Transmission Repair

You make me laugh. There are a lot of people in our industry that aren't much on reading. They are more visual and hands-on when it comes to new information so don't feel alone. Actually, all of my employees weren't much at reading. When transmissions became computerized they couldn't "see" things that were wrong like a sensor, pressure switch, or solenoid. Proper diagnosis could only be learned by reading. I was the only guy that liked to read so all of those "transmission electrical problems" fell into my lap. I was the guy that had to not only diagnose the problems but fix it as well. I'm certainly glad I'm not in the business anymore because transmission electrical problems have only grown.

Few people talk about retirement because it's so personal. Everybody is different. I personally know 2 different local shop owners still working in their respective businesses and they are both in their 80s. I'm 68 and could never even dream about running a shop in my 80s. Maybe they both like to work. Maybe they can't afford to retire. No matter the reason, I'm glad I'm not in their shoes. I've been retired since 2020 and retirement is not what I had envisioned. I feel like it's a major victory that my wife and I can live our pre-retirement lifestyle during our retirement years. While on the surface it looks good, I find myself gaining weight due to my low activity level. I was at the doctor's office yesterday and I couldn't believe my weight is up to 271!!! Wow, that's a 70-pound weight gain for me; I'm 6'0" tall. I always envisioned retirement as pretty much doing what I wanted, including doing nothing. However, I find myself missing the daily routine of having to be to work by 8:00 am and working until 6:00 pm. That completely blindsided me. I didn't know being unproductive would be such a detriment to my health. While I do enjoy writing, it's not everything. My sister suggested that I write a book, more like an autobiography. I don't think anybody would read it. From the outside looking in, my life has been pretty boring and nobody is going to read a boring book. During my first year of retirement, I drank a lot of beer. However, that was short-lived. One of the few things positive that has happened in my retirement today is that I consume much less beer. I used to really enjoy beer, but not so much nowadays. If I had to give a piece of advice to someone contemplating retirement is that everyone should have a hobby or part-time job to keep themselves busy. There are only so many "honey-dos" a guy can do. My wife keeps herself busy with a couple of hobbies. She sews quilts and blankets, plus works jigsaw puzzles in between. Not to mention cooking and cleaning. As comparatively more active than myself, even she's putting on a few pounds, too. Taking my own advice, I need to find a hobby or part-time job to keep me busy. I have no idea of either. Stay tuned, I'll keep you posted.

I just read an interesting article in Motor and wanted to share it with the group. According to the Motor survey of drivers, 64% of those drivers are putting off necessary car maintenance. There's a lot more information in the article itself. Motor Drivers Survey

A while back, I posted a letter I wrote to a bad apple we once had. About 3 weeks after giving him the letter, I had to let him go because I saw no improvement. One of the best things I ever did.

I just read this really great article in Ratchet & Wrench magazine and thought I should share it. https://www.ratchetandwrench.com/running-a-shop/article/11463898/how-to-build-the-3m-shop

I never labeled the company vehicles. By the time I started free rent cars, magnetic signs had already fallen out of popularity. The first and last rent car all had custom vinyl letters. Magnetic signs went by the way of the flashing arrow signs. 🙂

No wrap, but vinyl lettering on both sides.

Wow! That's great! You mentioned "free loaner," so nonchalantly, I took it to mean you just got started with free rental cars. I labeled our program "free Rent-A-Car" because it sounds much more upscale. "Free loners" doesn't give the same connotation as "free Rent-A-Car" does. TWO QUESTIONS: Are your cars wrapped or have the name of your shop advertising on them? Why or why not?

Anything I say concerning this topic is basically irrelevant because I haven't had any employees since 2015 and my subsequent retirement. However, I did just read a killer article from Ratchet & Wrench magazine... http://ratchetandwrench.com/shop-life/shop-profiles/article/33003329/write-job-ads-that-excite-techs

Well... I'm not a fan of the 4-day work week or being open on Saturdays. I have to put being closed on Saturdays in the proper context. I had a VPN tunnel between my home and the shop with WAN modems on each end. There was nothing that required me to be at the shop. Everything on my home machine was a mirror of my shop machine. The same goes for my phone at my home. I could make and receive phone calls at home and the caller didn't know I wasn't at the shop. In a nutshell, my home office machine was a mere extension of my shop machine. I didn't have to go to the shop to take care of some perceived business need. Perhaps a graphic, like the one below, would make it a little bit easier to grasp the concept and understand... I could take on new jobs on any weekend. If they needed to bring their vehicle in for something that couldn't wait, I would have the customer bring in their vehicle and use our key drop box to leave us the key(s). Setting this up was relatively cheap and had no monthly charges to maintain.

Labeling a company vehicle as a loaner will come back to haunt you; the question is not if something bad will happen, but when. Have a written Vehicle Rental contract the customer signs, even if's free. The customer's insurance is primary. The customer is responsible for gas. The customer is responsible for any body or paint damage. The customer is 25 or older. I used one of the contracts from the website shown below.

https://www.ratchetandwrench.com/shop-life/shop-profiles/article/33003329/write-job-ads-that-excite-techs

I don't like QuickBooks Online either. I call QuickBooks Online "QB Lite." Desktop Pro is the only way to go.

You sound like a body man. $100 bucks and you're done.

Well, I admire you for owning your own real estate. That's going to be your retirement. Conversely, we didn't own our own real estate until 35 years of business. I wish you well in finding out how to use QB and QB Payroll without a subscription. Have you purchased a new car that requires a subscription to have all the "extra" bells and whistles work? Good luck on that one, too.

Software companies learned early on that the "old school" business model of software sales, like you grew up on, wasn't a sustainable business model. Many software companies moved their app to "the cloud," where they could better manage a more sustainable business model. In the dot-com boom and then bust of 2000 were largely driven by software companies that didn't have a sustainable business model. Try to wrap your head around the idea that the software subscription model is just another cost of doing business, like uniforms, shop rags, rent, and other fixed costs.

If you think QuickBooks is expensive, check out Intuit's Pro Series at $2,100/yr. Before my wife retired, she was an accountant and tax preparer with about 60-70 clients. Intuit's Pro Series is made for accountants, tax preparers, and CPAs. She thought the high cost of Pro Series was just a cost of doing business. We need to think the same way about QB.

There are numerous reasons they all export to QuickBooks.

There's a reason the other programs "dump" into QuickBooks. In most shop programs you can "under-report" income. With QB you can't. If you fully report income, there's no reason to look for another program than QB. I'm just sayin'.

You're not "stuck" with QB. It is by far the best program around. Cheaper, too if you compare it to other SMSs. I'm not trying to be a rah-rah QB fan. It's simply the best in my opinion. I have run my business strictly on QB since around 2000-2001. Wait until you design estimates, RO forms, and reports. It's fun stuff. Or at least it's fun to me. I can pull up stuff by VIN, plate, or even phone number. QuickBooks is written in C++ and uses a Sybase back end. It's not as complicated as it seems, especially for a 68-year-old dumb person like me. 🙂

Here's a good example of a shop owner biting their tongue. The most exasperated I ever got with an employee was when my tech forgot he was driving a stick shift into one of our bays. "How can somebody forget that?" you may ask. The really bad part was the customer was about to go to a family reunion and this was the only vehicle they had access to with a 5th wheel setup in the bed of the truck. Assuming it was an automatic transmission vehicle, my tech merely depressed the brake to stop forward movement. This was a 3/4-ton Dodge Ram diesel...not a chance. The clutch tore right through the brake holding power and kept going forward. It was only after the vehicle almost knocked another car off the lift did the tech think, "Oh, shit, this isn't an automatic" and depressed the clutch pedal. Heck of a time to suddenly realize you have a clutch pedal. They say a picture is worth a thousand words... here's a video worth a million words. The customer missed the family reunion and goes, "I don't like hanging around those people anyway." https://youtu.be/uavCR9f5QME

Yeah, "quiet quitting" may be the newest catchphrase, but I have to admit the behavior hasn't changed. Reminds me of a former employee named "Mario" that I once had. I wrote a warning letter to him that basically said I'm keeping an eye on him. The final straw was when one of my other employees mistakenly filled a recirculating parts washer with hexane (bulk brakleen) instead of Stoddard solvent. I would buy both by the drum and the employee merely got them confused. Lo and behold, hexane is extremely flammable and that's exactly what happened. The parts washer caught on fire with 20' high flames. I thought Mario was running to get a fire extinguisher but instead, he went to grab his phone so he could take pictures/video of the calamity. After the fire, I fired Mario and he's been unemployed ever since. Nobody will hire him.

I have probably invested around $500-$600 in eye exams and glasses for my employees. It is really a thinking error to believe that 20/20 eagle vision is not needed in this line of work. More recently, I had my hearing tested and invested in hearing aids. If glasses make you think you're old, hearing aids make you think you're about to kick the bucket. About 6 months ago the FDA approved Over-The-Counter hearing aids. The days of spending thousands on hearing tests and hearing aids are long gone. I paid $350 for my current, high-quality, 8-band hearing aids. I paid $25 for the hearing test that gave me a direction for adjusting each of the 8 bands in the hearing aids. For less than $400, it was money well-spent.

When we were young, we had 20/20 vision. Somewhere around the age of 40, our vision unknowingly began to deteriorate. It’s such a subtle change it goes on with little to no obvious signs. Just the thought of wearing glasses is very uncomfortable to me. It makes me think I’m getting old. Not everyone can afford an eye exam and glasses, either. I’ve been wearing glasses for the last 27 years. I’ve noticed a gradual decline in my eyesight for those 27 years because every year, a new prescription gets a little bit stronger. But that’s OK because I still have 20/20 vision with my glasses. Without them, my eyesight is really poor. I once had a middle-aged builder who would miss little things like bad bushings, thrust washers, and ring lands. It finally dawned on me one day that I never saw this middle-aged builder with glasses. He had none. One day I offered to take him to Costco for their $1.50 hot dog and a drink. My ulterior motive was to get his eyes examined and get him fitted for glasses. It worked. He already knew his eyesight was poor yet chose to do nothing about it. Here I was footing the bill. For a mere $125, he got his eyes examined and a new pair of glasses. The best investment a shop owner could invest in… their staff. The moral of the story is to have any employee 40 or older get their eyes examined. It doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. You’ll also have fewer warranty jobs as a result.

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