On this week’s Grease the Wheels, we are finding out what we should know about new guys before they get hired. From actual knowledge, personality, or sense of humor you are going to want to hire people that fit the environment that already exists in your shop. Now it’s not a secret that fewer and fewer people are entering this trade, and it’s not a coincidence that the attrition rates of these new guys is very high. However, if they are placed into shops that they are going to fit in, they might...
Sep 18, 2019•26 min
On this week's episode of Grease the Wheels, we’re talking complainers and complaining and we’re going to separate the two of them and get to the root of the matter.We have all worked with complainers, some of them are completely validated and others are just insufferable. As mechanics though, depending on where you work there is a lot of completely justifiable stuff to complain about: service advisors not selling easy work, bringing in cars that should be in a junkyard, terrible working conditi...
Sep 11, 2019•31 min
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we’re talking about animals in cars. Some animals, like dogs, are welcome guests in our cars. Eventhough it usually ends up with dog hair strewn from one end of the car to the other, which makes the car smell like that dog. We’ve even seen evap cores full of dog hair, that was dyed bright green because of the dye tests that had been done. Other animals are less welcome in your car but find a way in anyways. Rodents can use a lot of the parts of a car ...
Sep 04, 2019•27 min
On this week’s episode of GTW, we’re talking about the shop foreman. First off, not every shop has a foreman but some dealer’s brand’s demand that the shop have a foreman. From where we’re sitting, this makes a lot of sense because cars are getting more and more complex, with more models entering the lineup every single year. Foremen exist to help the other technicians with some of the more complex repairs they might have to face. Typically they are some of the most educated people in the servic...
Aug 28, 2019•32 min
On this week’s GTW were talking about what the customer thinks is wrong with their car. Sometimes what people think is wrong is actually wrong, but most of the time people who think what is wrong are wrong themselves in their guess. Either way, there are hoping that it is going to be a cheap and easy repair: a $12 radiator hose versus a $1200 or $12000 engine. One of our personal favorites is when there are 2 or 3 different people telling you what's wrong with the car and they all have different...
Aug 22, 2019•22 min
On this week’s GTW were talking about those times at work when you seem to be doing the same things over and over and over again. In all professions, people get into certain grooves and want to do the same things because they have figured out the shortcuts and ways to make the job easier. This gets complicated in the automotive field though because they keep making different kinds of cars with different problems. However, it doesn't take long in some cases for people to figure out exactly what i...
Aug 14, 2019•26 min
On this week’s episode of Grease The Wheels, we are talking about when customers come into the shop for free repairs, because the manufacturer didn't make something right. Sometimes they are service actions, sometimes they are full blown recalls, either way the customer isn’t going to be paying for it. Some techs hate recalls because they don't pay well, but other techs have found ways- through doing it so many times, to actually make money on them. Often times there are multiple open recalls on...
Aug 08, 2019•27 min
On this week's episode of GTW, we are talking about one of the internet's favorite punching bags: The Millennials. Now the first question that always comes up when it comes to Millennials and our industry is, “how come there aren't many millennial mechanics?” Well turns out, that's on us. When they ask what it's like to be a mechanic, we tell them about it warts and all and that sent them running for the hills. However, there are still some millennials that have gone into the automotive field, a...
Aug 01, 2019•27 min
On this week's episode of GTW, we are talking about the tech shortage. We know that we’ve talked about this in previous episodes, but this time we’re bringing some cold hard numbers into the argument. First off, everything we read about the shortage of technicians comes from fixed ops people. Now here comes the real dilemma: either they know how to fix the problem with staffing mechanics in their dealerships and they aren’t saying anything, or they don’t know how to fix the problem. Both of thes...
Jul 25, 2019•32 min
On this week’s GTW we are talking about some of the major differences between professionals and DIY’ers, because sometimes we make our job look so easy that other people think they can do it. First off, a lot of non technicians listen to this podcast, which is perfectly ok because this is America goddamnit. Here’s the tale of the tape though: professionals often times have significantly more tools to do the jobs that they need to do. For example if you’re in the rust belt and working on any car,...
Jul 18, 2019•26 min
On this week’s GTW, we are going back down the rabbit hole of stupid things that customers do. We all hate it when customers bring you a car with no gasoline in it because there is really no good reason to do that. When customers take their car to one shop for diagnosis and take it to another one to get fixed there is a good chance that mistakes are going to be made and things are going to get missed. We all have stories about Quick lube places not using the right oil filters and needing a break...
Jul 10, 2019•28 min
On this week’s GTW, we are talking about talking. Yea, little bit meta for a holiday consisting of day-drinking and explosives, but hear us out. We know that a lot of information gets transferred through this most convenient form of communication, but a lot of times at work it can be counterproductive. We talk about talking to superiors, customers, and fellow technicians as well as the differences between what we want to hear and what we need to hear. Gossip and bullshitting can seriously affect...
Jul 04, 2019•25 min
On this week’s episode of GTW, we are talking that lovely universal force that binds us all together: chaos. No matter where you sit in the automotive world, you are guaranteed some measurable amount of chaos. Often times it is driven by people who don’t know any better. Sometimes it comes down to the unknable roll of the dice that comes with not knowing what is going to roll or get flat bedded into your shop that day. Sometimes it comes in the form of a vague or cryptic repair order. Either way...
Jun 27, 2019•34 min
On this week’s GTW we talk about how to solve the shortage of technicians. The causes of the tech shortage are pretty obvious- it doesn’t pay, but we talk about making a system where it can be extremely lucrative. The first place to look to ending the tech shortage is promoting and training from within. If you think that you are going to get techs from the outside you are thinking in the old way, because no one puts in anything about money or advancement in their job descriptions. The second, an...
Jun 20, 2019•30 min
On this week's episode of GTW we are talking about work uniforms, but mostly we’re ranting about the uniform shirts that have collars. Some modern technician uniforms don’t make a lot of sense in this regard, because we can't think of a single instance where wearing a tie in a shop would end in anything other than decapitation. One often cited cause for this is that when there are changes in management, they want new uniforms to reflect his regime change- you know, instead of fixing the actual p...
Jun 13, 2019•25 min
On today’s episode of Grease The Wheels, we are talking about working for the man and all that it entails. There are many corporate entities in the automotive industry such as auto groups, corporate repair shops, tire shops, etc. These are companies with a LOT of employees, and oftentimes a big number of them have nothing to do with the end products. Corporate owned dealerships have multiple levels of management that run these places, meaning that there are a lot of people in these companies tha...
Jun 05, 2019•25 min
Good Tool guys are hard to find and much like us technicians, they all have different personalities and levels of commitment to their job. First off, it is hard work and no one is getting rich selling tools off of a tool truck. Then you get to add the tremendous cost of doing business and constantly having issues with their trucks (insert joke about fixing it for $50/week for 20 years) As a technicians we should support the good ones and help them out a bit. Also we get into an interesting theor...
May 30, 2019•25 min
It is a simple and pretty well established fact that there are a lot more jobs available for mechanics, technicians, and every other assorted automotive service worker than there are people to fill them. Because of that there are a LOT of job postings, but often times there are a lot of reasons why they have so many openings. This gets compounded when we are talking about job postings at indy’s, because you're going to be working on EVERYTHING. With that being said, even if you like you job you ...
May 23, 2019•29 min
In one way or another, all of us have some form of a dispatcher who doles out what we're working on for the day. Human dispatchers have human downsides such as playing favorites and are at the mercy of customers. However good dispatchers can read a shops technicians skill levels and keep the work flowing efficiently. Make yourself available to the dispatcher for the stuff that needs to get done that no one wants to do- they will throw you a bone. On the other side of the dispatcher equation, you...
May 16, 2019•29 min
As the title would suggest, this is an episode for the new guys, instead of about the new guys, so if you’re just starting out you might want to pay attention here. First off, as much as a good tech school can teach you about fixing cars, it really can’t teach you a lot about how to get along with the other people who are going to be in your shop also fixing cars. One good rule of thumb is to have a solid attitude, because without fail you can learn SOMETHING from just about everyone in your sho...
May 09, 2019•28 min
A simple show of hands will tell that many of us someday wish to own our own shop. This is a very solid and attainable goal for many of us as we move through our careers- because it doesn’t take 30 years in the field to realize that whatever the shop charges is usually several times the labor rate that they are paying you. However, while it can be very lucrative, especially if you find a profitable niche market early on, you will find that you are quickly doing less of the ‘fixing of cars’, and ...
May 02, 2019•30 min
In an industry such as ours, reputation is almost everything. Your ability and attitude from the first day you roll into a shop determines your reputation, and it really is entirely up to you to foster. The goldilocks zone for your reputation is being a decent human being who can fix cars well. The worst case is being an asshole that can’t fix a sandwich. The grey areas are being a good tech that is an asshole, and a nice guy who isn't a good tech. Additionally, your reputation as a technician c...
Apr 25, 2019•26 min
On this Week’s GTW, we are talking a short run down of some of the simple truths of working in the automotive industry. Just because a problem is simple doesn't mean that it can't be catastrophic. There is never a good time for a breakdown, and customers are going to be annoying about it (unfortunately for them, our cars typically work and we can get home just fine). Also we talk about the Product Life Cycle of cars, and that cars are not meant to last forever. At the end of the day the mechanic...
Apr 18, 2019•18 min
On this weeks GTW, we are talking the cheapest customers that you are ever going to get in your shop- the used car guys (and that’s a big statement considering our stance on working on your family’s cars). They are 100% about the profit and do not want to fix ANYTHING which leads to a lot of wire ties, duct tape, cutting rotors and other assorted “temporary fixes”. With a mantra of “buy low, sell high” even courtesy items such as oil changes are ignored in the name of the all mighty dollar. Be w...
Apr 11, 2019•22 min
On this week’s GTW, we’re talking some of the hilarious, ignorant, and ill-informed things that customers say and do. From the completely clueless, to the people who are pumped full of internet “knowledge”- customers often say things about their vehicles and do things to their vehicles that are beyond logic. Sometimes they think their car is broken when it’s working perfectly fine, but more often than not they think their car is fine when its about 4 seconds from detonation. We also revisit dash...
Apr 04, 2019•29 min
On this weeks GTW, we’re talking one of the common shop friction points: borrowing tools. Despite some of the astronomical amounts of money we owe our tool dealers, very few of us can say that we have never had to borrow a tool. Because of this there is an almost industry wide mantra of, “ borrow it once, cool. Borrow it twice, go buy one for yourself” However, we have seen some cases where this can go bad, really quick. From small shops borrowing tech’s scan tools that cost the retail price of ...
Mar 28, 2019•30 min
On this week’s GTW, we dish pretty hard on ASE testing. Realistically someone who has never picked up a wrench could study for the test, pass it, and be an ASE certified technician. We think that it is a bit of a scam- they make money on the test, they make money on the practice tests, they make money on the parts test- and what are they proving? Just because you can pass the test doesn’t necessarily mean that you know what you’re doing! We know that there are ASE certified techs out there that ...
Mar 21, 2019•29 min
On this week’s GTW we are talking DIY’ers. It used to be really pretty easy to be a DIY’er but as cars have become significantly more complicated, it has become very hard for the average layperson to work on their car. It has also become really easy for the average person to catastrophically break their car when attempting DIY repairs. Even simple botches can lead to THOUSANDS of dollars in damage- to either the car or whatever they run into because they didn't bleed brakes properly. The biggest...
Mar 14, 2019•36 min
Episode 32: JunkyardsThis week we talk about the epic automotive roll of the dice that is junkyard parts. First off, junkyard parts are easily one of the best examples of recycling on the planet- if the parts are any good that is. Some stuff is easy to tell if its good or bad, sometimes it takes a leakdown test to figure out if its any good or not. A lot of junkyard parts need increased scrutiny though, but often times they are so cheap people are willing to roll the dice. We also talk “pick and...
Mar 06, 2019•28 min
On this week’s GTW: our managers often want us to test drive cars to diagnose them, but if there is a drivability issue doing a test drive is the absolute last thing we want to do. Throwing it up on a lift and taking a look is usually a lot safer. Let’s be real, there is a lot that can go wrong (and it often does) when we drive customers cars. There’s a lot of really good reasons for this, chief among them that the average american driver has no idea what they’re doing- while sending a tweet, pi...
Feb 28, 2019•30 min
