On this episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy lifts the cover off of one of the truly weird and genuinely innovative technician/mechanic development programs: The K-Plan. Developed with the help of people way smarter than us, the K-Plan lays out all of the areas of knowledge that someone will need to be successful as a mechanic, with tailored resources for that particular shop. It utilizes technician development bonuses to encourage institutional and brand specific knowledge in order to lead to more developed technicians that can make you more money. Long story short you get to send the work that you have to the people that can do it, while keeping track of the pace of development of the staff within your shop. Want to learn more? Need it in your shop ASAP - hit us ups on the Facebook page! 
 
 Also Uncle Jimmy prepares to vacation somewhere with an average temperature 30 degrees lower than his current location. 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy gets back to proper form and takes customers to task. Every area has that one shop that when you see a car roll in with their plate frames, you know you’re (more specifically the customer) are eff’d. Dozens of bumperstickers, turning your interior into a series of various claymore landmines and much, much more! This series literally wrote itself, but if you have some specific examples please let us know over on the Facebook page. 

Also Uncle Jimmy wishes you all a very happy Thanksgiving and corroborates some hilarious family lore. 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy unveils the K-Plan. This is a system that shops and dealerships can use to basically build a farm system for their new technicians while rewarding the technicians that train them to a level of autonomous productivity. It benchmarks what people know against what the new people have to learn, providing clear expectations for knowledge and how a shop wants things done. We also get into the Master-Apprentice relationship and what that needs to be like for long term success. We have been working on it for a while, and that is why the episodes have been bi-weekly! We finally needed it so bad, that we ended up building it! 

Also Uncle Jimmy calls his shot and does an impression of the outgoing president. 

On this weeks episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy gets into how to get along with your coworkers better. As the weather begins to cool, yes even in Texas, the doors of the shop are going to stay closed more often and you’ll be working in closer quarters. The better that you all get along determines the overall vibe in the back of the house as well, so try to be helpful and courteous. Creating a cohesive atmosphere in the shop is important to getting along, which can make you more money in the long run and lead to lower turnover. 
 
 Also Uncle Jimmy keeps it above the belt when it comes to service advisors. 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy wades into the foggy, brutal game that is internet reviews. In many ways reviews are one of the most important parts of your business, often taking massive precedence in the way that your company appears through search results. This allows customers to quickly form an opinion on your company, with huge potential upsides when you treat customers right. However, in the situation of many auto repair shops, the customer comes with preloaded anxiety about how long their car is going to be broken, and how much it is going to cost to fix. This makes for a delicate balance of realism and optimism, entirely decided by what the rest of your shop has going on at that particular moment. Managing customer expectations and setting them up for a better user experience is key, but in the end sometimes bad reviews cannot be avoided. Bottom line, this is an important part of your brand voice, and getting it right in a timely manner is key to continued success on the internet. 

Also Uncle Jimmy makes the perfect onomatopoeia for a flat tire.

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy takes a serious look at mental health with way more F-Bombs than Dr. Phil could ever muster. Due to the potentially disturbing nature of this show, we are actually going to put up a content warning for marked discussions on Suicide, while putting a link to the relevant people below. This is a big deal in this industry, worldwide and since the pandemic specifically. We as an industry don’t talk about mental health very often, and when we do it is mostly masked in self-deprecating or gallows humor. The real fact remains that the constant march of technological progress combined with the overall chaos that the human element brings to the situation, working in a shop can create an incredible amount of stress - and if you can’t deal with it you need to find ways that are not self-destructive. Sometimes that is taking a different position in the company, sometimes it is changing occupations entirely. The bottom line is that in a world full of problems the people who solve those problems have never been more valuable. As a result, you wrench twisting bastards are valuable - so don’t solve a temporary problem with a permanent solution that leaves your friends, family, coworkers and acquaintances wondering why.  Because none of you are allowed to die before Uncle Jimmy. 

Also Uncle Jimmy wants you to reach out if things in your head aren’t going great right now. If it is more serious than that we suggest following this Link

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy weaves between the extremely specific and the bigger picture when it comes to diagnosis. Having the right tools, being able to read things like wiring diagrams, and having an understanding of suspension components are all going to aid your diagnosis of vehicles - but one of the most overlooked ones is the new systems training. As the products that the manufacturers turn out become more and more complex, the people who need to fix these systems when the inevitably break need to be versed in how they work so they can repair them when they don’t! Having a second opinion on your diagnosis is always a good thing, if your shop's interpersonal dynamics allow for it! 

Also Uncle Jimmy uncovers the conspiracy of “Shitbox Gate” and starts the PSA: “Just say no to flood cars!” 

On this week’s episode of Grease the wheels, Uncle Jimmy enters the nebulous and often fantastical realm of warranty labor times. There are a host of problems with this system, mainly that no one can agree EXACTLY how the labor time is produced. The secondary problem with this is that the manufacturer is trying to pay their dealerships as little as humanly possible for what is often an error in quality control or a third party vendor. Then we get to aftermarket warranties - and Uncle Jimmy absolutely empties the clip. We talk about the worst ones, and an incredibly useful tactic for getting the blame off of your dealership and onto the warranty company that is refusing to pay their bill - get their contact information and explain to the customer that their warranty company will not pay the entire thing. This will save you more time than you will ever know! The only thing that we know for certain is that if the warranty time is provided by AllData, it’s almost exclusively to screw over the person fixing it! 

Also Uncle Jimmy quotes Nirvana more times than he ever thought he would. 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we talk about the absolute basics that people should know about their cars in a revisit on the concept of “Automotive Kindergarten” . We exist because the vast majority of people who own a car today have no idea how they work. They just know that when they dont - it is going to cost them time and money. Where the misconception comes in is that we as the technicians are not ripping them off, but we have covered that one before. We get into the nitty gritty with the basics of tires, brakes, safety systems and why you can’t reuse them if you are trying to grab some junkyard parts. There are a lot of really good reasons for this, mainly that many of the safety features on modern cars are a one shot sort of deal. We also get into the engineering of modern cars and how they are designed to last longer, work better, and why everything is turbocharged. We aren’t going to complain, but it was one of the major extinction events for older techs in shops all around the country. 

Also Uncle Jimmy talks about tire pressures, run flats, and some of the other hot button issues of a seasonal change.

On this week’s episode of Grease the wheels, we apply some “yang” to last week’s “ying” of putting Service Advisors and Service Managers to the rack. The episode title comes from the customers in this case, which we make readily apparent. We go over some of the dumbest, most out of line, and most dramatically overblown customer reactions as well as some of their less than reasonable moments for calling a shop. From using quarter clutch and getting mad at the technician, to calling the manufacturer because your phone got stuck - Service Advisors and Managers have to deal with this stuff on a daily basis, but we want to hear your own highlight reel - what are some of the most unreasonable, uninformed, and downright ridiculous customer complaints that you have ever heard? Let us know over on the facebook page! 

Also Uncle Jimmy gets an incredibly specific amount change out of a floor by employing the “Sisyphus-Clarkson Method”.