The Jaded Mechanic Podcast

Jeff Compton [00:00:00]:
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another exciting episode of the Jade Mechanic Podcast. You guys are gonna get so sick of me after a while because, like, I have another Canadian guest with me today, and that's two in a row. And, you know, Uncle Donald, he wants us to be the 51st state. And I'm not really down with that because it's. I don't think really, he wants to pay the nut for what the company's country's worth. Almost a company, but, you know, it's pretty cool. We're. We're not here to discuss politics, so that's not what it's about.

Jeff Compton [00:00:33]:
But I do want to try and always bring up the average and keep it like one for one. One Canadian, one American. One Canadian, one American. If I can get a guy from Australia, bring him in too. Right? That's just evens it up. So I got a friend with me tonight named Joel McClure from Nova Scotia, which, if you're not used to the Canadian accents, you're going to be like, well, Jeff's got a Canadian accent for sure. But when you start to hear people come like my. My guest last night, Mr.

Jeff Compton [00:01:01]:
Matthew Patino, and he's a French. French Canadian. And you're gonna listen to Joel and you're gonna be like, that's a cool accent, too. And that's just the beauty of Canada is we all are very culturally diverse. So, Joel, brother, how are you tonight, man?

Joel McLearn [00:01:18]:
Not so bad. How are you?

Jeff Compton [00:01:19]:
No, I'm very good, brother. Very good. Like I said, I was tired. It's been since we. Since we rolled out this. The seam apex trip giveaway. The phone blows up, so. And that's how I got where my time screwed up, where I'm sitting there making you wait for another hour, and I'm getting out here 15 minutes late.

Jeff Compton [00:01:38]:
So thank you for, you know, reaching through the phone and smacking me upside my. But it's all good. Yeah. How's. How's things in Nova Scotia?

Joel McLearn [00:01:49]:
Not too bad. It's been. We're getting into some fall weather, so it's a little cooler right now.

Jeff Compton [00:01:54]:
Yeah, I don't know.

Joel McLearn [00:01:55]:
Things are going good.

Jeff Compton [00:01:56]:
We had frost yesterday morning. I was up launching the fish before dark or before sunrise, and we pulled the plug at like 10 o' clock because, like, my fingers got a little wet and then they stayed cold and numb and I was like, you know what? The fish are biting, okay, But I'm not getting like giants. So let's head her back to the house and get some hot coffee. So that's kind of what we did, you know, and I, I can't complain. We're almost in October and I'm still fishing but normally like, you know, I, I, I've been out first week of December before we had a couple years ago we had a really mild, mild fall and we had one warm day in December where the ice hadn't even, ice wasn't in yet and we went out, caught a couple, you know, took some pictures just to show that we're out in December. My birthday's in November. Normally before I would go to sea, I'd always fish on my birthday, November 4th, if it was a weekend. I was always fishing and caught some really good ones.

Jeff Compton [00:02:54]:
Like you don't get the numbers but the big fish move up shallow and then it's like they just gorging, right. Like if you can find them, they're, they're giants. So. Yeah. What do you do when you're not fixing cars?

Joel McLearn [00:03:07]:
Actually I really enjoy fishing. Not had a lot of time to do it this year just because we, we've recently moved our shop and house and all that stuff. But I'm more of an evening fisher. Like I, I like going out in mid afternoon and finding my spot and yeah fishing into the evening. I got a few friends that do it and yeah, we like to go that way Now.

Jeff Compton [00:03:28]:
What's your, you're in Colebrook, Is that what it's called?

Joel McLearn [00:03:31]:
Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:03:31]:
Colbert Nose goes. So is that. I had a friend that's from Nova Scotia and he's, he's into the fly fishing kind of doing the rivers for trout and that kind of stuff. Are you kind of the same kind of ideal or.

Joel McLearn [00:03:44]:
I like lake fishing. I'm, I'm into the smallmouth bass and perch and whatnot. We do. A buddy of mine and his family, they have a camper down in the Chester Basin. So we will go out and do mackerel fishing some. But I, I do like, like regular bait fishing.

Jeff Compton [00:04:01]:
Yeah, smallmouth, that's what we were chasing yesterday. So like mostly that lake that we were on is, is known for bigger size smallmouth. We actually the biggest fish today was a largemouth which was pretty unusual for that lake. But it holds some absolute giants for smallmouth considering it's an inland lake. Like I'm two blocks away from Lake Ontario which has the, probably the largest smallmouth on the continent in it. We just haven't caught them yet except for maybe couple of lakes in Tennessee that have got them where they have a longer growing season. But right now, like we have guys pulling 8, 8 pound smallmouth out of Lake Ontario every summer.

Joel McLearn [00:04:37]:
Wow.

Jeff Compton [00:04:38]:
Which is like, think about that, that fish.

Joel McLearn [00:04:41]:
So we're lucky if they're, you know, we're, yeah, 12 to 18 inches kind of thing.

Jeff Compton [00:04:46]:
Not, you know, my, my PB goes just under six and I've, I work with a guy that's had one almost eight, you know, at Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence river and all that jazz. So I mean we, we're, we're so fortunate. We're blessed. Tell me a little bit about you said you just kind of moved the shop and all that jazz.

Joel McLearn [00:05:08]:
Yeah. So back in 2022, I started my shop. I actually rented a bay which turned into a couple of bays out of a gas station that I used to work at when I was in school for automotive.

Jeff Compton [00:05:21]:
Right on.

Joel McLearn [00:05:22]:
Things kind of went south with that whole deal.

Jeff Compton [00:05:27]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [00:05:28]:
So we ended up sort of being forced to buy a space. So we just, we bought it the end of May and we, we moved the shop one month and moved the house next and we're just rolling along from there. So.

Jeff Compton [00:05:39]:
Very cool. So you're relatively new business owner then?

Joel McLearn [00:05:43]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:05:44]:
Well, congratulations, man. That's pretty, that's a, that's a big achievement. How, how old are you?

Joel McLearn [00:05:49]:
I'm 30.

Jeff Compton [00:05:50]:
That's. Listen, you're doing well for yourself. You're, you're kicking off at 30. I mean, I know people that started younger, but I mean like it, it's, you kind of, the earlier you get in, the better, I think. You know what I mean? Like, I'm to the point now where I probably should have done it 10 years ago if I was going to do it. I'll be 50 next month, so.

Joel McLearn [00:06:08]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [00:06:09]:
It's, I'm not going to try and start it at 50. That would have been crazy. But I should have done it at 40 and I just kept procrastinating whatnot. But congratulations, man. That's pretty cool.

Joel McLearn [00:06:19]:
Actually, I had a buddy of mine that, that, that I worked with, he started his own shop and I think he started it at 50. So that was, that was a couple of years before I started mine. So he's been at it a few years, but we'll see how he makes out.

Jeff Compton [00:06:34]:
He doing well, is he?

Joel McLearn [00:06:36]:
Yeah, I, I think it's, it's one of those situations where he's, he's trying to wear all the hats. Right. So he needs to decide whether he's going to do the service writing or booking side or if he's Going to keep wrenching. I've got, my wife does all my service writing and you know, obviously I do the big estimates or whatever, but, but she, she does all that so she can keep me busy working in the bays.

Jeff Compton [00:07:00]:
Right, Very cool. Have you got a technician working with you?

Joel McLearn [00:07:04]:
Not yet. We're, because of the move and because kind of how things went, we're a little bit slower right now than what, what I would like to be. And I, I just, I'm not, I don't believe in hiring somebody just for the, the busy tire season and kind of booting them off afterwards. So if I'm going to hire somebody, that's going to be it. Right?

Jeff Compton [00:07:24]:
Yeah, that's not, I, I, I've said it before on here, right? Like there's like four dealerships around here that you can count on right about now they're going to throw up an ad to hire a technician or even an apprentice and then come January, you know, the end of January, they're gone. They're firing them, they're, they're laying them off or something because you know the Canadian thing, right, It's a tire season rush, right? It's a twice annual tire season and it just fills the shop. Some of it's not very great. Aro like it, you know, making a ton of money. You know, every car is a chance to look at stuff. But you know how it is, right? If you've got these customers that are just buying a tire swap, you know, you're not really, you might get an oil change without, you might get a brake job with it. It's good. But you got to be able to convert that work.

Jeff Compton [00:08:11]:
You find otherwise, like there's lots of people that can do tires faster, better, cheaper, you know, and trying to, I don't, I talked to my friends down in the States and they're like, oh, it's a great, it's a great supplement for, for our shop. And I'm like, yeah. And up in Canada, some of them, it's the only reason they started a shop was that to get that twice a year rush. And the rest of the time if they're not convert on that, you know, you're standing there going, well, what do we do? It's January, right? Like all the tires are done and now we're standing. I can remember Joel, like February, March up here. Like I'd be shoveling the parking lot with a shovel, right? Because we had no cars coming in. We had done everything up to Christmas and then, you know, people go nuts financially At Christmas time and they had no money.

Joel McLearn [00:08:57]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [00:08:58]:
So. Yeah. So how did you get into the decision that you wanted to be your own shop owner, be your own business?

Joel McLearn [00:09:06]:
Well, it's, I mean, I've always kind of, I've always sort of hustled in different things. I, I started the automotive thing a little bit later. Like, I didn't grow up in a garage or anything like that.

Jeff Compton [00:09:17]:
Okay.

Joel McLearn [00:09:18]:
So when I finally decided that I wanted to take automotive, I did the, you know, I went through, through the program and started the apprenticeship with one shop.

Jeff Compton [00:09:26]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [00:09:27]:
And the shop that I was at, like, he was, he was an awesome tech diagnostic wise. He was really sharp with electrical and all that, and it was really cool being part of his team. But what I, what I found was, is he also had his wife running out front. Right. And there was a lot of difficulties between them. Like you, you, you'd watch them and it was, nobody wanted to be in charge when, when things went tough. Right. And there was a lot of, well, you do it.

Joel McLearn [00:09:58]:
No, you do it kind of stuff. And I just got to a point where my attitude got worse and worse because as you know, all of us technicians, we all have an attitude problem at one time. So sort of at the end of, of where I worked, I sort of decided like, do I want to go through that oh, everything's good and then it becomes not good situation, or do I just want to try going on my own? And, and that opportunity was always there because in the background I was working at this gas station anyway. Right. And they were always kind of in my ear, like, if you ever decide you want to go on your own, let us know and we'll, you know, we can sort of help you out or whatever.

Jeff Compton [00:10:45]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [00:10:45]:
And that's kind of how it happened right now.

Jeff Compton [00:10:48]:
As, as someone then that watched the, the husband and wife dynamic in the shop and you have your wife with you. Do you see? Kind of like, was it a good lesson, a good kind of example of what not to do, not to throw shade at your former employers? But no, no, no. Churchill must be like, well, I can remember watching this conversation happen and, you know, this is how bad it got. Let's not go there. Is it? Because, I mean, I, I worked in a shop with husband and wife and it was tough some days it really was, you know, well, sort of what.

Joel McLearn [00:11:18]:
I, it's funny you should say that because there were days where I'd go home and I'd look at my wife and be like, if I ever run a shop, you're not working with me because I don't want this, what I'm seeing, to happen between you and I. But in that way, of course, me chewing on my own words now because she's the best thing that happened to my shop because I got, you know, it made. Allowed me to be busier. But we do, you know, we get along really well. We work together extremely well. We don't have a lot of issues that way. And I think it's because of certain things that I witnessed that I just said, you know what? I don't want it to be that way.

Jeff Compton [00:11:57]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [00:11:57]:
And. And, you know, she. She was a nurse before she worked for me, so she can always go find a job.

Jeff Compton [00:12:03]:
So same as the shop I was at, she was. She was a career nurse. And, you know, when Covid hit, she kind of was like, I want out of this. Like this. This is not what I signed up for in terms of the way the. The. I guess I call it the industry, but, you know, went for her. So she wanted out.

Jeff Compton [00:12:19]:
And she'd always been like, you know, because you know how nurses, their schedules can be varied, right? Like, you can work weekends, you can work nights. She had always, even before COVID had always be. Some days she would be in the shop and some days she'd be out of the shop, and some days she'd be, you know, head service writer position. The other day she wouldn't be there. So she's. She was great. But I did see lots of things where nursing. You have to be very empathetic, right? You have to be, you know, very.

Jeff Compton [00:12:50]:
She's so. And she's a Newfoundland. She's a Newfoundland girl. So you know what they're like, right? Like, they're. They're all into people. You know what I mean? Like, they're amazing, caring people. Sometimes I felt like that was getting in the way of, like, really making the number what it should be. Know what I mean? A lot of sympathy to the.

Jeff Compton [00:13:11]:
To the customer.

Joel McLearn [00:13:12]:
Oh, discounting on emotion and all that.

Jeff Compton [00:13:14]:
She. This customer's husband is, you know, or mother and father are going through this and that and the other thing, and that's me, the jaded old dick in the back. I'm like, I don't give a. I don't care if they live in the car. You know, this is what it costs to fix it. Like, that's reality. If they don't want to do it, no problem. We'll push it back outside.

Jeff Compton [00:13:31]:
Let's get to the next one, right? And because we do that where we. We emotionally discount and everybody thinks, oh, it's just one. This one job. I just emotionally discounted this one and maybe another one that week, you know, But I only did two. You had all that up at the end of the month and it's like, wow, there's some money lost there. And then you add it up at the end of the year and like, shoot, there's a lot of money gone. That's our training budget gone. That's our.

Jeff Compton [00:13:58]:
Our new scan tool budget. That's our new AC machine. So I always was like, you know, I always said, like, if I. If I was going to hire somebody to be an advisor for me, they. I would want somebody like, cold and callous, just like myself, which as I talk to other people, they're like, it doesn't work. Trust me. And I'm like, so find that happy middle ground, I guess, you know.

Joel McLearn [00:14:21]:
So what works for us is our. And I mean, it always worked this way, but it works better now. The way our shop is designed, our house and our office are out front and the shop is out back. So now, like, I tell Jaden what we need, she puts it together and she can either sell it or whatever. She doesn't know or care what those things cost. So she just. Whatever it comes up, that's it. Right.

Joel McLearn [00:14:48]:
And if I say, I need 1.6, I need 1.6, she's not going, oh, well, 1.4, whatever, you know, and because I'm not out there to emotionally care about those things, we sell it more legitimately instead of me being the one. Yeah. That makes those discounts. Because before we had one bay at that gas station and the office was right in the bay. So every time she'd be like, well, how do you feel about this? I would say, well, no, we can shave it here or whatever. Look, I don't do that anymore because I'm not there doing it.

Jeff Compton [00:15:18]:
Yeah, yeah.

Joel McLearn [00:15:19]:
So it kind of works out that way.

Jeff Compton [00:15:21]:
The other thing I would see a lot, and I know I talk to a lot of shop owners and they see this happen sometimes too, is when the. The wife is at it, the counter is that the customers, and I don't think they mean it to be disrespectful anymore, but customers come in and be like, I want to speak to, you know, Joel. Even though, like, your wife is the one that they're supposed to be speaking to. I want to speak to Joel. And then you come out and it's like, or.

Joel McLearn [00:15:45]:
And.

Jeff Compton [00:15:46]:
And then your wife's kind of getting disrespected by the fact that they're not respecting her position. Right, right.

Joel McLearn [00:15:52]:
And.

Jeff Compton [00:15:53]:
And then sometimes you can be. You hear their plight and you're trying to make the conversation over, so they're like, well, you know, blah, blah, blah. So it's like you end up. You end up discounting it or you end up putting on the different part that maybe you wouldn't have chosen or, you know, that kind of stuff. Right. You say, yeah, I can wait three more months to do. I saw that happen a lot. Because he didn't really empower his wife to like, this is it.

Jeff Compton [00:16:21]:
This is the concrete thing.

Joel McLearn [00:16:23]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [00:16:23]:
It was always like if they. He. He didn't want to see her deal with a difficult customer, so he would come and get involved. And I'm like, almost like that's their job to get deal with difficult customers. Like, you come in and, and you take over, and then the next time the customer is going to come in, they're always going to sidestep her and want to talk to you. That's not how it's supposed to be done, you know?

Joel McLearn [00:16:43]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:16:44]:
And, you know, I sit there and people are like, well, what the hell? Like, you're just a technician because you watch little things like that. And it has the effect at the end month of, you know, customer. This, this difficult customer is allowed to be a difficult customer.

Joel McLearn [00:17:00]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [00:17:01]:
We didn't empower our people to. No, you know, tell them to. If they, if they don't want to do the job this way, cool. Shake their hand, let open the door for them, you know, let them go.

Joel McLearn [00:17:10]:
Exactly. Exactly. I, I was actually at a course not that long ago. I'm not going to say who it was because, you know, but it was a, it was a break course.

Jeff Compton [00:17:21]:
Okay.

Joel McLearn [00:17:22]:
And I was sitting beside another tech slash owner friend of mine, and we were sitting there and all of a sudden the. The trainer said, if the. If your customer will not pay for this set of brakes that they need for, you know, whatever the application, if it was for like a heavier duty thing and they needed to buy this level of brakes and they weren't going to do it, the trainer said, you should discount your labor so that they will buy the right tier of part. And I looked over at Tom and I was like, did. Did I hear that right? And he was like, you absolutely did. And I'm like, like, no, if. If. If that customer isn't gonna put on what they need to put on either.

Joel McLearn [00:18:09]:
A, we're not explaining the benefits or B, you need to send them down the road.

Jeff Compton [00:18:17]:
Like, you know, you're not telling about the consequences. I would see this a lot in the. In some of the shops where, you know, like, these guys have got work vans, right? Or pickup trucks, and they're pulling a trailer all day long. Right. And they want the cheapest brakes put on.

Joel McLearn [00:18:31]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [00:18:31]:
And you can put the cheap brakes on it. And, you know, Napa's still going to warranty them for one year, but you know that it's supposed to get that fleet line because of how that thing's been using so that they're not burning the brakes off at every six months.

Joel McLearn [00:18:43]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [00:18:44]:
I. I've always been of that belief that if I can't sell the customer the absolute best part that it needs, and somebody in that situation is from the parts manufacturers told me, well, you should put the lower end on just to get the job or discount your labor just to get the job. He's telling me that because he just doesn't want to warranty the shittier shit, you know what I mean? The second grade apart, he doesn't want to warranty it. Yeah, I want my labor and my parts margin. That's what I want. That's what I'm in business to sell parts at the margin that needs to go. And the labor. I'm.

Jeff Compton [00:19:17]:
We're not here to sell. We're not even really in the business of selling parts. First and foremost, we're in the business of fixing cars, which is sometimes you have to put a part on. Sometimes you just got to go in and find the broken wire. You know, this nonsense of like, oh, you should discount your labor to put on the best part. I'm sorry, whoever was teaching you that course, I agree. I just sat right up and said, f that idea. Like, that's not what I'm here for, you know, and that comes down to a strong advisor being able to say, sure, I can put the cheap stuff on, but I'm not warranting it.

Joel McLearn [00:19:50]:
Exactly. And my thing is, if I can't warranty it, I'm not putting my name on it.

Jeff Compton [00:19:55]:
Exactly.

Joel McLearn [00:19:56]:
For a fact, there's shops down the road, and I've told people, if you're not willing to do that, I'm not the shop for you. And no, we're not the. The most expensive shop in the area, but we're also far from the cheapest. Right. And. And we know what we need to survive, and I know what I'm willing to do to look after my client. Right. Yeah.

Joel McLearn [00:20:15]:
And, And. And I've never had any issue with, with Jaden selling that or, or anything like that, but yeah, I definitely would not be discounting my labor to put a part on that it needs. Right.

Jeff Compton [00:20:26]:
It makes no sense because so much in this industry right now, especially on, you know, that example of, in the, in the classroom, on what they're being taught to you guys, you're already being taught most of the time that you're supposed to be doing a free brake inspection anyway, you know what I mean? Or a very different in the discounted amount of time. Right. Like, yeah, but you know how it goes sometimes, like, we don't even get the brake inspection if, say we rack the car for an oil change and we notice. Right. Then we just, we pen the estimate without actually doing an estimate. You know what I mean? Like in terms of. Or an inspection or any diag fee. That's wrong in the first place too, because, like, the way my former employer would do it is if I road tested it and the brakes didn't feel right before I ever even anybody tabled what it probably needed, didn't matter if I could look through the wheel and see that there was no pad left, an inspection was sold.

Jeff Compton [00:21:17]:
Right, Right. So that we have the conversation now opens up with the customer, like, hey, how's your brakes feel? Oh, they've been feeling kind of crappy, come to think of it, now that you mentioned it. Right. Okay, well, do you want us to do an inspection? This is what an inspection entails. This is what it costs. You know, if you do the brakes with us, we take some of the labor off the inspection because the car is apart. You know, I'm always that. But we always have to.

Jeff Compton [00:21:38]:
If, like, if they don't have a budget, but they want to know, I got to charge you for the inspection today. No questions about it. I have to charge you for the inspection today because you could leave. You got time to shop around, get a different price, go somewhere else. The car could blow up tomorrow, and then you're not going to get a brake job. Like, I need to cover my tech's time for presenting to you your brake problem. Right. It's just common sense.

Jeff Compton [00:22:04]:
So when they, when they do these classes and it's like, oh, yeah, just shave your labor so that you can put on this part.

Joel McLearn [00:22:10]:
No, that didn't fly with me, you know, and, and you know, I, I like doing the brake inspection and billing for it because I forget who it was that you had on. They said if I bill you for that inspection time, then Our financial obligations are done. You've paid for your time, you can go somewhere else. You don't owe me anything. I don't owe you anything. We're done. And I like, I like the way that, that, and I've said that to people since then because that's the best way to put it, to be perfectly honest.

Jeff Compton [00:22:38]:
Yeah. And see, everybody thinks that I can't charge them for an inspection because like they're, they're going to go somewhere else and get the brick job done. But we have all seen somebody come in with where they had it checked out somewhere else and they paid for an inspection. Or maybe it was a free inspection, but whatever. Free doesn't mean that they got anything then at all. Right. Like a free inspection for me. I'm going to stare through the whee wheels.

Jeff Compton [00:23:02]:
That's it. If I can't see, I'm going to test drive it. And said it feels like this, you know, like.

Joel McLearn [00:23:06]:
Right. Really.

Jeff Compton [00:23:07]:
So if you mean to tell me that if they go somewhere else and they've already paid for an inspection, I can't sell them an inspection. I can guarantee you I've proven that wrong so many times in the industry. Like they will pay, create customers will pay multiple times to get a second opinion.

Joel McLearn [00:23:23]:
And they should.

Jeff Compton [00:23:24]:
And as they should for sure. But we have to train them that they're going to pay for that inspection every time. Exactly. You know, I'm not of the, the coaching ideas that, you know, some popped up in the conversation the other day that they do. Some shops do a 15 minute, no tool inspection on just about anything on the car. So that can be like, if you come in and say, my brakes feel funny. They might spend 15 minutes going on a road test with a customer. Right.

Jeff Compton [00:23:50]:
Or, or by themselves. They might do lift the hood and look at the fluid level of the brake master cylinder. You know, they might get in it and do, oh, there's a warning light on. That's their 15 minutes, no tool. Right. If they're not hooking a scan tool up, they're not racking the car, they're not taking a wheel off. That's their 15 minutes.

Joel McLearn [00:24:08]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [00:24:08]:
I can see that. But to me, it's always been a slippery slope then because if somebody spends 15 minutes, somebody else will be. I'm going to give my customer even more value and I'm going to do 30 minutes.

Joel McLearn [00:24:19]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [00:24:19]:
Before you know it, we're back to a free break inspection that takes an hour and everybody's like, it doesn't take an hour. To do a break inspection.

Joel McLearn [00:24:27]:
To do it properly. It does.

Jeff Compton [00:24:29]:
Amen. Right. Because what's the proper way to do it? Well, the proper way to do it is if it's got a warning light on. Now I'm scanning it, Right. If it's got electronic parking brake. Now I'm checking the operation of that. If it's got drum brakes and we live in Canada, how often do they come off real super easy? Not worth a never. If it's got old school parking brakes.

Jeff Compton [00:24:50]:
Right. Do you test them on every car that you use, that you inspect? You're supposed to. That's part of the brake inspection. But you and I know how that can go if it hasn't used. Nobody's applied the Parker brake in five years. And all of a sudden you pull the park brake on, guess what happens? You've made yourself some work, you know.

Joel McLearn [00:25:06]:
Especially if it's a Dodge Grand Caravan.

Jeff Compton [00:25:09]:
Come on, you know how to quote them. They need calipers. They need calipers, pads and rotors.

Joel McLearn [00:25:14]:
Every time you get the brake inspection for free on that one because it needs everything. There's nothing to inspect.

Jeff Compton [00:25:20]:
Junk. Thank God. Thank God they finally put electronic in the back of a caravan because the, the manual system locked up constantly. Constantly. Didn't matter like a sieve. Oh, the aftermarket, the aftermarket calipers, all of them leak. Every freaking one of them doesn't matter. You know, you might, you'll buy four and you'll probably get two that don't leak.

Jeff Compton [00:25:43]:
And you're lucky, will be it'll be two of the same side.

Joel McLearn [00:25:46]:
Right? Like, yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:25:49]:
You know, and they blame it. Oh, it's the curb side again. Like, yeah, makes me laugh. I'm trying always to defend Kreiser because I love them. But the, you know, and I love, I love caravans. I made so much money on those. Stupid was great. But you know, that, that, that rear brake system just sucks.

Joel McLearn [00:26:08]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:26:10]:
And that's, you know what's always so funny is because, like, people are like, oh, my God, like, you're talking about drum brakes. Yeah, I done thousands of them. Like, I mean, it's not a, it's not an uncommon thing for me still up here to do them, you know, same with the electronic park brake. Like, I like that. And everybody's like. And at first I didn't, I don't like. And I've had conversation about this. I don't like the fact that some scan tools are locking it out, you know?

Joel McLearn [00:26:35]:
Yeah, that, that, that's greasy.

Jeff Compton [00:26:38]:
That, yeah, that's kind of crappy. But I do like the fact that there's no cables to seize, you know, I do like the fact that there's no pivots. Like all that jazz. I don't. I like the fact that I don't have to pull the axles out, you know, to put the shoes on some of them. I hated that, man. Like that. That just blew, you know.

Jeff Compton [00:26:57]:
That's terrible. Yeah. You're not going to tell me the name of those people that was coaching this for you? That's okay.

Joel McLearn [00:27:06]:
I would get in trouble if I did. Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:27:09]:
Talk about it after. It's all right. What's some of the stuff that you see? Like, is there anything that you see in your area that you could say is like, specific to your area in terms of types of failures on a car?

Joel McLearn [00:27:24]:
That's a good question. Not. I don't know. I mean.

Jeff Compton [00:27:30]:
Like the guys in pei, I've heard they get that red dirt in a lot of the stuff.

Joel McLearn [00:27:34]:
Oh, yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:27:35]:
You know.

Joel McLearn [00:27:35]:
Yeah. Yeah. I. I don't really think around here it's just regular old rust. You know what I mean? Like. Like it just this. We're in the salt belt and we, you know, we're surrounded by. By the ocean.

Joel McLearn [00:27:47]:
So you've got, you know, 20 minutes up the way. You go up over the. The mountain and you're at the ocean. So if you're working on any of those vehicles, they're rotten or dirt in their, you know, your dirt roads to get there. And. Yeah, you know, other than that, not really. It's. It's.

Joel McLearn [00:28:04]:
I do find though, like, for whatever reason, things come in waves at the shop. So like you might have a bunch of tow ins for. For no crank, and you're doing a bunch of starters that week, and then you don't see them for a while and then you'll do a week of. Of Ford F150 leaf springs. Like, it's just weird how things like that and I don't understand. I know it's completely coincidental, but. But that's what happens.

Jeff Compton [00:28:27]:
They're not fleets with the same age of truck and you can drive the same rows. Yeah, no, I get it. What?

Joel McLearn [00:28:32]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:28:34]:
Oh, geez. What was I gonna ask you? Slipped my mind there. Oh, undercoating.

Joel McLearn [00:28:40]:
Yep.

Jeff Compton [00:28:41]:
Do you do it?

Joel McLearn [00:28:42]:
I used to. Yeah, I. I used to do it on my day off, so. So we do Monday to Thursday, 7am to 5:30pm Right. Yeah, I was doing it on Fridays just to sort of supplement things and I got so busy at the other shop that I decided, no, I'm not doing it anymore. But. But that was kind of funny, too, because the shop beside us did it, and they had a huge problem with the fact that I came in there doing it, too, even though we were using different products. But he was.

Joel McLearn [00:29:13]:
He was so insecure with things. I was just like, whatever, dude. Right?

Jeff Compton [00:29:17]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [00:29:17]:
But I did it for a while, and then I just thought, nah, it's not. It's messy. It takes me way too long because I'm way too particular at doing them. And I just sort of phased out. But now, right now at the new shop, I'm in a bit of a slow spot right now. And I don't know if it's because of moving, like I said, or anything like that. Now. I kind of wish I had kept doing it.

Jeff Compton [00:29:41]:
You find that it actually helps?

Joel McLearn [00:29:43]:
Yeah, I do. My first car was a 2005 Honda Civic that. That had never been undercoated before I got it. But it drove from the Valley to Halifax every day, so it never rusted. It just was always getting washed off on the highway. But when I bought it, I just hung it in undercoating every year. And I don't know where that car is now, but I drove it for eight or nine years, and the thing was fantastic. And I attribute it to undercoating.

Jeff Compton [00:30:13]:
I'm 100% a believer. I have a 2015 Wrangler, which is only 10 years old.

Joel McLearn [00:30:19]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [00:30:19]:
But it is, like, way less rust underneath than a lot of the 2017s and 18s and 19s that I put on because it was undercoated right from day one. I didn't own it from brand new, but the previous owner had done it once. And then I do it every. Every year, Every fall, I do it. And what a big difference it makes, considering, like, for me, again, going back to the fishing thing, I'm backing it into the water every week. Like, I'm putting the muffler in the back axle right in the water, you know? And yet you go back there, it's still not all that surface. Rust is all up in it. And to me, it's already 10 years old.

Jeff Compton [00:30:53]:
If I get five more years. Because I drove, like, I drove a 96 Cherokee, I drove a 2000 Cavalier, and they're all rotten. Like, they. By the time they were 8, 10 years old up in my area and they hadn't been treated, they were junk, garbage, you know, no floor. I put floor pans in a couple of Cherokees. I've Owned, you know, rocker panels. Like I've done all that. The Cavalier, my brother's Ranger, we just got rid of.

Jeff Compton [00:31:16]:
There was no floors left in it. He never undercoated it.

Joel McLearn [00:31:18]:
So I mean every single Ranger ever driver, side floor.

Jeff Compton [00:31:23]:
Yeah. Cuz if we're good little trucks, otherwise fantastic. But he comes to me and he's like, we need some tires, we need some brakes. And I pulled up the driver's floor mat. I'm like, no, you need a new truck, dude. There's no floor here, man. Like I fixed the exhaust last year and told you this thing's rotten. Like it's time to get rid of it and yeah, but it, he's not a guy that's very good about taking care of his vehicles.

Jeff Compton [00:31:47]:
And it had a 4 liter in it like that, that engine that everybody hated from, from Ford, that, that six with all the timing chains and the cassettes on the back and like it was still going really good. It had both, both cats had gone hollow on it and you know, like, like 240,000 kilometers on it. The original plugs and original wires. It didn't run great, but it ran, you know, it's okay, you want to put any money in it, but lots of brakes, lots of control arms, leaf spring shackles, like, you know, all them good paying jobs, you know. Oh yes, but they do rot really bad. So yeah, I, I again at the shop I was at, we, we ran, we were a rust check facility and we did it. And I saw enough of the cars that had been done 10 years before coming in still and it was like they were still well worth putting money into, you know. And I tell people like my mom's own car, same thing, you can do it every year if you want, but the main thing is to get it done.

Jeff Compton [00:32:44]:
I want to say probably the first three, four years that the car is when you have it and then if you miss a year after that, it isn't the end of the world, man. You've got a good layer on there, you know, like.

Joel McLearn [00:32:53]:
Exactly.

Jeff Compton [00:32:54]:
It helps. But if you decide it's five years old, I'm going to start spraying it now. Right. You might better just flush that money down the toilet if you live up here because it's already, the rust is already in it. It just hasn't gone.

Joel McLearn [00:33:05]:
I'm so glad you said that because we just, we're, we're going to lease a brand new CRV hybrid. And I told my wife, I said as soon as it gets here, I'm taking that down the Road to the guys at corrosion free, and I'm getting them to do it. And she's like, well, if it's a lease, why. Why are you doing it? And I said, well, what if we want to keep this?

Jeff Compton [00:33:25]:
Yes.

Joel McLearn [00:33:25]:
I don't want it to be too late in 40 months when it has to go back, you know, I want it done because. And even if I only do it once, it's got that one layer on it.

Jeff Compton [00:33:34]:
That's right.

Joel McLearn [00:33:34]:
We're good. If I decide I want to keep it was worth spending a couple hundred bucks to get it done.

Jeff Compton [00:33:39]:
So you're not going to. When they offer you that rust module, that little blinky light there, are they not grade.

Joel McLearn [00:33:45]:
Eh? I just put. I just put an alternator in my mom's car this weekend, and she got the rust module way back in 2012, and I disconnected the negative battery terminal, and there goes the wire corroded off for the rust module. So how well did that work?

Jeff Compton [00:34:03]:
And what makes me laugh is I see the guys and they, like, they just tie strap them to the wiper cowl or something. So it's on plastic?

Joel McLearn [00:34:12]:
Yep. That's doing it.

Jeff Compton [00:34:13]:
That's not. You know, the guy that sells it says, oh, yes, it does. It still puts the charge through the car. And I'm like, show me how it puts the charge through the car. Well, you got the little stick on over here and you little stick on over there. And I'm like, yeah, it works on boats, pal. That's right. And again, the boat things got what we call a sacrificial anode.

Jeff Compton [00:34:34]:
Right. You being out there, you know a little bit about boats. They take a block of magnesium sticking on the boat and stick a charge to it, because magnesium corrodes really fast. We're thinking is that we just keep changing that block of magnesium out, and the boat doesn't rust near as much. Any outboard engine or any electric trolling motor made for saltwater. News flash, kids all has that in it. That sacrificial pieces that are supposed to. And you change them out.

Jeff Compton [00:35:00]:
Coolest thing in the world. When you stick it on a car, you don't buff the paint off, and you just stick it on and hook it up to your battery. Congratulations. You just installed a battery drain module. You didn't install a rust corrosion module. But I digress. It's it. Sales will make a thousand bucks when they put them in.

Jeff Compton [00:35:18]:
So it's a good thing, I guess, right? You know, where I work, we stopped putting them in because it was just like, you know, and anybody that comes in and I've had. Because you forgot to hook it up. You know, you change the battery, forgot to hook it up. It's like, okay, wink, wink.

Joel McLearn [00:35:36]:
You're gonna notice the difference, aren't you?

Jeff Compton [00:35:38]:
Yeah, yeah. If it's not hooked up, my car is gonna rust. Your car is gonna rust anyway, Mrs. Jones. Like, it's just the way it is. Do you know of. So what are the, what's the dealers like around you?

Joel McLearn [00:35:54]:
They're, they're not too bad. I mean, I, I, I, they're actually just up the road from our shop. And I, I kind of like them being there because, like, all the, the parts guys at Ford, they know who we are, right. We spend a lot of time going there. I, I don't mind, I don't mind them being around. I don't consider them competition. Competition or anything like that. It's, it just is what it is, right?

Jeff Compton [00:36:19]:
Because I know my friend, he worked for the Oregon group or Reagan or Oregon. Yeah, I know how you say. Which I guess is the largest group in Nova Scotia now, right? And he's been. God, he left Kingston and went back to Nova Scotia. He was a Nova Scotia boy like yourself, and he came to Kingston and he went back to Nova Scotia and he Back to o'. Regan. He's with Nissan, with them and seems to be doing well. But he says, it's a funny thing, once they get to be where they're the largest player, they've got a real lock on wages and, you know, the whole thing.

Jeff Compton [00:36:51]:
Right. Which is, you know, I can kind of see that. That seems to be the future, Joel, of where this industry is headed. On the dealer level side is you're seeing these groups, like our Chevy dealer in town that had been an independent Chevy dealer since, like, the 40s, just got bought by a group, by the Steel group.

Joel McLearn [00:37:09]:
Same thing. It's now Steel Valley Chev instead of Cornwallis Chev.

Jeff Compton [00:37:13]:
Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen steel a lot of cars. It's funny, when I lived in Ottawa, I'd see the occasional steel Chrysler, like Steel, like that dealership, group sticker. I've seen them in the, in the back of the car, so, you know, they get around. For sure. It's a big group.

Joel McLearn [00:37:29]:
But yeah, o' Regan's is more in the city, but yeah, but we. Obviously you do see them too.

Jeff Compton [00:37:34]:
Yeah, yeah, I know. And I would see a couple of them too. Especially, like my buddy had always pointed out, when there was a Nissan and, you know, that obviously had gone through an auction, probably a Quebec auction, and winds up in my area because that's where a lot of them go. But, you know, a lot of the stuff from the east isn't seeming to make it all the way to Toronto, but it's definitely making it to Quebec. And then we buy a lot of stuff out of Quebec. You know, some of it ain't so good, but it's, it's cars, you know, they need inventory, so.

Joel McLearn [00:38:00]:
That's right.

Jeff Compton [00:38:01]:
Yeah. What. How do you find their, their parts for you? Like, they keep in good inventory or.

Joel McLearn [00:38:08]:
Like to, to a degree, I've found. I mean. And if they can't get it, it's, it's a couple of days. Like it's not, it's not crazy. I did run into transmission lines on a 2006 Explorer.

Jeff Compton [00:38:24]:
Okay.

Joel McLearn [00:38:24]:
I can't get them anywhere. Yeah, they are completely discontinued. Can't get them out of the States. Like the Ford dealership couldn't help me. So I don't really know what we're going to do with that one. But that's the only time I've run into not physically being able to get anything. And that's obviously, that's not just the local dealer that's everywhere. But no, they've, they're pretty good about keeping, keeping stuff on hand.

Jeff Compton [00:38:45]:
Yeah. They might have to get creative with some kind of fabrication for that thing. Yeah, yeah. What we're going to do a flaring tool or something. Some line. And yeah, I've tried to do stuff like that too though, and I find that like, unless you can get a crimp, like an actual, like a hydraulic line fitted crimp on, you can't. Doesn't matter how many hose clamps and how you flared it, it's still leaking. There's too much pressure there.

Jeff Compton [00:39:06]:
Right. So too much expansion. What's the bulk of what year comes into your shop then? Like, are you guys. We were going back. Are you. Do you really go after the tire sale thing or do you just kind of use it?

Joel McLearn [00:39:18]:
Well, for me it's, it's, it's a little different for me because when, when I started my shop at the gas station, the deal was is they still did all the tire work and I did everything else. So when everybody was. Was two weeks behind on tires and stuff, I was two weeks behind on brakes and ball joints and. Right, whatever. Right. So that was good for me. I, I never minded that part of it. The only problem was is you, you love not doing tires until the People that are doing your tires are continuously screwing them up.

Joel McLearn [00:39:49]:
Yeah. So now that we've moved here, obviously we've got the tire changer, the balancer and stuff like that. I've got a shipping container out there to store them if people want to do that. But I'm, I'm still not going to push it. Like, I've got, I've got three bays, two hoists. When I do have somebody with me, I'm not doubling up on tires. There is way more money in other things. It's just not going to happen.

Joel McLearn [00:40:14]:
Like I'm, I'm going to do one bay of tires and one bay of everything else and just kind of leave it that way.

Jeff Compton [00:40:19]:
Amen. I. Nothing drove me crazier than seeing like the same car come in and it only gone maybe like 6,000 kilometers since the spring. There we are in the fall, we're breaking the tires back down because nobody ever sold them, you know, a winter package, rim and tire. So we're busting down the rolly rims again, scratching the hell out of them, putting on, you know, some 8 year old dry rotted, you know, whatever winter tires. No TP message. It drove me nuts. I hated the business period for it because I was just like, this was obviously never done right from the beginning.

Jeff Compton [00:40:52]:
And they're like, what are you talking about? I'm like, well, we're doing it all day long for an hour, you know what I mean? And we're, we're, we're filling up the shop. We're getting backed up because it's taking longer. The thing that used to drive me nuts is we go pull the tires out of storage and you look at them and like, these aren't worth putting back on.

Joel McLearn [00:41:08]:
Exactly.

Jeff Compton [00:41:09]:
Well, then it becomes a whole deal because the customer's there, right? You've got them out of storage. You look at them and you're like, these aren't worth putting on. Mrs. Smith. Ms. Smith goes, what do we do? Well, I can phone, you know, a tire vendor and I'll get you some tomorrow. Because we're not a dedicated tire store. We don't keep every possible frigging thing in stock.

Jeff Compton [00:41:28]:
And then Mrs. Smith's like, shit, I already booked the day off. What do you do? And that's the part that I hated. So then we're trying to like, okay, like before we put them away, let's document the, the, the tread depth. Cool. But we would document it, Joel, and still say, hey, you know, like we took them off, they're at 4 next year we're probably gonna suggest. And they go, okay, well, we'll see. I might not even be driving it next year.

Jeff Compton [00:41:53]:
And then they drive in November, and they're like, hey, I'm here for my snows. And, like, yeah, your snows that we told you about that we stored. And like, they're trash. Like, what do you want to do? Oh, this will be the last year for, like. And they just make it through the winter. And somebody goes, yeah, they'll make it through the winter. What I wanted always to think is, like, you know how I am. I'm like, I want to sell them a tire package, rim, tire, tpms, right? I want to.

Jeff Compton [00:42:18]:
When they book in, I want to rebalance them, put them on the car, in and out, sell it for one hour, retrain the TPMS. Gone. Not this 1.2. To break him down, clean the rim, rebalance them. Oh, that rim's bent. It won't rebalance. Put it on hold, call her up, say, hey, do you hit a hot hole? Like, you know, we need a rim now. But I didn't want any of that bs, you know, I wanted.

Jeff Compton [00:42:44]:
And the detractors, Joel, for the tire thing, for the rim thing is like, oh, what are you putting on universals? And then you get into the lug nut thing.

Joel McLearn [00:42:51]:
And, yes, the hub centering and all.

Jeff Compton [00:42:54]:
Like, it's not a perfect world. But, I mean, I had a friend that went to the work at the. The BMW dealer, and I'm like, oh, what's, like, snow tires doing there? He's like, it's the easiest thing in the world. Like, what do you mean? He's like, they literally just call the parts department and the parts department orders right from BMW. Four rims, four tires, four tpms, sensors, all reprogrammed, and they build it and put it on the car. And I'm like, that must cost, like, $6,000. They're like, yeah. And.

Joel McLearn [00:43:26]:
Yeah, that's BMW owners.

Jeff Compton [00:43:29]:
But, I mean, it's not. I mean, it would be a caravan. Like, I mean, I can build a caravan, like, package for 500 bucks all day. I'm not making a ton on it, but I can do it. So, like, we're all. Let's. Let's sell them four premium tires for $600. Okay, let's sell them.

Jeff Compton [00:43:49]:
Well, let's sell them rims, and. Well, they're not gonna have any money left. I'd rather put a cheaper tire on with a rim and a sensor than put on a Michelin tire. And Strip it off every year, strip it back on in the spring, on and off. Tear the hell out of it up. The sensors, pardon my language, rebalance the rim, you know, scrape them, stick on waste. You can tell where I'm going with this, right? I got PTSD from this. This.

Joel McLearn [00:44:13]:
Well, there's. There's just so much wasted time with. With it. Right. And. And I even ran into that, like I have. You talk about the humming and hawing when they take them out of storage or whatever. I told a guy he needed tires.

Joel McLearn [00:44:24]:
It was okay for inspection, but they were going to need to be done. Okay, well, I'll bring these ones over. Yeah. Okay. Brought them over, Put it up. Got them all apart. These tires are no better than the ones that you have on now. What do you want me to do? Hums and ha's for five minutes? Well, what would you do? Well, I'd buy tires.

Joel McLearn [00:44:42]:
Here's a price. And then he goes, no, don't want to do it. Just put it back up. Great. So there's an hour of my time, right. Plus a lost sale. Like, it's. I'm.

Joel McLearn [00:44:52]:
I will never hold on. Just tires. Like, I just. There's so many other avenues to make money and be honest and, you know. Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:45:00]:
So in that scenario, do you charge the guy for your time for that? That time?

Joel McLearn [00:45:04]:
I didn't.

Jeff Compton [00:45:05]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [00:45:06]:
But there I. I did say to Jaden afterwards, I was like, there's got to be something we can do, some kind of inspection fee or something for doing that. Because it's not. It's not my fau fault that whoever did his tires before did last time, you know, Tell him. Yeah, right.

Jeff Compton [00:45:21]:
100.

Joel McLearn [00:45:21]:
Documentation is key.

Jeff Compton [00:45:23]:
And that's. That's what would drive me nuts. I'd be at, you know, one of the former shops and. And they're like customers calling up how much to do a tire changeover. 149, right off. Rims, rebalance, whatever. We're throwing numbers around, right? And they go, okay, can I make an appointment? Sure. Same thing.

Jeff Compton [00:45:39]:
You get them out of the car. You look at them, you're like, these aren't. We can't put these on. Like, I. In good standings can't put these on. They're. They're dry rotted. They're.

Jeff Compton [00:45:47]:
The belt that's got cord coming through like that rim's bent, the wheel bearing shot, the tire rods falling out. Oh, my God. You're trying to upsell me.

Joel McLearn [00:45:58]:
Why do we want to get sued? When it goes down the road, what.

Jeff Compton [00:46:02]:
Do we Even bother like Costco and Canadian Tire are waiting for this customer.

Joel McLearn [00:46:07]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:46:08]:
Waiting for this type of customer. We're not. Why are we doing all the old adage, the old thinking, everything that got published in our Canadian trade magazines. You've read them? I read them. Well, that's how you get the upsells. That's how you get the. Find the brakes and the ball joints. Sure it is.

Jeff Compton [00:46:21]:
Yes. I want to do it for my established customers though. I never got into the idea that the tires was going to bring me a whole bunch of new customers. And I know the guys that are going to listen to this are like you're crazy. It brought me 20% of my new customer base came from tires. I'd rather.

Joel McLearn [00:46:36]:
Good, you can have them.

Jeff Compton [00:46:38]:
I'd rather get the 20 new customers from the fact that I have a reputation for being able to do good diag. That's what I'd rather get that 20. I don't have to buy a twenty thousand dollar tire machine. I don't have to buy A twenty thousand dollar balancer, right? Yes. I got to buy a scan tool. Yes. I got to get some subscriptions. Yes.

Jeff Compton [00:46:57]:
I got to do some training. I can put all that in a spot of real estate this big, you.

Joel McLearn [00:47:03]:
Know, I'm not up a whole bay.

Jeff Compton [00:47:05]:
Exactly. So I find that the guys that make money doing it, Joel, are the guys. And again, when you're paying your high level tech, let's throw a number out there. $40 an hour to do tires. I don't care. You can show, you can show me how you make it pay. It doesn't pay. It's not worth it.

Jeff Compton [00:47:26]:
You need a bunch of staff if you're going to do it at like to $20, $25 an hour. That's how you make it work. Make money. At the dealership when I was there the last kick at it, you'd be assigned had tires in the ro and something else. All the quick lube kids were the ones that did your tires for you. You got the time. But they did it because it was like they'd be stacked up around the machine waiting and they would just stand there like they were. God bless them, they worked hard, man, those young kids.

Jeff Compton [00:47:55]:
But they would do four, put it on the balancer like it was an assembly line thing and they bring them over to your bay like I didn't have to touch them other than take them off the car.

Joel McLearn [00:48:03]:
And there was four people on a car sometimes.

Jeff Compton [00:48:05]:
Yeah, like if you can't run that in your independent Shop. You got to really think like, man, you know, it's different if you're just doing a bunch of swaps, but if you're doing like, oh, Mrs. Smith is here four new rubber, you know, you're, you're going to hit a snag. I guarantee you ain't going to turn that car over in an hour. Not like, or you're gonna turn it over an hour, but you're gonna bring it back in two hours later to do the brake job that you sold. Which is, it is what it is. It's not a perfect world, but man, that's the part that I hated. I absolutely hated it because like, I should have been doing my dvi, driving the car, going, it needs brakes, selling the brakes.

Jeff Compton [00:48:45]:
Then I bring it in one time, then I do the tires and the brakes and they're like, well, how do you know the brakes are bad if you didn't take the wheels off? Again, it goes back to, you know, I racked it. I see that they're metal on metal, or I hear that they're metal on metal. And I sell that inspection, you know.

Joel McLearn [00:49:01]:
And don't have friggin waiters so that you can shuffle that stuff around.

Jeff Compton [00:49:05]:
What's your policy on waiters, Joel?

Joel McLearn [00:49:07]:
Well, I basically I leave that to Jaden. She has it figured out. She does, like if the day works out, she does like four waiters a day. 7:00am, 11:31 and like five.

Jeff Compton [00:49:22]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [00:49:22]:
And that's, that's all it is. And a lot of times it's not even that we don't do. Look, we don't advertise. We got a waiting space. Yes. We got a couple chairs, you can sit down. Fine. But I, as much as I can, we avoid doing waiters.

Joel McLearn [00:49:34]:
I've got two hoists and I'm one person. So if like you said, you, you do your checks and all that stuff, you shove that car on a hoist, well, now I can move on to something else and we can sell that work and hopefully if the day works out, it's already on the hoist, the wheels are off and you can do what you got to do. So that's kind of how we do it. I really try to avoid waiters. And of course people think like, oh, well, if you're not allowing waiters just because you, you really weren't that long in the car and you taking advantage of them. No, I'm not going to have somebody sitting there and tell them, by the way, you need $700 worth of brakes and they Sit there. And they go, well, I have somewhere to go, so I can't exactly. Can't stay.

Joel McLearn [00:50:12]:
Well, if you left the car all day, that's not a problem.

Jeff Compton [00:50:14]:
Yeah. And everybody thinks, well, the solution to that is you just need loaners. Or the solution to that is you need a shuttle. You know, the dealer thing works for a shuttle. Because, like, here's the other thing that the dealers do with the shuttle. They pick up the parts in the afternoon. Right. So you may need a part picked up somewhere else.

Jeff Compton [00:50:30]:
A shuttle bus driver grabs it on the way back from dropping Mrs. Smith off of the office. I love shout out to Mrs. Becky Witt. If you guys are not seeing her. She does her weekly thing. Becky. The most groundbreaking thing Becky ever talked me through was how they got rid of the waiting room during COVID and they never brought it back.

Joel McLearn [00:50:47]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [00:50:48]:
And she can show you all the numbers, how it went up, not down up. Because they got the people out of the building, like. And, and I joked with my former boss. He's like, we got some new chairs in the waiting room. I'm like, you should throw them right in the dumpster. You shouldn't have your customers waiting around. Because I've been at the dealer where, you know, the service advisor. They build them for an hour diag and he goes out to them at 35 minutes, and he says, hey, your car needs a new ignition coil.

Jeff Compton [00:51:17]:
And they go, I just watched the guy through the window like it didn't even take him 35 minutes. Like it took him 15. And then he went over and, you know, he went to the bathroom or he went and he was over on the other side of the shop talking to a guy drinking a coffee like, I don't want to pay 35 minutes or, you know, an hour. That's the other problem with waiter. Right? It's. And I'm not trying to say we're trying to mislead or dupe people or, or oversell, but the reality is sometimes that's how minimum charges and flat rate work, you know, even from the basics is, yeah, I, I, I'm an hour allotted for diag. I'm sharp guy. I figured out 15 minutes I'm going to get paid an hour because the next time I might be two hours and only get paid an hour or my tech or whatever.

Jeff Compton [00:52:04]:
And then I had a really good conversation with cecil last year, Mr. Bullard, and he talked about how at 30 minutes of an hour diag sold. They should be coming to you saying, do you need more time or not at 30 minutes. Because he says, we're not selling parts in that. So the loaded labor rate is different. And we need to account for the fact that there's no parts on that die. So makes all the sense to me in the world.

Joel McLearn [00:52:27]:
And that's exactly why my initial diag fee covers half an hour. And that's it.

Jeff Compton [00:52:32]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [00:52:33]:
And that way I can go to that customer and say, like, what's your limit on this? Because I'm going to get paid regardless. Because I'm going to get paid to tell you all the things it's not. Right. Because there's a lot of value in that.

Jeff Compton [00:52:45]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [00:52:45]:
They're not. And so that's where I start. So it's like, well, if it's. If it's 79.95 for that first half hour block, how much more straight time after that? How much are you willing to spend on this problem? Right. And it doesn't. And just like you said, if I figured out in 15 minutes, it's still the 79.95.

Jeff Compton [00:53:02]:
Sure. Yeah.

Joel McLearn [00:53:03]:
Right. Because I'm paying for a scan tool. I'm paying for the updates, I'm paying for everything.

Jeff Compton [00:53:08]:
You're paying for your 20 some years of experience. That's the other thing I say all the time. Like, there's so much that I get from the initial scan and the road test that I'm 80% there most of the time. You know, like somebody comes in and they say, it seems down on power. I want a new fuel pump. And I walk out to it and I hook the scan tool up and I go for a drive. And I come back, I'm like, it's not a fuel pump. The cat's restricted.

Jeff Compton [00:53:32]:
Like, I didn't have to put a gauge on that car. The. The data is showing me that it's not fuel.

Joel McLearn [00:53:38]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [00:53:39]:
It's cat. Right. And they go, oh, well, then I only want to pay 15 minutes. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It took me 30 years to get to where I can do that that fast.

Joel McLearn [00:53:48]:
I'm watching your mass airflow data take a nosedive under wide open throttle.

Jeff Compton [00:53:53]:
Exactly.

Joel McLearn [00:53:53]:
You didn't know that coming in here, but I did when I watched it happen.

Jeff Compton [00:53:57]:
Yeah, right. And the other guy that put plugs and coils on it, he didn't know that either.

Joel McLearn [00:54:01]:
Exactly.

Jeff Compton [00:54:02]:
Or. Yeah. Or I had, We've all had the trucks or the cars. You go up the hill and you. And you wide open throttle it and the O2 drops off, the thing goes pig lean. Well, guess what? Now we're into a fuel problem, right? Or we're probably into a fuel problem. I mean there's one more check, right? We unplug the math and we try it again. And, and ah, she's still lean.

Jeff Compton [00:54:23]:
Like I'm coming back and I'm going, there's a fuel problem here. People go, oh my God. I'm not paying an hour for that. I didn't sell you any other parts that didn't like fix it, right? I didn't do a bunch of tests. I just know that this is the next thing that's going to do because here's the thing, right guys, pull a plug out like the amateurs. Pull a plug out. I broke the plug off. Or break the.

Jeff Compton [00:54:46]:
Let's, let's pick out four deer. I go to take the coil out and I break the bowl off of the valve cover. Guess what, I'm just selling now. I just upsold a valve cover just to tell you that it's your fuel pump driver module is bad or something like that. I didn't even need to take the coil out, but if I didn't know what I was doing, I'm causing more damage. This is the other thing where like experience and time don't always equate to one another in terms of how like oh, I want to flat rate this tech or I want to, you know, the production is down because blah, blah, blah, blah blah blah blah. I say there's no mark, you can't. There's no metric for what he saves or she saves by not going down rabbit holes.

Jeff Compton [00:55:29]:
We all do it. We all go down a rabbit hole once in a while. But I didn't damage stuff. That was a pointless thing to endeavor to check anyway. That's the beauty of it, right? That's where the training comes in. If we're giving away that diag, we can't even pay for the training. Step it. You know, I didn't mean to pick on Ford.

Joel McLearn [00:55:47]:
Now they're fun.

Jeff Compton [00:55:49]:
They're all junk. Funny store as that Canadian tire today. My 2015 Wrangler has the original battery in it. I know, 10 year old. I know. I couldn't believe it. I checked it.

Joel McLearn [00:56:01]:
How did you do that?

Jeff Compton [00:56:04]:
I just use it. It's been used non stop since I've got it, so it's not like it's ever had a chance to sit and so I come out of Canadian Tire and I bought the battery there and you're like why'd you buy the battery there? Well, because I can Get a four year replacement with the warranty for what I buy. I can't. The parts store can't even touch it. And I had some Canadian Tire money accumulated. The Americans would be like, what's Canadian Tire money? I'll tell you all about it some on another episode. But I had a bunch. You know what it is? Joel knows.

Jeff Compton [00:56:28]:
So I had a bunch of Canadian Tire money that helps me pay for the battery, get the battery come out. And there's another guy, he's, he's carrying oil out and he gets into the Ford parked in the line behind me and he hears me hit this key on my Jeep and of course, click, click, click. So of course I have a booster right in the back, right? And he looks over and he goes, do you need a boost? I go, no, I got a booster right here. You know, I'm kind of embarrassed or whatever. And he's like, he says, because I could get the Ford here and you know, push it. But she probably don't want that to be embarrassed, you know, took a Ford, push start your Jeep. I'm like, no, I like force. They've made me a ton of money as a mechanic.

Jeff Compton [00:57:04]:
And he goes, and he goes, yeah, I'm one too. It's made me a pile. Well, it doesn't seem to matter where you go, right? Like it's the same old thing. It's the last. The only reason I'm putting the battery in is because I'm driving to Syracuse to fly out on, on Wednesday morning. So I'm driving to Syracuse Tuesday night to catch the flight to Asta and I don't want to be coming back and finally have it where I can't even get the thing to start with a boost, right? And like, where am I going to find a battery and an alternator or whatever I need in Syracuse, New York, you know, before everything shuts down. When I happen to fly back in, I don't want that headache. So, you know, 10 years is good enough for the OE battery.

Jeff Compton [00:57:45]:
Yeah, it's pretty amazing.

Joel McLearn [00:57:46]:
That's actually really good.

Jeff Compton [00:57:48]:
Yeah. So I couldn't believe it. I'm looking like this is a freaking original battery. Like, that's incredible. So, yeah, I can't, I can't complain. I can't complain. It's been a good.

Joel McLearn [00:57:58]:
You buy your Jeep new?

Jeff Compton [00:58:00]:
I bought it. So it's a 2015. I bought it in 20. 2021.

Joel McLearn [00:58:07]:
Already had an oil cooler put in it?

Jeff Compton [00:58:09]:
No. Well, maybe if they did, they didn't upgrade to the aluminum one, right? So it was. May have been done at the dealer. I don't know. I have one from Dormant sitting here, actually, when I come back from Aston, I'm gonna put it in because it's. It is leaking a little bit around the seals. And it's so funny. I go to the parts counter at Canadian Tire, and everybody's like, the Americans will be like, what's Canadian Tire? Well, it's the largest player in the game up here in Canada, right? But I go.

Jeff Compton [00:58:36]:
And I'm, you know, I'm like, how much for battery? And he's checking me. He goes, how do you like your Pentastar? I go, I freaking love it. Got a hundred. And what do I have on it now? 158,000km on it. He's like, oh, is it ticking yet? Nope, not ticking yet. Said, I change my oil if you maintain it. I said, I change my oil, like every 5000k. I don't let it go to the oil.

Jeff Compton [00:58:59]:
Life is telling me to change it. I do it early. I said, I keep an eye on it. Like, I don't, you know, what about your oil cooler? I said, well, it leaks a little bit of coolant when it's hot, but it's not leaking the oil yet. And it's like, it's not leaking the coolant that you can see it. You can just smell it when it's hot. You can walk past and you can smell it coming out of the cooler. So I said, I got a new one coming in.

Jeff Compton [00:59:18]:
So. Because he gets talking about, oh, yeah, because I got an oil pressure switch I got to do in mine. I'm like, oh, yeah, why is that? And he's like, oh, it just get. Threw me a code for that. I'm like, okay, yeah, okay. Yeah. So he's like, you know. And I'm like, have you done your cooler? He's like, no, I got.

Jeff Compton [00:59:38]:
I got one to do. And he says, I'm just going to do the cooler because the cooler comes with the sensor in it. I'm like, you don't want to put that sensor in there. You'll be doing the job again.

Joel McLearn [00:59:46]:
Absolutely.

Jeff Compton [00:59:47]:
And he's like, oh, Because I think it's a. And then he says, oh, I also ordered a sensor from Rock Auto. And I'm like, oh, what brand did you order that one with the wings shade on them? Because I, you know, I do like their. I like the company, but, you know, And I. I said, well, this has been my experience with. With those. They either work or. I said, they Don't.

Jeff Compton [01:00:09]:
As soon as you. You're done and you put them in and then you got to get back out. And I said, I understand it's a pretty easy job to get in there, but it is. You still have to take the cooler back out essentially to change that thing. So I said my opinion, just go back on Rock Auto, see if you can buy an OE sensor. If you can't go down to the dealer, buy the OE sensor. When you do your cooler, put it in. That's probably what I'm gonna do.

Jeff Compton [01:00:29]:
And I've done some coolers. I don't know if you've done them on the pentastars. I've had a couple. I can't get them to come out.

Joel McLearn [01:00:34]:
They. They stick in pretty hard or the little brass thing will spin in the friggin cooler or whatever. Yeah, no, I'm with you on that one.

Jeff Compton [01:00:42]:
Yeah. So I know Dorman used to sell it completely full like with the sensors and everything like that. And then they change the part number and they don't put the sensors in anymore and blah blah, blah, blah. I. I'll probably just order two sensors right from the dealer and I'll put them in when I have it out and done with it. And then.

Joel McLearn [01:00:59]:
That Dorman fix is sweet. The only, the only complaint I have, and it's just a little bit of experience will tell you not to is if you read the instructions. They give you the torque spec right in the instructions for those sensors and you get nervous trying to get to that torque spec. So you just don't. Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:01:15]:
And I'll tell you right now, I've done a pile of them and I've never torqued the sensor.

Joel McLearn [01:01:20]:
Exactly. And I don't either for that reason.

Jeff Compton [01:01:22]:
Yeah, I just. Because I. Same thing. I looked at it. It's like well over 20 foot pounds or something. Like I'm not even going to try and put that in there at that. No thank you. No.

Jeff Compton [01:01:30]:
I. I've done enough oil sending units and all kinds of stuff to know when it's tight, you know, and it's not. It's not going to leak. Like I don't wanna. I don't want that headache. But Dorman get a big. You know. And like I've seen every show I go to now Lester from Dorman is there and he's a great guy and we have some awesome conversations and I mean they are a fantastic company because Lester has never once ever shied away from a tough question.

Jeff Compton [01:01:57]:
I'll be standing there Talking to him, and somebody will come up and give him a smart remark or whatever. And he.

Joel McLearn [01:02:02]:
They.

Jeff Compton [01:02:02]:
They're just consummate professionals. They handle it like pros. And you have to remember, the guys that are. You're dealing with at the trade show, they're not the ones that are making the decisions on how the parts are being built. So, like, yeah, we all rip on them and we say, like. But, like, I go up to him, I go, man, I love that fix for that. And so there's some other stuff, too, that's not the electronic stuff. That is just great.

Jeff Compton [01:02:26]:
And he says to me, and I'll remind everybody else like this, if you have a dormant part and you put it in and it doesn't work, you can send it back to your supplier and they'll warrant it out for you and all that jazz. What Dorman really wants is for you to send it back to Dorman, and they will pay you the value of that, because what they really need is that part back for. To understand failure analysis of what happened.

Joel McLearn [01:02:53]:
And, you know, it's not going back to them when it goes to the part store. And I. I get that 100. Yeah, I. I'm with you. I. I really like Dorman as a. As a company.

Joel McLearn [01:03:03]:
I don't care for the things that they just made to mass produce, but anything that, you know, was built for a fix. You know, the. The Ford vacuum hub deletes.

Jeff Compton [01:03:14]:
Yes.

Joel McLearn [01:03:14]:
They're sweet. You know the Penn State oil cooler. They're sweet. Do I want to buy window regulators from. Absolutely not. Yeah, right.

Jeff Compton [01:03:23]:
A lot of the. The thermostat housings for the three sixes, and they've got the updated ones in the Chrysler where it used to be plastic and now it's aluminum. Yeah. If you can't tell me that's not a wonderful built idea.

Joel McLearn [01:03:36]:
Yeah, you're.

Jeff Compton [01:03:37]:
You're just hating on the brand. And I get it. You know, like, we all got stories of, I had to do the job twice because of whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I get it. I'm not putting a dormant vent solenoid or purge solenoid in a car. I'm sorry. I ain't doing it.

Joel McLearn [01:03:51]:
I learned I have a Corolla that has come back, and. And to be honest, I didn't even know it was a dormant purge solenoid. It was. I bought it through Napa. They. They use the Dorman number, but it's Napa Whatever solutions.

Jeff Compton [01:04:04]:
Yes.

Joel McLearn [01:04:05]:
Yeah. So I put, I think, four of them on before I realized that it was actually dormant and it was constantly sticking open, causing lean this and that. And I finally put.

Jeff Compton [01:04:18]:
I don't know.

Joel McLearn [01:04:18]:
I don't know where I got it from. Might have been carquest, I'm not sure. But I looked, I was like, okay, I know the Dorman part number lingo. That's not a dormant part number. And I put that one on it. And it's been going for a year and a half. Yeah, no problem.

Jeff Compton [01:04:30]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [01:04:31]:
And it sucks. But. And I don't like throwing that out there because they make so many good things.

Jeff Compton [01:04:37]:
Yes, they do.

Joel McLearn [01:04:38]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:04:38]:
And they really, genuinely care. They really do. Like, I mean, I talked to the guys last year at Echelon when I was at Seaman Apex. I talked to the guys that were like, oh man, Somewhat standard blue streak, you know, Dorman. And I can honestly say that Dorman like takes it on the chin better than anyone else because we've. We bought standard parts that don't work, we've bought Echelon parts that don't work, we've bought. I'm trying to think of the other wells. There's another big.

Jeff Compton [01:05:08]:
I talked to them, great company. They're not very big here. They're hard to get. Like, if I phone up the parts store and go, I need a wells, they can't get one. Right. Not, Not a big distributor here. But Dorman is the. Is the best for me.

Jeff Compton [01:05:22]:
And sitting down and listening to what I have to say about like, you know, their parts. And I've. Lester's such a great guy. Like, he's been on. I think he's been on twice. You know, he's been on for sure once. And I know he's.

Joel McLearn [01:05:34]:
He has been on twice.

Jeff Compton [01:05:35]:
Yes.

Joel McLearn [01:05:36]:
I've gone through the entire friggin catalog. And I'm. And you, you hear these names and you start to remember and you start to feel like you actually know them. When you say Lester, I'm like, yeah, I know exactly who you're talking about. And he does. He just seems so easygoing and he, he gets, he gets the struggle, but he's also trying to communicate like this is what we need to make this go better.

Jeff Compton [01:05:56]:
And he does.

Joel McLearn [01:05:56]:
I think that's great.

Jeff Compton [01:05:57]:
100%. Brian Pollock has that story of like, there it was again. It was a personal night or something to do on a Honda and I can't remember what. But Brian, literally. Because Brian's the smartest stock I know, uses a lab scope and captures the. The pintle hump of the. It was a son of Sometime closing, I can't remember. He'll remind me tomorrow when I ask him.

Jeff Compton [01:06:18]:
And, and literally. So he takes a screenshot, takes the lab scope captures, send them to Lester and says, because Lester, this is what it's doing. This millisecond on time is not enough compared to the OE one. And, and this is what you need to do. Well, they fixed the friggin part. They fixed it. Now Brian can confidently buy that one. And it will work because Brian took them and gave them the data that they actually need.

Jeff Compton [01:06:42]:
Because you know how it is. They put it on the bench and you test it, run it through a cycle and it, the, it doesn't stick for 50 times. You go, I don't know what's going on. It's misdiagnosed. It's not, it's just that bench is not real world. Right? The car is real world. It's that kind of stuff that Brian was able to provide for them is what we need. So that's why Lester says to me all the time, like, if we could get the old parts back, it's to your benefit of the shop because we will pay you for the part.

Jeff Compton [01:07:07]:
Like, it's not a problem, you'll get credit. It's no big deal. Can they pay warrant like labor? No, but we know lots of shops now dealing, buying it from Napa. You're not getting your labor covered.

Joel McLearn [01:07:19]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [01:07:20]:
You know what I mean? Or if you are, it's not a full jam.

Joel McLearn [01:07:23]:
No, it's really significantly less. Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:07:26]:
What's it really worth? You know? Do you get a lot of customers? So what's your part? What's your breakdown on like how many times you're selling OE parts versus aftermarket?

Joel McLearn [01:07:35]:
It. I find like with, with Ford, for example, there's, for whatever reason, there's less availability in the aftermarket for them. So we go to the Ford dealership a lot. And, and that's why I keep saying that because it's true. We go to them a lot. I am primarily aftermarket until I realize that I'm having a repeat failure that I can prove isn't something that I did. Right. And then, and then it's like, okay, no, we gotta, we gotta do this differently.

Joel McLearn [01:08:06]:
We, we are on the, the carquest tech Net program. Okay. So we, a lot of it, we do have our, our warranty and stuff like that. But you know, like you said, the, the, the, the labor warranty doesn't cover when I have to do. When a starter is 60 bucks. And it's, it's a starter on the back side of a Nissan Titan and you got to pull the intake to do it. And it's several, you know, it kind of blows. But I mean there's the chances that you take.

Joel McLearn [01:08:32]:
Is it like that most of the time? No, but it's not the end of the world. But I, I'm okay with the aftermarket side of things. Like I said, until it, until it becomes a repeat issue and then it's like, okay, we got to make some changes.

Jeff Compton [01:08:45]:
Yeah. Rotating electrical. When I talk to a lot of my shop owner friends around here and all over, it's become the worst sector of the aftermarket parts thing in the last two years. They say without question followed by can you pick number two?

Joel McLearn [01:09:02]:
Some places I could go with, oh my God, don't get me started on friggin struts. Holy Jesus.

Jeff Compton [01:09:09]:
My brother. Yeah, I. A good friend of mine, Greg Bowman, runs a good shop here in town. He says not. No, no more aftermarket. Nope. Won't buy them out aftermarket anywhere. He says won't even buy it.

Jeff Compton [01:09:20]:
And, and I used to think like Monroe Quick Struts were a good product. And I have a friend's Kia that we put a set in three years ago. 40,000 km in three years. Not a lot. And, and it's, and it's not going to make a pile of noise.

Joel McLearn [01:09:35]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:09:36]:
And like I said to Beth, I said I can't do anything about it. Like there's no warranty on it and like I don't, I don't work there anymore. Like if you could get warranty on it, I'd probably throw it in for 50 bucks. You know, it's not a hard strut to change. And, but, and even if I go, what am I going to do? Go buy another Monroe Quick strap and put it in. Like should I. Everybody's like, oh well, during COVID you know, parts supply dried up and they were using whatever. Okay, well then warranty the damn part.

Jeff Compton [01:10:04]:
Just tell everybody, hey, you know how it was. We're going to extend this, you know, bring in your paper, blah, blah, blah. They won't do that.

Joel McLearn [01:10:11]:
No.

Jeff Compton [01:10:12]:
What do I buy then? Call the dealer up and order strut mounts.

Joel McLearn [01:10:16]:
I guess that's pretty much it unfortunately. Like, you know, for a long time. Like I don't have a spring compressor because very rarely do you break struts down. But you're getting to the point where. No, I'm pretty much gonna have to.

Jeff Compton [01:10:31]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [01:10:31]:
At this point. And start putting actual good mounts in that Seems to be the only, the only fix.

Jeff Compton [01:10:38]:
It's brutal. It's terrible. That and rotating electrical back to it. Like, I mean, I, I again, my good friend Greg, same shop, I don't know how many he was telling me, like, alternators he was putting on this one Hyundai, it was like six or more before we finally got it. One that worked and like to where carquest was not warranted him anymore. He put it in, you know, and it's one of the again, it's an ECM controlled system so, you know, it would charge, but it's flagging DTCs and turning the battery light on. Even though until Carquest is like, well, it must be something you're doing wrong. And he's like, no, man, this is a pretty.

Joel McLearn [01:11:12]:
My least favorite thing of them to say is, is that. And, and actually it's funny you should talk about the rotating electrical because my mother's 2012 Civic is sitting out there right now. Low output from the alternator. Okay, you know what, it's my mom's car. I'm not going to do any diagonal. I'm just gonna, you know, it's got almost 300,000 clicks on it. Okay. So I put a reman alternator in it first and now charging output is great.

Joel McLearn [01:11:38]:
Guess what? Battery lights on. So what do I do now? I get a new alternator. Yeah, charging outputs great. Battery lights on. Original alternator back in. Low output. So I know. Yes, it's an alternator.

Joel McLearn [01:11:52]:
So what do I do? I need to. I'm gonna go on World Pack tomorrow morning and I'm gonna get a Denso alternator.

Jeff Compton [01:11:57]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [01:11:58]:
For my 20 mom's 2012 Honda Civic. And that had better, well fix it.

Jeff Compton [01:12:02]:
And it most likely will, you know, but I mean, at the same time, like, you got to go on World Pack. You might save a hundred bucks, you know, between World Pack versus buying it at the dealer. Except the dealer is going to go, what? How old? Yeah, well, let me check. I can get one at a Moose Jaw, you know, like five days to get here. Like there it's not sitting in a warehouse anymore. Something that old. No, that's the frustrating part for me. Like Greg said, like when they say to him, are you sure you, you're d like Greg's one of the top diagnostic guys in my local area.

Jeff Compton [01:12:33]:
Like he can diagnose cars. He's not wrong. He can tell you that. Yeah. I put it in again and it's like a five hour alternator job. He's got it down to where he does it in like an hour and 20 minutes, you know, like, he's got it done. Might as well be Velcro by now. Right.

Jeff Compton [01:12:45]:
He's had it in the house many times, but that's frustrating. And. And it's not paying the full labor rate is. Is. I think at some point, the. The parts suppliers are going to have to make that correct.

Joel McLearn [01:12:58]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:12:58]:
And step up to the plate, because otherwise, what are we going to do? And I've said it for years, like, there's a reason that there's such a divide between the dealers and the aftermarket in this industry is because, like, so many years ago, you could probably remember you're old enough, and we might still do it. You call up the dealer once in a while for help. Not like, I need to buy a part, but can, you know, like, what are you moving a lot of these? Like, I got a car here. And then as soon as they say, yeah, it's that, we go, okay, I'll get off the phone. I'm gonna phone my supplier and see if I can get the part. If we stopped doing that to each other. Right. Like, if we made the OE part, the first call, the first install, the first choice, and they started stock.

Jeff Compton [01:13:41]:
Here's the other thing. Dealers, you're gonna have to carry some inventory. But if we started doing that, we'd have a much better relationship with each other in terms of the OE side, I think, in the aftermarket side. But we don't, because we want to buy this crap from offshore for 1/5 the price so that we can get our. Our parts margin up to where it's the same damn price as. As the. What the dealer would sell or expect.

Joel McLearn [01:14:09]:
It to work as long, too. Yes.

Jeff Compton [01:14:11]:
And then we put it on and we go, that alternator didn't last 18 months. Or the Ford trucks. That was the worst for me because they'll shoe the flywheel up. Let's shoot a flywheel right off. And it's like, what's the fix for that? Put the OE one on. Oh, my God. It costs three times as much. Well, now we're doing a flywheel because we skipped out on the starter.

Jeff Compton [01:14:28]:
Do you mean to tell me that was the right answer? Like, you know, no, it wasn't. But they go, oh, it's. Maybe it's got a voltage problem or maybe that, you know, the solenoid's not holding incorrectly because of a volt drop problem that's chewing the. It could be, but I also know it's not Because I diagnosed it properly and it's a solenoid in a gear and it's chewing my flywheel. Now I'm putting a flywheel in the car.

Joel McLearn [01:14:54]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [01:14:55]:
Because I, I skimped on the thing. We. It's one thing if the customer says, no, give me the cheapest part I can. I got no problem with that. You put on whatever you want to do then. But when we don't even. Joel. When we don't even give the customer the, the conversation of.

Jeff Compton [01:15:12]:
This is the part that I would really like to put in.

Joel McLearn [01:15:14]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [01:15:14]:
Yes, it's a lot of money and yes, I marked it up to get my margin where it needs to be. So it's even a little more money than what the dealer would sell it to you at whichever. Which we don't. We know they, they play that game too. Right.

Joel McLearn [01:15:28]:
Oh, that list price is a gimmick. Yeah. It doesn't matter where it comes from. For me, it gets the same markup because I'm it. You know, to that person, it's like going to Walmart. You're not asking Walmart where they gave. They got those breaks from. Yeah, that part came from me.

Joel McLearn [01:15:44]:
It did not come from Ford. It did not come from Nissan, Toyota, carquest, Napa. It came from me and I'm going to look after it.

Jeff Compton [01:15:51]:
That's right.

Joel McLearn [01:15:52]:
You. Because that's what you pay for. That's why you pay for markup. And no, we don't discount our labor to sell the job. Yeah. Right.

Jeff Compton [01:15:59]:
But it's frustrating because I know I worked at a shop that like, he, he had a really high door rate and I've said this before, he had a really high door rate. So what we ended up doing was we ended up putting a lot of not great parts on, but the margin was marked up properly. Like it should be whatever, 200 or whatever the number is. Like, you know, it's on a sliding scale. All that jazz. Throw again. I'm throwing numbers that are not. Please don't quote me on it.

Jeff Compton [01:16:28]:
So we would put on a lot of cheap parts because of the high door rate. We were already. Like, he was trying to be competitively priced. Well, frig if we didn't have a ton of rework starters and alternators and purge solenoids and vent valves and we had a lot of rework.

Joel McLearn [01:16:44]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [01:16:44]:
You know, we even had a lot of reworks sometimes on brakes and brake calipers. That's going back to it. Right. Like half of them you would buy, they leak after or like I don't know how many I had that I took out of the remand box. And I couldn't crank the piston in on the rear, you know, Caliper, supposed to be a brand new one. Can't do it. Now it's a 45 minute run to come back from the parts store. They got to bring me another one like you.

Jeff Compton [01:17:12]:
We were to the point where I almost wanted to say like, hey, send four calibers, right? You know, and they'd be like, why? Oh, the joke was like, come on. Exhaust system's another one. Like I. You might. Do you touch it at all?

Joel McLearn [01:17:27]:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:17:29]:
Do you have any kind of specialized. Like, do you. Do you have a expander and a bender of any kind or.

Joel McLearn [01:17:34]:
I have an expander. I don't have a bender. It's funny, when I first opened my shop, I bought the, the Blue Boy expander.

Jeff Compton [01:17:40]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [01:17:41]:
And everybody was like, why? Of all the things that you could buy first coming out with not a pot piss in, why would you buy that? I'm like, I don't have to stock 100,000 reducers and all that crap because I've got this tool and it has saved me so many times because, you know, the Walker stuff is only going to work if you buy Walker right from, from, from one end to the other and it's just.

Jeff Compton [01:18:03]:
And it's going to rot off in 18 months.

Joel McLearn [01:18:06]:
Exactly.

Jeff Compton [01:18:07]:
The pisses me right off is it's leaking again within 18 months, you know, and it just. And, and again, they've always been that. And I remember when you used to be able to buy a Bazelle muffler and it would last for Bazelle B O, S, A L. They used to be made right in Kingston. There was a factory right in Kingston made them.

Joel McLearn [01:18:23]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:18:23]:
I haven't even seen one anymore.

Joel McLearn [01:18:25]:
You can get them on worldpac because I, I have bought some of them and I really like them. It's. That's a good brand.

Jeff Compton [01:18:34]:
Yeah, yeah. With the Walker, it doesn't matter who you buy it from, what line you buy. It's all garbage. It's non galvanized. Like it's rotten. Within a year, the muffler's blowing out like the. I, I hate it. It's.

Jeff Compton [01:18:46]:
It's crap and the same thing like it doesn't matter. Everybody wants the seals welded because it's a better job. It's quieter, it's actually sealed. And then you go in and you're cutting the pipe to get the flipping muffler off. Again. Or you're, you know, the, the flange rotted out on the back of the resonator again. I'm welding a flange on like you might better. I know when I worked at Nissan, we were welding flanges on the factory stuff all the time.

Jeff Compton [01:19:12]:
And once you put the aftermarket flange on thing was good for two years, three years, no problems.

Joel McLearn [01:19:17]:
Yep.

Jeff Compton [01:19:18]:
But you go and put that walker kit on and you'd see it come in. It had a, all new kit on from like about a year ago and it's already leaking, it's already rotted out. And you're like calling the customer over putting a flange kit in this. And then they say, oh, I only want to pay 100 bucks to put a flange kit in. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Joel McLearn [01:19:35]:
That's not how it works.

Jeff Compton [01:19:36]:
We need a little more labor than that because like I'm going to weld it in. It's going to be done properly and measured and fit and all that kind of stuff. Oh my God, that's $200. I can buy a whole. Yeah. So go buy a whole system then for 600, put it on and come see me again next year when it's leaking. Like stop with it already. The OE pipe lasts.

Jeff Compton [01:19:54]:
We just have to work on it. Just. Oh well, Speedy will do it. Well then why the flipper in front of me? Speedy will do it for 100 bucks. Why are you in my friggin waiting room telling me what Speedy will do it for?

Joel McLearn [01:20:08]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [01:20:08]:
You already know you want me to do it for 90. That ain't happening. Come on. The dealership, like expect more than Speedy. Like it just. Yeah. And I'm not the greatest welder, so it would frustrate me to have to do it right. And I was meticulous about it.

Jeff Compton [01:20:22]:
And like, I love welding.

Joel McLearn [01:20:24]:
It's just one of those things. I, I love making things work that way and it not end up being a hack.

Jeff Compton [01:20:30]:
Do you know how many mirrors I've screwed up with welding slack trying to weld the top of the bike?

Joel McLearn [01:20:37]:
Yep.

Jeff Compton [01:20:39]:
Squinting and oh, I welded right to the mirror again that like it just, I hated it. Hated it. I've had lots of systems that I just took the whole system out, put it on the bench, put my pieces in and put it back in the car. It's not the fastest way, but it fit perfect. And I, I got a good weld.

Joel McLearn [01:20:55]:
Like I was that with the Toyotas because that, you know, they break theirs up into two pieces. The. The million converter piece and the muffler. Well, guess what? I'm yanking that converter off, and I'm taking those heat shields off and welding a band around them and all that stuff. And that's way cheaper. I can do that for 3, 400 bucks versus that pipe is $1300 from Walker. And guess what? You're going to be back in 18 months. Whatever.

Jeff Compton [01:21:21]:
Look at the newer Mazdas that. The. The cat manifold with the flex pipe right on the. But you know. Right. That flex cracks and breaks all the time.

Joel McLearn [01:21:30]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:21:30]:
And if you go and buy the aftermarket one, guess what? Well, you sealed it up, but you get a 420 DTC. So what do we do, folks? Do we do we put a spacer in, like when nobody's looking to get rid of the 420DTC? Or do we do. Or do we install the OE part? Okay, you install the OE part. What's that cost? 1400 bucks plus labor. It's a $2,000 job, you know, so this is the whole thing for me. Like, I look at that and go, I should be able to sell that customer the labor to remove that, put in a universal flex, and put it back in the car, and I'll still be less than 2000 bucks. You can't tell me that's not a good repair. That would be the repair I would want.

Jeff Compton [01:22:10]:
But yet everybody's like, I can't sell them that because I'm selling them fourteen hundred dollars for a fix versus two thousand for a brand new. This industry's got to get back to where we're proud to fix things and actually sell the fix, not sell the new part. And I know, I know we're supposed to be selling parts. You're coached to do that because that's your second half of your profit. But when it comes to Canadian cars.

Joel McLearn [01:22:35]:
And exhaust, it's not that easy.

Jeff Compton [01:22:38]:
It's not that easy for sure, you know?

Joel McLearn [01:22:41]:
Do you guys still have emissions testing in Ontario?

Jeff Compton [01:22:44]:
So here's the thing. I love this because we just. We just brought in the new. So you guys have mandatory safety inspections, right?

Joel McLearn [01:22:51]:
We have inspections, but we don't have emissions.

Jeff Compton [01:22:54]:
Right. And you do your safety inspection every two years. So right now we brought it where there's still not. We're not doing, like, you guys, where if you own the car, you've got to get inspected every year or every two. Excuse me. They think that's probably. They're talking like they're gonna roll that out in Ontario, because here's what we did, we said, okay, Ontario citizens, we're not gonna charge or renew your license plates anymore. Everybody.

Jeff Compton [01:23:16]:
Oh my God, that's amazing. That's just great. Like, you know, they don't buy a sticker. You don't do nothing. You own the car. You just like keep your registration up, but they're not charging you. That's great. But everybody went, wait a minute, what are they doing that for?

Joel McLearn [01:23:30]:
And it talks a catch here.

Jeff Compton [01:23:32]:
The talk is, at the same time, they rolled out a new safety standard that had to be all done with a tablet now. So. Tablet, right. We take photos of everything now. It's. It's not like the old stuff where it was like, yeah, it's good. Like, like everything is documented on a tablet with pictures. And in the process of doing this, Joel, they ask you, are there any check engine lights on in the car? And they ask you to hook up to the OBD 2.

Jeff Compton [01:24:00]:
Now, it doesn't fail the safety if it has a check engine light on. But they've made it part of the process now that they're scanning the cars. So we think that pretty much the, instead of having the dyno system testing the way we used to do in Ontario, that they're going to do the way the California and the states always did it, where it's, you know, where they tried to do it last time in Ontario, which was just a readiness monitor, but all those European cars that wouldn't come up, they wouldn't. Essentially, when you, when you people were complaining, they had brand new Audis, brand new Mercedes, brand new whatevers, and they go to the testing center and say, not ready, not ready, not ready, not ready, not ready. And they go over to the dealer and the dealer's like, nothing wrong with the car. Everything's all ready to send them back. You retest and retest and retest. It was a software thing.

Jeff Compton [01:24:47]:
So that's what got the system scrapped here because it was too hard to implicate on those cars. But I think it's coming back. It's only a matter of time. They keep saying, we just did a scan tool or scan tool. We just did a tablet update through Ministry mto Ontario. And they didn't change anything on that side. But they keep. The.

Jeff Compton [01:25:06]:
The rumors are it will be coming within the probably the next calendar year. You know, now if we change premiers, it can all.

Joel McLearn [01:25:13]:
Exactly.

Jeff Compton [01:25:15]:
You know, I get that. Yeah. But.

Joel McLearn [01:25:17]:
So, so now do you guys have like, does it. Is there a certain dollar amount that you have to charge? Like Is it a government mandated thing?

Jeff Compton [01:25:26]:
I don't, you know, I don't honestly know that because I think there is actually. Like, you can't charge more right then. No, you know, that's that changed. No, I can charge as much as I want to do. Safety. That's right. I can charge as much as I want. Because now with the tablet thing, when they brought the tablet out, everybody thought it was going to take two people to do it and it was going to take a lot longer to do.

Jeff Compton [01:25:51]:
I can tell you now that when I already have the car on the bay and I already have the wheels off the car, I. I do them in about 32 minutes. Right. All the inspection that needs to be done and photographed and evidence and all that kind of stuff. But if you're bringing in, that's. That's cars that like, I'm getting ready to sell. At the used car lot that I work at now, when a customer brings me a car and I have to do a safety on it, it takes me a lot longer because I road test the car, I pull the wheels, inspect everything. What slows that process down is now is again because we're doing it, when we're doing it, they want to start estimating the work that needs to be done because nobody wants to pay for a retest.

Jeff Compton [01:26:29]:
So what happens is, like, I'm inspecting your car for safety. You want to sell it to somebody else, you're going to do all the repairs it needs. Well, shit, it needs brakes, it needs a muffler, it needs this. So all of a sudden, now we're prepping and it's adding time to it.

Joel McLearn [01:26:44]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [01:26:44]:
Just from the me what I do every day, 32 minutes, safety's done.

Joel McLearn [01:26:49]:
Clocked.

Jeff Compton [01:26:50]:
Yeah. And that's if I. I do a pre inspection on the car, I go for road test, I inspect the brakes. If it needs brakes, it needs whatever. I do it and then I do my safety. After all the repairs are done. Where it gets tricky is when the customer brings it in. We have to decide we're doing a repair or not.

Jeff Compton [01:27:05]:
A lot of these cars come in, Joel, and it's like, oh, never mind, don't fix it. I'm getting rid of it because it needs too much. Everybody wants to sell a car right now. Safety. Well, going back to your rust thing. Oh, I got a 2012 Equinox that's only got 150,000 kilometers on it. Cool.

Joel McLearn [01:27:24]:
I already had two sets of rockers put in.

Jeff Compton [01:27:27]:
I was gonna say I condemned one last week.125,000km on. It ran awesome. Check engine light on for an oil control valve for the vvt. But it ran good at the time. I go to put it on the hoist. Nope. Start lifting it from the pinch welds. Rust starts falling from underneath.

Jeff Compton [01:27:44]:
I go ahead and lift it anyway, but I'm like, yeah, this one's done. It's done. What do you mean it's done? It's done. It's rotten. Oh, it's only got125,000. I know. They should undercoat it. Here's your pitch for undercoating.

Jeff Compton [01:27:55]:
And guys, like, didn't need to be done every year, but the first three years of his life, we wouldn't be having this conversation. So somebody came and bought that car as is and they took it somewhere where they're. They're either going to get a lick and stick safety or they're going to get somebody to throw some rockers on it. But I like it because now we're not putting a lot of junk back in on the road. Like, it drove me crazy to put brakes, tires and struts and stuff that doesn't have rocker panels. And in the old way of doing things under safety, we all know we all did it. We all did it. Everybody in Ontario did it.

Jeff Compton [01:28:29]:
Because it was so gray area as to does it pass or not? I know, my friend told me, like, you guys, you guys can fail rusted brake lines, right?

Joel McLearn [01:28:40]:
No, you can't fail rusted ones. They have to be leaking. But they could be bloomed up the size of your thumb and you know they're gonna fail a panic stop.

Jeff Compton [01:28:49]:
Right, right, right.

Joel McLearn [01:28:50]:
But if they're not leaking, you can't fail them.

Jeff Compton [01:28:54]:
Okay.

Joel McLearn [01:28:54]:
And it's sketchy because you want to document that and make sure everything. You know, and you definitely don't want someone going down the road where you just stickered it and then it comes back with a blown brake line. Right.

Jeff Compton [01:29:05]:
But you see guys get creative too, as to how ballooned up the line is too, I'm sure. Right?

Joel McLearn [01:29:10]:
Like, right. Yeah, there's a lot of that.

Jeff Compton [01:29:13]:
Do you, do you like doing brake lines?

Joel McLearn [01:29:15]:
I. You know what? Brake lines is one of those things. I actually do like doing them because my mindset is if, if I know a job is difficult, I'll do it, no problem. Right. It's the easy jobs that go to that make me savage. Right. So when you tell me that your 2004 Chev half ton needs brake lines behind the gas tank, give it to Me, I'll do it. You know, we're all under the understanding that it's hard to estimate that kind of work because obviously they're brake lines.

Joel McLearn [01:29:47]:
And, yes, I'm. I'm not just going to cut the old ones and leave them in there. I'm going to pull the other 50, 15 lines from where nobody wanted to take those lines out. It's all coming out and being done, right.

Jeff Compton [01:29:57]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [01:29:58]:
You know, so as far as brake lines go, I actually do quite enjoy them.

Jeff Compton [01:30:01]:
Okay.

Joel McLearn [01:30:03]:
I hope nobody in my area hears that, because I don't want to be inundated with brake lines for the next three goddamn weeks. But, you know.

Jeff Compton [01:30:09]:
But you're not scared to charge to do them right, either.

Joel McLearn [01:30:12]:
No.

Jeff Compton [01:30:12]:
Yeah. See, like, I work for guys that. It was an hour a line, and I'm like, no, that ain't gonna fly. Are you nuts? Here, like an hour online. Like, how do I. You know, because you know what? Without them saying, you know how they want it done, Just stick it in there. As long as it don't hit the drive shaft or the ground.

Joel McLearn [01:30:30]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:30:32]:
And I don't like doing it like that. I hate it. But again, you know how it's like, you talk about it. Well, you might have to remove the gas tank in order to run the fuel and brake lines. What's that going to be? Well, we're going to be a fuel tank.

Joel McLearn [01:30:44]:
You know, you're into straps and everything else.

Jeff Compton [01:30:47]:
We just took a leaky brake line job for 300 bucks. What? Somebody's. And it's. Now we're into a $2,000. Like, this is where in Canada, the challenges that we face is. Is a lot of people don't appreciate my. My friends in North Carolina, they can't even. They just shake their head and low.

Jeff Compton [01:31:02]:
What are you talking about? Like, we got 2003s running around here with the original brake lines on them. And I'm like, yeah, not up here.

Joel McLearn [01:31:10]:
Nice.

Jeff Compton [01:31:10]:
You know? No, it just doesn't happen. And, you know, the guys in the rust belt, we all see Eric. Oh, it's the same thing, right? Like, he's. Cars that are 8 years old up there, he's putting in the scrap yard because that's where they belong. There's so much salt. I. I don't like doing brake lines because the very first guy that I ever mentored underneath, he would be two days doing them, and it looked oe. You could not tell when it was done that it wasn't the OE lines on the car.

Jeff Compton [01:31:40]:
I would see him doing them, and I'm telling you, like, he was two days on them, and the car wasn't worth the time that was spent to do it. Like, we're talking old Toyota crious. You're probably not even old enough to remember city look like, but, like, imagine a Camry that was uglier, right? Was like a 1984. And in 2001, we're still. We're doing this. And it would be two days, and they looked oe fuel and brake lines. That was the only way he'd do it all. But it wasn't.

Jeff Compton [01:32:10]:
The car wasn't worth that. You know what I mean? Like, it wasn't worth the job. So finding that middle ground, Joel, of like, how do we get the thing back on the road and safe but not completely exceed the value of what? That's the trick for me, and that's why I want no part of it. Like, give me the stupidest, hardest diag job, right? I'd rather do that than run fuel lines and brake lines. The first thing I touch, the straps, break the bolts. That. Where the straps go into the frame, bust off, the bolt comes out. Oh, look, you know, there he is with a torch.

Jeff Compton [01:32:40]:
You've seen the guys use a torch to get an old Chevy fuel filter off. We've done it. They could go, what? Oh, yeah. I've worked with lots of guys that do that. Listen, it's only the vapor that starts, not the fuel.

Joel McLearn [01:32:54]:
That's right. As long as it's wet, you're good.

Jeff Compton [01:32:59]:
Meanwhile, you're outside, like, standing in the shop, waiting outside in the parking lot, waiting for him to be finished before you come back in, because you just, you know, you don't want to see your friend become the human torch. I. I like the. I like the diag jobs better. I like the than. Than those kind of things because I'm always, like, I always know what most people charge to do it. And I know we always go over. And those are the kind of jobs where it's like, well, it was still a $2,000 job.

Jeff Compton [01:33:30]:
Yeah. Okay, so, you know, still got eight hours labor out of it. But Frigg, man, like, we were on it a day and a half. We went over, you know, there was a whole. Like, I didn't get all my fittings because I didn't get the exact estimate on fittings we need. And, like, I, you know, I gave him the f tank it cost or the pump it cost or the. The fitting to repair the fuel line. I gave that a cost because it Wasn't on.

Jeff Compton [01:33:52]:
Like, it's like you said, it's too hard for me to estimate.

Joel McLearn [01:33:54]:
You know, it's extremely difficult to estimate that stuff. You have to be, you really have to vet your customer on that and just say, like, look, this is where we're starting and we kind of have to roll from there. And, and that's why like, like you say with the diag stuff. I'm kind of with you on that one. Because, yes, it's, it's hard. Some people think that when you dumb it down, you say, well, it took me four and a half hours to find this broken wire. And they say, oh, so all you did was fix it and you charged me this much? Well, no, it's, that's not, that's not what you're paying for, like all the time and all the testing and, and all that. Right.

Joel McLearn [01:34:29]:
Like, that's, that's different.

Jeff Compton [01:34:30]:
Eric oh had a video that went out just the other day, and it was a truck that. The four coils on that side of the six liter. It's like a 2009 Silverado six liter. It's not. There's no spark on one side of the engine. We know what it is. It's a, it's a ground. Right? It's the ground.

Jeff Compton [01:34:47]:
And that's the same thing. He, he, you know, he leaned on the line to the power steering pump and thought he was going to break it off. Thank God he didn't. But like, we know that if that winds up in the other shop, you know what it's getting, it's getting an ecm, it's getting a fuse box, and then they're going to say it's got to be a harness somewhere. But it's getting the fuse box in the PCM first. Yeah, well, frig he, he diagnosed it in under an hour. I mean, the guy's a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. But I mean, like, a lot of us have diagnosed that in an hour, two hours, right? I mean, and save the customer a.

Joel McLearn [01:35:22]:
Ton of money, but you look like a dick for charging it. You know what I mean? Like, it just doesn't make sense.

Jeff Compton [01:35:28]:
I'm good with looking like a dick, honestly.

Joel McLearn [01:35:30]:
Like, that comes with the trade.

Jeff Compton [01:35:33]:
Okay, listen, if I wasn't comfortable with my level of dickness, I wouldn't have this podcast because, I mean, I wouldn't be like, I, it's, it's okay. Like, some things are going to rub people the wrong way and, and you can't make everybody happy. And that's all right, you know? I just, if we have, if we vetted our customer property, and again, it's the same thing. I, I, I keep, I catch a lot of flack because they say, like, most service advisors in the industry right now are not cutting it. And they go, oh, they're selling great. Their numbers are awesome. Yes, their numbers are awesome. But the customers, we're not changing the customer's perception of really what we're doing in terms of when they leave.

Jeff Compton [01:36:11]:
They still don't really understand.

Joel McLearn [01:36:13]:
That's the big thing right there. They have to understand before they leave. You can't just say, hey, you need a fuel pump. You need to explain to them, well, fuel pressure low, this, that, or whatever. Right. You can't just say you need it and that's it. Like, they have to see the value in, in what they're getting.

Jeff Compton [01:36:32]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [01:36:32]:
And that's where they fall short.

Jeff Compton [01:36:34]:
I've always been totally cool with telling a customer when they came in and that thought they needed a fuel pump, and all it needed was like, a broken wire under the fuse box for the fuel pump fuse or the fuel pump relay or the IPDM or whatever. Right. Fuel. The modules on the back, the Fords would always rot off. Totally cool. I'm totally cool with selling them that and some diag time that is less money than a tank and a pump. And they go, I don't want to pay for that. It seems like the value.

Jeff Compton [01:37:05]:
Let's, let's, let's back up for a minute. The repair that you expected to get, you know, in your head is going to be around 2,000 bucks. I'm doing the repair for 600. But as soon as I say I just fixed a wire, you don't see the value in 600 bucks. That's where the advisor has to step up and go, no, this is the time that we took, this is what we were doing in that time. This is the level of expertise that it actually takes. I'm paying that guy $55 an hour to go out there and prove that it's only a broken wire and not three parts that don't fix it before we finally call a mobile guy in. That's.

Jeff Compton [01:37:38]:
If you can't have that conversation with your customer, you're not that good an advisor. In my opinion, no matter how many thousands of dollars you sell at the end of the year, you're not doing what the industry needs to be done to fix the industry in the eyes of the public. And that's, that's like a big concept for a lot of People and they're going to argue it, and that's cool. Totally get what. You understand what I'm saying, though, because, like, if we want to improve it where it's an easier sell next time and an easier sell the time after that, until they just completely trust us, we have to have that conversation with them every time.

Joel McLearn [01:38:11]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [01:38:12]:
And that's what training our advisors is so important. Not just training them on how to have conversation, but the technical training that they have to be taking right now is a lot more than what we've ever given them.

Joel McLearn [01:38:23]:
Exactly. And one side of why I like running the business is because you know, you know what it's like. It's a game of telephone. It's you to the shop foreman to the service, advisor to the customer, and all that information gets lost throughout. Right. And you're right, there is a training aspect of that. So in the situation that I've got here, like where I've got my wife running the front desk, a lot of times when it's a really complicated diag explanation and all that stuff, I'm still going to go out and deliver that to them and sell them on that. But what that's doing not only is, is you're getting that firsthand from the person that diagnosed it, but you've also got Jaden sitting there and she's listening to what I'm saying and how I'm saying it to that customer.

Joel McLearn [01:39:09]:
And I find she calls upon me less and less and less when somebody calls. She learns the questions to ask. She doesn't just book people in for brake stuff. She, she says, you know, what are you experiencing? And then she's learned how to sell a brake inspection first. And, and how many people. She used to get so much pushback on that when we first started because she didn't know how to sell it. And now it's like most people are like, well, yes, I would like to spend the, the $58 or whatever the hell it is to, for that peace of mind of knowing that I'm not going to be spending XYZ on calipers I don't need or whatever. Right.

Joel McLearn [01:39:44]:
And, and, and that even goes with diag. Like, she sits there and she listens to what I say, and then I can write out my story and she can deliver that to the customer in a way that they believe what she says. And now, mind you, I still like going out and talking to people because it's. Now I can say, here's what I found, here's what I, you know, and even when I worked for somebody else, I. If it was complicated, I didn't mind going out and talking to somebody because I knew that if I relied on my ex boss's wife to try and relay that, she was going to come back out to me and say, well, what do I tell them? Tell them what I wrote. Because that's what they need to know. That's how you're going to instill trust in what we're doing. If you can't deliver that, then you need to find somebody that does.

Joel McLearn [01:40:25]:
And I'm that person to go out and deliver that because I'm the one that found. Right.

Jeff Compton [01:40:30]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [01:40:31]:
That's kind of how I feel.

Jeff Compton [01:40:32]:
Question for you. Here's some people talk about when they're doing diag in a shop, they're doing a couple of things. They're doing a retainer and sometimes they have a different labor rate. Do you do either one of those things?

Joel McLearn [01:40:44]:
I do in some aspects. I do have a different labor rate for that kind of thing. But it's more along the lines of, like I said, I've got that set diag fee and it costs this much. And on the other side of that, you look at your labor as a unit sold versus rather than time. Right. And it's worth this much to diagnose that. And on the retainer side, what I will do is rather than get a physical retainer, I'll say, do you want to spend? I say, typically when it comes to this kind of thing, it costs between 2 and $300. If you're okay with that, we will move forward.

Joel McLearn [01:41:16]:
If you're not okay with that, then we need to have a different conversation. And if they give me the go ahead on that, then it's okay. Well, they know what they're going to spend and they know that I won't go any further without contacting them.

Jeff Compton [01:41:27]:
Right.

Joel McLearn [01:41:27]:
I'm a huge proponent of getting paid for your diagnostic time. There was a shop in town here, he's closed down now, but he used to send me when I opened on my own and my old boss, a lot of his diag and a lot of his like complicated AC stuff and all that.

Jeff Compton [01:41:45]:
Right.

Joel McLearn [01:41:46]:
And I always found that every single person that came to us, you almost didn't have to let them know how much it was going to cost because they just wanted it fixed at that point because it came from another shop and you know. But you were able to say again, how much have you spent on it? Well, I spent this much. Are you willing to spend this much more to get to the bottom of it. Yes or no, right? And. And that's kind of how I've done it. Like, you just have to be transparent and, and transparent.

Jeff Compton [01:42:12]:
And it comes back to that emotional thing. Like, I have never felt sorry for somebody that used my competition to get us less than satisfactory result. People listen out and they go, well, that's a really urent thing to say. You should be every day trying to be the best that you can be in your area at a certain particular thing. Like, you don't have to be the best diagnostic tech. You could be the best tire shop in town. That's what you should be doing. If somebody goes to the Costco or the Canadian Tire and they get their tires all screwed up and they come to you and say you're an okay tire facility, right? You're an okay tire franchise.

Jeff Compton [01:42:49]:
You're the best. You got the best hunter machine, all that kind of stuff. If somebody comes to you and they've been screwed up at some shop and they come to you finally to get this vibration fixed, I've never felt sorry for them if I had to go in and use my skills to fix their car. Because I look at it like I got a good reputation. I got the skills. If I'm a little bit more money and they roll the dice and they gamble and they lose, that's gambling, right? Talk all day. But I never felt sorry for that person that gambled because they didn't use me. It's different if they didn't know I existed.

Jeff Compton [01:43:23]:
Right?

Joel McLearn [01:43:24]:
That's the other thing.

Jeff Compton [01:43:25]:
But if they know I existed and the reputation for me is that, guys, he's expensive. I'm gonna go try someone else. I don't owe you a discount then because you tried somebody else, right? Anything. I might maybe should be not extending the same. What's the word? I shouldn't be extending the same graces to you, a stranger to me that I might extend to my established customers. You can take that any way you want. And pricing and you know, people call the idiot fee or whatever, right? Like I'm good with it because like I am going to stand on business that says, like I am the best person around to diagnose your car.

Joel McLearn [01:43:59]:
Right?

Jeff Compton [01:43:59]:
I'm not. I'm just. We're talking facetiously here. So if you've gone to the local guy and he's thrown three parts and it didn't fix the car, now you need me. I'm gonna start with a 500 retainer that says I have to go in and check what he did or she did. I have to check what parts they put in. Are they even the right parts?

Joel McLearn [01:44:17]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:44:18]:
That all takes time before I can put the vehicle back where I can start at the beginning. Because that's the thing. When we get it from somebody else, we can't start at the beginning. We don't even know where the beginning is, you know?

Joel McLearn [01:44:31]:
Yeah. And that's. That's 100. Right. And. And when, you know, when we start diag that's been somewhere else. That's. That's a huge thing.

Joel McLearn [01:44:38]:
It's like, in some ways, you. You're right. You don't know where the beginning is, but you almost have to find that beginning, and you have to say, like, look, this. You are paying for what's already been checked, Because I don't trust that it's been checked properly. Right. You know that. That same shop that is no longer there, One of the diags that they sent us was a. It was like a.

Joel McLearn [01:44:58]:
A Camry with. With. No. What was that? No, no high beams. Okay, fine. Let's look through it. They had panels flipped up. They had things.

Joel McLearn [01:45:08]:
They had poked wires. They had done all this stuff. And what was the fix for it? Two headlight bulbs, because they run them in series, Right. So one went out, the other one went out.

Jeff Compton [01:45:18]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [01:45:19]:
And it's like, yes, you got to pay me for the time. Because all I did was I went on, looked on a wiring diagram, went, oh, it goes in there, it goes out there, and it goes to ground. Okay. I bet you one of these bulbs is bad. Oh, there's the bad bulb. Let's change them both. We're done. Yeah, Right.

Joel McLearn [01:45:32]:
And. And that is worth something. And I had to start at the beginning to figure that out. What do you do when something comes in with. With no headlight bulb operation? You put headlight bulbs in it. Like, that's it.

Jeff Compton [01:45:44]:
I still say the same thing. Unless it's got a really easy access relay or a bunch of, like, data pins that I can look at. I'm still going to the headlight bulb first.

Joel McLearn [01:45:54]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:45:54]:
And that's the part when we drop the ball on those kind of diags as. As an industry, we. Those are the ones that. The people that hate us online, the diyers that talk such. We give them the ammunition to talk like that does photos. Because the most basic thing is you go to the headlight bulb and check what do you have there, what's missing. And if you've got everything that's supposed to have, then put a friggin headlight bulb in it, like fix the car. Don't question yourself.

Jeff Compton [01:46:18]:
Why are both bad? My old service manager, a long, long time ago, there was, it was a legendary car for him. It was a joke because he had gone through the same thing. It was an older Chrysler product. He tried to switch, try to relay and something else. Both bulbs were bad, right? He's like, I'd never seen a car come in with both bulbs bad at the same time. I don't know why the both bulbs would fail. Power surge, who knows, who cares. Instead of starting at the basics of fundamentals of what he should have been doing.

Jeff Compton [01:46:48]:
And let's think about that. We're talking the old seal beams, right? They're not hard to, to any car back then. But why would you not do it that way? Instead of take a switch out of the column and jump this and piss around with that and. No, no, no, no, no, no. I know of lots of it's bets, it's bit some really smart texts in the past. I'm not naming names, it's just it, it has bit them in the butt because we overthink it. That's what we do, you know, it's, it's part of our, what makes us so effective sometimes, you know, and we're all human. I've never talked to a shop owner yet that was perfect or technician.

Jeff Compton [01:47:20]:
That's perfect. So give your people some grace. Do you. So I gotta ask, how do you handle like with your small operation, you know, the kind of the, you've seen in the comments and the conversations, do you implicate any kind of DVI or just kind of like, you know, do you kind of respond to what the customer is there for?

Joel McLearn [01:47:40]:
I, I don't know, I struggle with the DVI thing because in, in my area, I have seen, I have seen the dealerships use a DVI to try and instill trust, but they're showing people things that aren't actually bad. So like the case was a local dealership, somebody went to them, they did a DVI and they said, hey, I'm your technician, da, da, da, da. And they went, here's your brakes, they're at 2:30 seconds and they need to be replaced. And then they pull the camera away. Well, if you stop and you look at that picture, you're like, no, that looks more like four or five 30, 30 seconds. And you're just playing on the fact that you're showing them so they must believe you. And I really struggle with that. So for me, like, I would say 95% of the pictures on my phone are of things that people need replaced.

Joel McLearn [01:48:27]:
And I'll take my phone, I'll take a picture, I'll say, look, this is what we've got going on and we can discuss further from there as far as it goes. Like, I, I like the idea of DVIs, but I think that they can still be used in a, in a greasy kind of way.

Jeff Compton [01:48:41]:
Oh, 100.

Joel McLearn [01:48:43]:
I don't use them. I just do really good documentation and I have a good rapport with my clients so that I don't, you know, I don't want them to feel any certain way. Right.

Jeff Compton [01:48:52]:
Yeah. Because that's sort of where I stand with it. The conversation again, it popped up again today was like, you know, my former guest Curtis is talking about, you know, like, guys don't want to do them because it's like in. And again, somebody else in. Another chimed in. It's like, well, it accounted for 60% more in sales last year. Cool. You mean to tell me then that the 60% more than it accounted for in sales, you can't pay your technician on every one of them.

Joel McLearn [01:49:18]:
Nobody should be doing them for free.

Jeff Compton [01:49:20]:
Yeah, 100%.

Joel McLearn [01:49:22]:
That's not, you know, as far as I'm concerned, there's only one person in the shop that should be working flat rate and that's the owner. I, like I said, I never worked flat rate in my life until I open my business. And if I have an employee, they're going to be hourly. And, and if you need, you pay them hourly to do that dvi, if you so choose to do it right, there's only one person that should be taking that hit and it's, it's not a technician.

Jeff Compton [01:49:46]:
Yeah. And you know, I have to say it again because everybody thinks like, we talk about flat rate in every episode and we don't in almost every episode. And you know, because it's, it's the very, it's still very. The, the, the prominent issue or not issue. Topic of contention, I guess is what you could say. It's a better way of saying it that's moving forward in industry, I think is because it's, it's very. I have a, I have a great friend Zeb, that runs a shop that is top notch and Zeb, like pays his guys flat rate and it works.

Joel McLearn [01:50:14]:
Sharp.

Jeff Compton [01:50:15]:
He. Oh, dude, he's so pass sharp, it's not even funny. He is brilliant. And not only is he brilliant, I, I say it all the time. I'VE never met somebody that has the kind of cojones, the confidence, the. The balls to be himself. Like, he doesn't care. He's like, I'm the best shop in the state.

Jeff Compton [01:50:37]:
You can take your somewhere else. It doesn't bother me. If you need it fixed, I'm here. This is the price. And that's what it is. And he doesn't, he doesn't back away from it. He promises, he takes care of his customers when he makes a mistake. And he does make mistakes.

Jeff Compton [01:50:52]:
We all do. He comes good for it. He does what is necessary. He's just, I love the dude, love him. I have so much respect for him because he's just. It's that confidence that goes back to that. I say like all the time, you can't be that kind of owner unless you've been that kind of tech, right? So it's one thing to get up there and say, my guys are the best in the industry. Can you turn a wrench? Can you go out and lead them? Can you go show them? What makes you this, the culture of this shop so important is because you're that level.

Jeff Compton [01:51:23]:
If you can't, then can you really appreciate how good they are? And are you really qualified to know when they're not that good? Like, you're. Again, I think it comes back to they're looking at numbers and they're not looking at what actually they saw. Like, look at Zeb's video where he's showing you the diesel that the, the crank gear slips and how he fixes it. And he built a puller and he takes the gear off and he, he. Well, like, dude, we're talking about, like somebody that has figured out something that saves the customer having to buy a whole other engine. But here's the reality. Most technicians would never even figure out that problem in that. And Zeb does with a lab scope and he goes, instead of selling the customer engine, this is my fix for it.

Jeff Compton [01:52:05]:
And it works flawless. Like, we're talking a one in a thousand technician with him. Like, it's just incredible. And that's just the technical side, the way he set up his business. And like, Zeb loves it when you say you can't do something because he's literally like, you know, watch me do it. And he, he does. It's. It's amazing.

Jeff Compton [01:52:28]:
I'm blessed to have the friends that I do. And we don't always see eye to eye on every little thing because, like, you know, I'm right there almost on anti flat rate. And Yet Zeb's an example of where he makes it all work. And his guys want to be paid that way.

Joel McLearn [01:52:44]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:52:44]:
Again, because they're not. They're not looking at the book going, oh, I can't charge more than a book. Like, he's looking at it going, like, all that takes me this amount of time and I'm going to do it faster than most of my guys. My. You know, and he breaks it down into the middle and he goes, I'm going to charge all that. The job's got to be worth this. A fuel system on a six, seven has got to be worth this or I ain't doing it. And all these guys are going.

Jeff Compton [01:53:08]:
And Zev's laughing. He's like, they're doing fuel systems in six sevens. You do the math. They paid themselves minimum wage because they want to pat themselves on the back for being the cheapest to do it. He's like, I didn't build all this on being the cheapest. And that's where this industry has screwed up, is because we think we need to build it on the cheapest, and we don't. We need to build it on being the best. That goes as a technician, that goes as an owner.

Jeff Compton [01:53:35]:
Both.

Joel McLearn [01:53:35]:
Right. And when somebody says, you know, oh, that's awful expensive, or you're. You're quite expensive, it's like, that's a. In some ways, that's a thank you, I guess, a badge of pride. Because it's like, you know what, by being at whatever pricing I am, I have weeded out a lot of that. The people that are like, that's too much money compared to what. You know what I mean? So it kind of. Kind of feeds you.

Joel McLearn [01:53:59]:
You don't want to be the cheapest person around. And. And that's just what it is like. And I'm. And I'm kind of with you. Like, I'm. I'm almost anti flat rate, except for, like, you say, there's. There's people that make it work, and I'm glad that they do.

Jeff Compton [01:54:14]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [01:54:14]:
And there's a way to do it without being slimy. And he's proof of that, right? Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:54:21]:
And then what Zeb sets a shop up is. So it's like if the car gets diagnosed, it gets diagnosed by Zeb, and then the flat rate guys go and put the parts on. Now, I'm not saying Zeb is not making his hours doing diag. He is, but he's an exceptional diagnostic tech too. Right. Same as Brian Pollock. Like, same as my buddy Tommy Markham. Same as Sean Miller.

Jeff Compton [01:54:43]:
Same as I could go on and on and on. You know, Keith Perkins, they're all exceptional. So what might take somebody a day to track down in a car they'll track down in a couple of hours, right? We don't have an industry full of people like that yet. We want to get there. So just because Zeb or Keith or somebody diagnosis in the Brandon Steckler diagnoses the car in an hour doesn't mean that that's weak. None of us can charge more an hour. That's horseshit. Horseshit.

Jeff Compton [01:55:12]:
As long as we show the testing that we did and our process and we don't go down rabbit holes that we don't have to go down, right? Charge as much as you can.

Joel McLearn [01:55:21]:
If you can justify your time, it's worth it.

Jeff Compton [01:55:24]:
You're giving the customer value saying, I didn't put six coils on and then try something, right? I didn't try an ECM and then try something, right? I didn't. I eliminated the ecm. That took me an hour to eliminate. I eliminated the coils. That took me an hour to eliminate. I eliminated your fuel pump. That took me whatever time to eliminate. Yes, our process gets better.

Jeff Compton [01:55:44]:
We can eliminate a lot more things faster. But like, if I give you three hours Diag and I show you $3,000 worth of parts on your car that are still good, that's value. That's way more value than $3,000 that I got to eat or I got to charge the customer for that didn't fix it because I called in a mobile guy and he put in a missing relay or he put in a missing fuse that we don't want in this industry. And we have to get away from that. And it's not about flat rate. It's just about showing value. And that again, comes down to the advisor role, right? They have to have the stones to say, you're paying this amount because this is what we're giving you, right? We're giving you testing results, and sometimes.

Joel McLearn [01:56:29]:
You, you have to show them. You know, you're, we're giving you all these results, but that's not all you're paying for because we have all these things that we have to pay for in order to save you. You know, I, I saved a guy, he thought he needed an engine. It was another Ford and it was another variable valve timing solenoid. That was his issue. And there were the, the previous people that, that I rented from said, well, don't go to Joel because he's ripping you Off. And he clapped back at them and was like, look, he just saved me three grand on an engine job for $500 worth of Diag and a variable valve timing solenoid replacement as part of that, like, you know that, that you have to show that value because if you show that value, then that customer can go to bat for you. And he did.

Joel McLearn [01:57:14]:
Right. So that's kind of how how I see it.

Jeff Compton [01:57:18]:
And you got a customer for life. And that's what we always want to build as customers for life.

Joel McLearn [01:57:22]:
Right, Right.

Jeff Compton [01:57:22]:
We don't want to burn them up on every time.

Joel McLearn [01:57:24]:
No.

Jeff Compton [01:57:25]:
Where do you want to be in the next year, Joel? If I was to drive out and see a visit year, not drive it, probably fly out, I would love to drive the next person. But if I, if I come to, you know, your little corner of the world, where do you want to be in a year from now?

Joel McLearn [01:57:40]:
Well, there's a lot going on for us right now. Well, we're going to have a baby in April.

Jeff Compton [01:57:46]:
Congratulations.

Joel McLearn [01:57:47]:
Yeah. So I'm kind of gearing up for that. Right. I want to get somebody in here that can work with me so that I can maybe focus a little bit more on that because obviously Jaden's going to be going on map leave, whatever. So, yes, I'm still going to have to be working in that time, but I need somebody here that can sort of work. I would almost do the out front stuff and have somebody else out back. Right. That's where I kind of want to be.

Joel McLearn [01:58:17]:
We're, you know, we're doing things slow right now because we're, you know, we've only been in this space since May, June. Right. But that, that's where I'd like to go. I mean, the, the space that we have here doesn't allow for much more than a couple of people.

Jeff Compton [01:58:31]:
Right.

Joel McLearn [01:58:31]:
So I'd like to maximize on my space and, but, but overall, like, I just, I just want to provide for my family. That is going to happen. And, and I think the best way to do that is to stop wearing multiple hats and focus on running the business while I'm down a person and kind of go that way.

Jeff Compton [01:58:53]:
Yeah. And that's, that goes back to that old, you know, we saw the, the conversation come up. You know, kind of a one man kind of show like you and, and you are with, with Jade. I don't mean to just return, but when she, that's the kind of, the whole conversation. Do you hire a really good service advisor or do you hire a technician? And you step into Jaden's role, like it all that's going to be the tricky thing to figure it out. But I think you're going to get there. I think you've got all the talent that you need. It's just, you know, making and who's.

Joel McLearn [01:59:22]:
To say like I, the, I made more money by hiring Jaden out front because that was the whole thing is people think you got to hire more techs. No. If you can't get as much as you can can out of, don't, don't bring on another one. Right. So Jaden gets as much as she can out of me. So if I can step into that front role and hire somebody and, and then I'm still there to help get as much as as I can out of that person. Right. And that's kind of because, you know, the whole working on the business versus in it or owning a job.

Joel McLearn [01:59:55]:
Right. Like right now I do kind of own a job job. Like let's be real here. And I don't want it to be that way forever.

Jeff Compton [02:00:01]:
Right.

Joel McLearn [02:00:02]:
So that's sort of where I want to head. Well, I don't know how long it's going to take to get there, but that's where I want to head.

Jeff Compton [02:00:07]:
Yeah. There's nothing stupider than a shop that has like seven texts and it is convinced they need seven techs and they're not billing seven hours a day for each tech. You know what I mean? That's dumb. And everybody and the conversation always come back to the texts are not producing enough texts, not producing enough. We gotta stop that and go. First of all, if you've got seven texts in the back, you need two, probably three advisors.

Joel McLearn [02:00:30]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [02:00:31]:
And then they gotta be like absolute killers in terms of converting those DVIs or the inspections or the Diag or whatever into repairs. If you don't have that, hiring another tech doesn't fix it. Hiring a better advisor fixes it. And then we don't have to blame the tech for the low production of the shop because production, you all heard me say it. That's more on the ability of people to convert the repairs into sales. That's production. Yeah, that's what the customer came in for was with a broken vehicle and you're supposed to produce sales off of that. It's not about, it's a five hour repair.

Jeff Compton [02:01:11]:
I need it done in three for production. No, it's five hour repair. You need to get where it's like by the time you do QC and everything, you get it close to Seven with a matrix.

Joel McLearn [02:01:22]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [02:01:22]:
And you want them to do it within seven.

Joel McLearn [02:01:24]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [02:01:25]:
I said it. Oh, my God. You only wanted to be 100. Yeah, I want to be 100 because I can show you some absolute killers that are running good stuff. Their guys are not at 100, they're at 85. You know, 80 when it's slow, maybe they're down to 70. But they're all happy. They're all willing to die for their owner.

Jeff Compton [02:01:43]:
Like that's it. Because again, it's strong. People on the front counter converting what we find into sales. It. I can't say it enough. It's not, you know, I can fix the stuff in the back, I can fix the cars. If you can't convert the value into dollars, you don't even need me. You don't even need me.

Jeff Compton [02:02:05]:
Right. I'm only costing you money at that point. Get, get rid of me. Get rid of me. But get rid of me and realize you're. You've just decided we're going to change what we are now. Right, Right. It's.

Jeff Compton [02:02:18]:
I say it all the time. Just stick to being a tire shop.

Joel McLearn [02:02:22]:
Exactly. And you can't, you can't torture a mechanic out back to try and make that money. Because I took, when I first started, I took the like Murray Vaugh, I know you've had him on. Yes, fantastic fella. I took his in class training and he said like 90% of your of your time and money lost is out front. And, and I saw that when I, when I worked for somebody else. I remember I wasn't there for very long and they sat us down and they said, how can we get more out of. To you? Well, when we start at 7am and I go to grab a set of keys and the, the boss's wife comes out and doesn't let you take those keys out because she wasn't there early enough.

Joel McLearn [02:03:02]:
Put key tags on it. That is, that is a couple of minutes of her flipping through a recipe book thing looking for a key tag. That's time wasted. Yes. I was hourly, so I don't care. But when you sit there and say, how can we get as much time as we can out of you? Well, it starts out front and, and ever since that, like I took Murray's course, I took, I put Jaden on Murray's course after that and she's implemented those things and it's just made things so much better because out front is where you, where you lose that. And when I get involved in up front, when I try to put my fingers in there, that's when we friggin lose out. So just let her do that job.

Jeff Compton [02:03:39]:
That's, that's good on you that you admit it. And that's the thing. I, I saw so many things where it's like, like, okay, Mrs. Smith, we knew she was coming in for breaks, but the parts aren't here yet. Why the parts are here? Well, she called on Monday and the appointment was for Wednesday and I forgot to call on Tuesday to have the part shipped over. Okay, so what does the tech do while you're waiting for the parts to get here? Well, you know, he racks it and takes it apart. No, that's not.

Joel McLearn [02:04:04]:
Those parts show up and they're wrong. Yeah, right, whatever.

Jeff Compton [02:04:09]:
Yeah, yeah. Going back to the tire thing. What if you take all four tires off the rims before somebody has pulled them from the storage bin and they're all sitting there broken down, right? Rims are there, polished new valve stems ready to go in and you go, we're not putting them tires on. Now what do you do? Do you go and get them out of the scrap pump, put it back on to get the bay freed up? No, it's, it's. Shit hits the fan, panic level 10. That's all avoidable Again, where? Front counter.

Joel McLearn [02:04:37]:
Out front? Yeah.

Jeff Compton [02:04:39]:
So again, people that you keep hearing me talk about this production thing before you go after your text and say, I need you to do more or we're not hitting this because of that. Look at yourself in the mirror, look at your. I'm gonna say it. No disrespect to your wife. Look at your wife or look at your daughter, look at your son that's working the front counter and go, what are they doing that I really don't want them to do? And I've asked them not to do it before and they're still not doing it. Fix that first. Before you come after your people in the back because your people in the back, you sour that culture. Guess what? Production doesn't go up, it goes down.

Joel McLearn [02:05:12]:
It takes a nosedive in a hurry. And, and that's one thing, like everybody says it, and I will agree, tax makes shitty shop owners. I am a shitty shop owner. I'm going to tell you right now. Right. But what I am is I am an advocate for those people. And that is one thing I need to keep in my brain as I move forward and out of the shop and into the other side of things is you still have to be an advocate for that tech. You still have to realize That a lot of the shortcomings may not be due to them.

Joel McLearn [02:05:43]:
And there are, there are slow people out there. I get it. Right. But that's, but that's. Yeah, but you can't really say that about you because like you said, you're doing diet stuff, you know.

Jeff Compton [02:05:54]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [02:05:55]:
There's people that change parts and they're really good at it and there's people that do diet that are really good at it and they may not be good at the opposite. That's. You can't really help that. Right. But who would I be to sit out front and be like, what can we do to get more out of you? Full well, knowing that I haven't gotten as much as I could out of you because of my own screw ups or my own shortcomings. Like I said, it's the little things. It's the having to wait for keys. It's the having to wait for a phone call or anything.

Joel McLearn [02:06:27]:
Wheel locks, Jesus, don't even get me going on that one.

Jeff Compton [02:06:30]:
Like, yeah, I know. And it's the same thing. You tell that advisor, you tell them, did you ask the customer? The wheel lock is. No, it's probably in the car somewhere. There goes, there goes five minutes. Is it in the trunk? And that's in the trunk. Is the best case scenario if they're not like so many other people. We know that the trunk is piled up from the Victoria Day holiday.

Joel McLearn [02:06:51]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [02:06:51]:
That's still. All that still in the back of the hatchback because they never bothered to carry it in the house. So you're moving 100 pounds of gear just to look where the spare tire is to see if that's where the wheel. None of that is the technicians effing job. It is the service advisor's job. And if they won't follow that first step of the process, booking Mrs. Smith in for time, fire their ass, get them the hell out of your business and bring somebody in that will do it the way it's supposed to be done. I don't want to hear the excuses of like I forgot or you know, she says, we put it, we didn't put it back last time.

Jeff Compton [02:07:25]:
I don't want any part of that. Don't want any part of that. None. I'm going to call you up and I'm going to your. My paperwork is going to say if we have to look for your wheel lock, we're charging you time if your wheel lock is missing from the car because this is the first time we've ever seen it. And the dealership used a master set or the dealer tech last time didn't put it back. I'm charging to remove them. You're signing all this agreeing to.

Jeff Compton [02:07:47]:
Because I am not going to piss around on a one hour tire job and lose an hour looking for a wheel lock key and then figuring out how am I getting the lug nuts and how am I selling lug nuts. And that's not happening. That ain't happening. It's. You're gonna get a hundred dollar bill for four new lug nuts and the time it takes to remove it and then we're gonna go to your tire job. Because I'm not. Because if you think those little stupid wheel keys are stopping anything from happening on your car theft wise, they're not. It's stopping efficiency.

Joel McLearn [02:08:22]:
Yes.

Jeff Compton [02:08:23]:
And we need to be efficient. And that's how I'm gonna do it. And, and again, if you. It's a simple thing. Get the service information, get the mileage, get the wheel out key. If your advisor can't do those two things, fire them, get rid of them. I'm sorry I said it, but it's the truth. You know, you can tell by the tone of my voice.

Jeff Compton [02:08:44]:
I've worked with people that can't. Right? And it comes back to. Because like, here we go. We, we might be giving a family member a big Irish chewing when they're not. When they're failing to do it. But that doesn't excuse it. Doesn't excuse it. You have to perform.

Jeff Compton [02:09:00]:
I'm expected to perform every day. You're expected to perform every day. Everybody's expected to perform.

Joel McLearn [02:09:06]:
Family is not the problem with that. You know what I mean? Like, if you, if you're not willing to, to discipline somebody that should be used to you being that way. Why, what makes you think you'd be able to discipline anybody else? Like that was, that was part of the issue at my first job. It's like if you guys can't communicate with one another to keep this going forward or if one of you is scared of the other or whatever, then why are we doing this? Why am I the one that has to suffer? Why am I the one that has to stay late or not eat my lunch at noon or whatever because of what you guys are doing.

Jeff Compton [02:09:43]:
We, we love the word leadership in this, in this industry. We love it. And it's a, it's a buzzword and it, and it's a true thing. I'm gonna piss some people off, man. If you can't lead your family, you're not going to lead your business.

Joel McLearn [02:09:57]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [02:09:58]:
That's for the people that put a bunch of their family in their business. You are, you have a friggin God given responsibility to lead them in life, which means you lead them, you set the example and you hold them to it. If they won't do it, you should lead them again by showing them the consequence. You can't just say that that's the way that's going to be because they've always been that. It doesn't cut it. Especially when you go to work. It's one thing when it's at home. Don't fuck up your family relationship by trying to have mediocre performance out of your family at work.

Jeff Compton [02:10:32]:
Don't do it. It'll cost you more damage. I saw a son, guy I worked for a long time ago. His son and dad, son's a fantastic mechanic. They couldn't work together and when they couldn't work together anymore, they didn't talk to one another for a decade.

Joel McLearn [02:10:48]:
Right.

Jeff Compton [02:10:49]:
You think that's how you want to run your business? If they're not, then don't waste time. Don't damage the family relationship to try and make it work.

Joel McLearn [02:10:59]:
And that was the biggest thing that I said to Jaden. I said if there's ever a point where this is going to completely affect our home life, like if we're not going to get along at home, one of us has got to go.

Jeff Compton [02:11:11]:
Yeah.

Joel McLearn [02:11:12]:
And that's, you know, that's the big, the big thing.

Jeff Compton [02:11:16]:
So, Joel, I don't want to keep any more of your time, buddy. It's, it's been a great night and I appreciate you coming on. I definitely want to have more pick up more on this because I think we can really go down. Maybe, maybe Ms. Jaden comes on too.

Joel McLearn [02:11:30]:
That'd be great. I'm sure she would. She definitely, she keeps me in check. So she's got lots to say too. Yeah.

Jeff Compton [02:11:36]:
So I don't know, maybe we do it before the baby shows up, maybe we do it after the baby shows up. Whatever you think. But I mean, you know, I keep saying I want to try and get to the east coast one day and, and, and come out there and see it. My, my parents have been out there and seen it and it's absolutely beautiful. And shout out to my buddy Adam McBain that's out there now. He, he just loves it out there. Like you know, moose hunting and fishing and, and bear and the whole thing. Like he just lives for that life.

Jeff Compton [02:12:02]:
So, you know, one day I'LL be out there, and then I'd love to see it, so I highly recommend it. Yeah. I want to thank you for coming on, man. I'll be thinking of you when I'm down in North Carolina and you're, you.

Joel McLearn [02:12:13]:
Know, still working on rusty vehicles out here in the Great White North.

Jeff Compton [02:12:18]:
And then when I. When I go to Vegas, I'll think of you, too, and I'll see Murray both at. At Sema. Most likely, he'll be there. That's where I met him first time last year. And then he's a great guy, and I'll. I'll be sure to, you know, he.

Joel McLearn [02:12:31]:
Remembers everybody, so I'm sure, you know.

Jeff Compton [02:12:35]:
Certainly. Does he?

Joel McLearn [02:12:36]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [02:12:37]:
I mean, when I. And what's amazing about Murray is when I mentioned Murray and I say where I work in the area, he can rhyme off 10 shop names in my area that he's had direct contact with. At least 10. At least 10. Like, he'll even ask me. Well, I think that one was going to be sold to this person that. Yep. Like, he's got it.

Jeff Compton [02:13:00]:
He's got his thumb right on the pulse of somebody. He's a brilliant, brilliant man.

Joel McLearn [02:13:03]:
So he's amazing.

Jeff Compton [02:13:05]:
Yeah. All right, brother. I will let you go. Awesome. And everybody, as always, thanks for being here tonight. I love all these. And like I said, if you want to try and get that trip to Sema, Apex, you know, check out the Facebook page, do what you got to do, cross your fingers, say a little prayer, and you might go to Vegas with me. Then look at.

Jeff Compton [02:13:24]:
We're gonna have some fun. So. All right, everybody. See you next time.