Inside Miller Auto

In this episode of Inside Omro, Julian Hernandez sits down with Brandon and Austin at Miller Auto to talk about what it means to be a family-owned business serving the Omro community. From used vehicle sales and service to towing, Miller Auto shares how the business has grown, what goes into standing behind the vehicles they sell, and why trust matters so much in the automotive industry.

We also talk about the challenges and rewards of running a local business, supporting the community, and continuing to adapt as Omro grows and changes.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

More honest you are with your mechanic, the easier it's gonna be and the cheaper it's gonna be to repair the car. I think it's gonna cost more money if they're being you know truthful, and most of the time it's gonna cost them more money if they're not being honest with what's going on with the car. If they're if you're able to tell us exactly what's going on, our job isn't to judge, our job is to fix. Hello, I'm Brandon Miller. The city of AMRO has beautiful parks, active organizations, and thriving businesses. In partnership with Future Omro, the AMRO Area Community Center, and product sponsorship by Miller Auto. We'd like to welcome you inside OMRO.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

All right. Well, good afternoon. Uh I'm with Brandon and Austin Miller at Miller Auto, and I get the honor of introducing these two and interviewing them. As I put everyone else in town in the hot seat, now it's your turn.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

So let's go. Tell me about your your auto business, the two of you.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 0:59

You want to start, Austin? Yeah, we do. I mean, long story short, we do everything but body work pretty much.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06

Towing, auto repair, electrical, bigger jobs, engine transmissions. Pretty much everything but bod.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

That's cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Yeah. So we started the business. This is our five-year anniversary. Um, July will be five years that we've been open. Um I've been in the automotive field since I was basically 18 years old. Um, worked on cars before that. Same with Austin. Austin worked on cars before he actually entered the industry, did some car flipping and so forth. And uh yeah, five years ago, well, really six years ago, Austin and I started um kind of a side hustle where we were um buying and selling cars and um flipping them, and um we kind of had the opportunity to acquire this property.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Well, I I remember like when we were I was talking to you about that, that's how kind of how you got your way through college. And you told me that story that you that you were going out and flipping cars to help pay you know your way through college.

SPEAKER_04 2:14

Yeah, that was how that was how I put myself through college with as little help as possible, anyways. Um but yeah, it was it was good enough that well, one, I was going to school for mechanical engineering, and then I decided that I don't think that I really want to do this for the rest of my life, and then I was talking with dad about it, and he basically said start a notebook, keep track of what your the actual numbers are, and if it makes sense, then don't go back and five years later now we're here. So it made sense then.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

So yeah, his but you guys are you're from you guys are from Watoma area, correct? Yep. So what made you guys come to Omro?

SPEAKER_02 2:52

When we were you know doing the side hustle, um, I was working for a business in Watoma and I was um general manager there, but I also um drove a four-car hauler and occasionally would haul cars to the to the auction. And I was making a delivery in Appleton coming back through Omro when I saw this property was available. And you know, it's funny because um I went to high school in Berlin um and this used to be parkplace, and when I was in high school, I used to come through this car lot all the time.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

And so what was it before this then? It was a it was a dealership?

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Yeah, it was a dealership, it was parkplace, and it it was parkplace from 1986 until we opened it. Wow. So um, so yeah, it's kind of uh nostalgic, if you will, that uh we ended up purchasing the property that you know I've been driving through since I was a kid, basically. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, so I was driving driving back from the auction, saw the property, the the uh real estate sign in the front, pulled in, um, looked inside, you know, just through the windows and kind of saw the hoist in here and you know, thought about it, called Austin, and uh said, hey, this property is available. Let's look at it, you know. And um I think it was the next day we got a hold of the realtor while I was driving back to Automa. Um I think it was the next day we came and looked at the property, and a month later we were in business. Just like that. Just like that.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

And I said you guys have expanded too. Like you've got the oil loot place up the road by the laundromat, and then you just purchase the old MasterCards, yep, and you do your diagnostic works up there. So you guys are like everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Yeah, three locations in Omro. Um, you know, and it there's challenges to that also. I mean, it's it would be nice to have one big shop, you know, everything kind of under one rough. Um, but you know, our our sales shop, the one that's um, you know, just east of Omro, um, that's where we started. We had two hoists in there. We when we started, we didn't do automotive repair for the general public, or at least we didn't advertise it. We did do it, but it was it wasn't something that we promoted uh because the shop was so small, we were focused on getting our cars ready for the lot, you know, making sure that they were recon properly and so forth. Um, and then we got the opportunity to um acquire the express shop um by the laundromat. And um that's really when, and I think that's that was I think we're going on two years that we so September.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

I remember it just seems like yesterday, quite honestly, that you guys were painting the outside and you know doing all your work in there, and now it's been two years.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Yeah, it's been crazy. Yeah, it's been two years, time flies. And that's really when we started doing public auto repair, um, because then we had a little bit more space. Um and then I November, I guess, will be a year that we bought the MasterCards building. Um, and so kind of the way that we structure it is the sales shop is we basically have turned into a detailing shop. Um, we also we have one hoist in here. Um, we took the other ones out so we have more room for for detailing activities, but we left the one hoist in here because a lot of times customers want to look at the car that they're buying, and we'll put a car up on the rack, let them walk underneath it, see what it looks like. Um, so we don't really do any repair work at the sales shop anymore. You know, all of your um maintenance uh brakes, tires, you know, your in-and-out stuff is done at the express shop, and then Austin does, you know, the heavy dyag and engine transmission.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Yeah, it's nice, delightful.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

So it it it's a little bit of bouncing back and forth between the three shops. Um we've got them all really well um equipped, you know, as far as tooling and stuff like that goes. The sales shop obviously is a little bit light right now compared to what it used to be. Um, but again, we don't do much uh repair shop. But you know, when we started the business five years ago, we had basically hand tools. And we didn't, you know, obviously I we both worked on cars, but you know, we had to buy welders and torches and alignment machine and and all of that stuff. And it was uh it worked out really well because you know, starting as just car sales, we would just kind of buy what we needed as we went. Um, you know, as we started off with a welder and a torch and you know, the things that you absolutely have to have, but then as far as specialty tools and the diagnostic equipment, as the need presented itself, then we just you know invested in it without man loves you. Macroman. Macroman loves you. Yeah, I think um I haven't looked this year, but I think in the last five years we've spent over a hundred thousand dollars with it. Are you kidding? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But we're very heavy into training, um, you know, technician training, very heavy into the diagnostic aspect. There really isn't anything that we can't figure out when it comes to diagnostic.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Well, you know, and I know how cars have changed, they've evolved over the years, you know. My grandpa was an old school mechanic and he was just uh, you know, a center wrenches and he would do his thing, and then he kind of he got phased out over time because he just he was an old man that just wasn't keeping up with new technology. Yep, it was kind of sad to watch that happen, but with you, it's just a non-stop learning curve with the new cars nowadays. Yeah, we especially you guys are dealing with your electric cars, EVs and so forth.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Yeah, and we we've really made a name for ourselves in the Tesla um sphere, if you will. Um, we've had people come as far as Illinois, um, Iowa for us to work on their on their Teslas. So, you know, and uh kind of back to the training aspect, um, we actually close our shop for you know three to four days at least once a year, and we take the whole shop to um last year we went to the ASTA expo um in North Carolina, and we spent you know four days or five days just doing class training you know with our technicians and getting them up to speed. And you know, it you have to do training in order to keep up with newer vehicles. So yeah, it's understandable.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

So anyway, I was gonna ask you too, like we'll kind of go back to the the beginning because I know you guys kind of have a family-run organization. You got Hannah back there as your daughter, son Austin, and then you have your wife who's uh basically the store manager at the Oil Loop place.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Not quite the store manager, she's more the customer service manager, if you will. Um and then we we've got Alan there also, he's the service advisor. You know, some sometimes, honestly, it's it's almost like he he is one of my kids, to be honest with you. He's a good kid. Yes, he really is. Um, you know, so we have four staff that are family members and four staff that aren't family members. But the whole staff is family. I mean, uh our sales manager Brian, um, you know, I've known him for over 20 years. Um, he's worked for me at other businesses in the past, and um, you know, I kind of recruited him from uh from a dealer, a franchise dealer, um, like probably three years ago, four years ago. So, you know, he's really part of the family. Alan has very much become part of the family. He's a great kid. Um, Anthony's been with us for over three years. Um, you know, he he's our technician, he does a phenomenal job. And we just actually we we had my daughter Haley used to work for us driving tow truck. Um her and her husband decided that they wanted to move to Wisconsin Rapids. So we lost her about six months ago um just because of the move. And uh we hired Brennan as our new uh so he's our newest employee, and he's have I met Brennan? I don't think he probably have. He's in a truck every day on the road. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

And I don't remember seeing a new face, you know, when I come down to your store. Yeah. Have you gotten over your uh hangover from being the Monday Night Championship bowler? Yes. Yeah, yeah, that was fun. Yeah, it was fun. We had a good time this summer or this winter. It was a good time. So, okay, now you do the diagnostics down there. So basically, when these guys have a product down here that are a car that they don't quite know what's wrong with it, that's when they send it to you. Yeah, and then you're the guy that digs in there and says, I'm gonna find out what's wrong with it.

SPEAKER_04 12:02

Yeah, yep, yep, and dad is just as capable as I am.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Well, yeah, he is, but I'm talking to you right now. You're the guy, you get in there and you uh find it. And like I said, and I've talked to you many times, you know, and I delivered parts to you. And it amazes me because I said the things that you guys do, I mean, to me, you you make it look easy. You really do. You go in there, you're like, oh, I just trust or wearing on, I'm blah, blah, blah. That was it. And I was like, I've heard people work on cars for years and they can't figure it out and use do it. So you're obviously you're good at what you do.

SPEAKER_04 12:35

Yeah, the way the way I explain it is it's like speaking the language. If you understand I mean, car wiring is different from like house wiring and stuff, so it's like a language of its own. But if you understand how to speak it and are fluent in it, it's really just doing it at that point.

SPEAKER_03 12:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:51

Um, like at the shop now, there's uh Malibu with a parasitic draw and an instrument cluster that doesn't work. So my plan was to make sure they were related before looking into the instrument cluster, and then there's a truck there that doesn't shift. So those are the two customer cars that I have today. And then my favorite stuff is the auction stuff, the the non-pattern one-off failures of things that you can Google and you can look up all you want. You'll never find anything on it because it's not a it's not a common repeat failure. Those are the ones that are fun.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Yeah, you find it fun. Yeah, yeah. You're an odd duck, you know. It's not fun. That's okay to buck. Um, but I, you know, like I said, I I remember I had a lady come down to the store and she was having an issue, and she said her battery kept going dead. She goes, like, she's asking me if it was uh some kind of draw somewhere. I said a little parasitic draw, yeah. It could be, but she was like, Well, I think I'm gonna do that. And she was going through, I said, just take it down to Austin, have a look at it. If there's one there, he'll find it. Don't waste your time, you know. And I actually I've sent a couple guys down to one guy was uh his AC. When he opened his door, the AC wouldn't work. When he shut his door, it would work. So he was gonna come in here, he was gonna hardwire uh a switch so he could just turn the switch on on his dash and blah blah. He was going through all this stuff. I said, just take it down to Austin, find out where the broken wire is, just get it fixed.

SPEAKER_04 14:24

Yeah, you know if it's a door opening and closing, making it not work, there's a loom that runs through, and that's probably right when you're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Exactly. And that's what I was trying to tell him. Like, so you want to put a switch on your dashboard to run your AC. I mean, and to me, that's like I I I love redneck ingenuity, but I don't know. Just do it right and get it done with, you know. But but again, I it it it's so hard because it's complicated, and like for you, you make it look easy or sound easy, but for the average Joe, it's not, you know, it's a tough thing.

SPEAKER_04 14:55

Yeah, I I don't have much of an issue with it anyways, but I didn't um I don't know, maybe it was the way that I learned because I kind of just taught myself, but then dad knew more than me, so then I would reference off of him if I was doing something right, and this was probably when we first opened, because before I did a lot of nut and bolt stuff, and then it wasn't until we opened this place that I actually started doing electrical stuff, and then it was just a matter of this is what I found, and then he would tell me what it meant, and then usually I would figure out why that was the case somehow, some way.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

Yeah, I I I have to say that you know, when we when we started the business, um Austin was very good at the brakes, the maintenance, the like you said, nuts and bolts stuff. Um, I've honestly, in my 30 years, and and I'm not bragging because he's my son, but I'm being completely honest, in 30 years I've never seen somebody go from you know very little diagnostic skills to the level that he's at now in such a short amount of time. And it was a matter of really about a year and a half that you know he basically had mastered, and and nobody masters everything, but he he created a process for himself that he can figure out just about anything. Um and what's kind of nice was for those first two years, we weren't working with customer vehicles, we were working with our vehicles, vehicles that we were reselling. So we, you know, completely different world. When you're working on a customer vehicle, you know, that customer needs their car back ASAP, you know, as soon as possible. And you don't have the luxury of you know uh learning on the on the job, if you will. So um you're under you're under a time crunch. You know, with our vehicles, we would buy the vehicles, and not that we didn't want to, you know, get them fixed as fast as possible, obviously we did, but we weren't under that time crunch. So he I was able to let him do the diagnostic, learn how to do the diagnostic without a customer you know calling every you know day or what have you. And I think that helped a lot too because the pressure of getting it back to the customer wasn't there. Um but you still have to be able to understand the systems. If you if you don't understand the system that you're diagnosing, there's no way for you to diagnose it. And that's where most people run into a problem is they either have no clue how the system works or they think they know how the system works and they're wrong. So you have to have a very good understanding of whatever the system is that you're working on in order to be able to diagnose it. And you got it, you demand.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah, it's good. So anyway, let's go, let's change topic now. Because I know like I I have some questions that I had written down, and I just kind of running them through my head. But uh I just wanted to I wanted you to like speak about how you've decided to reach out in the community and do these type of interviews with the local merchants, which I think is an amazing thing you're doing. You put uh a lot of businesses on the map and you put faces to businesses and names and stuff like that. And well, like what was your inspiration to do that? What made you decide to do that?

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Austin and I started an automotive podcast um, you know, probably six weeks, I would say, before we decided to do the OMRO community podcast. The automotive industry has never had the best reputation, you know, as a whole. I mean, there are a ton of good shops out there. Um, and what we wanted to do was we wanted to we created a podcast that focused on doing auto repair right, you know, be doing right by the customer, you know, not throwing parts at cars, not guessing, um, you know, doing diagnostics properly and so forth. And we did about uh six episodes um of that podcast, and then the construction started. You know, and the construction's been sitting in the back of my mind, or both of our minds, for the last you know, two years basically. We've been kind of preparing for it. And they worked. Yeah. Um, but you know, I w we had a lot of conversations about, you know, we need to build capital just in case the construction's bad and and so forth. And you know, it it all starts with the plan, but the plan doesn't always go according to plan. You know, um we we made quite a few capital inspect expenditures last year that um you know the opportunity presented itself, like buying the MasterCards building. Um and we ended up buying a new tow truck, a new rollback, um, because we just needed to. So we're still good in the capital aspect, but I don't we we didn't really follow our our plan as far as let's you know build capital and not not spend money. Um with good reason. We we you know, I mean we have the opportunity. So anyway, um the construction started, and I was like, man, this is really gonna suck for some of the businesses in town. And you know, I we Austin and I sat down and I'm like, I think we should stop our automotive podcast. We have the equipment, we invested in the equipment to do the podcast. Let's focus on OMRO. Let's let's put Omro on the map, let's let people know, yeah, there's construction, but you can still get to OMRO. The businesses are still open. And yeah, start start promoting the businesses in town. So we did, and it's uh it's been working very well.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

Yeah. Well, I've heard nothing of it positive, seen nothing but positive. You know, I was talking to Drew the other day, and he was he was saying, telling me that if have people coming into his businesses now, they're just out of curiosity. They saw your podcast, and I was like, I'm gonna go check this place out. Yeah, that's it. And that's that's what it's all about, you know. Because you know, and it said being AMRO, and it's it's almost like a drive-thru town, you know, and that's what's sad about it, because we have tons of traffic 321. Yeah, but everybody just slows down, you know. Be you're gonna find a reason to stop in. I think that's what you're doing is giving these guys a reason to stop in and say, let's check it out, you know. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

Yeah, and you know, the AMRO community is really special in the fact that you know, everybody that I've talked to, they don't view the other businesses in town as competitors. Um, just like Main Tire. You know, we have a great working relationship with Main Tire and Auto, same with just Royal. Um Um, you know, the other used car dealership in town. We talk, you know, on a weekly basis. Uh we do a lot of towing for Jerry at Maintire. I'm looking forward to doing a podcast in the future with him. Um, you know, and the restaurants are the same way. You know, we did, like you're saying, the podcast with Drew and Silvino's, and he's talking about Moore's Den, and he's talking about Fox Lanes. And same with Fox Lanes, we're talking about Tanner's Tap. And, you know, we're a community. And, you know, when the businesses work together and don't view each other as competition, it creates a community and it creates a destination. Right. You know, so there's something different at every business. And when you stop being competitors and start working together, it just makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

I think you've almost kind of instilled a little uh um of that whole community pride pride with you know everyone. And they see these videos, and I think they literally are like, Yeah, we do have a neat little town, we should be proud of our town. I'm new to this town myself. I've only been here, I think this will be four years in October. And I first moved in, it was a different town. But as I've lived here for going on four years, I I've grown to really like this town. Yeah, I've met a ton of nice people. Just uh I said it's a community, you know. And it's like, you know, like we and I said, you know, we bowl on Monday nights together, and it's it's just you know what it's like. Everybody kind of just loves each other. Yep, you know, it's just a good time. And I said, uh the and it kind of spreads, you know, it's everywhere. And I I like this town now. I would like to uh see it grow and get bigger and better, but we'll see what happens with that. Maybe these podcasts will help.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, my and you know, my I said this in the podcast I did with some good stuff. You know, my underlying goal with the podcast and with the community um marketing, if you will, is I I want to see every single business make it through the construction. You know, I I want to see AMRO not lose any businesses because of the construction.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Well, there's light at the end of the tunnel. Things are starting to look up a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

It's um it's not been pretty, but it really hasn't been super ugly for the uh the great unknown when when they first started the construction and you heard all the news, it was uh I saw I thought that literally they were shutting Main Street down. Everybody in town thought that. And then you come up with your five-minute podcast. I learned more in five minutes with you than I did reading the paper and checking out the internet and trying to get information, and it was like, that's not gonna be so bad. Yeah, it's gonna suck a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Yeah, that first that first week was interesting. Um, I I had the idea to do a road construction report um, you know, the first day that it started because I just going through the community, I could feel the the tension, the the oh my gosh, you know, this is gonna be horrible. You know, so um that morning I I reached out to um the DOT, I reached out to the county. I mean, I I spent probably an hour and a half on the phone talking to people so that I had you know the correct information because the last there's nothing I hate worse than misinformation. Right. So I wanted to make sure I knew what I was talking about. And yeah, I just I just drove down the road and uh Hannah you know recorded me and we did the first uh road report and kind of explained what was going on. Um as I was being told it, I'm like, wow, this is really good information. So decided to share it. And then for that first week, I did a uh road construction report every day.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Well, to add to that, I'm thinking that you should maybe expand and do uh tornado watching, storm testing, something like that.

SPEAKER_02 25:57

I don't I don't have enough on my plate. You can do it though. Yeah, absolutely. Um so yeah, I've uh we've kind of gone down to one or two uh row construction reports a week now um because it it's it's staying pretty pretty static at this point. Um you know, any time that there's a big development like last week, uh 21 in front of uh our sales shop, you know, they they have um quite a bit of concrete ripped out of it. So it's kind of a slalom getting through there. It was so I did a little video on that. But yeah, it's it's just to keep not only the community informed, but to let the people know that drive through the community that we're still open for business.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

You know, well, you know, I guess I said it goes back to the the information, like even the police department didn't have the information because you remember when the construction first started, they had traffic stopped out here, and then it was like nobody can go on that road, the road's closed. And we're like, they didn't even know.

SPEAKER_03 26:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

You know, I was like, my God, so you came in there and I think you're kind of like the hero of the day.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Oh well, I don't know about that.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

No, I'm telling you, there was a lot of people who were like, I said they learned more in five minutes than they did, you know, the the months coming up to it. All the I mean that you see you you look at the DOT reports, go on the that 511 and check it out. You don't it doesn't tell you enough, it just says road coast.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

Yeah, yeah, and there's there's a lot of good information on 511, um, but they're they're writing the information and you're reading the information, you can go in a lot more detail when you're doing a video and talking about something. And I think that's um, you know, and and showing, you know, you know, we went down the road and uh was talking about things as we were coming up to it, like the streets that were closed, and you know, so you have not only the information, but you have a visual to go along with information, which I think helps a lot. Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

We'll go back to your shop. Now you're the diagnostics guy. So what do you see in the future for your shop? Because I basically I'm gonna call it your shop because you're down there by yourself and you do your own thing. Um, I don't know, you guys do the the auctions and I you you swapped out that motor and that tolleride, I think that was.

SPEAKER_03 28:13

Yeah, yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

I mean you found that challenging, didn't you? Or not? Because like I said, uh to me it looked like a bomb went off under the hood.

SPEAKER_04 28:21

No, I wasn't that wasn't bad at all. That was actually one of the better motor swaps I've ever done.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Well, that's what I'm saying though, but you make it sound like it's so easy, but to me, I'd be like, I Well, it's most cars come apart in similar fashions.

SPEAKER_04 28:36

Um, so like a front-wheel drive transmission, they all kind of come apart in a similar fashion. So it's the same, it's the same process, but in a different way, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

It does. But you know, I said I've never done that. I've never taken a motor out. I can remember my grandpa when I was a kid. Like I said, he was an old wrench turner back in the 60s and 70s, and uh him and my uncle come over and they would take a motor out and had an ice cream pail on the floor, and they would take all the bolts and nuts out of them, they throw them in an ice cream pail, and then they pull the motor, do whatever they're gonna do, and then they put it back in there and just get that bucket and put the put the motor back together. And I'm just like, how do you do that? You know, that's to me I found it amazing, but I guess I never had the the gumption to to do that, you know. I mean, I I learned how to do things, but I'm not a mechanic, you know, like you. You're like, you took that motor apart. I'm like, I don't think so. But I've never been fun to you know, maybe help out, maybe I want to learn something too.

SPEAKER_04 29:33

Yeah, yeah, I had fun doing it, but yeah, I usually don't usually I don't throw the bolts in a bucket. Like there's some jobs, like I've done quite a few three, five timing jobs where you could probably hand me one of those apart and I'd be able to put it back together. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um so certain jobs I could do that, but like that Kia that no, I would have if I didn't stay organized, I would have had a lot of time in the field.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Well, you know, I'm talking my grandpa worked on cars from the 60s and 70s, you know, and it was like nine volts to held the motor in, and you know, it was just a matter of all the yeah, yeah, three, eight bolts, and you had some of 16 bolts.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

That was about the end of it, you know. It still amazed me, you know, because if they get done, there was like no bolts left, or maybe one, you'd be like, eh, it would just go on. So, anyway, back to you know, like what do you want to see now? Do you want to see that get bigger, better, uh expand more?

SPEAKER_04 30:24

I don't think we could like add on to the building. Yeah, we could. Oh, we could. Um yeah, that would be. I mean, there's enough of a lot there to expand if we wanted to, but for what I do, it's pretty much perfect. It is um, because there's two lifts in there. So one I usually have a bigger job on, um, like either engine transmission, something bigger, and then the other one I just keep open for overflow from the express shop, your electrical stuff, or um, it's kind of the way I structure it, anyways, myself.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

Right. The nuts and bolts are easy. I mean, not easy, but you know, you you take something apart, you put something back together, it's mechanical. It's a whole lot easier than the diagnostic aspect. I think you should, you know, talk about CAN networks and you know the fact that all of these modules are communicating with each other, and on you know, knowing how to actually diagnose that aspect of it is is probably intriguing to a lot of people that don't have any idea how they work.

SPEAKER_04 31:28

Yeah, the the technology is really pretty cool. Um, so you got low speed, mid-speed, high speed networks. So can high or can network usually um they'll they'll they'll call the data lines different between manufacturers. Volvo is pretty goofy. Um they have like their own entire system, um, but it's still low speed, high speed, medium speed.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Um so you gotta kind of elaborate because when you say that, I don't know what you mean. So you're saying low speed, high speed, the the brain?

SPEAKER_04 31:58

Yeah, so like low speed, like on that Malibu, just for reference, that uses a low speed circuit to the instrument cluster. Okay, because it's like you turn the turn signal on, it needs to communicate to the instrument cluster to flash the light and then communicate to the BCM to activate the flashers. You know what I mean? Um it doesn't need to happen like that. Um whereas like the can high, can low, like if you ever been in a car with a front camera, yeah. Um that's can high and that's like very fast speed. Um that's like like for emergency braking, um it needs to know and be able to send the message right now, like faster than the human can even respond.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

So you're talking about like those cars that have like the camera that if you're gonna rear end a car, it'll literally stop the car for you. That's what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. So that thing is thinking 10 times 10 steps ahead of you, you know, breaking the car.

SPEAKER_04 32:51

Yeah, with with with a properly functioning system, yes. Right, right. Um, yeah, they medium speed is for things that don't have to happen as fast as high speed, but then low speed is for like that's um like you hit a switch in your dash.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Um okay. Now so now when you start talking, now you've explained it to me, so now let me help you can help me. So you're saying like if you have a car come in and it says my blinkers don't work, then you know it's not high speed. No, it's probably low speed or medium speed. So now you've already narrowed it down to two. Yeah, and then you can kind of do your research and go, well, that's a one-speed issue. Yeah. Is that how you do go about it?

SPEAKER_04 33:29

Yeah, yeah. 95% of the time it's not a communication issue. Um, the ones that are, those are fun. Um, but they all and yeah, it's important to know that because they all operate differently. Like um Lin buses will use 12 volts pulled to ground or ground pulled to 12 volts, it just depends on what manufacturer it is. Um, whereas can high, can low, it usually rests at 2.5 volts. Can high pulls up to two and a half, can low pulls down. Um and uh the I actually have a photo. I I'm sure I have several of them of CAN networks, but they literally mirror each other. Um like if you ever have a broken wire in a CAN circuit, you have to find where it's broken and fix it right there. You can't overlay a wire. If you overlay a wire and it's not the exact length, that same message that's supposed to mirror each other will be offset. And then you'll get is that finite. You have to be that precise. Yeah, yeah, with with network stuff. Yeah, it's it's very it's very finicky if it's not perfect, basically. Um even like when you fix them, you shouldn't solder them. I believe you should just use butt connectors and heat shrink butt connectors and fix them that way if there is an issue. Right. Um which I think in the five years we've been open, there's only two that I remember. Which there was one was a customer car. That was a funny story when I told him his car wouldn't start because there was a wire rubbed through above his rear differential that was taking the whole network down. Serious, yeah. He was I don't think he believed me at first because he was like, How does a wire in the rear end of the car that's rubbed through not make a car start? You know what I mean? Um, but so that took some explaining, educating, but that's just that was the objective fact.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

You know, well, and that's what I'm saying. The bat, you know, the garage mechanic nowadays, you know, I said break jobs, you know, do your home or whatever you're gonna do. But when it comes to like the internal workings of these cars, it's way out of the average person's league. Because I know you have some kind of a scanner tool, aren't you? That you plug in there and you could you're able to to read the the codes or you know, yeah, and the codes, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:35

So usually at step one is I scan for codes and that tells me a direction to go in. Um, and a lot of times there'll be an issue with the car and there will be no codes. Um, so it doesn't the scan tool isn't um like we have people come into the express shop and they say, I already diagnosed it, and what they did was they read a code and want us to replace a part, and we just we don't I don't we don't just put the part in the code.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

I'm not sure you're speaking of O'Reilly's because I said, you know, that scan tool is what we have. And that's you know, so we plug it in, it's gives you the best recommendation. And I even tell customers too, like just because it says this doesn't mean that's what's wrong with it. It's a start. Yeah. You know, if you want to try to fix it yourself, this is maybe a start. But again, you're gonna you're gonna throw a part at it, cross your fingers, and hope it works, you know.

SPEAKER_04 36:24

Yeah, and we've we've had several vehicles towed in from other shops. A lot of them is just a lack of training. I realize there's a big lack of training or a lack of understanding of electrical systems. Um, even speaking of that, last week there was that not brand new, but pretty new, like 2025 um Sierra. Um, and you would drive it for about 15 minutes and it would just die on the side of the road. Um, and I actually used the fuel pump control module, and I was talking to dad, I said that's probably what it is. Um, but this one worked different in the sense that it took DC voltage, converted it to AC voltage to run the fuel pump.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

Three three phase.

SPEAKER_04 37:02

Three-phase AC voltage.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Three phase AC voltage.

SPEAKER_04 37:04

So then that sparked a whole dad actually ended up looking at it and and diagnosing it, but after he was done, I ended up looking into it, and it's pretty cool how it works. It's basically you got three, um, I forget what they're called, but they're 120 degrees apart obviously. Three legs, if you will. Yeah, three legs 120 degrees apart, and it basically pulses the AC voltage to each one and it creates a magnetic field, and that's what actually spins the fuel pump.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_04 37:32

So it basically eliminates the need for brushes in a motor. When fuel pumps fail in normal cars, they'll typically um like usually the brushes, they have to make contact with it if it there's no contact, there's no electrical connection. You know what I mean? It can't run.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

But yeah, it's pretty pretty cool. Um so well, like I said, I I think your dad was saying that you had some high school kids that were thinking about coming down and like doing some apprenticeship work with you guys, or some wasn't that something you were talking about?

SPEAKER_02 38:06

Yeah, I think from them. Yeah, I I'd be interested in doing that. Um actually that's how Hannah um got in her position. She she did an apprenticeship um for marketing um through her school. Yeah. Um we hired her on because she was she started with a a realtor and you know things didn't quite jive there. So rather than you know, stop the apprenticeship, we brought her in.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

So I would be interested in and well, even if you just had some high school kids come in and just kind of give them the ropes, and and like I said, to me, I I mean, I literally didn't know anything that you're talking about until you explained it to me, and I'm intrigued. I really am. I'm kind of like, I never realized that. I honest to God, I'm just like, it'd be I'd be need to kind of I'm gonna go home and start doing some research, you know.

SPEAKER_04 38:56

Just uh yeah, it's pretty cool the engineering and the technology and in every car. Um, when when there's an issue, if you're not versed in it, like I said, it's like a language if you're fluent.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

Could that well could that possibly be like oh, you know, instead of like I said, doing break jobs and stuff, could there be a person that could be a tech and that's all they do is the kind of work you do?

SPEAKER_04 39:16

Is that something you could do? Yeah, there's actually, I see ads out all the time that shops are looking for a diagnostic decision.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

That's what I'm saying. So if you've got some young kid who is uh you know really into computers and stuff and say, uh you're just you're not gonna be turning your wrenches, you're gonna be doing computer diagnostics and stuff like that. They'd be like, it's a different world, you know.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Yeah, the interesting thing, and and that's one of the problems with the automotive industry, um, not so much at independent shops, but like dealerships. A lot of technicians absolutely love doing the diagnostic and figuring out the problems and and so forth. But the issue is most of the uh dealerships pay a flat rate. So, and how that works is the technician gets paid based on how many hours they bill. Well, with diagnostics, it's a lot of times diagnostics are underquoted or undersold. So, I mean you can have hours and hours into diagnosing a vehicle, and uh the customer might end up getting charged two hours or something along those lines. Um and it's usually the technicians that you know take the hit. I mean it's the shops also, but the technicians aren't getting the value for what they're putting in because you know the service advisor sold two hours of diagnostic and they've got six hours into figuring it out. They're getting paid for two hours and it's not a fair system. So when you become a diet tech in a dealership environment, it's almost it's almost a the better you get, the less you make in the dealership environment. Now, in an independent shop environment, most of the time um it's not as bad because either the technicians are paid hourly, so it's just you know you're you're getting paid to be there, not getting paid by the job by the job. Yeah. A lot of people think that you know you pull a code and it tells you what's wrong with the car. And there's some, I mean it gives you a direction to go in, but there isn't any scan tool anywhere that's gonna tell you exactly what's going on with it. Like Austin said, you know, sometimes cars don't even throw codes, and but they still have a problem, so you've got to figure it out. Um you know, there's the scanners that we have. I mean, we have three or four different scanners, um, and they all have different functionality where we can read live data, sensor data, um, and we have to know kind of what that sensor data is telling us, what it should be, and and kind of what it's what it's telling us.

SPEAKER_04 42:09

So um yeah, we have yeah, four different ones, autel, launch, and then a couple others, and they're all they're all better in different places than the other. So if there's a certain make, we'll use this certain scanner, or if there's a certain you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

But it kind of goes back to what Brandon was saying earlier, like you said you're looking for a code. What happens when you when it throws 12 codes? I mean, you must have that issue, like yeah, like you'll plug it in and there's 12 codes now. It didn't tell you enough, and now you got 12 problems. So yeah, I think that Malibu has like 22 in it. Yeah, so then what do you do?

SPEAKER_04 42:43

And then that's a matter of just eliminating and yeah, well, it's probably all the instrument cluster doesn't work, and when when uh so that instrument cluster is basically a module, it's got a computer inside of it. When that is offline, there's in that same daisy chain low speed network, there's 10 other modules that are looking for a message from the instrument cluster. None of them are seeing it, so then you get all these other modules throwing a code because it's not seeing this message, and then you get sympathy faults of safety systems being shut down because they're not seeing this message, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 43:18

Like um so the codes can be related to one problem.

SPEAKER_04 43:22

So that like those 22 codes are probably all linked to the same thing, but if you don't know what you're looking at, you could go down the wrong rabbit hole in any vehicle really quick. Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:33

Yep, absolutely. Yeah, that um Sierra is a you know perfect example that had a whole bunch of different, you know, 2023 GMC Sierra with a fuel pump uh power control module that was faulty, that would drop off of the network, the truck would shut down, and there were multiple codes in other um other control modules because that module pulled the network down. And created faults and everything else. So, you know, there's a process to eliminating those codes and so that you kind of know what your focus should be. Um, and that's just something that you have to just learn with time.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

Well, and it's kind of it's nice because you guys are like you've explained it really well, is that they're like, I guess the average Joe, and they they always think that you know, like the code reader will fix that problem. But there's a this is a a a big, it's big, it's huge. The the technical comp you know it's complicated, you know. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, you guys are able to kind of help people out with that, and it's it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

I mean Yeah, and there's a lot of shops that don't charge for diagnostics. Um, and my philosophy, and I I don't know for sure, but my philosophy is if they're not charging for diagnostics, they don't know how to do diagnostics.

unknown 44:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 44:52

You know, they're pretty wrong about they're putting a scan coat or a tool on there throwing parts of the car saying this is what's wrong with it.

SPEAKER_02 44:58

Yep, throwing parts of the car. Right. If you, you know, kind of some red flags or a piece of advice, if you go to a shop and they tell you we need to try this and see if it works and you know, move move on, that shop probably doesn't know what they're doing. I mean, we charge for diagnostics and we beforehand. I mean, we let the customers know, we tell them, you know, look at the issue. Um, typically we'll sell you know an hour to two hours of diagnostic time so the customer knows what they're you know what they're looking at as far as just to figure out what's going on with the car, you know, and then once it's diagnosed, then we can make an estimate for the repair. But that time that it takes to actually figure out what is wrong with the car um is worth something. I mean it's it's worth the knowledge and and so forth.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

Well, we're in the car, what does the average car cost nowadays? $50,000, $60,000, $70,000. Yeah, I mean, you yeah, you can so yeah, you want to save your baby, you better spend a little money to keep it running.

SPEAKER_02 46:06

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

I get it. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 46:08

Yeah, and and diagnostic equipment alone, we probably have $40,000, $50,000 invested. So, and that's yeah, I mean, like, like a good example is I mean, you can take it to a shop that doesn't know how to do electrical stuff, and they will compression test your your eight-cylinder truck in an hour and a half, two hours, and tell you, or if you drop it off by me, I can do a relative compression test using an amp clamp measuring the amps the starter is pulling and looking at the waveform, and I can tell you if you have a dead cylinder or not in about two minutes. I can do a whole compression test in about two minutes. And so it I I can tell you if you need to go down that road or not. Right.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

Yeah, it won't give you like the pressure readings, but you'll see amp spikes, you know, on the relative compression that will inform you if there is a problem. Um, you know, a significant problem.

SPEAKER_04 47:01

Like a good, like just to make it so to think of it like a sine wave, and it's a four-cylinder, you got one, two, three, four, healthy, but on one bad cylinder, you'll see one, two, three dropout, and then usually before that, this one will end up spiking higher, but you'll see one flashbody count one, two, three, four, one, two, and then from there, um, like at I don't you don't even have to go in and compression test each cylinder individually. You can actually set um like on cylinder one coil, you can hook up to the power feed from the computer when it pulses it, and then you'll have one, two, three, four, and then you'll see cylinder one, one will just have a spike on it, and that's how you know what cylinder one is. So I can literally tell you what cylinder is little compression in about two minutes. And then, like I've diagnosed burnt valves in ten minutes. Whereas before having the technology, it was compression test each cylinder, find the one that's wrong, and then leak down test it. So you know you'd have an hour and a four-cylinder doing that, whereas I can usually the only time I usually leak down test anything is if it's not obvious, and most of the time it's piston rings. Um using a boroscope or anything.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

Yeah. In in the automotive industry, um, and I think from a customer perspective, a lot of customers don't understand the diagnostic aspect of it and don't understand what's involved. I mean typically Austin is going to be able to figure out an issue within a couple hours. I mean, there's not very many and lot as long as it's not an intermittent issue. Intermittent issues are the worst. Um, you know, if you've got an intermittent parasitic draw where it happens for 10 seconds out of you know four different days and it's just super hard to find it, and you can spend hours and hours and hours trying to figure that out.

SPEAKER_04 49:00

Um well, more so waiting for it to happen, I guess that's that's where you have the hours and hours is you're just waiting.

SPEAKER_02 49:07

Waiting, waiting for it to happen and then being able to have enough time to actually diagnose what the problem is because sometimes you know it's got a paragraph parasitic draw for uh you know a couple minutes and then it's gone. And then you gotta wait until the next time that it does it again, you know.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

So it's you're chasing your tail.

SPEAKER_02 49:25

Yeah, and we you know we do a very good job of interviewing the customer. Um, you know, the the GMC Sierra is a perfect example. We called them and said, okay, tell me exactly what happened, you know. And they said that they were driving umro to Berlin. It shut off in Berlin. Then they drove um from outskirts of Berlin to Taco Bell and it shut off again. And it gave me kind of a pattern, a timeline. So I duplicated that, not to Berlin, but OMRO took it for you know a six, eight-mile test drive, it shut off on me. Um, I was able to duplicate it. So, you know, the more honest you are with your mechanic, the easier it's gonna be and the cheaper it's gonna be to repair the car. Customers sometimes want to hide things because they don't, you know, they think maybe they did something wrong or or they think it's gonna cost more money if they're being you know truthful. And most of the time it's gonna cost them more money if they're not being honest with what's going on with the car. If they're if you're able to tell us exactly what's going on, our job isn't to judge, our job is to fix. So all we want to do is you know find out what's going on with it and and fix it. And if you if you go to a shop that has the diagnostic capability and are charging you know a proper diagnostic fee, it is almost always going to be cheaper than a shop that says, let's try this part.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

It's almost kind of like you have to think opposite of what you're you're you're really thinking at all. Like you're saying, spend the money on the diagnostics to get it done right instead of being cheap.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

Yep. You know, test, don't guess. Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the other thing also is um there are a lot of really poor quality parts out there now. And uh I can't count how many hundreds of Amazon parts that customers have put on their car and then bring it to us because the it didn't change anything. And with our diagnostic capability, we're able to pinpoint that that brand new part that they just got from Amazon or eBay or wherever is the problem. You know, and it well, it can't be the problem, I just replaced it. Well, yeah, yeah. The the the parts that are out there nowadays are just they're you really gotta be making sure that you're getting good reputable parts. And it almost never happens off of Amazon, unless you can find a brand name part, but you gotta be careful there too. Uh eBay and Amazon are riddled with counterfeit parts.

unknown 52:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:10

Yeah, counterfeit that are like they look exactly like an OEM GM part or Ford or but they're just some knockoff with a Ford logo stamped on it.

SPEAKER_00 52:20

Yeah, I hear that a lot from just uh customers themselves. They'll they'll they'll call up and they'll want to get a part and they'll say, Oh, I can get it cheaper on, you know, Rock Auto or Amazon. It's like only $80 compared to your $250. Like, getting what you pay for, dude. Yeah, what do you want me to tell you, you know? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:37

And that's why you know we don't typically even I mean we we won't take outside parts anymore. Um, you know, we used to, we would, you know, customer wants to bring in their parts and we would install them. We we won't even do that anymore because at the end of the day, we have to s stand behind the repair work. You know, whether you provide the part or not, because if you provide the part and we put it in and it doesn't fix the problem, you're mad at us because we must have done something wrong because it was a brand new part, it didn't fix the problem. You know, um the other issue is a lot of times customers will buy the wrong part, and then you've got a car that's tore apart on the rack that maybe you can put back together, but then I've got to charge you twice to do the same job because I gotta put it back together so that you can you know drive it away until the new part comes and then bring it back and do it all over again.

SPEAKER_04 53:33

It's just you know 98% of the issues we've had with customers in the auto repair world has been because of their own parts. Yeah, so we just completely eliminated it, and that literally 98% of all issues were related to that.

SPEAKER_00 53:49

Customers bring in the wrong parts.

SPEAKER_04 53:52

Well, wrong parts are just the cheapest thing they can find on Amazon, and sometimes you put it in, it'll work for a week, other times it's immediately it doesn't work, and well yeah, that Land Rover is a perfect example of that. Yeah, that Land Rover. He got uh um basically the shifter was bad inside of it. He wanted to bring in his own part when he uh basically we put it in, he ordered it from somewhere, and it lasted a week. And he he wasn't mad at us, he understood, and I told him beforehand that if we put this in, it's no warranty on us, anyways. Um but so then I ordered the part and I just told him that we just weren't doing it anymore. Um, so I've been telling people that across the board. But yeah, I was a Land Rover, and there was um it's a gear shift module, it's called that failed, and then the brand new one failed also. And the thing that sucks on that one was he had a windshield leak and it would run down the inside of his windshield and go down into the dash. So he was thinking it was a goofy electrical thing, but I had diagnosed it beforehand, there was no electrical issue. So I did it again for him and said there's no electrical issue, it's literally just a failed part. And then yeah, he he did ask, so if we get another one that will fix it, I said, Yes, the one that you got is junk.

SPEAKER_00 55:09

So everybody's been receptive of it. Yeah, absolutely. You have to have your customers, you know, no pattern storming out kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 55:16

No, when we when we explain it to the people, most people understand there are some that you know are just looking for the cheapest option. And I I respect that. If if you can find somebody to install it, absolutely, you know, by all means try and go that route. I don't think it's gonna be a great route for you to go on, but I'm not gonna tell you, you know, I'm not gonna tell you not to. Um it's just it's not something that we do, and you know, we're we're okay if you want to take your part someplace else.

SPEAKER_00 55:50

Yeah. Well, let's wrap this thing up.

SPEAKER_02 55:52

Yeah. Well, I appreciate you taking a lot of work.

SPEAKER_00 55:55

Well, I want to thank you for having me do this because like I was telling my daughter, Samantha, I have to mention her name. Yep. I'll be living in the interwet or internet world forever. Yep. This will be out there. So I'm like, wow, that's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01 56:09

What what do they say? Once it's on the internet, it's always on the internet. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

So this is my 15 minutes of fame.

SPEAKER_01 56:15

Yeah, absolutely. You did a phenomenal job. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

You know, you know, and like I said, I know how this all started. It was I was kind of I brought it up to you jokingly. I was kind of like, well, you're doing all these interviews, why don't you uh let me interview you? And he's like, would you? And I was like, heck yeah, why not? So I'm glad. Thank you for doing it, and let me do it. It was it was an honor.

SPEAKER_02 56:34

All right, thanks, Julian. Yeah.