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This podcast is dedicated to changing the automotive industry for the better, one conversation at a time.
Whether you're a technician, vendor, business owner, or car enthusiast, we hope to inspire you to improve for your customers, your careers, your businesses, and your families.
You can leave the lanyard on. Everybody needs to know who you are.
We're not going to tell anybody who Justin is. They called out a homo badge
before. I was like, what's that all about? Gary's pulling it off from me. Take
that thing off. I said, I don't know. I know you can't say that, but
I did. Because I'm from New York and I can say whatever the hell I
want. That's a fact. We had a whole
discussion about this in New York.
New York. In New York, you tell
somebody flip you and
they say it back and just move along. You say that to
somebody in the south and you're going to get knocked out. Yeah. You're going to
get knocked out. No, I agree. I'm just teasing. I'm just playing with you as
many. Times as you've said, Fuck you this weekend. You're afraid to say it all
of a sudden. What's? That? He didn't want to get knocked out. I got to
beat that. What are you doing? Yeah. Ear muffs.
Kids ear muffs. You got to do the ear muffs first.
It's a little late. Yeah, ear muffs. No,
ear muffs. You tell the kids ear muffs. You got him muted.
Oh, what a terrible board operator this guy is.
I can hear you. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Yeah, that's cut
all that out. It'll be fine. Justin kidd,
how did the event go? Is it good? It's going really well. Yeah. I mean,
there's a lot of energy in here, a lot of guys, a lot of smiles,
and I have not gotten anybody tell me that we
stink. So that's great. That's what we want. That's a big plus. Yeah,
absolutely. Did it grow any did it get a little bit
bigger? We still have about the same amount. Just for last year.
Yeah. Because if anybody takes a certain class, we want to make sure that it's
not standing room only. If you put any more in, you're going to be out
of space. Yeah. It should be the perfect amount. It's still
yeah. Okay, that's good. Yeah. I know a lot of
people were upset they didn't get to come now. That they
have heard about it for several months, and yes. Now all of a
sudden, they realize they wanted to be here. Yeah, absolutely. There's a little FOMO
going on. Yeah. Which is good. It's not bad. FOMO's not bad.
FOMO's not bad. We need to get more vendors in here.
Yeah. We have fewer than we did last year. That's true.
And some of those vendors, except for one,
deadbeats. Dead to us. Josh Carton.
Dead to us. Poor Josh. Poor Josh. Poor
Josh.
We were looking forward to talking to Josh. He was a riot last year. He
was hilarious. Yeah. He's really intelligent. He's a lot of fun. Yeah, he had a
lot of fun. And he didn't come and hurt my feelings. Yeah.
I wanted him to be here. I think a lot of guys, for whatever reason
this week just wasn't going to work in the books. Was it really the week?
I guess it's a week later than it was last year. Wasn't it similar?
Yeah. Was it? We were week after Mother's Day. I don't
know. Is that right? Yeah, I think so. Watched a lot of money and said,
please follow me around wherever my
things and don't throw eggs. And I said, yeah, sure. No, I can do that.
Now, how'd we get started? I'll let you
tell. I walked in the door of a BMW
shop as a service writer with my knees knocking
after being a technician and said, I really thought I could do
this very easily. And I come to find out that that was
not exactly accurate. But what I was very good at is finding out that the
cars that were coming back to the customers were not all getting
fixed right away by certain technicians. So I relied on Tom to
help me figure out what just went wrong downstairs so that I
wasn't embarrassed at the top of the
we just became closer friends as the years went
on and we progressed to technical support
representatives, and I brought him from Mini
Cooper BMW, and,
man, you've been helping me along the way ever since. It was
easy. He's got to be diminished, right? Because he
worked on BMWs and Mini Coopers. Right. That's bad enough. But
he was teaching a Land Rover class boats
too. So if you have a boat problem on a pinch, you bring it to
Tom's house and they'll help you drain all the fuel out, rebuild everything, run
trailer lights, bearings in the trailer. And he'll get like we did for. You on
your way to vacation. On your way to vacation. You mean
you're one of those that. Waits until we bought the boat
and said it's good
in trusting that the boat was good. We took it out and fell
flat on his face. I said, this boat's got to go in like four days.
And he goes, Bring it over. Spent all night. We
got that boat rocking. That is a good friend.
Well, it's part of what I do.
By the time I met Justin, my
life you can't call it a career, it's more of a journey. Okay.
I just rolled out of high school and went to work. I started actually working
when I was about twelve, but got married to my
wife in 1977 and took a job at a dealership. And the dealership
happened to be of course prior to that I was working for like Napa Auto
Parts and Delivery guy and doing what you do. Learned some machining, very curious about
the whole process. And of course it was a different world, completely different universe.
So I was pretty young and got married and decided I'd need a real
job. Actually, she decided I need a real job and let's be
clear, playing rock. And roll, was it in your future? Yeah, I was trying to
play rock and roll. I'm a drummer by trade to a degree,
and being a rock star wasn't going to get it. I even had hair at
one point. Anyway, I went
out and found my way to, of all places,
Jaguar dealership. And they said, sure, we'll take in you got some
parts background. Come on, you can be a parts guy. So I did, and that
was 1977, would be my first day in the
door. So 77, here I am in this dealership, and I did 20 years.
Okay. So by late 19, 96,
97, world changed. I'd grown up, kids
are on the way, bought a house, all that sort of stuff, but kids on
the way. Heck, I had two already, so
it was time to make another move. So I left that
dealership. Actually, I didn't get invited to stay
the next year because the people that bought it, what's the first thing they
do? They cuddle the herd. So Offer went
down the block and opened up a place called the Jag Shop, specializing in Jaguar
and Land Rover cars, and just did that for
1415 years, whatever it is. Somewhere around eight, nine banks were
folding customers with lots of money and expensive cars
weren't showing up. So I sold it liquidated it, went back
to work at Land Rover for a short period of time, and then
somehow, through some actor god, I wound up over at
the dealership just up the block, which would happen to be BMW Mini
Cooper. So that's where it all came together. Right
along the way, however, I was trying to make a decision to leave the automotive
industry altogether. I want to be in the marine business. So I did four
and a half years of marine tech at night and got
all my certifications for outboard and diesel and electronics and safety and all that sort
of stuff. So that gave me that boating background that he's talking about.
Okay, so it's just one more thing I can do. But trying
to be in a boating business in nine, and they're not a good idea because
once again, Chase Nation is not lending money. So I said, well,
we'll just go back in the car business and wound up over at this Mini
Cooper BMW situation that Justin's talking about. And that's kind
of where it all lit up. We started from there and just kept.
Working well, so he was telling us a little bit of the story and I
thought it was intriguing. Earlier, when you were talking about this was
the move into yeah. A, because a lot of technicians right, like
where we're at today, especially in the dealer world, the thought of moving to a
different brand, moving to an independent shop, is terrifying to them,
from. The dealer to an independent or even. To a different
brand. And so you moved to a whole different
brand, right? And you took it by the
horns. Right. Well, my attitude is this. It's just a
car. It's a machine, has four wheels and a propulsion
device of some sort, be it electric, gas, diesel, whatever they're using.
And if anyone's crazy enough to hire me, I'm going to try and fix it,
okay? And I'm going to apply myself to do so. And things like
working on Mini Cobras never embarrassed me. I don't care if they came in with
pink eyelashes on and they did, okay? I don't care if they was
painted yellow. Make no difference to me. I put them on, fix them all day
long, okay? You get some real interesting looks on the road
when you take a test drive. Nothing like a
pink Mini Cooper with a wind up key in the back and eyelashes on the
headlights. That's a ride for you, man. But yeah, it
didn't make any difference to me and it made it actually easy.
Well, again, like I said, I went down a block to be a BMW guy.
I was going to be a hot drive BMW guy. And BMW to me is
just basically the Chevrolet of Germany. Anyways, it makes no difference whether it's Jag
or BMW Chevrolet for that matter, okay? Right.
So lasted a short period of time as
a BMW kind of guy. And I got walked down
over across the guy's place to this brand
new Mini Cooper dealership, which is on his property because
now it's BMW Mini Cooper, right? And the guy says, hey, you like English
cars? And I'm like, hold on, it's not English anymore. Well,
they used to be. And that was excuse enough to pull me off the line
and drag me over there. And to set the stage for that,
the man's dealership was in trouble and he was
bringing in new help. He promoted a new service manager and
he was looking for service guys. And this is what Justin gravitated to it. And
they grabbed me off the BMW lines. And you're going to go over there
and again, no fight, no argument. I have no problem with it. And what
we discovered when we got there is that it really was a disaster. Okay? I'm
not going to name the place, but the scenario is that it really
was a disaster. And there was stacks of
cars, 30, 40 deep. And I'm not making it up on
racks in the back. They were all dead in the water and they're all brand
new, all had license plates. I thought it was stock. I thought the guy's inventory.
When I looked at it, it's all brand new cars that failed within a short
period of time. And of course, for every one of those that were hanging out
for months on end, weeks on end, there was a loaner car. So this guy's
bleeding. So he's making big changes and
the new muscle coming into town was Justin and
young lady Jackie, right. She was a sweetheart. She's very good. Still in the
industry, doing very well with BMW, by the way, and myself.
And we went in there and basically. What happened was
I figured out a. Way he's up front dealing with the
customers, I'm downstairs because it was two level, beautiful
building, by the way, brand new facility. So was this a pattern failure that had
all these cars broken? Yeah, well, as we learned, we're going back in time now.
So we're talking we're in like nine 2010, 2011, right? Something
like that, whatever. And yeah, well, the timing chains are flying out of them,
okay? And for a lot of reasons. These
cars were halfway through their first 10,000 miles and are on Iraq,
not running. Okay? I always tell the story
about how I would come up out of the basement. Here I am, this new
guy, right? I'd come up out of the basement and standing with my Ro
and Justin be it to one side and young lady be the other side. And
she's talking to the customer and she'd say things like, well, here you go, Mr.
Smith, here's your key. And remember, don't touch anything on the car. It's
a bumper to bumper warranty. You just need to come back and see us in
15,000 miles for your oil change.
I figured she made a mistake, okay? Right. So let
it be. And this happened several times. When I finally just stepped up to the
plate and I took Jung to the side, I said, you sure you want to
be telling him that? And she takes out her paper and it's right from BMW
on BMW stock, says that right here. And I'm like,
okay. Took me a long time to figure out why
that was what we were telling them, but it was the reason. Why the
cars were failing. They don't have any oil in them. Still an
internal combustion engine. It needs oil. Sorry, can't change that.
Huge turbos. Turbos. Huge, big old one eight
liter car with a two liter turbo on it, and then later went to a
twin scroll type turbo, see if you're boosting even harder and sooner and
longer. Anyway.
The end of that story is basically that
our government asked all the manufacturers
to reduce their carbon footprint and what they meant
was build a better car to meet your upcoming emission
standards. Again, we're going back in time and they said, yeah, sure.
And instead of doing building a better mousetrap, we just reduce the amount of oil
changes. Well, now you can check the box, can't you? Right, right. And you get
your federal credits and life goes on. This is abusing the customer, this is
abusing the car, and of course, blah, blah, blah. So my job, the reason I
set the stage that way is that my job, once I realized what was going
on, was, let's find out what's broken. And timing
change, of course, there are a few engines that had to be replaced. Timing change,
a little stretch to hell. And the car was injured at a very
young amount of mileage. So I became, let's just say, very
proficient at doing timing chains. How many
a day? You want the whole story? Yeah. Okay.
All right. I'll tell that part. Okay. So the service manager comes down and goes,
how many of those can you do a day? And he's like, I don't know.
I think I'm up to two, maybe three. By the end of the day. He
goes, I bet you can't get to five. He goes, I'll take that challenge.
So he's knocking five timing chains out the door, close to four,
maybe the fifth one's in the morning. Yeah, but all
the cars in the rack are going, okay, back to the car, new loaner car,
back to the customer, new loaner car. And he's knocking them out. Knocking them out.
The service manager is like, Dude, keep this up. This is working great. And
what again, not taking words out of your mouth. What we didn't
realize was that you still have to flag the time. And
BMW, nor did the service manager at the time
hair, because he was a new service manager, so he just want to look really
this see, I cleaned up that shop. You did a great job. And we
definitely patted Tom on the back, but he got the recognition for it as well
as an audit, right? Yeah. Because it doesn't
work like that. Okay? I came from owning my own shop, so I'm working
12 hours, 14 hours a day. You're not flagging your time. I didn't know
what to do. I didn't know what flagging time meant, okay? Because I just started
in the morning and worked till the bell rang and I went home. Okay.
And again, I was going to say kind of like the conversation we were having
yesterday where it got very interesting within the roundtable
conversation of, what does flat rate mean? When do we get rid of that?
And at what point does certain car brands there is
non time. No one knows how to fix it. So there's no book time. It
gets going. Yeah. Did they not have book time for
chains yet? Well, they didn't know.
Again, your turn. I was just going to touch
on that when I started that journey
of trying to figure out first of all, I diagnosed all the cars, and the
diagnostic was all the same. Open a hood, make a measurement. It's all
broken the same way, okay? No oil in this car and there's. No oil in
this car. I mean, dry, right? But I
would go inside and again, my approach wasn't
about flagging time and two tenths of an hour and all that
nonsense. I was just like, here's what I found. And the guy, of
course, this new service manager, again, everybody was new, brand new, okay? New service
managers. Well, can you fix it? I'm like, sure. What do you want to
do? I never did one. Well, here's a book. Read on how to do it.
So, of course, BMW, any manufacturer
has the way they want it done, and it's their way, and they base
what they pay you on their way. I opened up and said, oh, look
at that. A little over 12 hours. Damn near 13 hours per car. And I
said, all right, let me take the book. Let me take the car. Put one
on the rack. And they hand me all the special tools and said, Go at
it. 13 hours later, I got one done. There you go. There's
one out the door. That's great. Number two, same
way. Now I've lost time. Cost me 14 hours or whatever. And
this is for me, like, one whole day, because that's what I was used to
doing. Much younger at the time. But
anyway, I could do it back then. But
another point, I went back to this new service manager. I said, Can I do
it my way? And he goes, I don't care how you do it. Just keep
doing it. So I created a method doing it my way,
that I could beat the clock, and right away, I could
beat it by half. So my day
is over, and I've gone home, getting paid for everything. I'm getting
paid let's call it 14 hours. I've only
worked ten, and I haven't had a hard day, okay?
So, of course, I'm not realizing that this is
flying in the face of all the other guys that are flagging time and working
flat rate and all of that, and they would kill each other with a knife
just to get 100 hours. This would be like this is like a great week.
And I'm doing it like falling off a log, okay? And
I don't care, because I don't. But anyway, what it comes down to
is I became very proficient at it,
and I got it down to that challenge that
Justin told you about, and the challenge really went like
this. How fast can you do this? I said, Well, I think I can do
it in just over 2 hours, that's car on the lift,
wheels off parts, laid out my tools my way. All
right, let's do it. And on the bet, I won the bet. So if you
think about that, I could do four of these cars a day and get paid
14 hours per car. I'm rolling large
at this point, handing Mama checks, and she's looking at me
like, really? What are you
that that's that story. But it cost me, right? It cost the other
guys, because now they rewrote the time and everything. And what was
going on here was we got the audit. We got beat up on it,
because how can we don't have any documentation. This man even
exists or ever went to Minnie Cooper school. Yeah. And they want everybody
to have their credentials before you can do this. So
we can go on and on about it. But what it comes down to is
I had to go off to minis, get basic, intermediate, and when I had to
fight for the masters, they didn't want to give that to me because they were
going to squeeze me out anyway. As soon as they get finished this investigation and
finish their audit and everything, you're out of here, bud. Right. But
that's okay. I moved on. That's when I went to tech support. So
what was it that you did differently? What was the strategy? What
did you change? I used my tools
and some of the specialty tools. I took components out of the
way. It never bothered me to take a headlight and inner fender. Well and the
engine mounts out because I got it down to a few minutes. Okay. I
wasn't underneath the car with a long spanner, one thread
at a time on a special ratchet. Okay.
I don't even remember exactly all the things I did, but I
wouldn't brutalize the car, and I wasn't hacking the car. Okay.
But what I was doing was just saying if this was an
emergency situation, I had to triage this thing right now, what would I do? And
I don't have factory tools. How would you do it? That was my approach,
and by doing so, I got it down to a very short period of
time. Okay? And one of the things they're very
concerned about, when you spend money, you want to make sure your investment is solid.
So you don't want any comebacks. Well, we're talking 40 cars with zero
comeback. I must have done something right.
Okay. And the customers are happy again. And we
discussed that oil change interval, and many of those customers,
from what I understand, as I was told, purchased other cars from that
dealership. What's the problem? Well, you don't have
credentials. Okay, get out. So they weren't even
interested in it's. Their way of the highway.
They needed a shame fall guy. So the service
manager was going to go on to better things, but the technician didn't matter
at that point. They could just say, we fixed
problem. What's the problem, though? Is it that
you showed them up, that, hey, we came up with this process of 14
hours, you figured out a way to do it in two. We can't
have this. Right? Even after I was
asked to demonstrate it in the Jersey headquarters, and
I'm not going to speak to the agreement I had to make, but after I
demonstrated it to them, they're like, this is not how we do things.
I guess I looked like a bull in a china shop to them,
but that's what they asked me to do. Get these
cars out of here. I answered the request. Okay. I don't think
at any point. And the guys around me took up my methods because they want
to make some money, too. So if they can get two a day or even
one a day and get that 1214 hours, they're happy
guys. Tom, how do you do it? We did it. I showed them. Sure,
but just is what it is. That's just one of those things I've done
in my life. That's a crazy story.
That doesn't make any sense. Stupid. We went to do training
and then we ended up doing timing chains and shipping an engine around the
country and started teaching people how to do that
in the car. Is one story. In the independent. Yeah, we
did. Back in our other company days,
we would travel around with an N 14, then later on an N 18
and do hands on timing chain. In fact, the other day it's funny that we're
even on the subject, but Phil's talking to me, says this Tom and I said,
yeah? He says, Phil's name? I'm going to use Larry.
I think his name is Larry. This is Larry. I says, how are you doing,
Larry? You talked to a lot of people during the day. You can't remember
many of them, right? Right. Or any of them for that matter.
So are you teaching? I said, yeah, I'm in Utah. He
said, oh, are you teaching Mini Cooper? I said, no, sir, I'm doing Jaguar Land
Rover. He goes, I went to your Mini Cooper class. I said you did.
He goes, It's like seven or eight years ago. And I'm like how'd
I do? And he goes, you did really well. I wish you'd come back out
and teach some more. Right. But it's funny. Here we are talking the story again,
and that was on the phone yesterday. Well, so the transition
from that because that's one of the things that comes up a lot, right. And
we talked about it last night. What does a technician do when they can't
be a technician anymore? Right. So that transition from
technician to training, how did that happen? Was that all this guy's fault? That's his
fault, absolutely.
I like to think I can recognize someone that has and
again, anybody can go and be wait, hold on. They
can be very good at being a technician. Let me be very clear
here. You can be very good in front of a public setting, and it takes
a very special person to do this. One, on a
telephone call, and two, to be able to stand up in front of a group
of people, present yourself and also be the expert at this
brand. Okay? So that's not me, that's somebody he's
got. Certainly not. Maybe
I think you've touched on it before, but maybe it's time you tell your
story because I don't know that we've ever told your
story. What's my story? Well, you've got a
pretty interesting story of how you got here, and
where it all started. So I decided I
was going to be a famous rock guitarist,
and I went to music school and said, wow, I am
in a world of trouble here. These guys are way better than
me. And I said, I got to figure something else out.
So I liked working on cars, and I walked
into just a place and said, I got a claw hammer and
my dad's old sockets in a little red toolbox. I said, can I
help? And you teach me. And I worked at
a goodyear location and eventually said,
I think I can do this more. Let me get my inspection
license. And then I moved on to a dealership, and I didn't
understand. Someone said, there's politics at dealerships. I said,
what does that even mean? I have no idea. So
they almost kind of talked me out of going into the dealership world,
and I went in, went into a Mercedes
dealership liked it. Ended up
working for my well, the
gentleman that was training me was a young kid, a younger
guy, and I ended up hiring him later. He was my mentor,
so I ended up hiring him as a tech support agent. Later, I came
back for him. And you did really big things at Mercedes
Benz, right? I don't know if that's really that's true. I went to a
different state. So I moved from New York to California,
and I got a job there with what I would consider
one of my favorite experiences as a technician.
Again at a dealership. Came from an independent, went to the
dealership, and then as soon as I kind of left that dealer, I went from
a dealer in San Diego. It was a 60 bay
shop, three teams of 20. The
service drive was probably four to five garage door
bays. And when the doors open in the morning,
I don't know if that's an exaggeration, but at least 50 cars showed up every
single day through that drive, right? And then they got to go because there's not
enough space. So 60 technicians are now wrenching on these
cars throughout the day. It is absolutely organized
chaos. Penske organized chaos. So it
is a cookie cutter. We got this down pat. People bring
you parts. You order parts in the computer, it shows up at your
station, and you're ready to rock and roll. Next car, next car, next car.
It's a whole workflow. And then going back to New York, I
said, Why aren't you guys doing. It like
New York, man, I'm going. To tell you what you're
going to work on. I pulled Ros with a computer.
There was an algorithm, but it was not a physical human saying.
You were going to get all the gravy, and you look a little funny, so
you're going to get all the crummy work, and then you're giving me some money
under the table. So I'm going to make sure that we're going. To split that
at the end of the day. No, this was Ding new ticket. If I didn't
like it or if it was something that was going to take a little bit
more time, I could order parts. I knew what it was. Put that on hold,
take another ticket. I mean, the assembly line of work was absolutely
perfect. I want to say that I've heard a story
that that particular dealership, like some of the people in that
dealership, because it was so well ran, made their way up through
Mercedes Benz and did some really big things with that organization.
Yep, some. I don't know how much I
should rest with some of them, but I will tell you that
I made such close friends. I went to San Diego this
weekend, met up with my roommate
because he was my stalmate and we became really good friends and I
needed someone to help me rent the apartment. And I just met up with him
again after it's probably been maybe five years at least since I've
seen him. But I went back to San Diego, rang him up, came over. It
was like being there from yesterday. That's awesome. My team
leader, who ended up
winning the Master Guild Award for best of the best in the
world after he was challenged by Germany,
I think two to three years in a running, ended up being on the back
of Time magazine with the SLS for
winning a team of Master of Guild. So he trained the
people in the country. Awesome, dude. And now he went on
to, again, corporate Mercedes. So, yeah, some of those guys that I
was wrenching with back in the 2006
seven, eight, nine in San Diego,
they did go on to bigger and better things. That's awesome. And
I have to say I'm pretty proud of where I can look back and
see my colleagues and then where I've now come to
be on a podcast talking about automotive education and
training. All that work just to get you
to this podcast. Just to get there. You
so you left Mercedes, right?
How did you end up in tech support? How
did all this happen? That was a stroke.
It was an accident and a stroke of genius. I'm not sure. So I will
tell you that I forced my way in and I begged
my former employee to look at my resume
because it took me about six months to get a job there because I was
really unhappy being at that dealership. That, again, my friend
Tom was it was a good amount of time. We stayed there. We
had a great time. I learned, I got made really good friends, and
the job kind of changed again, management made this uncomfortable
for all of us. And I looked for a way out for a while
and I found an article that said, looking for a sales
rep that can sell MercedesBenz equipment. I'm like, Whoa,
maybe that's the key. And I found this job posting
somewhere and I applied and the guy goes, you would be perfect. I don't
know if you need to be the sales rep, we have a tech support. Are
you interested in doing tech support? Because if you're a salesman, it's no guarantee.
And if you want to come into the office, which by the way, happens to
be in your hometown, I'm like, oh, wow. Now,
again, that wasn't in California. I had to go drive back to New York to
learn. So from New York, got my start at Mercedes,
went fully educated in San Diego, and they sent me to training
every couple of weeks there and then came out of that as a master
technician. Came back to New York and I couldn't find a job,
even though I'm a master tech now and I could potentially make more money. The
same dealership I left wasn't interested. But those
technicians I used to work with in New York never made it to a master
support. They never went to training. They were stagnant in that same dealership when I
came back, and I was shocked. So I made, I think, a very intelligent
move to get out. Definitely came back. And then BMW was
actually the kicker because I actually ended up learning the lingo of
BMW and how they function and started helping with
Tom's help. I was a service writer for BMW and for Mini
Cooper, and that company was looking for a split
of both. They needed help with BMW and Mercedes
because that's how they were growing. And I just happened to kind of
fall in after I asked several times, can I
please be a part of this? I got in and
it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.
And it's been a wild ride ever. Oh, yeah,
hard. Yeah, right. It's not easy doing
a support for customers and trying to
fix cars with your eyes closed and your hands tied behind your back.
I have to tell you, one of the classes here that
Justin Morgan taught is the case study
class. That the name of it is Escaping me right now.
He teaches the class as if they're going to do the case studies and he's
not going to do anything other than explain what's wrong with a car and let
them think about it in groups. Yeah, nice approach. And I
can't tell you how effective that is because
again, as we walked into a place and said, here's a phone,
there's your computer, people are going to call you and ask you how to fix
it. I'm blind to this. I can't see what's happening. I can't touch the
car. That was a big adjustment. Just gave that same
analogy. And it helped me become a better technician
in so many ways. I don't need the car there. I know
how the system works. I know what it's going to be looking for. I can
look at the diagrams, I can read the service information, and I can tell
you how that service function is going to work now. And I can
think about outside the. You can see it. I
remember when we were working on a lot of diesel pickups, I'd get a lot
of calls about diesel trucks and I couldn't figure out and I would tell them
like, there's only three things that can cause that. No,
I've changed all those parts. No, I'm telling you, there's three things. That can cause
that. And one of those three things is causing you either got a bad part,
you got a bad wire, or you got a bad module. That's the only three
things that will cause that. There's no it couldn't be that. I'm telling you,
I know how it works. And that is the only thing that it could be.
I promise you it's that. And eventually they would change parts and
change parts and change parts, and the truck would come to my shop and. Find
a bad wire, right? I'll never forget one time, a 60 with an IPR
that somebody had put the IPR in, and when they tightened it down,
they pulled the connector over to where the connector was facing down. Well, they
just fought the connector in and the truck would take off and run away.
And so the control wire on the IPR was grounded against the bottom of
the and they were like, I don't understand why ICP is so high. Well, there's
only one thing that'll cause that, right. Like if it's actually got high
oil pressure, there's only one thing that will do it. It's that controller right there.
It's either that it's grounded out or it's stuck. And so it's as simple
as spin around and look at it, yet spend three weeks working on it because
you don't understand how it works. Right. And being able to see
it in your head and I think that's the big thing. That when I started
going over scanner, nanner stuff and watching, because
now you can see it happen and you can see somebody else doing it, and
now you can see it in such a way that you understand the theory
of operation. I think that's one of my biggest beasts with manufacturers right
now is they're not even remotely willing in a lot of cases to provide
theory of operation. Exactly right. Why does it do what it does? I
don't care what it does. It doesn't matter to me what it does. I can
deal with that. But why does it do that? And we were talking about it
earlier. I was talking about Ford 60 syncs. They've got a FICOM
sync that's from the PCM to the FICOM that tells it if
the cam cranks in sync. But then it's got another sync pit in it. Well,
what does that mean and what does it do? And they say, don't worry about
it. We don't know. Does it say.
Yes? Good. Yeah. That's what you want to it's supposed to say
yes. Yeah, but what does it mean when it doesn't say yes?
We'll get back on that. They forgot my telephone number.
Go ahead. No, I was just going to say it's interesting. They can see the
car and don't understand the theory. We're staring at theory all day and can't see
the car. So it's a good blend if you're doing it right. That is
pretty and these tech sessions bring that home. What we talked about
today, it's exactly
it where I was explaining systems
and diagrams and the flow of the process,
the theory of it, and a lot of heads and nod is what you want
to see in your classroom.
But I can't see the car. I can only hear your problem or
you can describe a problem to you. Know, I
told the story yesterday, we're talking about Audi, and Chris Martino
was like, hey, man, it's this. Okay, cool. I don't need to ask
more questions. That's e chris Martino. Like,
if it's doing this, this can affect that. Have you looked at no.
Okay, thanks. Right. Like, with that information,
I can take that and can run with it. And sometimes that experience and that
knowledge that something could happen means a ton to
a guy who's actually trying to understand the system. Right. That's
where remote tech support becomes so valuable. And we had
that talk last night on the panel is it can't be on the
spot insta train. Right. This is you have to understand the
system on your own. You have to understand how to do the testing. You have
to understand how to use your meter leads. I can't do that for you.
I can't teach you that. It'd take us six months.
When I was helping people with trucks, that was always my biggest frustration is because
I can't tell you how to hook your meter up and go through it,
because you're not grasping what I'm saying. And one of the most
frustrating things I ever experienced was, hey, does it have power and
ground?
What? Does it have power and ground? Well,
I ain't checked that yet. I looked at it. Sure
does. Yeah. Right. Well, I mean, if it doesn't have power and
ground, like, how are we going to need you to do that first? Well, couldn't
you just tell me what's wrong with it? Let me get the parts,
can. Get the
magic wand. Oh, we had that. We have a magic diagnostic dice were. My
favorite diagnostic dice. We got that. Well, and I mean, I
think that that opportunity. We use icecan for all kinds of stuff,
right. And it saved us so much money. It saves us so much
money. I'll liken it to the 60 that you were dealing with a while
back. And David called me up and he said, hey, I've got
this 60, and here's what's going on with it. And I said, do one or
two tests, right? Take it and drive it with a pressure gauge on the degas
bottle and see if it makes pressure. And go back to the shop and close
the veins on the VGT and see if when you close the veins on the
VGT, you rev it up. If it goes up really quick, usually that's an EGR
cooler. If you got steam in the tailpipe, that's an EGR cooler. If it's a
head gasket, you're not going to have steam in the tailpipe. And if it does
not have an EGR cooler, I promise you it is not an EGR cooler. And
so we start talking about what it takes to do that job. Man, that
is super valuable, right? Because if we call you
guys and you all say, hey, listen, I'm just letting you
know, if you're going to do that job, you need this and this and this
and this and this and this. And this is a
job. You understand that, right? And that sucker can get
driven right out of my parking lot, right up on the back of a rollback
and right to the dealer, right? We
play that game with, like, the sprinters. They have that emissions modification
recall. We get that request a lot, but reality is, those
trucks make people money. So right now, the dealers are
backed up and may or may not have all the parts available, but
there's a waitlist to get those trucks in so the request could come in and
say, I need the limited starts remaining
reset. And then I actually asked them if they know that
there's a recall on this, because they're warrantying the engine module,
the advil module, the CDI catalyst. They're cutting
the two sensors out of the car, and they're like, wait, stop.
What about all the stuff we just did to it? I said, oh, great question.
They'll pay the customer for the repair, and they'll reimburse them for
all the work that you just did because you didn't know there was a bulletin
about this, right? And they're like, great. Yeah, I think we're about done
here. Again,
you don't want to see the car go to the dealer because you're losing the
work, but you want to make sure that you take care of the customers. That's
number one, right? If you knew how many cons orly.
Designed are these turds that they have to go through that much
just to. Meet another 16 to 18
hours federally mandated
recall that they teased the owner of the car
to go get it done with. Forget
$2,500. I want to say, was this like a VW?
We're fudging the numbers. They weren't
injecting enough ad. Blue, I believe, into the system. PSE was at idle, and
it seemed to work just great because that was the fit. But something
similar.
You know, nothing. Those TDIs were perfectly clean.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with them. Sometimes you got to roll
the dice. And just see no, it's not rolling. I'm just telling you.
Diagnostic dice. I would have been the executive
that said, listen, is it going to meet emissions if we do it like
this? Yes. Ship it.
All right. You're not an executive. I don't
but I'm saying they're not
destroying it's not like it's driving down the street and leaving
black gunk on the side of every car it passes.
It wasn't really going to run that long anyway. I mean, it is a
sprinter. Well, maybe not the Sprinter, but the Volkswagen diesels, the
TDIs, those 300,000 miles. But just think
of how much they saved,
carbon footprint wise, by not having to make another flipping
vehicle, because that thing is still on the road 300,000 miles later.
I mean, I think it's pretty clearly considers that, right. There's an argument right
there. I should have been the lawyer fighting the EPA for VW.
There you go. I can tell you've never owned a bew
Volkswagen Diesel. What's? That me? Yeah. Maybe you've
owned an Alh and you made it out with that. What's an
alh? I don't know. An Alh is the one that would go 300,000
miles without issue. Is that like 98 and up? All the way up to
2005. And then in 2005, the Camshaft was made
of this inferior metal, and it. Would yeah, the later models
were a. Little blow the buckets out.
But they had a lot more power. They were peppy. I don't
know. Those older ones were not at all peppy. I've got a friend that's
got a 400 HP Alh. And that little car
when you put. I'm just talking stock, though.
Stock? Stock. That's a thing. What am I going to dump
money? I already have to put gas in the flipping thing or
fuel, diesel, whatever. I have to refuel it. That's
enough money. And I got to pay for insurance. I'm flipping tires. I
got to do anything else to the stupid car. What did I just do?
Hold on. Hold on. Oh, that's cool. Do you see? It
switches. What
are you, new? Look at all these buttons. I don't know how to do
anything other than hit record. Anyway, how do you fix
it? Super source. Okay. All
right. Good job. My point is, I don't want to spend any more
money on the vehicle than I have to. I want to do stuff to it.
Okay? I just enjoy fast diesel vehicles.
I'd get annoyed at the vehicle. Every single time I got a
call about a Sprinter, I'd go on a tirade telling that person, you need to
tell this customer to stop buying these turds, because all you're doing is encouraging the
manufacturer to continue making more of these turds. So if you stop
buying them, they will stop making them, and everybody will be happier. There
you have it. You think that's how it works? Got a point. No,
that is how it works? I guess so. They're still building Land Rovers?
Yes, it does work that way. Although I will say
business. What's wrong with Land Rovers? What's that? Land Rovers are
great. So I get this
call from a guy, this is what we do. We tell stupid stories. I get
this call from this guy and he calls me and we have a cut off
year. It's like 99 and 99, 2000
and newer. We don't go older than that because they're
turds, right? They're rusty and I can't fix them at a
reasonable price. And then they get upset that I have to give them this giant
price. Anyway, this guy calls me and he's like, hey, I got this
2000 Range Rover. I said
okay, and he's like and that's my year. And I go,
okay. He's like, yes, making this noise. I think it's the exhaust
manifolds. I love this car and I want to keep
it forever. And I go, have you owned Land
Rovers before, sir? And he's like, I've owned this thing for twelve
years. Okay, is this your first one? He's like, no,
I've owned Land Rovers forever. Okay, well,
we can do this. Sure, bring it down, bring it down now. Did
you think it was the exhaust manifolds? It's not the exhaust manifold. I don't
know. Continue. I'm dying to hear this. It's not
the exhaust manifold sing as it has no coolant in it, right? Imagine
that. No coolant in it if when you start it and rev
it, it sounds like a busted exhaust manifold. But it is not
the exhaust manifold. It is the cylinder head lifting up
off the block. Because Land Rover Four
six, it's like they all do this, right? Anyway,
and so we start quoting this thing out and it needs a lot of
engine work, all the gaskets are leaking, normal Land Rover stuff.
And we get to the point
where my service advisor calls me,
he's like, what do you want me to do with this? It's like, well, don't
quote any of this, like 90 things out because we will
fix all this when we do the engine, by the way, he's not going to
buy anything. He's like, well, how much do you think is going to be close
to 20,000? And he's like, really? Yeah,
really. I've got to buy a block. It's been
fixed. Otherwise it'll just happen again. Turns out he had
had the cylinder heads done before by another shop that didn't know that. Hey,
don't touch the flipping engine. Anything goes wrong with that engine,
you put a brand new one in there that's been
remanufactured properly to not blow up like this
again. Because guess what? Those cylinder heads going to come right off that
block anyway. So I send the guy the quote, he was so
mad. You guys are trying to cheat me. This that. You guys don't know
what you're talking about. Sir, trust me on
this.
Unfortunately, I've been down this road before.
Sir, and there is no
special. Neither is your Land Rover.
I hate to say we bash on a vehicle car
line, right? But you've stepped into more than
one facility now where you have
to explain that this is normal. This is
what happens. This is a Land Rover issue. And here's the
thing. They're just broken parts. We get a lot of
Chevy cruises and tracks, and they put these
1.4 turbo engines in them. They're junk, and they're
awful engines, right? And they put them in these vehicles, and they all have the
same, like, seven problems. They'll come with P zero
128 codes. It's like, okay, it's kind of electronically controlled. Thermostat they all
go bad. They all leak from the same spots, and the turbos have wastegate problems.
They were cracks. They fixed them. I think in 1819, there were
less fewer problems, but there was about ten years there where
every single one of these things the problem, though, was the oil
coolers would start to leak. They're underneath the turbo. So to fix them, you
have to take the turbo off, and then you regasket it, put it back on
there, and you have to tell the customer, this is either going to be
$1,300 job or it's going to be a $2,700 job.
Just depends on what the turbo looks like when we get it out. Exactly.
Because although it might not be throwing codes now, if we flip it around and
there's cracks there, guess what? This is a ticking time bomb. Just pay me to
put another third turbo in there. You're just paying for the part. I already have
it off. You're just paying for the part. Okay. But you got to tell
them every single time. It's a 1.4 liter problem.
People get so upset at these Land Rovers. It's like,
that's just a Land Rover thing. Don't worry. Yeah, like, hey, you came
in this morning, car didn't get picked up last night, and now this
morning, the car sitting caddy wampus.
It wasn't before, but you came in this morning, and
now it is. Well, tell me, isn't it funny how they will come in
for an engine issue or something, one particular, and then you're like, okay,
no problem. Just leave it here. I'll check it out in the morning, and it's
flat on the floor with all the airbags. And you're like, that wasn't like that
at all when I dropped it off. Oh, no,
it's not even that. It comes in for an oil change and brakes, and
they just do the oil change and brakes. You have the left car sitting
and. Then start when it's done.
I thought that was normal operation, is it not? No. What was
it? Was it the sink on them, on the older ones that you always had
to they would, like, lose the pin or lose the
difference between the key between two modules or something? Pretty much the class you just
taught. Yeah, that's pretty much my class. It's the whole class.
Want me to give you a silver bullet? No, you get the dongle and you.
Plug the dongle up and you unplug. The dongle and you start the car, and
they drive off. There you go. But you end up having to warn every single
customer drops over and say, hey, is this your first Land Rover? That's the first
question. Is this your first Land Rover? Yeah. It's
like, okay, this is going to be an adventure. I'm just telling you right now.
How much money do you have? I don't want to scare them like that, but
I do tell them, this is going to be an adventure. I just want to
let you know. And by the way, things sometimes
go haywire, even though we're doing something fairly benign. And,
hey, we're doing brakes. And then you come in and the car is sitting
cocked. I believe them when they tell
me, Ed never done that before. It's like, I understand,
hey, by the way, I'm replacing Struts and probably the compressor.
And you go down this road, hey, it's going to be $6,000. What?
Or I give it back to you the way it is. I didn't do it.
Look it up. Google that, you'll find out.
I didn't do it. Do I dare tell my funny Land
Rover?
My son joins Cub Scouts in kindergarten, so that's
three years ago. And I'm meeting all the
fathers at our first Cub Scout meeting. And of course, you
just chit chat, and the kids are playing, and they don't know what they're doing.
Cub Scouts and Dads are like, oh, what do you do?
I fix cars. It's hard enough to explain exactly what I do to somebody.
So I'm like, I'm a mechanic. I fix cars. And I buy and
sell and sell support and stuff. What do you think the
worst, best or worst cars are? And I'm like, oh, man.
Hands down. I'm like, I work on BMW's, Mercedes, and I've been in
the European space. I said, But Land Rovers are the absolute
pitfall of art. What is going on with them? You already figured
it out. And I must have gone on a tyrant for a few minutes there
with. That guy, and then you never pile it on. That's always
a mistake. I thought they were interested not to. Own I thought
they were interested in. Hearing what I had to say. And here I just stick
my foot further in my mouth and Cub Scout ends and I see him get
around, get him to his full size Range Rover.
Oh, that hurt. Was that
Lisa sport? Yeah. At least they're fun to drive. Well, he's traded
in. Now every two years I see him with a new one.
Never looked at me again. The same. Yeah, it is the answer. That's interesting.
Turn events. I used to do tech support, and now I do this
teaching thing and I, for some strange reason, have
wound up in a Range Rover specialty shop down the block from my
house. I don't know how that happened. It wasn't there a month ago,
and now all of a sudden, it's there. So in one of my
incarnations, I wound up going into this place.
I wound up working there, okay? And it's what I
do. So I found a really
strange turnaround of events. I'm in lockstep with everything
you said. However, check this out.
Same 2000 P 38. I have picture on my phone I
can show you. Philip comes in. He says, I just got this car. I've always
wanted one. Okay, now let's talk about who
we're looking at, who we're talking with. This guy is well dressed. He's in good
shape. It's Wednesday, and he has the day off. He must be
doing something right. And he's not my age. He's in his 30s, right?
And he tells you the story. I've always wanted one of these. My dad had
one. Whatever the passion is, he's igniting it, and he's going to go after this
thing. So I looked high and low. I went all over the place. I was
overseas. I see how they treat him over there. I came back, and I had
to buy this P 38. It's the exact car he's talking about,
okay? With all the problems he's suggesting. And I
said, all right, bud, sounds good. Let's take a look
at it. And I haven't stepped out of the building and to go out and
look at it, right. And, well, it's not here yet. What do you mean? It's
on tow truck. It's on tow truck. Yeah. I figured I'd get
here first, see if you guys were at all interested in working on
it, and then I bring it on in, and we can begin the process. I
said, all right, when's it getting here? Of course, as soon as the words come
out of my mouth here, flatbed rolls in. And here comes this B
38. I'm like,
really, sir? Is this the one that you picked? And he's glowing. He is in
love. It's a new bride. He's like, look at this baby.
And it's clean. It is fairly clean. And he did buy it, right?
He bought it locally. It was a leftover from someone had passed on,
and they took good care of it in their tenure. He is a second
owner. So all the ingredients are right. But it's a 2000
P 38, and it has all the problems you
describe. Okay, well, let's fire that baby up. Well, engine
unrun like, okay, there's strike number
20. Let's see what we
can do, right? So just out of curiosity, get the. Invoice out first.
Right? It's what we call the heartbreak invoice, right? So this
guy is bouncing around like a prom date. He is just like, my goodness, he's
just glowing. He's in love, right? So we fellas let's put a battery.
In it, throw a battery in it. Lo and behold, it cranks over is it
pretty good. And after a little bit of love and tenderness, it fired off. And
I said it's great. And it made the exhaust manifold sound so you can literally
see the heads bouncing on top of the engine. Okay. Sound familiar?
So I'm like, all right, hold up, hold up. All right, thanks, guys. Let's just
push this thing in the back, and we'll talk about it on Monday. I
have what I've dubbed the are you budgeted
for this vehicle? Conversation. It's a
ply way of saying you got enough money for this thing, for the Sled
before we get into it, before I start writing and
spending those hours putting that estimate together on what I have known faults.
Okay? Yeah. So I had that conversation with this guy, and he insisted that
I write the estimate, right? Because I had that, and I said, sir, this is
going to be a considerable amount of money. It needs an engine. Well, like a
used engine? No, there's no used on this, dude. It's like the whole thing.
And he's like, Just write the estimate. I'm like, Dude,
are you sure? Write the estimate. Okay.
Sorry. Go ahead. Well, no, that could be a double edged
sword. Double edged sword. Easy to
say. But anyway, the idea is that he can go shop that around town.
Can you do this? Yeah. He wants 20. Can you do this for 13? Oh,
I dare him. I dare you to go do this. Well, that's how it
goes on my end of the world, right? But I had the Are you budgeted
for this argument. And he waited a well to do, crazy thousand
dollars 1994 Defender that showed up. Holy. And
I just went, how much? Yes. That's what we paid.
Unfortunately, this European remake came into the country. He bought
his site unseen, because everybody buys online now, right? And money was no object. The
fellow owns his own computer company, one of the big ones, and he
said, Fine. Well, we did $16,000 worth of work on it
to make it drivable in the United States. Okay. And the bill is paid for
that question. These are good customers to have, right? These are the ones you want
cream of the crop. But we are finding
that these old Sleds, the ones I used to send to the Boneyard back when
I had my shop back in
the right,
early 2000s, we were sending them to Boneyard. Well, someone pulled it on
Boneyard, went and restored them, sold them back to them for $100,000. And they're
making a resurgence. I don't know if these old Defender guys are writing
the coattails of the new Defender that's come out. Maybe that's what they
want. But there is some very well funded people out there that have
and I'm down. They are more than welcome to show up to my shop with
their 2003 defender that needs an engine. And the full
suspension David, is now every single door lock. And the heating and
air conditioning system, it doesn't work. Right. I absolutely love
those vehicles. Those, like, early two thousand s. I don't know why. They're so
cool. They're boxy. They're terrible to drive. They're
slow as dirt. They don't stop. But they are so
cool. They're built like tanks. I agree. They don't last, but they're built like
tanks. Cool factor. And if you got a lot of money and passion for them,
and you want to spend your money on passion, go for it. That's a market
that's out there. The rest of the market is the other stuff that we deal
with all day. The ride height modules and the cars that don't
start and the target Identifier reset. You touched on all that's. What we
have to learn to pay the salaries and the taxes and a weekly
rent. The long money, which is what we're discussing here, is for the projects
up. So over at Independent Motorcard, we do both and, of course, how you appear
on the market. A fellow I've thrown in with us, a very good job
of instagram and. Good
building a brand for that. Films everything something new every day,
every week. There's some the most important part, though.
Is making sure that you have that conversation with the customer and you
set expectations, because if you approach this vehicle, these
vehicles, like Toyota, you're both going to
have a bad time. The customer's going to have a bad time. You're going to
have a bad time. It's not that. It is a level of
incredulity. When you just did an oil change and the alternator stops
working, and then all of a sudden the ABS lights on and you're like,
don't look at the car anymore. Don't even look at it.
And you do your before and after before it's like, hey, was the ABS
light on? No. Well, it never is.
Okay? You touched it. You touched it. You're like,
cars must drive in and go, I'm here.
Absolutely. Every one of them is rode hard and put up wet. You know
that, right? And if you have an understanding customer and
we've had the customer, you call them up and go, hey, I know you came
in for an oil change, but your alternator is not charging anymore. What? Hey,
I know you just came in for this alternator, but turns out ABS module
breaked. Why? I disconnected the battery.
And by the way, it doesn't start now.
Yeah, you put a glove over that alternator cable, budy. You don't disconnect the
battery. Are you crazy? That right. Lost your mind.
Don't do that. Never drop the power, right? That was awesome. Thank
you. Anyway.