Grease The Wheels Podcast

Episode 285: Get Back

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 ma...

Episode 284: Day Tripper

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 s...

Episode 283: I Feel Fine

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...

Episode 282: Ticket to Ride

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 Mer...

Episode 281: We Can Work it Out

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 the...

Episode 280: Why Don’t We Do It in the Road

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 d...

Episode 279: Drive My Car!

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 t...

Episode 278: Hello, Goodbye

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 grit...

Episode 277: All My Lovin'

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 aweso...

Episode 276: Eight Days a Week

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 tha...

Episode 275: Come Together

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...

Episode 274: Revolution #9: The EV Beatdown

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 impres...

Episode 273: Twist & Shout

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 ...

Episode 272: A Day In The Life

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% possibl...

Episode 271: Don’t Let Me Down

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 de...

Episode 270: Magical Mystery Tour

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 ...

Episode 269: Tomorrow Never Knows

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...

Episode 268: Hard Day’s Night

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 sys...

Episode 267: Helter Skelter

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 o...

Episode 266: You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away

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 th...

Episode 265: Can't Buy Me Love

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 eff...

Episode 264: Nowhere Man

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...

Episode 263: What’s Next?

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 Andro...

Episode 262: Hold the Door

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 ...

Episode 261: No More Help Wanted

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 ...

Episode 260: People as the Problem

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 ...

Episode 259: Idiocy

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 ...

Episode 258: Forward Thinking

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 thi...

Family matters

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 ...

Episode 257: Ya Tool!

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...

Episode 256: Get Out Now

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 ca...

Episode 255: What Are You Talking About?

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 amount...

Episode 254: Flip the Script

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...

Episode 253: Independence Day

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 t...

Episode 252: Thank You

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 ...

Episode 251: Drivers Seat

Episode 250: Ask for the Sale

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...

Episode 249: DIY Land Ahead

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 themse...

Episode 248: Find Em Wherever

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 inca...

Episode 247: The Wall

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. ...

Episode 246: Put it Off

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 b...

Episode 245: Time Bandits

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 imprope...

Episode 244: GTW Code of Ethics

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...

243: Ethics, Schmethics

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 actua...

Episode 242: Stupid is as Stupid Writes

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 go...

Episode 241: Warranty A-Hole

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 dro...

Episode 240: 3mta3 Team

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 p...

Episode 239: The K Plan

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 compre...

Episode 238: Inter-View

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 ...

Episode 236: No Parts For You!

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 a...