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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.
Chris Craig [00:00:00]:
Haters. So we're good.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:01]:
Really?
Chris Craig [00:00:02]:
I did all hate. Yes.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:05]:
Well, that's pretty much David. He's starting to wear off on the rest of us. I think he's even worn off on my employees. I mean, everybody just walks around with this, like, really gloomy face now.
David Roman [00:00:16]:
Yeah, there's no hate for me.
Chris Craig [00:00:18]:
We have haters coming at us.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:20]:
You will find pictures of David where he's literally practicing the frowny face. When he wakes up in the morning, he walks in front of the mirror.
Chris Craig [00:00:27]:
And goes, that's effort, too. You know, it takes so many more muscles to frown than smile, dude.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:33]:
He practices it. It's got a strong lot of work to get that skilled at it. Sir, introduce yourself to the listeners.
Chris Craig [00:00:41]:
Yeah, so I am Chris Craig, known on social media primarily as Chris MF Craig. TikTok is primarily where I am social media wise, based out of. But you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, all the platforms. I like to make what I call educational automotive content, but I'm not necessarily educating anybody. I'm giving my own perspective with examples. And then I open it up to the commenters to actually discuss that in the comment bar, because I am not the end all, be all. I don't know everything. There's people out there that have more experience, and I have years of living, and I appreciate that.
Chris Craig [00:01:16]:
So I like to open it up to the commenters to discuss it, stitch it, make their own videos on it, whatever they want to do. I believe in the automotive community as a whole, and I think as a community is how we actually change the industry, which is why I found the title of your podcast so interesting.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:32]:
Yeah, absolutely. And so I know everybody's wondering what the MF stands for. I mean, is it what we all just assume? I mean, like, where were we going with MF in the middle of the name?
Chris Craig [00:01:41]:
No one knows. But I will say, I will tell you. The original reason why that became my name is when I first logged into TikTok and downloaded for the first time, I had no intentions of ever becoming a content creator. It just sort of happened to me. So that was the username that I sort of took off with, and it's the username I kept, so that's the reason behind it. But the definition is a mystery, and I leave it that way because it's fun to discuss.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:08]:
So let's see, you were a service advisor before this. You kind of went to school for automotive, right?
Chris Craig [00:02:13]:
Yes, yes.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:14]:
You moved into service. You were technician when you were going through school.
Chris Craig [00:02:17]:
Yep.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:17]:
Is that right?
Chris Craig [00:02:18]:
That's correct.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:19]:
And then you moved into the service advisor role, right?
Chris Craig [00:02:21]:
That's correct.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:22]:
You know, it's interesting that we're talking today because I just did a TikTok stitch with somebody. Rich Ford boss. Me.
Chris Craig [00:02:31]:
Right. Yes, I know.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:32]:
And it's been a really interesting thing to watch, because Rich moved from a Ford dealership, and he moved into this environment where he's working for himself and his business partner. Rich went from being the technician to being the service advisor slash shop foreman. And we've had a lot of conversations, and this continues to come up. It comes up in the group. It comes up in conversations with rich and others. One of the things we see is we see a lot of folks move into that service advisor role, or we see business owners decide they're going to improve their business, right? And they. They see all these other shop owners. Dude, you got to raise your rates.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:09]:
You got to charge better. You got to do this, you got to do that. And they go do those things for the very first time, and everybody gets pissed off. Right. Sure. And one of the things that I found, especially through talking to rich, is there's a specific nuance to what we do on the front counter. And the best way I know to explain it is every client interaction, if you look at it, there is a minefield in front of you.
David Roman [00:03:31]:
Right?
Chris Craig [00:03:32]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:32]:
And, like, you. You step on those minds once or twice, and you blow up the whole interaction. And now we have to, like, rethink this minefield, and we begin to know where the minds are at, and we. We begin to navigate that, and all of a sudden, we're not blowing up as much as we were before, and we don't piss as many people off. Right?
Chris Craig [00:03:51]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:52]:
Do you think that we're missing that nuance when we're talking to people online? Is it that we can't describe that nuance clearly about how to have those conversations? Why am I more expensive? Right. Everybody, like, they say, go raise your rates. The first client comes in, you give them the price, and they say, oh, my God, you've always charged $45 an hour. Now you're 145. Why?
David Roman [00:04:13]:
Hold on, hold on, hold on. Lucas, Lucas, Lucas. Have you worked at an independent repair shop, Chris?
Chris Craig [00:04:19]:
Only as a technician.
David Roman [00:04:21]:
Okay. A lot of your content is dealership focused.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:27]:
Yeah, but, I mean, hey, the point is, is that he is already presenting higher prices than many of the.
David Roman [00:04:35]:
That's not a conversation. You have a flipping dealership. Like, the conversation might be, why am I getting charged at all? Hey, I don't feel like. It's not. It's not. Hey, you. I could not bob down.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:49]:
I do that.
David Roman [00:04:51]:
Bob down the street is $80 an hour and you're charging me 120. Why? Like, the dealership is just already.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:59]:
Same thing, right? I deal with dealership service advisors all the time. They're dealing with the same thing. I'll tell you the one difference, Chris, I'm sorry. You got headphones on. You're going to have to earmuff it. This isn't going to feel nice. The dealership service advisors don't seem to care. Okay.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:14]:
Like, many, many of them care about what? They don't care about the client. Dude, I've just. If you knew the interactions we've had this week alone with dealership service advisors, it would blow your mind.
Chris Craig [00:05:26]:
So maybe I can shed a little light here. When I worked at one of my dealerships was a Lincoln service department. And the first thing I did in that Lincoln service department is I redid the menu of maintenance options that we have. And while I did that, I adjusted prices, and I actually raised my most of the prices. So we did raise prices, and we did have to explain that to our clients. But there's a differentiation that we have to make, and that difference is management and leadership. It's two totally different things. You manage numbers, you lead people.
Chris Craig [00:05:55]:
You cannot lead numbers, and you cannot manage people. You can only lead them. This is a differentiation you have to make. So our customers did not buck the price increase that I created so much because there's a leadership aspect that has to be applied to that process. As a manager, I can increase my numbers, increase the dollar amount I'm going to charge my customers. And that's the management side. That's me handling the numbers. But there's a leadership aspect that I have to take with my service advisors to say, hey, service advisors, we are raising the prices to this.
Chris Craig [00:06:24]:
This is why we are doing it. Here are some hints, tips, and tricks, and some coaching I can give you in order to communicate this to your customers. Here are some selling techniques to give this to your customers. And once you do that, you effectively lead your team through that process. But if you just raise prices and then close your door and then, you know, sit on the phone or whatever you do as a manager all day, you're really going to upset your service advisors because you just threw them to the sharks. You have to lead your people.
David Roman [00:06:51]:
I disagree, but they have to search.
Lucas Underwood [00:06:53]:
You for you to be able to lead them.
Chris Craig [00:06:55]:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, it's funny, because I just made a post today on LinkedIn that was talking about three elements that satisfied customers require, and that's trust, respect, and the feeling of control. And a good friend of mine commented on that post, and he said, you know, that's also what leaders have to provide their employees. And I couldn't agree more. Leaders have to earn the trust of the people in which they lead. You see, positions of leadership and actual leading are two totally separate things. You know, a position of leadership comes with authority and power. But authority and power is not what leadership is.
Chris Craig [00:07:25]:
It's a tool that you can use, but you should use it very seldom, seldomly. You cannot take a position of leadership or become a leader just by having authoritative presence. Otherwise, the strongest person will always just be the leader. A leader can happen at any level of the organization. A porter can be a leader. An advisor can be a leader, while a manager is not a leader. Leadership is a skillset that you can absolutely sharpen.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:47]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:07:47]:
And we decide the leaders at our shop by whoever is the strongest. So we arm wrestle. Whoever wins becomes the leader of the shop. And we all. That's how he works at our shop. At an independent repair shop, the guy raising the price is the person that has to communicate it with the customer. So while you can say, hey, numbers wise, we have to raise our prices, otherwise we're going to go out of business. And you have to communicate that to the customer because there's nobody else to communicate it to.
David Roman [00:08:14]:
You have to then present to the customer in a way that they understand, and you need to do it confidently. And a lot of times, that's what ends up being. The issue is that they can't communicate it. Or in their minds, they can't justify, because they don't even know their numbers. They don't realize that, hey, you're $20 too cheap on this, $100 too cheap on that, or whatever. The other thing that dealerships have the distinct advantage of being authoritative, whether they've earned it or not. You are the dealership. You represent Lincoln.
David Roman [00:08:44]:
So they think that you are the Lincoln authority. So if you're a $100 more than you were last week, there is what it is like. If they want to go to the Lincoln authority, they have to go there.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:55]:
That's the price.
David Roman [00:08:56]:
That's the price. It. Yeah. And for an independent repair shop, they don't have that. A specialist, maybe, but they have to earn it. A specialist can say, hey, I'm a Lincoln specialist. I only work on Lincoln's. I don't know why you would do that, but whatever.
David Roman [00:09:10]:
And, and so they have to then earn that reputation with the customer and say, look, you've taken it to 16 other shops. They can't figure out this problem. I'm the Lincoln specialist. You see this a lot with BMW or like Land Rover or european specialists. They earn that reputation. Dealerships don't have to. They can be absolute shit shows. Doesn't matter.
David Roman [00:09:32]:
They, they show up, they're going to assume that. So the price then becomes whatever it is. And, well, you know, I accept it or bounce.
Chris Craig [00:09:42]:
I, I do. I agree. But I also tend to disagree. And here's where I, where I disagree. When I was working in the various dealerships I worked in, we were not the only Ford dealership. We weren't the only Lincoln dealership. We weren't the only Toyota dealership. And customers will drive a long way to go to a dealership that they know and trust.
Chris Craig [00:09:57]:
I've had customers that would actually pass my dealership and drive an extra 40 miles to go to the next dealership of the road because they like their service department better. So there is still a competition there. And while the dealership is sort of supposed to be the end all, be all authoritative figure, if you want to call it that, for that specific brand of vehicle, if they offer a terrible service, those customers will find somewhere else to go. And what they'll also do is they'll stop buying from that sales department, they'll purchase a different vehicle, different brand, somewhere else with a service department that they actually enjoy working with. So there is definitely a art to the customer service side of the dealership. You don't just get customers just because they drive that brand of vehicle. They'll switch brands on you. Or they'll just find a different dealership with the same brand that they can go to.
David Roman [00:10:40]:
I understand 100% agree with all that. I'm just saying for pricing wise, as long as you are not exorbitantly higher than the Ford dealership down the street.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:52]:
But what I was saying, as long.
David Roman [00:10:52]:
As you're within the range.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:53]:
Pricing. I'm not talking about pricing, just pricing. Pricing is a part of it. Pricing is part of that nuance. But, but client communication and working through the issues that we deal with, how long it's going to take. Did we misdiagnose the car? How do I communicate clearly? The car was, you know, in Rich's case, the car comes to them, it's a Fiat. That's their first mistake. Sorry, guys, but the first mistake was this car comes in, it's it has got a fault code for a misfire.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:24]:
It comes in, they look at it. It's got a number of codes in it. They say, hey, look, it's not acting up right now. It's running beautifully, but it does need spark plugs. So let's put the spark plugs in it. And I don't know what those communications looked like, but in the client's mind, they corrected his problem.
Chris Craig [00:11:43]:
Yep.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:43]:
So in a couple months, when it comes back, there's no documentation that says, hey, you know, we. We have not experienced the failure the client has documented here. It is time to replace the spark plugs. But it's likely unrelated to the client's concern. So here you go. Now the client says, well, it's your fault. Well, no, it's. It's a situation where the car probably did not have oil in it because it's an air two.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:09]:
And so then they go and they fill it up with oil, and they bring it to the shop, and it's not misfiring, and it's not shutting off. So they overlook the concern. And so it's those nuances of how we communicate that. I'll tell you a little story, okay? I've got a nissan. You know, I've been a little frustrated with how this played out.
David Roman [00:12:28]:
Lucas, all you're advocating for is documenting to cover your ass.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:32]:
Would you shut up?
David Roman [00:12:35]:
Is that what you're advocating for?
Lucas Underwood [00:12:36]:
I'm talking about how do I communicate that in a clear way that the client understands? Because sometimes it's not just as simple as documenting it and putting on a repair. Now, I know you, right? I know how you, you, dad voice all your clients, and you kind of yell at them, and you tell them, I know this is the way it is. Right? And you don't care if they're upset. It doesn't bother you.
David Roman [00:12:58]:
You live in a different part of the country. You're from boston.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:02]:
That's what's wrong. You. You ruin auto repair. For the rest of us, you're part of the problem.
David Roman [00:13:06]:
Hey, I was told today that it doesn't matter how you talk to the customers. You can be a total slime ball. And if you're from the northeast, it's totally acceptable. I don't think you understood me, customer. I don't think you understand.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:20]:
I'm from the northeast.
David Roman [00:13:22]:
It sounds like a being shady, but I'm just from the northeast. That's fine.
Chris Craig [00:13:25]:
You know, I'm also from the northeast. I'm from northern Pennsylvania, so I sort of resonate with that. But what we're talking about.
David Roman [00:13:31]:
Hold on. Time out. That's considered, like, kind of midwest.
Chris Craig [00:13:35]:
No, no, no.
David Roman [00:13:36]:
Philadelphia?
Chris Craig [00:13:38]:
No, no, no. I'm from a rural town that's like 4 hours north of Pennsylvania, right on the border of New York state, like an hour south of Erie, the land of the snow.
David Roman [00:13:46]:
Yeah, that's almost midwest.
Chris Craig [00:13:49]:
Now, midwest is Ohio, and Ohio barely counts. Barely counts.
David Roman [00:13:53]:
He's like, no, I'm not. I'm not from the east. Don't count me in with Ohioans. Screw those guys.
Chris Craig [00:14:01]:
Yeah, nobody. Nobody likes Ohio. Come on.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:04]:
Well, look, so, I mean, here's. Here's what I'm trying to get across, though, is that it is easy for us to find ourselves in a situation where we didn't communicate clearly with that client, and that increases stress on the front counter. David, you likely don't experience nearly as much of this, because all you do is send them the repair order and say, select what you want to fix. Don't select what you don't want to fix. I'll call you when it's done. Right. And so I think that's very different experience for you than is those of us who are calling the clients and trying to stay in touch with them. And, you know, I've got a client that was just here today, and it was the highest workload client I have had in years, to the point that I had to step in and handle some of this workload and explain and try and back us off a ledge four different times.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:48]:
And. And sometimes you don't know where those mines are at. You don't know what it is you're going to step on that's going to set the situation off. But there's a nuance to handling these situations, you know? And look, I. Chris, the reason I say that, dealership service advisors don't care. I'm going to tell you a little story. I've got a Nissan in the shop, okay? And we've put a transmission in this Nissan, and this will be its second or third transmission. And this last one, it was about a month and a half before it started setting fault codes.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:22]:
And I call Nissan, and I'm asking for a warranty transmission. I have the documentation of the fault codes and everything about the failure that it's experiencing. It's the same failure it's experienced before. We have paid for the transmissions. They are all just barely out of warranty, and they won't goodwill them, they won't do anything. So we're replacing the transmissions. I'm paying for them. And this last one fails within warranty.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:46]:
And they say, well, for us to warranty it, we have to diagnose it, you have to bring it in, because we don't think you installed it properly. Okay. I've got a problem with that. It's a little bit of an objection for me, because a, you're questioning me and all of my service procedure, documentation, everything I'm done is right here. You can see it laid out. And I know some of the people that work for you, right? I promise they're not as qualified as my team. I'm not trying to be an ass, just calling it like it is. Right, I know.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:19]:
And so we, we go back and forth, we take the car to them, and they call, and they say, the service advisor, like dead to the t, says, mister Underwood, the problem with this car is, and I don't know what shop you took it to, but the problem with this car is, is that, uh, it doesn't have any oil in it. And that's, that's what's going on with, uh, it's not actually the transmission. It's, it's that it's got timing problems. And I said, okay, well, here's the situation. The car came into our facility and we did what's called a peace of mind evaluation the first time, the second time, this time it got a courtesy evaluation. And if you'll look with me here at this picture, you can see that there's a picture of the dipstick, and the oil is full when it was hearing. So I don't know what to tell you, but it doesn't have oil in it, okay? And so he says, well, I'll call and get you a transmission. Huh? Like you're telling me the transmission's not bad.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:13]:
Why all of a sudden are you calling to get me a transmission? We get off the phone, I call him for two weeks in a row, multiple times. I talk to him twice, I call him every day, I talk to him twice in two weeks. 14 days, right? Not quite 14 days. And he just keeps pushing me down the road, oh, I'm waiting on Nissan. I'm waiting on Nissan. I'm waiting on Nissan. Okay, great, no problem. And so he gets on the telephone the last day and he said, so what we've done is we've updated the transmission control module.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:45]:
Now, what he doesn't know is that before the vehicle left, the last time, we checked the update file and we verified that the data that was in the control modules was the most recent data Nissan had available. And he said, so we've updated it once and the tech wants to. He said he's driven it. He took it up and down the mountain, which is about 40 miles. He says he's gone up and down the mountain a bunch of times. He did get to mess up. He put this file in it, and now what he's going to do is he's going to take it and he's going to drive it some more and, and they want to put another file in it, another update file. And we know what's going on with this.
Lucas Underwood [00:18:19]:
This is going to take care of it. And so I said, okay, and when do we think that's gonna be done? He said he's gonna do that this afternoon. He says, you drive it about, you know, 1015 miles tomorrow we're gonna call it good and we'll call you and let you know. Calls the next day, says the car's done, right. We go over to pick it up and I look at the repair order. There's no documentation whatsoever on the repair order. It just says, car was low on oil is all it says. And then it says it was driven 3 miles.
Lucas Underwood [00:18:44]:
And then we go out to the car and the battery's dead. Okay. And the vehicle is sitting where they parked it when we dropped it off. Do you think that builds confidence for me with a dealership service advisor who clearly just lied through his teeth right now? I would hope a client wouldn't have that experience, but what's the chance that a client does have that experience?
Chris Craig [00:19:10]:
Sure, 100%. So, you know, ultimately, who's responsible for that service department? Is it the service advisor, is the technician, or is it potentially the service manager who is ultimately actually responsible? As a leader, you cannot delegate that responsibility. You can delegate authority, you can delegate accountability, but you can't delegate responsibility generally in a dealership setting. The service advisor obviously did not do a great job of communicating with you. It sounds like the tone wasn't there. It sounds like the terminology wasn't there. It sounds like they just didn't do very good at providing you with that trust, respect, and that feeling of control. However, every bit of information that service advisor gives you comes from the technician.
Chris Craig [00:19:49]:
That service advisor does not diagnose that car. They don't make the decisions on what to do with it next. That all comes from the technician. As far as the documentation on the invoice, that also comes from the technician. That's the technician's story. That's the cause correction concern. All that stuff comes from the technician. Generally there are times where an advisor would write that story for the technician, but most technicians do not want an advisor to step in to write that documentation for you.
Chris Craig [00:20:13]:
But I will say that the advisor should have looked over that invoice prior to delivering it to you to make sure that this is a deliverable invoice to my customers. See, there's a checks and balancing as a cover and move scenario where the technician and the advisor need to be working together. And it sounds like there's a massive disconnect there between the technician and advisor, which ultimately rendered you in the situation that you found.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:36]:
Well, so, like, let's talk about the independent world for a minute, right? How many, how many checks does that repair order go through? Okay, so when that repair order is written, it has the client's concern on it. And so it goes from the advisor to the technician, and that technician then looks at that repair order, and his instructions in my shop are, if it does not have the client's concern, well documented. And it tells you when it's happening, right. Why it's happened, not why it's happening, but when it's happening, what temperature, what are they doing? What are the conditions for this happening? Unless it's a basic maintenance service, then their job is to send it back to that advisor. Okay. And whether that advisor has to redo the write up, call the client, get more information, whatever it is. That is the technician's job, he sends that back. Because I'm not starting on a job without information, of course, that is going to back me into a corner.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:25]:
And so then he finishes his testing, let's say, does his testing and goes through everything. And it's got to have the five c's on it, right? And I expect them to put what they tested. I expect them to confirm that the concern is currently present or it's not. I expect them to do what? Document what testing and what the results of the testing, what was a good result or a bad result. And then I expect them to document what the correction is, and I expect them to document, if they don't make this correction, what are the potential consequences? Not in a way to scare the client, but in a way that can, you know, kind of conveys to the client, hey, if you don't fix this oil leak, you could lose an engine. But it's not that bad, right? Probably not gonna happen, whatever it is. Just a little bit of extra cy in there, right? They send it back to the advisor. Guess what happens if that's not on the ticket? The advisor sends it back to the technician, right?
Chris Craig [00:22:17]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:17]:
And so it's. It's a communication protocol that goes back and forth. Does that not exist in dealerships?
Chris Craig [00:22:23]:
That's exactly how it works in dealerships. I mean, if I, if I had a write up, I've actually had several technicians approach me about another advisor's write up. And I always go to this example. This is a real life example. This technician brought it to me and he's like, chris, I don't even know what to do with this. This advisor, brand new. Like, what am I going to do with this? I look at it, it said, customer states hit wood. That's actually what it said, customer states hit wood.
Chris Craig [00:22:41]:
So I went and approached and I talked to the advisor, and I'm like, hey, hey, man. Like, what's going on with this? Oh, the customer was driving. They're like, going super slow, and some lumber fell off a truck and they ran over a board. They just want to make sure, like, everything's okay. I'm like, is there any noises, any concerns? No, it's just a safety check. I'm like, okay, that's what you need to put in that write up. Customer states, you know, ran over a board, no concerns, just check for safety, etcetera. So, yeah, a dealership technician would certainly walk a ticket back to an advisor, annoyingly, but walk a ticket back to an advisor and say, hey, I need more information.
Chris Craig [00:23:09]:
Call this customer back. That is very commonplace across the four different dealerships that I worked in. And also, if a technician had a not so good or ineligible or a lot of spelling errors, as far as a story goes that cause correction section, I wouldn't want to present that to my customer. And I don't have the power to edit that. As the advisor, I would approach the technicians, say, hey, I need this corrected here so that we have good documentation of what occurred here today and we can keep our client happy. And then when this car does come back for its next service or whatever, we have good records of service history on this vehicle.
David Roman [00:23:38]:
I'm curious what would be going through that service advisor's head, though, when they go, hey, this customer came in for a transmission concern, and I see that it's out of engine oil. What does that have to do, what's going on with the transmission? Like, that's what the service advisor should be doing. They should be going, hey, what am I supposed to tell the customer about this transmission? Oh, there's nothing wrong with the transmission. It doesn't have any engine oil in it. It's like, okay, so we're going to put engine oil in it, charge the customer, and then go test drive it and check for the. For the transmission problem. What are we doing here? Instead, he calls and is like, oh, this is what's the problem. You need engine oil in this vehicle.
David Roman [00:24:18]:
I know a shop owner, the sweetest guy ever. Super, super adorable. He had a vehicle abandoned at his shop. He ends up obtaining ownership of the vehicle. It was a Kia needs an engine. He sends it to the Kia dealership to have an engine, or at least vehicle checked over because it was eligible for a new engine under warranty. He gets it approved. The service advisor then calls him up and says, hey, do you want us to do a coolant flush while we're doing your engine replacement? And he goes, aren't you putting new coolant in it? Cause you've taken the engine out.
David Roman [00:25:00]:
Aren't you putting coolant in it? And he goes, no, no, that's not what we normally do in an engine. We're just putting an engine. And it's like, okay, but you gotta remove the coolant. And. And he was like, hey, I don't want to be this guy, but I was a Kia master tech. Um, the, like, step one in the service information, which I have here in front of me is a remove coolant. And the guy's like, huh? Okay, well, you can just say no, and, you know, we just won't do it. So he ends up declining.
David Roman [00:25:30]:
He ends up getting a call back from the service advisor and said, hey, I talked to the technician, and it turns out that we removed the coolant from the engine, but we clamp off the hoses, and we don't remove the coolant from the radiator. And so.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:47]:
Oh, my God.
David Roman [00:25:49]:
What we're trying to charge you for here is flushing the radiator out because you want it all nice, fresh, and clean. And he goes, so you're not draining it from the radiator, releasing the petcock. And the guy's like, no, no, that's not how we do it. Okay, fine. He ends up getting a coupon in the mail from the dealership for an engine coolant flush. It's like $100 off engine coolant flush from the dealership for this engine that. Anyway, at some point, at some point, the service advisor has to stop and go, this doesn't make any sense. Yeah, and question the technician.
David Roman [00:26:28]:
Like, I get it. These service advisors maybe don't, you know, they worked, I don't know, at McDonald's before, and they're like, hey, I'm going to go be a service advisor at a key dealership. They told me I don't need to know anything other. Then the technician will just give me all the information I need to tell the customer, and all I have to do is make friends. Listen, that's it.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:44]:
I think. I think there's. There's something about this. So I had this situation a while back, okay? And it's turned out beautifully. I wrote a $1700 check out of compassion. Okay? We had a ball.
David Roman [00:26:57]:
$1700 out of compassion. I got two rents to pay.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:01]:
Yeah, I'll give you $1,700, David, as soon as I find it. We had this Volvo come in and we. It's got clogged sunroof drains, and they're clogged, clogged, okay. And we. We check the front ones. The front ones are clear, but it has one of the big moonroofs on it. So when the moonroof goes back, like, dude, you can't get to the rear drains. You.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:24]:
You either have to take the sunroof out or you have to find another way to clear them. And so we go through Volvo service information. There's no real data about how to do this. And so we go into the service information, and Eric comes to me, he said, hey, look, he's, like, our only shot to do this is if I remove the back, like, six inches of headliner. I just need to lower it down, and that will give me enough room that I can pop the a pillar or the d pillars loose. When I pop the d pillars loose, I will pull those out, and there's a union in the drain where it turns and it goes down. And he said, if I can do that, he said, I can probably, like, clean down. And it's likely that that union is where everything's building up and stopped up at.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:04]:
And he said, so I can take it out and I can clean it back there, and I can put it back together. I said, okay. So we get approval from the client, and he puts it back together. We function, test it. Everything's great. Everything's good, right? No issues. It's draining. It's doing what it's supposed to do.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:19]:
And a couple weeks later, she says that her sunshade is making a noise. And I said, we'll bring it back in. And she comes in and Eric says, hey, there's a clip on the sunshade. And right here's a TSB that's talking about that clip. It's known to be a failure. We know this happens all the time. It's not that big of a deal. She needs to go to the dealer because this sunshine was known to fail.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:44]:
And if she goes, chances are they'll goodwill this sunshade for.
Chris Craig [00:28:49]:
They told the customer that.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:51]:
Yeah, we didn't tell her that, okay.
Chris Craig [00:28:53]:
We just said, you don't want to say that to a customer at all.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:56]:
No, no, we're just saying, hey, there. There's a known problem with this. He told my go.
David Roman [00:29:00]:
You might get this for freezies if you go to the dealership.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:03]:
I should have, shouldn't I?
David Roman [00:29:04]:
And then the dealership got all the puffs and they're like, hey, we're gonna put this sucker in reverse and we're gonna back right over Lucas and then drive forward and then back and.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:14]:
Well, that is exactly what they did. That is exactly what they did. And so we send the vehicle to the dealer. We document everything. It's very clear in the repair order. She goes in and you know what the first thing the service advisor tells her? I can't believe they charged you to drain or to clean your sunroof drains. That's unbelievable. It takes 2 seconds.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:36]:
They can clear all the drains in 2 seconds. It's no problem. And they definitely. Because there is no reason to remove the headliner to clear the sunroof drains. That's not true.
Chris Craig [00:29:46]:
Yeah, see, that. That sort of thing, that's. That's not good. I mean, we. We all work in the same industry to talk badly about another shop. I've seen people do that in the dealerships and I've seen independents do that about dealerships. And it goes back and forth. And I've seen dealerships do it about other dealerships.
Chris Craig [00:30:00]:
Independents do it about other independents generally. That's just a bad path to go down. That's not a way to win over your customers trust.
Lucas Underwood [00:30:06]:
Well, so check this out. It turns out to be one of the coolest scenarios ever. Okay? So they. They write this whole list of things that we've done wrong for her. And I said, she called me and had she been rude, I probably would have had a very different reaction. But she called me and she was extremely kind. She sent me a nice letter that was well documented and we had a great conversation about it. She is a expert witness in the medical field.
Lucas Underwood [00:30:32]:
Okay? She was a very, very skilled doctor and had tons of credentials. And she said, I realized that I sent that on Sunday night. And I felt really bad about that. I thought you would get it on Monday morning. But I appreciate the reply. I hope you understand that in my field, this is how we document things. So please don't take that as me being abrasive. It's just me trying to be very clear about what is going on.
Lucas Underwood [00:30:57]:
And I said, okay, I really appreciate that. And I said, well, here's the situation. I said, we're. Imagine if. If a surgeon went in to do an operation on someone, would they, would they automatically take everything they could apart and cut as much as they could and be extremely invasive, or would they try and be as minimally invasive to cause as little damage as possible? I said, this car is full of plastic clips. I said, my technician, when he did this was very, very minimally invasive, to be safe about what it was that we were doing, right. We were trying to be thoughtful about this. I explained the process and I said, ma'am, I said, if they know another way to clean these sunroof drains, I'm all ears for listening.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:35]:
I'm going to call and talk to them and try and get an idea of what's happening. I told her, I said, you know what? I said, I can't say that we didn't damage the sunshade. I'm gonna pay for the sunshade, right? It is what it is. They say that the sunroof track is cracked and that that's the real reason that it was leaking and that we didn't see the sunroof track. Well, I hate to tell them, but I've got pictures of the whole track and everything else. Unless it was somewhere it couldn't be seen. Like the story's just not adding up from them, right? And so for two weeks, I try to reach this dealership. Nobody will answer.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:08]:
I can call from a private number and he will answer and he will hang up. Okay? And finally, I call the service manager. He won't answer. And so then she calls the service manager, and the service manager calls me back and we have a two hour telephone conversation. And it was one of the coolest things that I've ever been through. And he said, mister Underwood, he said, um, my situation is this. He said, I have got a extremely qualified, extremely seasoned technician in my shop and he is destroying my shop. He is holding me hostage.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:48]:
He is making this a miserable place to work. And he said, there's nothing I can do. He said, I'm looking for technicians left and right. I can't find technicians. And he said, it's been a bit of a revolving door. He said, it was. It's terrible. I am so sorry.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:01]:
This advisor did this and I will coach him through this and I'll make sure this never happens again. But I'm just telling you why some of the things that you've experienced have happened. And I was like, holy cow, that's like as open and transparent as it gets from a service manager. You know what I'm saying?
Chris Craig [00:33:18]:
I agree.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:19]:
And, and I see, I see this in independent shops, but I almost see it more in dealerships that are mandated to have this really seasoned guy with all these certifications. And, and basically what we discussed was, is that this guy had become more and more toxic over the years. And it got to the point that this man had now been so loud and complained so much, all he ever did was gravy work. He was still whining and complaining about having to do the gravy work. He's paid a bloomin fortune and he's not even doing that good of a job. Right. And so it makes you sit back and think like, is that what's driving some of these experiences? Chris, have you experienced that? A toxic, either work environment or a toxic employee?
Chris Craig [00:34:05]:
Oh, absolutely. I mean, some other podcasts I've been on when I have time to talk about it. Absolutely. I have experienced some, some horrific situations in dealerships. I've been through several service managers, several general managers that have been fired and terminated for various reasons, harassment reasons, drinking on the job reasons. I mean, I've seen a lot of bad stuff in dealerships. A lot, a lot of bad stuff. And that's, that's a, that's a lot of what the fuel is behind my content is, because I know other people are seeing those things as well.
Chris Craig [00:34:34]:
But ultimately, it comes down to one thing that I truly believe a fundamental is that there are no bad teams. There are only bad leaders. You know, standards are not what we preach, they're what we tolerate. I can come in every day and be a service manager, say, hey, be here at 08:00 but if my technician's rolling at nine every day and I don't say a word about it, that's the new standard because that's what I tolerated. It's not what I preached, but it's what I tolerated. So ultimately I understand, and I mean, Im not in that position of that service manager and Im not at that dealership, but it sounds like that we have an unproductive, well qualified technician that either needs to be coached and retrained or potentially needs to move on. And thats for the good of the team, ultimately. I wonder how the productivity of all the other employees surrounding this one technician would go up and if that would meet the absence of that one technician, that would potentially go away.
Chris Craig [00:35:21]:
And Im not advocating for firing technicians or anything like that. Im just saying when you have a runaway employee like that as a leader, you have to step in for the sake of the rest of your team, the people that hold you accountable, the people that look to you for guidance, the people that you lead, that you want to earn their trust. I mean, if you have one runaway employee that you're allowing, then again, this is the standard that you tolerate. If you are allowing them to run that shop in such a negative manner, you're giving them that ability. What does the rest of your team think about you? Are you earning their trust at that point? Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:51]:
You promote what you permit, right?
Chris Craig [00:35:53]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:54]:
At the end of the day, that that's all there is to it. And, you know, we see independents do it. I don't think we see independents doing it quite to the level that the dealerships are. And that might be a, you know, and we talk a lot about certification and credentials and the way that we have to or should improve the industry to make some of these things mandatory. We in some ways, these dealerships are required to have mandatory certifications or at least a certain level of a technician. And you think about that in some ways that backs them into a corner. Right. Because if we're not training and growing that next generation of technicians, and I, I don't know if you've seen this.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:34]:
I saw this locally here in a dealership. I've got a couple really good dealerships here that are just like ran by salt of the earth fantastic people. And there's been some really terrible ones. Right. And one of those dealerships, it was openly known, openly talked about that they had hired an old technician who didn't turn wrenches anymore, and all they paid him to do was take the certification online for the technicians that were coming in.
Chris Craig [00:37:05]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:05]:
They could say that they were credentialed.
Chris Craig [00:37:07]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:07]:
Right.
Chris Craig [00:37:08]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:08]:
And so this particular dealership was able to function and do what it's supposed to do. Didn't have any credential tax, didn't have any certified techs.
David Roman [00:37:16]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:17]:
And they said, well, they're Gm. They're GM. They're Gm. Well, right, but if somebody else is taking the test.
Chris Craig [00:37:24]:
Yeah, no, those, those things do happen. I mean, I had a service manager that couldn't even write a ticket on our DM's because he refused to learn. And he actually, actually paid one of the other service advisors to do all of his manufacturer training for him. So he knew nothing about the manufacturer, nothing about the brand, nothing about the vehicles, nothing about the DM's we were using. He actually had to ask my assistants every time he wanted to print something out.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:41]:
That dude. I mean, but is that just because of the size of the dealership, because of that? There's no vision of leadership into that. I mean, how do they not?
Chris Craig [00:37:53]:
So here's, here's the thing that I've seen is when you're, when you're a service advisor, you're any employee, and you want to be that manager one day, you're looking at those managers, you're like, man, I want to be that guy. I don't want to help these customers anymore. I don't want to grind this out. I want to put my feet up on this desk, and I want to be the manager. Because a lot of people tend to think that once you become the manager, it's time to kick it back and relax. No, it's totally different, because as a manager, you have increased your responsibility and your pay as an equal, and therefore your work and effort in what you have to put into the business increases with it. It goes back to, you can only delegate your authority, not your responsibility. So often I see managers get it wrong where they delegate all this responsibility but hold the authority to themselves, which paralyzes their employees, and they cannot do the things that they're now being held responsible to do because they don't have the authority to do it.
Chris Craig [00:38:38]:
Because I have the power. I'm the authoritative figure. I'm in charge of all this. It's all me. Me. That's what I see so often. And, you know, there's a scale and it's a sins of omission and commission. Commission is when I do bad things willingly, and omission is when I don't do good things willingly.
Chris Craig [00:38:55]:
And if I stop committing the bad things, I went from negative ten to zero. So I'm at zero, but if I stop there, I'm still at zero. I have to start doing the good things, which means I have to do that work to get into those positive digits on that scale, if that makes sense.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:09]:
Of course it does. And, you know, I don't know. I mean, I just guess at the end of the day, maybe we have built this into our environment and what we are today as an automotive industry. Right? Because you talk to so many technicians, they're so frustrating. It doesn't matter if they're in the dealership. It doesn't matter if they're in the independent world. And, you know, I've been reading this book on motivation. David's tired of hearing me talk about it.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:34]:
But one of the things they talk about in the book is, like, what is your intrinsic motivator? And it's never money, right? Because money provides for what your intrinsic motivator is. Does that make sense? In other words, if it's you want success and you view money as success, if you want a nice house, well, your motivator is, intrinsically, I want a nice house. I want nice things. But you view it as that the money is what gets you there. I wonder if part of where we're at right now is that really what these people are looking for is something that they can't put their tongue to. They can't. They can't find the word to describe what it is they're looking for. It's a lot easier to say, I want money.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:14]:
I want better benefits, I want more time off. And those are important things. But I wonder if, intrinsically, it's the culture of these organizations that they. They want to feel important. They want to feel to be part of something, that's doing something. We're going somewhere, right? We're improving things. We are part of change, right? And so I have seen that work in a number of organizations, not just in auto repair, but really, truly understand what it is that your employee, what your staff wants, right. What motivates them intrinsically.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:47]:
Where are we going? What do they want to accomplish, and how can we use the business to help them accomplish that? And I worry that in so many cases, we've become so focused on the KPI's, we've become so focused on what it is that the business does that we forgot about the people that the business uses to do what it needs to do. Does that make sense?
Chris Craig [00:41:05]:
Yeah. No, we've come full circle. You cannot lead numbers. You can only lead people. That's the leadership element is missing there. You mentioned KPI's. That's management and metrics. The leadership element is missing.
Chris Craig [00:41:15]:
It's a skill to be sharpened. I mean, I've studied leadership, the arts and sciences of it, for the last ten years, because I have a career in the military where I've held leadership positions, and I've also studied in the civilian side in terms of management in that area. Ultimately, I think what you're diving for is the why. I'll give you an example. There's two brick layers, and they ask them each how they like their job. And the first one's like, well, hot, but, you know, the pay is okay. I don't so much like this crew over here, but these guys are all right. I tend to stick close to them.
Chris Craig [00:41:44]:
You know, it's nice that I get off work. At three, they asked the other guy, like, hey, how do you like your job? They're doing the exact same job. And the other guy says, it's great. I love everybody here. And I have been working on this project for about five years now. We're building a cathedral, and I cannot wait to see it done. The difference was, is one employee knew why he was there, why he was laying the bricks, the purpose behind it, and he saw it through to the end. The other employee was there for a paycheck.
Chris Craig [00:42:07]:
And if a better paycheck or better hour were to come up, that employee is gone. The employee that knew that they were building a cathedral and knew that their efforts mattered, even if they got offered a job with better pay in different hours, they would likely stick it through with that team to see that cathedral built. It's the why. And that why comes from the leader.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:25]:
Yeah, you're exactly right. And it reminds me of what zig Ziglar once said. He was talking about the railroad car, right? Remember that? The railroad car rolled up, and he said, you know, hey, it turns out that you're friends with the president of the railroad, but you're out here driving stakes on the railroad.
David Roman [00:42:40]:
Like, why is that?
Lucas Underwood [00:42:41]:
He said, well, you know, at the end of the day, we started working for the railroad at the same time. And they said, well, why? And he said, well, it turns out that he went to work for the railroad, and I went to work for $2.50 an hour. Right. There's a difference. And you're right. That leadership is where why comes from. Yeah, but. But leadership has been so busy that we've not slowed down to understand their why.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:07]:
And maybe we don't even understand our why. Maybe our why has become fixing the car. Maybe our why has become that customer service score. Right. And you know, you know as well as I do, I've seen so many dealerships driven by that customer service score. And the customer has learned to threaten with that customer service score.
Chris Craig [00:43:26]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:27]:
And instead of focusing on creating a good environment and a product that they can be proud of, they're focused on how this person dictates what it is that they're doing, right or wrong. And I just. I feel like there's got to be a shift in the culture of the automotive world as a whole.
Chris Craig [00:43:46]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:46]:
It's not just one dealership. There's some dealerships doing a really good job. There's some independent shops doing a really good job. When David and I first started this podcast, we kind of had this vision of what technicians and service advisors experienced in our shops, and people kept saying these things that technicians went through and these things that service advisors went through, and we kind of called bullshit. We're to the point that so many people have said so many things we can't call bullshit anymore. Right?
David Roman [00:44:13]:
Like, yeah, you think. You think. Geez, dude, come on. Get out of here with that garbage. Is it possible. Is it possible to. To have any of this frou frou nonsense while still getting paid flat rate?
Chris Craig [00:44:33]:
Oh, you mean, like. Well, everything we just talked about and then also being a flat rate pay scale?
Lucas Underwood [00:44:38]:
Yeah, absolutely.
Chris Craig [00:44:39]:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if that. You know, if. I know flat rates are contested, yes.
David Roman [00:44:43]:
No, no, you cannot.
Chris Craig [00:44:44]:
Wrong. No, I mean, flat right is.
David Roman [00:44:46]:
I had. I saw this fantastic video of this guy sitting inside of a look like a Ford truck. I can tell. Anyways, talking about why there was a technician shortage. Super smart guy. And he's talking really fast, and he made this really, really interesting point. He said the pay in with a flat rate shop is antagonistic in that the service advisor wins, the technician will tend to lose. If the technician wins, the service advisor will tend to lose.
David Roman [00:45:15]:
And you can't have a pay structure like that. Have everything. Be copacetic, super smart guy. And he was 100% right. You cannot have everything on commission. That was him, by the way. Lucas, I know you're a little slow to catch up. It was him saying that, but you cannot.
David Roman [00:45:32]:
You cannot. The hell you did. The hell you did. I watch all his videos. Good content. Not on tick tock, though. I watch it on other platforms. Tick tock's evil anyway.
David Roman [00:45:42]:
You cannot have everybody on commission and have it all win because it becomes about your only you can win. And that's what that gamification. That's what Chris Collin calls it, right? Gamification. That is what they're trying to set up. Everybody is trying to win for themselves, and that level of competition will eventually lead to more profits.
Chris Craig [00:46:05]:
And then it can. It can. I mean, commission comes in very many different flavors. I've held so many different pay plans throughout the years. I will say opposing pay plans is definitely an issue where you have an advisor striving for one thing and a technician striving for another, and they don't match. But we can fix that very easily. Let's pretend we have technicians on flat rate. Let's talk about what we pay our service advisors on.
Chris Craig [00:46:25]:
What if a third of that service advisor's paycheck came from customer pay flagged hours per month? All of a sudden, our service advisor cares about ours, just like our technicians cares about ours, and then you worry, well, maybe they'll only focus on that. Well, let's also give them a percentage of customer pay parts. That way we're not discounting parts on our tickets to make sure we get those hours through the dealership. Well, we also want customer satisfaction. Okay, that's the last third. Let's make sure the last third of our service advisors pay is whatever percentage of a customer satisfaction index that we want to give them. Obviously, you got to mathematically work this out with what you want to pay your service advisors. But if you can match what those commissions are with what essentially, I consider flat rate commission based as well, even though it's a very different system, if you can match and align those goals using those different pay plans, you can actually see, and I've seen this done, I actually worked off pay plans just like these, and it worked out very, very well.
Chris Craig [00:47:16]:
The key is, is to have that service advisor have a piece of the pie for all the various different areas they work within the parts department. The technicians, they have a metric that aligns with those and that incentivizes them to make sure they drive those specific metrics forward. If you pay them just off gross profit, that's what you're going to get. What you aim at is what you see. So if you tell them to aim at labor hours and you pay them on labor hours, you're going to get labor hours, and you're going to very happy technicians from that. But if you also tell them to focus on your parts and don't discount those, then that's what you're going to get. What you aim at is what you see. So you have to be strategic.
Chris Craig [00:47:48]:
When you're setting up these commission pay plans and not be lazy and say, well, you get 5% of the gross, you have to be strategic about it, and it has to make sense.
David Roman [00:47:56]:
I'm even lazier. I don't even pay them commission.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:59]:
I agree with that.
David Roman [00:48:00]:
And avoid all of it.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:02]:
But. But here's the thing. The problem with that, though, David, is that we're hearing on the flip side, technicians who don't want flat rate, but they also don't want to come off a flat rate because they don't feel like they get a big enough piece of the pie. Right. They want a bigger piece of the pie. And I keep hearing this in such a sense that it's not really necessarily about how much they're getting paid. It's that they want to feel it's fair. Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:27]:
They want to feel that it's part of what they're accomplishing financially. They want, you know, it's like the 50% argument. I want 50%. I want 50%. What does 50% mean? What does it mean to you? Right? I have had that discussion recently with someone, and he said the people that.
David Roman [00:48:45]:
Say 50% have never actually looked at a p and l. They have no concept.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:49]:
I'm not disagreeing.
David Roman [00:48:50]:
Okay. Just dismiss all of them when they come at you with 50%, go, okay, you don't know what you're talking about.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:56]:
Boop.
David Roman [00:48:56]:
Gone.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:57]:
Move on to somebody else, though, is in this case, this person says he wants 50% of the labor rate. And I said, okay, well, what? Find out what the effective labor rate is. And then he came back, and I.
David Roman [00:49:07]:
Don'T want $54, 50% of that.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:11]:
I was like, yeah, because the shop owner's paying for you, bro. Right. And so, I mean, I just.
David Roman [00:49:16]:
The guys that advocate for flat rate either work at dealerships or are young.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:22]:
And they can hump it and they can get it, right.
David Roman [00:49:24]:
Yeah. I can say they haven't. They haven't put in 25 years, and their back hurts and their shoulders hurt and their knees hurt, and they can't crawl up underneath the car to do the floor motor, you know, in, .7 and be able to do it in. .3 they're. They're just. They're tired, and so they don't want to work on flat rate anymore.
Chris Craig [00:49:42]:
I will say the scales on flat rate is a volicious system, especially when you talk about warranty. I mean, the way they calculate flat rate in the way it actually happens in real life, especially in the northern states. Like I said, I'm from the rust belt. It's a miserable business. It can be certainly flat rate. I think flat rate can work, but it needs to be reworked. I mean, the times for a lot of these different jobs are simply not fair. And the fact that.
David Roman [00:50:01]:
Just get rid of it.
Chris Craig [00:50:02]:
Well, you can get rid of it. You absolutely can. I mean, it's not ineffective to go salary or hourly, but I wouldn't say that flat rate itself, as a system is entirely flawed. I would say it's a useful system in useful situations, and I think if you use it properly, it can be beneficial. But I will say that the way the times are calculated and especially the way the oems, the manufacturers calculate their warranty times, and the fact that a viral video on YouTube can cause a warranty time to be decreased by like 2 hours is absolutely preposterous to me. Just because one person found out one way to do it faster and they're one specific shop with this one specific tool, it's ridiculous.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:35]:
Yeah, well, we did a, we did an episode with somebody who was at a dealer and was it a mini dealer that he figured out a solution?
David Roman [00:50:44]:
You didn't have tick tock back then. So like, hey, look at this. Super smart way to be able to do this 16 hours job in 8 hours.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:52]:
Yeah, dude, this is probably one of the smartest technicians you've ever met and most efficient. And this guy's like, he's constantly thinking about continual improvement and how can I be better, how can I be faster? And so here he comes and he solves this problem and what do they do? They come knocking at the dealership door. Uh, there's a real problem here. You can't actually get through those cars and we have to come back on this, right? We can't do this. Dude, that's not right. Um, last question for you.
David Roman [00:51:18]:
Well, hold on now. What? I understand it from the manufacturer standpoint, if they put it down as a 16 hours job and the dude soon, three a day, at some point you're going to stop and go, hold on now. Is it really taking 16 hours? I understand that he, they may think that, hey, the job is worth that much. It may not actually be worth that much. Like that dude that was rebuilding those Lexus engines that were paying 44 hours doing them one a day. And he's like, I got really fast at him. I'm sure you did. There's a speed and efficiency element to it.
David Roman [00:51:51]:
And there's also, hey, that's not really a 44 hours job, is it?
Lucas Underwood [00:51:55]:
Also, hey, part of those parts on the bottom of my toolbox, by the way.
Chris Craig [00:51:59]:
Well, hey, gentlemen, I'm sorry, I hate to cut this off and stuff, but I did have that hard stop at eleven. I do have another meeting that I have to be in. No, you're good, man. I was having a good time with that. I realized it's eleven seven, I'm getting messages. So I do apologize for that. No.