Trust, Transparency & Tune-Ups -- Part 2

In this episode, Mariano and I continue our conversation about how trust develops with customers. Clear explanations, transparency about what’s being recommended, and helping drivers understand how different systems in their cars actually work make all the difference.

We also talk through several common situations where misunderstandings can lead to unnecessary repairs or confusion—like misunderstood trouble codes, good preventative maintenance recommendations that may at first feel like an oversell, and how small maintenance items can affect larger systems over time.

Topics in this episode include:

• Why misread trouble codes can lead people to assume a specific part needs to be replaced when the code is really pointing to a system that needs diagnosis
• When preventative "while we're here" maintenance recommendations are legitimate, especially when work is already being done in the same area and future labor costs can be reduced
• A common red flag in diagnostics: replacing a catalytic converter without identifying the underlying cause of the failure
• How habits at the pump —running very low or frequently topping off—can contribute to early fuel pump wear or EVAP system issues
• The role of simple maintenance items like air filters and how neglecting them can contribute to larger engine or catalytic converter problems
• How clear communication, photos, and explanations from shops can provide peace of mind to customers and help shops feel confident that their customers understand the work being done

Local people, you can find Mariano's shop on of all streets, Motor Avenue just north of Palms Blvd. Stop by for your next service! If you come in for a full synthetic oil change, mention the podcast and you can additionally get a free tire rotation.

fixcarnow.com

https://maps.app.goo.gl/aadC7PKUmuvV4qyP6

310-558-9097 | 3405 Motor Avenue, Los Angeles 90034

Stay in touch, share your thoughts, recommend your trusted mechanic as a guest, get good tips and find out when episodes drop by subscribing! Email us at goodcarmapodcast@gmail.com and visit the website goodcarmapodcast.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

If we could talk a little bit about OBD two codes, like trouble codes, a lot of times I want to talk on the podcast a little bit more with people. You know, I do videos and things like that. Just just helping people understand that a scanner is not this deep drug mystery. Like you can easily use a uh scanner to see your own codes. Uh also some live data is not too hard to interpret. But um when we first met, you were talking about there's a there's a balance that needs to be struck because you don't want a customer seeing a code that mentions a component and say it comes in, you I'd like you to fix this because this code says X, Y, or Z. And so can you say a little bit about using codes in the right way, maybe? And what or what people should watch out for to be if they're recommended something?

SPEAKER_00 0:52

So code when it comes to codes, in some parts of to be a calls, the code might be almost 100% right that that part defective. But what if we get a code for system to lean, system to rich? Uh air mass mirror, for example, oxygen sensor. Depending on the codes, doesn't mean that just by replacing your oxygen sensor is gonna fix your issue. The oxygen sensor works with different components. You have an exhaust pipe, kind of that converters, between them, you have gaskets, you have even the wiring. Even the wiring, yeah. We've seen rats loving wires. Yeah, so the code was really made to let us know where the issue might be. Then it's up to us to inspect for caskets. They're just too old, crack, you have in the cost leak. Maybe you're from the east coast and they have a lot of corrosion on the pipes. You gotta replace your entire exhaust pipe because there's so much corrosion on them. Crack they make. Maybe you have a clogged catalytic compared, which is gonna give you a slow response to the oxygen sensor downstream. Lean codes. Lean codes have to do with the mixture between air and fuel. If your air mass meter and your oxygen sensor died on the same page, thinking, hey, how come I'm getting a lot of air on the downstream, but my air vass meter upstairs is not measuring too much air coming in. Chances are you may have an intake air leak, a crack intake if it's made plastic, or maybe your air mass meter is not reading properly. So those codes are the codes that we have to take over and fully diagnose the issue. And sometimes I do have those those issues with customers because they see, okay, well, I looked online and all it says is your air mass meter. Why do you want to replace my intake manifold? Why I I looked at the part that is $100, but you only charge me $1,500. And that's when the trust happens and they think we're just trying to do offsell. But that's not a problem because we will walk them through and really show that inform. I want to show you based with smoke where it's coming from, where it's leaking, and why we need to replace this part.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Because the sensors are there to tell you what they're sensing. It's almost like if you have a thermometer and it reads 101 degrees, you don't say, I'm getting a new thermometer. You look for but what's causing the high temperature? What about the idea that maybe people have had different cars in their lifetimes? And maybe replacing a starter or some component was super easy and very cheap on one car, and now they bring in their other car. And why is this price triple? Like, can you talk about the discrepancy between the same job might be extremely easy or extremely difficult on different cars? And the customers might not understand that when it comes to the price.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Correct. Um, and that is just because of the way engineers just position the parts. Uh also, if a customer drove a Japanese vehicle three years ago, now they own a German vehicle. Lavor time is highly tense. Also, the parts prices change. On Japanese vehicles, you mostly, I'll say 90% of the time, you find the starters right between the engine transmission, right outside. You could take somewhere between two to four hours at the most. German vehicles, you don't. A lot of them are on their intake manifold. So, in order for you to do the starter, you have to take the intake manifold off the vehicle just for you to get to the starter, and that's gonna be an eight-hour repair plus parts, and that's just a confusion, or even even it doesn't really have to be German. Um, because nowadays, you see newer cars with newer designs, newer engines, and they're doing the same thing, even though it's it's it's a Japanese vehicle. It is not an easy starter anymore. You still have to remove the intake manifolds. Uh, on our loner vehicles, they're Japanese, they're four cylinders, it's very small vehicles. Yeah, the starters go bad, and we have to remove the intake manifold in order for us to replace the starter.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Any other types of repairs come to mind that you can't believe how difficult they become?

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Water pumps. A lot of water pumps are not made of aluminum, for example, they're made of plastic. They're housings, they're like electric now. A lot of them, and and thermostats as well. Thermostats were easy, were really easy to just remove housing, replace it, replace the thermostat with a brand new one, and you were good to go. Now they don't. Now they're electric. So they have to open up and they communicate very well with the water pump. So they're both talking to each other to see when it should open, when it should close, and and and the water pumps do the same thing. Having water plastic water pumps. I seen vehicles saying with 40,000 miles, with the water pumps, they're already leaking. And also they're very expensive, they're all under intake manipulates.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

In terms of customers feeling comfortable and not that they're being oversold. Sometimes, if there's there's not an active issue, a repair that's worth doing just because you're already in a system doing another repair that's close by, it could be a good recommendation, like we're talking about water pumps, thermostats.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Correct. A situation that I had yesterday, customer walks in because we had recommended motor mounts on the vehicle. Came back a month after for us to replace them, and we noticed now that the water pump had crossed and it was starting to leak. Since we removed this is a front-wheel drive vehicle. Uh, so front-wheel drive vehicles, the motor mounts, one of the motor mounts, which is the right side, once you take off that mount, it is very easy to access the water pump. And a lot more clear to see if it's leaking. Once we noticed, after removing the motor mount, that the water pump was starting to leak. We got the customer right away, say, hey, your water pump is leaking coolant. Uh, it will be best replaced now, otherwise, you will be back soon. For the water pump, labor time will be a little more intense because we had to take the mount off one more time. Give the customer a quote and also gave the customer the opportunity if he wanted proof, meaning, would you like to see it with your eyes? Or you would you like to for me to take a picture and turn it to your phone? Same for the peace of mind to make sure that we're not just adding price and then try to take money from the customer. Customer was very happy to just approve the work without any uh any questions. We will go ahead and did it. We save the old part, we show the customer what where were the the water bomb leaking from. And we fixed a problem that was basically uh caught before anything major happened.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

And that that example, the it was already starting to leak. Um are there any um parts you can components you can think of where maybe there's not evidence to show, look, it's already going bad, but like because we're already here just time-wise, it's a good idea to replace this part.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

It is. Second customer that I had, uh this was last week. We changed, he had a code for thermostat assembler for thermostat. We checked the temperatures, sure, the temperatures, the inlet and the outlet were different. At that point, we do recommend replacing the thermostat. When we did that, the upper radiator hose that connects to it was very swollen. Same thing. We right away call the customer, let them know hey, we are replacing the thermostat, but I'm highly recommending to replace your upper radiator hose because it's going to break. So all you have to do at this point is buy the part, no extra labor needed. Either way, it has to come off, but it is best to replace them now than having to deal with it cool and eat. But yes, we always like to tell our customers once we notice something else it's going bad, and it's better to get it replaced now and prevent from something else or happy.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

If a customer does have a situation where they're being maybe the overheating example, um, and they're being recommended a number of parts. Um and what's a what's a good way? Um what's a good way to uh for a customer to have a good have that conversation with the shop? Like what is reasonable to ask for or ask you talking about asking how to ask why. I mean or what evidence maybe right.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

If customers are present, we always like to take photos or videos and send them to our customers and let them know why we are recommending uh to replace such uh things. If they're in person, we will always like to walk them through. At least give them a big peace of mind of like side of the reason why we're we're replacing those parts. It's it's a huge piece of mind for everyone, right? And that would allow us to have a happy customer at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Yeah, I I never thought of it that way. You probably have peace of mind when your customers have peace of mind.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Yeah, uh, we do, we do, especially when we fix problems, and then we can get them back on the road. Yeah. So that that that is very uh it's good for us. It's good for us that we know we do the job well and and and vehicles keep keep going. So you know you keep keep going with your life because always it's very difficult to be without a vehicle, especially in a big city like BR.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Yeah. And they'll trust you to come back next time. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

And and and they do. They they they would always call, hey, well, next time I need something, I know now I know where to go. Uh this area where where we are, for some reason we have a lot of people from out of town.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Meaning people from other states, not sure because of schools, because of just job opportunities. But these are new phases that I see, and uh they give us the trust, trust us, and they do come back. They do come back, and it's always good to see that person coming back again because now they need a mainness or they need other other uh other jobs done. Uh so giving keep give when customers are giving us that opportunity over and over, it's all it always feels great.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

And honestly, every time I've come here, there happen to be customers in the waiting room who tell me that they've been your customer for years, all years and years. Correct. And they just love it here.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

And it's appropriately located on Motor Avenue.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Motor Avenue, yes, right between Nashville and Pomps.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Are there any kind of repairs that are genuine red flags to watch out for? Like what I'm thinking of um is if you have a cat code, a P0420, and you go in and they recommend, you know, with very little inspection, you need a new cat and new oxygen sensors. To me, that's a red flag.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we always catalytic conbirders, you can test them certain ways by temperature, for example, but we always have to make sure how your your engine air filter is. If it's too dirty, maybe your vehicle is running too rich. That's going to damage your catalytic burner. Too much excess of fuel. It's using too much fuel that it will damage your catalytic burder. I guess the thing here is fixing the problem, not just clearing the light for a month. For example, because if I can replace the catalytic burder and oxygen sensors, and you'll be fine. Until you recreate the problem. Yeah. Keeps restricting air from coming in. So the vehicle wants to it wants to even out the power. It wants to compensate the power from the lack of air, and that's more fuel. You, as a customer, may not notice the difference, but the engine instead of 50% of fuel, now it's doing 70% of the fuel. Because you have a restricted engine air filter. Therefore, that will create for your cartile converter to go bad. Again. So, yes, just replacing the cartile converter with an oxygen sensor, I think that should be a little more inspection. Just to be sure that it's not gonna happen again.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

And would you say sometimes um you don't always necessarily need to replace all those components?

SPEAKER_00 13:35

No, not always. When we get the 420 code, the P0420, we always do a dry cycle with life data. We want to see how the oxygen sensors are moving. If you notice that either the upstream oxygen sensor is too lazy, too slow, that's gonna be an issue because they both have to communicate. The oxygen sensor upstream it's reading what's coming out of the engine. If if your your your fumes are too rich, uh if they're too linked, the purpose of the oxygen sensor downstream, which is uh sensor tube, reads the job of the catalytic converter if it's really doing its job in cleaning all those fumes and coming out of the exhaust clean. When we do the drive cycle, when we check for all data, and if we notice that either one of the sensors is reading way too slow, it's moving too slow, then we always like to start with an oxygen sensor downstream. Then you can drive it one more time and make sure that those numbers improve. If the numbers improve, then great. We will be happy to clear the light, send the vehicle away, let the customer know that obviously if the light returns, please come back. But you always want to start with um the bad sensors. Because the purpose of it is to read what's coming out of the exhaust. And if it's reading too slow, it is definitely not the wheel's job.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Is there anything else you feel like you wish more customers knew about or understood?

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Yeah, mostly maintenance, which is one of the things that really breaks cars down.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Yeah, we were just talking, just this example of the catalytic converter and the oxygen sensors. You were saying how important the air it uh air filter is. Yes. And a lot of so many issues come down to just basics.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Correct. So yeah, and then it's it's it's a $30 part.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

And do you have people who even push back on not wanting to change the air filter?

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Yes, either because they can do it themselves.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Yeah, which that's fine if they're well, which is great.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Yeah, I have no issue, no problem with that. But the problem is sometimes they don't.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Next load change, we notice it's the sax same Dairy filter, or they will come back two months from now and say, Hey, you guys did a little change two months ago, my check in the light is on. Can you guys inspect, make sure there's enough oil? What happened? We plug in the scanner and you have a code for either air mass meter, ult-chin sensor, you'll have one of those, or rich code, vehicles just dumping way too much fuel uh through the injectors, and that will become a problem because you restricted the air. So, yes, even something as simple as change the air filter, it would also give you better uh miles per gatter. Yeah, because fuel consumption, it also comes in for that. My car used to give me 30 miles on the highway. Now I'm only getting 20. Or say, well, I Googled, I said it might be fault injectors, it might be faulty fuel pump, but it's as simple as an engineer filter that has been there for three years and it needs to needs to be replaced.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

And earlier before we started recording, we were talking a little bit about fuel. Can you give any advice on good um habits for fuel, including um at the pump itself, like uh overfill, like the danger of overfilling or letting it go too low?

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Yes. So letting it go too low will it could create it, it could potentially damage your fuel pump. The fuel pumps stay cool because of the fuel inside your gas tank. A lot of people drive their vehicles within a quarter of a tank or less. That pump is not gonna last very long because it's overheating. And there is nothing that will keep that engine, that that that fuel pump cool because there is no cooling fan, there is nothing. There's just liquid that keeps around it keeps it cool. Overfilling a gas tank in a I I see this at a few uh gas stations very often when people let's say added $60 of fuel and at $57 it's already full. But they wanted those those three dollars in there, so they just keep pulling the nozzle. That fuel is not going into your tank, it's going inside your canister, your charco canister. Then you will realize that now you have an EVAP code. Yeah, you have an EVAP code because there's charcoal canister, now it's full of fuel, so there's no airflow. All those fumes that your gas tank's supposed to release, they're not going anywhere. Your canister is full of fuel now. You can no longer filter those fumes.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

And that's that's pretty much aside from being hit if if it gets hit somehow, that's the only way to damage a charcoal canister, right?

unknown 18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

A lot of times over the years, well, we we're talking about 15 years, maybe plus, the charcoal canister will eventually go bad. But that is just because of all that carbon that's in there will become really, really, really hard and clogged, basically. But it takes it takes years. Adding too much fuel, yeah, that will make it stop, you know, work. Um, you won't allow it to work properly. Because you have valves that those those vent valves want to open, they want to let the airflow go. But the valves are doing its job, they're opening and closing, yeah, but there's no there's no air circulation because now the trucker cancer is contaminated with fuel. And we said this. We we had a vehicle here last week. We took off the cancer and it was completely full of fuel.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Wow. Well, I I remember once I happened to go, I never overfill. If anything, I'm very guilty of running close to empty. Um, and I happened to go to the gas station at my scanner was plugged in at the time, and I did one extra click uh after it was definitely full. And immediately I had an evap code, like you're saying, and I had a pending cat code, like right away, which was alarming, but that that cleared after I drove around a bit.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Yes. Obviously, evap could give you different types of issues. One would be if you overfury cancer, you might experience a week, two weeks later that now once you go to the gas station and you set your nozzle to fill it tankets on its own, so you don't have to hold it. The clip on it, let's stay, but your nozzle keeps popping off every 30 cents, 40 cents. That is because your vent valve, it's no longer opening, as you should, it once it became it's it's off. Because the job of a cancer is to filter those fumes, but you have the vent valve that's supposed to stay open and allow all those fumes to go out. Once that vent valve is closed, then you have a popping nozzle every 30, 40 cents. Consequences of uh adding way too much or just overfilling the tank.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

So if you overfilled it in the past, you're saying the next time you go, that'll be your nozzle is gonna keep popping off.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Because if you if you look at gas stations, if you have customers that are just pumping, they're pushing the nozzles over and over and over and over, that is because they're vent valve and your canister is already clocked. Go over there. There's the airflow. Okay. There is no airflow. Um, that's why you should always just lift up the nozzle, lock it in one place, just let it sit there. As soon as the nozzle clicks, move on to your life. Yeah, that's it. Don't don't go get your change if you have to, put them not overfill. Because that will give you a lot of a lot of those issues.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Yeah, some people will keep going because they want to see that nice even number of 0.00.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Again, this this is all this is all, it's just, I guess the way we humans are, right? Sometimes we want like an even number. Yeah. So you're for you're for forcing something so you can get what you want. But as we know, anything that has been forced doesn't work very well. But yeah, important, do not overfill it, and you'll give your fuel ventilation system basically a while off your life.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

That's great. Um this has been so informative and and helpful. And um well, I'll I'll put information in the show notes so everyone can know about your shop and find you. I hope maybe we could do this again sometime.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Of course, anytime. Anytime whenever they're free and I'll be happy to thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Thank you.