On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle jimmy concludes his symposium on the technician shortage with the simple fact that the job is dangerous, and it will hurt you at some point. There are a million and a half ways to get hurt at work, from the cars to the equipment, to not properly using either. There are also a millions ways that the job can kill you, such as trying to catch rolls royces, to chemicals. In this episode we go over the burns, cuts, sprains, and strains that can knock a good tech out of commission, and if bad enough get their coworkers to leave the game all together. Seriously, everyone listening to this has, at some point in time, gotten hurt on the job. And if employers think that this is not a cause of the technician shortage, they are delusional! 
 
 Also Uncle Jimmy goes over how the Germans do it right, and how The King ultimately ended up dying on the bog. 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access!  

On this weeks episode of Grease The Wheels, Uncle Jimmy expands on the concept of “The Bullsh*t Factor” Quite simply put, this is anything that makes your job as a technician more difficult. This can from the environment, such as shops that are not properly climate controlled for the climate that they are in. It can also come from management and other support staff, being either too involved or not involved enough in keeping up standards, or adding steps to processes that should be incredibly simple. It can come from ownership that sees their technicians and support staff less as an investment, and more as a cost. It can also come from Parts Departments, usually because they are so underpaid for the job that they do. The bottom line is that if the effort is not there, and the view on the fixed ops department is that it is not a good investment but rather a human run impediment to selling more cars — then the situation is never going to improve and it is time to grease them wheels. 
 
 Also Uncle Jimmy resurrects an old intro format and gets an amber alert that almost completely derails an important bit. 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access!  

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy comes down hard on one of the major contributing factors of the technician shortage - the money. From warranty times that keep getting slashed to an abysmally low starting average pay, there is no wonder why the attrition rate is so high amongst young technicians. Throughout the industry, keeping talent is a problem - for some! For others who run a business well and understand that skilled labor isn’t cheap, there is no technician shortage. We also get into the weeds on a concept called “The Bullshit Factor” which will either compound or allow more leeway with what it is going to cost you to keep working there. There are many contributing factors to the technician shortage, but it is highly dependent on the attitudes and compensation of talent throughout the industry. 
 
 Also Uncle Jimmy blows up old Porsches. 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access!  

On this week’s episode of Grease The Wheels, Uncle jimmy starts in on a series that is addressing the technician shortage. Throughout the history of media that has included cars, mechanics (and their modern iteration of technicians) have been unduly vilified as grifters, cheats, and scumbags. While there are some bad actors in the field, the same can be said for literally other occupation on earth (most notably, the ones that actually deal with the customers and complete the transactions in our industry!) We challenge this notion in it’s entirety, as many of the technicians that we know and love, especially the ones that listen to this podcast, are some of the best people that we have ever met. So how do we go about changing this societal view on an entire profession - media. While this media might not be a good example! But between the small screen in a customers pocket that is showing them a perfect video MPI on their vehicle, to larger scale scripted media, we are working to change customers perspective of the fixed operations department, one interaction at a time. 

Also Uncle Jimmy quotes last week’s episode write up! 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access!  

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy takes a common problem and solves it in the most insane way that he possibly can! We have all seen manuals, repair instructions, and bulletins that seem to be written by someone who has never turned a wrench in anger, but sometimes they are egregious enough to actually be a problem. Such as the one that attempted to have Uncle Jimmy start messing around with battery connections on a live battery - pro tip; don’t do this! So we decided to reimagine these forms of literature in the forms of common children’s stories - some for technicians, some for other techs, and even some for customers to get the point across in a simple and digestible way. The practical application of this comes from the definitely-non-children author, H.P. Lovecraft who famously said, “the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown” The more that we help both professionals in the field and the customers that use the products that we keep running every single day understand what is going on, the less fear there well be overall. 

Also Uncle Jimmy drops a positively millennial/gen-z hot take, “don’t die at work, that means work wins!”

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access!  

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy outlines the service advisor boot camp that will break your service advisors of all of their bad habits, and build them back up with all of the right ones. All it will take is sheer psychological torture for a few days, weeks, or months! The real idea here though is to make Service Advisors do the job the way that everyone wants them to do it. From actually walking around the customers car and possibly pre-selling the repairs right in the drive on, to watching the video to gather the evidence they need for their followup conversations, to utilizing the proper communication method for where that customer is at in the building — the service advisor boot camp will make monsters out of even the most slovenly examples that the industry puts forward. We also get deeper into the idea that going with a blank slate, and even service advisors that don’t know anything about cars can be a good tactical choice when it comes to choosing them, because you get to indoctrinate them the way that your shop wants them to get the job done. 

Also Uncle Jimmy keeps it under a dozen quotes from the eternal R. Lee Ermey. 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access!  

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we delve into the world of statistics, and come up with some genuinely novel applications of baseball numbers and terminology to help your shop run better. RBI for service advisors, Errors also mostly for service advisors, and techs having to bat 1.000. There area already hundreds of datapoint for shops to utilize to make better decisions, but more often than not we find that the data is being underutilized, and no one really knows what it is. There are many reasons for this, but it leads to one of the most pressing concepts in the automotive industry today, a takeoff of the stat line WAR from baseball that we named Repairs Against Replacement. Are the new guys able to actually turn the hours with the accuracy of the people that they are replacing - more often than not. Will your shop have the payroll to effectively replace high performing techs who decide to grease the wheels - also probably not. 

Also Uncle Jimmy is still salty about the Bills and has used the time between football and baseball season to binge some Ken Burns. 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access!  

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we go over some of the highlights and lowlights of automotive management. One of the main things that we have noticed is that in the rise of the corporate owned, multi-location dealership group era, there are a lot less nepo-hires in management. It still happens, especially at smaller family owned dealerships, but on a whole the quality of management in the automotive space has actually gotten significantly better in the last 20+ years! There are still ineffective, and poorly trained management in this space, but many of them are a lot easier to get rid of when they aren’t going to show up at family parties. We go over some of the hallmarks of what makes managers successful in this space full of good examples, ideas, tips, and tricks. Bottom line, good management can make a good shop great, and bad management can make a bad shop infinitely worse. 
 
 Also Uncle Jimmy knows that he cannot govern the ungovernable! 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access!  

On this weeks episode of Grease the Wheels, we answer a question that absolutely no one asked: what if the safety systems in your car could be funny? To do this, we use the framework of our personal favorite retired New York State Trooper, Jimmy’s brother Bob! This is a natural fit because Bob did the nitty gritty work of crash scene reconstructions and even taught it at the Trooper Academy for years. Needless to say he knows pretty much all of the ways that things can go wrong on the road and their direct consequences first hand. However, our OBDII program B.O.B would use those inputs to give you feedback — some gentile and caring, and some hilariously unhinged. There would be other inputs as well, from Bluetooth jamming people lollygagging in the left lane, to some other, much grosser applications. Either way, Bob/B.O.B. is there to keep you alive and quite possibly make you wet yourself laughing! 

Also Uncle Jimmy casually calls out some of the bad driving and car borrowing habits of Erik the Producer, while thankfully leaving out that real Bob has gotten both of us out of enough tickets to fund the NYS Government for a whole 12 seconds. Thanks, Bob! 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access!  

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we close out our anthology on the Video MultiPoint Inspection, DVI, vMPI, etc -- with the most important part of the equation: the customers. Taking a step back, part of the reason why our customers are so unreasonable at times when it comes to our recommendations when it comes to facing or maintaining their cars is the immense amount of anxiety that they have about it. It is a known fact that the less you understand about a situation, the more the lizard parts of your brain are likely to overreact, over correct, and get defensive. When it comes to modern car owners, they really have never understood less! This is why they are so anxious, and why the Video MPI does so much heavy lifting when executed right. Even in short form, you can have a customer understand on even a rudimentary level what is going on with their car, why the recommendations that you made are accurate and factual, and why we do them in the first place. Quite simply put, the better that you can hold the customers hand and make them feel that they are making the right decision, the better your outcomes will be every single time! Also, this is something that folks with our skillsets rarely face, because we purposely go out and look for cars that are messed up when it is time for a new daily! 

Also Uncle Jimmy writes a modern country classic, goes 2 for two without a single bit of help from the service advisor (on a Saturday) and gets an incredibly well-timed email from someone on the other side of the MPI Equation (hint, it’s Kalil’s Mom making her second appearance in consecutive weeks!)

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access!  

 On this weeks episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy loosely defines the roles of the management staff when it comes to doing Video MultiPoint Inspections. The main part of the management role in video MPI adoption is to properly incentivize their technicians on doing them, setting them up for success, and getting the right training into the shop to make it effective - insert shameless plug here- However, often times the management of a shop is a direct hindrance to getting quality video MPI’s out to their customers. By adding their own critiques while failing to incentivize techs for doing them well, they are setting the entire digital transformation of their fixed ops departments up for failure, every single time! There are tons of ways that shop management can properly incentives this, but they often miss the easy ones! There is a silver lining here, also we come up with the true end-goal terminology for video MPI - Peace of Mind Inspections! 
 
 Also Uncle Jimmy gives a shoutout to Kalil’s Mom! 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access!  

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy follows up part one about Video being a tool for mechanics with part 2 about Service Advisors. When a Service Advisor has technicians doing the video, or in some rare instances is doing the video themselves, they have an undeniable advantage over a fixed ops department where there are no video MPI’s performed. This is why it is infuriating when service advisors fail to leverage the high definition evidence of work or maintenances that need to be done. There is not much more else that a tech or ‘designated hitter’ can do to make that service advisors life easier, yet often times they are squandering opportunities left and right when they do not use the Video MPI as a sales tool. Smart Advisors use every tool in the kit to make sales and make the fixed ops department more money. However there is a glut of service advisors that do not fit this parameter. Any customer facing job is a difficult one, brought with all sorts of personalities, mood swings, and financial situations — however a failure to ask for the sale and a lack of attempting to overcome the customers objections are the hallmarks of useless personnel that are easily replaced by AI. 

Also Uncle Jimmy hits us with some real tangible rage. 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access!  

On this episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy goes over some of the finer points of the Video Multi-Point Inspection; more specifically all of the very valid reasons that technicians do not want to do them! From being camera shy to not being the “loquacious type” and tons of background noise and poor lighting, there are a myriad of reasons for technicians to want to shirk this responsibility overall. We haven’t even mentioned that the vast majority of shops are not paying technicians for the time that they spend on these, but this is an incredibly important factor when having this discussion - the refrain of which is a simple, “you get what you pay for!” However, we also talk about some of the conversions that we have had that were 100% caused by the video and ask, “who got the commission on that one?” Bottom line, video isn’t going anywhere, and the better that you are at it, and the more your shop embraces this technology with some modern management techniques, the better off everyone will be. If you want this to go as smoothly as possible, and want top work with Uncle Jimmy and Erik the Producer personally, have your management team click the link at the bottom of the episode description! 

Also Uncle Jimmy sharpens the executioners ax for the imminent follow up which is about the Service Advisors in this series! 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access!  

On this weeks episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy makes a comprehensive wish list of things that we would like to see in the automotive industry. This list doesn’t leave anyone out either, with special focus on customers to start it off, and special callouts for management and ownership that does it right. We also get into the wishlists for our fellow technicians, and our wishes for parts people. The most pivotal wish that Uncle Jimmy has this year is for service advisors to simply ask for the sale and for the government to stop telling companies how to make cars — with similar levels of vitriol for both. Finally we get to the manufacturers themselves, and their relentless pursuit to make cars harder to work on, and this is a big one. What is on your Christmas wishlist —let us know over on the Facebook page! 

Also Uncle Jimmy wishes everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Boxing Day, Happy Kwanzaa, and a belated happy Hannuklah while Erik covers Blessed Yule and a Happy Winter Solstice!

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access!  

On this episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy goes over some very interesting survey results from inside the automotive industry from WrenchWay. They asked a lot of the right questions when it comes to things like job satisfaction, training opportunities, and how well their facilities are kept — but there are a handful of things that we feel like might be actually 100% in agreement across the board. There were points of major agreement, and a few that surprised us! 

Also Uncle Jimmy carries on his favorite holiday tradition of breaking down automotive news articles. 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access! 

On this weeks episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy goes over an oldie-but-a-goodie with his 10 thesis on automotive diagnosis. With modern automobiles becoming more and more complex, checking batteries (especially when there are tons of weird or seemingly unrelated problems) is always a good Bet. Things like Visual Inspections and Scanning the vehicle for faults seem to be a given, but can be complicated when an advisor is diagnosing from the chair. Any time that you have access to a vehicles repair history or CarFax report is a good thing, especially when they are in for the fourth time in a month for the same problem and hoping that somehow that problem has gotten cheaper to fix — which is hasn’t, it never has, and that isn’t how this works! 

Also Uncle Jimmy talks about the best tasting parts of a wiring harness (for a mouse) and does his best Joe Cocker impression while impersonating customers. 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access! 

On this episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy outlines all of the ways that flat rate technicians lose time and money to the inefficiencies of the dealership system itself. Support staff and Service Advisors are key culprits, between not separating items on repair orders, repair orders that are poorly written or feature hand written add-ons, and not going over cars to check and see what else is wrong with them such as check engine lights. This problem is massively amplified with porters and lot personelle when they do not follow proper procedures such as putting the car in numbered parking spots and not hanging identifying hang tags. When you start adding it all up, there is a lot of this going on in any shop that utilizes the flat-rate system, and it doesn’t cost the dealership a nickel! There are also tons of things that the technician is expected to do for free, such as airing up the tires, “complementary" inspections , checking and filling fluids and again — they cost you time, which in this system is costing you money. Also major time wasters; the systems themselves such as internal, OEM, and third party software  even when they work right! Bottom line the best system that a shop can have to be fair and equitable to the talent that keeps that shop making money is a hybrid that features salary with production bonuses — and that might just fix the tech shortage overall! 

Also, Uncle Jimmy completely forgets about the Ford Explorer Firestone Tire Scandal and talks about his favorite secret societies. 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access! 

On this weeks episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy talks about the nature of customers. No one likes having to pay for their car to be fixed, except some of weirdo’s who can tell when we are running the right gas or not. No, most customers will actively chafe when we recommend repairs to their vehicle, no matter how badly they are needed! This becomes compounded when you do a video explaining what is wrong with their vehicle and the service advisor fails to mention a single recommendation from that video and the customer walks out the door with tires that are showing cords or an oil leak that rivals the Exxon-Valdez. Video however is they key to breaking this down, and with coming improvements to Video MPI and the contextualization and AI integrations that we are going to see in their next iterations, the facts might just turn the tides on these unreasonable people.  What is the most unreasonable customer that you have experienced - let us know over on Facebook! 
 
 Also Uncle Jimmy talks Rez Gas. 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access! 

On this weeks episode of Grease the wheels, Uncle Jimmy dreams of electric sheep - er, service advisors! Ai is filtering it’s way into dealerships more and more. Some of the immediate casualties of this are going to be in sales, as a well put together data set and website are coming straight for the heads of your underperforming sales people. Getting it into the service department will also completely cull the industry of underperforming service advisors, because an AI will never NOT ask for the sale (which has become a huge problem in some shops given the metrics that we are looking at. However, AI is a LOOOONG way off of being able to fix cars, even if they can sometimes tell you if you need tires. Pairing AI with Video Multi-Point Inspections is going to be an absolute game changer in all of the best ways, and we cannot wait to see how gets it to market first! 
 
 Also Uncle Jimmy prophesies the ultimate AI Sales Consultant - Reese! 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access! 

On this episode of Grease the Wheels, we talk about some of the pull factors that are in fact causing the tech shortage. This is a significant problem in the industry, and thankfully some seriously high up people are actually talking about it. To illustrate this, we talk about the massive tug of war that happens regarding the money in the industry, and how to fix this massive problem that is causing people to leave the industry or more likely avoid it all together. The shop and dealership owners that are feeling the tech shortage the worst are the ones who are not understanding this tug of war, and are often pulling the hardest on the existing money in the system — offering incredibly low wages that cause their existing talent to leave and new talent to not apply to their god-awful job postings. They deserve this! We also talk about how warranty times have caused many experienced technicians to leave the industry, as it is a losing proposition to do some of these jobs which can cause tickets to stack, cars to not get done either on time or at all, and one star reviews to pile up like so many spent tires and brake rotors. Bottom line, it is the money in many cases that are causing experienced techs to leave, and tech schools to go under attended across the industry. 
 
 Also Uncle Jimmy has a poltergeist that occasionally makes his life more difficult than it needs to be, most likely because it is his white collar father! 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access! 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy takes to task a newsfeed article that stumbled across his unnamed homepage (it was probably AOL) regarding the common warning lights in cars and what they mean — according to someone who has never worked on a car. These ones are always fun, from the teapot of doom and the drunk robot, to more obscure and abstract examples — people really have no idea how their cars work and when the car tries to tell them something this is compounded. The real takeaway that is missed by the vast majority of the points in this article is that when your car is telling you something, you are more than likely to need professional help when it comes to making that light turn off. Some lights are more dire than others, and some can just make it more likely that either your car or yourself might die! What are your favorite customer names for idiot lights, let us know over at the Facebook page. 

Also Uncle Jimmy sits too close to the mic and does his best impression of the Black Keys, ‘Rubber Factory'
 
 This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access! 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy watches the interview with Jim Farley, who unsurprisingly completely misses the point of why there is a technician shortage. He does mention that there is one, so that actually gives him a ton of credit in our book. To hammer the point home, Jimmy winds back the clock to the mid-50’s to the time of duck and cover drills, unprecedented economic prosperity, and Edsel’s. In this era, the average earnings of a mechanic was significantly higher as a percentage of the labor rate that the shop earned. Coincidentally the cost and amount of specialty tools, difficulty of the vehicles to work on, and overall social status of mechanics in the labor force has all become notably more precarious. Either way, things need to happen to make this balance a little more equitable, and make people trust mechanics more as a matter of principle. 

Also, Uncle Jimmy forgets that Jim Farley IS the first cousin of the late, great ‘Fat Guy in a Little Coat’

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access! 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we look through the archives at some of the hits and misses of the previous 325 episodes of the podcast. We have undoubtedly had some ridiculous fun so far, including pondering children’s programming aiming to get more kids into the trades with incredible titles such as Mr. Rogers Dyno Room and Sesame Street Outlaws. We also get into some of the early episodes where we talk shop dynamics, how not to get on your coworkers nerves, and how to fit in, to more recent episodes including the new guy survival guides. We also talk the phenomenally fun “You know your Effed When...” 4-part series that has resonated with techs the world over, and spawned a million comments, memes, and listens. What has been your favorite? What do you want to hear more of? What haven’t we covered in the wrenching world? Let us know over on the Facebook page! 

Also Uncle Jimmy makes Erik do the Ad Read.

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access! 

On this episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy follows up last week’s episode with all of the stuff that he forgot — it happens, because as a new guy there is a ton of things to learn in a short period of time and sometimes the people teaching you the ropes will themselves forget things. We also get into the idea of changing jobs and becoming a “NOS” New/Old Service when you have a bit of experience and are changing venues. There are a lot of things to navigate with this including the personalities, procedures, and preferences of the new shop that you are going to. From what they are charging in labor for common jobs, to the uniforms, shop configuration, and what special tools this new shop may or many not have the grass might not always be greener, so the more questions that you ask in the interview will set you up better for what is expected. Can you work on your own cars after hours? Being helpful to anyone that is new to your shop regardless of how much they know or how much they do not know is just the right thing to do, especially in an industry that has a historically high turnover rate, because you want to be known as a good person who is generally helpful and welcoming to the new talent. One thing that both new-new guys and new-old guys need to be aware of is the massive proliferation of video in the service lane, and if you see the bottom of the second paragraph and send your service managers and fixed opes directors to it, you’ll find a massive advantage! 

Also, Uncle Jimmy has platypus feet. 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. 

On this episode of Grease the Wheels, we have some serious words of wisdom (and rants) for the new guys. If you have new guys in the shop, this is probably a good one to start them out with, because it should theoretically cut about 90% of the BS if they actually listen! From inherent mechanical curiosity to becoming a master technician, the road for a mechanic is a long one that is fraught with difficulty. Choosing the right tech school is a big part of getting yourself ahead and learning many of the core concepts that we use on a daily basis - that is of course if you actually paid attention and showed up every single day. Seriously, attendance and effort are massively rewarded at this phase, because if you miss something the confusion is going to compound quickly and it can be incredibly hard to get back on track. Research where you want to go to tech school as well, because there are tons of options, scholarships, and external factors that will make your success either more likely or less likely. Continuing ed is a real thing here as well, including manufacturer specific training programs and the relentless march of automotive technology that aims to make our job more difficult every single day. We also get into the tools debate with a simple mantra - less is more! Believe us, we have seen tons of technicians go massively into tool debt and then exit the profession before they are even done paying for the socket set. Bottom line, it can be a great career, but dues need to be paid, and mistakes can quickly compound if you don’t slow down and seriously think about your choices, strengths and weaknesses. 

Also, Uncle Jimmy does a short book report on ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. 

On this episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy goes in depth on the pros and cons of being an auto mechanic. Despite some of our previous episodes, there are many pros to being an auto mechanic. The cars have gotten safer, the shops in many cases have gotten better, and more often than not the shops have come a long way from some of their humble roots. Not to mention that as mechanics, there are tons of ways that we can keep our own cars on the road longer and even occasionally (or constantly) flip broken cars by fixing the. There are some things that split right down the middle though, including the people, management decisions, waiters especially at 5 PM on a Friday. There are some things though that are straight in the cons list, such as shrinking warranty times, the lost or broken tools that are needed to get the job done, and the constant battle against cars getting more and more complex, with our customers not being realistic with some of their demands. Bottom line, there are many pros and cons to being an auto mechanic, but this is an incredibly personal thing that depends a lot on where you are, how good your management is, and the communication breakdown that happens when service advisors auto-decline all of the work that we have put in a repair order. What are the pros and cons of your shop and brand — let us know over on the Facebook page. 

Also Uncle Jimmy staunchly denies throwing wrenches (for the last decade or so) and explains the Moss-Magnusen Act of 1966. 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench! This is where all of the digital tools to help run your shop live and we are constantly adding more. For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. 

On this episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy goes down the rabbit hole of toxic management. We go into some of the specifics for what makes a manager or boss toxic: such as unrealistic expectations, nepotism, and much, much more! The good news is that skilled tradesmen of all types, and especially auto mechanics and technicians have ample opportunity to jump ship, because the demand far outweighs the supply. We also go over some of the possible remedies to these conflicts, which mostly revolve \around good communication and documentation of your grievances, and possibly going over their heads in certain cases. When a manager doesn’t understand this, they are in trouble, and in many cases it can spell doom for a shops overall productivity and profitability. Bottom line, do not put up with a toxic manager for one minute more than you want to!  

Also, Uncle Jimmy astonishingly holds his fire on Service Advisors for another day! 

This episode is sponsored by surfwrench.com: for all of your dealership's digital needs. Photography, SEO, AIO, E-Commerce, and Service Lane Video Training that put you on top on the internet! 

On this episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy is back in the OG Rock and Roll Garage after a Homeric odyssey to get to New York from Texas. As a result, Erik the Producer is in studio to talk about some of the digital tools that we have been working on to help make your lives easier, and make you more money! We are talking Video MPI Training, a fully flushed out K-Plan with some help from our friends in academia, ASE Test Prep, and so much more! We also talk about the brands that we work for, the state of the business in general, the massive shifts in the market because of tariff fears, training, and the blistering rate at which some of the EV’s we work on and sell eat tires. We also do a short dive on some of the digital witchcraft that started it all, and how reverse engineering how people are looking for cars has completely changed how sales departments function. Bottom line, we listened to the techs who understand it best, and built the solutions that will actually fix some of the major problems in the industry. 

Also, Uncle Jimmy hasn’t found anyone who dislikes the Slate EV Pickup Truck!  

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy rounds out the “you’re e’ffed” saga with part four. As it turns out there are tons of portents of doom when cars roll into your shop. Some vehicle’s even have multiple of these automotive red flags, while others can be false flags. We hit the ever favorite, “gimp mask in the trunk” and raise it with tons of other examples that we have seen throughout the years. What is your favorite? What is one that we didn’t hit on the podcast (editor’s pick: Nissan Altima’s - they always have a story and it always has drama.)

Also Uncle Jimmy gears up for another longer form series that actually feels like work! 

On this episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy goes into some of the backend programming of our customers in regards to what the media has made our profession out to be for the last 50+ years. As a profession, few trades have been maligned to the extent of the automotive trades, and this is especially true in media depictions. Let’s be clear, we have seen some criminals in this trade -- but it is actually a lot more rare than you would think. However, more often than not the line is a lot more blurry than we, our customers, and even the shops that employ us would like to admit. The more pressing issues to todays automotive customers is the massive gap that exists between the seasoned professionals, and the newbies. Are you getting ripped off if someone fails to properly fix your car right, possibly - but more often than not the easy fix is to bring it back in and make it right! There is an incredible ground-swell though in the media perception war that has been waged against this profession, and it comes in the form of the Video MPI. This entire process brings levels of transparency that the customer simply cannot refute. Best of all, we’re going to teach all of your how to do it! More on that later! 

Also Uncle Jimmy goes 2 for 2 on thunderstorms during recording! 

On this much delayed episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy takes a look at the entire strata of the typical dealership and informs them of at least one major thing that they should take into consideration in order to make the process seamless. For ownership and boards of directors, it is very hard to get an accurate picture of a dealership’s overall functionality just by the numbers. The numbers can tell you a lot, but it is sometimes hard to put toxic shops or bad processes into numbers. Working the way down, the message gets much more explicit for the Service Managers. This person should probably be well-acquainted with the chaos of a shop scenario, and needs the customer service skills to deal with people who have problems with their car, or your staff! This position is best filled with former shop foremen. Sales people just need to stay in their lane and no disrupt the process too much, while Service Advisors simply need to ask for the sale. If a Service Advisor has the added benefit of video MPI’s this should be extremely easy! We also take ourselves and Lot Porters to task for a variety of issues, and finally Uncle Jimmy takes himself to task as well! 

Also Uncle Jimmy gives a shoutout to his teddy bear as the thunderstorm in the background would have warranted a dramatic reading of ‘The Raven’ as an intro! 

On this fairly-sporadic episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy wades into the terminally unhinged forum of LinkedIn to find a concept that everyone deals with in this industry. The term “Emotional Waste” is the concept of negative emotions creating undue stress and occupying an inordinate amount of someone’s time. We all see this, and some of the best people in the industry have the exact opposite going on - Emotional Intelligence. This is the ability to regulate and utilize your emotional states, as well as being able to effectively read a room or read a person. Being able to quickly get over things is a key skill in this industry. 

Also Uncle Jimmy goes 3rd round in the Angry draft, despite a strong showing with a missing 10mm. 

On this week’s Episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy takes a look at some of the real world ramifications of Texas discontinuing their state vehicle safety inspections. The first thing that stood out to us was that it was in fact similar to those in New York, and in fact throughout most of the Rust Belt where we know they are a really good idea. Entropy is the name of the game here, and if something is too rotten to be safe, or tires are too bald to provide adequate traction — they need to go. We also get into some of the socioeconomics of the state safety inspection, and how this has altered our own perceptions of this subject over time. When we we’re young and broke, we hated it! When we had seen some stuff and learned some stuff, we we’re a lot more understanding of why they are important. Bottom line, relying on the common sense of vehicle owners is, really without a doubt, one of the worst parameters we have ever seen. We have seen the “common sense” of vehicle owners and it usually ends up on “Just Rolled In” 

Also Uncle Jimmy talks his favorite ways of evading(and altering) police attention while having an out of date inspections!

On this episode of Grease The Wheels, Uncle Jimmy goes for the trilogy of things that you see roll into your shop that spell doom, because you know you’re eff’d. From poorly done wraps, to harlequin models of cars that are not 90s Golf’s, and underbody lights, there are a lot of things that we see that spell doom and gloom for our profit margin. Seeing an old car that is still being daily driven darkening your door is somehow more of an omen of impending doom than the banshee’s howl, while seeing car club stickers on a PT Cruiser was just hilarious. We’d like to throw a shoutout to Sibley, Iowa and somehow this series gets a part 4 at a later date. It’s the one series that you have nodded along to at least once — and hopefully hasn’t caused any weird synchronicities where you hear about it in the podcast and it immediately shows up in the shop! 

Also Uncle Jimmy goes thermonuclear on marketplace sellers who sell as “parts only” and explores of the concept of “Convertible Sunk Cost Fallacy”

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy comes up with a list of interview questions for mechanics to observe and take into account when they are looking to move to a new shop. Is there enough parking, are there enough bathrooms, and where exactly did all of these dead and abandoned cars come from? There are tons of criteria that we use when evaluating where we are going to work, but this episode brings a lot of them to life with some of the most insane examples you’ve ever heard! 

Also Uncle Jimmy side hustles as a garage door repairman

On this episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy goes to practical goal building mode for 2025. Getting better isn’t going to be negotiable in 2025, as the pace of technological change in the cars is continuing at break-neck speed. Look at the year end total for your W-2, divide it by your hourly rate and that gets you near how many hours you worked. This of course isn’t taking into effect all of the house that you turned but didn’t get paid for! It also doesn’t get into the amount of hours that you quoted. All oof these numbers are easy to figure out and give you a good idea of the value that you bring to your company. So needless to say, if you don’t like something, Grease the Wheels! 
 
 Also Uncle Jimmy discovers Gasoline particulate filters. 

On this episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy revisits some of the common signs and portents of things that you know are going to result in a rough day in the shop. From bullet holes and hypodermic needles, to an entire goodwill inventory of clothes in a trunk where you need to replace a battery, there is little limit to the chaos and carnage that customer roll in on a daily basis. We also go into a scientific breakdown for an answer to every single complaint about a sunroof. 

Also Uncle Jimmy pulls off a flawless Moody Blues reference while really hammering home just how old he is with the price of batteries. 

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”.

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy comes off of summer break and gets medieval on Service Advisors. If you can see the cords hanging out of a set of tires, you really don’t need a tire gauge to tell you they are smoked. All we are asking for is that you ask for the sale, don’t avoid customers, and make sense with the repair order. That’s it! We get into some of the ways that a service advisor can be great, but a lot of them should not be in the business in the first place! We go over the basics, and tell you how to augment the entire process with tons of transparency through video multipoint inspections. Bottom line, they need help, and the more that you can break down the communication barriers with technology - the more profitable that your shop is going to be. 

Also Uncle Jimmy references a song production has never heard of. 

On this week’s (on time!) episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy takes a look at last week’s episode through a new set of parameters with a little more of a preservation minded end. There are a lot of reasons why people do not want to become automotive technicians, but the ones who do need to be properly developed. We can’t be chasing them out of the building with massive tool debts and little to no professional development. The rear rub here is with management trying to keep wages stagnant across the board to keep overhead down while the cost of literally everything keeps going up. This is leading to high turnover at many stagnant businesses, and is chasing experienced technicians elsewhere. The long term data on this, even since we have been broadcasting has gotten worse, but that is a good thing for anyone with a lot of experience and stuff to fix. Shop labor rates keep going up, and in many cases thankfully so are the wages - but this serves as a stark reminder for the shops where they are not! 

Also Uncle Jimmy eviscerates the Mets.

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy makes some of his own lists as to why people are not joining the automotive trades, although the current slate of youngsters is picking it up more than the millennials and Gen X did. There are tons of reasons both internal to the shop and external that cause people to leave the automotive profession. Societal pressures for 4 year degrees, lack of access, and even a lack of passion for vehicles have caused the ranks to dwindle - but the real carnage happens inside the shop. From this being an incredibly physical job, to inept and uncaring management, the automotive service industry is fraught with challenges. This is why so many people who get into the automotive trades end up leaving. However, the biggest problem is the rapid pace of advancement for the cars that we work on and the compensation that we receive to do it. 

Also Erik forgets to hit “publish”

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy goes into what the internet thinks is the top 10 causes of cars breaking down. Some of these haven’t been relevant in almost 30 years, while some of these we have never seen once in our wrenching careers - this is a bit dated so we have a fair bit of fun with it. In a weird semantic sort of argument, a lot of these are more “reasons why your car isn’t working in the first place” rather than the cause of mid-trip breakdowns. We also get into some of the incredible advancements in user friendliness that cars have baked into themselves over the past 50 years, as well as Uncle Jimmy’s own personal “I wasn’t home yet!” experience. Coolant, charging systems, and tires are more the culprit to modern breakdowns, but you already knew that! This is a jam-packed, double-barrelled episode that you are not going to want to miss even though you probably won’t learn anything! Wait, we lied! Tune in for how to easily diagnose starter motor batteries on some of your various high voltage, mild hybrid vehicles.

Also Uncle Jimmy lists his favorite repair manuals. 

In this week’s heavily delayed episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy talks about the people who think the world revolves around them. We also do a seriously deep dive on the differences between being confident and being arrogant - turns out it's a pretty fine line dictated entirely by how you treat people! You can have tons of knowledge and use it for all the right reasons, but the minute you can’t back it up, or problems are suddenly not you daily - you’ve made the switch. Confidence isn’t a bad thing, and can go a seriously long way towards advancing your career, but when it traverses into arrogance, people are going to start rooting for you to fail! 

Also Uncle Jimmy wants your “Ego Check Moment” Stories!

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy takes aim at the divide that exists in many dealerships between the sales and fixed ops departments. It has been noted by several sources that while many techs could sell a car in a pinch - almost no one in your sales department could do anything if they needed to prep a car for delivery, or fix something that was going wrong with it. With the way that the internet is going they really shouldn’t act too big for their britches, but we are a long way off from AI being able to swing a hammer or torch up suspension components. We also go back into the CDK SNAFU, because it is still making lives miserable. 

Also Uncle Jimmy goes 3 for 5 on “reasons no one takes you seriously!” 

On this week’s episode of Grease the wheels, Uncle Jimmy ventures into pseudo actual journalism talking about the recent cyber attack and ransomware woes of CDK. This one was a big one- big ransome and big outage. This has completely crippled thousands of shops and dealerships across the country being locked out of the software that they use to run the business both front and back, as the articles seemed to have forgotten about the back of the house. Being a solutions oriented person like all of you are, we knew the answer was simple: go back to analogue! Even the fact that the sales manager is chain smoking Lucky Strikes out of pure stress is right out of 1977! Handwritten Repair Orders and sales documents are back, for now at least. This is an interesting opportunity for all of the Reynolds shops as well, because this could definitely happen to any cloud based customer resource software. The business opportunities for R&R just shot through the roof too, because no one wants to be without this technology for long. We just sincerely hope that it doesn’t result in payroll errors, which cause shops all around to hear the greasing of wheels.

Also Uncle Jimmy is fully prepped to work at “Kaczynski Chevrolet” and murders corporate press releases. 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we go into some easy ways to avoid a coronary - taking your vacation! Studies have proven that people who actually take their vacation tend to experience a myriad of positive effects when they are out of the office, and this is especially true when your office is a shop. Too many techs take their days off in the form of a check, and this isn’t always the best thing. Taking a day off here and a day off there is a good way to break up the monotony and avoid missing family milestones and memories. Or you can do it like Uncle Jimmy and use it all in one shot! Bottom line, if you have the time to take off - take it! If you don’t have the time to take off - grease your wheels to somewhere that understands basic human resources! 

Also Uncle Jimmy fixes Erik’s brakes on vacation. 

On this week's episode of Grease the Wheels, we get into the “20 Most Common Automotive Scams”.  Right off the bat, “scams” is a relative term here because the author thinks we’re still using freon. Half of them are fixed with paperwork - which you should always do, and the other half can be covered easily by video. There is no doubt that the overall public image of mechanics is not good, but this level of ignorance seems to underscore the need for more intensive (often high-definition) documentation of problems with customers' vehicles. Sure, there is always the possibility of abuse when a customer doesn’t know anything about their car - but Thrust Bushings are real, we promise. This one is fun because it showcases the internal biases of people who don’t know anything about their cars, while being completely oblivious to some of the REAL scams and abuse going on. 

Also Uncle Jimmy chronicles his limited experience with scumbags. 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we get a little off topic with various developmental psychology articles. We’ve all heard the question, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” and we’re not sure how many people came right out and said, “mechanic!” Turns out even asking this question is actually not the best thing in the world, because it can put undue burden on developing brains that think that they have to live up to this expectation. Answering with “mechanic” might be a growing trend though, as Gen Z has started to turn the corner and get into the trades at a higher percentage than X-ers and Millennials. We’ve told them not to, but in typical fashion of a younger generation questioning an older one - they keep coming! We also delve into the concept of some people only being your friend when their stuff is broken, which is something everyone listening to this has experienced at one point or another and hit on the cyclical nature of “getting killed on the warranty at the dealership” to “making tons of money on the same job at an Indy once it’s out of warranty”. Uncle Jimmy rewrites the law of the hammer to his Snap-On guy, and talks about head injuries! 

Also Uncle Jimmy lives up to generational expectations and tells you exactly what’s on his mind! 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy goes full boomer and talks about some statistics involving cell phone use in the workplace. We get into just how much time we’re wasting, how we’re wasting it, and the incredible stats involving how likely we are to mess up after using our phones at work. There are some major streamlined processes in the automotive industry that have gotten incredibly advanced when it comes to workflows that directly involve the phone but Uncle Jimmy just wishes that he didn't have to keep it on his personal phone. Is the phone leading to the downfall of humanity? Maybe, but rest assured it is definitely a wiretap with a monthly payment to keep it running! 

Also Uncle Jimmy goes on one of the best rants about U-Haul since they “rented that mofo for $19.95!”

On this episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy dissects the most shortchanged part of the entire automotive industry - Human Resources! Hiring anyone who has tools and can fog a mirror is one way to fill your shop with bodies, but not paying attention to the shop chemistry can be extremely detrimental to the bottom line. When you hire the right people, the right things happen. Productivity increases, friendly competition can cause even more profit, and the shop is overall a loud but harmonious place. The inverse is also 100% true. When you hire the wrong people, work doesn’t get done, techs snipe at one another, and your customers are going to suffer. The bottom line for this episode, which really is a must-listen for service managers whose teams need some finessing, you get out what you put into the hiring process - and another opinion with some technical skills is a valuable tool in the interview.  

Also Uncle Jimmy pitches the “Tech Combine” and outlines the HR Paradox: “The employees you wish would stay always leave, and the employees you wish would leave always stay (seemingly forever)”

On this week’s Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy gets introspective about some of the main thesis points of the podcast in contrast with industry trends in the six years we’ve been barking into a microphone. Not a lot of podcasts age well, and some of our certainly haven't. We still don't have talking tool boxes but there are more important things at play than S4B. The pay has definitely gone up, and it has to keep going up as people get more and more trained and certified to work on the crazy stuff manufacturers are rolling out with now. We knew hydrogen powered cars were coming when we started, but we didn’t know we’d most likely be seeing them by the end of this decade. We also get into some of the personal points of the job; the toll that it takes on the people who do it day in and day out. We also get into the relatively new and welcome phenomenon of gender equality in the shop, although all of the liberal arts in the world won’t help you lift a small-block chevy. While there have been many points where we have been wrong, on a whole and on the big issues - we have been consistently ahead of the curve. We need to continue the ethos of the show and continue to look for better opportunities as we better ourselves and our craft in pursuit of the American(or wherever you’re from!) Dream. When all else fails, move to Texas! 

Also Uncle Jimmy talks aftermarket time guides and shouts out our favorite non-North American audiences! 

On this week's episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy suggests dissociating from yourself  to better analyze your job performance! Sargent Peppers was a genuinely cool album, showcasing the intrinsic creativity of the Beatles, but if you think about in work terms you get things like “Customer Service Voice” The better you can analyze your performance, the better you can do your job. Sometimes when your heart just isn’t in it that day your coworkers can make it instantly better or worse. We also get into some of the bigger ideas of being a good employee and how to keep them in your building making you money - and the answer is money and recognition! 

Also Uncle Jimmy’s new apartment acoustics need to be figured out, and his chair gets the Keith Moon treatment.  

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy talks about bad management practices. Bad management was the hallmark of the former Soviet Republics, but it also rears its ugly head often in the Automotive Industry. We get into some of the practices that make for bad management as well as relevant examples that are probably happening in your shop right now. From poor communication, to unmet or unwritten expectations - the automotive industry is often hampered by its own lack of interpersonal communication skills in the shops and dealerships that we work at. From asking for the sale, to bringing high definition video to your customers, there is a lot more money to be made in shops that are well run and can crank work through the door over shops that are mired in their own gossip and petty grievances. Bottom line, better run shops make more money, and there's nothing stopping you from going to them! 

Also Uncle Jimmy greases his wheels, more on that later! 

On this week's episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy shows the flip side of the coin when it comes to customers. While all customers deserve a base level of respect and empathy, there are some situations where they are going to try to turn the tables. We also get into some genuinely useful customer service tips for the customer facing technicians, or anyone doing side work. Good customer service is a huge market differentiator and can often make long-term customers that you make a lot of money off of while solving a lot of their problems. At the end of the day the old adage of “under promise and over deliver” rings truest of all when it comes to preventing tension with the customers. We also get into the phenomenon of the customer's internal clock and just how long they can remain a waiter until they need their car back, or need to find alternative transportation. This one is weirdly useful and completely checks out on a corporate communications level, but you’ve never heard this much interactional breakdown with this much swearing! 

Also Uncle Jimmy’s Mom runs a scorched earth campaign on Midas for the better part of 4 decades. 

On this week's episode of Grease the wheels we get to the ethos of the automotive industry - making people mobile. As the people who keep the cars running, we play an absolutely vital part of this ecosystem. We also take a look at emerging automotive trends, which is hilarious because most of the stuff they're soothsaying in the articles has been the standard for 20+ years. The automotive industry is more a slow and steady march rather than a series of massive leaps. Sure, there have been massive leap moments which have propelled the industry forward - but we are the part of the industry that figures it out on a daily basis. This is going to continue through electrification and the move to hydrogen - they’re just going to have to add more training. 

Also Uncle Jimmy gets sent to look for a fault that wasn’t a feature for another 8 model-years. 

On this week's episode of Grease the Wheels, we talk about the much maligned doldrums of the flat rate pay system. When the shop isn’t making money - you aren’t making money. Whether it is a market adjustment to raising your door labor rate, to full blown economic meltdowns that make people put maintenance on the back burner - it is an incredibly cyclical beast. We also get into some of the various shop management theories that are floating around out there, as well as some of the end game systems that could ensure a shop's success for years to come. Love it or hate it, flat rate is the name of the game, and in some states that could be very interesting when it comes to warranty work. Tune in for this and more on this week's episode of Grease the Wheels. 

Also Uncle Jimmy resists the urge from naming this episode “Good Times, Bad Times” 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Jimmy hacks up a lung and explores the line where you should go into work and where you should call in. This is obviously a personal question with personal answers, but it’s important for the 90% of the audience that wouldn’t call in short of missing a limb. Also, if your employer doesn’t give you sick days, that is a pretty good sign to grease the wheels, unless there is some prior understanding to not commit acts of bio warfare on your coworkers. We also get into the myriad of other excuses to call into work, and some of our fan favorite scenarios throughout the years. We also pay homage to the greatest fake calling in sick of all time, and the model to which we aspire to on our days off of work. In the end, Uncle Jimmy makes this one work on a deeper level, because when you’re sick - it's really hard to give 100%. 

Also Uncle Jimmy leaves his phone at work so he can't call in. 

On this week's episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy gets into what gets people into the automotive industry in the first place: passion. From your first car, to the first thing you fix, the seeds of passion are planted. For some of us, this culminates in a lifelong passion for certain makes and models. For others, it ends in compulsive hoarding. The best balance is a happy medium. Every make and model seemingly has its own subculture, from the Jeep Rubber Duckie thing, to the Subaru Merit Badges. These serve as small, but oftentimes meaningful connections for complete strangers who’s only commonality might be what they drive. In this sense, it serves to think that the cars we drive are oftentimes reflections of self that also get us from Point A to B. 

Also Uncle Jimmy talks about the future's markets on classic cars and the E30 tax.

On this week's episode of Grease the Wheels, we talk about complaining. There are right ways to complain and wrong ways to complain, and we go into both as well as some of the resolutions that get the best results. We also get into the gamesmanship and merits of taking intershop complaints directly to the person you are having them with instead of involving management. We also talk about productive complaints, malicious complaints, and chronic complaints and who in your shop fits each of these monikers. At the end of the day, the way you phrase your complaints and follow them up with solutions is the most important factor to getting them resolved. If the system that you are working in is something that doesn’t respond well to change, it might be time to get out of it and make more money elsewhere! 

Also Uncle Jimmy gets into mutually assured boombox destruction and Erik remembers to hit "save", unlike last week. 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy explores the explosion of mobile mechanics in the city of Austin. There are a lot of different ways to fix cars, and getting the job done on the side of the road has really never stopped any of us before but actually making a living with it can be tough. There are big parts of the country where it would be a major undertaking with the elements making life incredibly difficult. We also get into the idea of subletting out jobs that you don't have the right equipment for, getting financing, and a hybrid model with smaller shops that operate by appointment only, with a mobile unit for when the shop bookings are lower. We also get into the “Great Filter” of hydrogen cars, and the way that the industry is going to respond to a third major player in the automobile propulsion game. As Dylan put it, “oh the times, they are a changin’”, but that is a good thing for everyone with the skills to get the job done in the face of a whole rash of people not knowing anything about the technology. If going mobile on your own is something that you are interested in, reach out to us - we’re working on a pretty cool project to help get you up and running with the internet support you need to get jobs and start making money. 

Also Uncle Jimmy pulls a Service Advisor move and breaks into looking at memes in the middle of the episode and ends it how Mission Impossible usually starts. 

On this week's episode of Grease the Wheels, we get into the nitty gritty when it comes to test driving customers' vehicles. Any manager who says that you should blindly test drive a vehicle before putting it up on a lift to see if it is structurally sound should listen to this episode. The aforementioned pitch can be a seriously bad idea, especially if that vehicle has serious problems. We have all seen the “just rolled into the shop” posts where a vehicle shouldn’t have even made it into the shop, and we get into some of the dangers that driving a vehicle like that can pose to both the technician and the general public.  We also get into some of the most dangerous cities in America to drive, but for most of them they really have no excuses compared to some of the other parts of the country that go through all four seasons in one afternoon. We also get a bit scientific with the idea that most people are too oblivious to know that they are bad at driving, as well as what happens with your brain when you get into an unpleasant smelling customer car. 

Also Uncle Jimmy classes-up “truck nuts” and recreates classic Dukes of Hazzard stunts with his mom’s Vega. 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we get into the transient nature of the automotive industry, just how bad the technician shortage has gotten, and the insane attrition rate of your new guys. In 2020 the reported technician shortage was around 178,000, now extrapolated out to 2025, which is right around the corner, they are projecting almost 800,000 want ads going unfilled in shops across the country. We get into why that is, but more importantly we get into some of the nitty gritty on what the articles aren’t talking about. Automotive journalists have routinely downplayed the money in their conversations about why so many jobs are going unfilled, and one that is completely ignored is the physical attrition rate of technicians. How many technicians physically can’t do the job anymore because of injuries sustained while working on cars? We have no idea, they don’t really want to ask that question. Finally, we do a detailed analysis of the guys in your shop, where they are going, and what is most likely to happen over a 5 year time frame. 

Also Uncle Jimmy quotes numbers from the government that are actually pretty believable!  

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we do our own version of ‘how to make friends and influence people.’ Helping to hang a set of exhaust is always going to be appreciated, but being forthcoming with helping other people will signify you as someone who can be depended on in the shop. We also talk about some of the karmic ramifications of tool loaning and just helping people out in general without the expectation of something in return. When all else fails, feeding people is an awesome way to get people to listen in a pinch, and Jimmy’s GM makes Pavlov proud. Being inviting to the new people in your shop is always a good way to start a relationship off on the right foot, and we get into the idea that everyone deserves a baseline level of respect that can either go up or down depending on your interactions. 

Also Uncle Jimmy avoids being Dr. Ruth. 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we talk about overwork and burnout. If your employer has you turning enough hours that you are seemingly working 8 days a week, that is one thing. If you’re doing it because you love money, that is quite another. The latter is ok, while the former will quickly remove any passion you have for the industry. Overwork can lead to a ton of bad things, so it is important to draw boundaries between your personal life and professional lives. Sometimes that looks like leaving at exactly 5:01, sometimes it is not working on your family’s cars. Overwork can make you important where you work, but if it comes at the expense of personal relationships that can be short lived. Burnout is something that, in this industry in particular, happens the minute the passion is gone.

Also Uncle Jimmy talks auto repair karma in a way that makes way more sense than it probably should and the universal nature of the french fry under the seat. 

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 takes a break from the political rhetoric and talks about chicken farming. Shops and dealerships need to have the people who are creating the labor out of thin air in optimal conditions to create as much labor as possible. Whether that is having good service advisors and parts guys, to having the right number of lifts and bays per technician, shop optimization is a real thing. This needs to be communicated with the management in charge, and labor rates really need to be on a fluid scale based on technicians qualifications and workload. Much like the geese who lay the golden eggs in a children's story, you want your technicians to be able to make you as much money as humanly possible. 

Also "Three-Eyes" the evil goose makes a cameo. 

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 Tuck-er-we-mean-Jimmy gets angry, political, and straight to the point. You don’t need a Masters in Physics to know that batteries don’t work as well in the cold, but apparently a lot of people in Chicago and the Midwest didn’t get the memo. NY’ers did, because they don’t buy them in droves unless they need the EV tax write off. Even with temps dipping down into the 30’s in the incredibly EV heavy market of Austin, people aren’t really impressed with their EV purchases. We go into everything from Range Anxiety, to how the Nords deal with their cold-weather EV’s, and get into some of the American motoring culture’s inherent abhorrence to the concept. There are genuinely good hybrid cars at this point in the game, so pushing for full EV hegemony by an arbitrary date seems not only counter-productive, but completely undoable given the nature of automotive development/ product life cycles. The fact that more advanced biofuels and hydrogen developments paired with the first generations of EV’s getting real-world miles underscore one of the other major issues at the heart of EV consumption: recycling. As American’s there is also that underlying fact that we don’t really like being told what to do, how far we can go, and what we can buy. This is a wild one: think, it’s not illegal yet! 

Also Uncle Jimmy pitches Frankenstein-ing half a dozen X6’s into one good one over buying an X6 Hybrid. 

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 get into how to deal with anger while working in the automotive industry. Right off the bat, as previously chronicled in the 272 preceding episodes, there are a lot of things that can set automotive technicians off. From the low pay, to the incredibly complicated cars, to sometimes hostile work environments - keeping your cool can be hard. Luckily there are things such as identifying what makes you mad, working out, and even percussive therapy on inanimate objects to quell the anger. We also get into some fairly in-depth analysis of what causes us to be angry, with some of the solutions to deal with them. Bottom Line, being able to successfully navigate and even harness your anger will put you ahead in the long run, and any threats or physical violence gets you a meeting with HR- so avoid that! But the alternative is simple and concise, don’t let your job make you angry - just Grease the Wheels! 

Also Uncle Jimmy ranks the angriest members of his immediate family. 

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 get into things that make mechanics mad - although judging by the article these people were pretty loose  with the job descriptions between mechanic and service advisor. We talk about Customers who insist that they know what is wrong with the car, which is annoying but easily overcome. We also get into the idea that quoting ETA’s for completed repairs is basically sending Murphy’s Law a DM on whatever it is you’re working on. It is 100% possible that on any given really bad day, everything in this episode could happen to you, and if it has, we want to hear about it! 

Also Uncle Jimmy waits an entire 5 minutes to run down service advisors and celebrates a milestone in car buying. 

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 bid adieu to a tumultuous 2023; but the world kept on spinning because of you wrench twisting bastards. Because of this we set the bar at, “don’t let me down” because asking for much more sounds like tempting fate. In this episode we lay out some of the expectations that customers, Service Advisors and Management would have of their technicians especially as the Automotive Technician Shortage worsens. We also get into the ways that the parts department and lot rats let us down, and in some cases it is because of the incredibly expendable view that HR has of these folks. Either way, with the age of cars steadily rising and used vehicle prices still elevated - people will be holding onto their cars longer and relying on you to keep them going! The future's looking bright, we just hope that it is’t “Decline-All’-d”. 

Also Uncle Jimmy explores the concept of an empty bay being more productive than one filled with an idiot. 

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 gets absolutely medieval on aftermarket warranty companies. I could probably end the episode synopsis there, and customers, service advisors, and tech’s will all still tune in - but this one is fun! The market analysis of aftermarket warranty companies is “bad” and “worse”, with some notable exceptions coming from Carvana and other internet automotive retailers that would rather pay for us to fix it after they sell it to you, than fix it right in the first place. The bottom line, having procedures in place to properly deal with cars that have aftermarket warranties is the key to keeping that stuff out of your way while you do something actually profitable. For the customers, the biggest thing that you are going to lose with an aftermarket warranty in most cases is time, so hope that your dealership actually has a loaner car available. 

Also Uncle Jimmy shatters eardrums. 

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 brief look ahead to what people in chairs think is coming down the pike for us wrench turning folk in 2024. The one thing we see more of on the horizon is the russian infantry tactics of filing the shop with whatever bodies can hold the wrenches and look busy. However, further analysis will prove that having your best technicians with two available lifts or bays will increase the specific output of that bay over an inexperienced new hire. Estimates put the number of new hires needed across the board at 100,000 per year until 2026 to counteract the shortage, but we know that number should be closer to 200k because of the near 50% 2-year attrition rate among new hires. We also talk a little bit about the K-Plan as a path to employee retention with regular skill checks, but the fact remains that if these new hires are going to need in shop instruction - we are going to have to get paid for it! We also briefly touch on the idea of more modular cars that are easier to work on, but they are having too much fun right now making them harder to work on so we don’t expect that until sometime around 2050. 

Also Uncle Jimmy introduces E39 Yoga and blows up on a bank teller over the phone that turned out to be a good friend. 

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 is talking about ways to keep your hard days from turning into hard nights wheen it comes to stress. Folks, there is enough stress in the automotive industry to go around, so being able to deal with it is key to being effective at your job. From new systems in cars that are broken in new and interesting ways, to customers with unreasonable expectations, more often than not the answer is simply to not sign for the stress and let the system do it’s job. When the system is not working it can be pivotal to emotionally detach yourself with phrases like, “it’s not my car”. Being able to do this effectively will let you keep your stress at work where it belongs and keep it from infiltrating your home life. We also go over some of the causes and symptoms of being overworked, which is one of the leading causes of burnout in the automotive industry as a whole. Performance punishment is a real thing in our industry, and being able to put up effective safeguards will keep this from being a problem for you. 

Also uncle Jimmy has no idea what consumption is. 

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 have blisters on our fingers from all of the chaos that has been coming down the chute. The sources of chaos in the automotive industry, at all levels, are actually pretty consistent. We are problem solvers in our role as automotive mechanics, so naturally for us most of the chaos starts and ends with the customers. We also get deep into the idea that as a team that solves problems, the support stuff needs to not make a ton of problems on top of the problems that we get paid to fix. We also go into a great way to preemptively strike at “warranty-itis”, by outlining that any repairs that we do that are not because of a defect in the manufacturer of the car- they are on the hook for at the door labor rate, and watch a car with 49,623 miles and 16 lines of complaints, go to two lines. And we get another visit from the parable of, “the gimp mask in the trunk”

Also Uncle Jimmy get's into warranty-itis with the line, “chaos is like an open faced sandwich, there isn't a lot of bread” and makes it a full 3:58 before mentioning the Manson family. 

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 continue the theme of Beatles B Sides, and the theme of not getting enough love from our employers. We have an interesting conversation about “things you shouldn’t say to technicians”, as well as an examination of the stupidity of repair line items as the warranty comes closer to being done. It’s a rip roaring episode of grease the wheels, and if you hear any of these sayings on the regular from your management- it might be time to polish up the resume. Phrases such as, “we’ve always done it this way”, and “because im the boss” ring especially true as omens of bad management. We want to hear from you; what are some of the worst things that a manager can say to employees besides, “you’re replaceable”, especially when the technician shortage renders that statement so invalid it is almost a joke. We also get into some of the better communication traits of managers, such as having clear expectations for employees and their role. Open lines of communication are alway important, but you don’t always need to have a solution if you are having a problem - especially if it is a personal problem. 

Also Uncle Jimmy gives you a script for difficult conversations with your boss, even if he is a former MMA fighter. 

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 the intersection of manufacturers,  technology and image spin control for the profession in general. From inside the shop between service and management, to the manufacturers themselves - there isn’t a whole lot of love going around to the people who fix them. Luckily, there’s this podcast. Not getting love from the manufacturers is real: from making the vehicles more difficult to do simple tasks, to slashing warranty times in an effort to save profit margin. The real only bastion left is each other, so we suggest treating each other well and helping people out when you can in order to promote shop chemistry. It also doesn’t hurt to do things with your team outside of work, especially if some of your teammates are cooler than you are! The lack of love from customers is the most noticeable though. We almost never hear about the repairs that we do right, but you bet anything we hear about them when they aren’t! 

Also Uncle Jimmy examines linguistics as a selling tactic, from the service lane. 

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 title it after where we were last week, nowhere to be found! Sorry about that, we needed a week to get back to the grind. This brings us to the theme of today’s episode, where we go deeper into some of the crazy stuff that is coming down the pike and the relative rate of advancement in the automotive industry over the last 20 years versus the previous 50. A “Nowhere Man” in this case is a technician who’s skills and training cannot keep up with the rate of advancement, and are relegated to doing menial work like brakes and tires - and they’re going to get paid like it. From rear wheel steering, to all of the firmware going live on Autonomous Driving V, to iMax screens in the back of the 7-Series. Whenever there is a significant skill gap, and the lower skilled technicians keep sopping up all of the gravy, this is automatically going to create tension in the shop. With the growing number of EV’s this presents a new problem for “Nowhere Men”, because if you mess it up - you can die! Bottom line, the entire industry is getting more complicated by the day, so we all need to keep our training up and on top of the latest features that are breaking! 

Also Uncle Jimmy pitches the console Turkish Press and “Operation: EV-Training”

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 an article about coming trends in the automotive industry from connectivity, to automated driving and electrification, and even some of Jimmy’s better conspiracies. This is a wild one where we look into the future from the recent past and compare notes to how it’s going. When it comes to connectivity, the leaps and bounds have been extreme since Jimmy entered the industry. From a few cars having bluetooth to full Apple Carplay and Android Auto streaming literally everything (including this podcast). Electrification has taken hold faster in China than in the United States, which is probably a good thing considering their urban pollution problems. One of the main things in this article that we expand upon is the idea of hydrogen being the fuel of the future. There are several large automakers betting big on hydrogen, and we expect to see it in some viable form within the decade. Fully autonomous driving that can handle 4 feet of Buffalo snow, that will be impressive - but that is farther off than people think. 

Also Uncle Jimmy helps to hasten the death of the sales team. 

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 pulls an article from Identafix talking about the burgeoning opportunities for techs in the $60 Billion per year Automotive Industry. We talk about this in the context of other episodes, but the main focus of this episode is dumb things that customers do. We ponder if technicians make good service advisors, even though they are typically more educated than the people selling the work or the products themselves. Being a service advisor is an easy way to make 6-figures without a college degree, however the people skills necessary to make this job look easy are something acquired over years and do not come naturally to most technicians. We also don’t recommend going into parts to make more money than you did as an auto technician. How do you stop the revolving door of technicians in your shop? It’s not a simple fix, but rather a long term change in outlook on recruitment, in house salaries, and communication. 

Also Uncle Jimmy has a hard time sticking to one narrative after a Braves loss in October. 

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 only slightly late episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy takes another swing at the problems we can fix - only this time it is the people in your building. We also examine whether the switch to EV’s is going to decrease the number of help wanted signs seen around shops. For some reason, the author of this article seems to think that EV’s are immune to the universal law of entropy and will never need any form of repairs and maintenance. Because of this, the author predicts that California will be down 32k auto mechanic jobs by 2040. Unfortunately for the author, because of the tax and regulatory nature of that state - that’s what they’re losing a year just to Texas! The real ramifications of California’s ICE Vehicle ban is that it is going to end up looking like Cuba, only hopefully the engines come from Wyoming and Nevada instead of Russia. 

Also Uncle Jimmy gives a history lesson. 

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 swaps diagnosing problems with cars, to diagnosing problems with people. The source of 100% of the problems that a shop will run into in a given day is driven by the customers. If there was nothing to fix, there would be no problems. However, where problems become even bigger problems is the gulf between the perception of modern auto repair and the reality. Cars are a lot more complicated now than people think they are. Yes, they work better and last longer, but they are also significantly more complicated than the transportation of yore. One of the biggest problems since the pandemic has been parts turn-around times and with the current UAW Strike, this could be a big problem for some domestic makes. What is the ultimate weapon against unreasonable customers? The walk-around video. Just make sure that the car is up on a lift, otherwise you’re just pointing out a bunch of things that the customer can already see!

Also Uncle Jimmy brings 1984 to a shop near you, just pray it doesn’t have audio!

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 is back on form and shredding internet articles. Looking for a spark of lunacy, he delves into an article titled “20: Ways to Tell if your Mechanic is an Idiot” This is one of the more ridiculous  lists we’ve seen as it actively counteracts things that we are telling our service advisors to do. It also completely discounts the thousands of absolutely fantastic technicians who have never even taken an ASE test. We also get into some of the ridiculous sounds that customers make in attempts to describe what is wrong with their vehicles and scold anyone who diagnoses over the phone. 

Also Uncle Jimmy calls himself a basic bitch.

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 ARE BACK! This week we are talking about the differences between the forward thinkers and the reactive thinkers in the automotive industry. Often times vehicles can be described as “forward thinking”, but rarely can the same be said of management in this industry. The difference is being able to anticipate where the proverbial puck is going instead of focusing on where it has been. One of the major areas that is going to stress test forward thinking managers in the next few years is retaining and developing the techs that come to work there. We also get into the “Russian Infantry” management technique, and more importantly why it doesn’t work! Throwing bodies at the problem doesn’t solve more problems - unless you can get those people up to snuff in a hurry. This in most cases will require technicians to be compensated for training the new hires and seeing them regularly tested on what they know and can do. Bottom line, the forward thinking fixed ops managers are going to have to grow their own talent.

Also Uncle Jimmy takes a stab at Greek epics. 

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!

Okay, so this is how this shit works! This is actually Uncle Jimmy , Erik the Producer has been in a bad car accident . He and his significant other have both sustained some serous injuries. We are told they will be okay , but it is pretty bad as of right now. So if you have some prayers and well wishes you can send to Erik and Caitlyn that would be greatly appreciated. Since Erik really does all of the back breaking editing work ( I'm still not sure how he makes me sound good) we are going to take a somewhat extended break . Rest assured we will be be back and with a vengeance, in the mean time all you wrench twisting bastards , keep on keeping on. Thanks for what you do it is appreciated and we will see you soon .   

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy hits one of our collective nerves: tools. From the tools that we use every single day and would be lost without, to the tools that get relegated to the back of the bottom drawer once a particular recall is done - we can’t get the job done without them. We also talk about the level of mechanical genius often found in some of the ways that we modify tools to do certain jobs better, or look at a tool designed to do one thing and having it do something completely different that requires some of the same physical properties. We also take a look at tool trucks, how they target the new guys, and what tools DIY’ers should have which should actually be as simple and non-destructive as possible. No DIY’er needs a 3 ft breaker bar, but if they do they should definitely have a tap and die set ready to go. 

Also Uncle Jimmy pitches a worklight torture test, with a pitching component. 

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 dives into an article about alternative career paths for automotive technicians - written by people who know nothing about being an auto technician and even less about some of these other jobs. We’ll give them the easy ones like building maintenance technician, Parts Manager, HVAC maintenance, and even shop foreman and shop owner for those who age out of being an auto mechanic, but that is about it. If you had a hard time working on cars, we do not want you working on the next aircraft that we fly on! We also cock an incredulous eyebrow at some of the salary ranges that these jobs provided because most of the welders we know make what they say in a slow quarter (but they’re really good and some of them do it underwater) Bottom line, if being an auto mechanic is wearing you out, there are a myriad of other employment options that require the same critical thinking and problem solving abilities that the average mechanic really needs to be a master of. The real problem that we have with these articles is that they try to make it seem that getting a job in the automotive industry as someone who fixes cars is a difficult task, when the basic laws of supply and demand are making that simply false. 

Also Uncle Jimmy goes scorched earth on COVID and almost gets evicted. 

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 starts off with an innocuous enough question and rapidly descends the rabbit hole of what people who don’t know about cars think about car repair. The question is, “how hard is it to change an engine?” Simple enough right? Not for these folks! There are plenty of jobs that are more mechanically difficult or arduous than changing an engine. Sometimes changing the entire engine is a completely preferable alternative to the massive amounts of intricate work that rebuilding one can require. However, these people are so far in the dark about it that seemingly all of their advice is stupid. It’s a fun one of ripping the normies! 

Also Uncle Jimmy gets into aftermarket warranty companies and how adjusters could be rendered obsolete by video. 

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 takes a look at some of the reasons why you should stay at your current job. We know we have spent the last 250+ episodes telling you why you should leave, but there are often serious pull factors such as not having to look for a job, and being stable financially to some degree. There are also people that make the job worth it sometimes, and many times these people get genuinely close to you due to the amount of time you spend in close proximity. Many shops can begin to feel like family with the right personnel in place, and that is not lost on customers. When a system works and every piece of it can rely on the others, you have a good thing going! 

Also Uncle Jimmy fixes everything vehicular in Band of Brothers. 

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 holiday episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy breaks down just how many job openings there are on Indeed.com for every brand of car manufacturer. We really like Indeed, and they didn’t pay us to say that because it allowed us to break down the national demand for wrench twisting folks quickly and efficiently. Likewise, we see that national demand for technicians at independent shops is almost equal that of dealerships. The wildest part is that most jobs get filled before they're ever posted because that is the way this industry works. The bottom line is that if dealerships spent more time developing their native branding and employee retention programs instead of paying for recruiters, “talent acquisition” and ad space they would be a whole lot better off. 

Also Uncle Jimmy almost bonsai-parachutes into a place with a 1.8 star google review score. 

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 endeavors to extend his thanks to the rest of the world that fixes things - by bringing you content created from people who need things fixed, but can’t. This is a good one folks. Anyone who seeks out information is already ahead of the game in some ways, but some of the responses you get on the internet can be dubious. In this episode we see responses that run the gambit from: “learn from the ground-up how to fix and shred the engine yourself” to the factually correct “take it to a mechanic/shop”. We especially love the “are these good used cars for $X?” because they can often yield some hilarious results. Bottom line, thank you for what you do - because if it were up to the people in the facebook groups, nothing would be running!

Also Uncle Jimmy talks logic vs. E90’s. 

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 weeks episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy gets back to good old fire and brimstone with the service advisors. Anytime you can start off an episode with the prompt, “you couldn’t sell an AC repair to a woman in June, in Texas” as a statement of fact instead of a murderous burn - you know we’re in for a good one. In this episode we explore how the customer service arm of the service department can and often does drop the ball when it comes to customer interactions. When you think that the customer is already there and knows that they either need repairs or maintenance - the hard part is over. Really all that leaves to to figure out the price and ask for the sale, which some of them completely ignore for a variety of reasons. As soon as there can be an AI Service Advisor, there will be - especially considering we will tell it not to diagnose from the base inputs until after someone has looked at it. 

Also Uncle Jimmy actually gives some tips for Service Advisors to balance out the hour or so of running them into the ground. 

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 takes a look at the Automotive DIY Market. This is one of those countercyclical industries that really kicks in when the economy gets bad - and in the past that wasn’t the worst thing in the world because cars were exponentially simpler. Today, depending on the make, model, and Russian YouTuber whose video you find - the results can be a lot more mixed. We go into an article about jobs that the internet thinks that people can do themselves - and a lot of them aren’t even relevant anymore. When was the last time you changed a distributor on a car? Regardless, there is often tons of money in it for the people who can undo this carnage and return these vehicles to their proper working order. The market forces are bound to balance out with the rising inflation and dwindling number of technicians entering the field. 

Also Uncle Jimmy again avoids obvious anecdotes about Erik the Producer. 

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 goes further down the “talent acquisition” rabbit hole and finesses some good ideas out of mediocre ones. Establishing relationships with tech schools, colleges with automotive programs, and even some high school trades are a good start - but they need to be catered to the objective reality that the applicants are facing that cars are getting harder to work on every single day. We also get into the idea of hiring both the formerly incarcerated and homeless veterans to fill the ranks of automotive shops, which both come down to the willingness of the individual to develop and make a serious career of it. They also may require some additional support outside of work, and if their employers can help with that it will likely greatly increase their odds of being a successful part of your business. With the shortage being so dire and younger generations not yet interested in personal transportation - the future looks really bright for the people in these generations who enter the trades, especially one where the shortages are going to cause massive wage increases like the Automotive Industry. 

Also Uncle Jimmy threatens an end-run on every single automotive “Talent Acquisition Specialist”

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 further explores the generational divide in the dealership. When it comes to Gen Z, they are getting driver’s licenses at an even slower rate than the Millenials did at that point. However, as the economy improved for millennials and needs eclipsed public transit options, they started getting their licenses. It has yet to be seen if this trend will replicate itself with Gen Z, mainly because the economy is still firmly in the sh*tter. However, the bigger issue comes with personnel, as very few millennials and even fewer Gen Zed are getting into the skilled trades. However, the longer the economy doesn’t improve, and the fewer people who replace the old guys in the trades - the premium for skilled help is going to explode. Anyone left standing or who gets themselves into the trades at the right time to acquire the skills from the old guys while getting all of the new brand manufacturer training is going to be worth their weight in palladium. 

Also Uncle Jimmy totally forgets that China emits more CO2 than just about everyone else put together. 

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 examines the pendulum-like market forces of auto repair. The basic idea here is that when the economy slows down, people hold onto their money - especially when it comes to their cars. However, because a pendulum swings back, when people put off certain repairs for too long they become a LOT more expensive. We also talk about the generational shift going on with Gen Z not getting their driver’s licenses - but that pendulum will swing back too as public transit probably won’t make any incredible leaps and bounds before they are kicked out of the basement. We also get into the idea of what customers think certain repairs cost, which is always fun! And we round it out with what customers have on hand to pay for necessary car repairs. Nothing you can do, it’s literally fighting entropy.

Also Uncle Jimmy resists the comically easy shot at Erik the Producer for putting off car repairs. 

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 goes into some of the biggest time sucks in western civilization - which gets compounded when you’re working flat-rate. There are a whole lot of things that can waste your time in the shop, and some of them are completely unavoidable. Is there ever such a thing as an actual quick question, NO! Industry wide, talking is one of the biggest time wasters there is - unavoidable really. We also get into the corporate time wastes from improper or poorly thought-out systems in your dealership that only get worse when people don’t do their jobs! 

Also Uncle Jimmy’s case of “The Mondays” was winning most of the day until a late game into extra innings comeback.

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 channels Aristotle to the tune of Charlie Manson and comes up with a much more nuanced 10 point code of ethics for technicians. “Thou shall know what you’re doing, thou shall not rip people off blindly,” that kind of thing. We also get the rest of the service department involved and come up with codes of ethics for Service Advisors and Service Managers alike! This one basically comes down to, “do your job!”, or the burning bush will be arson instead of the almighty! The only one here that Jimmy really struggles with is messing with the sporting equipment in cars- and we want to know some of your favorite things to find in cars! 

Also Uncle Jimmy completely misses a chance to call this episode “the codes of Jimm-urabi”

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 gets into the constant corporate kerfuffle of ethics. Specifically this week we examined the ASE’s technician code of ethics and found that it was really pretty hard to find! We get what they are going for here, but we don’t agree with the orthodoxy that “in order to be a good tech, you must be ASE certified”, because quite frankly we know brilliant technicians who just don’t test well. The meaning of this article is well, but we actually wish it was hammered home a little bit harder in the literature or directly included themselves. We also get into an article about what it takes to be a successful mechanic and see how it syncs up - pretty well. Bottom line, there is more than enough honest work for all of us, so let’s stick to that and do good work to raise the general PR stock of mechanics in general. Because after all, when was the last time the customer paid you directly for work you did at your shop! 

Also Uncle Jimmy poses the ethical question of owning 100 cars if most of them are parts cars and the proverbial “GTW bus” example makes it into the meeting minutes in the shop for real. 

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 takes aim at another batch of misconceptions spread by corporate entities when it comes to the direction of the automotive industry. Unless the good folks at Area 51 have come up with some new types of fasteners that use nano-bots and electricity to hold stuff together - we’re still going to need toolboxes! Seriously, some of the ideas being peddled by this article are not even close to where the industry is going, so at least it is good for a laugh. We know this article was probably written by an AI, and if so they have very low opinions on the people who actually fix stuff. If it was written by a human and they have anything to do with the current state of the auto industry - they should be fired! 

Also Uncle Jimmy talks politics briefly. 

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 goes down the angst-inducing rabbit hole of aftermarket warranty companies and adjusters. First point of contention, just because you “used to be a mechanic” does not give you carte blanche to be an asshole - we’re not on the same team anymore because it is literally your job to not pay us. Second point of contention, do not accuse Uncle Jimmy of not performing work on a vehicle just because it is clean - this will earn you a short drop and a long gurney ride. We kid, but this is something that can eat up tons of time, and directly cost you money so we needed to napalm it thoroughly. Third, we ask the very pointed questions, “are aftermarket warranties ever NOT a shitshow?”, and “what obscure Lithuanian labor time guide did you pull THAT time from?” All of this, while having a very authentic New York reaction to having his paycheck tampered with. However, aftermarket warranty companies are one of the few unifying forces in a dealership - because no one likes them - and the enemy of my enemy is my friend. 

Also Uncle Jimmy gives all of the definitions to the term, “blowing up an engine” and lays out what sounds constitute the “Danger Zone” for having to push it out of the 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, Uncle Jimmy cues the John Barry and suggests that one of the best ways to fix a shop or dealership is to send in a tech undercover to find out all of its strengths and weaknesses. It’s benevolent corporate espionage with just a hint of Grease the Wheels HR methodology. In terms of finding out how a shop either works or doesn’t work, a technician with a set checklist of things to figure out could be a ruthlessly efficient way to skunk out problem personnel and procedures that are directly costing a shop money. Did we just reinvent mystery shopping? 

Also Uncle Jimmy is looking for input on this plan, while Erik tries to figure out how you get “00- status”.  

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 goes into his K Plan for onboarding new hires and setting them up for success in your repair shop. The first part of this is having a deep understanding of the flow and chemistry of the shop, because if they are going to spoil this chemistry- you might want to back off on hiring them. The goal is to reduce the massive attrition amongst new hires in the auto industry - and we think this could definitely work. The K Plan is pretty comprehensive and can take anywhere from a few months to over a year for some of the higher end requirements to get the last few hundred points. Obviously we go over how to use the shop's tools and equipment, where it goes, and how not to break it. The K Plan allows you to mold a new hire into someone that is going to be a valuable member of your team by having all of the mile markers and paths laid out for the new hire before they even walk in the door. 

Also Uncle Jimmy artfully dodges getting sued by Disney in naming the mentor for the K Plan “The Guru” instead of the obvious film reference. 

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 lays out the real first step of the “K Plan” for new guys and outlines what has to happen in the interview process. Before that even happens, the job posting has to be succinct and tell the potential hire what they need to know - especially in terms of benefits and compensation. Also, where you place these ads and the keywords you target can have a drastic effect on the quality of the applicants you get. The real goal of the interview process is to figure out if they are going to be a good fit in the shop, while also figuring out what they know and what they don’t. We go into the weeds with Indeed’s “15 Interview Questions and Answers for Hiring Auto Technicians”, and right off the bat some of these answers should get you thrown out of an interview. The questions overall are good ways to get the prospective hire to tip their hand a bit as to how they approach the job and problem solve - but figuring out things like competencies on equipment really only pertain to the equipment they have in their shop. This is also a great way to gauge a potential hires attitude towards continued learning, how they deal with conflict, and their personality overall. Not nearly enough time is paid in the interview process to either of these two things, mostly because the sky high demand and extremely low supply. In this episode, we lay out some of the highlights that hiring managers need to follow if they want to find and retain any real talent within the automotive industry. We also lay out the “technician in interview” guideline which makes the competency part of an interview a lot more concrete. 

Also Uncle Jimmy gives a short review of the Hunter Revolution and provides several examples of why he should NOT be a Service Manager.

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 talks about something that is kneecapping just about the entire economy right now: the lack of replacement parts for stuff that we have to fix! For some systems in cars this was a problem before the pandemic, but since it has spiraled out of control and has increasingly come under the microscope as the transition to EV’s has been hampered by production and quality control issues. That is nothing to talk of the massively underpaid and apathetic individuals who operate the nation's fading auto parts stores as e-commerce continues to dictate the terms and conditions. We go into some of the reviews on the remaining auto parts stores from a negative light, and share some excellent stories spanning Uncle Jimmy’s often hilarious career in the auto parts side of the business before joining the dark side and picking up the tools professionally. 

Also Uncle Jimmy fires back against the parts cannon. 

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 Tarantino it.  Uncle Jimmy begins to formulate the answer for how to lower the “Verdun-esq” attrition rates among new hires. To do this, he’s going to need more time, but in the meantime we take a look at how corporate minds plan on dealing with the solution. The problem is that they are taking the position of the shop when in order to solve this problem you need to solve it from the perspective of the new hire themselves and address the root causes of this high attrition. We also have to continue to work on the overall occupational PR that we (don’t) enjoy as mechanics to continue to recruit new talent. The one thing that we will give these articles is that they do address that pay is one of the main barriers to entry in this field, and that tool expenses are out of control and can set new technicians up for failure. 

Also Uncle Jimmy muddies the waters on the “technician” versus “mechanic debate” again, and slams EV’s. 

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 examines ways to be less cranky. Getting enough sleep, avoiding being hangry, and regulating your caffeine intake are all tried and true mood stabilization methods. We also talk about the echo-chamber-inducing smartphone and how that can be an enormous cause of anxiety in people’s lives - the weird part though is just how self-inflicted it is. Anxiety in the workplace is a recurring trope here on GTW, and with cars getting even more complicated Uncle Jimmy writes a two sentence horror story: “Was out for 3 months. Came back to a new model of 7 series with an IMax Screen in the back, the IMax didn't work.” We also do some pseudo automotive journalism by ask the hard hitting automotive journalist questions of , “what happens when an irritable mindset IS your normal self?” and “what is your favorite piece of sports equipment to play with when a customer leaves it in their car?” 

Also Uncle Jimmy gives his insight on percussive therapy: beating the tool or object that is the cause of your frustration until it is no longer frustrating you. 

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 returns from his medical leave to a lot of new faces - who have never been in the business before. So this being a podcast for the auto industry, we look at how to set these new guys up for success because no one else has thought to do that - as seen in the atrocious 2 year attrition numbers for new mechanic hires. The first real goal is to have them have tangible touchstones where you can sort them out. If they are struggling to understand how to do an oil change and tire rotation, you’re not going to be giving them a job that is going to have them changing connecting rod bearings. The amount that technical schools teach you is directly proportional to how much effort the student in question put in, and for getting a rudimentary understanding of how cars work they are a solid option. However, this pales in comparison to the amount of constant on the job training that auto mechanics just do by learning new systems and new vehicles as they make new systems that break. This, in combination with the coming EV tsunami, gives employers even more reason to set their techs up for continued learning and future success with regular raises based on skill level. 

Also Uncle Jimmy examines the extremely sharp double edged sword of training people and counting their hours as your own. 

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 dives into the things that we love about cars. To be clear, you don’t have to love cars to be a mechanic, but it definitely helps when the job is hard. From some of the noises they make to the memories made in them, cars have been an integral part of the human experience for the last 100 years. Cars occupy every space of the sensory field- from how they touch and feel to how they interact with the road or off road environments. We also talk about how time affects the way cars smell - what creates the patented “old GM smell” and “old BMW smell”. We also go over some of the high points of the auditory experience when it comes to cars - from wide open 4-barrels to screaming Ferrari V12’s. One of the other things we love about cars is junkyards - the combination of never knowing exactly what you’re going to find with the premise of cheap parts for what you need is like combining Costco with Raiders of the Lost Ark. We go over some of people’s favorite things to do in cars, as well as some of the preferred makes, models, and body types. 

Also Uncle Jimmy shares his thoughts on automotive oddballs and butchers “Homologation” and amazingly never mentions a single European example. 

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 lighten the mood by talking about what the internet thinks is wrong with their cars and how they are going to diagnose them. This article from Family Handy Man is very erroneously titled “15 Car Problems that You Can Diagnose (and Fix!) Yourself”. We go over the difference between the “low Oil Pressure” Light and the oil change interval light - because apparently this article thinks they are the same thing and makes the bold assumption that every car on the planet takes 4 quarts of oil. We also dispel some serious internet myth about the check engine light, because the only reason it knows your car is misfiring is because it's making too much pollution. We also get wade into the sublime, as this article pitches everything from folk magic, to “the shoe trick” , to breaking the laws of thermodynamics to get your dead car to start. Because of this, Uncle Jimmy sets off on his own path defining the various problems in a repair shop environment, and giving you some level of diagnosis trouble tree of each. 

Also Uncle Jimmy goes full Obi-Wan on how to make a trouble tree and expands the term “car problems” to be more inclusive of people who can fix them, but mostly keep buying them and storing them on their property. 

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 get into the heavy side of our listener demographic. This is clearly not a job for everyone, especially considering that some of the lug nuts you guys take off weigh several pounds. Uncle Jimmy has some diesel training in the brand that he works for, but typically they don’t weigh 15,000 lbs or require frame in rebuilds. Becoming a diesel tech can be an incredibly lucrative career choice, and if you’re a night owl you will find a surprising amount of opportunity! However, this article completely drops the ball on some of the key issues by a sheer lack of any understanding. The author seems to think that getting dirty is a con, folks, you’re going to det dirty as a diesel mechanic - if you think you’re not going to, you’re delusional! Despite the shoddy nature of this article, the demand for diesel technicians is going to be one of those things that continues long into the future just because of the sheer number of jobs that diesel engines do. Our hats are off everyone that turns a wrench on diesels, because those are the machines that are keeping the world moving.

Also Uncle Jimmy goes to DEFCON 2 on Journalists. 

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 some of the sobering mental health aspects of the job. Seriously, a lot of us commit suicide, which is not the first thought you have when you think of technician mortality (insert Rolls Royce video here, we’re not going there). Because of Uncle Jimmy’s staunch “you’re not allowed to die before me” rule, if you are having these thoughts, please reach out! This article is interesting because it gets right to the heart of the issue - a lack of financial stability has a direct correlation with a lack of mental stability. They get it, and one of the easy ways to find a lot of fulfillment is to go out and do this on your own. We also heap tons of praise on all of the various subgenres of listeners we have who use wrenches to fix what is broken out there in the world. A lack of appreciation, and oftentimes outright hostility from the general public towards what we do for a living is a part of this equation as well. Cheery stuff, so Jimmy goes on a few good rants just to lighten the mood. 

Also Uncle Jimmy flunks math.

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 does some old school comparing and contrasting between government figures and figures compiled by some of the brightest people in the industry over at WrenchWay. The government thinks that there is going to be little to no change in the need for auto technicians in the next 10 odd years, but we know as well as the folks over at WrenchWay - that is complete B.S. This week we dive into, “The Technician Shortage - Why it Exists and What Needs to Change” which is a rock solid article that comes out to needing 642k techs by 2024. Even though it is the end of January, there is still plenty of time to get your goals in order and have something to aim for in the remainder of 2023. 

Also Uncle Jimmy coins the amazing catchphrase, “taking the WTF out of the situation, by fixing it”

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! 

In this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy puts service advisors in his sights with some basic communications sciences. The Service Advisors who are able to effortlessly convey their commitment to solving their customers problems, pre-sell work down the line, and set themselves up for major financial success are very rare. So rare, that when you get a good one you really have to take notes. So we have! The biggest thing here is to always be asking for the sale, if you at least do that we can’t fault you. But if you’re auto-declining work and not even attempting to do the job you are going to be on an expedited path out the door. The customer service arm of your shops is the most responsible for big operational forward facing sentiment about your company, and bad service advisors can ruin it in a hurry. 

Also Uncle Jimmy gives more tips for Video MPI’s and why they are probably going to be a bigger thing in the future. 

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 some of the things that can kill you in your shop in both the long term and very short term as Uncle Jimmy is on the mend from going 2 for 2 against cancer. On the longer term side of things, brakes - especially from countries with less than scrupulous manufacturing policies, can still contain harmful amounts of asbestos because the US can't regulate everything. Couple this with smoking as many technicians are known to do and you can have serious lung complications. In the much shorter term, things like sulfuric acid from popped batteries and various degreasing solvents can also be extremely harmful. Additionally as more shops begin to work on electric cars there are a whole extra set of very painful ways to die. We also do a pretty deep dive PSA on the value of routine colonoscopies, and getting checked out by a doctor when you notice something is wrong - instead of waiting for it to be a lot worse. 

Also Uncle Jimmy talks his preferred Colonoscopy Prep Methods, advancements in cameras, and some of the signs that you too may need a prostate delete.  

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 takes aim at the horizon and talks “Cox Automotive’s 10 Trends That Will Shape the Auto Business in 2023”. Being that this is Cox, it is mostly sales oriented, but what they are talking about effects the entire industry as a whole - and there's a lot of upside for us! The economy- probably not going to get that much better, hopefully it doesn’t get much worse. But in countercyclical economies, the service side of the businesses typically see solid numbers as people hold onto stuff longer. More EV’s - they think they're going to sell a million in the United States in 2023. With some of the fleet incentives out there, this isn't surprising. People wanting to do more of the car buying process online - no shit! With the economy looking unsteady and some lingering hangover from the global pandemic, the wrench twisting bastards in the back are going to be worth their weight in gold.   

Also Uncle Jimmy is still alive!

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 the lead from SurfWrench for some end of year statistics about technician satisfaction. One of the things that shocked us was just how many technicians at independent shops find the variety of work as an advantage- whereas Uncle Jimmy sees it as a major disadvantage. Typically franchise dealerships have better equipment and climate controls, and that can be a huge pull factor for technicians. We almost all agree that the manufactures are stiffing us on warranty repairs, because they are. We also get into the trenches of the recruitment debate, with 84% of us thinking that high schools are actively discouraging the trades for their students - when that is exactly what the American economy needs over the next few decades is a renaissance of trade schools and students getting degrees that make the world continue to spin. Also an alarming amount of us are immune to corporate recruitment videos, in favor of unscripted interviews about what working in a particular shop is like. Also almost unanimous- tell us how much a job is going to pay in the job posting! Actually, kinda funny timing NYS just made this a law the day we cut this. 

Also Uncle Jimmy annihilates the concept that the ICE vehicle ban in California is to lead to a loss of employment opportunities for technicians - and California in general! Merry Christmas to all of you wrench twisting bastards keeping the planet moving! 

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 round out the year with reflection in the form of the much-dreaded self evaluation. Being able to quantify your work will give you a unique perspective when you go to ask for a raise, but also have a plan on what you want to improve upon in the next calendar year if you're going to make your move now. The holidays are also a great time to tune up the resume with a few extra days off and time with the family to put your career into perspective. Being able to recognize what you struggle with both professionally and personally will help you to identify the problems and solve them. 

Also Uncle Jimmy does his own yearly self evaluation in typical GTW explicit fashion. 

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 how to deal with difficult employees in your shop. Right off the bat, Uncle Jimmy completely admits to being a difficult employee, but when you weigh it against EVERYTHING else, he genuinely comes out ahead. We get into the optics of a manager calling their shop a “s***show”, when they are in fact responsible for it being in such a state. Additionally, keeping an even hand with your disciplinary practices will help you gain the respect of your remaining employees. Another good rule is if you're going to have a meeting with your technicians, the message needs to be positive - don’t waste our time with negativity because that is time that we are not making money. Feedback and follow up are both doubly important - but they are important with non-difficult employees just the same when it comes to making the maximum amount of money in the Automotive Industry.  

Also Uncle Jimmy discusses management arbitrarily changing your bay(s) and discusses the merits of “messing up big”

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 go into the weeds on how employers can show their employees appreciation. Right off the bat it is never going to be a bad idea to feed your employees regularly, especially when you want their attention. Showing your appreciation can be a matter of shop morale, but even more importantly it can be an important tool to reduce turnover- which is a massive problem in this industry. Happy employees can also do things to your brand reputation that you can’t buy - see exhibit A. Wegman's. When you listen to your employees you can also see innovation coming from the people who have been implementing it and found better ways to do their jobs- see exhibit B. Eastman Kodak. However, Uncle Jimmy has broken down “The Art of Appreciation” for the technicians in your shop into the borderline Stalinist slogan: “Food, Fun, and Money” while also railing against overpriced vending machines.

Also Uncle Jimmy goes off on the “end-of-month sales department chaos-blitzkrieg” waged in shops all over the world on the 28th-31st of every month and promotes feral hog hunting as an “unique incentive”.

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 return to form by dissecting some of the insane things that our customers say. When a customer genuinely understands what is going wrong with their car they are usually pretty capable of communicating it effectively. When they don’t, chaos can ensure with lines that would make the guys from “Who’s Line is it Anyway?” proud. Apologies for how poorly this article is written, but it illustrates just how little people outside of the service side of the industry actually understand how the process works. Very few places even allow customers into the shop - let alone let them watch a mechanic perform repairs. That is the job of video which is probably coming to a bay near you at multiple angles and aspect ratios. We also discuss the very real merits of using “easiness” as the ascending way to diagnose a problem, and reiterate the simple mantra “time is money”.

Also Uncle Jimmy’s blood pressure gets audibly higher and we get a call back to the door pocket burrito!

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 get into the weeds of what makes businesses tick and examine the keys to their success and failure. There are a whole lot of ways that your auto repair business could be leaking cash. One of the major ones that we are going to focus on here is not selling repairs; where there are systemic failures to sell, there can be thousands in lost profits - simply because the Service advisor made an incorrect judgment call. We also go into “6 ways to Increase your Shop’s Profitability” to balance out the success side of the “Keys to Success and Failure”. To be successful auto repair shops need to continually invest in their people, processes, and equipment to stay on top of the game. Treating your customers like family doesn’t hurt either, as we give a series of callbacks to how The Little Speed Shop in Rochester NY does it right!    

Also Uncle Jimmy misattributes a Wayne Gretzky quote to Kobe Bryant, we pitch “The Blind Service Advisor,'' and recount the near universal experience of flipping cars that were completely written off by someone. 

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 annihilate an article about the pros and cons of being an automotive technician. Right off the bat, if you think that $36-48k/year is “an exceptional salary” you are categorically wrong. Being able to work in a variety of environments isn’t always a good thing - because some of those environments will remind you of the third world. Fast paced workdays, being fast paced and chaotic is a bad combination especially when peoples safety is involved. The Potential to work outside - not all automotive jobs allow you to work outside -LIKE THAT’S GOOD THING! Job stability, hey we finally found an actual pro! The technician shortage has given people a lot of mobility, especially when they are extremely well trained. No College Education being needed: this is a plus, but it definitely helps if you’ve got some experience and want to get a further understanding of some of the specific systems. Being able to fix your own car is definitely a pro, and really the only relevant part of the article. You get to meet new people - who will only come to you when they have a problem with their car! The cons list was pretty spot on but done with such a glancing blow that they still warrant criticism. Bottom line is that the pros and cons list for every technician in every shop in the world is going to be slightly different, but if you’re considering a career change this can be a valuable tool to aid your decision. 

Also Uncle Jimmy introduces the slap test for people who want to become auto mechanics and we have a new winner for longest duration DIY brake job.

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 pre-hallows eve episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy lays out the Malleus Maleficarum for bad technicians instead of witches. Embracing your co-workers incompetence isn’t really on the table if they are sending unsafe cars out the door, so here are the broadstroke points and you'll fill in the blanks when you look around your shop. 1. They never seem to do any work. 2. Listening to others is not essential to them. 3. Taking the initiative is not something that they do. 4. They fail to follow through. 5. They negatively affect other people’s work. 6. They make mistakes frequently. The rough translation: you can tell pretty easily if someone is incompetent by the numbers, but there are of other external x-factors that can aid in your decision making process as to weather or not someone is empirically incompetent. What makes your coworkers incompetent? Let us know over on facebook.   

Also Uncle Jimmy recounts a car porter damaging a vehicle and blaming it on the foreman.

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 actually does his homework and brings us some in depth analysis on an article called, “The Five Most Common Hiring Mistakes for Shops.” Right off the bat, we like the title because it really does transcend whether you are working for a manufacturer brand dealership or an indy shop. So in that case, here are the five most common hiring mistakes for shops:  

1. “They are afraid to pay top buck” Top performers straight up produce, that’s why they command top dollar. This is something that a lot of the industry struggles with, good number one Mr. Cooper! Average employees that get paid average wages produce average results, and average employees will never take you to the top. 

2. “They are afraid to provide a respectable guarantee.” If you're afraid of this you need to spend more time working on your interview process- because you should be able to weed out the bad candidates before they roll their toolbox into the shop. Having a small one says you're cheap, having a big one says, “hey, I trust you to make money”. This can also be a tremendous goal setting tool. 

3.  “They use the wrong criteria when making their employment selections.” Most shop owners hire mechanics and service advisors based on experience, but attitude should factor in as well because not all experience is good. You can know how to do a job the wrong way and it can create anarchy. 

4. “They don’t look beyond the candidate.” The shop owners that hire superstars know that when they hire them, they also have lives at home that will need to be balanced so they can be as effective as possible. This becomes especially important when the discussion swings around to benefits, health insurance, and 401k stuff. 

5. “They forget that the superstars will be interviewing them.” In today's occupational environment where technicians really have the power in the hiring process you're interviewing that Service Manager just as much as they're interviewing you. When they don’t answer questions like, “how do we get dead cars into the shop?'' or “is the tire machine always broken?” in satisfactory ways - you could disqualify them as a place to work faster than they disqualify you to work there. 

Also Uncle Jimmy sneaks in paying $100/hr for the third week in a row which is as close as we have ever gotten to a theme. 

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 dies of the plague live on air. JK, he’s fine. But clearly with a bit of NyQuil influence, he found an article called “How Mechanics can Build Relationships with their Managers/Owners”. Overall, there is some pretty good stuff in here, but it needs to be reciprocated back with said managers and owners for it to really work in harmony. Taking initiative and being innovative - how much do your managers love it when you make a tool to do a job and it saves them thousands of dollars? Yea, it happens all the time! We also dive into why technicians are rarely promoted to Service Advisor - even though it can be a really good idea if they have that technician has the right people skills. The older you get in this industry, the better you get at covering your own ass when it comes to things that are going to get broken during the repair process, and this is where having good open lines of communication and mutual trust and respect with your service advisor becomes worth it’s weight in gold. Finally we deal with the idea of not fighting the shitty day’s when they come, just let them happen because they happen to everyone in this industry. The key operational question then becomes how fast are you able to turn it around? 

Also Uncle Jimmy pitches the “Team of Rivals” bonus method.

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 more thoughtful look at the idea of techs being paid $100 dollars an hour. Some of the ramifications of this could be profound, especially in taking this job deeper into the skilled trade territory in terms of paycheck heft. Obviously this wouldn’t work for a lot of shops - but if the employee retention is that much of a problem and they could afford it it might just be the way to keep the best and motivate/replace the rest. This is completely neglecting to mention the massive influx of resumes from extremely qualified technicians that you would see if you paid your employees that much. Word about stuff like that gets spread around the shops of an area fast because everyone knows someone somewhere else. However, we know that the paradigm is entrenched, so we’re deciding to flank it! While getting an employer to pay you $100/hr might be impossible, getting the customer who you just found through Surfwrench to pay you $100/hr is very, very doable.  

Also Uncle Jimmy hits us with such gems as, “I don’t think anyone thinks I’m lower class, but they’d probably be f***ing right” and confuses ritual suicide for a late-great Cubs announcer. 

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 quickly grenades the article that he found for this week and then moves on to a hypothetical that could be a model for how to completely disrupt the industry on a local level. The article is about the average price of repairs, which is something that varies so drastically that the calculus to quantify it hasn’t been thoroughly done. Add to this the unyielding variables of make, model, year, and the problems that are actually going on and you have something that becomes even harder to track. So we disantle that and talk about a hypothetical shop that corners a local technician marketplace by offering ridiculously high wages to the relatively few techs who work in the building. We also go over why raising your labor rate is a good thing, and why those changes need to directly correspond to changes in technicians wages. 

Also Uncle Jimmy makes up some more numbers. 

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 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! 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we embrace the meaning of that term and take an article from Indeed called “15 Ways to Become Indispensable at Work” If you are one of the people who solves problem for a living, you are already indispensable- especially if you do it with tools. There are some good points in this article that work well for our profession, but sometimes don’t mesh when it comes to their application. Going above and beyond is great - if you’re getting paid for it! In the Automotive Industry it is easy for entire organizations to hinge on a singular “Indispensable” individual, but the better the communication is within the group, and the more the group is committed to continual development - the more the load gets spread and the more total money can be made. 

Also Uncle Jimmy cleans the shop for his mental health. 

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 we delve into the churning gears of capitalism and talk about the Grind. The Grind begins the moment your feet hit the floor, and with the sheer amount of knowledge that we have to do our job, it doesn’t stop until our heads hit the pillow. This week we are going over the article, “Five Common Traits of Savvy People Who Escape the Rate Race” and straight away - two thumbs up! One of the best ways to beat the grind while you’re still in it is to make sure that you use all of your allotted vacation time, because after only a few years of not using any of it you will begin to notice that you’re wearing very thin. It’s also a good time to brush up the resume and get out and talk to some of the other shops either in your area or possibly the area you are vacationing to see what they're looking for and what they pay. We also go deeper into the idea of working for yourself and talking all of the money for the labor you produce in various capacities, and we are here to be a resource for what you need to get started. 

Also Uncle Jimmy exposes one of the weak links of connected cars and talks about some of his favorite people who escaped the grind. 

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, ‘9 Things that Service Managers Should Do”. Right off the bat, the problems have not changed in the 10 years since this article was written, and in some points it is weirdly prophetic. Overall, this article pitches a lot of pretty solid things such as: regularly reviewing the calls that service advisors make in order to figure out where to make more money. As a tech, this can often be infuriating as the service advisor downplays or outright neglects to tell the customer of repairs that their car needs - but this problem can be devastating to a Service Manager. At the end of the day, a good service manager should be able to do most of the jobs of the people that they manage and that is not limited to writing repair orders. Often times service manager are called on to be the customer service lightning rod, but the best ones use that to make their shop run better. What does your Service Manager do right? What does your Service Manager not do right? We want to know! 

Also Uncle Jimmy calls for a standardization of the number of points on a vehicle multipoint inspection. 

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 get to the bread of the complement sandwich with Service Advisors and give them some serious tips and tricks on how to do their job better. This of course comes with the underlying message that if you find yourself seriously deficient in any of these categories, you may want to exit the business. You have to have the right personality to be successful as a service advisor. For Example, if you have deep seated racism or misogyny, you’re pretty much automatically disqualified from being a service advisor - because literally anyone can come in for anything on any given day, and if they’re coming to you, they typically have a problem that needs to be solved. However, one of the more bleak outlooks on this job is that even if you do everything right, people are still going to hate you because you are going to tell them things that they don’t want to hear. Also, being proficient in the written and spoken word is really non-negotiable, you have to be able to communicate because that is 95% of your job. So if you can handle the B.S from customers, management, and technicians - you might just have what it takes to be a success as a Service Advisor in the Automotive Industry. 

Also Uncle Jimmy breaks down the history of loaner 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, Uncle Jimmy goes over what complaints customers have about Service Advisors on an industry wide basis. Turns out customers and technicians are in agreement on a lot of this list! From diagnosing from the chair and being wrong, to not getting the entire story on upcoming issues and incomprehensible promise times - the rift in the perception of what we do to the public eye begins and ends with the Service Advisors. Uncle Jimmy pitches a few lines that all service advisors should add to their customer interaction such as: “Barring any unforeseen circumstances…”, and removing such phrases as “goodwill repair”. That is of course if you can find one at all! Let us know on facebook what service advisors can do that will make both their lives and our lives easier!

Also Uncle Jimmy proposes the terrifying new concept of “Monday the 13th” and does a terrible impression of Anthony Kiedis. 

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 dives into the disgusting swamps of the forums to find out what customers really think about us as automotive mechanics. In the process, he ends up making the case that typically the most ignorant voice their opinions the loudest on the internet, often with flimsy reasoning or dubious evidence. Some of the negative experiences that people had with their mechanic’s were simple misunderstandings, while others might have been entirely chalked up to ignorance on their/the mechanic’s part. At the end of the day the fact that everything in the world keeps moving is a testament to the fact that at least some of us are good at our jobs. But given the sheer volume of things moving, we would argue that that makes a LOT of us good at our jobs, even when the general public has a less than stellar image of us. We also get into how doing some of the little things can be the biggest word of mouth advertiser there is.

Also Uncle Jimmy misspells “savvy” and gives the killer method to get you off of the “car extended warranty” call lists permanently. 

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 thanks all of our fallen service members in addition to all of the wrench twisting folks who keep the world moving, However, we are still very much in the throes of “The Great Resignation”, so we are talking about some of the scientific reasons why people quit their jobs. Most of them are complete no-brainers, such as not getting paid enough and not being recognized for the work that you do. However, when you compound that with rapidly rising prices, you are going to get a whole lot of people who are no longer on board. We also get into the very real concept of burnout, and how the average worker in America adds tons of job responsibilities in order to justify higher wages. Those higher wages ARE actually a good way to combat burnout, but they will not solve the underlying problems within your organization that cause people to burn out unless the processes and procedures are improved.

Also Uncle Jimmy does some stereotypically BMW owner driving on the American Autobahn. 

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 gets into some of the cold hard economics of the current automotive technician labor market and talks about how to get a raise. When techs can’t afford to live in the city that they work in, you are going to have major personnel problems- you don't have to be JD Rockefeller to figure that one out. When you throw the rampant inflation into the mix, the situation becomes a lot more acute and visible. The pain is real, and wages need to go up. How do you do that? Ask for a Raise. On this week’s episode we take a look at some white collar tips and tricks to getting a raise and jerry rig them to fit the utter insanity of the automotive market. There is a fair bit of science to it, but if you time it correctly and have the skills to back it up, if your manager doesn't give you a raise, they’re asking you to leave!     

Also Uncle Jimmy DayDreams about channeling Keith Moon in the exit interview while pitching some of his favorite business concepts. 

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 goes over a laundry list of things that you shouldn’t say to your manager in a while collar setting, that more often than not you SHOULD say to your manager in a blue collar setting. Reminding your manager of “The Great Resignation” works well in a white collar setting, but in the trades it punches just that little bit harder. When you get to the automotive trades, it can be a powerful tool to leverage higher wages in the face of a continuing economic downturn made only worse by inflation that Jimmy hasn’t seen since he was a wee-lad. Bottom line, good communication with a manager doesn’t happen in the automotive industry often, because more often than not they are a lightning rod for everyone from the customer, service managers, techs, and other management. When you have good communication with management you’re more able to solve problems they way they are supposed to be solved instead of the way it is always done. 

Also Uncle Jimmy drops one of the best conspiracies out there: management listening to GTW! 

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 fires up the Delorean and goes back to the magical time of 1972 to figure out if technicians were better off then or now. The most shocking thing that we uncovered is the concept of “Flat Rate Percentage” which is an awesome way to get paid that desperately needs to make a comeback (and never, EVER will!). As far as the cars go, technicians were way better off, because odds are that in 1972 somewhere in Middle America, you’re probably not working on anything more or less complicated than a GM A-Body. Now, absolutely nothing on the road is anywhere near that simple because of government emissions standards - but some of the components still work in the same way because the laws of physics haven't changed much. The overwhelming thing that we have noticed though between those two worlds is that the price of everything has gone up, and our wages have not kept up despite the incredible levels of complexity to the systems that we have to work on every single day! 

Also Uncle Jimmy briefly talks geo-politics. 

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 gets into the weeds on some of the perceptions that the general public has about various factions of the automotive repair industry. For good or for ill, your reputation as a mechanic is tied directly to your shop’s reputation, and as this survey suggests, having that reputation being well represented in the form of glowing reviews can make you a lot of extra money. How trustworthy are dealerships? How well do quick lube places know their stuff? Do Indy shops sell unneeded work? All of these questions and MANY more are answered in this podcast! 

Also Uncle Jimmy works on the theory of “Genre Shops” and shamelessly plugs his love for Rock Auto. 

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 takes aim at some of the glaring fallacies of articles running down mechanics on the internet. This article states that saying a phrase like “I wouldn’t drive that very far” as a mechanic should disqualify them from servicing a customer’s car. However, this fails to take into account whether or not cords are hanging out of the tires and the brakes are metal to metal, and the ball joints are hanging on by a thread; this becomes less a matter of feeling and more about objective reality that you shouldn’t drive that car very far if you’re not going to get those issues fixed. We also get into the savage statistics of “common problems” and what constitutes that designation. There are a lot of major misconceptions about mechanics mainly propagated by the management of our shops and dealerships, but we definitely have a solution that will not only allow us to rebuild our reputation with the public, but also put more money into your pocket for the work that you do.

Also Uncle Jimmy explains the mechanics of lighter weight oils and “Loaner Car ghosting” before rattling off some of his favorite knockoff tire brands. 

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 how we respond to the naturally chaotic and often perpetual stupidity that we deal with on a daily basis. The natural response to this is anger, but if you’re in Texas like Uncle Jimmy, they will kill you if you kill someone- even if they are stupid! Instead we talk about some of the more practical ways to not get old sparky when you lose your cool with people. Trying to remain calm almost never works when it comes from the outside, but when it comes from within and is met with being able to recognize some of the physical signs of anger, you can get out in front of it. Throw one tool and someone sees it, congrats you now a “ tool thrower”. At the end of the day though, being able to control and use your anger is a very useful skill to have, because small doses of anger get the job done. However, this comes with the very human fact that some of the most irrational stuff that people do happens because they’re angry. 

Also Uncle Jimmy describes his father’s mood-ring setting and massively underestimates just how funny he is when he is losing his shit; specifically in the content coming out of his mouth as opposed to it just being funny that he is pissed off. 

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 deal with the image the public has when it comes to the people who fix their cars: they think we’re scumbags! Are we dirty? We definitely can be; when you’re dealing with things as gross as other people’s cars you can get really dirty! As far as looking the part, point taken but the second part of being a scumbag lies in how you treat others. If you are one of the people who keeps the world moving by fixing things, it is hard to actually be a scumbag because you are performing such an important service. However, if you’re not doing it above board, not fixing the problems correctly, or just blatantly ripping off your customers - congrats you’re a scumbag but in the pejorative way. We say that we are all scumbags because that is the light the society has cast our profession in, in what Uncle Jimmy calls, “employment racism”. There are a lot of ways that we are working to improve our image as a whole, but the biggest way that people are doing that is with their feet, as they leave the industry in droves with no one to replace them. All we can do as the people who turn the wrenches is remind the general public, “when was the last time you paid THE MECHANIC?”

Also Uncle Jimmy describes pick-and-pull haute couture. 

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 doesn’t skimp on the praise as we talk about how employers can appreciate their employees, and tailor it more to the automotive industry. Appreciation is best shown in the Automotive Industry through paying well and trying to make the job as bearable as possible. Balanced feedback prevents managing from the negative, which can be a big problem for more sales based managers. Also, a healthy amount of respect also goes a long way as well, because all of the wrench twisting bastards really were the people who kept the world moving in a time when the veil of society seemed(seems) perilously thin. Also Uncle Jimmy goes over an R/O with the sitting president, and goes over science fiction that car’s have become in the last two decades. As the great Squirrely Dan says, “and that’s what I’s appreciates’s about’s ya’s”

Also Uncle Jimmy tackles complex paradoxes: 1. Getting more work done when your manager ISN'T there. And 2. How good employees never stay and bad employees never leave in poorly run shops. 

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 back at some of the finer points of the origins of this show: how little auto mechanics are paid and why. The numbers are pretty pathetic and for a lot of us wouldn’t even get us to return an employer’s calls if they offered us a job at that wage. This of course has precipitated a disastrous drop in the amount of people doing the job which will only get worse as time goes on. However, we look at the ways to command a higher price when applying for jobs, anyone with all of their ASE training (even though we have mixed feelings about their effectiveness) and having experience and training in EV/Hybrid drive vehicles is going to be worth their weight in gold. 

Also Uncle Jimmy pitches the most original fix to the technician shortage yet: reanimating the corpses of dead technicians to fill the empty bay next to you! 

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 the final bit of the employment process- the point where you have had enough or circumstances change and you need a new job. There are a lot of really good reasons to quit your job as an auto mechanic: partner gets a better job somewhere else - go with them, cars break everywhere! Wanting to go back to school is usually a pretty good way to get a raise and get out of that stuck feeling. We also talk about some of the ways that someone quitting actually affects a shop, for instance the immediate pay bump to everyone else when the workload remains the same and the number of people doing it has been reduced. We briefly touch upon “rage quitting” which is not an unfamiliar topic to anyone in the automotive industry, but this is a more in depth look at the reasons why people quit. We definitely want to hear those rage quit stories though, they almost never disappoint! Weather your departure is going to be spectacular with donuts, or more of a prolonged leave to take care of a sick family member; there are a lot of good reasons to Grease the Wheels.

Also Uncle Jimmy poorly explains Onlyfans and completely forgets that the best opportunity for a technician's career advancement is to start their own 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 are talking about happiness in the workplace. Seems like a bit of an oxymoron in the automotive industry, but Uncle Jimmy is co-opting articles written for cubicle workers for Auto Mechanics again, so hilarity ensues. The key to being happy at work is in maintaining a good work-life balance and there is a lot to unpack there. Some of the best tips for this include checking the baggage for one at the door of the other, and mentally training yourself to forget work when you see a mental save point at a specific point on your commute home. We also talk about the declining efficacy of the Pizza Party as a management tool, but it has amazing effects when it is unplanned (or involves doughnuts). But what really makes people happy or unhappy in most instances are the people that they work with, so we encourage you to go paint balling or drinking with them regularly.  

Also Uncle Jimmy and his shop get murdered in softball and looks for old cars for sale on Facebook Marketplace as a form of therapy.

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 complete the interview process by coming up with some intelligent questions to ask your interviewers. Admittedly, we have covered a lot of this in the last two episodes, so this is a bit more general (if you hate pushing cars, make sure you ask how they get dead cars into the shop) Asking the person you are interviewing with some of these more broad questions will be more helpful, because they might not know a lot of the specifics about equipment, those questions are better left for other technicians in your perspective shop. Also we give an incredible piece of advice for anyone hiring technicians in 2022, bring in one of your trusted technicians as a built in bulls*** detector! It works every single time if your tech knows what they're talking about, and can give you an advantage if a prospective hire thinks they are all that, and they’re not! 

Also Uncle Jimmy describes working in a family business and the pull factors of working on German cars in a warzone.

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 continue to explore how to game job interviews with well thought out answers to the most common job interview questions. The important thing to remember when you are getting interviewed is that this is also an interview between you and the shop, so find out as much information as you can from the people that already work there. If the narrative that your potential employer is giving you is massively divergent from the operational realities on the ground, it will be pretty easy to figure out. We also talk about using up all of your vacation time before giving your two week notice, because that is one of those legal things that gets a bit sticky sometimes, and often its a lot better to have the time off before a big change so you’re fresh and ready to rock and roll at your new shop. Do people even give two weeks notice in the automotive industry? Sometimes, but if you broach the subject some more short sighted management might just show you the door immediately. 

Also Uncle Jimmy contemplates whether or not your manager driving a Volvo projects strength or weakness, and comes up with one of the best game plans for nailing job interviews in the Automotive Industry. 

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 goes over the top 50 questions asked during job interviews. We are still in the throes of “The Great Resignation” which started at the end of last year and is still going strong with people leaving jobs en masse. How is it affecting the automotive industry? Well, if the want ads are any suggestion, it isn't helping anything. If you are looking to grease your wheels, this two-part episode will give you the questions that you are most likely to be asked, because most HR managers can't be bothered to come up with their own interview questions, so they're likely to take them straight off of google. We just want you to think about them and have some sort of response planned. We also go into the idea that if you straight up walk out of an interview when the pay offer is insufficient, it will eventually give hiring managers and owners the hint. 

Also Uncle Jimmy settles the “wearing a suit to a job interview” debate with personal experience, and says all of the things you shouldn’t ever say if you’re looking to get hired!

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 recounts a recent experience of taking a test for employment and flips the script by coming up with his own survey for you to send potential shops. Obviously sending it as an attachment with your resume might get you disqualified for the job right away, it’s just the nature of the industry. However, if you can snag an interview you often get the chance to ask questions like, “how do you get dead cars into the shop?” or “does all of your equipment work?” and watch their answer. If they give an answer that is satisfactory but sounds like BS, it probably is! One of the best parts of the interview process is watching these people squirm when they don’t have an answer, which will tell you a lot more about them while also speaking volumes to what you value in an employer. 

Standby for the questionnaire to send to prospective shops. We will throw it on the website once we are done updating it! 

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 finds an article on the internet that almost sounds like it was written by someone who listens to this show. The article: Four Reasons for the Technician Shortage, and the first one is money! This guy gets it! The only real part that we disagree with is the idea that the technician shortage could become a crisis, we only disagree because it already is a crisis. We also get into the discussion about working conditions and some of our favorite dilapidated repair shops. The final part of the conversation is a bit more complicated because of the optics of auto mechanics in the general zeitgeist: people don’t respect mechanics/technicians because they think that we are ripping them off. To which we respond with the GTW greatest hit, “when was the last time you paid the mechanic?”

Also Uncle Jimmy adds some auto mechanic caliber language to an extremely well written article about a very real problem. 

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 listening, because it’s something that pretty much everyone in our industry is bad at. That’s not entirely true, tech’s are usually pretty good about listening to other techs especially when the information that can make their job easier - or just general shop banter. Other than that though, no one is listening. We also go into reasons for why people aren’t listening: people who constantly whine and complain are generally disregarded because their input isn’t always relevant. There is a lot to listening and being a good listener, but when you are you become an invaluable asset to whatever organization you’re in: because as an Auto Technician or a technician of any type (or whatever else you do) you are a problem solver, and problem solver’s get things done! Pair that with quick and effective communication and you have a recipe for getting a lot of stuff done. 

Also Uncle Jimmy is still salty about the Bills loss and talks about the fear of clowns. 

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! Also make sure you check out the Curien N2 Neuron Bluetooth Automotive Graphing Meter- it’s the stocking stuffer you will actually use! 

On this week’s Grease the Wheels we talk about the inherent difference between Proactive and Reactive in the Automotive Industry, as well as some of the ramifications that being too heavy on one or the other can cause. As a rule of thumb, you should probably be a bit of both: being able to prevent fires in your shop or dealership is just as important as being able to handle them when they show up. By fires, we are usually talking about customers and some of the “unexpected” repairs that we quote. We know that no one ever actually looks at their tires, we just get really annoyed when they somehow try to make it our problem. We also talk about some ways that management can be more proactive and how to be quicker on the draw when you need to react and solve a problem that you didn’t expect. Finally we circle back to the idea that being proactive is one of the ways to make sure that you own the job instead of the job owning you: and this is good for everyone, not just Auto Technicians. 

Also Uncle Jimmy talks about destroying things as a “ute”

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! Also make sure you check out the Curien N2 Neuron Bluetooth Automotive Graphing Meter- it’s the stocking stuffer you will actually use! 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy describes the contents of the automotive pandora’s box when it comes to all of the crazy chaos we run into. The difference here is that we have actually found some ways to attempt to minimize the chaos. People pay us to handle the chaos, and how well you handle the chaos can determine how much you are actually worth. So Uncle Jimmy came up with both a list and an anti-list for when it comes to dealing with the daily chaos of the automotive industry.

 Also, “customers are the sperm-donors for the birth of chaos”- Uncle Jimmy

How to and how not to avoid chaos:

Take Ownership: this applies to everyone in the building. Be the person who solves the problem instead of someone who hands it off. The Service Advisor takes ownership of the customer and finding out information that could aid in the diagnosis and repair, while the technician takes ownership for the repair and never the two shall meet. 

• -OR- Refuse to take ownership of anything 

Clearly Communicate

• -OR- Be as vague as humanly possible

Power Through: when people bring you chaos, grab it by the throat and use your skills to dispatch it.

• -OR-Complain through it: because after all- “F*** that car!”

Work Through Lunch (once in a while): even if you’re just going to mop up some waiters, sometimes working through lunch gives you some easy hours. 

• -OR- Go to lunch whenever you feel like for as long as you want, especially when you see a bunch of waiters. 

Pay Attention to the Details: you can prevent chaos in the future. When you get a leaking oil pan on video during an oil service and then the car comes back a week later with a spun rod bearing- thats an expensive “I told you so”

• -OR- F*** the details, that person has a problem- odds are they wont buy an expensive fix so why bother. 

Complain, but offer the solution

• -OR- Complain just for complaining’s sake

Do Proper Diagnosis: doing proper diagnosis means finding out what the problem actually is. Sometimes things are a slam dunk, sometimes they’re not. But getting to the root cause of the problem is always going to cut down on the chaos. 

• -OR- Shotgun diagnosis: this is going to cause more chaos than you will ever know. The parts cannon gets expensive in a hurry and nothing can cause more chaos than getting it wrong multiple times. 

Use your senses: you can see and hear chaos coming. When you see a service advisor, a customer or a service manager- you know they would love to slice you off some of the chaos. If the car has a problem and you can see it or hear it. When you identify a problem you can solve it and remove the chaotic element from the situation. 

• -OR- Completely ignore the problems that you see and hear. This usually just results in more chaos

Say “No”, or “I'll try, but I'm not making any promises.” This comes down to the idea of under promising and over delivering- because when they have a hard deadline and something doesn't go as planned, the chaos is multiplied across the board from customer down to you. 

• -OR- No, but a lot more rude. 

Have a plan for doing your job, and own your job. There are some people who are just there. In this case, the job owns them. Having a plan will cut down on the chaos because whatever chaos comes through the door you will be prepared to handle it, because you know what you’re doing. This is when you own the job. 

• -OR- Wander Aimlessly and let  the job own you.

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy eschews finding a top 10 list from the internet, and instead makes his own and tells you some of the ramifications of not following them! This week- it's Diag Tips! 

1. Get the Whole Story: when a Service Advisor is vague and gives your Repair Orders like, “replace a tire” make sure you find out which one. “Has a leak”, well what fluid is it?- so far the weirdest answer is milk. The customer is rarely forthcoming with details especially when they are embarrassing, but getting the rest of the story as the late-great Paul Harvey would say can make it a “ Good Day!”
2. Check the Vehicle History: weather you have a host of information from a dealership network or you are just using the Carfax- there is information on the cars that we work on out there on the internet. It can make your life easier and possibly check a few things off the list of potential problems or can provide a smoking gun if not performed correctly. Obviously these things don't cover everything we have seen cars get fixed out of pocket and it never hit the Carfax all the time! Also don’t ever buy a car that was at a training center. 
3. Assume Nothing: instead find out the answer for yourself. Don’t let anyone else assume for you either- all this leads to is problems. Uncle Jimmy doing the wrong recall on a car and not getting paid for it, because he assumed it was one recall when it was in fact another. 
4. Visually Inspect Things: Every battery has a date code on it, a lot of random sensors and camera’s won’t work when they’re dirty. Sometimes you can tell a lot about a car by looking at it! Comfort Access doesn't work after you’ve sideswiped a tree. 
5.  Duplicate the Concern: When the “it sounds like there's a bowling ball in my truck” actually turns into there's a bowling ball in your trunk. We also do a deep dive on the Check engine light and why Uncle Jimmy loves it. 
6. Check the Battery- they all go dead, and before they do they can cause some seriously crazy faults!  Also take where you live into account, batteries hate extremes in heat and cold so when you get a healthy dose of one or the other, it might be the death knell for your battery. Also make sure the terminals are tightened, not naming any names- but looking at you Autozone. 
7. Scanning for Faults: there's faults in every car that hasn't just been cleared. It doesn't matter how old a car is, somewhere there is a fault where it did not do something right. We also talk about personal records for the most number of faults in a car: 312. Sometimes the faults in a scan are consistent with the complaint the customer has, but sometimes they reveal much more that the customer would rather not think about. Ground problems almost never make logical sense, so if you have seemingly unrelated systems not working, you might want to check your grounds. 
8. Check for Damage:  people drive like shit everywhere on planet earth. As a result of running into things and generally not paying attention, their cars are taking some serious damage. That vibration is probably from bent wheels, and no, we can assure you that they are not under warranty because the manufacturer did not hit that pothole for you. When a customer wants to see that their wheel is bent, put it up on the lift and spin it for them.  The bad driver tax is especially brutal on EV drivers who are looking at excruciating repair bills when they poke a hole in those battery packs by driving over something. 
9. Eyeballs: you have to look at the problem, because you might be able to see it. The worst case scenario for this is when you have to shred the car for diagnosis, just to have to put it back together because the part is on backorder and you are out of loaner cars.

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy does the boring and predictable thing of talking about goals for a New Years Podcast. However, this is going to be a little bit different, because as Technicians, our goal is to get paid for fixing broken things. One of Uncle Jimmy’s goals this year is to finally open the floodgates on a technological revolution that will let you work from home and collect all of the money for the labor that you create. Having goals is a good thing, but the pursuit of those goals should not and cannot be all consuming- to the point where obtaining the goal will seem anti-climactic. Also goals should be realistic and broken down into a series of obtainable steps. All of that good self help stuff, but with way more swearing about Service Advisors. Get better in ‘22 and make yourself worth more money! 

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! Also make sure you check out the Curien N2 Neuron Bluetooth Automotive Graphing Meter- it’s the stocking stuffer you will actually use! 

On this week’s Grease the Wheels Uncle Jimmy weaves a Dickensian tale about a miserly shop owner and his much more HR-oriented son. As we go, we examine how these businesses got their start, what happens when the second generation actually knows what they’re doing when it comes to the automotive industry, and the attitudes that each brings to bear in the running of day to day operations. We have all worked for a Jack Hoff - but not all of us have worked for a Ripp. That is typically because well-run shops see less turnover. It’s a bit of Norman Rockwell with a touch of “How to Make Friends and Influence People”, all after way too many Christmas Morning Bloody Mary’s. We would like to thank you all and wish you a very Merry Christmas and a happy, safe, and successful new year! 

Also Uncle Jimmy drops the hardest hitting line about the Automotive Industry of 2021, “(Jack Hoff)..had seen what a difference he (Ripp Hoff) had made, so he offered him the job of sales manager at the family dealership - but he low-balled the shit out of him!” 

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! Also make sure you check out the Curien N2 Neuron Bluetooth Automotive Graphing Meter- it’s the stocking stuffer you will actually use! 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels we take a look at all of the points in your daily routine as an auto mechanic where communication breaks down. There are a hell of a lot of them. Any time you have angry people trying to communicate what is wrong with their car you are probably not going to get the whole story. By the time it gets filtered through the Service Advisor the story has changed. It is the age old game of telephone on an industrial level, and it affects your paycheck. That is why we are actually fans in principle of the video multi-point inspection and we try to lay out a good template so that you can do it effectively - but above all else you should get paid for them! We also talk about non-verbal communication, industrial management communication, and where it all goes wrong! 

Also, Uncle Jimmy vents about having a bad day before launching into one of the most concise, vulgar, and accurate tirades about the inefficiencies of communication in the automotive industry and actually backs it up with some science.

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! Also make sure you check out the Curien N2 Neuron Bluetooth Automotive Graphing Meter- this thing kicks ass and takes names!

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we take a look at an internet article that has almost nothing to do with us: how to treat your employees better. This isn’t because the industry is actively looking to make things worse, more because it was written more for office work in mind. Because let’s be real, casual Friday is pretty much every day when you’re ripping transmissions out of Silverado’s. The overall message of the article though is pretty good- employers should try to make their work environments as hospitable as possible even though they don’t have to. Also Uncle Jimmy shares his thoughts on team building, especially when the whole team isn’t invited. 

Also we talk about work from home in the automotive industry as a preview of upcoming events. 

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! Also make sure you check out the Curien N2 Neuron Bluetooth Automotive Graphing Meter- this thing kicks ass and takes names! 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we talk about those jobs that used to be easy- until the engineers got involved! The problem that this industry has is it’s blistering rate of change, and nowhere is that more evident in some of the insane ways that engineers have packaged these vehicles to resemble 10lbs of manure in a 2lb sack! Exhibit A: Changing the spark plugs on a N55 powered BMW X3. Exhibit B: Same thing, but a 5.4L Ford V8. Jobs that could have taken 10 minutes on the right vehicle 30 years ago have turned into all day affairs in some cases. This is nothing to say of the parts that WE KNOW are going to break during the repair because the materials that they are made out of don’t really like the thermal cycles incurred by being 3mm away from a raging exhaust manifold. Also we get totally medieval on the BMW N63 V8, and explain why it’s still around and in basically everything- hint: class action lawsuits aren’t cheap. 

Also Uncle Jimmy is extremely unflattering to the Germans and wants to know: what are the worst mechanical obstacle courses that you have to do? 

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! Also make sure you check out the Curien N2 Neuron Bluetooth Automotive Graphing Meter- this thing kicks ass and takes names! 

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we take a dive into the median salary for auto technicians by state. The worst part of this is that the highest median income actually comes from the District of Columbia which isn’t even a state, and all of the other highest median incomes come in states where the cost of living is outrageous to the point where people are fleeing (looking at you California). At the end of the day we all heard it in tech school: “you can earn 100k as an auto technician” but we seriously hope that you didn’t have to break your ass too bad getting there and can maintain a good work-life balance. We got this week’s episode right from UTI and when you take a look at the actual numbers they put that 100k earning level into a pretty stark light in a hurry. 

Also Uncle Jimmy is thankful for family, you all, and not living in California.

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! Also make sure you check out the Curien N2 Neuron Bluetooth Automotive Graphing Meter- this thing kicks ass and takes names! 

On this week’s episode of Grease the wheels, Uncle Jimmy dives into “11 Things I Wish I Knew Before Becoming a Technician” with the resounding thud of “wow, only 11?” What are the things that no one tells you about before going into the automotive industry? Some of this is a bit redundant, because how could you not know some of these things. Do your training- yea, how is that not possible with the rate of technological change in the cars that we work on. The learning curve of this occupation is steep any way you slice it, and there really isn’t an end in sight. However, we also do a bit of a dive into the economics behind starting your own shop as being the best way to translate your skills into serious financial gains! It’s a jam packed episode for everyone from the guy who wants to leave to the brand new guy, so tune in!   

Also Uncle Jimmy gets recall work on a system that he has nearly constantly lampooned, and we want to hear from you: what did YOU wish YOU knew before becoming a technician? 

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! Also make sure you check out the Curien N2 Neuron Bluetooth Automotive Graphing Meter- this thing kicks ass and takes names! 

On this week's episode of Grease the Wheels, we take aim at more automotive misinformation from the ill-informed passing themselves off as someone who knows about cars on the internet. So gather round boys and girls, customers and service advisors, techs of all types: this is one where we get to shred someone for being a moron! After all, the holidays are coming up, right? A little peace-on-earth at the expense of the stupid is a great way to raise shop morale. Check your sources especially when it comes to things that you read on the internet, in this case “Setting the Facts Straight on Common Car Myths” Are electric cars are more likely to catch on fire? Are larger vehicles safer than smaller cars? Can Muscle-Cars turn? Are all SUV’s good off-road? These questions and many more get put under the blazing light of a mushroom cloud on this week’s GTW.

Also Uncle Jimmy talks about accidentally lighting a Power Wagon on fire. 

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 get into some of the astounding numbers of the automotive industry. Turns out there is a hell of a lot of money to be made in this industry, from the parts end to the wholesale end, to the retail end, to the service end. Everyone is trying to carve out their niche, but if they don’t have a good e-commerce game they are completely obsolete. Those numbers get even more insane when you look at dealership groups that own between 200-300 dealerships. The odds for financial success in this industry are actually fairly high, due to a myriad of market conditions- the biggest one being that no one is getting into this industry to replace the people leaving, so the people who can do it are going to go up in value. Bottom line, keep getting smarter, keep getting better, and keep making yourself more valuable- because we have something that is going to blow your mind. An e-commerce marketplace to sell your services as a mechanic.

Also Uncle Jimmy gives his spin on “Death of (all) Salesmen” and references his favorite movie.

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 get to the long awaited sequel in our ongoing series about service advisors. Now right off the bat, as we have said before and will continue to stand by, this has got to be one of the worst jobs in the entire automotive industry- and quite possibly ranks among the worst jobs on the entire planet! This is one of the things that makes their job ugly. One of the things that separates the good from the bad when it comes to Service Advisors is how they handle promise times on repairs. The good ones typically leave it open ended and put the point of contact on themselves. The bad ones just quote one without taking what else is coming into the shop or parts into account, thus inviting Murphy’s law to take center stage and tank a customer’s experience with your shop. Also we discuss “diagnosing from the drive on”, which is a big no-no, because it can get you into a lot of trouble when it comes to customer expectations. Also Uncle Jimmy gives you a major hack for what to do when you get a car you don't want to work on: hit them with an estimate that gives them whiplash!  It’s a greatest hits album on service advisors as we do a read along of an article called “10 Reasons Why Service Advisors Fail”

Also Uncle Jimmy has ‘nam flashbacks about working in parts stores and rewrites Dante’s Inferno to include irrational people with broken cars with- “I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you” being the new “Abandon all hope ye who enter here” We want to hear your irrationally bad CSI horror stories!

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. Also make sure you follow Curien from a look live from SEMA!  

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy completely debunks an article called “20 Urban Legends That Mechanics Don’t Want to Admit Are True” but we’re not going to link it because of its poor structure and truth content. Seriously, this thing reads like a press release from the White House. This is one of the most ridiculous articles that we have ever read because we don’t know why a mechanic would ever deny any of these things being a possibility when it comes to the incredible chaos of the automotive service industry. We don’t think the person who wrote this article has ever even met a mechanic. Also Uncle Jimmy gives the sparknotes of Christine. At the end of the day possibly the scariest thing is that this article was probably approved by a social media fact checker!

We want to hear you automotive horror stories: haunted garage? Possessed car or tools? Spooky roadside sightings? Let us know!

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 making some changes. The only constant in this world is change, so being well prepared for it will allow you to exploit it when it happens. We talk about the changing automotive landscape as well as some of the changes that people make as they go through this industry. When you seek a change choose your confidants carefully, because at the end of the day the decision to change something in your life comes down to you and you alone. We also go into the funny similarities between pimps and dealership owners. One of the other tips explored in the article that Uncle Jimmy takes apart is the idea of cutting up goals into smaller and more manageable sets, which helps big goals become a series of steps on your way to success.

Also Uncle Jimmy threatens the vending machine and comes up with the solution to the coin shortage- using it to pay your weekly or monthly tool bills.

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 gets a bit of perspective written by a woman who went into the automotive industry about the pros and cons of being an auto mechanic. It rings pretty true with the existing discography of GTW, and this kinda bums us out that her experience was also that technicians typically don’t make a lot of money. We like to think that we have our bases pretty well covered on that front by constantly pushing you guys to get trained so that you’re worth more money because you can do more jobs. However the pros and cons must be weighed against how much passion you have for the cars that you work on, because if you don’t have the passion often the days can really drag. The decision to become a mechanic has many different outcomes, but you often get out what you put in. This becomes even more essential if you go out on your own and start your own shop! 

Also Uncle Jimmy talks about Russian’s fixing cars on YouTube. 

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 Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy and Erik the Producer sit down and go over some tips and tricks for the interview process! First we cover the ground work when it comes to scoping out your new job: sites like GlassDoor and Reputation, as well as just their page on Google will have tons of reviews on their company. From here you can spot the potential red flags, or possibly figure out if your hire is part of some larger restructuring. 

From here we talk about how to tune your resume to work on the internet, by including all of the training you have as well as any ASE’s, and what systems of the car you are proficient in. Odds are if you see certain keywords in the job listing, odds are those are keywords that they want to see on the resume. Although a lot of times these job descriptions are going to be so vague it will be hard to tell what they are actually looking for. 

Finally Uncle Jimmy goes over everything not to say in a mock interview that even grades the questions that get asked. When it comes to interviewing, we really like the idea of a foreman or other experienced technicians sitting in on the interview process to be a technical translator for the interviewer: and give verdict to whether or not that interviewee knows what they are talking about. Also, this will keep people honest about what they can and cannot do, because the possibility of instant negative feedback is very high if they try to BS a tech! 

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 takes aim and touches a few hot ones off at the customers! There are a lot of things that we wish customers knew, but one of the first ones that comes to mind is that manners are not optional. If you want to get your car fixed, sometimes it behooves you to be polite. We know that it is a major inconvenience, but odds are that we didn’t cause the problem that caused your car to stop working. That is unless of course it’s a comeback, but even then customers should know that because of the way that these cars are built, wired, and integrated- they can mess up for any and all reasons! This means that sometimes what seems like it could be a simple fix leads you down the rabbit hole into a nightmare repair bill. This is nothing to say of the current supply constraints that are leaving parts rooms everywhere missing vital components- and folks, this one isn’t going to be letting up for a while. Also we give customers a handy guide to whether or not their car problem is covered under warranty: “was it caused by a defect in the manufacture or materials by the manufacturer of your car?” If no, then the repair will not be covered under warranty, might want to check insurance instead! 

Also Uncle Jimmy pitches “CSI: Mechanic” and wants to know: “What do you wish customers knew?” 

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 actually explore several paradigm shifts that are all happening in the automotive industry at the same time. First off, and probably the one that we are most happy about, salesmen are going extinct. Seriously, the internet is the most brutally efficient salesman on the planet, they figured out how to sell polished wholesale units with an incredible warranty! Secondly, the idea of the mechanic being a blue collar job is also kind of going away as well, and this can only bode well for us as our numbers continue to dwindle and our ranks continue to remain unfilled. Make no mistake, we need to get more people into the industry, but the industry needs to make itself more attractive to new talent. 

Also Uncle Jimmy talks about having “two dads”, but it's more Jekyll and Hyde than Modern Family. 

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 Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy reimagines some popular games to be more on brand with technicians and people who fix things for a living. There’s probably a good 2/3rds of you reading this right now who are playing “Trash Jenga” (we want to see who has the tallest!) but what other games are out there? From the classics: “Battleship”, “Operation” and “Monopoly” we get to imagine the ultimate pick and pull and come face to face with some of the harsh realities of the industry. 

Thankfully though there are games like Cards Against Humanity, that allow normal people a brief window into normal everyday shop talk! We also come up with some genuine originals that are going to be a massive hit at your next party such as “F*** That Car!” Finally, we wrap it all up with a fairly serious dive into media portrayal/consumption and branding entire occupations, in regards to a possible solution to the massive technician shortage.  

Also Uncle Jimmy has very clearly never played Risk. 

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 Grease the Wheels we get into some of the things that the “people of the chair” don't see about your average technician working in the automotive industry today. Doctors have a hard job, but typically people don’t evolve as fast as automobiles- otherwise we should really have bluetooth by now! We also take a deep dive into the way that technicians are paid and explore a particular instance where pooling hours not only worked out fantastically for all of the techs working there, but also improved shop workflow dramatically- by having specialized technicians work on the things that they were good at, while the rest of the shop killed it on maintenances. We also propose an addendum to the pooling of hours for a service department: taking the lowest guy and highest guy and paying them what they turn, and having the rest of the technicians in the shop paid on all of the other hours turned. This way the high performers are not penalized, and the people who can’t pull their own weight are not taking advantage of a high performing shop. One thing is clear, flat rate is not going anywhere but if it worked a little bit better that could stop the bleeding of technicians industry wide. Or they could go to salary like the manufacturers would prefer, but let’s be real, that’s not going to happen! 

Also Uncle Jimmy picks the pile for E65’s and not one person complains about it. 

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 get into some of the laws and legal things to keep in mind when it comes to our occupation, and we don’t even get to OSHA! Uncle Jimmy finds some of the laws and guidelines for the State of Texas when it comes to auto repair from a consumer's perspective. The too long didn’t read for this entire episode is, “get everything in writing” as well as the helpful tidbit that repair orders are in fact legal documents! This is the helpful law episode to help make sure everyone is doing their jobs' the right way and make sure that you can get paid in the eventuality that you have to take a customer to court. Because there is always someone who doesn't want to pay, and if you have everything in writing it is going to be really hard for them to squirm out of  it in a lot of cases.  

Also Uncle Jimmy describes the simple joy of beating the life out of a rental car. 

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 Grease the Wheels we get out of self-reflective introspective mode and go straight for the jugular: asking the pointed question “who are you?” to everyone else in the building! 

We know what we are there for, but a lot of these other bit part players can have nebulous or extremely vague job duties which lead them to have a variety of motivations (or lack thereof). Obviously, the owner or the board of directors is there to make the place as profitable as possible. What is cool about this is that depending on the scale of the company you work for there are various levels of access. Obviously if you work for a mom and pop and need some TP, you can typically just ask the boss directly. If you work in a company with more levels of management than techs in the shop, that request for TP might have to go through 8 or 9 different departments before you get it. When you get into the vague mid-upper levels of management is where you run into the job titles where you get less concrete answers to “who are you?”  and more specifically the follow up question “what do you do?” When it comes to the sales department, more often than not they only interact with us when they need something from us, so the question “who are you?” all of a sudden hits them a little bit close to the vest and becomes “what do you want?” Looking at you sales department. 

At the end of the day, who you are comes down to what problems you solve and the manner in which you solve them.

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! 

In this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we get introspective with asking ourselves some questions when it comes to our own happiness. Yea, we’re wading into the murky waters of mental health! We found a site called “Positive Psychology” for self reflective questions to ask yourself, and decided it was perfect fodder for a podcast. When you look in the mirror what do you see? Many of us see the major roles that we play in our lives in culmination with what we do for a living. You need to give yourself credit for what you do well, and what you are still learning how to do, because the cars are getting harder and harder to fix all of the time. We ask a lot of really big questions and Uncle Jimmy fills in the blanks. After this episode, you might look at your shop a bit differently and if you need to make a change. Grease the wheels. 

Also Uncle Jimmy enters the mind of a dog and completely forgets that two specific people hating each other in 1801 literally changed the course of American History. 

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 weeks episode of Grease the Wheels, we detail the amazing journey of being an automotive technician in true Uncle Jimmy fashion. From being a mechanically adept or interested youngster with a POS car, to making the leap into tech school and eventually becoming a skilled journeyman, to eventually exiting the industry either on a gurney or through a rage quit - there is only one constant. Everyone’s occupational journey is different. Sometimes there are different challenges and different levels of skill coming in, but a good attitude and knack for solving problems can improve your trajectory and make you go a long way in this industry. However, the goal as a technician should always be a higher rate of pay and if you are not being offered regular raises it may be time to leave the building. Of course, this depends on how valuable you are as a technician, because there are some instances where managers are genuinely glad to see you go and the shop actually improves. However, you should strive not to be that guy on the amazing journey and continually make yourself more valuable in the form of better training, knowing more systems, and being able to turn more hours. 

Also Uncle Jimmy breaks down the American educational system. 

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 Grease the Wheels, we talk about the massive technician shortage and some of the brilliant fixed ops plans to fix it. We talk at length about an article we found on LinkedIn where they address all but one of the major causes for why shops are having problems keeping technicians. The one they missed though pretty much invalidates the rest of the article, but there are some fairly good points when it comes to how to keep technicians such as giving them a path of advancement, giving them the tools they need to do the job, and keeping good work coming in the door. These are things that all shops want, but need to make an operational objective in order to keep the best talent and keep pushing out work that will perpetuate the cycle of success. Most importantly though with the incredible shortage of technicians, as a predominately technician based podcast, ladies and gentlemen- be out there looking! You never know what you are going to find or what someone might pay you to do what you’re doing now. It might be in a part of the country that you have always wanted to live, or it could just be across town but the need for good help is so dire you could get yourself a massive raise. Change is definitely coming, so get those resumes tuned up and be able to capitalize on it when it comes.  

Also Uncle Jimmy gives some tips and tricks for seeing through the occupational smokescreen. 

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 puts on his prophecy hat and talks about some of the things that we can see coming down the pike for the automotive industry. It is not a secret that the automotive industry is very slow to adapt with some things, the fact that they still employ salesmen when we have internet sales pretty sorted out is a testament to that. However, we also get into the nitty gritty when it comes to the propulsion systems of the future. Fact is, EV’s are not the the event horizon for personal transportation. Most likely it will be Hydrogen fuel cell or good old internal combustion, just with hydrogen as the fuel. When you burn hydrogen really the only thing you get as a byproduct is water and heat. We also go into why drinking water from your car might not be such a great idea, because they are still going to need to lubricate the engines with hydrocarbons, they do a really good job. Finally, we tease a future where technicians are in such short supply and need to know so many different things in order for some of these shops to stay open, that the compensation will have to go up in kind to meet the demands of the job. It is only a matter of time until someone figures it out, but the fact that less than 10% of Uncle Jimmy’s brand specific dealerships are not posting want ads for technicians says that they haven’t figured it out quite yet. 

Also Uncle Jimmy talks about some of the things to do in a self-driving car, and skips the “putting predictions in poems” move. 

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 falls asleep on the couch and wakes up at 4AM to record a podcast. Most technicians are a straight up bargain. From the amount of things that we have to know to what the shops that employ us charge, we know that there is a real disconnect between the rate at which we receive raises to the rate at which our jobs get more difficult. As a result many shops are stacked up with work weeks in advance, and they are constrained by the ability to get technicians. All technicians are bargains right out of tech school, they have bills to pay so they often take the first livable offer that they get. Oftentimes this leads to a high level of attrition among new technicians. However, shops that offer a clear path of advancement and opportunity to get more training often see a higher level of retention and technician advancement. They pay needs to keep up though, otherwise that development will go to profit someone else. We also talk about a day where all of the technicians of the world take a day off, because they definitely cant fire us all. Even if they do, there’s still a tech shortage. 

Also Uncle Jimmy explains tax and fiscal policy in the most Grease the Wheels way humanly possible. 

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 Grease the Wheels, we see how many times Uncle Jimmy can say the phrase, “don’t be a dick!” This is another one of those infamous, extra-spicy, “weekday night” episodes compounded with the fact that he is fresh off vacation. So When Uncle Jimmy gets back to the shop and it is a s***show, he goes off a bit and threatens corporal punishment for people who leave wheel machines looking like a war-zone! In a solid rant about shop cleanliness, we talk about how the trick to finding a lost tool is to actually be looking for something else. On the “don’t be a dick” hierarchy, few moves are more treacherous than breaking tools and not owning up to it, or even worse, trying to hide it! Speaking of breaking stuff, we also talk about how not to be a dick in a pick and pull, because that part that you just destroyed might have come in handy in the future. We even go into some semiotic analysis of the language you use causing people to think you’re a dick even if you’re not. Unless of course you’re a serial complainer in which case you probably are in fact a dick. The moral of the episode is, pretty obviously at this point, “don’t be a dick”, help people out when they need it because sometimes an extra set of hands makes a huge difference. So being willing and able to help is a major thing that will make people think that you are not a dick, even if you are to an extent.  

Also Uncle Jimmy talks hazmat cocktails and still being salty about the February Ice Storm. Also we ask the really important question: How great would it be if you could tell customers to not be a dick? 

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 Grease the Wheels we talk about the new guys that are attempting to put a dent in the 650,000 mechanic and technician job vacancies nationwide. We all have a million “new guy stories”, and let’s be clear we want to hear every single one of them! Obviously they are not set to replace us right now, but given time and space to develop some of these new guys are going to make very good technicians, if they don’t use their brains and GTFO of the industry! Realistically though in a macro view of the industry as a whole, we should be fostering the ones who have chosen this profession just so they can replace us when we want to retire! We don’t mind when they ask questions that will genuinely help them out seeking an intelligent answer, especially when the lights are on when you give them your response. We’re also not going to fault them for asking us for fasteners or extra parts that we might have lying around. Odds are if you take a proactive approach with your younger technicians, they will be better in the long run. One rare occasions, they show promise right out of the box and these are the techs that you need to keep and develop if you want your shop to continue to be successful. Of course however there are the ones who just don't get it, and sometimes no amount of tutoring is going to help them get it! So overall the kids are alright, but shops need to recognize the talent they are developing in house and aim to keep it! 

Also Uncle Jimmy gives his dystopian opinion on cell phones all while sounding like the worlds most insane Zoom Call! 

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 give you some of the right tools for, well, greasing the wheels! Right now people are looking for jobs in tons of different industries, but in our case the tables are tilted a bit more in our favor because of the technician shortage. No employer is going to advertise the things about their shop that sucks, so it is up to you to find it out. Sometimes you get to find it out the easy way by looking around at a shop full of broken equipment that is half falling down and the techs are pushing cars into the shop by hand. Sometimes it is a bit harder to spot, but rest assured every shop has things that make it an awesome place to work too. Traditionally interviews are mostly the person doing the hiring asking the questions of the people being hired, however the crippling technician shortage has actually made it so that technicians can be a bit pickier about where they are going to work. The goal at the end of the day is to work somewhere where you can be fulfilled, deal with the least amount of headaches. So listen to your Uncle Jimmy and don’t get fooled again. Ask the right questions, take a good look at the shop, and read the reviews of your potential future service department on google and you will be all right. Do not settle for less pay, and make sure that they have a schedule to regularly review raises. We also talk about using your sick time, because this is a very physical job, and sometimes you really need to just take an extra day to heal up. 

Also Uncle Jimmy retells a story about a tech who greased the wheels in epic fashion for a very good reason! What are some of your employment red flags that you won’t get fooled again on?  

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 completely off-the-rails episode of Grease the Wheels, Uncle Jimmy gives a literal voice to some of the tools and equipment in your shop. What would happen if tools could talk? What if your wheel balancer, alignment machine, and tire machine could scream at you with the voice of your good old Uncle Jimmy when they’re being operated improperly? Odds are that it would keep them working longer! We also discuss the phenomenon of “warranty-itis” where a car will have all sorts of phantom problems coincidentally right before it is no longer under the manufacturer's warranty. We also do a serious dive on the topic of welding, welders, and how your welder (if it gained sentience) would turn into Gordon Ramsay; while coming up with the brand “Practice Welders”. Either way our jobs could theoretically be a lot easier if every socket you dropped could play Marco Polo with you until you find them, or if cars could tell you what was wrong with them in plain english. Also Uncle Jimmy assumes that torches would have a harsh German accent, which is fitting considering they invented the flamethrower. This episode is complete insanity, but you should probably expect that by now! Let us know what your tools would say, or if you talk to your tools while you're using them? 

Also Uncle Jimmy absolutely massacres a Sean Connery impression and asks the pointed question, “would your car think you’re an asshole?”

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 are talking about a bunch of things that Uncle Jimmy can’t explain about the automotive industry. We go in depth into things that we can’t explain as technicians in regards to some of the higher up’s not having a good grasp on what is going on in their own shops and the industry in general. 

We also go into some of the bigger questions that we can’t explain, like why fixing cars for people in a pinch always feels just a little bit better. We also don’t really understand why there needs to be chaos in the shop. It seems like chaos makes itself at home in the form of customers in most cases, because realistically you have no idea what people are going to drag in that day. 

Speaking of chaos, Uncle Jimmy works a Saturday and gets cornered by one of the worst customer ever, who also happens to be one of the luckiest human beings on earth by finding the one guy who actually had spare parts that fixed his car well over two hours after closing. We also don’t understand service advisors, because it is one of the most horrendous jobs in the automotive industry, but the good ones are so effective they make it look simple. However, despite this, we don’t understand how getting all of the relevant information from customers and selling the work that the technicians suggest is such a big ask; especially when it is in their job description. What can’t you explain about the automotive industry? 

Also Uncle Jimmy succinctly and correctly defines “Karen’s” within a broader set of ungrateful and combative customers. 

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 indies, mobile techs, and “rogue techs” who are working out of their home garages. Because we work in a dealership, this podcast often revolves around working for a dealership as a mechanic, but there are many modern alternatives that have been gaining traction as the business has evolved. Indy shops are truly a mixed bag: with some of them being well run, mom and pop shops where the staff genuinely feels like a family and others that are basically chop shops. Either way, do your homework on any shop that you are looking to bring your talents as a mechanic too, because it is your reputation on the line in some cases. 

A shop’s bad reputation can follow you even if you are only in a shop-of-ill-repute for a short period of time. Mobile mechanics have seen an interesting rise with the internet and people being less and less able to fix things on their own cars. The Rogues though truly have it figured out, being able to work on their own time, in their own space, and having the choice of what they actually have to work on. No matter where you are in the indie-tech spectrum, be prepared to have to fix whatever rolls, drives, or gets dragged through the door- because you have no idea what they might be bringing in. Either way the indie scene is booming as dealerships struggle to fill their ranks, and there are forthcoming developments from us that will make that whole “rogue tech” thing a lot easier! 

Also Uncle Jimmy describes the post-Corona labor market and teases WWIII. 

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 Memorial Day episode of Grease the Wheels, we talk about the generations in regard to the conflicts they fought and the cars they had to fix. Fittingly omitting “The Lost Generation”, we examine the incredibly simple nature of early mass produced automobiles when they were being driven by “The Greatest Generation”. This is the generation who honed their skills by keeping things running through a Global Depression leading up to fighting Nazi’s and the Imperial Japanese. “The Silent Generation” that had to fight the Korean War had slightly more complex automobiles with more safety features, more creature comforts, and a lot more power; but they earned it because they were born either shortly before or during the Great Depression. “The Baby Boomers” who fought the Vietnam War were all about horsepower when they first started driving, and that didn’t really tail off until the government started strangling cars in stock form. 

With “Gen X”, cars got computers to make them run cleaner and more efficiently, and with the Millennials and “Gen Z” things have become electrified and the amount of things that can go wrong in these cars have increased exponentially. However, the number of people entering the field has decreased exponentially, and as another generation marches towards retirement the ranks are not being reinforced. We think the technician shortage is because of the increasing complexity of the cars with the complete stagnation of wages, but what do we know? The generational composition of every shop is different, so take a look around and maybe figure out what generations are best represented and how well they fit the stereotypes that Uncle Jimmy heaps on them.  

Also Uncle Jimmy and I would like to give a very sincere, “thank you” to all of the service members who laid down their lives so we could have the freedom of speech to do this podcast! 

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 are exploring a favorite topic of ours and giving some real world potential fixes for the problem. The problem for this week’s episode is the technician shortage, with new facts and figures indicating that the industry could have up to half a million unfilled job openings in the not-so-distant future of 2024. Again, these suits with business degrees like to point out the lack of shop classes, while failing to account for the working conditions and wage stagnation that have driven people out of the industry and deeply dampened the enthusiasm for the trade. This isn’t even accounting for the absolutely blistering pace of change with the vehicles that we work on, and the rate of technological innovation that aims to make our job more difficult with each passing day. 

However, as Machiavelli said, “entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity, and are able to turn both to their advantage.” Meaning: the good technicians out there, with a lot of knowledge and certifications, who are able to work on the hybrid and EV stuff will basically get to name their price. Because we solve problems we would fix the technician shortage with a farm system for people who want to get into the trade to get the fundamentals down and learn the business the way their employer wants them to. This coupled with a clear path of advancement and regular pay increases for regular increases in training and production would keep people in your building and happy for possibly their entire careers.  This is a topic we will be exploring more in the future, so let us know how you would fix the technician shortage? 

Also Uncle Jimmy goes over what Socrates, Plato, Da Vinci and Michelangelo would drive. 

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 the bus! The bus we are referring to in this case is the metaphysical bus of the blame game, often between irate customers and uncaring management. We’ve all been hit with it in our careers as mechanics or just people who fix things for a living, and more often than not it is undeserved. When auto repairs do not go as planned or customers have nefarious motives, the first person in the crosshairs to blame is always going to be the mechanic. After being a mechanic for some time, you will be able to see them coming and be able to better sidestep the incoming blame for recurring issues by better documenting your repairs and making sure to thoroughly diagnose the issue. Folks, there’s really no two ways about it: when customers car’s don't work the way they are supposed to, they go looking for someone to blame when in most cases they can accomplish this by looking in a mirror. “I didn’t hit anything!” “Yea, I just got a new ______ it can't be that!” These simple statements are often rendered completely null by the bent rims and split water pump impellers that we then see. Additionally, we go over some of the key words and phrases to look out for when looking for a used BMW. This is a jam packed episode, let us know what you think with a review over on iTunes! 

Also Uncle Jimmy does his own version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” except with stuff that is his fault culminating in the incredibly awesome destruction of a Volkswagen Beetle. 

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 apply the arc of the extremely popular show “Bar Rescue” to the automotive sector. Folks, this one would get ugly in a hurry. First off, there are a lot of people in management in the automotive sector that think everything is absolutely fine despite their businesses actively falling apart due to either neglect, poor decision making,  poor personnel, or all of the above. Therefore, in their heads at least, their shop wouldn’t need to be rescued. However with open job positions drastically outweighing the amount of people actively seeking that employment for one reason or another- the writing is going to be on the wall sooner rather than later for companies that are struggling with staffing. So enter, “Shop Rescue” where we tell them what they need to do to get on track business wise, manufacture some drama, or some days you might not have to because the customers bring enough drama with them for an entire Netflix Series. Because let’s be real, who wouldn’t want to watch Uncle Jimmy scream at your service manager and underperforming service advisors for costing you money, and bad management for making your job more difficult than it has to be! 

Also Uncle Jimmy throws Erik the Producer under the bus to set up next week’s episode! 

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 Grease the Wheels, we talk about those people and places that you don’t talk about anymore, because they’re on the blacklist! The blacklist when we are talking about the automotive industry also includes the “do not hire” list, and there are a lot of ways to get on someone’s blacklist. Almost every shop has some form of a blacklist, whether it be related to customers or staff. Additionally, certain shops can become blacklisted by both mechanics and customers because of the quality of the work they provide or the general attitude of the people that work there. There are many recent and historical blacklists as well. In an episode that hilariously meanders the spectrum from Abraham Lincoln to Harvey Weinstein, the blacklist is typically not written down- but that doesn't mean it does not exist. We also dive into the idea that people are more likely to believe and remember negative stories about people rather than something positive.  We just wonder how many shops have this podcast on their blacklist! 

Also Uncle Jimmy mounts a Churchillian defense of Arby’s. 

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 Grease the Wheels we take a break from our sustained assault of the senses and take aim at another plague of the world today: passive aggressive attitudes. In the automotive industry being passive aggressive is about as common as breathing with some people. However, in a departure from form we actually give you ways to be more passive aggressive! The opportunities are absolutely endless, from everyday conversation to purposely leaving your annotated resume on your toolbox and literally asking a service advisor for a grease gun for your toolbox. We go into some of the ways to be just that little bit extra passive aggressive to possibly cause a conversation that results in your concerns being heard. 

Whether or not they are met is another matter entirely, but if you start the conversation with either your direct managers or the people in charge of the entire operation you never know where it might lead. Spoiler Alert: more often than not it will lead to broken promises and you greasing your wheels to a new shop, that is just where the automotive industry is at right now. Until management fields the concerns of their employees competently and in a timely fashion, they will continue to languish with staffing shortages. 

Also Uncle Jimmy discusses the automotive industry’s relationship with the idea of “2-week notice” and channels Nostradamus to see where the industry is going if it stays on its current trajectory.

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 the sense of touch! We also go into depth on having “the touch” and how to develop your own personal “touch” when working on cars. With the amount of components on modern cars that can’t be readily seen or accessed, having a good sense of touch is extremely important. “The Touch” is almost metaphysical, culminating in perfect harmony between man, tool and component with being able to nearly telepathically diagnose and repair cars. Uncle Jimmy also collectively makes the entire internet wince at once with a story of hitting himself in the eye with a hog ring- and being able to feel the dent it left! Some jobs require a deft touch, while others require levels of force only applicable with pressurized air. One more time and a little louder for the new/lube shop guys, 25nm on the drain plugs! When it comes to developing out your sense of touch as a mechanic, Lt. Aldo Raine said it best, "you know how ya' get to Carnegie Hall don't ya? Practice!" This is one of those episodes that is almost too funny to do a write up on, you’re just going to have to listen.  

Also Uncle Jimmy describes his foreman fixing a rear window by finding it’s g-spot. 

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 are talking about the sense of smell. There are a lot of smells that cars make and have in general. Right off the bat, the olfactory system is one of the major triggers for memory, so when you smell something and it makes you think of a very specific moment in time that isn't a coincidence. We also talk about some of the smells that our customers diffuse into their cars, whether it be body odor, dirty diapers, garbage, rotting food, or any of the other million disgusting things that mechanics all over the world have encountered while working on customers' vehicles. We also give a proper explanation for the origin of that “new car smell” and find out that not all of the brands smell the same fresh off the assembly line. We also explain how mold gets into modern cars and how to remediate some of the more unpleasant smells from your car. When it comes to diagnosing problems, your nose typically isn't going to be the first tool that you are going to use, but just because it’s not the first tool you use doesn’t mean that it isn’t useful, especially in cases where cars aren’t running well because the gasoline that used to be in the tank is now closer to varnish. 

Also Uncle Jimmy comes up with 47 different ways to say that something stinks and talks about his most/least favorite automotive smells. 

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 the incredible amount of things that we as mechanics can tell about a car by the way it sounds. There are a ton of issues on cars, boats, machines, whatever you work on- where the first sign of trouble is going to be something not quite sounding right. Yet, somehow our customers (and producer) will ignore these sounds to the point where they become a catastrophic and completely avoidable failure. We also talk about one of the absolute keys to assessing the health of used cars- the cold start: there are a ton of things that a trained ear can tell you about a car from it’s cold start. We also go into some of the various musical genres that get played most in our shops while also discussing the futility of listening to AM radio in a car with a top of the line surround sound system. 

Also Uncle Jimmy gives a shout out to “Punk-Rock Thursdays” 

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 some of the things we have seen as mechanics. From the way that customers treat their cars like rolling dumpster fires to some of the terrible previous “repairs” we have seen literally everything. When it comes to the senses, we can tell a lot about a car by the way it looks. As technicians we have seen cars broken in every which way humanly possible, and it never ceases to amaze! We also talk about some useful tips for finding cars on a crowded lot, some of our favorite trunk and glovebox finds, the rate of decay on cars due to pure neglect, and whether or not clutches and brake pads still have asbestos in them (they do). It’s a well loaded episode, so let us know what you see out there! 

Also Uncle Jimmy channels Carlin in a single-sentence destruction of golf. 

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 Grease the Wheels, we are going back to our meat and potatoes of doing angry diatribes about service managers. As a disclaimer, if you have a good one thank them because this is a bit like finding a virgin on a maternity ward. Or if you have one that has potential to be good, please help to steer them into doing things the right way. We run through the job description of your service manager in depth and want you to gauge how well your's does their job. We also go into the technician hiring process from the point of view of someone who has no idea what constitutes a good technician. Either way this is one of the worst chokepoints in the automotive industry where customer service and handling a service department meet their apex, so no wonder why it is so hard to find a good Service Manager. 

Also Uncle Jimmy describes the phenomenon where the worst employees never leave and theorizes that some of them could possibly have cost their company more money than they have earned it.  

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 Grease the Wheels we make you think of the Beastie Boy’s with the title while actively testing the limits on the definition of satire. How would you sabotage where you work without ever causing any physical destruction? You choke off the supply of people who are willing to work there. Breaking stuff, swearing at folks, stealing, and being a nuisance will only get you a bad reputation. However, if you actively dissuade people from going into the field you can do a lot more damage long term. The worst part is, you don’t even have to really exaggerate that much to get people to not want to be auto mechanics, especially when you factor in what we get paid. All kidding aside, the industry has a naturally occurring problem that they have caused simply by not making the job lucrative enough to be attractive to enough people to replace us. 

Also Uncle Jimmy talks about what would happen if there was no one to fix cars and describes his bike riding abilities. 

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 Grease the Wheels, we are talking some used car horror stories so this is a good one. Why do people buy cars online without looking at them first? As mechanics we understand the level of carnage that can be going on with a seemingly normal looking car, but a lot of people don't. Even worse is when they call you for a used car pre-purchase inspection that is in-fact a post-purchase inspection. We get into detail with this scenario in the case of a person who bought a hybrid version of a problematic platform and could not be dissuaded from thinking that he got a good deal. The repair bills eventually changed his mind when they neared the purchase price of this particularly epic turd. Some of the most incredibly stupid things we have ever seen have gone on with used cars, and we bet your experience is probably similar. We also talk about the lengths we go to check out our most coveted used cars, classic car prices, and driving away in cars that their former owners thought had catastrophic problems (so satisfying). We also give a fairly market specific example of confirmation bias in purchasing used cars by reading the reviews of that make and model. It really is a good thing that these online car buying places have awesome warranties, because it really wouldn’t work if they didn’t. As the most specifically trained portion of the used car buying market, mechanic’s know a lot more about the products than any other part of the process- so just ask them to take a look for you BEFORE YOU BUY!

Also Uncle Jimmy asks rhetorically “how could it be a good sign when your new car is dropped off on a flatbed”?

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, you get to hear a podcast from a host who hasn’t had power or running water for 7 days prior to recording! We’re not going to get into it this week (it'll probably have to be a two parter), but these few upcoming episode’s are going to be a special brand of insane that only your beloved Uncle Jimmy can provide. This week’s dive is on the definition of exploitation and its prevalence in the automotive industry. We crunch some numbers and figure out what a good team of technicians can actually make a shop, and what percentage of that gets paid out to the technicians of that shop just in the labor that they produce. We aren’t knocking capitalism, we love it (it’s listed as Erik the Producer’s religion on his marriage certificate). We are just pitching a more Adam Smith minded version of it where profits are a little bit better distributed and the market rates are competitive with the level of knowledge that we need to function in this occupation. This isn't even factoring in the actual investment that is needed to do the job. So no wonder why shops can’t find anyone to work for them and why fixed ops managers whinge about the tech shortage on linkedin all day long. In the automotive field exploitation often comes down to a simple question: “are you being paid what you are worth?” 

Also Uncle Jimmy gives some fairly decent accounting advice to anyone looking to start 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!