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The Gearbox Podcast brings on industry professionals to explore the day-to-day operations of owning and operating a shop. From common frustrations to industry-wide shifts, this podcast covers it with fun and insightful conversations.
Swell AI Transcript: Gearbox Episode 10 - Eric Faley.mp3
00:00 Jimmy Purdy My name is Jimmy Purdy, shop owner, master tech, transmission builder, and the host of the Gearbox Podcast. Here I talk with new and seasoned shop owners, as well as industry professionals about day-to-day operations within their own shops, and all the failures and successes that come along the way. From what grinds your gears to having to shift gears in the automotive industry, this is the Gearbox Podcast. So this is the Gearbox Podcast. Okay. That's what we call it. I don't know. Because we're kind of in a box. And there's lots of gears here. And there's lots of gears. We talk about shifting gears and what grinds your gears. So that's kind of what we're doing, you know? So you've been in this industry for a little while. Long time. A few years. A long time. Like four or five years. 10 to 15 years. I'm thinking here about 1980. So a few years. Yeah. I'm going to try to do the math in my head real quick. 43 years. Most would say that's long enough. Yeah.
01:22 Eric Faley So currently, you're employed as… I don't know if you want to introduce yourself. Okay. I'm Eric Paley. I work at Malahi Chrysler. Jeep, Dodge, Ram. My specialty for years was transmissions. But as things change, we really don't do a lot of transmission repair work. We do a lot of replacement work. And now we're doing a lot of other work too. So we become more generalized than specialized.
01:56 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, that makes sense. As a dealership. And you've been there for how long? Seven plus years. Okay. So it's been a minute. Obviously you enjoyed it or paid the bills, I guess. Pays the bills.
02:10 Eric Faley And it's, you know, I'd say 90% of the time it's fun. There's days it's like really…
02:16 Jimmy Purdy But it's that way with anything. How's working at the dealership as far as…
02:21 Eric Faley I'm sure you've been around the block, I guess they put it, right? Correct. Correct. I started originally in a thing called Pacific Coast Management with the Unionized shop taking care of fleet vehicles for Leisure World. And that was okay. It was different, but okay. Then I started working at a couple gas stations in a good year. So there really wasn't much respect. Oh, you're a gas station mechanic? Oh, you work for a tire store? I got into the dealership back in the mid 80s and there was a lot of respect. Oh, you work for a dealership? Because back in the 80s, besides getting what they call flat rate, you got vacation, you
03:08 Jimmy Purdy got holiday pay, some dealerships that have some type of pension or that plans. It feels like that's changed. Yes. I feel like that's flipped.
03:19 Eric Faley Yes, it has flipped. I'm not sure what happened. I noticed a big change when I moved from Southern California to the Central Coast, how the dealerships run. I had an insurance guy tell me that the San Luis County area they consider an island. For dealership repair. For dealership, a lot of things. They treat it like an island. Interesting.
03:48 Jimmy Purdy Yeah.
03:49 Eric Faley I wonder why that is. I think it's because there's really no support because we've got San Luis County here. Then from San Luis, we've got Napoma, which is really nothing there. It's a farming town. Then you got to go to Santa Maria. So that's quite a bit of difference. From Santa Maria to Santa Barbara, that's when you start getting in your major cities.
04:15 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, that's true. Then with dealerships, they have to be a certain distance away from each other. You can't have them in a certain radius.
04:23 Eric Faley Obviously, it's hard to say without being behind the scenes of a dealership. Yeah, I'm not behind the scenes, but at one time, I remember nowadays, if you look at the Chrysler Jeep dealerships, they're all conglomerated in one. Yeah. But back in the days I started to be Chrysler Plymouth dealer, a Dodge dealer, Jeep was part of AMC Renault whatever. Chrysler Corporation bought them in 87, but they were still standalone for a long time. Then somewhere in the 90s, they decided, oh, now the Chrysler dealer and the Dodge dealer can work on Jeeps. Then you could not have a Jeep dealer with a Dodge dealership. You could have a Jeep dealership with a Chrysler Plymouth dealership. Because I don't know if you remember the Jeep Comanche pickup truck.
05:29 Jimmy Purdy That was competition to the Dodge Dakota. So they didn't want Dodge stepping on the heels of Jeep. Taking their sales. Exactly. That's crazy. Until they got smart enough. I guess then when Stellantis took over here recently, any changes you've noticed on that side of it? It just happens and you just keep on wrenching on? I haven't really seen any major changes yet. I have noticed that since Stellantis has taken over, there's more push for electrification. That's the big thing right now is the dealerships, if they don't jump on that EV bandwagon, they're pulling their license, right? I know Ford's doing it right now. I don't know what Dodge is doing.
06:22 Eric Faley If it's the same thing. I don't know if we're pulling any licenses. He's told us a lot of stuff.
06:29 Jimmy Purdy There's more stuff on the media and we read than the information we get. Yeah I can see that. They're going to keep everything under the rug until the big decision makes and they say, okay, we're shutting down. Sorry everybody. Right.
06:47 Eric Faley Right. But our biggest EVs, well hybrid electrics right now are all the Jeep products. We've got the Wrangler, several different models in the Wrangler and now we have the Grand Cherokee that now has a hybrid electric. I believe the next one is going to be the new Dodge Hornet, which we're waiting for them. They're supposedly built. We're just waiting for them to be shipped because they're built in Italy because they're European even though it has Dodge badge on it. We're just waiting for them to be put on the boat to be shipped then put on the transport trucks. Yeah. So sometimes this year we're going to have some more. And then Dodge is pushing all electric cars because as you probably have read and seen everything out on the media because they had that big thing for the new Demon 170. That's the last of the Challenger. The Charger will remain but in completely different body style as an EV. The Challenger is gone. So Dodge is pushing full electric. We have an electric pickup coming for 2024. I've seen some pictures of it but we haven't received any more information because we're still in the 2023 model year. noticed is, excuse me, since Fiat bought us in 2009 and over the bankruptcy, the model years used to go from August to about July. Well now they're going from January to December. So they're more or less following the calendar year instead of a fiscal year as you used to call it or whatever. So there's been changes that way too.
08:42 Jimmy Purdy I guess for selling them but I guess on the wrenching side. So now we got security link right for all the Rams. And that's probably been something you've dealt with obviously for a lot longer than
08:51 Eric Faley I had to deal with. Yeah, the security gateway link that got rolled in on the Rams, Jeeps. Rams and Jeeps are the first one. They've been rolling it in on the Challengers and Chargers and everything else. What they said that was originally for was to prevent hackers from hacking through the radio whether through a satellite type. No, excuse me, I should say it's so prevent hackers from hacking into the radio. A lot of the vehicles were offered with Wi-Fi. So you could get a Wi-Fi for the hotspot in the vehicle so your kids could run their tablets and everything else the kids want to play with nowadays. So they were saying that hackers are coming in through the Wi-Fi and putting malicious programs into the vehicles and causing ill things to happen. There was a whole demonstration on a video several years ago of a hacker doing that and they purposely made the electric power steering do weird things, shut off the vehicle.
10:06 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, I remember that. They drove on the outside of it. Right.
10:09 Eric Faley They got it to go into gear and they drove it like 10 feet or something like that. Right and that's why we were FCA at the time, now we're Stellantis. That's why they came out with the Security Gateway. And unfortunately it makes it hard for independents because now they have to pay on their scan tools. Oh yeah. They have to be able to pay for a Security Gateway link whether you have Snap-on or
10:37 Jimmy Purdy Well then you have to pay through Modo or you have to pay through Snap-on too. So you have to have two separate accounts that you have to pay for. For what? Just to clear the codes? I had one come in, it was a 2018 and this is a funny story. So the guy decided he was going to change his own transmission fluid. So he drains the transmission fluid and then he refills the engine oil. Oh, okay. I have seen that. So he takes off down the street, he backs out of his driveway, right, because the converter has got enough to engage, gets around the corner and then loses everything. You know and at that point I assume that it shut the engine down. I'm assuming that something happened where a safeguard killed the engine or maybe he stopped. I say that because it ended up rolling without the engine on. And I know this because when it came in we ended up flushing everything, putting fluid in it, starting it up and then it wouldn't go out of gear. It would not shift out of gear. It's got this stupid little knob, it was just stuck in park and it just would not, you couldn't get it to shift. Well, it ended up having to go into the ABS module and clear the ABS module and the code was, I don't remember the code, but the definition was that it was basically it rolled without the engine running. So it was a mismatch in speed. It was something that was a speed mismatch. So I came to the conclusion that it must have died and then it kept rolling and then it set this ABS code for having speed sensor without the engine running. And so yeah, you end up having to do the whole freaking security gateway just to get in the
12:16 Eric Faley ABS, just to clear the code, just to get the thing to shift out of park. Yeah, makes it hard, doesn't it? What's the point in all this? Yeah, if it's an eight speed, those transmission, it doesn't take much to set them off. And a lot of those have a little cable to take them out of parks, they can push them. And they always set a full code for that too, unintended out of park. Well, you would think that the diagnostic would be smart enough to realize that it was mechanically taken out of park, not hydraulically.
12:56 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, they could have just put like a sensor on the actual park button, that stupid little, it's the little orange handle, right? Correct.
13:03 Eric Faley You pull that thing out and then it pops it out. Yeah, and depending on the vehicle, they're in different locations.
13:08 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, it's just a pain. It's not consumer friendly. If we're having an issue with it, then you can only imagine the person who bought the truck, what kind of issue they're going to have. The thing is, well, call a tow truck. Like really?
13:24 Eric Faley I've had tow trucks bring cars in and you can see where they drug them on because a lot of those people don't know. That's true too. Yeah. I mean, I was watching Matt's off-road recovery and I guess he was working with a FCA vehicle and it was stuck in park and they had no idea that you could mechanically take it out of park. So they ended up dragging it on their flatbed or whatever after they recovered it out of wherever it was. And it's something that you would think that if you're a tow truck operator, you have a tow truck thing, there would be some type of thing they could, some type of diagnostic thing or something that, hey, these cars have this, this is how you get out of park to make their job easier, to train all the people. Hey, this brand has this, this brand has that, this is here, this is here.
14:17 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, some sort of training. But we know, not to speak ill of tow truck drivers, but… Yeah. Typically the starting intro job or something. Yep. I don't know if there's a career tow truck driver, unless you own the company, then it's your career.
14:36 Eric Faley That's your career, yeah. Well, one of the first places I worked at was called El Toro Exxon and we had a wrecker and I drove the wrecker here and there and that's when I found out about CV Boots. I towed a Cadillac to the Cadillac dealer and the first thing, you know, I put, we call them meat hooks, put the meat hooks underneath the front control arms, put the sling into there, got it to the dealership and, you know, I'm taking the meat hooks off, I'm going, what's this grease from? And a tech comes running out and goes, oh, you punctured holes in the boots. Oh, I tell your boss, I'm like, uh, but luckily nobody said a word. I'm like, that's where I learned about CV joints and this is about 81, 82.
15:26 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, speaking of like moving into the new era of new problems, this has got to be almost a constant thing for you by now as far as new technology and new things coming out. Man, there's got to be a lot of changes throughout the decades that you've seen, had to… I don't know what the word for it is. To have to, you know, stay plastic, you know, and be able to manage your way through. Well, now it's like this and now it's like this. I mean, just like with just easily is the OBD2 port now turn it into a security link and having to adjust to that. I guess adjust is a good word for all this stuff before. Yeah. To have to adjust to the differences. I'm sure you probably saw the drum break going into disc break, right?
16:08 Eric Faley Correct. Correct. When I started in 1980, I saw both because the reason I say that is most of the cars in that era in the early 80s already had disc up front and drum in the rear. But being I was working at a gas station, you would see the elderly people from Leisure World come in with their 1960s cars with drum breaks all around. So I cut my teeth on drum breaks for a long, long time.
16:36 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, it was probably more than… I mean, we still see them today. Yes. We've got cars coming in today that have drum breaks all around.
16:42 Eric Faley So I can only imagine back then how much more, you know, they weren't that old of a car then. No, no. And it was like you could, yeah, you could knock them out pretty quick. Where the gas station I worked at, we had a mobile guy come by. He turned our drums. He had a van turn our drums for him. Then he arced the shoes. He was using the shoes where it seats the shoe and conforms it with the brake drum, which you can't do now. That went away somewhere in the early 80s because as you know, we had asbestos in brake shoes because they showed us how to do that in high school back in the 70s because we had shoe archers. And you just take the high spots off the shoe and fit it to the drums. So you wouldn't have to worry about, okay, adjusting the brake shoes, go out and drive it, coming back, seating them in, adjusting it again, because there's always that high spot on the brake shoes. Back then, that's how you got around it. You just did it that way. And it was real easy. And then rotors, you know, all the rotors weren't hats back then.
17:57 Jimmy Purdy You were packing bearings and all that. Yeah, on every one of them. There was a lot of bearings back then. Nowadays, it's a hub.
18:03 Eric Faley It's a hub. You put a hat, boom, boom. It's what we call a gravy lick. But back then, you know, it was work. And I think we got paid about the same amount of time as we do now than we did back then.
18:17 Jimmy Purdy But you're happy as a clam, you know, covered in grease. Yeah.
18:22 Eric Faley It feels like you're fixing something. Yeah, you feel like you're doing something. We fixed things back then where we replaced things back then.
18:31 Jimmy Purdy We went from a repairable world to a disposable world. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I just don't know how you take, I don't know, through the years being able to adjust to that stuff and get so used to one thing and then have it change. I mean, just in my short time so far, it's like, especially in the transmission world, something we can probably relate to. Just in my time is like seeing the four speed to six speed to eight speed to 10 speed, you know, even though that's been pretty quick, a pretty quick concession in the last decade, I feel like there wasn't a lot of change, maybe through the 80s into the into the aughts, I guess I'm most of the time was pretty much three speeds and four speeds for transmissions. But it's just it's so hard to to keep the tools you need, keep the parts that you need. I can't stock parts for every transmission out there now. That's crazy. It's impossible.
19:23 Eric Faley It's there's no reason to. No. And you look at how much money are you going to invest in parts to have on the shelf and do one a year? Yeah. And how much you've lost and how much inventory space you're taking up? Yeah.
19:40 Jimmy Purdy It's easier to just call up whoever your supplier is, have them ship it. Yeah. Wait a day, two days. And that's probably why the reason most auto repair takes longer in this day and age than it used to. It's not necessarily like the techs working slower or anything, you know, that just comes down to the logistics of parts. Yeah. And then everybody needs it. You're probably dealing with the 66 RFE is right. Yes. For the Dodge, the six speeds.
20:06 Eric Faley Yes. Can't get them. No, no. The parts are extremely hard for the 66 and the 68. Yeah. And depending on what it is, I have one on my. I have a 2019 Ram 2500 with a 68 RFE. It had the famous PO871 overdrive pressure switch code. I learned by working on these that if you see that code, you're pretty much going into that transmission. Yeah. Even though the pressure switch is built into the solenoid pack on the valve body. Right. What's happening is you're losing pressure in the input clutch drum where the overdrive clutches are. Right. This truck had 93,000 miles. Fluid was just a slightly discolored. No odor. I looked at what they call the clutch volume index and it wasn't anything. It wasn't over 150. No, it was like 37. Yeah. So I took the transmission apart and pulled it all apart. I got to the clutches and the clutches weren't burnt. It was just the top. How they look like a waffle. Yeah, a little black. Yeah. And like you put the waffle into the toaster one, a few seconds too long and it's got some color. Yeah. So I'm like, all right. So I pulled the underdrive piston out and what do I find? I found the, depending on how you put it, the service information calls it a balanced piston spring. The parts manual calls it an underdrive return spring. Right. Well, the cage is broken. Broken, yep. And being that you're in the same field as me, you've seen that too. So it cocks that piston. What do you have? You have a pressure loss. So you're going to drag, the clutch is going to drag all the time. So I've got the kit. I've got the spring, the front pump seal, the big old metal seal supersedes your complete reman your pump, fan your factor pump. Backward. We're not allowed to clean. We're not allowed to clean valve bodies and we're not allowed to clean pumps. Oh wow. Yes. That's interesting. Yeah, that's very interesting. That's been around for about 10 years now. That's so strange. It is because what they supposedly do is the pumps go back to remanufacture and they're putting some type of coating on them is what they were saying because back in the days the switch valve used to wear into the bore housing. You've probably seen it. So you get that low reverse or the overdrive code. Right. And you find the same thing as what's happening with the new Dodgers. Yeah. Yeah. So they were in there. So supposedly they're coating them and doing all the repairs that we're not allowed to do. Oh, wow. So basically, we're not allowed to clean the material. We have to replace the valve body. Anything to do with the pump now supersedes to a complete pump.
23:15 Jimmy Purdy Now, yeah, that's like really. That sounds like that's a headache. I mean, I take them. I take the pumps. I tear them apart. I flat stone them. And obviously I'd shift kit them. Transgo kit or a Sonics kit. Yeah. I mean, that's just the factory. So it's always garbage no matter what it is. The spool valves and all that they wear out. And so there's kids with O-rings on the end plugs and especially for those switch valve plugs and then on those 68 and 66s, they have that plate that always breaks on the valve body. And then the actual separator plate itself, it warps the actual valve body. So yeah, that's standard practice. We pull them apart, clean it, and then upgrade it.
23:57 Eric Faley So it's crazy you got to replace it. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Sonics website and they have some really nice products, not just for the RFEs, but for just about everything, every popular make out there. Oh, yeah. You know, you probably won't find something for some oddball, whatever, but all your common
24:18 Jimmy Purdy transmission, it's just wonderful stuff what they have out there. Yeah. Yeah. Sonics is everything gets a touch of Sonics. Sometimes a little bit of Transgo goes in it too. But I mean, Transgo has been around for so long. They got everything too. But yeah, the products that Sonics makes as far as like replacing internal components like that that wear. Yeah. You know, and it's like you can remount valve bodies, put their updated valves in. And yeah, I mean, it fixes all those factory problems. Right. But yeah, when you get into something like that piston breaking, there's nothing that really updates that or upgrades it. No. And it's like, why does that break? You know, and it just happens. But it's a good point to bring up because I mean, some people see that code and oh, it's valve body. You know, it's got to be valve body leak because sometimes it is. Sometimes that switch valve leaks. You know, you get a bore worn in there or the valve body warps, whatever. But you got to take it apart. I mean, and then it's like, like you said, you get it all apart and you're ready to put back together and now you need a pump. What do you do? You know, you just spent all this time and money moving into this thing. And what's the quickest thing now? Do I get a reman and just sell them a reman now? Because your elbows deep in this thing and I get to get their car back. It's like another transmission and a hundred pieces, a thousand pieces.
25:40 Eric Faley Yeah. I mean, with us, the way FCA Chrysler works is where there's only certain transmissions we can now repair. They don't call them overhaul anymore. It's called repair. Wow. And pretty much it's the 66 RFE, 68 RFE, 62 TEs. Those are the only ones we can still pretty much repair. Wow. The eight speeds, eight HP, whatever their series is, eight speed, you know, that, those are replacement only.
26:16 Jimmy Purdy We can put a torque converter in them or we can put a valve body in them. But then it's like, what's the point of even doing that?
26:24 Eric Faley You know, like just replace the unit then. You're pretty much going to replace the unit because most of the time what I found, if you've got really poor ship quality in one of those and you get the, that's another thing. We have to have factory approval on those transmissions while they're still under warranty. So they'll tell you to put a valve body in it, but it doesn't fix it. You gotta call them back again with an upset customer and put a unit in it. Yeah. And every one requires new coolant lines and a new cooler. I've seen them where they're just poor shifting because there's something wrong with the seals. They're not burned up. It's just something's not set up right in the transmission. Right. So, but they want all that done. The front wheel drive, nine speeds, that's another replacement only. Now we have some, we have another ASIN transmission that's in our, some of our front wheel stives stuff. That one also is a replacement only. For a long time, the ASIN heavy duty transmissions are replacement. Now they have some type of, ASIN has some type of mis-build problem. Now they're having us put input clutch assemblies in them and is it fixing them? I can't really say.
27:45 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. Well, if you're going to do that kind of work, why would, I mean, it just reminds me of the, the, the old, it reminds me of the old days. The good old boys, oh I got your turbo 350 rebuild and they pull it apart, throw some frictions in it, air check the pistons and throw it back together and call it a rebuild.
28:04 Eric Faley That's not a rebuild. What about replacing the seals? What about anything else?
28:08 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. Anything else is just like, and then not even all the frictions, they'll just replace the frictions that look burned up. Leave the old band in there. Leave the old ceiling rings, the bushings, like slab, and don't even take the valve body off the case. Just pull the guts out and replace it. There's a rebuild. Now they got all these rules with bar where you gotta, when you do a rebuild, you gotta have an automized list of all the things and you can't call it a rebuild unless there's A, B and C replaces. That's crazy. So it's crazy to dealership that they would not keep that work going, you know, and keep techs like you that are knowledgeable enough to do it with the work to rebuild it in house. Why wouldn't you just, it's got to be checks and balances. It's got to be somewhere they want to go back to the factory and they want to go over it with a microscope and see exactly what they're doing wrong. It's like, well, you made an eight speed. That's what you did wrong. I can already tell you that right now. There's no point of that.
29:02 Eric Faley What are you doing? Yeah. Well, the, yeah, like the eight speeds, there's two different ones. the BUI where we buy them from ZF or there's the make ones. The make ones are the ones we're building in Kenosha or wherever it is under license. So you've got two different plants building them, you know, the European and you got the American manufacturers.
29:27 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. It's got to be a check and balance is what they're trying to do.
29:30 Eric Faley Trying to figure out who is screwing up the least. It could be. It could be. And it was funny about the eight speed transmission when it first came out and God, I can't remember when it came out. Now it's my brain's gone rusty. I did go to an overhaul class and we took one apart and all the drums in there and all the sun shells are extremely thin. And the instructor was telling us, do not lay it on its side. It must be, it must be set and must be stacked with the case stacked. When you take it apart, the case must, must come straight up. Well, in the class that I was in, this guy ripped it apart, threw everything on the bench and he bent one of the drums. Wow. The instructor said, I see we have a problem. We finished the class after that. It was only a diagnostic class after that. Oh, wow. Because the tech looked at him and said, this is how we're going to treat him on the bench. You better learn and realize that. Yeah, that's true. And I'm kind of looking at this guy going, okay. That's what the attitude. Okay.
30:50 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. Yeah, there's two different, I mean, you've seen it. There's definitely an array of tech mentalities. Some are more meticulous than others, but obviously in the dealership world, if they're going to make a rule, it's like, and have to worry about the human element doing something like that and damaging it and causing more problems like, no, we'll just replace them then. Yeah. You know, all it takes is one bad apple, I guess. That's the point. Yep, that it does. You know, but the changes throughout the years is going to be, I mean, that just would boggles me. In the last 10 years, like I was saying, as opposed to the last 30 years, what's a big change for you that you've seen that's really just blowing you away? Is there anything in particular that you would like, obviously now in this day and age with heated seats and now they're going to do subscription for the heated, they give you the heated seats, they take the heated seats away. So it's like, is that the biggest change for you right now?
31:49 Eric Faley Is that going on? That is the biggest disaster I think there is. Why would I want to have a subscription for my heated seats when I'm buying the car and I want that option? Why do I have to keep paying for it? You own it. I own the car.
32:04 Jimmy Purdy It's mine. Right. I don't want to have to go, oh, well, I'm going to buy this car. Oh, to roll down my windows, I have to pay you? No. I haven't seen- Just bring the window crank back.
32:17 Eric Faley I've got a car with window cranks. You've seen it. Let's leave that one. Yeah. You know, I'm thinking about all the stuff over the years, coming into the dealerships, seeing the Chrysler New Yorkers with carburetors on them still with what they call lean burn and those cars that phase out, having front wheel drive cars with throttle body, then multi-point, then turbochargers. Then they got rid of turbochargers because they were inefficient, two-fuel consumption and all that. What are we back to again? Small engines with turbochargers.
32:57 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? Yeah.
33:00 Eric Faley Full circle every time. Exactly. We're running a VM Mottori. That's our engine company that builds a lot of our engines. It's the house deal. They're running two-liter turbo engines in a lot of our hybrid electrics and a lot of our smaller vehicles. Now they're coming out with this three-liter twin-turbo hurricane engine that's going to be replacing, they say, the 3.6 V6 eventually and possibly the Hemi, the 5.7 Hemis, but nobody said anything official. We've seen one or two of them. They scoot along pretty good. But then again, with all this hoopla they're making out, if you read the fine print, it's only a 10% improvement in fuel economy.
33:58 Jimmy Purdy All this money in technology for a 10% improvement, what are they thinking? I think maybe part of it is there is no more room to go up maybe. I feel like we've gotten so efficient with getting the most amount of BTUs out of every drop of gasoline in these internal combustion engines that maybe it takes that much to get that 10% more. Obviously, I'm not an engine engineer. I don't know. But you look at the 10-speed transmissions, you look at, like you're saying there with that engine, the amount of money in technology and engineering and time it goes into manufacturing this brand new product, the EcoBoost and Chevy Cruze with their 1.4-liter turbocharged engine.
34:46 Eric Faley And we all know how great those things are. Actually, I don't because I… You don't have to deal with them, huh? Yeah. Being that I work for Malahee, Chrysler and all that stuff, we don't really work on it except for a used car. But we don't have… Few and far between. We don't have to work on that stuff. Where you're an independent here, that you're going to work on a lot more stuff than I'll ever see. Yeah.
35:17 Jimmy Purdy Well, a wider array, I guess. And I'm a little behind the ball, I guess, too, as far as the new stuff coming out because I'm not going to see a new car for three, four years. Sometimes five or six years.
35:29 Eric Faley I mean, with a 10-year warranty, I mean… Yeah, depending on what manufacturer. Some are five years 60, some are five 100, some manufacturers are 10 100 on a powertrain. So… And some of the vehicles out there, pretty much, I hate to say disposable. You find out, 10 years down the road, the car is now out of warranty, needs a transmission, needs an engine, the car is worth $5,000, engine or transmission is almost $7,500.
35:57 Jimmy Purdy What do you do? Right. I mean, that's the question. That's the biggest… You never get your money back out of it. No. Not today. But then you look at Chevy trucks now and it's like, really? 1990 Chevy truck for $10,000. Maybe you keep it long enough, but I don't know, back to the engineering behind it. Maybe that's the whole advent behind it. It's hard to really take the situation and think that they're trying to do something good for us. The way we see the… I mean, the way you've probably seen the industry turn, it's like, are they ever going to do anything that's proper for the technicians that are working on it? The people that are in the auto industry, it's like, why do you keep making these changes? But then you see how much money they spend. Just like that eight and nine speed. Have these classes and they say, okay, we're going to rebuild them. Nope, we're not going to rebuild them. A lot of money getting poured into this new technology. And it's for what? But are we at the point where there is no more room to move forward in an internal combustion engine? And that's why everyone's pivoting to EV because it's like, we just can't make them any better.
37:04 Eric Faley But I think you may be right there, but I still keep things popping up saying now they're working on some type of synthetic fuel that's supposed to re-burn really, really clean. I haven't seen enough information and I really haven't followed along with it, but I've been seeing headlines about synthetic fuel.
37:24 Jimmy Purdy Well, you know, just as well as I do that most of that stuff we don't hear about. There's so much stuff that goes on behind the scenes that they're not going to publish. I mean, you and I are never going to hear about it until it actually comes mainstream. And sometimes this stuff falls through the cracks and we pick up bits and pieces of it. But that might have been something they worked on 10 years ago. I mean, who knows, right? Unless you want to spend the days of your life trying to research that. I don't have time for that. So it's just interesting what the big pole is for one to change the industry as far as it has and then for two, like this advent of the EVs. What's the deal here? You know, obviously we're not ready for it. The infrastructure is not there. The dealerships, the independent shops. I mean, none of us are prepared to have an EV day in and day out. You know, like we already have a technician shortage and now you want to take the one
38:18 Eric Faley thing we all know away from all of us. What's real funny is you bring up EVs back in the early 90s. Chrysler Corporation, when it was still Chrysler Corporation before it became Daimler Chrysler, then FCA, Fiat, all that good stuff. They made, Dodge made, I think it was Dodge, was anyway still part of the Chrysler family. We made electric main events. Interesting. They were for government use on military basis. It was 91, 92, 93 in that era.
38:56 Jimmy Purdy They had at the time, I believe was almost a hundred mile range. What happened to it? Yeah, that's the first I've heard of it. I mean, I'm obviously not an EV guru.
39:12 Eric Faley I'm not either. A lot of the newer engines, a lot of newer stuff out there has that little gas cap, yellow gas cap, E85, flex fuel. We had flex fuel back in the early 90s because we were selling cars with little 2.2 engines in them or two, whatever they were, 2.5s. And it used to say with a little decal on the side of the fender, flex fuel, and there was special oil backed in. Reflex fuel because the alcohol content would wash the oil out off the cylinder wall, so they had special oil. Where'd that go? And now we're back to it again. There was also rumors we were working a hydrogen cell. This is back in the 90s. And now you're hearing stories. So that's a big turnaround. It's like, well, we were already working on it here. Some people say, well, when Mercedes-Benz bought us, they took the technology and trashed it. Whether they did or not, that I don't know, but I know a lot of Chrysler engineers got laid off and replaced with German engineers. Yeah, a lot of stuff goes on that we don't know nothing about. Yeah. It's just interesting how we had the technology and now it went away.
40:44 Jimmy Purdy Now we're coming back to it. Yeah. They keep pulling for different and better directions. And then lo and behold, it was there the whole time. You know? I just think with the advent with the EV is just a push for it just masked in the charade of being environmentally friendly. You know what I mean? That's just, it's just a good scapegoat. Yeah. It gets everybody on board, gets everybody excited that we're helping, but there's got to be something else going on. And it's just not looking at the bigger picture. You know? Yeah. Give everyone an option, but to say if your dealership won't jump on board and sell our EV package, we're going to pull your license. Really? What are we supposed to do with all these techs that we've trained over the last 15, 20, 30 years? Some of them don't want to invest into that because they're not going to be around in the next 10 years. It doesn't make sense. I mean, right? I mean, in your position. Yeah. I'm 60 something years old. Are you looking at spending thousands of dollars to learn about EVs to work on them for the next 10 years? No. It just doesn't make sense. And you're the senior tech there that's going to be the guru that everyone looks to. It helps. And it's like, if they go EV, it's like, well, I'm not going to train for this, so I'm just going to leave. Right? Yeah.
42:03 Eric Faley In your opinion, if I was in your shoes, it's like, why would I do that? Yeah. I mean, I still have to keep up with some of the training, but I'm kind of trying to let the repair work go to some of the other younger guys that are more apt for it. And some of the younger guys are like, we don't want to work on this stuff. Yeah, it's 400 something volts. And you've got coolant running into the systems. Yeah. You know, I've already had a couple of jeeps, off-road jeeps that are hybrid electric, and they have charging system issues. And the battery pack is under the vehicle. And I've already had them, you know, you get them in, you look at them, they say, Ruby, whatever, on the side, you get them up in the air, you unplug, you've got the big connector for the battery, then you got the little seven or eight pin plug, which is all your regular diagnostics and all that. Unplug them. They're all corroded. I've had several of them, so you've got to put a connector on them and that. They're not properly sealed. And people are doing exactly what they're supposed to do with them. Yeah. They're using them.
43:18 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. They go to sand. They go out to the desert. They do whatever. Is that end up being a warranty work then? Yeah.
43:26 Eric Faley Because I was hearing on those jeeps, they're pretty much warrantied for pretty much anything. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. I just asked somebody. We probably both know that he's got some pretty interesting videos on social media and everything he's done has been replaced under warranty. That's crazy.
43:48 Jimmy Purdy Because he says you can do it. That's what you buy it for, I guess. Exactly. I think that's probably the one push that's good for it is you don't buy an EV or a hybrid Jeep anyway and they say not for off-road use.
44:02 Eric Faley Can't you imagine? That would be ludicrous because what's Jeep doing for the last several years? Right. They've been out at Moab every year for Jeep Safari. Now they have complete electric Jeeps. They have one called the Magneto. It's a little two-door deal. I don't know what the range is, but all the magazine guys are just happy as can be because things quiet. It's got tremendous torque. Right.
44:32 Jimmy Purdy That's one thing about EVs is the torque is just tremendous. I have the issue because it has its place. I love the technology. I like the hybrid technology, to be honest. I think it's phenomenal. I think it's awesome what they can do with the hybrids. Same with the EVs. It's got its place. The problem is trying to make it mainstream, putting the cart in front of the horse in a sense, and trying to push this down everybody's throats. Is it scare tactics? I don't know exactly what the deal is, but if they just made the investment, because they're making the investment either way, but make the investment, offer it, they would probably show they got a lot of support behind it just having it as an offering. Make people want it. Make people, I want that, and I want that, but an EV. Can I special order it? Right. Salesman 101, you know? You can't just fill the lot and say, this is all you get. I don't want it now. It's just human psychology.
45:34 Eric Faley Yeah. There's too much going on, like you said, because I know it's coming. A lot of it not ready for it. There's a lot of negativity. People are also looking at, well, where's all this coming from? Where's all this? Where's all this parts coming from? You do some research, you'll find out.
45:52 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. Yeah, a little bit of research. It definitely calms the nerves a little bit as far as what's going on, but it's just having that thing shoved down your throat and getting rid of gas cars and who knows, maybe that's why all the used cars are skyrocketed. That's why all the older ones are skyrocketing. I mean, who knows what's really going on, but it doesn't take a genius to kind of look at the situation and take a step back. Well, obviously. Yeah. Look what's going on. Look what they're making you do.
46:21 Eric Faley Yeah. And I've also noticed, depending on the political climate, who's doing this and who's doing that one has a lot to do with that. Oh, yeah. Right. We have people that are anti this and anti that. So who knows what's going to happen the next time the next group of people come in? What are they going to do? Go, no, we're not doing this. We're going to do this now. Everything's got to run off of water. Okay. And we're going to have steam cars again.
46:51 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, we're going to go back to the steam engine. I guess you weren't around for the steam engines. No, I'm too young for that.
46:57 Eric Faley But you know what I mean. I mean, what's going to happen with the next group of people running the country? What are they going to come up with next?
47:03 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. Yeah. And then you make the big investment and then all of a sudden they pull it away. I mean, I don't mind learning something new. I've always liked electrical. I like the diagnostic stuff. I mean, obviously you as well, you've always been the technical guru as far as, you know, computer programming. I mean, you do your programming stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, so you have no problem staying up to date with technology. So I guess my point I brought up earlier wasn't the fact that you don't want to learn. It's just having to learn something for the future of what? And I think that's a lot of people. I mean, a lot of people in the industry right now that are already tiptoeing, wondering if they're going to stay in. The pay is not the greatest. You can make more as a plumber. You can make more as a look-tripper. I've heard all the stories. I'm sure you have too, right? And it's hard work and it's not the same thing every day. No. You lose your ass a lot. Right. Oh yeah, definitely.
47:58 Eric Faley Definitely. Definitely. Depending on how you're paid, you can lose your behind or you come out okay. One of the things that are really pushing now for us is not just using our scan tool and looking at the code. And it used to be, okay, let's take out the DVOM. Check your voltage here. Check your voltage there. All right. Let's replace this. Now we're going to Picoscope. So I've got a training class coming up at the end of July, early August, which is three days. I'll be trained in the shop over a Zoom. And that's how they want you to test things now. So you got a coolant temp sensor code. Well, okay. Pretty much it's going to be a coolant temp sensor. We both know that. But to make everything right, you're supposed to unplug the coolant temp sensor, verify, do I have my X amount of voltage, 5 volts, 12 volts depending on the system? And do I have a signal return? That's all okay. Now they want to go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let's hook the Picoscope in.
49:12 Jimmy Purdy Let's back probe that and verify that the sensor's working correctly or that. So they want to check to see if the 5 volt, and in this case, say a 5 volt reference, it's actually dropping resistance on the backside of it. I'm pretty familiar with that. I mean, I pretty much have made my Picoscope kind of standard for everything I do here. Okay. So I'm pretty familiar with the Labscope. I can see that direction. But also I have it written up for certain procedures, you know? Like you just stated, if that comes in and we do an assessment and it's got a PO 218, I think that's right, for the coolant temp sensor, for circuit fault, and you pull it out and you got your 5 volts, you got a good ref wire, you're replacing the temp sensor. Correct. That's it. So if we're going to be spending more of the client's money further assessing that situation, it's pretty cut and dry. But if there was something a little more advanced, say an O2 sensor low activity, the Picoscope's coming out. Correct. You know? And that's an advanced assessment. We'll charge accordingly depending moving forward. But to standardize the Labscope for everything, that's strange. Yeah. I mean, maybe they're trying to get everyone trained in it. And of course, the more you use it, the better you get at it. So I always tell the guys, too, hey, if you got a verified fault, then pull out the Labscope and see what the difference is before and after. And then you can remember what good and bad data looks like. Maybe that's part of the push.
50:42 Eric Faley I don't know. It's great on the – if you got an intermittent die out and you might have maybe a crank sensor code but it's not a hard crank sensor code.
50:54 Jimmy Purdy Crank sensor on a Chrysler? No.
50:56 Eric Faley You've never done a crank sensor on a Jeep, have you? Depends on what type of Jeep you're talking about. You've never put an aftermarket one in and had problems with it, have you? No, never. I don't know what the deal is with the – I'm not knocking the aftermarket, but I don't know what the thing is with the aftermarket. Certain crank sensors on certain vehicles of ours, I don't understand. It's maddening is what it is. Yeah. I'm like, well, wait a minute. I put a crank sensor in it. It's still got what? It's got to be resistance or it's got to be resistances or how they work inside.
51:34 Jimmy Purdy It's just a Hall effect sensor. It's like, what could you possibly make any different? Yeah.
51:39 Eric Faley Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I just – they do weird things. But you've seen them. Yes. Especially the ones that come in. So I've replaced my crank sensor three times and it's not fixed it and now you get to deal with – well, it needs a crank sensor.
51:48 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. I've got to fix it. I've got to fix it. I've got to fix it. I've got to fix it. I've got to fix it. I've got to fix it. Well, it needs a crank sensor.
51:56 Eric Faley I've already done it three times though. Let's put the factory one in here. The lowly one in. Yeah. And if you ohms check them, there'll be a difference. If you were to actually ohms test them, there'll be a little bit of a difference.
52:07 Jimmy Purdy Just enough. Yeah. Even though every aftermarket part has a little – I mean, a variance of – Just manufacturing tolerances. Yeah. But for the most part, most of the PCMs don't pick that stuff up. No. You know? So you're like, it's a little different. But then you're also dealing with the fact that you pulled the old one out and you don't know if it is bad or not. So you're testing the old one with a good – supposedly good new. So that's the whole thing with the scope is constantly seeing good versus bad. Right. You know, the hardest thing in the world is using a scope on a bad vehicle because you don't have a known good to compare it to. I mean, luckily there's enough information out there to find a known good.
52:45 Eric Faley Right. And most of the – I don't know about the Pico scope because I haven't really played I know my two channel lab scope on my Snap-on scanner that I have is my backup before we started doing Pico scope. It'll show you – you've seen it. It'll show you a good pattern versus – Yeah.
53:04 Jimmy Purdy You can pull up some compare files.
53:06 Eric Faley Right. Right. So I'm like, oh, okay. Well, mine definitely doesn't look like this. Yeah.
53:12 Jimmy Purdy So you replace it. Right. Yeah, depending on what you're dealing with. It gives you something to look against. Yeah. You've got to compare it to something. But that's interesting that they're pushing that to the dealers. That's not a bad idea. I mean, especially if you've got new techs coming in, the industry kind of start with that. Right. And it's got to be a push for the EVs because the only way to really diagnose those is with a scope. You can't pick up bad – if you have anything – any issues with the electric motor, you can pick that stuff up on a scope. You can't pick it up on a oscilloscope or on a DVOM. No. You know, it's not fast enough to pick up any issues that are on a three-page motor.
53:54 Eric Faley Right. And that's probably – like you said, that's probably what that's going to. But we haven't seen any motor issues. Well, I take that back because the motor in our hybrid minivan in the Pacifica, that one we've had some issues with. And that's another one that's – you know, electric motor plus the transmission. So we've had some issues with that one. We just take it out and replace it. Yeah.
54:24 Jimmy Purdy Either they don't move or they get some type of internal fault and it's like, okay, replaced. Right. Yeah. What else are you going to do? Yeah. Tear it apart like they did with the starters and the alternators? That was fun. Yeah. You got to see rebuilding starters, rebuilding alternators. I think I caught the tail end of that. I remember doing a few of them. And it was pretty cool.
54:48 Eric Faley The biggest thing on the minivans and all the front-wheel drive stuff and some of the Cummins, it wasn't the starters wearing out. It was the contacts. And when I was over here at Jerry Renaud, we used to put them in all the time. CarQuest, the CarQuest in Templeton, used to stock all that contact stuff. So we used to buy it in bulk from them. I don't know how many starters I fixed because nothing else had happened. If the starter actually was bad, which is maybe 5, 10% of the time, but it was always click, click, click. Oh yeah, it needs contacts. Take it apart, sand the brass ring on the plunger and put two new L-shaped contacts. Boom, you're done. That was easy stuff back then. The early alternators, like that was on my Roadrunner, they used that style all the way up into the early 90s. Set of brushes. Very rarely did we ever see diodes go bad, commutators or any of that stuff. It was always worn out brushes. Or the oil would get in there from a leaking valve cover because your alternator would be down there. So it'd chew up the brushes. That was easy back then. Then it was like, oh, no, can't get the parts. We went to this one and this brand and Denso or whatever.
56:14 Jimmy Purdy It's like, replace only, replace only. Well, then you start looking at the cost of a starter or an alternator versus the time to take it apart and put it back together. Then you do all that and you have something else fail in it. It's like, yeah, it just got to the point, like you said, just turn into a replace. Everything is just replace it, replace it. But now it's going back. It's circling back because you're going to have the electric motors and that's what we're going to be doing. We're going to be pulling these electric motors out and replacing brushes, replacing commutators on these three-phase motors. All the guys that knew how to do that on the starters and alternators aren't going to be around anymore.
56:56 Eric Faley No, they're not. I was talking with our parts and service rep a couple of months ago and I was asking him, why are we fixing the A's and transmissions under a recall? Well it's not a published recall. It's just one of those in-house recalls. Basically you can't sell the vehicle unless you fix it. I said, why are we fixing this unit when the only training that you guys gave us was a basic diagnosis class and told us we were only going to replace the valve body, the torque converter. It was a replacement only seal transmission after that and now you're having to take it apart. You haven't given us any training. You haven't given us any toll cutting costs. What else is coming down the road is you're going to be rebuilding hybrid batteries or electric vehicle batteries. I'm like, what? Yeah, you're going to be rebuilding the batteries within the next few years. I've seen inside of battery because they've had a couple of them apart at the training center. They look like a whole bunch of little batteries in your jumper packs or little motorcycle bags, batteries or even the stop-start batteries, a little 200 amp batteries. That's what they look like. Just a whole bunch of batteries in series. Series pair, whatever.
58:24 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, so it's like, okay, so I guess we'll be testing each battery going. Yeah, that was like the old Honda Insights. I don't know if you ever dealt with any of those. No, I have not. It was the same thing. You go back there, you could test each one. Then you still can. You still buy the individual batteries and find the bad one and then replace it and you're good to go. The old Honda Insights. Those are kind of cool. That's cool. Yeah, I mean, so I guess Dodge has been pretty much the majority of what you've been doing. Yes.
58:56 Eric Faley Yeah. Yes, since like I said, 1985. I've always had a fascination with Chrysler products.
59:02 Jimmy Purdy I don't know why Chrysler. I think it's- I don't know why either. But bless you for taking it for the rest of us.
59:14 Eric Faley Gee, thanks, buddy. I don't really know why. I remember the first Chrysler product we had growing up. We had a 69 Plymouth Belvedere wagon. I don't know. For some reason, that stuck with me. My first car was a 69 Plymouth Roadrunner 383 Automatic. Seventeen years old with a 69 Roadrunner. The car was only ten years old.
59:41 Jimmy Purdy Well, no wonder why you got stuck with Chrysler. I get it now. Yeah. You get a Mopar like that, that's the real car. Not like it is nowadays.
59:50 Eric Faley They should have just left computers out of it and I think they would have been fine. Like I tell people, the modern cars, the modern performance cars are so much safer, so much faster, handle so much better. But what are they lacking? The cool factor. The rawness. I can drive one of our newer RTs or whatever. The next thing you know, you're doing 100 miles an hour. You get in my Roadrunner, you put it to the floor. It may not – it's going to take a while to get to 100, but the raw visceral torque versus what we have now. We have high horsepower, a little bit lower torque, and the engine's rev. Well, my engine makes torque, then the horsepower takes over. But it plants you in the seat. These new cars, you're kind of like, I don't feel – oh, wow. 100 miles an hour? And I'm going, well, I'm only at 70 in this thing in the same amount of time. But you're having way more fun. It's way more fun. The first second gear shift on the right pavement is a chirp. The new cars, I don't feel any shifting. You're just going. Right.
01:01:07 Jimmy Purdy So you're missing the fun. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And it's the same with the electric cars, like the Tesla Plata S. I mean, it's fast, but it has a lot of torque behind it. That's a lot of fun, too. But the noise, the sound, just everything. You got to drive your damn car, your car. And it's the same with mine. It's like you get in there, and it doesn't matter if you're only going 70 or 80 miles an hour. That's all you need. But it's the feel. Yeah.
01:01:32 Eric Faley It's the feel. Feel of it, yeah. Tesla Model 3 with the dual motor, whatever it is. And I will tell you this. That car planted me in the seat because of all the torque. But you're kind of looking, OK, I'm planted. All you hear is wind noise coming over the car. And you're like, where's the engine sound? Missing something. Yeah, you're missing something. Whereas any of the performance cars of today or yesterday, at least you got that engine going, making noise. And you're like, yeah, this is great. But what was the point of that? Yeah, OK. So I went faster. I went quicker than pretty much anything I've ever driven, except for maybe a Hellcat.
01:02:24 Jimmy Purdy But really, it's missing something. Yeah. And that's the whole point of a car. I feel like that's the whole point of having a performance car is all those things. It's not just one thing or another. And as soon as you get rid of one to gain more on the other, it's not the same. It's that whole embodiment of being able to get in that car and be a little feared of your life if it's going to hold together.
01:02:51 Eric Faley Yeah, I know what you mean. Oh, yeah. You know, a new car, you go down the road, it's smooth as can be. You get in my old Roadrunner and you hear it. It's got a magic spot. And it's been there ever since I can remember. I don't know how many inclinations of how many times the engine's rebuilt, how many different transmissions I put in there, how many different rear differential gears I put in there. It's that sweet spot at about 3,000 to 3,100 RPM, according to my tach, and maybe lower at about 68 to almost 70 miles an hour. You got that oscillating drone. You know, I've been chasing that for years. Then, you know, going on forums, oh, my car has been doing that. My car does it too. My car does it too. My car does it too. Basically, I think it's an inherent factor of a unibody because there's no real there's no frame. Yeah, it's just a magic spot. Yeah, it's just that magic spot of the vehicle. No subframe connectors fix it.
01:03:58 Jimmy Purdy I don't know. Is it worth it though? You know, and it's like that makes people in tune with their vehicle. That's what's been lost. That is 100% lost. People paying for the subscriptions, they don't own the car. They buy it and they don't feel like they own it. They don't need to check it. They don't even need to pop the hood. They take it to the shop to have it fixed. They don't check their own oil. They don't pay attention to noises. No. And that's what those old classics did. They made you pay attention to everything because it made so many noises as it was. Yeah. If there's something new, okay, that's one too many. I got to figure this one out. And it's like people just aren't in tune with their vehicles anymore.
01:04:36 Eric Faley Bottom line. When I was working my first before I became a real tech, you know, I was working in it. I worked at a mobile gas station and Exxon and I was on the full service pump. So you used to come in, pull it to the pump. How you doing? You know, greet the customer. Fill it up, please. You know, you put the gas nozzle into the gas tank. Go around, check the tires, wash the window, pull the hood, check to make sure there's oil in the car. You know, and you do a visual to make sure, you know, cars back then, old V belts, they'd be falling off. Hey, you're this and this and this and this. I had I had one older gentleman still this day or story reminds me that guy comes up to the pump. Car steaming. I said, sir, I think your car is overheated steaming. I said, can we look at your temperature gate? Turns it on. I said, and it was a Ford Lincoln Mercury type product. So you didn't have a gauge. It had a green light for coal when it started and a red light for hot. Right. And he turned the key on and I said, oh, your hot lights on. No, it's hot outside. Yeah. That's when I said, well, let's pop your hood. You know, things steaming everywhere. That's where I went and got the mechanic because I wasn't a mechanic at the time. I knew something about cars.
01:06:09 Jimmy Purdy I was in high school shop and all that. But you knew when it was hot. That's yeah.
01:06:13 Eric Faley Yeah. So I got the mechanic because we were mechanics back then. We weren't techs. You know, he looked at and said, sir, blah, blah, blah. So they got him a ride home, picked his car, went down the road. He went. But so I guess I guess those have been around for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I used to have this old another old guy used to come in. Can you rotate the air in my tires? Here's a quarter. Yeah. Rotate the air. Yeah. And you said, well, we can take put it in. I said, we can put it in the shop and have the mechanic rotate the tires. No, I want the air rotated. OK, sir. So, you know, whatever you want, you go. Yeah. All right. She can give you a whole quarter. I mean, I mean, gases. Ninety something cents back then. I think I don't. What a time to be alive back then. You know, that's so cool. Well, I was putting Chevron premium in my roadrunner. It was a dollar three and I'm on. I think Arco was still 70 something cents or whatever back then. But, you know, I'm thinking, wow, dollar three, that's a lot of money because I was making two dollars an hour or something. I don't know what it was. It's too long ago, but it wasn't that much. Right.
01:07:31 Jimmy Purdy So, oh well. Well, cool. I think it was a good story to to to end it off at. All right. This has been fun. Yeah, man. I appreciate you coming in. That's a lot of good info. Yeah. Until next time.
01:07:45 Eric Faley Yeah, do it again. We'll talk about Roadrunners or whatever. I got a long story about my Roadrunner. Well, we'll have to bring that next time for sure.
01:07:52 Jimmy Purdy Thanks, man. All right. Thank you.