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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 12 - Cody Wykoff.mp3
00:00 Jimmy Purdy I think you're going to have a good time. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So yeah, I know you haven't even listened before, but it's the Gearbox podcast. Okay. So, and the one thing I always don't do right is my introductions. So we'll get like 15 minutes into this thing and then like, no one will know who the hell I'm talking to. It could be Abe Lincoln for all you know.
00:20 Cody Wyckoff I don't know who this guy was talking to, but I could have swore he was like the hillside strangler.
00:24 Jimmy Purdy He might've been on the front side of a penny. I'm not really 100% sure. Yeah, I don't know. It was weird.
00:28 Cody Wyckoff So let's start off with introduction. My name is Cody Wyckoff and I pretty much known you since high school. Yeah. Been gone way back. I've been a diesel mechanic for 13 years now, mostly working on farm equipment. Like I went to, I went to wild tech, which a lot of people don't like admitting that because that school was just kind of like, they had a lot of issues a couple of years ago, but they've, I guess they've cleaned for what I've heard. They've cleaned their act up now, but I was in there in the heyday of the shit show. So it was interesting. I actually went to Laramie, Wyoming because I wanted to work on the big stuff like trucks and stuff like that. And you know, the big toys and so their diesel program, the Sacramento cabinet has had a, that was for like pickups and stuff. And the only big equipment they had was in Laramie. So I went to Laramie, Wyoming for like nine months and it was cool. It was an, it was a experience. I mean, I think I got more of just as far as a growing experience as a person going to that, you know, moving to a whole nother state for almost a year, you know, as a, you know, I think it was 24 when I went there, like I was still like wet behind the ears, like cocky thinking I knew everything, but I didn't. And I came back and I started working at specialized equipment, which is not here anymore, working on farm equipment. And then I went to work at a pass rolls truck center for like a year. And still that was, that job molded me in more ways than I'd like to admit that from what I've, the experience I picked up working in like big semi truck shops is it's a rough world. I mean, the people that work in that, they are, everyone's a hard ass and they will ride you and beat you and it's, you have to be like a mentally strong person for that. And so I was there for a year and then I ended up leaving and, um, due to discrepancies with a boss I had. And so I left there and then I ended up working at Kubota at the scene in tractors. And that's where I got a lot of experience. And I worked there for like seven years. Um, I was in a service truck, working on equipment, fixing stuff in the field. And, you know, anybody that can relate being in a field truck, you do a lot of self-taught learning. You know what I mean? Like sometimes you might not have the parts and you have to like make up your own fix for the, for the time being until you can get the right stuff. Yeah. Like I've had to do that a lot, like make my own fuse or, you know what I mean? Like reroute it this way or if I rewire it this way, it'll work for a little bit till I get the part here next week. And so I did that for seven years working at Kubota and that was, and that was a school of hard knocks. And I actually owe a lot of the experience I have from that job, um, working there. And then after Kubota, I went to John Deere for another four years as a setup tech, which was kind of a, I guess a downgrade in a bit. Like I wasn't like going out in the field and like fixing stuff cause I was a setup tech. So I was just like getting stuff new, ready that was sold and bought. So that was like, you know, kind of like repetitive crap, you know, which sucks, but the one thing I will say though, that shop, if you've ever been to it over at Cal Coast, it was one of the nicest shops you will ever step foot in period. Like you don't have, you could move an entire engine from one end of the shop to the other, just on hoists. Like, Oh yeah. Like in the center of the shop, there's like a big, Oh, I don't even know what it is, like a 20 ton crane, but like every corner and every spot there's giant electric hoists where you can pick up, you know, half a tractor and just moving around the shop. So that's kind of nice, but you know, as you get into those bigger, you know, companies, I think it gets a little bit more political. And if anybody that's ever worked on a shop, you kind of understand what that is.
04:41 Jimmy Purdy The dealership side of it too. Oh yeah. You know?
04:43 Cody Wyckoff Yeah. They're bare big time, but they got, they got the money, man. And you know, when you work for those big companies, they have the money to spend on the tools and getting you the right equipment and, you know, working in a tractor shop, if you've never done it before, it's so different compared to a car shop. I can only imagine that. You don't have car lifts to pick up stuff. You don't. You use forklifts, you use jacks, you use blocks of wood and a lot of it's on the ground. That's probably why I got bad knees now, but I can see that. And, um, like I like, you know, working at Kubota compared to like John Deere, that shop was more of a mom, pa kind of shot. I mean, they're a big corporation, but it's not compared to Calcos. Calcos is, they just got millions of dollars in that company of John Deere. It's just, you know, John Deere is like the Cadillac attractors, you know, you're spending money on a name. So they have the money to spend on that kind of stuff. And, but I loved working at Kubota just because it was like, you felt like you were working with like family, like, you know what I mean? Like you got, like, if you were in the jam, you asked your coworker, he dropped everything he was doing to come help you. You know, over, over there, the bigger corporation, if you need to help with something, you ask somebody, you felt like you were being judged. It's all numbers. You know what I mean? Yeah, right. Right. You're a number. You're just, you're just a guy picking up a paycheck and that was kind of it. So, and then after John Deere, I ended up leaving to go work for, uh, uh, on site diesel, which was a good four months because I don't, I don't mean, I don't want to talk bad about a guy, but it was, it was just not the fit for me. Right. Guy was very rough and very, um,
06:24 Jimmy Purdy I mean, it just, it just really pivots the conversation and like shop culture. Oh yeah. And it doesn't matter like whether it's an auto shop tractor shop, like what it is, like it's, it's really about the shop culture and it doesn't matter how much you're getting paid if you're not happy.
06:40 Cody Wyckoff No, it doesn't matter. The key part for me working anywhere is if I don't like the people I work with, that's a, that's a huge deciding factor. Right. If I can't wake up every day and decide like, these are the people I want to associate with, I don't need to be there. I'd rather just not get paid and I'll figure something else out. I'd rather, if I, if I'd rather work at McDonald's, Swiffenburgers, if everybody there I loved and would take a bullet for it, then go working at some place. It's going to pay me thousands of dollars and I hate everyone there.
07:07 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. I mean, that's, that's a great, that's a great segue to bring up cause it's, that's exactly what's happening in this industry. And it's like, everyone thinks, I don't know if everyone thinks, but it's like a huge culture right now. And we were talking about when you came in, it was like these, having shop owners that, that are raised in that crack a whip and everybody starts working hard. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? And it's just not the seventies anymore.
07:34 Cody Wyckoff Yeah. Oh yeah. I, I, it's funny. Like I hear, like I've had guys that just work like insane amount of hours. They're like, Oh, I'll work 120 hours in one week and all that. Like I've worked those, you know, I've had 116 hour paychecks in a week and stuff like that. And as far as like, I don't mind working overtime, like if I need the cash and we're in a jam at work and this work goes back to, do you like the people you work with? Yeah. If you are you willing to, am I willing to do that? If it's someone I'm willing to do that for absolutely. I will work to my fingers fall off, but if it's a company I don't care for, and I feel like they don't care for me, I don't care.
08:09 Jimmy Purdy I don't want you want me to work all the overtime of the world. I won't do it. Right. Well, the compensation isn't enough.
08:16 Cody Wyckoff Yeah. Right. Well, consider the fact they don't, it's not enough money to make it for the time you're going to miss with your kids and your family, your wife and your family.
08:24 Jimmy Purdy But I mean, I think like some of the drive is like, well, why doesn't he want to work overtime? I'm paying him for it. And it's like the thought of compensating, um, your employee, you feel like that should be enough and it's not, you know what I mean? Like you can't just say, Oh, well I'm paying you for it. So do your job. It's, it's not, that's not what it is anymore. I don't know if it ever really was. And I mean, hats off to the guys that lived through the seventies in this field that like, that like came in and just took the shit and joint drank the black burnt coffee at the bottom of the coffee pot. It was like, they set up a car in the corner. Yeah. I was like, yeah, like good for you, man. I'd like seriously props to you, but honestly, like it's just not where we're at anymore. And I feel like a lot of the technicians that have become shop owners are kind of in that mentality because that's how they were raised or they were in the shop that saw that. And that's the only training they have. That's the only knowledge they have on how to, they just don't know the difference, you know? And it's really difficult to even wrap your mind around a different way of doing anything unless you see it, you know, unless you like worked at different shops and saw, but if you found a shop you really like, you're not going to go open a shop like I'm getting paid well here. They treat me really good. Why my, why am I leaving? Yeah. They're like, why am I going to go do it on my own? If these guys are treating me good. And those are the techs that should be shop owners because they understand wow, if you treat everyone fairly and right and respectfully and compensate them, everybody, everybody will show up the next day. Oh, oh yeah.
09:51 Cody Wyckoff Well, like when I, like when I left Kubota to go to Deere, Deere, it was a pay raise, but now looking now, like what I know now, I wish I would have never left. It was a mon-pah shop and it was a pay, you know, a decrease, like from when I was working there. Well, you're chasing the money. But I, I love those guys. I still talk to my old boss there on the regular. He'll, you know, he's a Raiders fan and I was a Cowboys fan. He'll still send me stupid, you know, like memes or whatever, like Cowboys, like riding, you know, the gay pipe pride parade or something, you know, stuff like that. And we're still good buddies. And, and if, you know, honest to God, like I love where I work now, but like, it's kind of like, if I didn't have a job, but that guy called me and said like, Hey, you need a job, I'd be there in a heartbeat. Cause I love him. He's a great guy. And he treated me well. And I don't, I got nothing bad to speak about him. Right. But, um, Yeah, you go chasing the money. That's what you do.
10:42 Jimmy Purdy I mean, that's what it seems like the right thing is to do, you know, and, and that translates right over to the other side. It was like, well, if you just pay everyone more, you can treat them however you want to treat them or, you know, you can build this culture that you expect them to, uh, adhere to. And it's like, that's not, that's not, that's not right. That's not, that's not how it's going to work anymore. Oh yeah.
11:02 Cody Wyckoff Whether it ever worked before, but that's a whole nother beast. Now you're not working on the same equipment that they were working on 30, 40 years ago. You know, it's all much more advanced now.
11:12 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. I mean, you got tractors you deal with, right? And so, and so I don't know. I mean, even for me to think about tractors, I don't realize how much, um, electronics are in them now. Like I see, I see them now. I do the research. I've read up on them, like, holy crap. Like, but of course, like that only makes sense. Like, of course, like, of course they need to have GPS tracking and, and
11:33 Cody Wyckoff well, there's some tractors have like 30 something controllers or solenoids.
11:39 Jimmy Purdy Like there's tractors now beyond the actual implement implement that's just like on the cab, right?
11:45 Cody Wyckoff It's not even having to do with the motor, right? You know, like there's tractors now that if you program them with the GPS, you don't even need a guy in the cab. Like, did you know that they'll, they'll set it up and program it and you, you, whatever your field is, it'll run circle, yes, it with a satellite and it'll, it'll plow harvest, whatever the entire field without having anybody in the cab. Which I like, okay, that's cool. But then a part of me, like the guy that works is like, man, now you're taking a job with some other guy. That's true. You know, and that kind of sucks, but that, and then the other part, the mechanic part of me is like, oh man, this sounds like more problem that I need to deal with, like more electrical issues. Like, oh great. Figure out why this tractor is doing donuts and there's no one in it. That's cool. Yeah.
12:31 Jimmy Purdy Figure out why. I mean, it goes right into ADAS, right? Like the auto automated driver assistance is like, it's the same thing. People are going to come in like, my car is not parking itself anymore. Can you help me?
12:41 Cody Wyckoff I think of my dad saying like, if it's not broke, don't fix it. Right. You know, it was great. You know, steering wheel work fine guys. I don't know why we, I don't know why we can't still use it.
12:50 Jimmy Purdy Why can't we drive the cars ourselves?
12:51 Cody Wyckoff You know, it's got pedals. If you're not going to have anybody to, why bother putting the steering wheel and pedals in it? Right.
12:55 Jimmy Purdy But I think maybe the tractor industry or the, or not tractor industry, but the heavy duty industry, like what you've been in, have maybe been ahead of the curve a little bit, um, as far as the inflammation of the actual having those, those sensors and that technology, I feel like that's been around for a lot longer than a lot of us have kind of realized. And now it's like trickling down into in quotes, light duty or the automotive world, as far as like having those sensors on these tractors and like you said, program it to go, I want you to go do this three acre, three acre field and it's automated, you know, I mean, I feel like that's been around for a long time. It's, it's funny.
13:29 Cody Wyckoff I feel like I heard some of, some of these, like with deaf. Like deaf fluid. I feel like I heard like this stuff coming into the tractors before I heard it come into like vehicles. And when I heard about them, like, why are we doing this? And then, you know, I hear like GMC is doing it. Like, wait, what, what's going on? Yeah, everybody's doing it. This is this, you realize this is chemically made cow piss, right? We're putting this in what? It's good for the environment. Well, you know, California is a whole nother beast and they're ruined. They're honest to God ruining like heavy equipment area, the automotive industry, like diesel trucks aren't going as far as they used to because of all this deaf stuff they've added to it. They're not like back. Like, so like you were saying, like back in the 60s, 70s, stuff like that. Diesel trucks, million miles. Yeah, absolutely. No problem. Not an issue there. I actually read an article. I forget what it was like a trucker magazine and there was a guy, he had a 86 like Kenworth, but he had 3.75 million miles on this truck and he's just like, re you know, rebuilt it, you know, added a sleeper, upgraded the sleeper. You know, he just kept adding to it. Right. I promise you 60 years from now, you're not going to see a 2022 semi doing that. Right. It's not going to happen.
14:45 Jimmy Purdy Oh yeah. It's gone to a disposable world.
14:47 Cody Wyckoff Throw it away, throw it away and buy a new one. Hold the whole truck. We don't need to rebuild it. Just throw it in by a new one. You know, and it's some, some of those things I understand, like why, why you just throw it away and get a new one, you know, like a, like a chainsaw carburetor is 30 bucks. Yeah. Why, why rebuild it? Right. By a new one. I get that, but a whole truck, you know, stuff like that. It's like, why? Well, you know, we used to, we used to use our hands. We used to fix things. Yeah. Why can't we still do that? Oh, because it causes pollution. Oh, okay.
15:19 Jimmy Purdy Well, they can't monitor exactly where everything's going. Yes. You know, it's just the checks and balances. And I mean, and so yeah, going back to like the def fluid, and I'm sure you deal with a lot is like the Regens. Oh yeah. Right. So how many, how many tractors you get coming in just, just for a freaking Regen. Oh yeah. I mean, we deal with it with, with just the medium duty, I guess you call them trucks come in and they just, oh, I just keep going. I just keep going. I mean, I've driven, I've rented tractors before and then the little stupid light comes on and you're like, bypass, bypass. And then before you know it, you're like, oh, what the hell?
15:48 Cody Wyckoff I gotta sit here now. So, you know, it's funny is when, so when I was working at Kubota and the whole deaf and Regen started coming into their systems, it was funny. I made a point when I went, when they sent me to Kubota school, I made a point to the Kubota guys and they all kind of looked at me, I was crazy. And then it was, and what it was is so their systems, they have two different industries, they have the ag and the construction. Okay. And the construction industry, their system, the Regen would just be on all the time and when it wanted to go into Regen, it would just do it. Okay. Well, on the ag one, you had to, you could, you had to push the button to like activate it every time you start the tractor, like you start, you have to turn it on the construction, you just fired the tractor, it's already on. I see. And I told them, I said, that's going to be a problem. They're like, why? And I said, well, let's just say farmer John, who's been driving his tractor for 40 years, decides to buy a new one. And he's, you tell him, he's got to push that button every time he starts a tractor, he ain't going to do that. It's not going to happen. If you tell him he's got to push the button on every time, no, he's going to fire it off, go take a piss on a tree, hop back on the tractor, fire it up, not hit that button and go. And then this DPF filter is just going to get compact. Right. I said, you need to make them all like the construction. So it's just on all the time. They're like, no, no, the exact next year. They all changed it to the construction one because these DPF filters, when they first came out, they were telling us there was like five levels of being plugged. Like first one's like, Hey, it's kind of plugged. We need to do something about it. Hey, we have an issue. Hey, it's getting really serious, man. It's getting really plugged up. Four is like, Oh my gosh, you know, buzzards and things going off. And the five was, there was nothing you could do. You had to remove the whole thing, either replace it or go get it burned. And most, but I think they said on level five, you had to replace it. And those filters were $3,000 a pop. Crazy. So, and I was telling these guys, I'm like, dude, you can't like, you got it. If you're going to do it one way, you got to do it like with all of them. But just, just that one simple, stupid little thing, turning a button on. Oh yeah. That causes so many issues. And then these guys are going to want to buy these tractors anymore. Cause they have to deal with it. They're going to put the money into their 1970 whatever farm on the backyard. They're not going to, they don't want to buy a new one.
18:00 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. Why would they? Yeah. I mean, why would, why would you buy something for an inconvenience? Exactly. You buy something for convenience.
18:06 Cody Wyckoff Yeah.
18:06 Jimmy Purdy Not to make it more of a pain in the ass for it. I mean, it, it, and it just like rolls right into like the new cars with having the subscription programs for heated seats and, and all that kind of stuff. Right.
18:15 Cody Wyckoff Now you're speaking Chinese. There's a subscription program. Oh yeah. Yeah.
18:19 Jimmy Purdy So they got, oh yeah. So it's the same thing where you buy this vehicle for the convenience factor. Right. And so say you have heated seats, BMW has done it for a while, but yeah, you get a subscription. I got a whole nother issue. Yeah. So you get these heated seats and now they want to take that away and make it so cause it can be, it can be activated wireless, you know, through, through.
18:38 Cody Wyckoff So you have to pay a subscription if you want your heated seat.
18:40 Jimmy Purdy Right. So they'll just turn it off. And then when you pay your subscription, then okay, your seats are back on. So you can use them now.
18:46 Cody Wyckoff See, I think we're just getting lazy as a society. If you're cold man, put on a sweatshirt. You know what I mean? I drove a truck all through high school that didn't have a heater. If you're cold, put more clothes on. Right.
18:54 Jimmy Purdy If you're hot, roll the window down and haul ass. I mean, I think that's the biggest pull too. I think that's the biggest thing I always say too is like you buy something, you own it, like take care of it. And then like, it's not disposable. And it goes right into like the tractors and stuff too. Like, so if you buy something, you're buying it so you can fix it. So you can do these things to keep it maintained and keep it running. You talk about having to add def fluid or have a particulate filter. Like no one knows what that is. And it's like, you can't fix it. It's just like, it's three grand. That's it. It takes 10 minutes to replace.
19:23 Cody Wyckoff Well, it's like, like you're saying, taking care of things. And like my number one, like pitch, I would always tell the customers when I was out in the field and they're like, wow, I just bought this tractor. I got issues with it. And the number one pitch I tell them, and it's a very simple thing. I tell them, I said, when you're done with whatever you're doing for the day, wash the tractor. Yeah. They're like, why? It's just tractor. I'm like, well, here we get a couple things from that. One, you wash it. It just looks clean. Okay. You don't look like just some Jim, you know, schmo just out there, you know, beating up equipment, washer equipment. And secondly, the other reason for that is you can see when issues are going to happen before they happen. Yeah. If your tractor is all nice and clean, when you start driving it that day, dirt's going to start attaching towards leaking oil and it's going to, oh, Hey, that wasn't like that before. What's going on here? Well, you have a, a kingpin seal that's about to go out because it's starting to collect dirt and crap around it. It's like a, it's, you know, it's like yelling at, you can see it, you know, it's showing you that there's an issue, but if it's dirty all the time, you don't know if that's from the engine for the front axle, from the transmit, you don't know where that issue is coming from, but if you keep your stuff clean and organized, you're more, you don't have to be a mechanic. You know, something's going on. Yeah. Something's different. Exactly.
20:36 Jimmy Purdy No, it's a good point. No, I mean, that's, keep yourself clean. Oh yeah. I mean, and that translates right over to the light industry too. I mean, and I've said it before, it's like, take care of your stuff, you know, and no one's a better advocate for their own vehicle than, than they are. If you're driving your car and you feel here, see, smell something different, you don't need to be a mechanic because you're paying attention to your car. But this is society now is moving into like this replacement thing where it's like, Oh, it's making a noise. I'm going to go buy a new car. You know, and it's like, they just ignore it. They're like, Oh, I just need this thing to last another year. So I'm not worried about it. And they come in and we do inspections and there's 3000, $4,000 worth of maintenance that needs to be done. It's like, well, why is it so much? There's nothing wrong with it. It's like, not right now. You know what I mean? Like you need to do this stuff to avoid the big stuff. And you have so many different things that are starting to fail that this is maintenance, you know, and it's just like you said with the tractors, like if you wash it and you can keep up on it, instead of taking it down to the, to the dealership, cause finally a major seal fails and they're like, Oh, hey, by the way, you need another $5,000 worth of service work. And they're like, what are you talking about? I just came in for the one leak is like, no, you don't go down here.
21:44 Cody Wyckoff I'm looking at it and you've got this is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong. And this is wrong.
21:47 Jimmy Purdy Right. And with equipment, I can only imagine how many people put that stuff on the
21:51 Cody Wyckoff back burner, the amount of stuff you must see is like, mine must be mind blowing. You would be actually surprised equipment, like tractor owners, they're more acceptable to spend $5,000 in repairs. Oh yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, cause you get, if you think about some of these tractors, and this is where like women are going to start hitting on farmers now. Is some of these tractors cost way more than a damn BMW ever will. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, you spend 30,000, $50,000 on a tractor. You kind of got a light one. Yeah. That's what you mean. Yeah. You know, you spend six figures on a tractor. Yeah. That's a, that's a big boy.
22:28 Jimmy Purdy Better keep that thing up.
22:29 Cody Wyckoff Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Then, but then I think about like, like cars in, in, in how they build them now. Like, like the Ford flex for one instance, I've heard that, um, yeah. Have you ever done a water pump on one of those? Yeah. You have to remove the whole engine through the bottom of the car. Yeah.
22:49 Jimmy Purdy What? Excuse me. And they, and they had a big failure with them too. Really? Yeah. It wasn't like something that was like, Oh, it happens. I mean, it was a big deal. And I think there was a lawsuit that went behind it. I don't think a lemon law. No, I didn't go into a lemon law. There was definitely some, there was definitely some stuff going on with that one. For sure. That was like a big deal because it was, it's a big job to deal with and same with the explorers. I mean, the, the water pumps on those fail a lot. Oh, oh, three fives. Um, and it's the same thing. It's run out the timing chain and you gotta pull the time cover. You don't have to pull the engine out, but, uh, it's just the same thing. Like a critical component like that, that's buried so freaking deep where you look like a Chevy truck and it's four bolts.
23:27 Cody Wyckoff And that's what I told my buddy. You have to realize, cause when I was telling him this, he's like, okay. I'm like, dude, you realize every equipment ever built. I don't care who made it. No one has had to pull the engine to do a water pump. Like you could just do it right in there. So when I heard this, I'm like, I never want to own one ever. That sounds terrible. Like I want nothing to do with that. That sounds bad.
23:47 Jimmy Purdy Well, it's a critical component to like a water pump. Like it's never going to fail. Like it's going to fail. Oh yeah.
23:53 Cody Wyckoff You know, your water and metal don't mix. Yeah.
23:55 Jimmy Purdy And it's a part of that needs to be addressed. You can't let it go. So yeah, that's a weird one. Um, the four did, and I don't remember the specifics on what happened with that.
24:04 Cody Wyckoff I was just shocked. I was like, what? Like, is this a joke? Is that a real thing? Like, no, that's a real thing, man. I was like, wow. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad I w I I'm glad I stuck with trackers. You know, and then, and then, you know, like I said, and then got me thinking about it too is, you know, they spend, they're not afraid to spend money on the trackers. But the other thing too, that's for me is kind of nice is I'm kind of rough around the edges kind of guy. Like, um, you know, like I'm not a painter, you know, I'm a grease monkey. So they don't care so much as far as what they look like. As long as internally that thing is running like a champ, as long as it's going to go make them money, as long as it's going to go make them money. That's where they spend their money. And they don't, a lot of them, they don't care about a hood or a fender. It's like, Oh, I don't care. Is that leak not leaking anymore? Yeah, it's not leaking. All right, send it. You know what I mean? Yeah. For me, that's kind of nice too. It's like, you don't care so much about the cosmetics of it, but as long as the lights are working and everything is running like a champ, they don't care. I can see that. As long as they can get, you know, another harvest, two more harvest is 10 more harvest is, you know, but then like California has a program now where they're buying tractors back. Interesting. Yeah. We just did, um, this is kind of like Steve, but I actually just did one at my work. Um, we had this old, I don't even know what year it is, but it was an old Ford and they were doing a tractor buyback program where they buy this tractor for them and they gave them like, uh, the state of California, give them like a check for like 75 grand towards another tractor. Now this tractor on its best day wouldn't even worth five grand. Wow. Yeah. But they wouldn't accept it because the tractor didn't work. His clutch was blown up. So I had to split this tractor to put a clutch in it for it to operate if correct, just so that they would buy it to destroy it. So they'd give them a check for 70.
25:52 Jimmy Purdy I'm like, wait, what? Whatever. I'm getting my paycheck. I guess.
25:56 Cody Wyckoff So I put a whole new clutch in there. Like, you know what I mean? Well, but I didn't like go to like the extra mile to make it all nice and neat. Cause I'm like, I know this thing's going to go get chicken, but it was just kind of like dumb. I'm like, what are we doing?
26:07 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. Yeah. The politics of that kind of stuff is bizarre beyond any of us. I think can ever comprehend when it comes to the consumer buyback program does the same thing with cars, you know? If they don't pass smog, you can, you know, thousand bucks, 1500 bucks, whatever, but it's got to drive, you know, it just, it just can't pass smog, but it's still
26:25 Cody Wyckoff got to drive is like, what's what? That's why I don't, I, I, I have, you know, I usually have my A to B, which is my truck, which is, you know, something I'll probably have to smog for the rest of my life because it's a 2015 and everything else I buy like 75 and down. Right. I don't want to smog it. I don't want to deal with it. Yeah. I, oh, if it's broke, okay, I can fix it. I don't have to mess. I don't have to, you know, deal with the state and have them crawl out my ass for something I did.
26:49 Jimmy Purdy Right. Deal with the smog program every two years and how they're doing the state inspections too is just, that's why I wonder how Kyle's going to get that coupe of his all checked out. Yeah. Good luck. Yeah. Registered in Montana is what you're going to do. Well, he told me, thanks to everybody out in Montana, by the way. Yeah.
27:06 Cody Wyckoff Right. Well, it's funny. He, he took it. He said he took it down there to DMV and they're like, this is, this is not the engine that was in it. Like, like stock. Right. And he's like, no, just look at it. I'm like, no, of course not.
27:21 Cody Wyckoff Well, this is the one you're going to run in it. Yeah. Obviously. Yeah.
27:25 Cody Wyckoff Obviously it's in it.
27:26 Jimmy Purdy This is kind of like, that's what that's, that's about the point where you say, no, no, no, this is just the one I mocked up.
27:31 Cody Wyckoff Yeah, this is, yeah, this is, this is just, it's just for shits and giggles. This is going on my boat.
27:36 Jimmy Purdy Don't worry about it. Guys. It's just a blower motor. I decided to throw in here for the day.
27:39 Cody Wyckoff It's only six and a half feet tall. You know, don't worry about it. I want to go pick up my kids.
27:44 Jimmy Purdy Oh, the thought process. I don't know. It makes it tough being in the automotive industry in California because of that stuff, but we figure it out, I guess. Yeah.
27:52 Cody Wyckoff You know, eventually, eventually.
27:54 Jimmy Purdy So the pole with the heavy duty, that's something that you're obviously been doing. You like doing, was that like a conscious decision or is that something you fell into like out of school or like, what, what was the pole behind like the, instead of going to the light service versus like the heavy duty? Yeah.
28:11 Cody Wyckoff So when I was, when I went to diesel school, like I, uh, at wild tech, I was originally signed up to do diesel and automotive. Okay. And when I got there, I changed it to go all diesel. And the reason why was, is I thought that, you know, there were so many things changing out of motor industry and then, you know, electric cars and all this. And then what I thought was at a time, you know, everything that you own has at some point, um, been brought to you by a diesel engine. Yeah, that's fair. Everything you own from this desk, from that soda, from my glasses to your NOS tank sitting right here, everything has been brought to you by a diesel engine, whether it was a boat truck, you know, so I just, the way I thought of it was job security. Yeah. You know what I mean? Diesel's not going away at all. I don't see, there's nothing that they have come up with that is as efficient that can do the job that won't break down, that doesn't, that can outdo it. As far as durability, there's nothing that we got going on that can beat it right now. So I just thought of it as a job security doing it. And I'm a big guy. I can't, you know, me crawling underneath cars a lot, I just, I laugh because sometimes I don't fit. So the tractor works great too, because there's not, I can crawl underneath those real easy. Right. Um, and that's kind of why I went that route. I never, it's funny. I never was actually, um, I never worked on tractors before until I started working at Kubota. Like I worked on some semis and pickup trucks, you know, growing up. But like, and I, I actually, when I, when I got hired there, I told him, I said, I've never touched a tractor a day in my life, but if you're willing to teach me, I'm willing to learn. So, and that was, and that's kind of been, always been my pitch at any job. If I don't know how to do it, if you're willing to teach me, I'm willing to learn it, you know what I mean? If you're willing to sit down with me and whether, whether you want to call it, walk my, you know, hold my hand and walk me through it. I'm, if you're going to willing to do that, I can at least become a sponge and try to absorb it. So, and then once I started doing that, I realized like tractors was kind of my thing because like, you know, I told you earlier, like my downfall is electronics, like wiring. Well, tractors easy because you can see all the wiring. It's not hidden. You know what I mean? It's very good. You have like a fender here, fender here, hood, and that's it. And anybody that doesn't know what a tractor or has never worked on one, the way I've always described it is picture an engine with a transmission, then bolt two axles to it. That's a tractor. Yeah. Pretty, pretty much. If you want to go do a clutch on a car. Yeah. You know this, you can drop the drive shaft, pull the tranny out. There's the clutch tractor. No, you got to split that thing in half because it doesn't have a frame. You ever, you ever seen that in splitting a tractor? No, I've not. No. So if you think about your thing about a car where the bell housing sits on the engine, split the entire car in half and walk it away from one another. That's how you do a clutch on a tractor. Cause there's no frame. You can't, I can't drop the transmission because the transmission is the frame for the tractor.
31:05 Jimmy Purdy It's all in a roll. It's all bolted together.
31:08 Cody Wyckoff The minute you bolted the tractor together, like the engine will tilt because the front axle is just like a seesaw. It's very different.
31:14 Jimmy Purdy You're pulling tracks off. You're pulling everything.
31:17 Cody Wyckoff You just, you split it all the way down the tractor, all the way down to the bell housing bolts, disconnecting all the hydraulic lines that go around the side of it and then walking it away from one another. I have a couple of pictures on my phone. I'll show you on some of the ones that done it. You'll just go like, and it's funny cause I talked to guys that are car guys and they see that they're like, what the hell are you serious? I'm like, yeah, man, it's nuts. But I see you guys with, you know, coil packs and like all these wiring and I'm like, what the hell, like, you know, we just kind of like trade stories. What is this magic? Oh my gosh, man. Like you have what? What's the distributor? We don't have that.
31:51 Jimmy Purdy Like, it's just kind of like, you know, spark plug. What the hell's going on?
31:54 Cody Wyckoff Yeah, we don't know spark plug.
31:55 Jimmy Purdy And yeah, I can only imagine looking at a tractor. I probably looked at a few where I'm like, how the hell do you pull that out? Oh yeah. So that makes a lot more sense that you just, you just, you just disassemble it
32:05 Cody Wyckoff from the outside, from the outside in, you have to dig to where you're trying to get to. That's crazy. Yeah. It's pretty wild.
32:11 Jimmy Purdy Well, I mean, it's got to have some pretty good labor times on them then.
32:14 Cody Wyckoff Oh, oh yeah. Oh yeah.
32:15 Jimmy Purdy Now, is that something on the heavy duty stuff where on the tractors, you get a book time, obviously there's some sort of labor guide. Yeah.
32:23 Cody Wyckoff If it mostly, honestly at dealerships, they'll have it like flat rate. They're like, okay, well, no, it's going to take you like 12 hours to do a clutch. Like actually I, when I was at, when I was at John Deere, they had, when I was a setup, there was a tractor that had a, a input seal leaking on the transmission. And I've never split one and they're like, Oh, we'll send it over to the ag department, they'll split it. I'm like, I can do this. They're like, you can? I was like, well, I've never split a deer, but like I've split Kubota's all day. I'd do it in my sleep. They're like, all right, well, if you want to give it a shot. And it was like a 12 hour flat rate. And when it was all said and done, I beat it by two hours. So I was, I was proud of myself because I've never done one on a deer and I beat, you know, flat rate by two hours. I'm like, sweet man, like making money. But yeah, they have, they have those in the shop I'm at. I've worked for, um, central coast equipment, uh, out there off union road for Cody. All right. Yeah. And, um, had to get my little name dropping there. Great guy. If you've never met him, I have not known Cody is like, that guy's family, man. Like I, there's not a whole lot that guy couldn't ask me to do that. I wouldn't just jump on a dude for him because I just, I care about him a lot back to like, like, and who you work with or who you work for. Right. Um, but, um, he's, he's pretty good at, he does all, I don't do a whole lot of quoting cause he's, you know, he's the boss man. He does most of the coding. Right. And he kinda, he's kind of touched everything and knows, but there is flat rate books on doing certain things. Um, yeah, a lot of it's going to be time on material though, I would imagine. And then it also depends too, if it's a, uh, uh, cab or not.
33:56 Cody Wyckoff Yeah, I could see that.
33:57 Cody Wyckoff Yeah. Cause I have one tractor I'm doing right now that, um, we had to pull the entire cab off of it because it has a, the input shaft going into the clutch broke and it has a shaft over a shaft. So your normal input shaft going into the clutch at a secondary one, that's for the PTO, well, that one sheared off of it and it was stuck in the clutch. Oh, perfect. Well, that shaft, the only way to get it out is having it come this way out through the transmission. So we had to pull the cab off cause we had to split the transmission and have to get that shaft out. And it was just a nightmare.
34:31 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. That sounds a little bit like a nightmare. Yeah. That's got a, yeah, there's the hours you start racking up and this is your.
34:38 Cody Wyckoff You know, well, and then everything on them is made of cast. You know, like the housings, the transmission housings is cast and they, and it sucks because a lot of times if something breaks on the transmission case, you're screwed because you can't, you can't weld cast and you could try. Yeah. It's kind of, you really want to put your name on it.
34:55 Jimmy Purdy I've seen people try on that stuff. Like brazing shouldn't have done that.
34:59 Cody Wyckoff Nah, man. You should just got to, should have got a new one.
35:04 Jimmy Purdy I guess when you're that deep though, I mean, I mean, yeah, you don't really pull stuff out though. I guess I'm trying to wrap my mind around like even that repair process. Cause for me, I need stuff like disassembled. I think a lot of texture kind of like that too, where it's like, it's so hard to like fix something like in the dash, you know, like if you need to do a blower, like you just want to pull that. I'll use that as an example, like the HVAC box, right? Like say a blend or breaks or something. Like it's so hard to like, try to build that in the car. And you're just like, I just need to figure out how to get this out of the car and put it on the bench and then I can fix it and then reinstall. Yeah. And I feel like they have the battle is just getting to that point. Yeah. But I feel like with tractors, you probably don't have a lot of that. Like you got to do a lot of stuff. Like, well, this is going to save me like four hours if I just like deal with it in this awkward position that it's at, right? Yeah. Does that sound about right? Or is it most of the time you can actually get those components out?
35:55 Cody Wyckoff You can, most of the time you can get the components out because you're not fighting body panels and you know, stuff buried because there's nothing really hiding it. It just falls out. The only time that it's hidden, if it's inside of it, then you really got to start pulling stuff apart and dealing with it that way. And then the other hard thing too about it is that almost everything on a tractor weighs a ton because it's all made of cast iron steel parts. Like there's nothing light.
36:23 Jimmy Purdy Rusty bolts everywhere.
36:24 Cody Wyckoff Yes. You're breaking a lot of stuff. You know, you're going to learn how to weld real quick. That's for sure. But everything's heavy and it sucks. And it's hot and it's covered in cow shit and moldy broccoli, which if you've ever worked on a tractor that came from a broccoli field, hats off to you, bud. It's the most disgusting thing. Oh my God, dude. It smells like the whole tractor has just been submerged in like a septic tank.
36:51 Jimmy Purdy Crazy. You know, I've had plenty of cars come in ranch trucks. Oh yeah. And I just whine about the little bit of cow shit that's under the fenders. Oh man.
37:00 Cody Wyckoff I would give you nightmares. This tractor just buried in this stuff. I would give you nightmares. I don't. And it's funny because I've worked on so many vineyard tractors. Like I don't like wine. I don't drink it. I hate grapes now. I hate wine now because I have like vineyard tractors come in with like moldy grapes. Oh yeah. It's just fermented. Oh my God. And then we come back to like wash your stuff, man. I know you guys have a pressure washer out there. Oh God. Don't tell me you don't have one. Watch it before you bring it in here. Don't tell me you don't have a pressure washer. I know you guys have one. Yeah. Come on. Just hose it off. Anything. Take it a bucket of water and splash it on there or something, man. Because I'm the guy that's going to mess with it and I got to deal with moldy food on it. It sucks.
37:36 Jimmy Purdy All stuck deep in those, deep in those carvers. Yeah.
37:39 Cody Wyckoff Or then you'll have rats and stuff. I used to keep a pellet gun. I was just going to say I wonder if the rodents got to be a bad one. I used to keep a pellet gun behind the seat of my service truck because there was this one house I went to. It was actually in San Luis Obispo, kind of off of Bitter Water, like on the other end of Slow. Oh wait. Yeah. Like up on those hills. Yeah. So there was a house up there. He had a nest of wood rats. I don't know if you ever heard of these things. I think it's a wood rat. But they're like this big, like almost the size of a house cat. And this one was like inside behind the dash just eating everything. And I would just take a pellet gun. I'd shoot them out. I'd take channel locks, grab them by the tail and pull them out and shoot them and like hook them. Like, because these, it's gross. Oh, everywhere. Oh my God. But they just chew up all the wiring and then sometimes they get fried in there. Because they'll be right by the tank or the engine and they're just cooking. Because they want to stay all nice and toasty in the wintertime. And then farmer John fires up the tractor and he just burns those guys. Yeah. Or birds crawling into the exhaust pipe. I had one, they went on a big 6150 deer that crawled in the exhaust stack and I fired it up. And all of a sudden I see these feathers just shoots it out. I was like, what was that? I realized it was just roached to the bird that thought it was going to build a nest in the bottom of the pipe. And I'm like, oh man. Okay.
39:00 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. The rodents has got to be terrible with those big equipment. Oh my God.
39:03 Cody Wyckoff They're everywhere. Absolutely everywhere.
39:07 Jimmy Purdy We have a lot of spiders. That's about it. We got to worry about occasionally something that'll sneak out, but I don't do spiders.
39:13 Cody Wyckoff No, I actually had a, um, that, well, you actually take them out. We get spiders, but they'll be on implements. And I had one rototiller lifted up and if you never, um, you ever stared a bunch of ants on the ground? Like if you just stare at somewhere on the ground, you can see where all the ants are. Like the ground's moving. Yeah, exactly. So I lifted up this rototiller and I was staring at the shaft on it and I can see everything moving. Cause they had like a thousand spiders, black widows, wolves, like everywhere. And I'm like, Oh no. So I took break clean and I just, just blow torch the whole thing. My boss comes out, the whole thing's on fire. He said, what are you doing? I'm killing everything before I work on it. I'm like, I'm not, I'm not getting anything alive. Oh yeah. Or a rattlesnakes snakes and other service calls out of nowhere. I had one, it was a, it wasn't a rattlesnake. He was a king snake was actually a good one, but I don't, I'm like Indiana Jones. I don't do snakes. No, I took a pitchfork and I like, okay, dude, like, I'll come over there. Well, then he kept coming back. I was like, go away. And then I'm just driving the tractor, like a whole mile away from him. And I'm like, I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this. I like walk back at my service truck, drove it back down. The owner's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I've got snakes over here and I'm not doing it. What's the king snake? I don't care. I'm not doing it. I don't do snakes. I'm good.
40:33 Jimmy Purdy I don't need to worry about him crawling on my pant leg or decides to crawl up.
40:38 Cody Wyckoff I've heard horror stories from buddies. They'll be working on equipment. A rattlesnake was actually in the tractor. Oh man. Yeah. Like buried in there next door was nice and hot and he's just trying to stay warm. And he came over to hear that. He heard the rattle for a second. He thought it was like a tool in his pocket. He's like, what the hell is. No, it was just a wrench. And then he like goes over and hears it again and then it like strikes out of it. And he's like, he's like, dude, I almost like shit my pants because I was running so far. Almost died. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's another reason why I don't like doing service costs anymore. Cause I don't like fighting for my life from the natural, the natural disasters of the world.
41:12 Jimmy Purdy Well, I could only imagine the work you probably get at like a, I don't know if you call it a dealership, but a repair facility, probably a lot nicer equipment that comes in than the ones that you have to go out and repair. Right. Oh yeah. You know, like if you're not willing to put this thing on the trailer and take it down to a service department, it's probably not the nicest thing in the world. No, they're going to be beat up.
41:31 Cody Wyckoff You know, there's been a lot of, and that's the other thing too is like farmers, you know, cause a lot of those guys weld, you just see the stuff they've welded onto their tractor. Yeah. Some of it's kind of ingenious, you know, but some of it, like I had one, I used to call Frankenstein cause it like, it looked like he just started taking bolts and ledges like welding it where the threads are sticking up for some reason. I don't know why, but it looked like it had moles like all over this tractor. He willed all over the loader, everything. And then there's guys that like, you know, like the loader tube that goes in between like a stable, like they'll put a cap on the end and they stick tools in there and then they just shut it and like, Oh, that was genius. Like that was a good idea. Now you got your own toolbox on the loader. Yeah. No one even knew.
42:07 Jimmy Purdy Right. But yeah, I mean, that's gotta be like, tough to see some of that stuff too, that you see then, and then be able to like walk, like walk away, you know, like some, some of the, like I, we don't do mobile stuff, right. So everything comes in the shop. So it's like, something comes in and it's like something like that. I can't leave this. I can't leave like this. I'm sorry. Like you need to tow it out of here. I can't put my stamp on this thing. But like going out to like these tractors is like, is that even like a, like, do you even worried about that kind of stuff?
42:37 Cody Wyckoff There's a, when you're out there like that, a lot of times, like if, if I can't granted, I'm not doing field calls anymore. I work in the shop now, but when I was doing it, there's times like, if I can't, if I can't fix it here, like I just, I don't, there's no point in me charging any more money to you because no matter what I do to this, it's not going to get fixed. Like it's got to come back to the shop. Yeah. So I'll just tell them like, Hey, you know, it's like, I was a gal. I did, we just did a, we re we completely went through an entire cooling system on the tracker, put a new radiator, new water pump, thermostat, change the hoses, like everything like six months ago. And then she called us up and the tractor said, Oh, I won't run. I need you to come take a look at it. Well, I go out there and I'm like trying to get this being fired up. I can't get it started to save my life. I bled the injectors. I finally get it fired up and it is a complete, the tractor is a smoke machine. It is just fogging smoke out of the exhaust pipe. And I'm like, okay. And it's just running like crap, just ba ba ba ba ba. And it's just smoke. Like I'm fogging out her whole like house, like everything. And I shut it off. I'm like, all right, so we're going to have to come back with the trailer and this is how they go straight to the shop. She's like, why? I'm like, you see all this? Like I don't, there's not enough tools in my truck and in my truck to make this go away. Like it's got to come back. We're going to have to tear this whole thing apart because there's something bigger going on. Right. And actually what happened was this is, this is, this is where mechanics like have issues with engineers. And you know, I like how you smile the minute I said that, because you know what I'm talking about? She's, she said, and what ended up happening was they had old fuel in it. She put new old fuel in it, but it was gasoline. Oh. In a diesel engine. And then she's like, well, you guys worked on this. This is your problem. Like, no, no, what we did, it ran fine when we left here. This is not a problem. The problem is that you have, like, I'm telling you, when I say gasoline, like gas, like the first batch of gasoline ever made. Oh, okay. Like it was old. It smelled, it smelled like, like a rotting meat. Wow. Like it was nasty. And, um, I asked her, I said, cause I, I took a sample of out of it in a mason jar probably yellow. It was gross. Yeah. It looked like he had like chunks in it. It was nasty. And I told her, I said, this was in your fuel tank. This is, it's not diesel. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's kerosene or gas, but it's not diesel. It's not diesel. Might've been gasoline at one point in its life. Some kind of combustible fuel at some point, but I don't know what it is. Now I don't even think like an old deuce and a half that has a multi-fuel engine could run on this stuff. Cause it was just gross. And she said, oh, and I said, you put new fuel in it. She's like, well, my son, uh, he's an engineer and he said that there's something wrong with it. And I'm like, okay, well, did your son put fuel in it? And he's like, yeah, I'm like, okay, well, your son, the engineer put not diesel in a diesel tractor. And so what happened was her injector seized and it just started dumping fuel down the cylinders and it, it tried to like hydro lock, but what it ended up doing is melting a hole in the cylinder wall. It was about as big as my pinky nail. Wow. And it just fried it. So she spent whatever so much to fix that entire cooling system. Well, she ended up buying a new tractor because the amount of money to rebuild the engine on that thing, she was half the cost of a new tractor.
45:50 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. Well, the fuel system and everything else probably too, right? It fried it. Yeah.
45:54 Cody Wyckoff See, it sees the fuel pump. It sees the engine block. Like everything was toast.
45:59 Jimmy Purdy That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good call back case. So you just worked on it a couple of weeks ago and now it's not, now it won't start.
46:08 Cody Wyckoff That wasn't my fault there, sweetheart. I was your son, the engineer. I've only put two hours on it since I got it back though. I don't care if you put five minutes on it, man. I did not put that in there. I promise you I did not put that fuel in that tank. The gas doesn't go that quick. Oh, I showed my boss it and he just started laughing. He's like, oh my God. He's like, yeah, this lady's been on, she's called me every hour for the last two days wondering what's going on with the tractor. And I'm like, that should be a dead giveaway that she knows something that they did. That's fair. That's a fair way to look at it. Every hour for two days. That's, and that's the other thing too. I love it when customers try to lie to you about stuff. And that's the thing I love about whether it's a car or equipment. It doesn't lie. Oh yeah. As a mechanic, you're kind of the detective. When you start going through this and doing your diagnosing and figuring it out and you're like, okay, so you were riding the brakes. Yeah. That's why you got brake chatter now because you were riding the brakes and the rotors are warped. Right, right. So that's what I love about it.
47:11 Jimmy Purdy Is that what? Is it grissom? CSI?
47:15 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. Just follow the evidence. Just follow the evidence. We can all relate to that. Follow the money.
47:21 Jimmy Purdy Follow the money and follow the evidence. Tell you exactly where the issue is. Exactly. Yeah. We can always relate to that kind of stuff. Having, um, and that's a, that's a fair thing to bring up too. I never really thought about that way is like the ones that get real full of
47:34 Cody Wyckoff anxiety are the ones that typically made that mistake and they're like, they don't want to, they don't want to cop to it. They don't want to cop to it. But equipment doesn't lie, man. Yeah, no. Just you look at it long enough and you're like, ah, you've been around the blog, you're like, ah, that didn't happen because of that. Right. You were doing something stupid. Right.
47:49 Jimmy Purdy But of course we're all just trying to rip everybody off, you know?
47:51 Cody Wyckoff Oh yeah. Well, that's what everyone thinks. Mechanics are just trying to get, I don't, I don't, here's the thing. I don't know you. I don't care. I'm trying to get a paycheck too. I just want to get it fixed right the first time so you don't come back and piss off my boss. So I'm not trying to earn more money. I'm trying to help you. Right. Cause I would rather have someone telling me that someone's going to break down further down the road than forget about it and send it off. And I'm back here in a week. Now I'm pissed off because I was just here and why I was all coming to tell me before.
48:17 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, that's them. And that's, I just don't understand. I mean, it's understandable. The thought process, maybe that will goes back to like 20, 30 years ago when things were a little different, but even still then what would be the point of even trying to rip anybody off in this industry is like, how do you, like, what do you mean you're going to get ripped off? Like, well, especially in a small town like we're in. Yeah. But even still, just like the thought behind the whole, that whole thing to begin with, like what would, what would benefit you to do something to that tractor, say for instance, to have you come back out and spend your time. Like, why would I have done something like this? How does that make any sense? Yeah. You're going to lose a customer doing that. Well, you lose a customer. It's like, like on the business side of it, even like, what would that even be the incentive to have somebody do something? You don't. Absolutely nothing. No. And I don't know. It just blows me away. Like the thought process behind it, cause I deal with it and it's like, oh man, why is it going to be so much or do I really need to do all this? It's like, no, you don't need to do anything. This is just what I'm recommending. Yeah.
49:18 Cody Wyckoff Yeah. You can take it or leave it. I don't care. I'll take it. This is your car. You want to fix it or not? This is what I'm recommending to fix it fully. If you don't want to do that, I can just fix the bare minimum and that'll get you on your way, but in the end, it's your decision. Right. You know, if you want to go that route, this is what it's going to cost.
49:33 Jimmy Purdy And I feel like in kind of in my experience is like having that conversation and not and not, I don't want to call it pushy, but not like really selling the fact that there's all this other maintenance that needs to be done, you know, and you can probably relate to this. Like, you know, you're going to see that thing back that equipment's going to come back if they don't do the service work and it's already there. Like, let's get this done. Yeah. Yeah. The bill is going to go up, but you're not going to have to load this thing back up, bring it back down here, go through all this, like, let's just get it done. Now. Are we done with it? You know? Yeah. Uh, and it's, and it's like, at first you're just like, you know, I'll just fix what's broken, make you happy and go on your way. But then six months later they come back and they're like, why don't you tell, like you said, why don't you tell me these others? I was like, well, I did. I don't remember that. It's like, and so without being pushy, you're like selling that is documentation. Yeah, it is. But, you know, as well as I do is like, you can write it down, email it to a text to him is like, they still come back like, I don't remember that.
50:26 Cody Wyckoff Yeah. Well, it's funny. And when something you said that made me think about it also comes up with that. Like I was saying, just keeping yourself clean. Yeah. I had a customer, um, he was on a skid steer on an SVL and, um, a Kubota skid steer he, uh, underneath the seat is, you know, you can just lift up the whole seat and there's all the hydraulics and everything to it. Well, he worked in an area that had a lot of like powdery dirt. And what happened was, cause it wasn't a sealed cab. So the dirt got in there and everything, which is fine, but that's why on those skidsters, they have plates you can remove to wash everything out and just drains out the bottom of it. Okay. Well, he never did that. And the dirt got in there and with the vibrating of the diesel, the dirt compacted, compacted, compacted, and it actually pinched a hydraulic line shut. Wow. Which was the feed hose for the entire hydraulic system, smoked the pump, which was $3,000, $3,500 just for the pump, not including all the labor to replace everything we fixed it. Six months later came back for the same thing because he did it again. Wow. And we told him, said, you got to keep this clean. This thing is like owning your own legal tank. It'll run over brick walls. It'll lift up thousands of pounds. It'll do anything you want it to do, but if you don't take care of it, this is going to happen again, and especially where you're at with this powdery dirt. Got to keep this thing clean. And he's okay. Okay. Yeah. Six months later, he came back for the exact same thing. Dirt got compact so much that it pinched. It was a two inch hose. It was a big hydraulic line. That's crazy. And it pinched it shut so that the hydraulic flow wasn't adequate enough. And it smoked the hydraulic pump. Did it twice. Wow. Couldn't believe it.
52:08 Jimmy Purdy Well, at least it wasn't a third time too, I guess.
52:10 Cody Wyckoff Well, I think the third time maybe you would have gotten it. I sure hope so.
52:14 Jimmy Purdy You think people are smart enough to screw it up.
52:17 Cody Wyckoff What? Let's just put two pumps on there. Yeah. Is there a bypass we can do to that?
52:21 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, right. Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy. The kind of stuff that happens in different industries. It's wild. Yeah. It's the stuff you didn't think about, you know? All the YouTube and Google and the world ain't going to get you to figure that one out.
52:34 Cody Wyckoff Well, we couldn't figure out was like how did it, because it was a brand new unit. Like we were just blown away that the pump just seized. And then once we lift the seat and we see all this dirt, we're like, we literally had like, we started using screwdrivers as shoveling. We're just like shoveling, you know, picking out the dirt. And finally I could see the hose just pinched. I'm like, oh my God. Oh, wow. Holy crap. I didn't know you could do that. Like that was just amazing. Yeah. You never think of something like that because it's a two inch rubber hose and like it's hard. Yeah. But amount of pressure it took to finally compact that dirt down to pinch that hose off.
53:10 Jimmy Purdy That's crazy. Yeah. What a trip. I guess leading back into like do a little shifting gears here and move back to like kind of work atmosphere and like shop culture. Kind of leave it off on there. What's something for you particularly that so you've been a tech, you've kind of done your own kind of work, but for the most part you've kind of been through shops. What would be something that you would look for? Like say if like an employer was listening or maybe someone getting into the heavy duty industry and like a mistake that maybe that was made as far as I know we kind of touch base on like taking care of culture versus money. But what's something that you would like take away from all that and the experience that you've had as far as like finding the right shop, you know, versus like just looking at the numbers. Hey, I'm going to pay you this month pays this much. But is there something that stands out to you as far as finding that right? Like where you're at now, was it something that you landed and you ended up just liking it? Or was there something in particular that like really drew you in?
54:12 Cody Wyckoff For me, it was always I was I was always attracted to companies that were willing to sit down and listen to you and. You know, teach you, you know, I mean, like, you know, when I went to diesel school, like it was, yeah, I went to a school, but honest God, everything I've learned, I learned on my own. I didn't get it from that school. That school didn't really teach me a whole lot. And there's some couple things, but I don't use that. That was mostly for trucks. But for now, for me is I got to like who I'm working with and if they're willing to teach you and, you know, you could give me all the benefits in the world. But if I don't like working with you, I don't want to be here. Yeah. So I truly look for, you know, are they willing to teach me? Are they willing? You know, is it stuff I even want to, you know, work on? And if it's something that you haven't worked on, are they willing to teach you to do it? You know what I mean? Are they going to have someone that are they going to send you to a school or are they going to, you know, have you go do a class? Yeah, training is a big one. Training is a big one, especially the way technology is moving now. You got to have some kind of incentive for that. But and then the one thing, too, that I absolutely hate is micromanaging. If I have someone just like breathing down my neck to get something done, I want nothing to do with it. Absolutely. I don't care. And, you know, for the guys getting into it, speed comes with experience. Don't try to be the fastest guy in the shop. Try to be the guy that's getting it done right the first time in the shop. Yeah, that's a lot faster. You know what I mean? If it takes you all day to do something, by God's, by all means, take all the time in the world. And if you lose some money on it, you lose some money on it. But what you did gain from it was a guy that got experience in it so that the next time he comes around to do that, he's going to be faster. He was the time he was before. Absolutely. You know what I mean? So speed comes with experience. But I'm all about like I got to like the employer. And if he's somebody that actually cares, that means a world of difference.
56:06 Jimmy Purdy It's got to be genuine then, too, right? Yeah. You can't just have this like.
56:09 Cody Wyckoff You can't just be putting on a show. Yeah. You know, when you walk in a room, you can tell he changed up. He's in here. Hey, you know, I don't I don't need that. I don't need to be fake. In my personal, my personal experience, like I'm a very honest person. Probably like so much to the point that I get myself in trouble because I'm too honest. But I'd rather be honest with you know, because if we're going to be on the same team, you got to know everything. Yeah, that's fair. You know what I mean? Yeah. You tell me everything. I'm going to tell you everything. We're on the same team. It's us versus them. It's not, you know, me versus them and you versus them. Like, no, we're all on the same team. So honesty is a big thing. And they got they got to be wanted. They got to be willing to, you know, put some time into you. You're an investment to that company. Yeah. If they're not going to take care of you, there's no point even being here because any company, if you were to die tomorrow, any company that could just replace you with some other guy, it's not worth even looking at. You know, they got to want you. They got to care about you because you're the one making money for that business. You're the one that's making them look good. You're the one that's making the reputation of that business go up or go down. Right. So if they're not going to put any time into you, it's not worth it.
57:17 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. Yeah, that's a fair way to put it. I think it's a good a good way to put it, too, where you said to be able to look at it as far as. What was the direction? Hard way to hard way to put it. I think you put it well, as far as having them take care of you. You could work for the train of thought I had.
57:39 Cody Wyckoff Well, you can work for a multi. You can work for, you know, Budweiser. OK. Or you could work for, you know, the, you know, microbe down the street. The microbe of the street, they might not be able to pay you what Budweiser can pay you, but I guarantee you they're going to care about you more than Budweiser ever will. But I don't even know your name. You're just number two, four, nine, six. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I appreciate that.
58:02 Jimmy Purdy And I do to that. Yeah, I think the same team is what what sparked it for me. And I think it was just an interesting way to put it is we all think we're a team. And everyone's got this motto like, yeah, we're a team like we're a team team. You got to mean it, though. Yeah, exactly. And like you hear it all the time, like, yeah, we're a good team. We put a team together. We're a team team. But it's it's same team. Yeah. I think to say that just we're on the same team. Yeah, it makes so much more sense.
58:28 Cody Wyckoff A customer come come down on you, but your boss is not going to stand up for you. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like that that that stuff that stuff gets to you. Yeah. You know, I've had customers yell at me and then my boss not say a frickin word about it. And I'm like, all right, cool. I'm just I guess I'm the only dick here. You know what I mean? But, you know, then I've had bosses where a customer came down to me, but also like, no, no, no, no, no. This ain't his fault. This is your fault. Like you did this. He told you this and you want to listen.
58:53 Jimmy Purdy This is the result of all just taking taking ownership, taking responsibility, taking the responsibility. And even even if and I've gotten to that point, too, where if the guys, you know, do something or like I got to stand behind what they do. Good, bad or ugly. Yeah, you got to have it's on me. Yeah. And so I'll deal with it. We made a mistake because we're human. OK, like, but yeah, I think there's a lot of that divide where it's like, and it's hard. It's hard to deal with a difficult client. And it reflects leadership. Yeah, that's a big thing. Yeah, it reflects leadership. It's really hard to do. It's really hard to do it. But it's it's it's definitely eye opening to look at it as far as being on the same team and trying to build that culture around that thought without just thinking, you know, we're a team. So you play point guard. I play field goal, whatever. But it's like, that's not how it works. You know, like we're all on the same team. We're all doing this thing together versus like, well, this is your position. This is your position. You didn't do your job. And that's why we were failing is like, oh, hold on a second here. Yeah, that's that's not correct. No, that's not how it works. It's so it's hard to use the analogy of a team. I've always tried to use like the analogy. We're a crew. Yeah, you know, we're a crew here because we're all,
01:00:06 Cody Wyckoff you know, working together. But working a shop is like an engine. If all the parts aren't working together at the same time. Yeah. Something's going to miss time and something's going to fall. Yeah, right. OK, but we fix this issue with somebody or if everyone's helping one guy. I'm the kind of guy working in a shop like if if a new guy needs help, I have no problem giving a hand. Yeah, because I've been there.
01:00:24 Jimmy Purdy And I think the better way maybe is looking at it like a chain, you know, and you can have a weak link to the chain. Yeah. But the chain signifies that we're all doing the same thing. Yeah, we're all together. I guess we're all equal. Yeah. You know, I hate saying it that way, but I think it's the best way. No, that's the best way to put it.
01:00:39 Cody Wyckoff I went 100% back then. So there's nothing wrong with that. Well, cool, man. This has been fun. I appreciate you coming in. I appreciate you. I mean, I know about this podcast. And when you hit me, I was like, oh, man, that's cool. Like, hell, yeah. I told my lady, she's like, oh, go have fun. I was like, yeah, I've been home all day. So this is like my one thing I had to do today. So that's kind of stuff. But yeah, no, I got to fill your schedule. At least. Yeah, man, you know, let me check. Let me see if I can get you in there, Jimmy. But no, I have a lot of respect for you. I love you and your wife, man. You guys are cool people. And I love the stuff you guys get to work on. So I get to work with dirty crap all day. So when I see a CNOTS truck in your airbag, I'm like, oh, this is sick. Like, all right, this is cool. Shiny stuff. Yeah, shiny stuff, man. I don't get to play with shiny stuff. I get to play with dirty stuff. So it's kind of nice. Well, cool, man. This has been really good. Thanks for coming in. Thank you for having me.