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This podcast is dedicated to changing the automotive industry for the better, one conversation at a time.
Whether you're a technician, vendor, business owner, or car enthusiast, we hope to inspire you to improve for your customers, your careers, your businesses, and your families.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:00]:
Well, so the, the transformation from Tool guy and technician and mobile guy into shop owner and we talked about it.
Brandon Dills [00:00:11]:
Fuck my life.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:12]:
I know, sorry.
Brandon Dills [00:00:13]:
Edit that out.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:14]:
We talked about it, though. You know what I'm saying?
Brandon Dills [00:00:16]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:17]:
And boys, it was. Tell me, why was it woo.
Brandon Dills [00:00:24]:
Of damn work it is.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:27]:
I don't think a lot of people realize that. And so we just had this idea. I'm already doing it, man. I'm already doing it. Me and you had that talk, right? Because we talked about. I remember we were talking about the building and you're like, no, I'm going to go get this giant building. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:44]:
I'm like, hold up just a minute. Let's talk about this for a minute because that's going to be expensive. And by the time you outfit it and you do all those things now, you went into the small shop, right?
Brandon Dills [00:00:55]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:55]:
And you found success in the small shop and then you moved into a bigger shop. Really nice facility, by the way. Kudos to you.
Brandon Dills [00:01:04]:
Thank you.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:06]:
But you turned into David and I and we've had some telephone conversations where I'm like, I'm hearing you at the top of your stress meter.
Brandon Dills [00:01:15]:
Oh, yeah, trust me.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:17]:
Ready to be like, no, I'm done.
Brandon Dills [00:01:19]:
This summer was a freaking roller coaster. Usually summers are hitting it and that was our whole town. Like, some friends with a lot of shop owners and you still get the one shop owners, oh, we've been so busy. I don't understand how you're not busy just trying to make stuff look better, but then you got the other shop owners and it's like, no, we've been hitting those same roller coasters and twiddling our thumbs. Ryan Martin, he's like, yeah, we've been averaging almost 100 a month. And he's like, but not anymore. We slowed way down, but everybody in our town is now in the uptick again.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:54]:
Exactly. And we did the same thing. It was up and down, up and down, up and down. And we got in a good groove here the last couple of months. And we're moving really good and things are awesome. But that is, like, for the tech in a lot of ways. That's a financial roller coaster, right? EspeCially if they're bonused or paid flat rate. So that's a financial roller coaster and that's hard on them.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:17]:
But as an Owner, boys, because me and you talked at the 4 July party and I'm like, dude, yeah, I'm really Questioning all of this.
Brandon Dills [00:02:26]:
Yeah. Because my guys are hourly. And I did that because I like to know, because I was a flat rate guy. And trust me, I love flat rate because I was just really good at flat rate. But I hated the weeks where there was nothing to do and you had crap paycheck. So I like knowing that he's just.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:46]:
He's good.
Brandon Dills [00:02:47]:
Yeah. Well, as good as he can be right now. Yeah. Relatively speaking.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:53]:
You brought it up. Let's just go ahead and talk about it.
David Roman [00:02:56]:
What happened?
Brandon Dills [00:02:56]:
We had a pretty bad accident at the shop.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:58]:
That's scary as I'll get out there.
Brandon Dills [00:03:00]:
Trust me, it was.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:01]:
I have nightmares about something happening to one of my people, and I run around in my head Sometimes, and I'm thinking, what would I do if. What would happen if. I've got a good friend of mine, owns an energy company, and I've told this story before, but he basically came in at some point, and he's like, hey, got to go. I know I came to pick up my vehicle, but I got to go. And he's like, on the phone, and he marches out, and they had somebody that was very severely injured, and he had to go talk to the family, and he had to deal with all this stuff. And I was talking to him about it later, and he's like, this will eventually happen to you. He's like, you own a Business. This will eventually happen.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:39]:
He said, I hope it doesn't, but he said, if you grow your business, this is going to happen. Are you prepared?
Brandon Dills [00:03:46]:
Trust me. Because I called his Wife. We got 911 ready. They were talking. I passed the phone off to. It was either my wife or my daughter Because They Were both standing right there and let them take Over. 911 Call. And I called his Wife, and I was like, hey, there's Something bad that really happened.
Brandon Dills [00:04:03]:
I don't know the extent of it. EMS is on the Way. Just try and get here if you can. If not, I'll tell you which Hospital they took them to. It was a very scary moment, and luckily just some stuff kind of all played out to where it didn't get as bad as what it could have been. So you haven't been in my new shop. You walk in the front door, then it's a long hallway. Back there's a kitchen, and then behind the kitchen is the shop.
Brandon Dills [00:04:28]:
My oldest daughter just happened to be in the kitchen whenever she heard the crash, walked out the shop to see what it was. If she wouldn't have been sitting there, it probably been five or ten minutes before I walked out the shop, even.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:37]:
Realized something was going on. Right.
David Roman [00:04:39]:
But he was still breathing, though, under the car, right?
Brandon Dills [00:04:42]:
To my knowledge, yeah, because he was able to talk under the car, but you could hear the duress in his. He was like, please get this car off me.
David Roman [00:04:50]:
Well, he was probably under a lot of stress. Would he crack a rib? Right?
Brandon Dills [00:04:55]:
Broke two ribs. And then it's weird. And the doctors were trying to explain how it worked because I was at the hospital this morning, but the car hit and pushed sideways on him. It didn't break the ribs where the car hit. It actually broke the ribs on the other side from where the force went over and broke the other ribs. And then he's got poppy noises on the left side from where they said most likely cartilage was broken between them. So his rib bones are actually popping back and forth because they're not being held in place.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:29]:
The first question is always, well, how does something like this happen? I think as shop owners, it's easy to look at this and say, what? What did he do wrong? Or, how did this happen? And the first response is, no, are you okay? And make sure they're taken care of. Make sure they're going to be okay. And whatever we've got to do, we do have to do a little bit of analysis to determine how did this happen. And it doesn't even matter if they made a mistake or they did something. We talk about complacency all the time. Complacency will get you killed. I remember we were up on, remember behind my shop when we went and.
Brandon Dills [00:06:10]:
All shop pistols that day, I didn't like that day. I did not like that day.
Lucas Underwood [00:06:14]:
And so there were staff girlfriends that came and they were flagging everybody. Pistol.
Brandon Dills [00:06:23]:
Yeah. That's why you've seen me just kind of stand back. I was like, I don't need any.
Lucas Underwood [00:06:27]:
I hate to tell you, nine millimeter. I don't think we could have stand back far enough to avoid it. But you know what I'm saying? That complacency is how you hear about somebody getting hurt. A pistol is one thing, because, you know, complacency with that will get you killed. There's no ifs or buts about it. Firearm safety number one. Right. But when you get into a shop, we're not out handling a pistol seven days a week, 8 hours a day.
Lucas Underwood [00:06:55]:
Right?
Brandon Dills [00:06:55]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:06:56]:
In a shop, that's something we do every single.
Brandon Dills [00:07:01]:
I couldn't even tell you how many alignments on this system. And so kind of my outward analysis afterwards, because then I started kind of looking around after the dust settled and everything. Well, I guess I'll tell everybody because we haven't really explained what happened. My technician was doing alignments. We don't have an alignment rack. We have stands. So you pick the car up on two posts, set it down the stands, do the alignment. The front alignment stands popped out while he was under the vehicle.
Brandon Dills [00:07:27]:
Front of the car fell down, crushed him underneath it. So that's what happened whenever, after EMS was done and they were gone, and we just kind of let the dust settle for a minute. I went over the car. The car was in neutral instead of being in park, which that would have helped out a lot if it was in park, if the brakes failed, whatever. It was a neutral, and then the stands were out to the sides. And so I don't know if whenever. Because he said he's seen a tire roll a little bit. So I don't know if whenever it rolled, it wasn't perfectly centered under the tires, and one stand just slid out, which caused the other one to kick out as well.
Brandon Dills [00:08:08]:
I've got cameras, but I haven't reviewed the footage yet. I'll do that this coming week.
David Roman [00:08:13]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:14]:
Don't let it get recorded over.
Brandon Dills [00:08:17]:
I don't think it will. I think it records up to, Like, 30 days and then records over.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:21]:
If you double check that, because 30 days is a ton.
David Roman [00:08:24]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:25]:
Dude, I've got almost 30 terabytes in one system, and I get four days.
Brandon Dills [00:08:32]:
Really?
David Roman [00:08:32]:
Yeah. You've got 85 cameras.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:34]:
That's true, actually.
Brandon Dills [00:08:36]:
No, I need to check that because I've probably got more cameras than him.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:40]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:08:40]:
Okay. You got a couple of days then.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:44]:
Four days is about the limit of what I get.
David Roman [00:08:49]:
Do you have a cloud access?
Brandon Dills [00:08:51]:
No. So it's all, like, internal. It's got its own computer ran and all that stuff. Backstory of my building is it used to be a security company, so it's got cameras. And every single office has two cameras. The shop's got, like, four cameras. Cameras all over the building, but it was mainly due to the security stuff.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:10]:
Man, it's so freaky. And I think that's all of our worst nightmares. What was your first thought when you realized something had happened?
Brandon Dills [00:09:19]:
Just making sure he was okay. Literally, that's all I cared about. Because you've got kids. Both of you do. You can hear in your kid's voice, hey, there's something going on. Or normal. Her voice changed. Like, I could hear her yelling from 20ft away through walls for me to come out.
Brandon Dills [00:09:36]:
So as soon as I got out there. I went to one side of the car. All I seen was his feet sticking out and him mumbling. I looked down, lifts were, legs were at least still under the car, but they were lowered down all the way, so they were still under it. And so I just ran to the other side, hit the button up, and I just told my daughter, hey, just kind of keep a little bit of weight back here because it was going to teeter a little bit. We got it up just enough to get him out. Luckily he was on a creeper, so I reached underneath there and just pulled him out on the creeper. And then once I got him out away from the car, made sure he's breathing, made sure he's not going to die.
Brandon Dills [00:10:13]:
Right. Then I went and lowered the car down because I don't need somebody else messing around a car. EMS trying to get him out and the car falls on them for sure.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:23]:
We talk a lot about unintended consequences, and so you're in that shop setting and you're trying to help him. And the next move, we got to be careful about what decision we make and what we do because like you said, the car is teetering and you say that. I think it probably would have been best when we were doing stand alignments. The rack didn't get lowered all the way down.
Brandon Dills [00:10:45]:
Well, we don't have super tall stands like ours is only 18 inches, 24 max. But the laser is on the lower part of the tire. It's not middle, it's on the back. So we have to drop the lift all the way out of the way. So that way the laser goes forward.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:03]:
Got you.
Brandon Dills [00:11:05]:
Because we've been trying every different way.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:07]:
Because you couldn't put bigger adapters on the lift arms and pick it up. In other words, you get more clearance.
Brandon Dills [00:11:15]:
Maybe, but this is a car, so you can only go. But so much.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:18]:
Yeah, well, so you think about that. You've watched some of the same stuff I have, and you go and you start moving that vehicle. What if it's something way worse? It's like a stab victim. You don't ever pull the knife out. You leave that because you don't know what it hit, what it did.
Brandon Dills [00:11:37]:
So with crushed victims, if they've been crushed and they've been crushed for a while, you are not supposed to remove them from that scenario until somebody's there because the body will go septic and if they're crushed in a certain area. But he was sub a minute.
David Roman [00:11:56]:
I felt like he was technically pinned because he was still talking.
Brandon Dills [00:11:59]:
Yes.
David Roman [00:12:00]:
So it felt like he couldn't breathe. Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:03]:
Well, I mean, more than that would be my fear of you hit the button on the lift and something shifts and something moves and something happens. When that's happening, your adrenaline is, like, pumping, and so you're trying to think about the best way to go and the best thing to handle that. I still remember when the one fell on me. Right. I think the after effects of this for him are going to be like, he may be able to get underneath a two post lift. I think he's going to have a hard time doing that job again in the future. Because I'm going to tell you something. When that truck fell on me, it was slow motion.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:44]:
Right? I remember I'm underneath it, and I'm walking out from underneath it, and I remember that arm. Like, I can literally see in my head, that arm moving on the back of that framerail, and it was 12,000 pound truck. And so I remember getting out, and I remember what I did, and I remember where I went. And so when that truck turned, the rear left arm kicked out. And when it kicked out, the truck came up in the air like that. When it came up in the air, the front arm kicked out, and the truck literally went. And, dude, it was like slow motion. It was like it wasn't even happening.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:18]:
And the truck is literally over top of me like this. The lift arm, when it kicks out, blows me. It hits me in the chest, right? It hits me in the chest, and I fly backwards, hit the wall. And when I hit the wall, you've been in the old shop, my butt slams to the concrete, and I slide down like this. And I literally, in my mind, watched that truck land on top of my legs, right? And so that truck's turned completely sideways. My legs are out underneath the lift. And when it fell, lift arms up here over top of my head. And when it fell, I've got the toolbox on the right side of my legs and the wheel of the truck on the opposite toolbox on the left side of my legs, and the wheels land right here on the other side.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:02]:
Like, I could not move my legs apart because I was in between it like that. You know what I'm saying? And, dude, it took me. And they'll pick something up. And especially if it's a Chevrolet and I'm in that shop, if they've got it too close to that lip on that frame, set it back down. Not doing this. Move it. Right. I'm not playing this game.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:21]:
Yeah, because, dude, until you've seen it happen. You don't realize how quick it'll take you out.
Brandon Dills [00:14:28]:
And with him, it was a pretty scary situation in general because car falls, I mean, that's a pretty big deal. But whenever I pulled him out, I showed you the picture, but that was after we cleaned him up some. His whole face. I mean, just gobs of blood all over his face. Luckily, it was a laceration under his eye and just a nick in his forehead. But I've seen that, and I'm thinking the worst case, like, yeah, dang, he just crushed his whole face. And I say, luckily it wasn't his face, but you know what I mean? It sucks either way. But it wasn't as bad as the initial gut reaction whenever I pulled them out.
Brandon Dills [00:15:08]:
Yeah, some other situations, like my wife just happened to. Usually she would have already been gone. So my wife comes in, and she'll work for Jarhead. She gets in at, like, eight, and then she leaves at one and goes pick kids up. We were getting ready for Aste, so she just happened to stay late, and so she was going to be there all day long, because I think it happened right around two or 230, something like that, in that ballpark. So she just happened to be there. My wife's paramedic. She's got a degree for a paramedic, so she just happened to be there.
Brandon Dills [00:15:44]:
We had a first aid kit to at least start just mentoring a little bit to his face to kind of clean it up. It was a scary situation. I don't know if you've ever seen anybody. Whenever you look in their eyes and there's nothing behind the eyes, that was him. He was out of it. The creeper. Luckily, we kept him on the creeper. The paramedics were glad he was on the creeper, because that's like, almost like a backbone.
Brandon Dills [00:16:10]:
Yeah, he's already on a backboard. So whenever we loaded him onto the stretcher, we kept the creeper underneath them, picked him up, and set him on there with the creeper still on there. And whenever they picked him up, since it was a crush victim and all that other stuff, they didn't even go to the local hospital. They took them to the large hospital in Winston, and it was a pretty big ordeal.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:31]:
Dude. The number of shops, I've talked about this with a local shop, to me, because everything they're doing is to avoid cost, and so they're trying to avoid workman's comp. I'm going to 1099 these employees, and here's the thing about the 1099. I've been so surprised. How many workers or how many techs want to be 1099 or they want to be cash. What's interesting about that is because I've had techs ask that, and usually it's because they've got a judgment against them or they've got child support or something like that, and they're trying to play games with it, man. It's not worth it, because if you're cash or you're 1099 boys, you don't have Workman's comp.
Brandon Dills [00:17:23]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:23]:
You're responsible for it yourself.
Brandon Dills [00:17:25]:
And, you know, North Carolina law, I mean, technically, you only have to have four employees before you're required to have it. Earlier this year, I didn't have it because for a while it was just me, and I'm not covered in a workman's comp, just some owners aren't. But he was with me for a few months, and I was like, yeah, we're going to get Workman's comp. I'm glad I did. After EMS picked him up, I called my insurance agent, and I was like, hey, we just had a major accident at the shop. It's probably going to be pretty expensive. How's workman's comp work? And he was like, you're 100% covered. He's like, every single bill, you're not going to have to pay.
Brandon Dills [00:18:01]:
There's no deductibles. Workman's comp covers everything. So Workman's comp is very freaking expensive, but this whole ordeal is probably 50 grand or more, because wages, the ambulance ride, all of that, it's an expensive Oopsie. And if you don't have the insurance, you're paying that, or you're out of business or whatever.
Lucas Underwood [00:18:24]:
Yeah, well, I mean, even if you go out of business one way or another, you're still paying it, right? You're not getting out of that. You will pay that bill. They will come get you, and you definitely won't open another business in your name ever again. I can promise you.
Brandon Dills [00:18:38]:
You know, then you kind of look at other stuff, too. Afflac, a month and a half ago, just happened to come stop by the shop. They're like, hey, you guys want the coverages? And so we elected. He's got short term disability through Afflac, and he's got, like, an accidental thing through Afflac, so he's going to be getting paid out through all that. So it's good to have insurance because this would have very much sucked. Like, my livelihood probably would have been gone. I don't even care about my livelihood because if he died, then I'd be feeling horrible. And I feel bad that he's hurt now.
Brandon Dills [00:19:13]:
But then you also kind of look at the personal side of it because it wouldn't have just affected his family to be affecting mine and everything else if you're not properly covered.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:22]:
Yeah, for sure. Dude, I'm telling you, when we look at insurance coverages like that. You mentioned something a minute ago. Well, I didn't have Workman's comp because I'm just the owner and I wouldn't have been covered. Dude, I elected to cover myself, really. And I have disability on myself and we don't have AFLAC in the shop. It's something I've thought about doing, but think about that and everybody's like, well, I'm just a single owner. It's not that big of a deal.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:45]:
What happens if something happens to you? Yeah, right. And then you've got those medical bills and you're trying to take care of yourself and you're trying to do all these things. Well, it costs money, dude. You could divide what Workman's comp is going to cost you per employee for the next however many years.
Brandon Dills [00:20:01]:
Oh, yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:01]:
And still not spend what you would have spent.
Brandon Dills [00:20:04]:
Yeah, 100%. Now for me, I've got free health care through the VA. So that's kind of why I never really necessarily elected for my stuff is just because if I get hurt, you guys are all paying for it. Thank you, everybody.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:20]:
You're welcome.
Brandon Dills [00:20:21]:
Thank you, man. So that's why I didn't elect for me. But I do have short.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:28]:
Isn't there some type of protocol that if you're working for somebody else and you get hurt. No, but I mean, you lose your nothing unless you have some type of disability or something.
Brandon Dills [00:20:39]:
Yeah. Thank you.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:44]:
Lucas, I just want to point out that when we were talking about that other shop, right. We were talking about that we're probably thousand, $8,000 a month in total expenses.
Brandon Dills [00:20:54]:
Yeah, trust me. Yeah, I know.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:58]:
And you can't work.
Brandon Dills [00:20:59]:
Yeah, I have short term disability for myself. I didn't elect to put myself under workman's comp, though.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:07]:
Yeah, but I mean, that makes sense, right? As long as you've got some form of disability.
Brandon Dills [00:21:11]:
Yeah, but it's all numbers games. You just got to figure out what that stuff works best for you.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:19]:
But not having any insurance, man, that makes me nervous.
Brandon Dills [00:21:25]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:28]:
The car is minimal compared to the rest of this. Did you talk to the client?
David Roman [00:21:32]:
What did that conversation what the car look like?
Brandon Dills [00:21:34]:
The car actually doesn't look bad at all.
David Roman [00:21:36]:
Those look bad and no damage.
Brandon Dills [00:21:39]:
I haven't picked it up. The shop is exactly the way that it was because just with everything that was going on and then trying to get ready for Aste, it was. As soon as EMS left, I pulled the car off of the rear stands and kind of readjusted everything, set it down, shut the alignment machine off, and I was like, this is a Monday thing. I'm not messing with it right now. At the mean, it's kind of white lie. Wasn't in the mindset to have a conversation with the customer. So I just called the customer and said that we had a parts issue and that his car is going to be running late till next week. He's like, that's fine, just let me know next week.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:16]:
But it didn't scratch it or do any body damage?
Brandon Dills [00:22:18]:
Not that I can tell.
David Roman [00:22:20]:
Tires were on. It should have been fine.
Brandon Dills [00:22:22]:
Yeah, tires were on it. The only thing that I might have an issue is in the rear, because whenever it came off the front stands, the rears rolled forward. Trying to repicture my mind, but I think the rear stands might have been sitting on the bumper of the car. So I'm going to check all that. But that's a Monday thing. That's not a yesterday thing.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:46]:
I still think, though, if I were in your shoes, from my experiences, I probably would have called the client and said, hey, listen, we've had an accident and somebody was hurt. Your car looks okay.
David Roman [00:22:58]:
That would have freaked the customer out, depending on the customer. I don't know that I would have told them it was a parts issue, but I would have said, hey, we ran into a problem with the alignment.
Lucas Underwood [00:23:09]:
As long as they know. BecaUse here's the thing. You don't want. You don't want them. You don't want the employee or a family member or somebody posting it on Facebook and somebody who's going to know.
David Roman [00:23:19]:
It was their car, some whatever, the car with legs sticking out from underneath it.
Lucas Underwood [00:23:24]:
I'm saying by some weird connection, they find out that it was their car that fell on that person and they feel like we were not truthful with them. That's the only fear I would have.
Brandon Dills [00:23:37]:
Yeah, that was going through my mind, but my mindset yesterday was, I don't even want to have a conversation right now.
David Roman [00:23:44]:
If there was no damage to the car, I would have taken care of dude, got him to the hospital. I would have looked over that entire car because that would have been eating me up. Now it's going to eat you up. And I'm sorry.
Brandon Dills [00:23:55]:
No, it already is. But I've already said to myself, that's going to be a Monday thing.
David Roman [00:24:00]:
Yeah. I would have looked over the entire car. If there was damage to the car, any damage, I would have called the customer and said, there was an accident. Your car fell on there. Just damage to this and this and this. We'll take care of everything. I just want to let you know, guys. Okay, if there was no damage to the car.
David Roman [00:24:18]:
No, hey, you'll have your car back on Monday. Yeah, that's it. I'm not describing the sausage and how the hell is made. Hey, I slipped the pig's throat and bled out all over the floor and chopped its head off. Skinned it, took the hooves off. How's my Pepperoni Pizza? Well, I'm describing how I made the Pepperoni first anyway, took all the bits that didn't come off as good cuts, threw them in a meat grinder, add some spices, and then I dry it out.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:57]:
I think that in severe situations where.
David Roman [00:25:02]:
If there was going to be bits of the dude left on the vehicle, then I would have talked to the customer. If a year was no way to know that there was anything wrong with that car, that he had almost crushed somebody. I think if it was a long term customer and I knew the customer well, maybe I would have been more detailed.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:28]:
That would have definitely.
Brandon Dills [00:25:29]:
This was his first time.
David Roman [00:25:30]:
Yeah. First time customer.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:32]:
Yeah, you got a good point there.
David Roman [00:25:34]:
Or if it's a customer that I know is super persnickety about their car, like, hey, that scratch wasn't there until it crushed that guy. What are you talking about?
Brandon Dills [00:25:46]:
This was the car where I remember I showed you the RO, and I was like, this is the one where they just bought the car two weeks ago, and this is the RO.
David Roman [00:25:53]:
Used car dealers are dirt bags. Used car dealers are dirt bags. I've got a 2011 Explorer sitting up at my shop. The AC compressor didn't just go out, it exploded. The car does not run. You got to take the belt off.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:09]:
To get it to run.
David Roman [00:26:10]:
Yeah, to get it to run. That's how bad this compressor was. So we called the guy. I'm like, hey, we got to do rear AC, front AC compressor. This thing was catastrophic failure. And they still had the 30 day tag on it. And the used car dealer is like, sorry, my bad. Anyway, you're on your own.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:31]:
That's how cars dealers roll.
David Roman [00:26:33]:
That is how they roll. And I get calls all the time, they're like, hey, how's so and so down the street? And I'm like, listen, they're all horrible. The cars are all junk. And I don't blame the dealer. It's just the nature of their game. I don't know how they sleep at night. Yeah. I would spend way too much money fixing that car to then sell it at a loss just to get my money back out of it.
David Roman [00:26:58]:
I'd go out of business quickly.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:02]:
I see all the time shop owners, especially guys who are techs who are starting their first shop, and they get in bed with used car dealers. Now, when I really started working on taking the shop from a dungeon to something decent, I did work with a used car dealer for a little bit, and they were pretty good, they were pretty honest, and they were pretty straightforward. But I'm going to tell you something. If you're working for used car dealers, the way they make that work for them, when you're fixing their car, you are taking a percentage of their profit.
David Roman [00:27:38]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:39]:
And so they have no interest in reducing that profit any more than they absolutely have to. They want to do as much margin as they can. Right. And so they typically don't want to fix it.
David Roman [00:27:48]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:49]:
But what a lot of them will do is if anything ever goes wrong with that car, you will get slapped, thrown under the bus the very minute something happens, and they'll tell them to come talk to you. And so you've got to be so careful with that. It can be a good way to build a clientele, but you have to have written agreements. You have to have really solid work orders that document what you did.
David Roman [00:28:10]:
I've never seen it work.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:12]:
It worked really well for me.
David Roman [00:28:14]:
He helped me build time with that one guy. Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:16]:
He helped me build a massive client base. He helped me get a lot of really great clients. He still refers people to me. He fixed cars. Right. But he wasn't buying junk cars to begin with. He was buying decent cars and he was spending the money to get them fixed. And then he was charging a premium for the car.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:31]:
He was not cheap. You could go to the car dealership and buy cars for what he was selling them for. But it was a very niche dealership that was focused on one type of model, and he was really about diesel trucks, and that's what he did.
David Roman [00:28:43]:
That makes sense. That could work, right.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:45]:
But otherwise, these little small dealerships that you see on site, you do not work for them.
Brandon Dills [00:28:51]:
Yeah. Last year I had one. I'm in really good with a transmission shop. And if I got transmission issues that people want it rebuilt versus having a remand or a new unit, I send all that to him. But any repairs he sends to us. And he sent this one guy over, ended up working on his car, and ended up being a used car dealer. I did like three cars for him, and he got mad because I wouldn't give him all these deep discounts. I'm like, yeah, I still have to make my money.
David Roman [00:29:19]:
I don't know why they do that. They must live in this bubble where they're like, no, because shop owners can't.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:26]:
They know what they pay for the parts. And the whole goal is they know that they're the quintessential used car dealer, right? And if you watch movies about them, watch videos about them, they're known to be extremely aggressive. They will push as hard as they can. They don't care if you're happy or not. They want their money, right? Their primary focus is making money out of this deal. And so to them, whatever, man, if you're not making money, I don't care. It's not my problem.
Brandon Dills [00:29:57]:
Yeah, this guy was like, oh, you just cut me a discount. I'll have you all these cars.
Lucas Underwood [00:30:01]:
I was like, you'll be so every single time. Every single time.
Brandon Dills [00:30:05]:
And then some other used car dealer, they got my name. I don't even know how they got my information for our shop, but they've started referring all their clients because they've got an extended warranty. He'll take care of your extended warranty. David's seen some of my stuff with this extended warranty. They don't offer it to the customers. It's automatically on their car. They get this warranty, $70 an hour max labor. And the parts, they literally Google that part number that you gave and whatever.
Brandon Dills [00:30:36]:
The cheapest one that they can find online is what they'll give you for your parts. I had to do a water pump and timing chains and stuff on a Ford 35. They found the timing chain kit online. It was like $100 for the whole kit or something like that. I quoted all oe stuff. They're like, oh, no, we're only going to give you $100. I was like, there ain't no way.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:00]:
I'm not doing it for that.
Brandon Dills [00:31:01]:
Yeah, so for that one, the customers get pretty pissed off. But I explain, it's like, the warranty that they sold you is not the best.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:11]:
I don't even do that. I just say, look, you need to understand that these warranties work very much like health insurance and they have copays. And unfortunately, this is one with a massive copay.
Brandon Dills [00:31:21]:
And that's what I explain. I explain to you it's not the best one out there. And so my cost I'll just save to do job a is $1,000. And your warranty is only going to pay out $300 towards this $1,000 repair. You're on the hook for the other seven if you want to take care of it.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:37]:
Yeah, I don't work for them anymore. None at all. And Jade called the other day. She'S got an extended warranty. Before she started working for us, she bought a Jeep and it had an extended warranty on it. And she know, I know we don't do warranties, but I'm going to call and deal with this for myself. Right. And so she calls and she goes over everything with them.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:59]:
And, well, we need the parts invoice and we need your labor guide. We need a screenshot of your labor guide and we need this and we need that. Where's your w nine and where's this and where's that? Just trying every way they can to squeeze you and get you to not charge them anything at all.
David Roman [00:32:19]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:32:19]:
And man, it is crazy to see some of the things they will say and some of the things they will do. And they are professionals at manipulating service advisors into saying or doing something. And they try and make the process like you fill out the form online, and so then they call you and they're trying to move you through the process really aggressively and really quickly. And so you don't understand what it is they're doing. They're asking for this. Well, I need this information. Well, I need that information. Well, I need this.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:48]:
All of a sudden, you look up and they have gotten information and it'll be like, the best example of it is I talked to a shop owner a while back. He's on the phone with a warranty company. And they're like, okay, what's your cost on that? Okay, what's your cost on that? Okay, what's your cost on that? They get done and the shop owner says, well, you never asked me what I was charging you. And they said, no. We asked what your cost was. No, but I understand. I'm going to mark my parts up. They said, well, you already gave us the price.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:14]:
I'm sorry, we can't go back. Right. And like, really shady, really, a lot.
Brandon Dills [00:33:20]:
Of them that I deal with, they'll be like, what's the cost on it? And I tell them, the cost on it is however much I've got it marked up, too.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:26]:
Yeah, exactly. Here's your price, buddy.
David Roman [00:33:29]:
Yeah. I've never had anybody ask me the cost.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:31]:
Yeah, they're getting to the point now, and I've seen this in a lot of the groups. ThEy're getting to the point now that they are asking for the parts invoice.
David Roman [00:33:40]:
We used to have to send the parts invoice if you're a Max care shop. They stopped doing that nonsense. But I used to redact it. I would go in and redact all of the prices and my account numbers, and I would then send them the invoice and I say, here's your proof purchase. I did buy every single part that I'm listing on this invoice. Well, we don't have the prices on there. And I'm like, I don't know what to tell you.
Brandon Dills [00:34:02]:
I think I had to do that once, but I did the same thing. I was like, you don't need to know how much I'm paying for your business. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:10]:
Proprietary information.
Brandon Dills [00:34:13]:
Just like him and Mike Allen told me. I didn't even think about looking at World Pack for factory parts because you can get a deep discount. So most of the time now, with extended warranty, I price out OE.
David Roman [00:34:25]:
It depends on. Because if you order through repair link, they have like Mars pricing or something like that, you get a pretty good chunk off.
Brandon Dills [00:34:34]:
It depends on the part.
David Roman [00:34:36]:
Yeah. Well, yeah, if you're doing OEs. Yeah, that's different. That's different.
Brandon Dills [00:34:44]:
But see, then you also kind of run into issues where I told you the GM engine, it's a warranty thing. And GM changed their stuff here recently.
David Roman [00:34:55]:
Yeah, this was wild.
Brandon Dills [00:34:56]:
I know this less than right at 5% markup, not margin markup between MSRP and what they sell the engines at now. And so, like this one that I just did, MSRP was like $3,800. And I think I paid 3300 for the engine. 3400 for the engine. There's like no money in the engine at all.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:15]:
Holy shit.
David Roman [00:35:16]:
Yeah.
Brandon Dills [00:35:18]:
And there was no remand option besides OE.
David Roman [00:35:21]:
Yeah, even FVP, like CNK Auto because they usually have everything.
Brandon Dills [00:35:25]:
No, this was a 17 Ecotech or 25, I think. I don't remember. I've still got the RO. Like, we just closed out this past week.
David Roman [00:35:37]:
I just bought a.
Brandon Dills [00:35:39]:
This one wasn't available anywhere but dealer.
David Roman [00:35:41]:
Yeah, there's something weird on it.
Brandon Dills [00:35:43]:
Maybe.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:45]:
Here's the thing. If a consumer goes to the dealership and gets that engine, at that price, and they do it. And we talked about this last week with Seth and with that one person who commented, like, dealerships doing repairs, super. You know, I just don't see how we can. It doesn't matter about trying to compete, right? I'm not offering the same product. I'm not offering the same kind of service that they offer. I can't do that.
David Roman [00:36:17]:
That's the deal, though, was that, hey, they're doing it to take care of the customer because it's a customer service thing. That engine shouldn't have failed. They understand now they're going to cover it, so they're doing it at a deep discount. So it's not even a competition. Like, it's warranty deal. It's a Kia and Hyundai engines. You get a locked up Kia Hyundai engine. Are you putting a Kia Hyundai engine in it? No.
David Roman [00:36:42]:
You're sending them down to the dealer and say, hey, the dealer will put one in there for you if you argue enough.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:47]:
Yeah, for sure. And boys, do they push back.
David Roman [00:36:51]:
They have been pushing back a lot more. I had this guy, and it's like, it didn't even register. He calls me, he's in my B and I group, and he's like, hey, I got this 17, or it may have been newer. Kia four cylinder. Can you get me a remand engine? Put it in? I was like, dude, it's a. No, there are no remand engines available. You can't get used. They're gone because Kia snatches all of them up to put them in, to rebuild them and put them in these customers lines of them at the dealership.
David Roman [00:37:27]:
You have to go back to the dealer. Well, I thought I'd give you a shot. No, there's no shot to be given.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:34]:
Anybody that would do that. You better watch your butt.
David Roman [00:37:38]:
I don't know who in their right mind would even try.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:40]:
We've seen some shops do some stuff that you just could not even fathom.
David Roman [00:37:45]:
If it were like. But they are way past ten years old. Yes, it was like a nine or something like that.
Brandon Dills [00:37:51]:
They are getting a whole lot stricter now. Whenever I bought my daughter's car, it had a rod knock in it, and they had a lifetime warranty on her car. And so I had an engine put in for free, but they got rid of the lifetime warranty. I have a 17, I think, 16 or 17 Optima engine Knock. I called the dealer and they said, do you have oil change records? Call the customer. We don't have any oil change records. And their sticker was like 20,000 miles past due. Whenever the recall first dropped and I was at the dealer, they didn't care.
David Roman [00:38:28]:
Yeah, everything.
Brandon Dills [00:38:29]:
It didn't matter if they ever did an oil change or not. We were actually doing engines like we do an engine. The customer drive for 30, 40,000 without an oil change, then we'd be putting another engine in. And Kia was just covering it all because they didn't care. But now they care. And so I told this customer, it's a 17 Optima, it's sitting at my shop right now. That's one of the ones that they've Landon. Because Kia wasn't going to put an engine in it.
Brandon Dills [00:38:49]:
And it's almost ten grand to have an engine put in.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:52]:
Exactly.
David Roman [00:38:53]:
That's if you can get an engine.
Brandon Dills [00:38:55]:
You can.
David Roman [00:38:55]:
Can you?
Brandon Dills [00:38:56]:
Yeah, you can get an engine for almost all of them. They're all in stock now.
David Roman [00:39:00]:
Well, my dealer, my Kia dealer is the worst.
Brandon Dills [00:39:04]:
I hate this, but when's last time you called? Like recently?
David Roman [00:39:07]:
Within the last year.
Brandon Dills [00:39:09]:
Okay. Because at the height of when the recall first dropped for the two four S, the 20 and the two four S, they were on national back order. But at the time we were doing like 20 engines a week, 30 engines a week at just our small dealer. So they were hard to come by then, but now they keep them in stock.
David Roman [00:39:27]:
It's so bad that we get the Kia part number and we put it into the Hyundai dealerships repair link system and then we order it through the Hyundai dealership. I don't want to deal with this.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:41]:
I don't mean to throw shade at owners of those automobiles, but I'm going to.
David Roman [00:39:45]:
They're nice cars. What are you talking about? They're really nice cars.
Brandon Dills [00:39:50]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:50]:
Here's the thing is that and the.
David Roman [00:39:51]:
Amount of technology you get for the.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:53]:
Price, like for instance, some of these automobiles that we work on a couple hours from the dealer, right? So we're in Raleigh right now. I'm 3 hours from Raleigh, you know where I'm at? Hour and a half to a Kia dealer. Right? So you've got some time in this and then if you have to have it towed, the consumer who drives that car will never have me do warranty things that would be under warranty. And we tell anybody, if there's even a shot that something's under warranty, we always tell them like, hey, here's the deal. And we've had maybe a high pressure fuel pump that we've done that would have been under warranty, right?
Brandon Dills [00:40:32]:
And I even go over and above. I'll call the dealer with the VIN number and figure out, hey, the car is under warranty for sure. You go do it.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:41]:
Yeah, absolutely. We would do that. And we'd spend the time to go through that. The owners of those cars will not have us do the work. Right. Absolutely. I respect that. I wouldn't either.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:54]:
But there's other car lines like Audi's, that starter motor or motor generator or whatever they call it. Dude, we've done like five of those. And Audi's even farther away than Kia and done a. And it is not a cheap job to do.
David Roman [00:41:09]:
I don't understand your point.
Lucas Underwood [00:41:11]:
I'm just saying, like, wait, the customer was paying for it or customer pay at the shop.
David Roman [00:41:16]:
That makes sense. Like, if you buy a KiA, you sort of buy it because you want everything covered under the warranty. An Audi, you want to drive an Audi.
Lucas Underwood [00:41:27]:
That's pretty much the extent of that in.
David Roman [00:41:31]:
Kia's are nice.
Brandon Dills [00:41:33]:
Yeah, they're fire.
Lucas Underwood [00:41:34]:
I've not been in one in years.
Brandon Dills [00:41:36]:
They're fire.
Lucas Underwood [00:41:38]:
Literally, they are fire.
David Roman [00:41:40]:
They just have a recall on the lines.
Brandon Dills [00:41:44]:
The recall for the fire started shortly after the engine recall.
David Roman [00:41:47]:
Yeah, they just rolled out a new fire hazard.
Brandon Dills [00:41:52]:
They probably did.
David Roman [00:41:53]:
But like, the 24 million KIAs being.
Brandon Dills [00:41:56]:
Recalled, probably it's just dropped. The original fire one for the GDI engines was.
David Roman [00:42:02]:
Hey, real quick, hold on. What time is carts?
Lucas Underwood [00:42:05]:
We need to leave here at 445. And we've got a 03:00. Justina, we've got time.
David Roman [00:42:09]:
Okay, well, I'm saying the guy we gave away the scholarship to is asking.
Brandon Dills [00:42:15]:
Okay, yeah, but the original fire recall for the 224s technician fault. Yeah. The entire recall that we had to do for all those was going back and checking over technician error. So that high pressure fuel line from the pump down to the rail is a one time use.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:37]:
And they kept changing.
Brandon Dills [00:42:39]:
They wouldn't torque it. And then there was also a mounting bracket that was on the side of the block.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:44]:
And they wouldn't put the tab back on.
Brandon Dills [00:42:46]:
They would leave that off. And then they weren't torquing properly. Even though the engine kits came with new lines and everything. They weren't torquing them.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:53]:
You know what's so funny about that is that I got my chops busted.
David Roman [00:42:58]:
Hey, hold on. 3.4 million vehicles in the US and telling owners to park them outside due to the risk of engine compartment fires. The recalls cover multiple car and SUV models from 2010 to 2019, including the Santa Fe and the Sorrento. Documents posted Wednesday by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration say the antilock brake Control module can leak fluid and cause an electrical short which can touch off a fire while the vehicles are parked or being driven. So your car might land on fire while being driven.
Brandon Dills [00:43:39]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:39]:
Well, so we're talking about that high pressure fuel pump. And I got my chops busted by a dealership, right? And we did a fuel pump. And they state that the fuel pump went bad. I said, well, it's one of yours. Here's a documentation for it. And the consumers, mad as all get out about me or at me. And I'm like, hey, if you had called me first, I could have helped. I could have sent you to a warranty facility and it would have been covered no matter what.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:09]:
You didn't call me first. And if you'd have called me first and I could have talked to Kia and said, hey, look, this is a part that you replaced or that we got from you. And so they charged him to do it, and he's like, why is it so much more expensive from you? And I'm like, can you send me the invoice? It shouldn't be, like, any different.
David Roman [00:44:28]:
Oh, boys.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:29]:
They did not replace the line. And so the quick connect line, what was originally wrong with the pump is that when the car, it came into the shop, it was leaking fuel. And so we went back there and we took it off. And Terry's like, yeah. He's like, the line's loose, but it doesn't make sense because the line looks okay. I understand why the line would be leaking fuel. And so we popped the line off and you can see somebody has at some point smacked the outlet line. And so it's knocked the ridge that the quick connect locks on.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:00]:
It's like, mushed it down, right? And they're like, oh, no, that doesn't have to be replaced. I'm like, dude, there is a literal recall because you all weren't replacing those.
Brandon Dills [00:45:09]:
It's in bold letters.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:10]:
It has to be replaced.
David Roman [00:45:11]:
Yeah, there's a plastic line.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:13]:
No, there's a plastic line and a metal line. But the metal line.
Brandon Dills [00:45:15]:
The metal line always has to be replaced.
David Roman [00:45:18]:
The metal line never gets replaced.
Brandon Dills [00:45:20]:
For Kia, Hyundai.
David Roman [00:45:21]:
I know it says that in Si.
Brandon Dills [00:45:23]:
It does 100%.
David Roman [00:45:25]:
We replace a lot of metal lines because they're leaking.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:27]:
Yeah, the little end deforms because they're one time use.
Brandon Dills [00:45:32]:
It's one time use. So it mushrooms out to that fuel rail and to that fuel pump. And so whenever you put it into another one. And let's just say the machining is just a tiny bit different. It's not going to make that tight fit. And so like the original recall, whenever that came out, it was put a torque wrench on the upper and lower. If it moves any at all, replace the line. And then if the bracket was missing off the engine, you had to replace the line.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:58]:
Yeah, it's rowdy because the fact that they wouldn't do that.
Brandon Dills [00:46:07]:
And that line is not cheap. No, my cost, I think last one I did was almost $100 for just the line.
Lucas Underwood [00:46:13]:
But I mean, I'm just saying $100.
David Roman [00:46:15]:
So you don't die in a car fire. Yeah, that's not that much, not that cheap. It's like $1,000.
Lucas Underwood [00:46:21]:
My question is, if you're a dealer, service advisor, and you know that damn thing is supposed to be replaced and you wouldn't even put it on the invoice, does that not just happens all.
David Roman [00:46:32]:
The time, you know how you know they weren't replacing those lines is that they didn't stock the stupid line. So you're ordering the high pressure fuel pumps in stock, one available, like one in stock, and then you're like, oh, here's the line that service information says has to be replaced. Never in, never ever in stock. So they have the pump, they don't have the line. They're not replacing lines. That's how you know.
Lucas Underwood [00:46:55]:
Yeah, when letter from Kia.
David Roman [00:47:00]:
Thing, this is an individual dealership thing.
Brandon Dills [00:47:02]:
When the engine recall very first came out, the line was not in the initial recall parts kit.
David Roman [00:47:10]:
Yeah, I'm talking about service information. No, I reuse the line.
Brandon Dills [00:47:14]:
Do not reuse it. That line wasn't. And then they kind of changed it. And then after maybe a month or two, they started adding the line in. And they started adding in because with injectors on GDIs, you're supposed to replace the injector orings. Like whenever you pull those out, you're supposed to replace them. People weren't replacing the injector because they would just pop them out and just shove them into the new hole.
David Roman [00:47:36]:
Really?
Lucas Underwood [00:47:36]:
Yeah, and they would blow combustion gas or fuel back out.
Brandon Dills [00:47:42]:
You got to think, whenever the recall very first dropped, I mean, it was pretty decent. It was like a nine hour total ticket. At the time I was doing start to finish putting an engine in like 2 hours, two and a half hours. So it was good money. But then they dropped it from 9 hours. Now they're getting paid like I think it's sub 6 hours on some of these engines.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:04]:
Holy crap. Yeah. And we've heard a lot of that. That warranty times are like, hardcore decreasing right now.
David Roman [00:48:12]:
Yeah, they got to go to a 32 hours work week. Do you know the demands from this.
Brandon Dills [00:48:19]:
Right here is why warranty times have decreased. Facebook.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:23]:
You think so?
Brandon Dills [00:48:24]:
Yeah, 100%. Because I'm selling some of the Kia Hyundai groups. And you'll get these dumb asses and they'll go in there and they'll be like, oh, this new recall, this new part. I'm doing it this and saving all this time. Kia is in these groups. Hyundai is in these groups, all these car manufacturers. So you'll get some dumb ass that's like, oh, I did this whole lot quicker, and here's how I did it. And then they'll figure out that's a legit thing, and then they'll go in and they'll change the write up on it.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:51]:
Well, I mean, the dude that just died, that worked for Ford and then worked for me. Yeah, he made bank doing the door latch recalls on Don't. I can't remember what the deal was, but this dude would go around bragging about how he had just absolutely ripped them off and he had just absolutely screwed them and that he had found ways to fix part of the latches so he wouldn't even change them. So he had a box full of box. And I'm like, dude, that's wrong. And this was near the end of his tenure with us, you know what I'm saying? He was on his way out.
David Roman [00:49:29]:
Don't let him lie to you. That's how he got hired. He's like, I just keep a whole box of parts I didn't use. Aren't you to replace the whole latch? Yeah, but, you know, fix is fixed. Is it fixed? I like you.
Brandon Dills [00:49:42]:
You're hired. Like, way back when, when the sedonas and stuff were having the timing chain ratle because of the tensioner failing, they wanted you to drop the engine to take the front cover off. So it was like a 20 hours job. Techs found out they could do it in the vehicle.
David Roman [00:49:57]:
You just got a jacket all the.
Brandon Dills [00:50:00]:
Way and they can slide the front cover out. Yeah, somebody was in training and was like, oh, yeah, I don't pull the engine. I just pulled the front cover off, and Kia came right back out and took a 20 hours recall and dropped it like 6 hours.
David Roman [00:50:13]:
It's not easy, though. You try to snake that cover back.
Brandon Dills [00:50:18]:
A six hour job.
David Roman [00:50:20]:
It's not six. Well, I mean, I guess if you do 50 of them a day, but you've got to be so careful because you're siliconing that cover and you nick that silicone, that sucker is going to leak. And then you won't know for a week. And then it comes back. Yeah, man. It's still not easy.
Brandon Dills [00:50:35]:
Like the steering couplers. You ever done one of those in your shop? Whenever that recall first came out, it was like over an hour.
David Roman [00:50:44]:
We still charge.
Brandon Dills [00:50:45]:
I mean, that's what I charge. But then they dropped the recall. It was down to, like, six or seven tenths. But me and another guy in the shop, because they realized you didn't have to pull the column completely out of the car. Just drop the column down. Once they updated the recall to do that, me and another guy started racing. Just see if we could get it done the fastest I could on an optima with a keyed ignition, because it was just easier on a keyed than a push button. I could do it in, like, sub ten minutes, like, seven or eight minutes to do one.
David Roman [00:51:18]:
I don't understand the mindset. I don't understand the appeal from a manufacturer standpoint. Yeah, you want to pay as little as possible, but that's only because you live in a flat rate world. So you want to pay as little as possible to get that. But then the technicians. If it takes 20 hours, take your damn 20 hours to do the damn job.
Brandon Dills [00:51:40]:
Yeah, but you just said it to yourself, flat rate. So if they could get a 20 hours job done in ten, Nathan, Brian.
David Roman [00:51:48]:
Had a whole post on this. If you work 40 hours, you want to flag 40 hours or there's something wrong? Why are we trying to push for 50, 60, 70 in a 40 hours work week? I went to this class. It was a good class. Nice guy who put it on, but that dumb ass stood up there and he goes, I think a good tech. He sounded like that, too. Can do eight to 12 hours or ten to 12 hours in an eight hour day. Otherwise they're a junk tech. That is the dumbest garbage ever.
David Roman [00:52:22]:
You're either padding the ticket up too much. He didn't come up with that. He just regurgitating with some other nonsense, some other dumb asset. I'm just saying, ten to 12 hours. I'm burning all the bridges in ten to 12 hours. Build in an eight hour day means there's something effing wrong with that goddamn ticket. Something F and wrong with that ticket, or that guy's going too fast. Something has to get.
David Roman [00:52:50]:
No, don't tell me. You're going to have to pull the whole engine out.
Brandon Dills [00:52:55]:
You got to think of at a dealership, though, it's repetitive. You're doing the exact same jobs day in. Well, that makes sense. So you are speeding up because, like, with the engines, I mean, the recall is all screwed up anymore now, so I don't really care. I'll say it out loud. I got to the point that's not a lie. It was about two to two and a half hours from the time I rolled my roll cart to a car from pulling the engine out. Back in running was about two to two and a half hours on average for a key optima.
Lucas Underwood [00:53:21]:
But a lot of that's experience is.
Brandon Dills [00:53:24]:
Because I knew I had to take out this bolt. I don't have to take out this bolt. I know I have to do this. I know I don't have to do that.
David Roman [00:53:29]:
But there was a lot of trial and error in that.
Brandon Dills [00:53:31]:
Correct.
Lucas Underwood [00:53:32]:
Okay.
Brandon Dills [00:53:34]:
Flat rate has its perks in that aspect. Whenever you're especially, like, trying to beat the time for warranty work and all that.
David Roman [00:53:42]:
I don't know. At a dealership, fine.
Lucas Underwood [00:53:49]:
Look, I just say my minimum level of acceptable performance is 8 hours a day. Right? Do we create is not the right word. When we build a ticket, we know that there is going to be time in that because we're writing estimates. We've got time in writing estimates. We've got time in all of these other aspects. I'm not saying we should charge for writing estimates. That's not my point. But we have a lot.
David Roman [00:54:13]:
I don't know. Hold on. Let's talk about that. Maybe we should be charging the other Brandon, my tall Brandon, he's here at AST, and he gripes at us for not charging for research time.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:31]:
Well, that's what I was getting ready to say.
David Roman [00:54:33]:
I got to spend. I do 20 to 30 minutes. You know who else does? Minkler. Minkler has, like, a technology charge. I don't even know what the hell he calls he, I assume, but it's essentially the charge that you would have to pay BMW to look up factory service information. He puts that on every flipping ticket. Now he buys the yearly pass. He's got that paid off in a month.
David Roman [00:55:00]:
So the rest of the year, it's just profit for him. But he's putting it on there, and that's how we make more money. It's the normalizing of, hey, I've got to flip and charge you for information access every time you come in, and I've got to do something to your car. I've got to charge you this information access fee, and that makes all the sense in the world, because Brandon, he'll probably listen to this. I'll never hear the end of it. He's right. We should be charging for information research, something to that effect, right? Yeah, but I'm also competing against the shop fix shop down the street that, I guarantee you, is not charging a service information. I'm burning all the bridges.
Lucas Underwood [00:55:51]:
That's what I was getting ready.
David Roman [00:55:53]:
He is not charging a service information access fee. He's flat rate. It's the cheapest oil that's going in there, and he's pushing his guys. I need 15 hours, and I'm going to. They don't know the difference. I'm sorry, Mr. Customer. My guy researched that.
David Roman [00:56:09]:
That line has to be replaced. I'm sorry that the guy down the street isn't putting it on the ticket because it's not available at the dealership, and that means they can't turn this bay that quick. This car is going to have to sit at their shop for three or four days while they wait for this line to come in. But I'm not letting this car leave without that new line in there. Yeah, it shows up $250 cheaper because they're not installing that line. The way I found that out is through this service access fee that I had to charge you because we did the research on the repair.
Brandon Dills [00:56:41]:
Now, I don't do it on everyone, but for my testing, like any of the testing that we do, I break my labor down. It's got, like, three or four lines of labor for it. Just that way, the client is not like, oh, you're charging me $150. What'd you actually do? So it's broken down, and there's a research tab on there.
David Roman [00:56:58]:
I have a research tab. I don't have a fee associated to it. I probably should tack it on there. Two tenths, three tenths.
Brandon Dills [00:57:06]:
Because I have my testing, it's set at, like, either an hour, hour and a half with the inflated labor rate, but then each line has its own labor for it. So there's a duplication line. There's a research line. There's a testing line. So that way, each section, the tech is getting paid for each part that he does, I do it for. That way the customer sees it. But then also, the tech knows, like, look, you're getting paid well, he's hourly, so it don't really matter.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:32]:
He knows he's contributing to your performance.
David Roman [00:57:36]:
Pushback that I would get from that shop down the street from me would be that you're going to eat it on the front end and reap the benefits on the back end. In other words, you're going to do the research. Eat the research. So the next three that come in.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:52]:
You'Re paying for your opportunity.
David Roman [00:57:54]:
You're paying for the opportunity. Yeah.
Brandon Dills [00:57:57]:
Just like, you know how most dealers get away from not charging Diag? They fluff the ticket every single time. Because any customer pay stuff that we ever did at any of the dealers, it was, oh, you're getting an hour for testing. And then whenever you figured out, okay, you got to replace this purge valve. Instead of charging three tenths for a purge valve, you had 1.3. And then they would be like, oh, you're getting free Diag, but it's going to cost you this much to have the part put in.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:25]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:58:29]:
I don't know what episode it was. Maybe Episode 25, maybe Bill Nalu.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:36]:
He.
David Roman [00:58:36]:
Didn'T say it like that. That's what he was doing. But it was essentially like, we just don't talk about it. The customer is going to pay $500 now, whether I have it broke it down to 350 for R and R plus apart, and then another 150 for Diag, or it's just $500, they're going to pay $500 regardless. So whether I tell them explicitly that that's what we're doing, or, hey, there's something wrong with my car. Okay, check engine light. Turns out it's a purge valve, insulation. Everything's 500.
David Roman [00:59:08]:
Okay, how much was the diet? His argument was, we just don't talk about it. The customer just getting the car fixed. What difference does it make how I break it down internally? The customer is just going to fix the car for $500. And Dutch lost his mind. And he's like, what are you talking about?
Lucas Underwood [00:59:27]:
He's losing his mind right here, right now.
David Roman [00:59:31]:
Was it from my comment earlier?
Lucas Underwood [00:59:33]:
No, it's from that same thread, though.
David Roman [00:59:36]:
Anyway, so he's losing his mind and he's like, no, we need to be explicit about this to the customer. It doesn't really matter. The customer is like, they have to pay $500.
Lucas Underwood [00:59:48]:
It is what it is to fix the car.
David Roman [00:59:49]:
Yeah, it is what it is to.
Brandon Dills [00:59:50]:
Fix the car until they come back and they're with a warranty or something else messed up, and if you don't have it properly.
David Roman [00:59:57]:
So Neilu runs a tight operation. He's documenting every detail of that. He's just not making it explicit to the customer that this is how it's broken down on your invoice. Dutch's argument was we have to break it down to the customer. We have to tell them because otherwise we're never moving past this whole they rolled it into the repair BS or.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:24]:
That the guy never sees the value in it.
David Roman [01:00:26]:
They don't see the value. We're never going to build value in it because we're not telling them what we're doing. We have to tell them that we're running these tests in order to find the problem. And that comes with a fee. It costs because otherwise we can't get to the solution without the fee, without.
Brandon Dills [01:00:43]:
The payment, which that's how I use shopware for my check engine light testing or whatever. Each time it's on there, it's auto set up to where I've got the checklist down the bottom that you go and you put in all the stuff. Whenever I quote the repair I quoted off of the check engine light testing, it's kind of all wrapped together. But that fee is always there and it never leaves and never goes to hides anywhere else. I've had several. Can you not just take care of that? And it's like, absolutely not. I already had to pay somebody to do that work. I'm not going to give it to you free.
David Roman [01:01:22]:
Absolutely. But these are big shops that are running big operations that have multiple bays, lots of techs, and they're the ones that are held to high esteem. They're the ones in the magazines. They're the ones giving the speeches at the fancy conferences. They're also the ones maybe not telling people that they're doing diag that it's been padded or rolled into the ticket and that ultimately they're not losing a dime, but they're making money on the whole thing. But whether you know it or not is irrelevant to them. They are getting paid, the technicians are getting taken care of for the most part, other than when you have to lose your ass in order to learn for the next time it works if you get 50 cars a day, because you'll run into the problem again eventually.
Brandon Dills [01:02:16]:
Yeah, but then you got shops like, was Cody on your podcast whenever you talked about how the shop, they were just eating it. Eating it. Yeah.
David Roman [01:02:23]:
Well, that's a big difference because they were just generating enough revenue through tires and all this other junk that they could hide the fact that they were losing their asses on his diag. But that's because they were just doing that was just bad practice all the way around. Nelu's not losing a dime on Dyag. He's making his money. But the way it's presented. I'm not saying he's hiding it every single time. He's just making the argument that what does it matter if we have an explicit discussion or not? Anyway, sounds good.
Lucas Underwood [01:03:01]:
I got to go pee. The other guys out front here.