Grease the Wheels Podcast

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 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 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 week’s 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!