Author: Grease The Wheels

On this week’s episode of Grease the Wheels, we’re talking about animals in cars. Some animals, like dogs, are welcome guests in our cars. Even though it usually ends up with dog hair strewn from one end of the car to the other, which makes the car smell like that dog. We’ve even seen evap cores full of dog hair, that was dyed bright green because of the dye tests that had been done. Other animals are less welcome in your car but find a way in anyway. Rodents can use a lot of the parts of a car either to eat or make a nest. Recently, they have been eating the wiring harnesses which are now made from soy-based plastics. This means that it is basically just a golden corral for the mice, with 2-3 foot sections of wiring harness getting eaten regularly. One car Uncle Jimmy worked on went through 2 wiring harnesses in the course of a few weeks in the exact same places, and the owner was angry because it was like they hired the mouse to go eat the wiring harness the exact same way. We also have heard of snakes crawling into heater vents, thank god this one hasn’t happened to us yet. Also, we detail a massive woodchuck popping out of an engine bay causing the tech working on it to literally shit his pants.

Also, Uncle Jimmy channels his inner Dr. Seuss and also says a series of words that have probably never been uttered in the same sentence: “Cannibalistic ritual involving the sacrifice of a Subaru”.

This episode of Grease the Wheels is sponsored by toolheadzcrate.com. Toolheadzcrate.com is a monthly subscription box filled with all sorts of discount codes, coupons, tee shirts, and things that give you a little taste of some of your favorite tool companies. They ship out the 15th of every month, and at 35.99 plus exact shipping, it’s a lot less than what you owe your tool guy. Plus one lucky winner every month gets their golden wrench box with well over $100 worth of stuff in it. Cheap Box, better stuff- Toolheadz Crate: the only crate made for the listeners of GTW!

On this week’s episode of GTW, we’re talking about the shop foreman. First off, not every shop has a foreman but some dealer’s brands demand that the shop have a foreman. From where we’re sitting, this makes a lot of sense because cars are getting more and more complex, with more models entering the lineup every single year. Foremen exist to help the other technicians with some of the more complex repairs they might have to face. Typically they are some of the most educated people in the service department. However, because of the fact that they do not flag hours like a typical technician, the accounting department already has it out for them. Because of this, often times they get all sorts of extra shit jobs heaped on top of their already somewhat difficult job descriptions. Because of this, a word of warning, if you want to be a foreman make sure you get all of your job responsibilities down in writing- because dealers secondary job descriptions often times create a slave-like atmosphere even for this elevated position.

Also, Uncle Jimmy goes absolutely nuclear on accountants.

This episode of Grease the Wheels is sponsored by toolheadzcrate.com. Toolheadzcrate.com is a monthly subscription box filled with all sorts of discount codes, coupons, tee shirts, and things that give you a little taste of some of your favorite tool companies. They ship out the 15th of every month, and at 35.99 plus exact shipping, it’s a lot less than what you owe your tool guy. Plus one lucky winner every month gets their golden wrench box with well over $100 worth of stuff in it. Cheap Box, better stuff- Toolheadz Crate: the only crate made for the listeners of GTW!

On this week’s GTW were talking about what the customer thinks is wrong with their car. Sometimes what people think is wrong is actually wrong, but most of the time people who think what is wrong are wrong themselves in their guess. Either way, there are hoping that it is going to be a cheap and easy repair: a $12 radiator hose versus a $1200 or $12000 engine. One of our personal favorites is when there are 2 or 3 different people telling you what’s wrong with the car and they all have different guesses for the fix. At the root of this problem is the idea that people think it is easy to be a mechanic, and in this they are gravely wrong. Also, we talk about when customers complain about things that their car is doing that it is supposed to be doing, AKA features. We also take a short dive into the world of the phantom problems, the problems that go away the minute the car rolls into the shop. Finally, we go into the often lucrative and fun part of our jobs where we get to buy cars that the owner thinks is catastrophically broken, and its not.

Also, Uncle Jimmy talks 429-Thunderbird-on-a-farm drivers ed and why he has an iPhone 4 as an excuse to not answer the 99% of people who call him because they need him to fix their car.

This episode of Grease the Wheels is sponsored by toolheadzcrate.com. Toolheadzcrate.com is a monthly subscription box filled with all sorts of discount codes, coupons, tee shirts, and things that give you a little taste of some of your favorite tool companies. They ship out the 15th of every month, and at 35.99 plus exact shipping, it’s a lot less than what you owe your tool guy. Plus one lucky winner every month gets their golden wrench box with well over $100 worth of stuff in it. Cheap Box, better stuff- Toolheadz Crate: the only crate made for the listeners of GTW!

On this week’s GTW were talking about those times at work when you seem to be doing the same things over and over and over again. In all professions, people get into certain grooves and want to do the same things because they have figured out the shortcuts and ways to make the job easier. This gets complicated in the automotive field though because they keep making different kinds of cars with different problems. However, it doesn’t take long in some cases for people to figure out exactly what is going to go wrong on some models and figure out easy ways to fix them. Admittedly, it’s easier to get into a rut when you’re at a dealership because typically you’re working on one type of car. The best example of this is the early Saturn dealers when they had one car, 3 bodies, two engines, and two transmissions. However, does this make you a good mechanic? Life is short so don’t spend your time in the rut. We opt for the option of challenging yourself to do something different. The rut can also extend to work that you specifically avoid, such as alignments in climates where rust isn’t just a fact of life, it often ends up being a seasoning on your lunch.

This episode of Grease the Wheels is sponsored by toolheadzcrate.com. Toolheadzcrate.com is a monthly subscription box filled with all sorts of discount codes, coupons, tee shirts, and things that give you a little taste of some of your favorite tool companies. They ship out the 15th of every month, and at 35.99 plus exact shipping, it’s a lot less than what you owe your tool guy. Plus one lucky winner every month gets their golden wrench box with well over $100 worth of stuff in it. Cheap Box, better stuff- Toolheadz Crate: the only crate made for the listeners of GTW!

Also, Uncle Jimmy talks about the person who was in the worst rut in automotive history, Henry Ford.

On this week’s episode of Grease The Wheels, we are talking about when customers come into the shop for free repairs, because the manufacturer didn’t make something right. Sometimes they are service actions, sometimes they are full blown recalls, either way the customer isn’t going to be paying for it. Some techs hate recalls because they don’t pay well, but other techs have found ways- through doing it so many times, to actually make money on them. Often times there are multiple open recalls on the same car. However, some of these repairs are being done on cars that are way out of warranty and long past the point where the owner is going to put any money into it, and it really shows. Good rule of thumb here is to just write up everything else that is wrong with the car on the 1 in a million chance that the owner is actually going to green light those repairs. Moreover, it’s a great way to cover your ass in the event that there is some sort of catastrophic problem with the car right after you fix the free shit, so then you get to put the blame on the owner because they “just wanted the free stuff”.

Also, Uncle Jimmy explores “the point of no fucks given”.

This episode of Grease the Wheels is sponsored by toolheadzcrate.com. Toolheadzcrate.com is a monthly subscription box filled with all sorts of discount codes, coupons, tee shirts, and things that give you a little taste of some of your favorite tool companies. They ship out the 15th of every month, and at 35.99 plus exact shipping, it’s a lot less than what you owe your tool guy. Plus one lucky winner every month gets their golden wrench box with well over $100 worth of stuff in it. Cheap Box, better stuff- Toolheadz Crate: the only crate made for the listeners of GTW!

On this week’s episode of GTW, we are talking about one of the internet’s favorite punching bags: The Millennials. Now the first question that always comes up when it comes to Millennials and our industry is, “how come there aren’t many millennial mechanics?” Well turns out, that’s on us. When they ask what it’s like to be a mechanic, we tell them about it warts and all and that sent them running for the hills. However, there are still some millennials that have gone into the automotive field, and these people are going to end up making bank as the supply of mechanics eventually dwindles to near nothing. So, in a roundabout way, we are saying that they are a fairly intelligent group of people, unfortunately for them, you still can’t buy experience. When you’re the only Millennial in town who can fix people’s cars, you get to charge whatever you want.

Also, was the “Class of 1980: Dumbest Ever?” and Uncle Jimmy almost makes it through an entire episode about generations without referencing The Who

This episode of Grease the Wheels is sponsored by toolheadzcrate.com. Toolheadzcrate.com is a monthly subscription box filled with all sorts of discount codes, coupons, tee shirts, and things that give you a little taste of some of your favorite tool companies. They ship out the 15th of every month, and at 35.99 plus exact shipping, it’s a lot less than what you owe your tool guy. Plus one lucky winner every month gets their golden wrench box with well over $100 worth of stuff in it. Cheap Box, better stuff- Toolheadz Crate: the only crate made for the listeners of GTW!

On this week’s episode of GTW, we are talking about the tech shortage. We know that we’ve talked about this in previous episodes, but this time we’re bringing some cold hard numbers into the argument. First off, everything we read about the shortage of technicians comes from fixed ops people. Now here comes the real dilemma: either they know how to fix the problem with staffing mechanics in their dealerships and they aren’t saying anything, or they don’t know how to fix the problem. Both of these options are equally terrifying when you’re at the mercy of these people, as we often are. Everyone’s idea of being well paid is different, especially when it comes between mechanics and office folk. Management wants to give them the minimum amount of money to get them to keep showing up. When we start quitting and start leaving them short, if they continue to believe that you can keep paying mechanics poorly is where the problem starts. No technician we’ve ever met walked into a shop and took the wheels off of their toolboxes.

Also, Uncle Jimmy talks about how he isn’t good at reading.

Our Sponsors
This episode of Grease the Wheels is sponsored by toolheadzcrate.com. Toolheadzcrate.com is a monthly subscription box filled with all sorts of discount codes, coupons, tee shirts, and things that give you a little taste of some of your favorite tool companies. They ship out the 15th of every month, and at 35.99 plus exact shipping, it’s a lot less than what you owe your tool guy. Plus one lucky winner every month gets their golden wrench box with well over $100 worth of stuff in it. Cheap Box, Better stuff- Toolheadz Crate: the only crate made for the listeners of GTW!

On this week’s GTW we are talking about some of the major differences between professionals and DIY’ers, because sometimes we make our job look so easy that other people think they can do it. First off, a lot of non technicians listen to this podcast, which is perfectly ok because this is America goddammit. Here’s the tale of the tape though: professionals often times have significantly more tools to do the jobs that they need to do. For example if you’re in the rust belt and working on any car, you going to need things like torches, easy-outs, tap and die sets, extractors and a myriad of other things just to get the old parts off in a lot of cases. Secondly there is the knowledge involved with doing jobs the easy way, or in some cases, not doing it the wrong way. Let’s say this one more time for the people in the back: “VACUUM TUBING DOESN’T GO ON BRAKE LINES!” Also, when it comes to diagnosis, a professional’s aim with the old parts cannon is usually quite a bit better due to seeing problems multiple times, and this can end up costing DIY’ers a lot of money, especially when problems are intermittent. At the end of the day when DIY’ers screw up fixing their car, a lot of the time we end up having to pick up the pieces, but that’s ok because we’re getting paid for it.

Also Uncle Jimmy talks about his family’s affinity for Russian YouTube DIY repair videos, and how he is always on standby when they attempt them in an often vain attempt to prevent catastrophe.

On this week’s GTW, we are going back down the rabbit hole of stupid things that customers do. We all hate it when customers bring you a car with no gasoline in it because there is really no good reason to do that. When customers take their car to one shop for diagnosis and take it to another one to get fixed there is a good chance that mistakes are going to be made and things are going to get missed. We all have stories about Quick lube places not using the right oil filters and needing a breaker bar to get the drain plugs off so please stop taking your cars to these places. But the real meat and potatoes of this episode is when people’s cars start messing up and you drive it home anyways. Their logic is as long as the engine is running who gives a shit if the car it’s overheating. Unfortunately for them, most newer engines are made out of aluminum which has similar thermodynamic properties to a microwaved Peep’s. Finally, customers will mess their cars up and look you in the eye and wonder if it’s covered by the warranty: newsflash the people who built the cars did not bend the wheels.

Also, Uncle Jimmy gets absolutely medieval on the producer for launching the fan blades through the hood of his car, the radiator hose, the AC lines, and the fender, all because he wasn’t home yet.

On this week’s GTW, we are talking about talking. Yea, little bit meta for a holiday consisting of day-drinking and explosives, but hear us out. We know that a lot of information gets transferred through this most convenient form of communication, but a lot of times at work it can be counterproductive. We talk about talking to superiors, customers, and fellow technicians as well as the differences between what we want to hear and what we need to hear. Gossip and bullshitting can seriously affect the amount of work that goes out of the door, and that ends up costing you money. However, it is pretty hard to avoid a lot of the time, and we get that- especially considering we run a podcast!

Uncle Jimmy compares “The Love Boat” numbers to the rate at which his old parts store co-workers got married and the possibility of being more rude if it means hearing less gossip.