Ways To Be Wise About Your Wheels With Wimmer's Automotive

I'm joined by Ritchie Wimmer of Wimmer's Automotive. Ritchie is a shop owner and mentor to the next generation of technicians, teaching at Morro Bay High School. Community and integrity is important at Wimmer's Automotive, and they put it best on their website that they're "committed to the greater good of both vehicles and the people who drive them." 

This week I sat down with him at his shop in Central California's beautiful Morro Bay. We talk about a wide range of topics including the importance of our being good stewards of our cars, how to stand out as a candidate for a job when applying to shops, and ways to budget and keep track of maintenance and repairs.

Listener offer: Mention you found Wimmer's Automotive after hearing this episode, and you can get a $60 gift certificate toward your first service at their shop.

Wimmer’s Automotive

899 Piney Way

Morro Bay, CA 93442

805-776-8114

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 0:03

Hi, and welcome to Good Karma Podcast, where I hope to help demystify cars one conversation at a time. And today I'm gonna have a great conversation with Ruchi Wimmer from Wimmer Automotive in Morro Bay, beautiful Morrow Bay. Rucci, thank you for speaking with me.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Yeah, you're most welcome. Hello.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

I've re I reached out very randomly and uh mentioned what I was interested in doing in my podcast. And it was amazing that you were the first person I called in Moro Bay and you happened to be the perfect person because you you own your own shop and you're a teacher. And even while I was on the hold music waiting to uh to speak to you or to get uh to speak to Claire, I learned so much about you just from that. Because you mentioned that um you had always been interested in automotive. Yeah, and that you teach and that you feel like you know there's not a sufficient education with automotive.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

I believe that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

And so I'm so interested in talking to you about the industry a little bit, about both of our dreams of our wishes that um everyone knew a little a little at least some basics about cars.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Yeah, I think that's real important. No, just something, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Be a good car owner.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Be a good car owner, yeah. That's right. Yeah, because you're kind of a steward of your car because most people, I think, don't own their car forever. You sell it eventually. And you want to be a good owner and sell a good car.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Yeah, exactly. You want to take care of the car so that way when it does go down to the next person, especially a family member or you know, somebody else that you may know, or even somebody you don't know, you know, you want to make sure you're passing on um a good car to them too, and make sure that at least everybody's informed of maybe if there's maintenance due or other things that might be going on, because as cars age, they meet stuff. Um, so we as a society want to make sure that we're good stewards to the next person too. Um, those are some of those stories that are a little rough as a mechanic when somebody comes in with a car they just bought and it turns out it needs a bunch of work and they've paid top dollar for it and it's like, oh, it needed an engine and they didn't tell you. That's uh that's kind of a bummer.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

So before we go into all of that, I wanted to just ask you a little bit about your experience and how you got into the industry. Was it something you had always wanted to do?

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Yeah. So I started loving cars as far back as I can remember. I've always enjoyed cars, little model cars, toy cars, um, building cars, go-karts, driving, all that stuff. As a little kid, I wanted to drive as soon as I possibly could. And I don't I don't really know where it came from. Uh we're not from a family of car people. Um, we're, you know, blue-collar workers. We enjoy cars. My dad was always, you know, doing fun stuff to him, putting mufflers on, you know, things like that. So it was always something that he was into from a hobby point of view. But he commuted to LA, you know, two hours one way for years and years. So he was in his cars a lot. I mean, he put hundreds and hundreds of thousands of miles on each of the vehicles. So I grew up not even seeing my dad go to the mechanic because he drove so much, it just happened whenever he needed to do it. Um, so as a kid, I didn't even know my mechanic or my family was mechanic. You know, we go for a smog inspection once in a while, but it was always just kind of hopping around whatever he could get done uh when it was needed. And then as I got a little bit older, I started wanting to know how cars worked and started taking things apart and trying to build things and working on small engines, go-karts, you know, little briggs and strat motors. So, as um I made friends with a local kid in my neighborhood and he had a go-kart. So we just built it and played with it and had so much fun for years. And that's what really sparked it for me was being able to have access to a vehicle at like 11 years old. Even though it's a go-kart, it was still super fun.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

That's great. And then how did you turn it into um a real direction for yourself?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

So when I went to high school uh freshman year, I took a ROP, I believe, at the time. It was a different type of um trade school that they had in the high school. So it was basically a ways for people to see metal shop, wood shop, computers, print shop, auto shop, um, welding. You could just go try different things as a freshman just to see what it was about. So we were on a semester system, but they broke it into quarters. So my first quarter at the high school, um, I was in the wood shop, and I was like, man, this is cool. There's tools I get to use, and I got to learn the safety of all the tools. So it was mainly safety-oriented. It was a way to get kids to touch the trades, but just to see if they liked it. And then from there it was Metal Shop was next, and there was welders. So for a whole semester, I started welding and I was like, man, this is great. I can weld stuff and fix things, um, build, you know, little boxes and just little things. And then after that, it was computer science, which is uh way different now. But back then it was kind of like print shop and computers. So you're actually taking computers apart and building them and soldering them, which now it's all software-based, like we don't do too much hardware stuff anymore. It's moved to robotics now. But back then that's what it was. You would take a computer screen apart and rewire it and make it work, and it was pretty fun. And then the fourth and final um quarter of my freshman year was Auto Shop. And then as soon as I got there, I got to take the knowledge from the first three and go, Well, wood doesn't really apply to cars so much. Uh welding does, uh, computers do, and then cars have engines, so I just really fell in love with it at that time. So by the time I came back, I was around the auto shop for the rest of the my time there. Uh my parents pushed me to go into band and stayed, you know, doing like fine arts, and I just wanted to do cars, so I had a little bit of a battle there, but it was what it was, you know. And then uh I ended up building a Miata in high school. I built a F-250 lifted truck, and then my senior year, I won an award for having like the smallest car and the biggest car at the school. So I was like the only kid with two cars, and they were both like pretty exotic.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

And could you tell during your high school program that you wanted to do that as a career?

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Uh I wanted to work with race cars specifically. Uh my Hotto shop teacher, his name is Dave McGuyde out of Rim of the World High School in uh Lake Arrowhead, California. And when I got there and I met him my freshman year, he had drag cars that he brought his own personal race cars and he shared it with the students. So I got to work on like race cars and go to the track with them and see what motorsports was about. So when I was graduating, I wanted to go to motorsports school. But again, my family didn't really support that. They were like, go to college, you know, you're smart, do engineering, go play with cars later if that's what you want to do. So I got really pushed the wrong direction at a young age, which is a big bummer, but yeah, it is what it is. It comes back full circle.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Well, speaking of full circle, it's kind of like there's been such a push against the trades over the years, and now people seem to be realizing they need to push back into the trades.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Most definitely. Yeah. So we have um cars specifically are so advanced now that you need an engineering mindset to even work on them and program them and diagnose them. So with the ROP program, yeah. So there were programs in California called ROP, which was regional occupational programs, and they provided career technical education to high school students, usually 16 and older, and they just offered hands-on experience in industries like health, automotive, and like culinary computers and things like that. So it was a big program back in the early 2000s. That program has morphed into CTE, which is career technical education. And I was actually just speaking with uh a district, a San Luis Coastal District employee, and it was explaining what happened. And he said that ROP kind of evolved into CTE, and CTE is more college prep. So the ROP was specifically hands-on trades and getting people ready for the workforce. So it was for people that were not going to go to college. So instead, they took that program and they said, well, let's get people college prepped within this space. But that didn't necessarily translate well to the trades because a lot of kids were being pushed towards college and college is becoming more available. So when college became more available, now the people that were interested in the trades were basically given an ultimatum, just like me. It was like, hey, you can go to college. Why do you want to do this trades thing? So the ROP program kind of changed into CTE, and that's what we're working with now today. So what I'm trying to do is reinvent or reinstill the values of the ROP program in the CTE course because that's it's the same thing. It's just we got a little sidetracked for a while and it's and it's hurt the trades for sure.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

And do you find that there are students who try things out because it's available and they might not have had any real interest in it and then they discover a love for it when they get there?

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Yeah. Um, so the whole point of CTE is to basically career technical education is designed for the technical field, the hands-on, to develop careers. So it's not just about like how to save money or to just be exposed to something, it's about creating a pathway for an actual career outside of college, but it's also laced with this college prep thing, which is good and bad. Um, it's good because you're now preparing kids for junior college and getting advanced educations, which is awesome, but it's also deferring their ability to be in the job market. So what's happening is as you go to junior college and then you're at the automotive school for two years, but you're never actually interning in an auto shop, you're never actually working there. So when you graduate, all of a sudden you're like, oh, I've got my associates in um automotive science, and I picked up three or four ASC certifications along the way, which makes you a qualified worker. But then what ends up happening is now you have zero hands-on experience. So you go apply for a job and they're like, oh, you've done all this stuff. Cool. You want to change oil? So you're starting at like basic, basic level, which is kind of a turnoff for some people that thought they studied all this stuff and be making a hundred grand out of the box. And it's like, no, you're still at level one, but now you have the baseline. So we've essentially going from ROP to CTE, have gone from let's get you prepared to work and then build your education through work, versus what's happening now is let's get your education and then go to work. But the private market doesn't work that way. The private industry wants technicians ready to go, like able to diagnose out of the box, and then they get upset when the colleges don't have the kids prepared for it. And it's like, well, the college's job is to help them hit certain marks and get certain papers, not fully make them understand how the job market works. So we have 250 um students at Cuesta College here in town that are in the auto program. And sometimes they just serve they don't have job opportunities when they're there. Everybody's wanting them. They're and they're all the businesses, including my business, like, hey, we'd love to have you come work for us. But then when they show up and they start draining oil and doing all the maintenance and cleaning the shop and doing all the basic stuff they'd never done before because they're in a a closed environment where everything's kind of just done by the staff. They're focused on the education and the reading and the writing and the the modules and the hands-on experience, but it's very individual focused. Um, so I just haven't personally seen like, hey, you have every single person has to crush oil filters to pass this class. So I don't know if that's happening at the tech school that you went to, but those are the things that we need to have done in the pro private sector. It's like, hey, all the oil filters need to be crushed for recycling. Um, the oils need to be drained with hazmat like protocols, like you have to do certain things, you can't just leave oil on the ground. So those are very basic things you would think, oh, anybody should just know that, but then it's up to the businesses to then train those people that those things. So what ends up happening is if I have an option to take an ASC certified mechanic with five years of experience that already has all those baseline um skill sets of maintaining the shop and the tools versus someone straight out of college who does not have that, I'm gonna pick the person that has a little bit more experience because I don't have to train them on my own dollar. So now you have graduates that are not able to just jump right into the career because they have to start at the bottom, but they've been told that they could if they get the two-year degree. But the two-year degree is it's almost like your bare minimum to start. So, long story short is that you get these certificates or you get these um associates' degrees and they're very meaningful, but you have to have the hands-on piece as well. Like you have to have the networking and the internships and going to dealerships and talking to what they need and going to small shops and talking about what they need. And I don't know if the colleges are focused on that so much.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

So, yeah, can you say a little more too about so if if someone's in that kind of environment um and getting really good hands-on experience? Is there anything else that you would suggest to people to make themselves more um a stronger candidate for a shop?

SPEAKER_00 11:36

So it all depends on the types of cars you will like to work on. So that's something that you should identify really early in your in your education. Um, if you like Toyotas, focus on Toyotas. If you like BMWs, pay attention to BMWs. If you like German cars in general, Volkswagen Audes, Mercedes, focus on those. Um, be careful trying to work on every little thing. And it's okay to get experience on different cars to see which ones you like, but during that two-year or three-year program or however long you're there is you really want to focus in on the culture that you want to be as a mechanic. Like, so where do you want to work? Do you want to work in a dealership? Do you want to be a small-time shop owner? Start thinking bigger, start thinking five, 10 years out because you need to start setting up yourself for success. So, as an example, let's say there was um a student at Cuesta that had been in auto for one year, and all of a sudden they're over here knocking on my door saying, Hey, do you have an internship opportunity? I could just clean the floor once a day, two hours a day. You don't even have to pay me. That would be amazing. Like a small shop will likely explore that. And they're gonna say, Well, why don't you come for a week and let's just see what this is about? Um, from my point of view, that's what I would do. I'd just say, Hey, why don't you come hang out with us and see what you like? And then I would ask questions what kind of cars do you like? What do you like to work on? What do you drive?

SPEAKER_01 12:46

So really reaching out to shops, getting to know people even before you're necessarily ready to work full-time.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

100%. That's the biggest thing. So right now at Morrow Bay, we have a I call it autos one, two, and three. They have it structured as intermediate, advanced, and then an internship, which is like third year. So next year we're we're hoping to launch the third year internship, and part of that process is meeting every shop that you can. So there'll be an assignment for my 20 students where they'll have to do their resume, which they've already done in the class, but they're gonna revamp it again as seniors, and then they're gonna custom tailor it to whatever shop they pick, and they're gonna go and drop it off and they're gonna show up and say, Hi, my name is Jason, and I'm interested in working at your German performance shop. And here's my resume, custom tailored for an internship opportunity, and I just wanted to say hi. Because a lot of times people are like, oh, no one's hiring, or this, that, and the other thing. It's like, well, yeah, that everybody's hiring. You just have to, you have to be a good candidate. So we have to teach the kids what that means. So hopefully, even if they get through all years at Mora Bay and they go, hey, cars isn't for me, but they go, I think I want to do this uh program in um, I don't know, manufacturing out of San Luis Obispo. Cool, let's custom tailor your resume and go talk to those people. So I'll work with them on that too. Because it's not just about the cars, it's about preparing them for the workforce. That's the whole point of ROP, which is now CTE, is having workforce experience.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

And also if you uh make an early connection with someone, even if they're not hiring at that moment, they if you make a good impression, they'll keep you in mind. And of course, if they're organized, they'll have your resume that they can retrieve.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Exactly. And shops keep your resume. So even if you drop one off, um, they they thumb through them as time goes on. So a good solid resume is very important. It's a cover letter. I mean, if you just if you came in, it's like, I love racing, I love cars, I see you do Miattas, I drive a Miata, like I want to learn more about Miattas and like work at your shop, it's like, well, this is a professional shop, not a race shop, but that passion will help you to like to do what you need to do. Plus, I race Miata, so I can help you too. So it's all about the shops finding the right people with the right passion.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Do you have any tips for people who maybe don't have a ton of hands-on experience, uh, but they're very passionate and focused? And uh any tips for how to make their resume look good, like what they can highlight on their resume?

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Yeah, so what you want to do is you want to make sure your resume hits whatever marks, especially if you're applying for a job, there's gonna be like specific requirements that they need, like, hey, we need one year experience with um, I don't know, facilities maintenance, whatever the situation is. You want to make sure your resume hits whatever is on their job listing. So specifically, if you're going after a job, you have to hit every target on the job post. You can't just show up with an uncustomed resume because if somebody shows up with the resume, they're gonna beat you. They're just gonna, it's just gonna be, it's just gonna be how it is.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

So people need to get used to the idea of tailoring their resume for each job they're gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

100%. Yeah, and that's and that's the part that um you're focused on hands-on and working with customers' cars. That's cool. Um, how is the how is the career portion? Do they spend a semester um talking about it once a week where they're like, hey, which shops have you talked to? Um, even just research, maybe somebody who's not comfortable yet going out and dropping off a resume. It's like perfect. Write me a one-page thing, use Chad GBT. I don't care. Just write me something that shows me you've researched this industry. You where are you wanting to work? If you set the intention, you'll likely succeed. Um, that's something that I don't see a lot of is people knowing how to set the proper intentions. So then they struggle because they're like, what do I do? And it's like, no one's gonna tell you what to do. You have to learn how to set an intention. So what do you want? Once you know what you want, you can backwards engineer whatever you need.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

And for cover letters, um, if you do a little research on the specific company, you can mention something about why you like that company or why you're applying to them specifically.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Yeah, so from a shop owner's point of view, if I had a student that was getting ready or that in their program and they're like really liking cars, and they showed up with a cover letter that says, you know, I've always been interested in racing and miatas and go-karts. That's just something that I'm passionate about. I grew up go-karting and um I've always wanted to expand on that. And I want to be a mechanic so that I can work on cars and make a good living and be around cars. That would be something that would be custom tailored to my shop based on even information you find on the website. So you got to do that background research. You can't just show up like, hi, I have zero experience and I'm in this program, you hire me for $25 an hour because I'm gonna say, I can't afford to hire you $25 an hour, you have zero hands on experience. So even if you're working on customers' cars, that's fine. But then if if we were in an interview and we got a little deeper, I'd start asking things like, well, what's what kind of billable hour targets do you have? And if you don't know what that is, it's like, well, that's the job of the school to tell you what a billable hour is. And if that's not happening, well, hopefully it is. But those are the questions you have to start raising. So, how do shops make money? How does flat rate work? How does benefits work? So start thinking if you're in this space, how a real shop or a dealership functions, and then start thinking about what skills you can put in a cover letter or how you can custom tailor to get the conversation started. And there's a ton of info. You could research all this stuff online and you should, you know, that's how you get you get prepared for it.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

And do you ask specific hypothetical questions about how would you fix this or how would you approach this repair?

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Yeah, you could. Usually during like a shop tour, we kind of show different things we're working on, and then I can just gauge on whether or not there's interest or fear there. I did an interview with somebody a couple of weeks ago. We just did a little shop walk, we were hung out for a good half hour, 45 minutes. We're like, yeah, we're doing this engine on this Toyota and a cylinder head on this um 4Runner, and then this BMW is coming in with a cooler, and so I'm gauging to see what they're comfortable with. And then during the conversation, it's like, oh, I don't really like those German cars. And it's like, okay, cool. And it's like 25% of our business is German cars. So I don't want to deal with somebody who doesn't want to deal with German cars because you have to. So for us, you need to like like all cars. If they're into Toyotas and they love that, and that's all I want to work on. I would probably be like, you may want to look at the dealership because that's all they work on. But if you're more versatile for a small shop and you're like, oh no, that's cool. I've always wanted to learn about BMWs. I don't really know much about them. I'd be like, okay, cool. You'll have an opportunity to learn.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Back to the high school training. Uh, you and I both were talking about how to to us, an ideal scenario would be that high schools have a mandatory at least semester of auto-knowledge, maybe not auto repair, but auto knowledge before people become drivers. What do you think would be an ideal syllabus to cover? Like what do you think everyone should know before they become drivers?

SPEAKER_00 18:58

The very simplest thing is how to inspect a vehicle. They need to understand every component on the car, not understand exactly how they work, but they need to be familiar with it. You need to know kind of what a ball joint is, which is what you know turns your front suspension back and forth, makes noise. Uh, if it fails, your tire can fall off and cause a problem. Uh, you need to know where your fluids are, like how to check your oil. What does oil do? You know, what does coolant do? How often should you check it? And then after fluids, you'd look into things like I would consider lights, laws, and safety. Like, do your lights work? Do you understand the laws of a moving vehicle? And then do you understand the safety things in your car, like anti-lock brakes and airbags? Do you just understand the basics of how the car works and how it protects you? Um, yeah, so I would call it like lights, laws, and safety. So I would have that in that course. I would just say, you know, make sure all your lights work, brake lights. Um, the laws associated with windshields, you can't have a craft windshield. Uh, tires have to have a certain minimum um tread life on them. Brakes, that's all safety stuff. So how the vehicle works, how do you turn your air conditioning on? Most people figure that out, you know, but you should just touch on it and just see like basic controls. Operating manual, do you even have an operating manual in your car anymore? Most of them is digital. Where do you find it? You know, if you have a question about something, like how do you turn on your rear heated seats and don't know where the button is? Luckily, you can Google it, but just knowing that that's even a possibility. Um, I have a Land Rover that was donated to us recently, and I found out it had rear heated seats. There was a random button. I didn't even know where it was, and I was like, what is that? You know, so I pushed it and it turned out it has rear heated seats. So even me as a mechanic, cars are so different. Like there's so many options. It's wild.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

What do you think about um maybe common sounds and common smells and what that means and people what people should be aware of? Because I think people don't pay attention to their car or they get used to hearing something and they're like, oh, that's just how my car is.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

No, for sure. I actually got a funny story about that. So one of my students has been driving around with his Toyota truck, and his friend says, Man, you got to look at the brakes. And he's like, Oh no, it's always been like that. And they're like, It's making this horrible sound. So different kids get in the car with them and they drive off the freeway and the entire front end is shaking while he's coming down the freeway. And his friends have been telling him, Hey, you need to have your brakes looked at. You're in auto shop. What do you why aren't you looking at the brakes? Well, his response was, My car's always done that ever since I bought it. So he just thinks it's okay. He, the worst brake rotors we have ever seen. That's that consumer thing where I think you're talking about like people just drive the car, they don't even know. And that sometimes a mechanic gets in a car and goes, Oh my gosh, the suspension's about to fall out of this thing. And they're like, No, it's always been like that. You know, it's like, what do you mean it's three thousand dollars? It's like uh your suspension's about to fall out. Or they just they think you're trying to sell something, and it's like, I just don't want you to die, man.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Like, oh gosh, what do you need? Yeah, my my family had a we bought a used car and I would drive it and and it I would notice it would it would pull. I didn't even know the term pull. I I just thought, oh, my car goes this way and I have to hold the the steering wheel this way. And back then I had no clue that there was such a thing as an alignment, even yeah. So yeah, basic repair, basic maintenance um would be on the docket, and then also the service history of the vehicle, like what's due when.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

And that's a big Thing, especially in modern cars, you need to know what parts and what services are required at what time, what mileage intervals. If you understand that, um, you will be a well-informed consumer. If you end up at a quick lube place and they say it's time for cool it, and then you end up at a different quick lube late place a year and a half later and put 10,000 miles on it and they say it's time for cool it and you just did it last time and you do it again. Well, you've already done it once you should know that, hey, I did that last time. I don't need that for 50,000 miles. So that can make you a well-informed consumer. But most people don't think of their cars that way. It's just going back and forth. And if they have the money in their the funds and they're presented with an I an option to do some sort of service, then they do it. If they don't have the money or the funds, then they put it off. And then sometimes they compound into heavy repairs too. So just helping to have students understand that cars need timed maintenance and there's a cost associated with it, that will prevent big, big repairs later.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

And what about that? It it's sometimes I feel like hard to get the right advice about fluid change intervals. Like, for example, this is something I try to talk about a lot, that there's this idea now that because oil has improved, but the idea that it's okay to do an oil change once a year or every 10,000 miles, that that's out there, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Like well, it's out there, yeah. Um oil change intervals and maintenance are all based on the manufacturer's ability to get the car through the warranty period. That's it. They don't their first 36,000 miles. So if you change oil three times in 36,000 miles, did the engine fail? Did it have a warranty claim? No. If you do that continuously for the 100,000 miles, you're gonna start having engine failure, and that's what happens. Honda and Toyota both experienced that. They have extended service intervals on cars, 10,000 miles. And the next thing you know, at 100k, they they blow the piston rings out and you need a whole new engine. If you would have changed oil every 5,000 miles, that would never happen. So um the manufacturers are in to protect themselves and to sell you cars, not to have your car last longer. So that's very important to remember. Um, it's like cell phones now, they just everybody wants a new one every few years, so that's slowly transitioning. And as people are less aware of how cars work, they become accustomed to it and they go, Oh, well, my car's at a is four years old, five years old, I just paid it off. It needs a, you know, $3,000 worth of backdated maintenance now, and um, I'm just gonna get a new car. So it's just a mindset, it's just a little different.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

And same with transmission fluid.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Yeah, same with transmission. They have lifetime fluids that are supposed to last the lifetime of the car. What that really means is the lifetime of the warranty period. So that means that they don't have to change the transmission fluid because the tranny's not gonna fail, they're not gonna have a warranty claim. Should you change the transmission fluid every 60,000 miles, even if it says it lasts forever? If you can, you should. Um, some systems are completely sealed. Mercedes has completely sealed transmissions, and at 150,000 miles, when it fails, you put a whole new transmission in. That's how the car's designed. There's not much you can do about that.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Oh, truly sealed, like you can't drain it.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Yep, there are there are cars that have sealed transmissions you cannot service. You just have no way to fill it. So you can drain the fluids usually you have no way to like put it back in the car. There's very few of those now. Use usually some sort of special tool or scan scanner that can help you with it. But the concept of never having to service the fluid still exists. So they call them sealed transmissions. That's that's the term for it.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

But so people who have transmissions that don't have a dipstick, that doesn't mean that it's not serviceable.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Correct. It just means they don't have a dipstick.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Which sort of puts people in the mindset of like, oh, I don't need to change it.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Yeah, what it really comes down to is that um only certain people can change it. You know, only the dealerships that have the special tool. If you have a Chrysler product and you want to, and they have weak transmissions, by the way. Chryslers have issues with transmissions, and partly is you can't service them because there's no dipstick. So they go to the go to the you know jiffy place or whatever, and they go, Oh, um, we should do transmission. Oh, never mind. There's no dipstick on this car. We can't do it. So it just gets completely bypassed. So next thing you know, at 150,000 miles, the transmission fails, and it's like the service has never been done, even though it's possible you just have to buy a special dipstick from the dealer in order to check the level to change it. It's kind of it's an odd system. And and um, we had a a RAM truck here not that long ago that we had to purchase a dipstick for, and the dealer would not sell us the dipstick. So we we couldn't even buy it as a professional shop. That the simple tool like, hey, take the cap off, put a dipstick in it. Um, you there's proprietary limitations on some of this stuff, and it's that is not friendly to the consumers at all. Know your manual, you know, know your know what you're driving, know the maintenance, what's required, when is it coming, and start saving money to do it, whether you do it yourself or have someone do it. It still has to get done.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Yeah, you yesterday you mentioned a really interesting rule of thumb of how to plan. So that's something people really don't think about. You know, you think I'm spending all this money on a car, I made this major purchase, great, I have a car. And people I I'll say for myself at least, I have no thought about actually planning for repairs or or maintenance costs. So there's a rule of thumb you mentioned.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Yeah, so if you look at the labor rate of your local mechanic, wherever you're at, so just look at an independent shop, even a dealership, it doesn't matter. Let's say the labor rates uh we're at $169.98, but let's just say it's $200 to make it easy. Um, so you got $200 an hour. So save $200 per month, and that will at the end of the year, you'll have up to 12 hours of labor saved. And then you're not gonna need 12 hours of labor necessarily, but if you can maintain a little savings account for your car, it does a couple of cool things. Once your transmission fails at $150,000 miles and it's a $7,000 job, if you've been saving for 10 years, that's all you have the money in that account to like maintain your car. Or you can make the decision, you know what, I'm gonna go buy a new one. And guess what? I've got $15,000 in my car account. I'm gonna go put a down payment on a new one and start this process again. Because when you have a new car, you don't have to like maintain them right away. There's not a lot of money. You're paying, you're paying with the um the finance charges and all the the, you know, you're making your monthly payments, so you're not thinking of maintenance. A lot of people in the independent world, I've noticed, as soon as they pay off their car, they'll come to the show, and like, I just paid my car off last month. This is so great. And inside, I'm like, oh God, they're about they're about to hit the maintenance wall. They're gonna, they're gonna hit the repair wall. And within six months to a year, they're here doing multiple services, thousands of dollars, just trying to like get the car up to snuff because they've been making these payments forever, but they hadn't really been budgeting any like services. So they're like, Man, I just got the car paid off, and now I got to go to the mechanic all the time. It's like, well, you're just trading the money you were paying to pay for the car to maintain the car now, because now it's older. So that's all it is, is it just took time for the car to wear down and now you got to reinvest back into it. And that's just a normal pattern. But people generally don't like that, they just like paid off their car, they don't want to put any more money into it, but that's just not the truth. But as you're learning about whatever vehicle you're driving, just know that it needs stuff, it needs care, it needs to be washed once a month. I mean, take care of the pain, it'll take care of you. Even if it's a simple car wash somewhere, try to get a hand wash, wherever. Another nice thing to do, especially in an urban area, go to a 76 gas station where it's full service. Let them like check all your fluids for you for free. You know, like let them let them tell you what it is. Take the information, you don't have to buy anything. Um, you have to be strong as a consumer and maybe just go, I just want you to tell me what it needs, but I don't want to buy anything right now. And if a shop pressures you at that point, then that's not the right place. But if they just tell you, hey, by the way, you're gonna need coolant next time we see you, start thinking about that and don't ignore it because when they come back again, they're gonna tell you again. Yeah. So you can't just keep prolonging forever, and then eventually you're gonna have a failed water pump, and then it's gonna cost you four times as much as just servicing the coolant.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Do you have any tips on how to keep track of maintenance or um the repairs that you do?

SPEAKER_00 29:15

You can start with a simple spreadsheet or a book, a little, a little binder. Uh, my father-in-law uses a little notebook, and every time he changes the oil, he writes the mileage and the date. And then every time he changes coolant, he writes the mileage and the date. Very simple. Just keep it in the car, in the glove box, that's it. Or do a spreadsheet. You can type it in. You could probably use AI now and update your invoices. I mean, that's all coming. Eventually, the cars are gonna be, you're almost not gonna be able to ignore them because the cars are gonna know what they need and they're gonna make, they're gonna tell you. And they're already doing that now. But so we're kind of getting away from that consumer responsibility into a more the cars are actually gonna require it. Um, so that's a that's a whole nother, a whole nother train of thought. But basically, the cars eventually are gonna require certain things. There's subscription-based models that are coming out. So if you don't pay your subscription, your car won't drive. So there's that, and there's all kinds of things. So, from a basic consumer point of view, which is a normal car, just keep your records, keep your notes, keep a file, give printouts, emails, just keep organized. And then when you your car gets older, take that info to whatever mechanic you want to go to, find a nice independent shop to say, hey, these are all my records that I've maintained. What do I need to do? You don't have to try to like understand it all, you just have to have the records. Let somebody who knows what's going on help guide you through that process. It's just like your doctor, if you have all your records, your doctor can help you. But if you're starting from scratch, you're gonna be starting from the beginning and they're looking at the car like, well, you've done nothing. So what do we what are we gonna what are we gonna start with, you know?

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Yeah, and I guess it's especially important if you if you don't have your own dedicated shop, if you go, and which is totally valid too, to go different places. Sometimes you'll go maybe to a drive-thru oil service, sometimes you go to your shop, sometimes you go to the dealership. It that becomes even more important to keep your own a robust list of what you're doing and where.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Yeah, basically they're just called service records. Carfax is really good about it now. So if you go to a Carfax shop or somebody who reports their Carfax, those records are there, which is nice.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

Oh, and do all is it easy to see if a sh a shop uses Carfax or do you have to ask them or trust them?

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Usually you have to ask them, but almost I don't know, I don't know how many shops do. We do. Um, I know quite a few shops that do, and then I see some shops that still don't. Um, usually the slightly larger shops, um if they're affiliated with AAA or Napa or something like that, if they have some sort of affiliation, that's usually nested in there too.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Okay, this has been really uh such a nice conversation. This is we're sitting outdoors in your patio of your shop. This is so lovely. Um any other thoughts for people who maybe have been thinking about getting into the industry or just learning or have a kind of interest, but maybe are feeling unsure or uh any any words to encourage people who have even an inkling that they might want to go into this field?

SPEAKER_00 31:52

If you have like a if you have a passion for cars, even race cars or just something fun, or if if you have to like cars, like you work with them every day. So I don't like working with like blood. So the concept of me being a doctor would be like the worst thing ever, or even I I looked into paramedics at some point, right? Like, oh a paramedic, I'd like to help people, and it's like, oh, you got to deal with dead bodies. I'm like, oh, I want to do that. So as you start to go through those thought processes of different careers, if you're finding yourself landing in the car field and you're like, man, I really want to work with cars, just know you can do parts, be behind the scenes. You can work as a service advisor, talking to people about cars, selling stuff. If you want to be in sales, you can sell cars. If you want to be as a repair person, you can do that. If you want to just work and maintain cars, you can do that too. There's nothing wrong with working at a um a quick lube just because you like doing it. So just find what you like. Uh, don't chase the dollar so much. Just figure out what you want to do, how where you want to start, and then realize that the more certifications and licenses you get and the more experience you have, the better and more fruitful your career will be. So don't stop learning because you you never you never will stop learning. And everything's advancing so quickly. You have to be, you have to stay with it. So it's a very cool career, but you have to love cars.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

And you mention uh a different path of being a paramedic and helping people. It I just love meeting shop owners and speaking to great people who are good at their job, and you guys help people. Like you are modern-day heroes, I think.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Yeah, it's it's super fun. Like uh everybody gets to do something. So no matter where, even if you work as a librarian, which you know, a lot of things digital now, but if you work as a librarian or a chiropractor or anything where you're helping, and that's really where us as humans we're going to with all this technology. Technology is going to start sucking up a lot of these jobs that you know keep people in office buildings. That's all going away. We don't need that so much anymore. So, what's happening is this people now can spend time doing what they like to do. And if you like cars, do cars. If you like working with people and doing physical therapy, do physical therapy. Um, so there's a lot of hands, hands-on opportunities, but it all comes down to like what do you want to do when you wake up and how long do you want to work? So if you like surfing and you only want to work two days a week, but you love cars, start thinking about how to make that a reality because that's what you truly want. Don't go work at a shop for 40 hours a week for 20 years thinking, oh, one day I'll retire and surf. It's like, don't do that. Surf now. Build your career around your love. If you can do that, you're fine. And it doesn't matter what you do.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

That's great, great info. And I really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Yeah, it's been wonderful. I'm glad you stopped by in town.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Thank you. And uh next time I'm up in town, I would love to come by the high school. I didn't get to talk to you about how you got involved in that program, but we'll do that next time.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Oh, yeah, for sure. We can talk again. That'd be awesome. All right, thank you so much for appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Thanks for listening. That was really fun meeting Richie, owner of Wimmer's Automotive, right in the heart of Morro Bay. Just like really one of the nicest parts of California. Thank you, Richie, so much for sharing your insights and your expertise. We talked about some great info, like his recommendation that it really is important to tailor your resume to that particular job you're applying for. It seems like a drag because the way online applications work these days with the big job online companies like like ZipRecruiter and those, you could just click, click, click your same resume to hundreds of jobs. But Richie said it does make a difference to tailor it to help make yourself stand out. I forgot to ask him about LinkedIn. I know some people in the field who were approached by shops because they had a good profile on LinkedIn. So I'll ask around a little bit more about that when I talk to shop owners, get some more insight on approaches to hiring. One of the other topics, of course, is get to know your service manual and time intervals for recommended service. This is stuff you can find online. Just type in your specific car you're making model, and you should be able to get the recommendations for services at specific mileage or time. Oh, and I don't want to forget to tell you that Richie has made a very generous offer for listeners of the podcast. If you reach out to them and mention you found them through Good Karma Podcast, they can offer you a $60 gift certificate. The shop's been in business 60 years this year, and a $60 gift certificate to go along with that. Thank you, Richie, for that very generous offer to the listeners. And if you've been enjoying the podcast, which I really hope you have been, please, it would be amazing if you could click five stars, leave a review, um, or email me with some topic ideas or or a recommendation of a shop that you love. You can reach me at good karmapodcast at gmail.com. That's karma with a C. And until next time, keep up with your oil changes, and we'll see you down the road.