On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we talk about one of the unseen factors that keeps us going: pride. Right off the bat, we are proud of every one of you wrench turning guys and gals who is keeping the world moving by fixing what's broken. We’re also deeply proud that you listen to this podcast and the rate at which you tell your friends about us. No matter what kind of day you are having, you can probably find something to be proud of in what you do just because of the sheer number o...
Oct 29, 2020•37 min
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we are paying homage and telling a hell of a lot of epic stories about one of our all time favorites: the Blazer. Weather it is ripping through an apple orchard, crawling down ATV trails, or rummaging through pick-and-pulls for extra bits we loved this simple and capable truck for what it was. A truck. The new one is just a Equinox on some muscle milk. However, Erik the Producer lays out a few of the reasons why they did this: mainly that the amount o...
Oct 22, 2020•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 115
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels we admit this world is kinda f***ing dangerous! As mechanics this is compounded on a daily basis just because of the sheer number of things that you work with that can seriously mess you up. Some of this stuff can mess you up instantly: wires from a wire wheel turning into shrapnel, presses turning things into projectiles, cars falling, and the good ole harbor freight jack stands (which are still better than just a jack, if you have nothing else). Some...
Oct 15, 2020•46 min•Ep. 114
On this week’s (slightly delayed, sorry love!) episode of Grease the Wheels, we take a deep dive into the role of the Service Manager. What is their job, what should be their job, and what should you expect out of them are all on the docket in this slightly longer episode. When you don't get what you expect, this causes friction. This is compounded when you actually take a look at how the job gets done. The problem is that when you have good help and the shop runs fairly smoothly, Service Manage...
Oct 08, 2020•49 min•Ep. 113
On this week's episode of Grease the Wheels, we are talking about some of the untapped potential that lies with the video multi point inspection. Some shops have them, some don't, but we feel like more shops are going to have it sooner rather than later. This is really a good thing for us, we just wish we would get paid for doing them. First off, Uncle Jimmy goes over his various scripts for situations that come up in MPI’s when he does them, and offers a ton of practical advice that will help y...
Oct 01, 2020•39 min•Ep. 112
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we are talking a little bit of science fiction by specing out our ideal robot toolbox. There is a good shot that this is where we as an are going, so we thought we would throw it out into the universe and see if anyone wanted to build the thing. Give it a shape like R2D2, magnetic bolt trays with voice integration, a jump box, and the voice of H. Jon Benjamin and you have pretty much the perfect assistant. Build it like a tank, give it sensors to read...
Sep 23, 2020•39 min•Ep. 111
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we are taking a look at the industry-wide scourge of a lot of people talking, but not a lot of people listening or doing. Mechanics are really pretty good at listening to other mechanics on a whole, but when it comes to the potentially vast reserve of experience and practical problem solving experience found in the back of the shop, management will try to reinvent the wheel when someone else in the building might already have the answer. Additionally,...
Sep 17, 2020•46 min•Ep. 110
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we are taking aim at the idea that “high schools cutting shop class” is the biggest pull factor for why adolescents are avoiding the trades in general and the automotive industry in particular. If this were the truth, why not start informing kids about the trades even younger? With this in mind, Uncle Jimmy creatively co-ops some of the all time great children's programming to be about being an automotive technician. For instance, it is always a lovel...
Sep 10, 2020•47 min•Ep. 109
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we have been informed by our good buddy Travis that in a recent episode we said the word “F***!” 58 times. That might seem like a lot, but those are some rookie numbers for Uncle Jimmy- so we gotta pump those numbers up. Firstly, “F***!” is used to describe thousands of situations that we as humans collectively and technicians specifically experience every day. Sometimes it is entirely internal, existing only in our inner monologue- yet oftentimes it ...
Sep 03, 2020•33 min•Ep. 108
On this week's episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy gives Erik the Producer an aneurysm by sitting down and eating his lunch while recording the podcast in a show of solidarity. That’s right, Uncle Jimmy is now banned by some shops (or at least that's what the data leads us to believe) but more than likely is if he isn't banned in your shop yet this will probably be the episode to do it! We talk at length about the first amendment, Multi-Point Inspections, and well as doing videos of these ...
Aug 27, 2020•34 min•Ep. 107
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we are getting back to our roots. This podcast was created to rail against people who do not take what we do seriously, and therefore do not pay us seriously. In this episode we take a look at what Uncle Jimmy has been doing in the grip of “corona-madness” by reading articles about the state of the industry. While guidance counselors are pushing kids out of the trades and into 4-year degrees at a blistering pace (DO NOT get the producer started on thi...
Aug 20, 2020•34 min•Ep. 106
On this week’s episode we are tackling the issue of waiters. Firstly, we suggest talking to the other technicians and foreman in your shop and coming up with a list of jobs that customers really can’t wait for. After that we suggest talking to the service manager and service advisors because this will make everyone’s job easier. However, not all waiters are created equal, as there are the “no other options” waiters, the “patient up to a point” waiters, and the “people who think they are going to...
Aug 13, 2020•34 min•Ep. 105
On this week’s Grease the Wheels, we take a look at the state of the industry through the continuing Coronavirus Pandemic. Honestly, we thought it would have blown over by now (more on that later) but it hasn't and we are still working. We feel that the image of the mechanic as an essential worker was slightly sullied by the fact that Uncle Jimmy’s insurance agent was also an “essential worker”, but that is ok. Business needs to keep on keeping on. As mechanics we are all very much in this toget...
Aug 06, 2020•42 min
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels we are talking about the most fragile thing in your shop- the motivation of the people working there. We have all had that internal monologue while sitting in our cars either on the way to, or sitting in the parking lot of work, where we genuinely wonder if today is going to be the day where we grease the wheels, load up the toolbox, and never come back. However every single ounce of motivation must come from within. Sure there are external factors tha...
Jul 30, 2020•29 min
On this week's episode of Grease the Wheels, we are taking a deep dive into the methods by which most of us get paid: flat rate. First off, someone at the manufacturer's factory does a specific job to a car using hand tools to determine how long that job is going to take, which refers to the “book time” of a job. However, there are often many jobs that we can “make time” on, where the book time is significantly higher than the actual amount of time it takes to do that job. Whether it be because ...
Jul 23, 2020•42 min
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we are doing a case study of the single worst service advisor that Uncle Jimmy has ever had. A bad service advisor won't try to sell the customer on the recommended repairs that a technician finds in a multipoint inspection. A worse service advisor will assume that a customer might not have money based on the way they’re dressed or some other prejudicial factor. A terrible service advisor thinks they are brilliant when they are clearly not. A horrendo...
Jul 16, 2020•47 min
On this week’s Grease the Wheels we wanted to take a minute to thank everyone on planet earth who fixes things. You all are the reason that we keep doing this podcast, but more importantly you are the reason that this world continues to move. We take a look at some of the favorite topics, themes, and mantras of the first hundred episodes as we pop in a new clip and set our sites on the next hundred, with more episodes of “The Makes”, “The Models”, and introducing some filmed segments of the show...
Jul 09, 2020•36 min
On this week’s episode we take a crack at the rosetta stone of the trades by translating some of our favorite shop talk terms for non-technicians. Right off the bat, every single shop's internal language is a little bit different based on the people who create that inter shop language. Sometimes that language comes in the form of thinly veiled sarcasm or acronyms, while other times it can be as brutal and explicit as your Uncle Jimmy. If you're a new guy pay attention to the context, maybe ask w...
Jul 02, 2020•39 min
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels we are starting out with a question: do car TV shows give people unrealistic expectations as to what we do for a living? Most of these shows condense an entire frame-off restoration and hundreds of hours of absolutely meticulous body, paint, and fabrication work into a nice and neat 48 minute package. This makes them really pretty cool to watch for the most part, as long as they are not also fabricating human drama that is completely unnecessary. But t...
Jun 25, 2020•30 min
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy attempts to do an entire episode under the “PG” rating- while maneuvering some of the problems that arise when technicians have to talk to customers. Firstly, when we have to talk to customers we only should ever have to talk about what is wrong with their car and how we are going to fix it, everything else has its own department! Although, if you actually are good with people and a good technician we go over the potential post-tech move o...
Jun 18, 2020•43 min
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we are going back to the new guys, but specifically in relation to the old guys in the shop. Obviously a lot of us have noticed that the number of new guys coming in the door isn't as high as it used to be at the time when a lot of us entered the industry, and what is the quality of these new to the industry techs? In our experience, it's a completely mixed bag. Every new guy really is different. There is no way that the factories can train someone on...
Jun 11, 2020•28 min
On this week’s episode we are talking about those times when you just want to go absolutely medieval on customers because they’re being unreasonable. Now we know that any time that your car is broken is the worst time for your car to be broken, but for some people this inconvenience of modern life is just too much. This leads them to do things like say you, the technician, broke their car. This has and will happen again to every single technician on planet earth, and it comes in the universal la...
Jun 04, 2020•25 min
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels we are talking about one of the main things that costs us money, that we’re not really willing to change: getting along with one another and talking about stuff. We prefer it when shops get along and can talk about stuff because a lot of the time it can streamlining the solving of problems and the maintenance of good morale. But sometimes it can end up costing us a lot of time, which can translate into costing us a good bit of money. However, absolutel...
May 28, 2020•24 min
On this week's episode of Grease the Wheels we are going deep into the debate between what we actually do for a living; are we technicians or mechanics? This is one of those things that comes down to two things: money and optics. According to Google, the difference lies in how we diagnose problems with cars: if you use a scan tool and then fix the problem, you're a technician. If you don't use a scan tool and fix the problem, you're a mechanic. But what if you have a scan tool and can't fix the ...
May 20, 2020•52 min
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels we are going over some of the core elements of what made this show popular: beating the snot out of service advisors! As you can probably guess, the revolving door is turning at Uncle Jimmy’s shop for service advisors and that is bringing all sorts of havoc, so buckle in. We go over in detail the job description of a service advisor, the lack of training, and the need for almost a farm system of sorts for service advisors to be able to get experience. ...
May 13, 2020•48 min
On this week’s (extra) episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy sits down with fellow BMW Master tech’s Kirk and Travis with their Nova Scotia Duck Tollers (Miley, Farley, and Shimmer) and about 30 beers. Absolutely nothing is off the table in this shop-talk-heavy episode: including the indy v. dealer debate, the physical and mental toll of the job, and the good, bad, and ugly of management. We also talk at length about the N63 V8 and some of the insane jobs we have to do to them regularly. Fin...
May 11, 2020•1 hr 30 min
On this week’s episode we are talking one of the most strange and complicated human emotions out there: nostalgia. Literally translated, it means a longing for something that once was and usually when we’re talking nostalgia we’re talking cars, people, and moments in time. We tend to have nostalgia for things that we are consumed by, and one of these things is work. Almost every single one of us has had more than one job, and even more of us will have another job in the future, but the weird thi...
May 07, 2020•48 min
On this Week’s Episode of GTW, it's another episode of “The Makes” with Mercedes Benz. We start with the end of WWII (because we botched the first round of the Creation-WWII episode) and going right up to today. We are talking everything that makes Mercedes truly “the best or nothing” from their incredible rise from the ashes of a burned out Stuttgart to the highs of taking a Formula One world Championship just 10 years later. This dominance coming to a sudden and tragic end with the worst motor...
Apr 30, 2020•2 hr 21 min
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we are talking used cars. This is a touchy subject for us because we have very concrete opinions on what happens, what should happen, and what is going to happen to that industry in the future. As automotive technicians, you and I should inspect every single car that every single person in this country buys. Preferably before they buy it, but most of the time after the purchase, which points to a level of ignorance that is costing people thousands of ...
Apr 23, 2020•36 min
On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels we reach into the GTW vault and bust out an episode from our treasured past, late 2019. In this episode Uncle Jimmy talks about the great people he has worked with and calls out some of the complete morons. We call out some of our largest listenerships, and some of our segments that don’t even fix cars, they fix stuff that makes cars look small, well engineered and simple! Also, in a Nostradamus-esque twist, we talk about a virus of unknown origin comi...
Apr 16, 2020•24 min
