that's a big shot.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:58]:
It's a monster.
Jonathan White [00:43:59]:
Yeah, realistically. My magic number, if I put a tech in every bay would be like 5 million.
David Roman [00:44:05]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:06]:
How many bays have you got then?
Jonathan White [00:44:08]:
Eleven and two flats.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:11]:
Right.
David Roman [00:44:11]:
Wow.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:12]:
Eleven and two flats. Now, did you end up building a new shop because you moved?
Jonathan White [00:44:20]:
Yeah, no, we moved into an existing shop. It was actually a parts store at that time. It only had, let's see, 234-5678 base at that time. We blew down a wall and added three. I'm going to probably next year put an AC and blow down the mezzanine and another wall and add another bay.
David Roman [00:44:53]:
That's going to be how much you're going to spend on probably $25,000 to put AC in that?
Jonathan White [00:44:58]:
No, like 75,000?
David Roman [00:44:59]:
Yeah, 75.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:01]:
It's really expensive.
Jonathan White [00:45:03]:
Yeah, not when especially when your building is divided. You'd have to see our building, but it's really divided. If I had one gigantic more like your shop, it'd be a little bit easier to put an AC, but yeah, with the building, I got to put in air handler units pretty much and.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:22]:
Be able to move the air from space to space to space.
Jonathan White [00:45:25]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:45:27]:
That sucks.
Jonathan White [00:45:28]:
But I think it's realistically. It's going to be a goal for the tax. We need to constantly hit our goals and you hit your goals and the shop hits its goals or you get AC.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:45]:
When we talk about where you're at right now, what are the next changes that you see on the horizon that you kind of want to start?
Jonathan White [00:45:54]:
I want to iron out processes a little bit. More. That's a big thing on my list because you just do this and luckily I have one advisor that he's slow, but he's very good. So just ironing out processes, making sure we're not skipping things, especially when it gets busy. I notice that the most on Fridays because we're four day work week. It's chaos on Friday. It always is, it always will be. You're shortening five days into four, but just making sure that we're constantly hitting our marks and doing things the correct way that we know how to do them, so that we keep the reputation that we do.
David Roman [00:46:42]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:46:44]:
Looking back, would you have changed anything about the process or the trajectory to get to here? Because the last interview, you were really like we all felt it. You were like, I'm done.
David Roman [00:46:57]:
I didn't feel it. I don't know what you're talking about.
Jonathan White [00:46:59]:
When I was with Brandon Dills, just short and sweet before my class. Yeah. I would have tried to push a little bit sooner to make the changes because realistically, we all know that COVID was very good for our industry.
David Roman [00:47:21]:
It was after the Daddy Trump money hit. Yeah, before that. Oh, man.
Jonathan White [00:47:28]:
I mean, we only slowed down for two months, realistically. April May. That's it. And then it was crazy.
David Roman [00:47:36]:
Did you cut back on staff?
Jonathan White [00:47:38]:
No. Yeah, we changed our hours.
David Roman [00:47:42]:
Did you?
Jonathan White [00:47:42]:
Yeah, we were seven to six and we went to eight to five. And then now we're 730 to 530. Tuesday through Friday.
David Roman [00:47:53]:
My guys don't get that much work done. We get there at 830. We start late. They don't actually start working till ten. Are you kidding me? No, they don't get done till next day at 02:00.
Jonathan White [00:48:09]:
Do you have any production incentives for you guys? I know that's guilty.
David Roman [00:48:20]:
Yes and no. But that's not even it. I don't know what it is. The shop always takes the personality of the owner. That's just the way it is. And me, I don't care, just won't pay the bills. That's it. That's all I'm worried about.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:44]:
I mean, it kind of does seem that way. Right? Is that's who you are?
David Roman [00:48:51]:
That is, I am. And that's sort of the problem, is like, I need to not be around. I don't know.
Jonathan White [00:49:01]:
Yeah, I mean, you could always find someone that wants to run it and you can just be an apps to your owner and then have someone that wants to push the envelope. But that's where I'm at, so my guys know that I'll reward them. But I have expectations.
David Roman [00:49:24]:
Yeah.
Jonathan White [00:49:29]:
If you don't want to sold him the shop.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:31]:
I know, right?
Jonathan White [00:49:34]:
That's why I think I know this is a hot topic sometimes, but we'll go gently down it. But I've gone through a couple of management companies and I understand why now being in It versus looking at it, that shopfix teaches flat rate because it's a way to implement a system that kind of self corrects itself to an extent without actually really managing it. And that's the reason that it's taught not that saying that I do that.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:23]:
Lazy management.
Jonathan White [00:50:24]:
Right? Yeah, exactly.
David Roman [00:50:27]:
It's not lazy. It's not lazy. It's hands off approach. Yeah.
Jonathan White [00:50:32]:
Right. It's a self corrective system, and that's realistically. You see how many shops that are struggling or not being successful, and if they implement certain systems, it kind of self manages it without them actually managing it. And that's the thought process behind some of that. Now, I like seeing we've always understood the thought process.
David Roman [00:50:59]:
We understand why they do it. Our rebuttal has always been the state of the industry is currently what it is because of everything that was done previously. Right. If everybody has been on flat rate up to this point, this is the result. 600,000 technicians short by 2026.
Jonathan White [00:51:21]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:51:22]:
And a whole bunch of pissed off.
Jonathan White [00:51:25]:
A lot of that came from advisors cutting hours. I was guilty of that. That was the fact that owners weren't charging enough, and then they would cut the tax hours because they weren't charging enough. A lot of it comes down to not that the flat rate necessarily was a bad system, but that it caused a lot of other issues because companies weren't being run correctly, more or less.
David Roman [00:51:54]:
I don't know. Yeah. No, that's the shop fix. Are you drinking? The Koolaid? Is this what is happening here? Are you with shop fix now?
Jonathan White [00:52:02]:
I am with shopfix.
David Roman [00:52:04]:
This is awesome. This is great. Hey, no, that's fine.
Jonathan White [00:52:13]:
I'm not going to stay there forever. Probably my next point of landing will be with Cecil. I like seeing I like that.
David Roman [00:52:24]:
I like seeing plug for the sponsors.
Jonathan White [00:52:27]:
I like seeing different perspectives.
David Roman [00:52:29]:
We did not plan that, by the way, at all. Just the way he's going to leave Shop Fix to go. Here's the issue here's where we sort of I understand why Shopfix, the way they do things is successful. It's scalable, it's repeatable, and it works almost in every market. But the rebuttal has been one the argument we've had is that the Shop Fix people don't care. They don't care. They don't care. And not you.
David Roman [00:53:14]:
You seem nice, but some of them just want the boat. And so they're like, okay, so we're going to be 600,000 technicians short. We learned that today at the conference. 600,000 technicians short by 2026. Okay? That's only two and a half years away, right? 600,000 technicians short. They're looking at it going, and I don't care, I'm staffed. Screw everybody else. Okay, that's fine.
David Roman [00:53:42]:
If you saw the chart that they had posted of the amount of technicians going into the automotive school thing, right? It's this, like, straight downhill slope where they have every year over year, fewer and fewer people are going to become technicians. They're just choosing something else. The perception of the industry has not gotten any better or changed. It's been pretty much flat since the last time they were like 2018 or 17 or whenever they did this last survey, they checked back and it's a couple of ticks away. It's like 39% would encourage their children into this industry and now it's like 42% or something like that. Here's what has changed. The technology on the cars they have changed. Flat rate works beautifully if all you do is bang out suspension work and gaskets, if that's all you have to do.
David Roman [00:54:42]:
And if you pack in those cars into your shop, pay your guys flat rate, bringing them in on cheapy oil changes and doing the whole dog and pony show and you're swapping ball joints all day long, you are going to make an absolute killing at some point. You are going to hit a technology deficiency that is going to threaten your business. I don't know what ShopX is teaching to get around this. I don't know what they're teaching. I have no idea. I bought the first set of courses when they were like 299 or 297. He was selling them when he first came out. I bought them.
David Roman [00:55:24]:
Everybody bought them. You went through the classes and makes sense. It's a tire shop model. Yeah, it is. By the way, the whole class is available for free online. It was just taught by somebody else. It was Greg Sands and his organization. It's free on YouTube, so you can see their whole system with the charred and the dispatch, the whole thing.
David Roman [00:55:44]:
Right. And yeah, that works in a flipping tire store that is just banging out suspension work. The minute you introduce, hey, that car is 1234 YF and it's got ados. And by the way, it's got a leaking condenser. What do we do now? Right, okay, so you sublet. Fine. What if there's nobody in your area that'll sublet? What if they screw up and then they just go out of business? Who's left holding the bag? Did you buy the 1234 YF machine? How did you factor that into your what if there's a problem? Do you even know how to use the flip and sniffer? You know who does? Nobody knows how to use the sniffer. Have you used the 1234 YF sniffer?
Jonathan White [00:56:24]:
I use the bullseye.
David Roman [00:56:25]:
It is a nightmare. Even the bullseye, it's a nightmare too. You know what? You don't always find evaporator leaks with flipping bullseye.
Jonathan White [00:56:33]:
Yes, exactly.
David Roman [00:56:36]:
It's great with cracks on the condenser. Not so great when you have to sit there and do an hour and a half diag process. That what they have to do. It for an hour and a half. The technician tent needs to take an hour and a half to 2 hours to do that flipping diag. What's the price they're going to sell? Well, it's uncompetitive if they sell it for two and a half hour. By the way, it's two and a half hour diag charge. So what do they do? Because that's what they have to charge if it's 2 hours, it's two and a half to 2.75 in order for it to be profitable because they don't have any parts margin in there.
David Roman [00:57:05]:
Right? Okay. So what are they really doing? What did Cody Gaddy say? What did Cody Gaddy say? What did they cut it down to?
Jonathan White [00:57:13]:
An hour.
David Roman [00:57:14]:
Then they came to him and they said, you're not making us any money. And then he goes, I'm not making you any money because you undercut my four hour diag. And charge the customer an hour. This is a four hour diag because it takes 4 hours. Here's all my notes. It was a four hour diag charge for 4 hours. We can't do that. So we're letting you go so we can hire in.
Jonathan White [00:57:38]:
That's ownership.
David Roman [00:57:40]:
That's not ownership, dear. That's not ownership. That is the business model cannot sustain what he does. They can't. They're bringing in as many people as possible. It doesn't work if you don't pile in the cars. Flat rate doesn't work if you don't have 45 cars parked outside. It doesn't work because you're not feeding the tax.
Jonathan White [00:58:07]:
I mean, we do diag all the day.
David Roman [00:58:09]:
I'm sure you're wonderful at it. I'm just telling you, it is really difficult to continuously. How much are you charged for your oil changes? You just said? Yeah, 80. 90. Okay.
Jonathan White [00:58:26]:
The traditional shop not with we have a coupon that gets people in the door. It does work. Good.
David Roman [00:58:37]:
It works.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:38]:
I won't do it. I've got coupons for other stuff. I will not do the cheap oil change coupon.
Jonathan White [00:58:42]:
I don't want I won't do the alignment one.
David Roman [00:58:45]:
Right?
Jonathan White [00:58:46]:
That one pisses me off. I've flat out said, there's no way I'm doing that.
David Roman [00:58:50]:
Most of your alignments take 15 minutes. If you got a good alignment machine and a good alignment guy, 15 minutes. Okay? Pack them in there at $100, $100. Do 79 99 alignments and just pack them in all day long. And then you're selling tires and you're selling suspension part. Look, I get the whole model. It makes sense. The complexity of the vehicles and the complexity of the repair process is going to get more difficult.
David Roman [00:59:17]:
And the pump them in, do it as fast as possible, kick them out, churn. The bay is going to get more and more difficult, and the only way that it's going to continue to work is to start jacking up the prices as high as possible. Otherwise it will not work. You cannot. And then, even then, you're going to charge $225 an hour and still pay the technician 40, because otherwise it's not going to work any other way. You have to hey, it's 1 hour diag, but it's 225 when you used to charge 140. It's 225 now, and I'm still paying the technician for an hour diag. He still has to get it done in 45 minutes.
David Roman [01:00:02]:
The complexity of the vehicles will get to the point where that's not going to happen. That's not going to be sustainable. Just the repair process. They build these cars. Weirdly. You ever done a rear main seal on a Fiat?
Lucas Underwood [01:00:21]:
Can't say that I have.
David Roman [01:00:22]:
Let me tell you about the rear main seal. Oh, you have? Did you buy the tool?
Jonathan White [01:00:25]:
Yeah. Have you done the stupid oil with the little hole cam thing? The oil actuated cam phasers? No, the oil actuated camshaft. Yeah, definitely buy the tool on that because we've nuked one of those without doing it without the tool, and it bent the valves. Yeah. Learned that once. Guy on YouTube's like, oh, yeah, you don't need that tool. Oh, yeah. Because if it's like it shows there's in service info, it's like, good, bad.
Jonathan White [01:00:56]:
Literally. Look at the two pictures and tell me there's a difference.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:59]:
Because there's that's a Fiat thing.
David Roman [01:01:05]:
The engine that was in this Fiat, the same thing they put in the Dodge start. Okay. And on the rear main seal, we're doing a clutch on the rear seal. What's that?
Lucas Underwood [01:01:13]:
Are they the air active engine?
David Roman [01:01:14]:
Yeah. So the rear main seal on this thing, it technically requires you to pull the oil pan. Well, if you pull the oil pan, it adds quite a bit to the repair. And you're just in there doing a clutch, and you're like, it looks like the remain seal is kind of leaking. The problem is the tool is $250. And by the way, if you buy the Cortico Remain, you don't need it. It comes with the sleeve. If you try to install it without the sleeve, it'll leak.
David Roman [01:01:45]:
If you don't take the oil pan off and put the liners on it, then you can't run the bead of silicone in just the right spot to get this mother effort not to leak. And so you will put this back together, thinking that it's sealed. That mother effort will flippity, flip and leak. It will leak all over again. Now, back in the day, that was just a slap slap you're done. All of a sudden, it's now, hey, we sold the rear main seal because it kind of needs it. But we should have also sold X, Y, and Z. Maybe you call the customer and get the extra time, maybe you don't.
David Roman [01:02:26]:
Maybe the flat rate tech goes, nah, I can do this without that. And then they may screw something up. And the whole thing was just research and then deciding and then looking at the design, and who is paying me for all that? Who's paying the tech?
Jonathan White [01:02:44]:
That's why I don't do flat rate. I do hourly with production bonus.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:49]:
So cute.
David Roman [01:02:50]:
I love him. He's fantastic.
Jonathan White [01:02:56]:
And obviously, we do a bump on all the labor guide and all that.
David Roman [01:03:05]:
You have to do that. And you know, my Brandon, he gets all amped up. He's like, I need 0.3 for research. It's like, okay, well, I already factor that in with the bump, we jack up the labor the labor guide says an hour. You were charging 1.4.
Jonathan White [01:03:29]:
Well, some of it is if you're using motor. Yeah, you got to do that.
Lucas Underwood [01:03:32]:
Yeah, for sure.
Jonathan White [01:03:35]:
If you're using Mitchell, then maybe 1.25.
David Roman [01:03:37]:
We'll cross reference to all that. That's what we typically do. And it's not even gotten to that point now. It's now on some vehicles. It's not even like GM vehicle or like your Euro. With Euro you have to look at the R R procedure. You can't go off the time.
Jonathan White [01:03:58]:
That's why I don't work on Euro.
David Roman [01:04:00]:
You just void Euro entirely.
Jonathan White [01:04:02]:
Yeah, I don't do it.
David Roman [01:04:03]:
Yeah.
Jonathan White [01:04:04]:
I basically work with a shop that is just three blocks away. I have a really good reputation or good relationship with them and I send all the work to them and when they're too busy with Euro and they send me their customers on the domestic side. But I flat out do not do a euro. And I don't do anything older than 96 unless my oldest tech has to approve it. He has to say, yes, I'll do that.
David Roman [01:04:34]:
We don't do anything old in 2000. But that's an opportunity for you and say, I'm going to capture the Euro.
Jonathan White [01:04:40]:
And you hire a euro tech right where I'm at. It'd be more of an issue to say no to Euro if I was farther. Like, we don't have any euro dealers directly where I'm at. But they're all in loveland. Fort Collins.
David Roman [01:04:57]:
Right. Okay.
Jonathan White [01:04:58]:
So usually the Euros that I see are the 6th owner clapped out and.
David Roman [01:05:05]:
That'S why you say no to pass.
Jonathan White [01:05:08]:
Nobody wants to spend.
David Roman [01:05:13]:
I just think that the business model itself is no different than what Congress is doing. They need to pay off those special interests and not the nefarious ones like, hey, I need to pay off the local whatever institution, or the local school needs money or the historically black college university fund needs funding. And these are all small special interests of farmers. Everybody's always like, oh, we need more money for the farmers. Everybody says that, but what are they doing with that? They're borrowing money. They're borrowing money to pay all this stuff because they've promised it. And all they're doing is screwing over the future generations where at some point we're going to hit insolvency or something like it. Who knows what will happen? I have no idea.
David Roman [01:06:06]:
Some people say nothing will happen, it'll be fine. We can just borrow into perpetuity for forever. But we're sort of screwing over the future in order to take care of the present. I see that whole business model no differently. It's an antiquated understanding of automotive repair.
Jonathan White [01:06:28]:
I get what you're saying. My rebuttal to that would be if you have bad owners that don't have any business sense and no understanding, if you give them some business sense, isn't that a step in the right direction where they're not burning bridges and technicians?
Lucas Underwood [01:06:46]:
It can be. I think the TV just went to sleep.
Jonathan White [01:06:56]:
I think that now being in it and seeing some of the things that they do do for their employees and whatnot, there's always going to be the members that go in there. They're only looking to skin the sheep. The one way those are the ones that are bad apples, they're going to be in any industry. I mean, it just is what it is.
David Roman [01:07:16]:
But even if you say, like, you take what's that dude's name? What's the name of the is it True Auto? Simply Auto?
Jonathan White [01:07:26]:
Yes. Simply true automotive.
David Roman [01:07:28]:
Okay. Simply true. Yeah. You see their outings? Hey, we're doing this thing and we're doing that for our employees. Where are you going? Hey, grab me one.
Jonathan White [01:07:37]:
Here, I'll take one too.
David Roman [01:07:43]:
You see the outings that they're doing? Seth does his, we're going to the vacation house on the lake, and we're doing this. It's a whole thing, right? It's a whole shtick. And that's cool. They are producing revenue, affords them these opportunities, and they can hire extra people and give the upward mobility, and I get all of that. But the ends can't justify the means to say that this is the end result. Great money for my people, all these opportunities. Look at how big this organization if in the process you're burning the bridge towards the future. So you can then say, but look at all this stuff I'm doing.
David Roman [01:08:32]:
It's like, okay, that's great, dude, but at the same time, you are telling people that my $70 oil change on that Hyundai is somehow screwing them over because you're doing it for 25. I am using a very high grade synthetic blend oil, and I only use the OE filter because otherwise those stupid things will blow up, right? And they leak. Yeah, I'm not using the 1334 A. Now, the customer, they don't know the flipping difference. To them, it's an oil change, is an oil change. But hey, that shop fix shop down the street, I have a shop fix shop like a block away from me. A block away from me. This was his third shop he's bought, and the place that was in there had been there since 1950, like eight or something.
David Roman [01:09:27]:
The family owned it all the way up until I can't do this anymore. I think it was a granddaughter. It was the granddaughter of the original owner. And she's like, I can't find technicians. I need to get out. And he comes in with this SBA money and a seven, a loan, and he's like, just giant pile of money, great location, eight bays. Who wouldn't want to jump on that? So he buys them out, slaps the name on it, and 24 99 oil change. Now I'm at $68.
David Roman [01:10:02]:
He's at 24 99. I have to now justify my cost to the customer. I'm doing the right thing for them. I'm using the right oil. I'm using the right oil filter. I'm explaining them. It's every. 3500 miles.
David Roman [01:10:13]:
Not when the stupid thing tells you to change the oil. I do a full inspection every single time you come in there. We're going to make sure we advocate properly. They are selling you work because every one of those mother efforts in that building is commission based. Every single one of those is commission based. Commission based. They don't sell you something, dear. They don't eat.
David Roman [01:10:36]:
I, however, lose money every single time. I'm not making any money on the $68 oil change. I'm not. Are you making money on $68 oil changes? Very minimal, very little money. But they're doing it for 24 99, and I'm telling them, and I'm telling them though all this, but in the back of their mind, he's feeding me a line of BS. Now, that's on a Hyundai that takes synthetic blend oil with a stupid oil filter, which is $6, and I mark it up to, like, eleven. Right? As the cars get more complex, as the oil becomes more critical. Dexos two, not just whatever right.
David Roman [01:11:17]:
It has to be Dexos two. You just bought this thing. Guess what happens at 70,000 miles when you don't use Dexos two oil and a really good quality oil filter. At the bare minimum, an AC delco. What happens? You'll be burning oil like crazy. You'll be burning oil like crazy. You're going to blow up the chains. That stupid thing is going to lock up.
David Roman [01:11:37]:
And now you still owe money on this turd, and now you have to put a $12,000 engine in this thing. Why? Because you went down to the 24 $99?
Jonathan White [01:11:47]:
Yeah. I mean, realistically, it's taught that it's a loss leader. It's not saying to use the wrong.
Lucas Underwood [01:11:56]:
That'S not what they do, though.
Jonathan White [01:11:58]:
That's up to the operator. I use all the right stuff.
David Roman [01:12:03]:
You're also not running flat rate, and you're also not doing the alignment thing. You're piecemealing right? Some of these guys are not piecemealing.
Jonathan White [01:12:13]:
Well, yeah, there's always going to be that they all do it to an extent.
Lucas Underwood [01:12:26]:
There was a comment a while back I probably shouldn't say this, but I'm going to. There was a comment a while back, and it was somebody sent me a copy of a thread, and it said there's a series of standards, and those standards are use the cheapest part. You can beat your technician up on the hours and the time and the labor to do it, and tell your client you're using a really high quality part while you're using a really low quality part. And do whatever you got to do if you got to discount the job, whatever you have to do to get the job, just get the job.
David Roman [01:13:00]:
This is not a shop fix thing.
Jonathan White [01:13:01]:
No, this is not a shop fix.
David Roman [01:13:05]:
These are coaching companies that are teaching this that, hey, every single one of your technicians is Alexis expert. Did you know that? Every single one. Why? Because they called about Alexis oh, my.
Jonathan White [01:13:17]:
Technicians are experts on I don't know which one you're talking about.
David Roman [01:13:20]:
Yeah, we're just talking in general.
Jonathan White [01:13:22]:
Well, no, sure, I know which one we're talking about.
David Roman [01:13:26]:
Generalities.
Lucas Underwood [01:13:27]:
Generalizations.
David Roman [01:13:28]:
Is that the correct word?
Jonathan White [01:13:31]:
There's people that do that in all industries. There are people like my wife did, she made cookies. And there's different variations of cookie stores. There's ones that use all the synthetic ingredients and the cheapest stuff possible to make the cookies. And then there's also places that don't.
David Roman [01:13:49]:
Are you talking disparagingly about crumble?
Jonathan White [01:13:53]:
Maybe? It's okay. They put a lot of sugar. It's why you like it.
Lucas Underwood [01:14:01]:
Okay, hang on.
David Roman [01:14:02]:
It's fat and sugar. It's always fat and sugar. It's not the point.
Lucas Underwood [01:14:06]:
Let me just tell you all something, though, okay? There is this he's crushed me.
David Roman [01:14:11]:
I don't like him anymore. Make him go away.
Lucas Underwood [01:14:14]:
Be gone with him.
Jonathan White [01:14:16]:
Okay, so have your honey.
Lucas Underwood [01:14:18]:
There was this bagel company.
David Roman [01:14:19]:
I like honey buns. I like purple cookies. They're so good.
Lucas Underwood [01:14:24]:
There was this bagel company in town and they made the best Effing bagels ever. They were so good.
David Roman [01:14:30]:
Were they Dutch approved?
Lucas Underwood [01:14:33]:
This was before I knew Dutch.
David Roman [01:14:34]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [01:14:34]:
And they were so good. And we used to go in there all the time. I would get a cheddar sausage, egg and cheese bagel. Oh, my God, it was so good. And the bagels were just perfect. They were soft. They weren't chewy on the outside. They didn't have like a really thick outer layer.
Lucas Underwood [01:14:50]:
They were airy and so they weren't too dense. They were just right. And every time you went in this place, it was completely lined up out the door. And this other company that is extremely well known, extremely high quality products and does really fantastic stuff, bought the bagel.
David Roman [01:15:12]:
Company and ruined it.
Lucas Underwood [01:15:14]:
And so we started going in and buying bagels and they tasted like f and god, they were terrible. And they were chewy and they would pull your teeth out. I mean, it was miserable.
David Roman [01:15:27]:
Is there like a chain that I can go to that your wife approves of, that they use good ingredients.
Jonathan White [01:15:34]:
So it's local here, but it's called Mary Mountain Cookies.
Lucas Underwood [01:15:38]:
You want to go find a Mary Mountain cookie tomorrow?
David Roman [01:15:40]:
I'm going to have to, yeah.
Lucas Underwood [01:15:41]:
Where's the closest one?
Jonathan White [01:15:47]:
To be honest, I don't know where all the locations are, but I can find out. Or I'll just send you a box.
Lucas Underwood [01:15:54]:
Well, so here's the thing.
David Roman [01:15:57]:
If I don't like them, I'm going to feel bad for you when Crumble cookies.
Jonathan White [01:16:00]:
Do you like cherries?
David Roman [01:16:02]:
Yeah, I'm in.
Jonathan White [01:16:03]:
Sure. And you like chocolate?
David Roman [01:16:05]:
Yeah.
Jonathan White [01:16:06]:
Okay, so when those cookies come out in like another month, I'll send them cherry chocolate. Yeah. They're so good.
David Roman [01:16:13]:
Are they?
Jonathan White [01:16:14]:
They're actual cherries. Actual pitted cherries. Really put into the dough? Yeah. Fantastic.
Lucas Underwood [01:16:23]:
So we go into this bagel place, right? No, I'm still mad.
Jonathan White [01:16:30]:
We started talking about cookies.
David Roman [01:16:31]:
We got off topic.
Lucas Underwood [01:16:32]:
We go into the bagel place. And my wife's like, hey, I don't like to be the one to complain, but the bagels suck now. And the lady's like, yeah, we've noticed nobody's buying the bagels anymore. And we're not selling bagels. We've taken all the preservatives and all of the stuff that's bad for you out of them. And my wife says, I think I'd put it back in. She's like, we don't do that here. Well, we don't buy bagels from you anymore.
Lucas Underwood [01:17:03]:
I mean, like, come on, now. I'm with you to a degree.
Jonathan White [01:17:08]:
Sometimes the bad stuff is the good stuff. I get that.
Lucas Underwood [01:17:12]:
But you've dashed his hopes and dreams.
Jonathan White [01:17:17]:
That's so much freaking sugar. You know, some of those cookies have more sugar than a Mountain Dew in them. More than two.
David Roman [01:17:23]:
No. You ever see the guy? He's like, I'm going to try to burn a crumble cookie in exercise. He ate a whole crumble cookie, which is 700 plus calories for one cookie. So you never eat a whole cookie, right. You eat a fourth of each kind of cookie.
Jonathan White [01:17:42]:
Now, the lemon one that they do, I definitely like that one.
David Roman [01:17:47]:
I like them all. It's really hard for me to not to eat one and go. We went to this hometown bakery and what the hell was the name of the town? I'm going to find the name of the town anyway.
Lucas Underwood [01:18:00]:
We've been in so many.
David Roman [01:18:01]:
No, no, this is where the wizard of Oz thing is. In Kansas. The museum? My wife is going to get wamigo, Kansas. You ever been there's a dirt little town in the middle of nowhere, and they have a wizard of Oz museum there. And my wife was raving about this little bakery that they've got at the end of the yellow brick road. Do you go down it's an alleyway, by the way. You go down this alleyway that has, like, paintings of the wizard of Oz stuff. And then you get to the end and they have this bakery, and it's this little hometown bakery.
David Roman [01:18:38]:
You can see them making the stuff there. They were the worst cookies I've ever had. They were junk. They were dry and flavorless, and they were just no. And I'm like, these are junk. I want my crumble cookie cookies.
Lucas Underwood [01:18:52]:
He's very specific, the bagel place, though, they make killer cookies, and they're so good. There's one that's like a are they.
David Roman [01:19:03]:
Better than crumble cookies?
Jonathan White [01:19:04]:
Yeah.
David Roman [01:19:05]:
Are they?
Lucas Underwood [01:19:05]:
They're like a brown sugar cookie. Oh, my God.
Jonathan White [01:19:09]:
They have one. That's a brown sugar cookie with an almond glaze on it.
Lucas Underwood [01:19:13]:
Yeah, dude, that one's.
Jonathan White [01:19:17]:
I'm not a big sweet person. My wife worked there, and I'd have people that are like, your wife works at a cookie store and bakes all the time. Like, how are you not just don't I'm not a big sweet person, but if she ever brought home those almond cookies, oh, my God.
Lucas Underwood [01:19:36]:
Well, I would eat everyone. You see, the problem is that David and I, if our wives worked in a cookie factory, we wouldn't even have to eat the cookies. We would just get fatter by default.
David Roman [01:19:47]:
I'd be in a wheelchair.
Lucas Underwood [01:19:52]:
You're not far off now, according to your fitness calculator.
David Roman [01:19:56]:
My fitness calculator said I was 61 years old. Can you believe that?
Lucas Underwood [01:20:00]:
That's the yeah, I kind of can just be honest with you.
David Roman [01:20:05]:
My joints feel like they're 61 years old.
Lucas Underwood [01:20:07]:
I mean, we go to Apex and SEMA, and we have to have planned break spots for him to catch his breath.
Jonathan White [01:20:15]:
That's a lot of walking, though. It really is.
David Roman [01:20:18]:
Thank you. Thank you for validating my the first.
Jonathan White [01:20:20]:
Time I went, I remember. So I went with my dad, and I was, like, so excited. And by day three, I'm like, this sucks.
David Roman [01:20:29]:
Yeah. 21 miles later, well, we finally hit our marathon.
Lucas Underwood [01:20:34]:
Yeah, we finally got to the end of the trade show.
David Roman [01:20:38]:
Jeez, I get what you're saying. I think, though, the damage that doing the cheapy oil changes is doing to the perception it is long term unplanned.
Lucas Underwood [01:20:54]:
Consequences, it'd be fine if we were.
David Roman [01:20:57]:
Still all working on 96 Corollas.
Jonathan White [01:21:00]:
Now, do they do that oil change all the time, or is it only coupon?
Lucas Underwood [01:21:03]:
No, it's all the time.
Jonathan White [01:21:04]:
See, I don't do that.
David Roman [01:21:05]:
No, the coupons always they send the coupon out, but it's always there. Like, you can always just wait for the coupon. You see what I'm saying?
Jonathan White [01:21:13]:
Okay.
David Roman [01:21:13]:
And so they just pump them out there.
Jonathan White [01:21:17]:
See, I only do it I'm in shop fix, but I'm very calculated in how I do things specific. Yeah. So the only reason I ever run those discounted specials is to saturate an area to try and pull the clientele to us so we can show them how we're different than a lot of the shops around us.
Lucas Underwood [01:21:44]:
Look, I'm not going to lie. I've used coupons since I got into the new shop to try and get my car count where it needs to be for the new shop.
David Roman [01:21:51]:
I use coupons every single month. The coupons aren't the issue.
Lucas Underwood [01:21:53]:
I feel sleazy, I feel dirty. I feel like I need to I.
David Roman [01:21:57]:
Use coupons, I send mailers out. I just don't do the 24 99 oil changes. We do, like, set discounts, like $33 off, $66 off, 77, whatever the idea is. Hey, come on in. The reason why I don't want to do the oil changes look, there was a guy that has since sold the shopping house, like, floats on a boat in the Bahamas with his new young wife. And at one point, he was at one of the ASOG dinners, he was telling us how he beats up his oil vendors to get his synthetic oil change to less than $2 a quart. And then he sells his full synthetic oil change. Full synthetic oil change for, like, $30.
David Roman [01:22:44]:
And he advertises it. And if they don't acquiesce to the price he's demanding because he's buying hundreds of gallons. He just goes to another vendor. So his customers are getting whatever the hell it is that they happen to have in their VAT. I have been with the same oil company since I flipping opened eleven years ago. Same oil company. They have since been bought out by somebody. It was a local Kansas company.
David Roman [01:23:12]:
They've since been bought out. They kept the same formula. But I wanted consistency. I wanted consistency in the quality. I didn't want to just keep switching vendors up and use whatever I could. I'd seen too many shops do that. I used to be the guy selling the oil and had to like, oh, well, if they're selling it for a buck 89 Accord, I can do a buck 87 Accord if you buy 15 freaking gallons. I used to have to do all that.
David Roman [01:23:38]:
And the next time you came in there, I was like, well, they were a dollar 39 Accord. That's why I bought giant piles of this cheap oil. It wouldn't even be API rated to the newest standard. It would be like three or four generations old. And it would say on the bottle, do not use on anything later than 2010. Right? That's what they bought. That's what they were using in the customers vehicles. And why? Because they were doing cheapy oil changes.
David Roman [01:24:09]:
It doesn't make any you're doing a disservice. And the customer is relying on us to be the experts and to give them good advice on vehicles. Now, if you are a leaser, I don't want you as a customer. Yeah. If you're leasing the vehicle, I will. Hey, that shop right down the street does 29 99 oil changes. Why don't you go down there, talk to them? You're leasing the vehicle. I don't care.
David Roman [01:24:33]:
I'm not going to see you in two years. You're going to trade this sucker in and get something else. But everybody else what is a year, seven before you get your value out of the vehicle when you buy Brenton? But by the way, you're going to have to hold in that Rivian seven years for you to get your value out of it. It's like seven years and 100 and something thousand miles before the depreciation. And what you've incurred in costs is offset by the vehicle.
Jonathan White [01:25:01]:
Right.
David Roman [01:25:01]:
So you should keep it for a long time. And me doing cheapy oil changes with junk oil because I need to make this 29 99 oil change work so I can get the car in, so I can sell them ball joints is doing a disservice to them. It is.
Lucas Underwood [01:25:17]:
I don't disagree.
David Roman [01:25:19]:
That's my issue with them, okay? And they don't care, and I don't blame them. You know why? Because they're driving around in Rivians, and I'm riding a busted 2017 Dodge carrying Caravan. The seat leather on my handle cracked, and right on my ass, too. That part there, it's all cracked.
Lucas Underwood [01:25:44]:
I don't know if you've noticed this. It's always the big people that come in that their seats are all tore up.
David Roman [01:25:50]:
Why are you fat, Shaming? Why?
Lucas Underwood [01:25:52]:
It makes me feel better about myself. You're skinnier than I am.
David Roman [01:25:56]:
I'm not. I'm shorter.
Jonathan White [01:25:59]:
You could get rivian. It kneels so you can get in.
Lucas Underwood [01:26:05]:
You can just roll in, bro.
David Roman [01:26:10]:
He's got a Dodge Challenger. I got to fall into the Dodge Challenger. But here's the they need to put fat guy handles in there.
Jonathan White [01:26:17]:
I hate getting in and out of those cars just anyways.
David Roman [01:26:19]:
Yeah, they need a fat guy handle for when I swing in. I need something to hold on to. There is nothing. There's one in my van, man.
Lucas Underwood [01:26:28]:
It makes me think of Brian Pollock in the back of that pathfinder.
David Roman [01:26:33]:
He didn't ride in the back.
Lucas Underwood [01:26:35]:
Where were we?
David Roman [01:26:37]:
In New Mexico.
Lucas Underwood [01:26:39]:
So we're going around this corner. He did ride in the back at one point.
David Roman [01:26:42]:
Yeah, because, boy, have you ever met Brian Pollock.
Jonathan White [01:26:45]:
He's a big boy.
David Roman [01:26:46]:
He's enormous.
Lucas Underwood [01:26:47]:
He's like all three of us put together, and we're going around a corner, and Brian's got a hold of the old shithle in the back of this pathfinder, and it's popping, and everybody in the back is beginning to move over towards the door, and Brian is, like, literally apologizing, saying, I'm sorry, guys. That was when you were telling Dutch that it was white dirt on top of the mountain and that what were you trying to tell him? It wasn't a glyph.
David Roman [01:27:20]:
Yeah, glyphlop. Logical fallacy.
Lucas Underwood [01:27:24]:
Yeah, but what was it you were calling it?
David Roman [01:27:26]:
No, that's what I know. What is it? Gish gallup or whatever. See, there you go. I was the only one who just doesn't know what the hell they're saying.
Lucas Underwood [01:27:37]:
All right.
David Roman [01:27:40]:
Yeah. Gish gallup. That's what it is.