On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we get to the nuts and bolts of all of the stuff nobody covered when they asked us to start doing Service Walk-around Videos. In this episode, we cover Uncle Jimmy’s transformation from complete neophyte to honest to god master of the Service Video Walk-around. Right off the bat, we were not in favor of them in the beginning because there was just no information out there on how to do this. Most of this research was based on feedback from customers as well as good old trial-and-error. However, we go over some of the things to say, and often more importantly some of the things not to say when it comes to the verbal communication part of the Service Video. There is a certain philosophy behind the way that we do our videos that can be summed up by a simple fact, “people don't want to hear bad things about their cars.” So our approach is to tell them what’s good, tell them what’s not good, and ask for the sale. If a car is obviously unsafe - by all means tell them! Keeping away from being accusatory is going to help you sell more service, because it keeps the customer out of the wrong and offers them a clear solution to making the situation right again by performing the repair. If safety items are bad, don’t beat around the bush you let them know they are bad and it might just save you from a lawsuit. When it comes to things like oil and coolant leaks, it is best to qualify them on a 1 to10 scale of severity. 

Also Uncle Jimmy channels his inner Jordan Belfort, by way of Hannibal Lector - but with cars. 

This episode is distributed by The Wrenching Network. Whether you're a technician, a mechanic, or someone who just loves the car scene, The Wrenching Network is a place that you have to check out. They have all sorts of great content, gear, and snacks to keep you turning wrenches in whatever capacity you do it. Also if you see us over there, make sure you say hi and leave a comment with what you think about the episode! 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we look at some of the post-mechanic career options for mechanics. In the wake of last week’s episode about Electric Cars, we have noted that the rise of Electric cars could be the push factor that causes the technician shortage to spiral out of control. Simply put, electrification is going to mean the end of a lot of shops and dealerships- with Buick going so far as to offer franchise buyouts to dealers that don’t want to go electric. Bottom Line: problem solvers are employable, but this article from Monster puts it into clearer focus:

Customer Service: In the wild customer service probably is  not the best idea, but in the automotive industry technicians can be uniquely qualified to be service advisors if they possess good communication skills. 

Management: We think that in a lot of cases technicians can make excellent Fixed Ops managers - it just doesn’t happen nearly enough to make up for the people who have no qualifications to have the job. 

Sales: One of the key tenets of being a good salesman is knowing what you’re selling - and a technician would certainly be at the forefront of that. However, technicians are sometimes too honest when it comes to their assessments of certain vehicles (imagine Uncle Jimmy trying to sell an E65 745!) and this can backfire tremendously on the bottom line. The sales department also has to deal with the grim reaper that is e-commerce. 

Teacher: At a vocational school or in a million other industry applications there need to be technical experts who can teach new techs or train existing technicians in new skillsets. However, they way oversell how interesting the job is, and this would really only become an option if rendered physically incapable of doing the job anymore. This is also easily the most rewarding of the options because you get to help make the next generation of technicians successful. 

Also Uncle Jimmy is getting recruited to be “Professor Jimmy” and coins the phrase, “I need the praise and the raise” for a Seussean appeal to your bosses. 

This episode is distributed by The Wrenching Network. Whether you're a technician, a mechanic, or someone who just loves the car scene, The Wrenching Network is a place that you have to check out. They have all sorts of great content, gear, and snacks to keep you turning wrenches in whatever capacity you do it. Also if you see us over there, make sure you say hi and leave a comment with what you think about the episode! 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we discuss the fence between the forces of the government advocating and (in the case of California) insisting on banning the sale of ICE vehicles, and the general buying public that prefers said ICE vehicles. On the topic of California, we have a weird feeling that this 2035 ICE ban is about to make any tech in that state that knows how to work on EV’s worth roughly their weight in palladium. Because no one is moving in, they all seem to be coming to Texas. We are genuinely on the fence about EV’s because of there pretty clean driving in some areas of the world that derive their power from hydro-electric or nuclear power is being massively offset by the incredible environmental damage caused by creating their batteries. Are they the end all be all, no - but they are a decent stop gap. Is Hydrogen ICE going to be the final answer? We don’t know, but we know that they are going to need people who can fix them. Bottom line, be proactive with your training and be able to fix anything that can come in the door - you will be extremely valuable! 

Also Uncle Jimmy coins a new GreenPeace slogan; “plant a tree, asshole!” and gives some free airtime to Buck-ee’s to keep the scales balanced.

This episode is distributed by The Wrenching Network. Whether you're a technician, a mechanic, or someone who just loves the car scene, The Wrenching Network is a place that you have to check out. They have all sorts of great content, gear, and snacks to keep you turning wrenches in whatever capacity you do it. Also if you see us over there, make sure you say hi and leave a comment with what you think about the episode! 

On this week’s (correctly uploaded) episode of Grease the Wheels, we dive into improving the work environment in the shop. At the top of all mechanics lists: having working equipment - lifts, tire machines, alignment racks, that stuff! The first article we examine is “20 ways to improve your work environment from Indeed, and in reality only about 4 of them work for us as Auto Mechanics. Obviously climate controls matter way more when you are up and moving, so where you shop is and what climate controls they have make a big difference. How does music affect the work environment in your shop? Does ritualizing your routines help you get into work flows faster?  Is there such a thing as too much light in a shop? We also get into the D.I.N. or otherwise known as why personal injury lawyer’s aren’t a thing in Germany. 

Also Uncle Jimmy accidentally re-enacts Delroy Lindo’s monologue from ‘Da 5 Bloods’ while describing the smell of a shop. 

This episode is distributed by The Wrenching Network. Whether you're a technician, a mechanic, or someone who just loves the car scene, The Wrenching Network is a place that you have to check out. They have all sorts of great content, gear, and snacks to keep you turning wrenches in whatever capacity you do it. Also if you see us over there, make sure you say hi and leave a comment with what you think about the episode!

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we talk about one of the major discrepancies in the automotive industry: the difference between managers and leaders. Managers are appointed, Leaders are ordained by the people they work with. When they are the same person, things can be great - when they are one or the other it can lead to conflict. We also do a deep dive on intergenerational differences in work, management, and even leadership that we see on a daily basis and some of the ramifications of not meeting your employees needs. This episode has more information than the entirety of some Business Communications classes and it is specifically tuned for the Automotive Industry - with just the right amount of Uncle Jimmy zest and 4-letter words. 

Also Uncle Jimmy comes up with the “direct deposit theory”, and it tracks REALLY well.  (Updated the episode, sorry for the confusion!)

This episode is distributed by The Wrenching Network. Whether you're a technician, a mechanic, or someone who just loves the car scene, The Wrenching Network is a place that you have to check out. They have all sorts of great content, gear, and snacks to keep you turning wrenches in whatever capacity you do it. Also if you see us over there, make sure you say hi and leave a comment with what you think about the episode! 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we take aim at another one of the omniscient themes that runs through our industry; conflict. Anytime you have people with broken things, you are going to get a level of conflict. This week’s butchered white collar article is “How to Handle Workplace Conflict”, and buddy there isn’t enough space in the margin for even the expletives involved when it comes to conflict in a repair shop. One of the main differences between conflict in an office and conflict in a shop is the language - folks, we’ve been privy to some of the throwdowns in some of the shops out there and the language is often beyond foul (and hilarious). We also talk about the difference in being reactive or objective when it comes to conflict in the shop, but mostly we talk about how we aren’t good at it! At the heart of almost every interaction is some level of conflict, because the sheer chaos of the shop and the way that we work and are paid lends itself to make a chaotic situation even more rife with conflict. This is to say nothing of the idea that there are some customers who come looking for a fight when their cars are broken. 

Also Uncle Jimmy doesn’t understand why people steal other people’s lunch and describes his legendary ability to fly off the handle.  

This episode is distributed by The Wrenching Network. Whether you're a technician, a mechanic, or someone who just loves the car scene, The Wrenching Network is a place that you have to check out. They have all sorts of great content, gear, and snacks to keep you turning wrenches in whatever capacity you do it. Also if you see us over there, make sure you say hi and leave a comment with what you think about the episode! 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we dive into one of the hallmarks of dysfunction when it comes to the automotive industry: communication. Whether it is customers being extremely vague when it comes to explaining their problems to Service Advisors, to Service Advisors telling customers the wrong thing (or even worse a promise time), to how the parts departments get parts to technicians, communication in our industry is vital and most places aren’t good at it. We also take a look at the K.I.S.S. method when it comes to writing job stories and explaining what is going on with a car, and we delve into the ways that technology has the ability to simultaneously polarize and connect shops better than ever. Keep it simple and stick with the channels that keep the most people happy while still being able to achieve your company’s maximal aims. In this episode, we break down some of the white collar world's tips for better communication through the lens of being an auto technician - because in this business communications skills can be tied directly to your paycheck. 

Also Uncle Jimmy ponders the odds of meeting your future spouse at work to what percentage of technicians own guns while closing it out with a quote from either The Animals or Lana Del Rey depending on what generation you’re from.  

This episode is distributed by The Wrenching Network. Whether you're a technician, a mechanic, or someone who just loves the car scene, The Wrenching Network is a place that you have to check out. They have all sorts of great content, gear, and snacks to keep you turning wrenches in whatever capacity you do it. Also if you see us over there, make sure you say hi and leave a comment with what you think about the episode! 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, it’s time for some good old fashioned rants as we take a look at all of the stupid things that are going on in the automotive industry. From people in a tizzy about BMW’s heated seat subscription, to the customers in general- there is a genuine lack of understanding between consumers, companies, and the middlemen. We also take a very real world look into the manufacturing process and the dubious claims of some that are betting the country on an electric car driven future. We also get a major critique of the way that people use hybrids based on the faults that they are constantly coming in with, obviously some customers aren’t stupid and charge them - so those one’s work pretty well! We finally round it out with AutoBlog’s “Stupidest Cars of All Time” and expand on the internet-fact that every car has some sort of online following. We also applaud those who choose alternative means of getting to work so they are off the road, and out of our way! 

Also Uncle Jimmy answers the question: “how hard is it to steal a Hyundai?” with “ask the kids at their factory in Alabama!”, while having no idea what an IUD looks like.  

This episode is distributed by The Wrenching Network. Whether you're a technician, a mechanic, or someone who just loves the car scene, The Wrenching Network is a place that you have to check out. They have all sorts of great content, gear, and snacks to keep you turning wrenches in whatever capacity you do it. Also if you see us over there, make sure you say hi and leave a comment with what you think about the episode!  

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we take a look at “10 Repairs You Should Never Try to Do Yourself”, of course that really only applies if you’re not a mechanic. Right away, the marketing concept that people can fix their own cars is objectively wrong in most cases.  Bodywork is number one for a good reason, a lot of people think that they can paint a car, but the amount of work actually involved in doing it right makes people do it wrong!  Number two is ECU tuning, which might just be the bane of the indy shop existence in some markets due to their incredible popularity, and their propensity to break stuff. Chasing down electrical gremlins goes from frustrating to expensive when you poke a hole in your fiber optic audio bus cable. We have to agree with the article when they say that amateurs should avoid working on their transmissions by themselves, because long gone are the days of the Turbo 350 and 400, now they have 8-10 gears and are basically indestructible, because when they go bad you just throw a new one in it. Really the big one that we agree with is brakes, because we have seen the evidence all over facebook that no one in the general public has any idea how to do it right.  

Also Uncle Jimmy gives helpful restoration timeline tips, and talks about his greatest nemesis: paint.  

This episode is distributed by The Wrenching Network. Whether you're a technician, a mechanic, or someone who just loves the car scene, The Wrenching Network is a place that you have to check out. They have all sorts of great content, gear, and snacks to keep you turning wrenches in whatever capacity you do it. Also if you see us over there, make sure you say hi and leave a comment with what you think about the episode! 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy watches a video from CNBC on the automotive technician shortage and actually agrees with most of it. There is however, one big thing that they kinda skimmed over that we wanted to elaborate on: passion. Having passion for cars and having the passion to fix them for a living are two different things. With the sheer number of things in modern life that you can be passionate about, it is no wonder why people have put their cars on the back burner even as they rely on them more and more. However, to explore this, Uncle Jimmy talks about another thing that he is passionate about to try to make a more mainstream comparison. Baseball is one of the world’s most popular sports, and there are a lot of similarities between it and the Automotive Industry at large. The brands are like teams- they rise and fall, have good times and bad. Sometimes the lineup is full of big bats, and sometimes they strike out. The shops that we work in are kind of like the stadiums that ball players play in- they have a variety of build dates and feature a spectrum of amenities. Lube shops are basically the minor leagues, and we propose the position of “equipment manager” for a shop - wouldn’t that be awesome? There is a batting average for technicians, but you definitely want to be closer to 1.000, even with Ted Williams number’s your boss will probably want a word about 2 out of 3 cars being comebacks. Unfortunately, the pay scale is still closer to the first few episodes of the Ken Burn’s series Baseball because no one is offering any of us $440 million dollars to turn wrenches for 15 years.

Also Uncle Jimmy pitches HR departments using WAR (Repairs Against Replacement) in evaluating new-hires.

This episode is distributed by The Wrenching Network. Whether you're a technician, a mechanic, or someone who just loves the car scene, The Wrenching Network is a place that you have to check out. They have all sorts of great content, gear, and snacks to keep you turning wrenches in whatever capacity you do it. Also if you see us over there, make sure you say hi and leave a comment with what you think about the episode!