The Institute’s Leading Edge Podcast

The Leading Edge is a show dedicated to providing Automotive Service and Repair Shop Owners a one-on-one with The Institute‘s experienced consultants. Ask us questions regarding any aspect of your business and we‘ll answer it during the show!

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institutesleadingedgepodcast hosts The Institute’s Leading Edge Podcast, a business show with 99 episodes published.

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  Episode #215

  215 - Ask Me Anything: Car Count vs. Profit - Why More Cars Doesn't Always Mean More Profit

  Aug 6, 202655 minS2

  215 - Ask Me Anything: Car Count vs. Profit - Why More Cars Doesn't Always Mean More Profit August 5, 2026 - 00:53:54 Show Summary: Higher car count does not always create higher profit. Excess volume can lower repair order averages and increase mistakes while exhausting the team. Strong financial data helps owners find the right workload for their business model. Shops should improve margins and workflow before investing in more marketing or staff. Host(s): Lucas Underwood, Shop Owner of L&N Performance Auto Repair and Changing the Industry Podcast Cecil Bullard, Founder of The Institute Show Highlights: [00:01:00] – Higher repair orders can create less stress and a better client experience. [00:04:00] – Strong sales mean little when the business still loses money. [00:09:00] – Last minute work can disrupt promises and increase costly mistakes. [00:15:00] – Excess car count often lowers sales and employee satisfaction. [00:18:00] – Every shop must find the workload that supports its model. [00:20:00] – Clean financial data helps owners make sound business decisions. [00:22:00] – Fix weak margins before spending money to attract more clients. [00:28:00] – A thoughtful response can protect workflow without rejecting the customer. [00:42:00] – Adding technicians without strong processes can create greater chaos. [00:49:00] – Clear goals and accountability help employees understand how to succeed. In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry? Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode. Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/7M70n_DfTDg Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this! Links & Resources: Want to learn more? Click Here Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here See The Institute's events list: Click Here Want access to our online classes? Click Here ________________________________________ Episode Transcript Disclaimer This transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com . Episode Transcript: Ask Me Anything Car Count vs. Profit - Why More Cars Doesn't Always Mean More Profit Lucas Underwood: What is up, everybody? Hey, y'all. It's Lucas Underwood from the Changing the Industry podcast and L&M Performance here in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. I am joined today by the one, the only, Mr. Cecil Bullard. We're gonna be talking about car count versus profit. Cecil, how are you today, buddy? Cecil Bullard: I'm doing fantastic as usual, Lucas. Lucas Underwood: Very good. Very good. So Cecil, one of the, one of the things I'll never forget, I taught a class at a industry event one time, and I had been in another class where the person was talking about do whatever it takes to get them in the door, and they'd been in a shop, and they were in their own shop, and the, the advisor had turned down a car at 4:00 in the afternoon that came in for a coupon oil change and wanted to wait. And so she chased the person back out into the parking lot and said, "No, no, no, no, no, we'll get you in. We'll make it work. I'm gonna pull a technician off something else. I'm gonna put them on this," and fired an advisor over it. And I've, I'd been in that class, and I'm talking about that in this training, and that person was sitting in the back of the class and I didn't see Cecil Bullard: him. Yeah. Lucas Underwood: And, and the thing that I said about it was this, is I said, "Listen, one of the most impactful things that I've ever experienced was being on the other side of an experience like that as an advisor, as a technician, what it feels like to feel that kind of pressure and why we shouldn't do that to our people And so I know there's been a massive movement, movement in the industry that's pushing people to say yes to every car that comes in the door. Doesn't matter what it is, just more cars, more cars, more cars, more cars. And I have had a very, very different experience than that. I am someone who has experienced a higher ARO with less stress and less pressure on our people, a better experience for the client, and I have found that that works best for me. And I'm not saying it works best for every organization, but I wanted to dig in with you and talk a little bit about this. Are you a say yes to every car man, or are you a balanced car count and balanced ARO man? Help me understand. Cecil Bullard: I think there's a, I think there's both, frankly. Um- Okay ... it, it has to make common sense, and I think you're really talking about two different things. So first of all- Yeah ... you know, before you fire someone for not doing what you want, does the person really understand what you want, right? Yeah. I mean, is that, is that well defined? Did the guy know that no matter what, I have to bring that car in? Uh, you know, so at 4:00, your service advisor made a decision. He'd made promises to other customers that they would have their cars. Yeah. And instead, now you're jumping in the middle of that and you're saying, "Well, I'm gonna fire this guy because he turned down a, a discount oil change or whatever." Yeah. Maybe a dis- and it- maybe a dis- you know, the guys, the discount oil change guys would say, "Well, yeah, but we do discount oil changes 'cause it leads to other sales." Lucas Underwood: Right. Cecil Bullard: But so that's one thing, you know? I- I- is the person who works at your counter... Um, I, I was in, uh, North Carolina. You saw me last week. I was on the road- Yeah ... for four da- after one of my meetings, and this happens a lot, one of the kids came up, young guy, uh, looked like he was about 14, but he was probably in his 20s, and he's like, "I'm a third generation. My dad runs the shop, but, but you know, my dad, he's getting in the middle of everything. It's really hard." And, and, uh, I, I always say you work for someone, they write you a check- You have to make a decision about what you're willing to put up with or not put up with, right? For sure. As an, as an employee, right? Lucas Underwood: Yep. Cecil Bullard: And so when you decide that I, I wanna work here and I wanna take the check, i- in a way you also decide I'm gonna follow the rules of the company, whatever those are. Yeah. Whether Cecil agrees with them or Lucas agrees with them or, or whatever. None of that really matters. What matters is that the person that's writing you a check is, is basically saying, "This is how I wanna do it," right? Lucas Underwood: Right. Cecil Bullard: And, you know, behind the scenes, we can have all the arguments we want. We can sit down and go, "I don't think that's correct." Um, a- a- but until the owner changes their mind about how we do this, then you gotta do- That's how business Lucas Underwood: runs ... Cecil Bullard: you gotta do how, what the owner wants. And so if that employee got terminated legitimately because- Yeah he knew better, then I'm, I'm fine with that. I, I, I think we have a craziness in our industry. I think we've all lost our minds because You know, you, you look at car count, car count. I mean, that's everybody's... That's like the mantra, right? More cars, more cars. I'll make money if I have more cars. Yeah. Well, that's, that's not necessarily true. It's never been true, frankly. Lucas Underwood: Right. Cecil Bullard: Right. You know, we have these shops. I mean, I can't tell you how many times, you know, having done seminars in the industry for well over 20 years and, and, and worked with automotive- thousands of automotive shops, we have these shops that come in, they're doing $2 million a year worth of business and losing money. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And, and so... And we also have shops, frankly, that are doing, you know, uh, 700,000 and losing money, and, and I'm pretty sure there's shops out there doing 10 million and losing money. Yeah. Uh, there's a balance and there's a way to run your business that is successful, right? Yep. Lucas Underwood: Absolutely. 100%. So- And, and look, h- I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a play directly from the Cecil Bullard playbook, okay? Hey- I'm gonna pull the play straight out of the playbook because you said something that I think we need to address right here and right now, okay? We Cecil Bullard: lost our minds in our industry? Lucas Underwood: Well, I mean, you would've had to have had one to have lost it, okay? You have to have something to lose it. So, I, the industry in that sense, we're in trouble. But, you know, th- this brings up something that's completely off-topic and, and I'm just gonna ask you what you think about it. There's all these technicians who are really upset right now, right? They're, they're very disgruntled, and it's primarily in the dealership space, right? You know I make these videos and they come out- Yeah every single Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Yeah. And these videos come out, and all these dealership guys get so upset and so mad because they think that I'm talking about the dealership space. And I keep saying to them, like, you set the terms for what you're willing to accept in that, that job, in that role as an employee, and if you don't like the job, for God's sakes, leave. Cecil Bullard: Yeah, there's- And if Lucas Underwood: everybody leaves- Cecil Bullard: There's so many... There, I mean, you know, I, I think if you got a thousand shop owners in a room and you said, "How many of you need a good technician in your shop?" You know, 999 hands would go up, right? Yeah. Um, the, the... And, and yet we have these techs that are so miserable in their lives, in their sh- in the shop that they're at, and the, bec- the owner doesn't pay me, doesn't appreciate me, doesn't whatever, or she doesn't- Yeah or whatever. Okay, Lucas Underwood: cool. Why Cecil Bullard: are you there? Go somewhere else. Right. I mean, holy, holy crap. Um, yeah. I'm with you, man. I mean- I am like, uh... And I was t- I talk about the level of incompetence you're willing to accept. I, I do that- Yeah ... with owners because, you know, nobody's gonna be Cecil, right? Yeah. And by the way, in Cecil's head, in my brain, I think I do it right all the time. Right. Yeah. I mean, there's a piece of me that knows that's not true, right? But we're all a little- Sure ... insane in some ways, and we think that, you know, we, we know how to do things, and we think that our way is the right way. And, and, but as an owner, I'm gonna work twice as hard as pretty much anybody else, you know? Yeah. If it... I, I was talking to one of our, um, our marketing people. I, I used to print our workbooks, and I used to write our workbooks, and I used to edit our workbooks. Yeah. And, excuse me. I don't, I don't do that now, but I was, I was talking to her and I said, "You know, I used to be here at 2:00 in the morning-" Lucas Underwood: Yeah Cecil Bullard: printing workbooks because I had a class the next day that I needed the workbooks for- Uh ... and putting them together. 100%. And now I'm really glad I don't have to do that. Lucas Underwood: But- We, you know, we got a, we got a review the other day b- at the family business, and it said, "The owner was in there serving food." And I wanted to reply and say, "Yeah, because, like, I gotta do whatever I gotta do." 'Cause Cecil Bullard: everybody quit, and, and I'm in trouble, and I c- I'm the only one. Otherwise, I wouldn't be there. Lucas Underwood: Right. I've gotta do what I gotta do, right? Yeah. Like, this is how we're gonna survive. And, and I, uh... What is it that old Dutch always says? Like, "I'm paying for the blessings of tomorrow with the sacrifices of today." Of today. Whatever it takes. But Cecil Bullard: we a- you know, a- and so you, you create the level of incompetence. And I would say from an owner's point or a manager's point, you say, "Okay, in that position, I'm willing to accept 3% warranty," right? Yeah. So I've got a tech, I'm willing to accept 35 hours a week as a, okay, that's, like, you, you, you hit 35, you're, you're still in my good graces. You- Lucas Underwood: Right ... Cecil Bullard: you only have 3% warranty, you're still in my good graces. But, but also employees have to do the same thing. I mean, you have to decide, what am I willing to put up with? Am I willing to put up with- Yeah ... crappy pay? Well, if you do, and you take the check, and you keep taking the check- Lucas Underwood: Ain't Cecil Bullard: nothing gonna change then shut up. Right? Right. I mean, stop bitching about it. And we're, we're a, an interesting industry. Like you said, maybe we never had a mind, but- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: you know, we, we, we constantly eat our tails, you know? Yeah. We constantly bitch and bitch and bitch, and, and we don't W- I don't even think we fully understand. So, you know, I'm pretty sure if, um, if, uh, uh, Aaron Stokes was still alive and, and we had Aaron on this, Aaron would be saying, "Yeah, you say yes, and you say yes because of this, this, and this," right? Yeah. Because that was w- that's one of their philosophies, was that yes philosophy. And on the same time, I would be saying Yeah, but sometimes you gotta say no. Yeah. Because you've already made promises to other customers because you're pulling a guy off of a $5,000 job that he could finish up- Lucas Underwood: For a $29 Cecil Bullard: oil change ... and you're gonna have him do a, an oil change where you're gonna lose $35. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And then he's gotta come back to the $5,000 job, and he's gotta get his head back in the game. So now you've increased the odds of, of mistakes happening, comebacks, et cetera. And so I think there's a point where you say to the customer, "Look, you know, we, we would love to do that oil change for you, absolutely. Only I can't do it tonight, right now, because my techs are all tied up on other jobs, and we've made promises to customers." Absolutely. "And I'm pretty sure if you were one of those customers who I made a promise to, you would not want me pulling the tech off of your car to do someone else's- To, to do that ... service or whatever it is, right?" I, I think- And it's not even about a $29 oil change. If it was a $300 oil change, I still wouldn't pull my guy off of a $5,000 job- Yeah at 4:00 to do that oil change. Lucas Underwood: I, I think it's easy, right? Like, so, so my vision of leadership is, is my job is to create a awesome environment for my internal customers, my employees. Right. And, and currently I'm not in the shop that much, so it is my managers' job to create an amazing experience for them, and then they in turn create an amazing experience. The desired outcome is a safely and properly repaired automobile for our consumer that is safe and reliable for them and their families. Or that, that's what we're trying to accomplish, and we have the guardrails which say, "Here is the, the metrics of profitability that we expect, and so you guys stay within these guardrails. Here's where you're going. This is the roadmap. This is what we want." You saw the roadmap. Well- I've, I've got it on the whiteboard, right? Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And so- And you're also not, you're not setting yourself up for success here, right? I'm, I'm bringing a, a $29 oil change. So I'm working with, uh, big old tire guys, uh, not, not the big company, but a guy who owns three locations. Yeah. And we're doing free tire rotations and free brake inspections. Yeah. We're doing hundreds of them. You know what we're selling? Probably Lucas Underwood: nothing. Nothing, Cecil Bullard: right? Lucas Underwood: Right. Cecil Bullard: Because we're so busy doing the tire rotations and brake inspections, we forget to look at the car. We don't have time to get to the Lucas Underwood: actual work Cecil Bullard: that they could approve. We, we forget to estimate the work and, and we don't have time to have a conversation with the customer. Yeah. And so I'm, I'm literally going... I said, "Why, why do you guys do free brake, uh, you know, inspections, free tire rotations?" Yeah. He said, "So we can look at the car." Well, you forgot that- Does it matter if you're not getting the end of it? somewhere along the... Yeah. So now I'm gonna bring this, this oil change in, and we'll get to that question in just a second, but I, I just have to make the point. I'm gonna bring this guy in at 4:00. It's a waiter, you know? Yeah. Uh, we're gonna service the car, and if I have a good technician do a good inspection, we're 35, 45, 50 minutes in. So now we're pushing 5:00 Then we will find stuff on this car that needs to be talked about. Customer may not buy it, but it needs to be talked about. The whole reason I'm doing the cheap oil change is to get the guy in so I can look at the car and try to sell him the things that he really needs, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Except now it's close to 5:00. Is that customer gonna sit for another 15, 20 minutes while- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: my service advisor estimates the work, and then is he gonna sit for another 15 or 20 minutes with my service advisor after that to discuss what he needs- In- ... so that he can make a good decision? Lucas Underwood: In this instance, the, the, their theory was is like just, just find one thing wrong with the car that will make them leave it, and then do an inspection and provide the inspection later. I didn't feel like that was very kosher. Cecil Bullard: It's not my, it's not the way that I would- Lucas Underwood: No, I didn't feel like Cecil Bullard: it ... I would approach it. And it's certainly, it's certainly not the way that I would teach. I don't wanna have three phone calls with you, right? Yeah. Or three meetings. I don't wanna find one thing and say, "Oh my God, your, y- you know, your oil leak is coming out of the, the whatever timing cover so badly, we've gotta do your timing cover, and it's gonna cost X, Y, Z." And you go, "Okay, you know, I've seen the leaks. Do it." Yeah. And then you leave And then I go, "Oh, and now we've had time to check the car over, so here's another $5,000 worth of crap." Right. I don't wanna have that. I wanna have one conversation. I don't wanna have three or two, right? Right. I may have two because when we get in the middle of stuff, uh- Yeah we may find something- My vein's gonna have to- ... that are related that, that we can't see at that point in time with a basic inspection. But I certainly don't wanna have three conversations. And- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: and I think you're, um... Everything is i- with a client is about how does that client feel about us, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And that experience with us. And, and so by telling him yes, I made him feel good, okay? So yeah. Tell him, any, anytime you tell someone, "No, I, I really can't do that," if that's all you say, you're in trouble, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Or no. Uh, nobody wants to hear no, right? Yeah. "Oh, my gosh, I would love to do that for you right now, but unfortunately there's just not enough time, and if we did it right now, we wouldn't do you a justice. We wouldn't be able to-" Yeah "... inspect the car. We wouldn't be able to tell you about what's going on with the car. You would not have the information you need to make intelligent decisions, and my whole job is making sure that you have the information you need to make the right decisions about Lucas Underwood: your car." Is advising you, being your advoc

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  Episode #214

  The Future of Shop Training: Why Gear Group Acquired Today's Class

  Aug 6, 202647 minS2

  214 - The Future of Shop Training: Why Gear Group Acquired Today's Class July 29, 2026 - 00:47:05 Show Summary: Gear Group Holdings acquired Today’s Class to create a stronger training experience for automotive shops. The platform delivers personalized lessons in just a few minutes each day. Continuous reinforcement improves retention and reveals hidden skill gaps. Shops can develop stronger teams while improving productivity and customer satisfaction. Future updates will expand content and use AI to make training more effective. Host(s): Wayne Marshall, CEO & Industry Coach Guest(s): David Boyes, Founder of Today's Class Show Highlights: [00:03:14] – Daily reinforcement helps employees retain and apply new knowledge. [00:05:38] – Personalized training adapts to each employee and role. [00:09:35] – Shared learning builds motivation and stronger team chemistry. [00:13:12] – Shops need one clear path for complete employee development. [00:18:35] – Investing in training helps shops attract skilled technicians. [00:20:33] – Better training improves efficiency and reduces costly comebacks. [00:24:03] – Training data reveals skill gaps that experience may hide. [00:27:42] – Employee development creates a stronger workplace and business. [00:31:03] – Shop owners must learn business processes and financial performance. [00:39:21] – Working interviews confirm whether technicians can apply their knowledge. In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry? Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode. Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/16mXEg1aOZI Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this! Links & Resources: Want to learn more? Click Here Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here See The Institute's events list: Click Here Want access to our online classes? Click Here ________________________________________ Episode Transcript Disclaimer This transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com . Episode Transcript: Wayne Marshall: Say hello to today, to everybody that's joined us for Ask Me Anything. Uh, today, Cecil normally does these, but today it gets to be myself as Cecil is traveling, as he is out east on the ASTA Roadshow. But today we have the privilege to bring in David Boies from, uh, Today's Class to talk a little bit about some of the things we have going on here at Gear Group Holding, and some of the things that are changing as we continue to expand, try to be bigger, better, the things that we can offer out to the industry. So I welcome in David. It's great to see you again. Great to have you. David Boyes: Happy to be here. Wayne Marshall: So many of you have seen and pay attention, some of you guys I know have been involved with the Institute at different levels in the past and have seen our change and growth. Some of you are more new, and maybe some are just coming in today for the first time. Uh, for those of you who are newer or coming in for the first time, uh, just to help set the stage, so here recently, a few months ago, uh, the Institute, we created Gear Group Holdings, and it's the holding company that now owns the Institute and still does the things that we've always been doing. And with that, though, we have the privilege of being able to now bring in a cl- a business of Today's Class and the things that they do, which we think is a great fit for everything we got going on with our coaching and our other programs, and we're continuing to look because as we've always said and as our tagline has been, is we wanna create a better industry. And part of helping to create that better industry is we know and understand we need to continue to offer up better things, better content, better programs, better services that can help to elevate all of us in what we're doing. So today we're gonna talk just a little bit of why we have Today's Class, some of the things it does for us and why we're excited, things that it's going to help not only strengthen what we have to offer with the Institute and the holding company, but also how this plays in, and I'll let David even talk about his excitement toward what this does for Today's Class, and some of the things that we're seeing in the future and what we're trying to develop and what we're trying to do. So hopefully, uh, those of you that are with us, if you got a question, we know we have the ability, you can, uh, add those in. You can put them into the chat. We'll try to take a moment or two and answer if there are anything as you listen to what we're having to say and as we share. So anything, uh, opening words, comments, David? David Boyes: No, e-excited to be here, excited to share the vision. You know, since the press release went out a couple weeks ago, there's been some questions about how this all works, so happy to have an opportunity to, to talk through it. You know, explain where we think this goes, explain, you know, how the institute will continue to carry on what it can do and today's class as well, but then also explore some of those opportunities for collaboration to, again, help, help our, uh, shared customers Wayne Marshall: Yeah. So as, you know, one of the questions I know we've been asked, uh, early on when we started to do this was the, you know, well, why? I mean, why, why was the reasoning behind some of this? And when we first got into conversations, we started looking at all this, and one of the things that we know through research and through adult learning and other things that have been done, when we hold a session, and we've done, you know, uh, intensives on different subject matters or different things, we know that when you leave those, those classes, if you don't apply it in short order, it's only a matter of days, and they say within five days you lose about 70% of it. And as the days go on, you continue to lose a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. And one of the great things about today's class is it's very interactive. It's mobile-based, as those of you who have seen it and maybe even use it. But being that it's mobile-based, it's a short three to five minutes a day that helps to keep top of mind the things that we're trying to teach and coach and develop in the content. And whenever you can reinforce it on a regular and daily basis, the knowledge and retention just goes up dramatically, and you start to use it and remember it so it makes a difference for what you're trying to do as a business. So talk a little bit, if you would, David. So most know, you know, people get coaching. We teach at different industry events, but talk a little bit about what today's class is, how it functions, uh, some of the benefits, the gamification of, and how it brings the team together, 'cause it is. Even Cecil and I compete against each other when we go on with some of the daily questions of who's gonna be right or not. But just give, you know, the people an overview on that if you could, please. David Boyes: Yeah, of course. So, so generally what we're trying to do is helping to impart knowledge, you know, for, uh, personnel at shops, whether that's a technician, a service advisor, a manager. There's a lot of information that we all need to learn to get better, whether that's new vehicle technology, uh, being reminded of shop SOPs, uh, learning more about finance. There's no shortage of opportunities where, where we need to learn. What we always question was, what's the best way to make that happen? Uh, traditionally, you know, there's the standup instruction, there's traditional online learning, and what we, what we began to explore was, what is a potentially more efficient way that we can connect with somebody? Can we consider how much information that they can consume in a single, you know, in a single session? Can we account for the fact that, as what Wayne just described a second ago, that people forget? Are there ways to, to shift that? Ways to remediate that? So our learning approach is really applied at, at solving those problems. We wanna spend three to five minutes with you each day. That training will flex. There, there's a lot of advanced tools, AI, machine learning, and so forth, that would take my training, given my settings, my role, and make it different than it would for Wayne's training or somebody else's. So it's personalized. So there's a lot of really advanced learning technology underneath that, and then we build content to, to help be delivered through that channel, for lack of a better term. So whether that's training on engine performance, suspension systems, or phone skills, or financials, we've got a great pipeline to be able to, uh, push that information to the learner. But then maybe more importantly, measure what they know. That has historically been a big snag in all learning and development, is to understand, okay, how much did this person really comprehend? Uh, the way that we've often worked around that is to do an end of class assessment or something like that. Uh, but doing that one time may limit the visibility that, that we get. So for example, I might get lucky answering a question. That might be interpreted as I know this, and I don't. On the other hand, maybe I read something too fast and I really do understand this concept, but I got it wrong. So, so our approach through this daily interaction allows us to, to push you forward from a learning perspective, gather that data to really understand where you need help, and then we adjust tomorrow. So from a, from a learning strategy perspective, we think this is a really effective way to train, you know, personnel that are very, very busy, don't have a lot of time to sit down and, and do training. So if we can find that sweet spot operationally, and do it in a very effective way, we think that's a win-win. Wayne Marshall: Yeah. I'll tell you what, it, it's in, in the short time that we have now been working together, we're seeing it move the needle. And this is what gets me excited 'cause even though I am the CEO of, I still coach. So I've been working with shop owners and, and managers, and we talk about some of these things, and everybody's trying to raise the bar. I mean, the technology is constantly changing, and their techs, and even the serv- service advisors are constantly trying to get better, smarter at what they're doing and how to communicate. Going back to your phone skills as an example. David Boyes: Mm-hmm. Wayne Marshall: How to communicate with the consumer. I mean, what we do anymore has gotten very complex, and when you're sitting there and you're trying to communicate that and teach that or explain it, I should say, to the client, this just helps to bridge some of those technology gaps or understanding gaps that you can take the complex into good talking points that the client understands what we're doing and why. And the other thing of it is, is that it, uh, it also empowers a manager to see, are my team learning? Are they going and raising the bar? Because we all know y- y- you might be bringing in a tech, he might be a B tech, but you don't want him to stay a B tech. You want him to be a B plus, maybe an A minus. You want him to start climbing that ladder. This is a way to do it and connect some of those dots. Um, I, I mean, and it, and it is, and it's... It, it reminds me just here, just recently with one of your new, newer, uh, customers that we work together with at the institute. He's using it in such a way as a measurement for his service manager to make sure that the service manager's working with the techs, they're doing their training because part of his comp- you know, his comp plan is you need to coach up and we need to make our techs better. Mm-hmm. So they're supposed to do so much training every month. This is a way to make sure they're getting their training in. David Boyes: Yeah, and, and, and I, what we've found, it's been, well, this started as a very, um, focused learning activity. It's been a very interesting, like, social and, and team experiment. Yeah. And understanding where motivation and teams that are curious and wanna learn more, how powerful that is. Um, there is an element of this, and I think with any business, winning some hearts and minds, if you really wanna develop your team, you know, you're gonna need to get them, you know, rowing in the same direction. Uh, Today's Class has some capabilities that, that can foster some of that. Yeah, Wayne joked a bit about the, uh, the points competition with Cecil and, and there's avenues like that. But, um, we also know how that ties back to learning. So if, if you think about, um, attending an in-person training session, talking to somebody at the break in between, you might share some stories. And, and those things from a, from a memory and retention perspective are very sticky. So when we're able to create environments where teams can, can train together two or three times a week, four or five times a week, and they're talking and they're learning from each other, that's enhancing those memories. That's also building some of that team chemistry. That's exposing where somebody might be really strong, might need, uh, need a little more help, and also has kind of downstream retention benefits as well. So there's a lot of pieces to this that, um, that you really can, can leverage, uh, when implemented effectively. Wayne Marshall: Yeah, one of the early wins for us, excuse me, one of the early wins that I've really enjoyed is many are familiar with our advisor training program. And being able to take some of that content early on, create it into those bits of training, daily bites or bits of training every day when it comes direct to advisors on developing their selling skills or phone skills, some of the other, you know, how to go through that presentation aspect. So not only do they hear it from the coach, but then when they continue to get it every day and they stay on that very specific track, it really reinforces, and it just empowers them to be better at what they're doing faster because they keep getting it every day. And the other thing I think is really cool that I know you're able to do is, depending on what that, like, tech is or advisor, you can customize the track. Mm-hmm. So if, if you've got a young tech who doesn't have all that knowledge, well, you're not gonna give them the same things or content that an A tech's gonna get. So he gets this track, or she, they get this track so they can start to learn and build, and it's the same way that the advisor gets their specific track. So everybody can be on a little bit of different track or the same- Which is really pretty cool when you start to see. And thank you, Aaron. That's right. It is a good product, and it does make a difference. So, uh, i- it's exciting when we see these things all come together Because training is, it's a big thing in our industry. It's really needed, and we hear it from our clients all the time. You hear it. Everybody wants us and they're saying, "Well, we need better, even more tech training or service advisor training, manager training." It just goes on and on to raise this bar. David Boyes: Yeah, and it's, uh, the shops are in a difficult position to try and stitch together all of these different training solutions. And, and this leads into part of- Yes ... you know, where, where we, uh, were very motivated to become part of the GEAR Group. 'Cause Today's Class kinda grew up as more of a, a technical training solution. However, if you're running a shop, you need more than just technical training. Wayne Marshall: Yep. David Boyes: Um, and I, I worry for the shop owner that has to spend tons of energy and hours to stitch together a training program that covers everything fro- from tires, um, to drivability, uh, on the technical side, or basic phone skills up to management and financial training. There's a lot of information there, and it can be very challenging for somebody that's running the business to also put that all together. You know, larger organizations may have a, a training director that, that can support that, but, you know, if you're a single shop, unlikely you're gonna have somebody that's got that bandwidth to do that. So again, collaborating, you know, as part of the GEAR Group, alongside the Institute, we can begin to share more of those resources and get better a- and make it a simpler opportunity for a shop to say, "Look, if, if I need this, this, and this, this is a very effective way for me to go. 'Cause all these pieces fit together and make it very easy for me to roll out and maintain." Wayne Marshall: Yeah. You know, it's... And we talk about this as we have, as we just had here a few weeks ago, a strategy meeting, and we talk a lot about meeting staff, shops, organizations where they're at. Yeah. We have those who really need to start here and then grow. Some others are higher up. We can meet them and still help them and develop. Um, this customization and the things that you're saying, this is what excites me the most, is because, look, if someone comes in, they're like, "We need help on the selling at the front end," we have that track. We have the coaching that can do it. We can reinforce it with Today's Class. We can make it very holistic. And then when they get that mastered, sure, now you get that rock star and we start talking about we want them maybe to no longer be a service advisor. We need them to be a general manager or become- Mm-hmm ... a manager. And hey, we have that track, too. Not only can we coach it and teach it, we can reinforce it with the daily bits and bytes of learning and those snippets of questions to keep it top of mind and continue to grow. And even when it comes into that ownership and the tech work- And what I think is also really cool, um, one of your staff members, uh, Jim, I know he even goes out and does live teaching and training- Mm-hmm ... when it comes to the tech. So it's not just what we're doing online, we're even out there in front of people. I know he's speaking at upcoming industry events later this fall at different places, and that's exciting because we're even bringing it in live and connecting the dots, not just doing it online or through the app and the tool set we got. David Boyes: Yeah. I think, you know, if we look at vehicle systems, right? Do we, do we- Yeah measure things? Do we adjust things periodically, once a month, once a quarter? No. You know, these things are happening in real time. Um- Yeah ... we believe that there's, um, a need for that, for learning, engagement, all those types of things. We've got opportunities where we can, you know, push, uh, knowledge, a webinar, react to, to an audience day by day by day, where we can be a little more dynamic, a l- a little more nimble. That example with Jim Kokonis is a great one. We can see data- Yeah ... today about what's gone on in the past week in today's class, and if we see something that's concerning or we see an opportunity based on this data that we have right now, we can spin up a webinar like we're on right now and say, "Hey, we're gonna dr- jump in and provide, uh, an update on, you know, uh, latest and greatest in, in oil specifications and, and so forth." And because we have the advantage of having, you know, thousands of people log in today, they can see that message. They can see it's there. It's not something where next month they'll realize that, oh, this,

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  Episode #213

  213 - The Wealthy Tech: Building Value, Skills, and a Stronger Future

  Jul 23, 20261 hourS2

  213 - The Wealthy Tech: Building Value, Skills, and a Stronger Future July 22, 2026 - 00:59:59 Show Summary: A technician’s greatest long term asset is the knowledge they build throughout their career. Intentional learning helps strengthen confidence and improve problem solving while creating more opportunities for growth. Experience becomes valuable when technicians review mistakes and use those lessons to improve future performance. Small efforts repeated over time can produce major gains in efficiency and skill. The right tools support the work but knowledge determines how effectively those tools are used. Technicians who continue learning become more adaptable and more valuable in a changing industry. Host(s): Kent Bullard, CCO, The Institute for Automotive Business Excellence Nick Pope, Industry Coach, The Institute for Automotive Business Excellence Jim Cokonis, Technical Director, Today's Class Show Highlights: [00:00:00] – Technician wealth includes skill value satisfaction income and opportunity. [00:05:42] – Growth begins when you seek people who challenge your thinking. [00:10:12] – Experience creates wisdom when mistakes become useful lessons. [00:15:02] – Every workday provides another chance to improve your skills. [00:18:27] – Intentional practice transforms routine work into professional growth. [00:23:36] – Confidence comes from knowing how to find solutions. [00:29:08] – Focused daily learning can quickly strengthen technical ability. [00:34:04] – Repetition improves efficiency productivity confidence and performance. [00:42:06] – Tools support the repair while knowledge creates lasting value. [00:47:02] – Investing in yourself creates the strongest long term return. In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry? Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode. Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/UUqQdK1xqPM Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this! Links & Resources: Want to learn more? Click Here Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here See The Institute's events list: Click Here Want access to our online classes? Click Here ________________________________________ Episode Transcript Disclaimer This transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com . Episode Transcript: Kent Bullard: Hello everybody. I am so excited for the topic we're gonna cover today, the wealthy technician. Today we're gonna dive into building your skills, building your value as a technician in the marketplace, and really building a solid future for you. Today we've got Nick Pope and Jim Kokonis, both incredible instructors. And I couldn't be more proud to work alongside these gentlemen today. Gentlemen, welcome to the webinar. Good Jim Cokonis: morning, Kent. Everybody. Nick Pope: Good morning, Kent. Good morning everyone. Thanks for having us. Before we- I was... real quick, as Kent said w- we're gonna be covering the wealthy technician, and we wanted to just quick touch base on what defines wealthy. Jim, what are some thoughts that come to your mind right away? Jim Cokonis: I guess that depends on the person. But value, skill, job satisfaction, pay, all of it. Nick Pope: Yeah, I like that. And you said value and building on that. Value creates opportunity. So Kent, could you please take this away? I- Kent Bullard: yeah, I honestly, just coming back to this wealthy. Wealthy has several different definitions, and I know that we're gonna cover a few of those today. Let's jump into our, this next slide here and kick this thing off So before we get started, we know we've got a lot of you out there. I think we ended up having 40 to 45. Let us know that you guys are here in the chat, and I'd love for you guys to introduce yourselves. So what's your role? Where are you from? And think about this, name one thing that you've been able to do this year that made you a more valuable technician. As you guys are answering those questions in the chat I wanna cover some ground rules for this webinar. If you guys have any questions, please ask them in the chat. I'm gonna be your voice for this webinar. I'm gonna be p- paying attention to the comments and asking Nick and Jim your questions. Let's keep it as positive and constructive as we can. I know that sometimes these conversations can get very heated. We're very passionate. We care deeply, but let's try to put this in a positive forward perspective. And take notes, key takeaways, and most importantly, like all of us were having before we started this webinar, is to have fun. Nick, I'm gonna hand it back to you, sir. Nick Pope: Perfect. Thank you, Kent. So as we talk about what builds a, a valuable technician, Jim made some ex-excellent points and, the, the one thing that really stands out to me is every day we have the opportunity to build on where we were. And as we move on to our next slide here, we're gonna talk a little bit deeper about that. There's many areas that we can dive into, but before we do that, I want to start out with a little bit of a story. And, t-to take back myself in time, back when I was an early technician, a lot of what I knew then I do not know now, right? Over time, there are things that we're going to pick up along the way, but when we're at a certain point in our lives, we really don't have the capacity to look at things through a certain perspective. And what I mean by that is for most of us that were, or are right now young- ... early technicians, we're learning the ropes, right? We may be in a new role in a new business and understanding what the dynamic is there. Where do we fit in? We may have a family, and we're trying to figure out how to be, a good husband or a good wife and then, a good father or a good mother. Our focus is on a lot of other things, and a lot of the time, naturally, we're just trying to make a living to get by, and that's extremely understandable. Now, the one thing that I wish I would have known then that I know now is if I would've just opened my mind a little bit earlier, sooner in my career, I would've had the ability to learn a little bit more that would really add up over time. Just a little bit, versus just doing the same thing over and over again. Jim, can you think of a story back in your time when you can put yourself back into, in your early careers as a, or your early career as a technician when you were first starting out? What was your mindset like then? Jim Cokonis: My first job out of trade school was working in a fuel injection shop. And That that environment where one piece of dust can ruin a rebuild or destroy a piece of equipment gave me an extreme attention to detail and cleanliness. And it took me a long time to figure out that w- the way I need to do a fuel injection pump is different from what I need to do on an engine rebuild or a transmission repair. Because I would use the same really detail-oriented, super clean approach to everything I was doing, and there comes a point when you hit a spot where the customer's not willing to pay for that attention to detail on that job. So I had to learn that pretty early on in my career. Nick Pope: Yeah. Was it ever a thought in your mind to get yourself in a place to expand your mind and challenge yourself and find new things that you can use and apply in your career. Jim Cokonis: Wow. Okay, here's a quote we haven't talked about in the past, Nick, but, I heard a piece of advice from somebody a long time ago that says, "If you wanna keep growing, if you find you're the smartest person in the room, find another room." And I still find it very easy to be in a room where people are smarter than me. And I seek that out because, I like to be challenged and learning something every day. Even with all these experience highlights I still try to learn something every day. So yeah, I definitely would challenge myself, take on something new. Nick Pope: Yeah, I love that. Nick. And, yeah. Kent Bullard: Nick, we've got a question for you, by the way. Sure. From Michael on Facebook. Do you think you, younger Nick, would have listened? He says that, "I think this industry has to have some pivoting moments to even prepare their minds for that upgrade." Nick Pope: That's a great question. And I really think that if I was exposed to it in a way where it struck curiosity within me, yes. I was not, and, that's a big driving force why we're here right now, quite frankly to begin. But I only knew what I knew, and, I was surrounded by people who were very skilled. I had some great mentors that really elevated my game. As Jim stated, the, the people around you are going to shape you in one way, shape, or form. And ideally, it is a, a great honor to be around people that are extremely knowledgeable because you can pick up so much. You don't realize what you catch when you're around people of that stature and it's priceless. The moment you understand what's happening and you pick that up, and you're intentional about really paying attention to the details of how they carry themselves, how they think, how they respond upon certain situations and approach things, how they use the resources around them it's remarkable. Yeah, I th- I like to think if younger Nick had someone that planted that seed or maybe knocked me on the head and said, "Hey, we gotta look at it this way," I probably would've at least thought about it, right? So great question. Kent Bullard: At least in, in my perspective I didn't have to have an older Kent. I had other people that were there for younger Kent that really helped me on my own path, I take a bit of appreciation for that. So Nick, we've got a few of these Jim Cokonis: your environment will impact you good or bad. Choose your environment wisely. Kent Bullard: So Nick, you've got a couple of these things here listed for what builds a valuable technician. Nick Pope: Yep. There are just a few examples here. There are definitely going to be more, but these are a few areas that are going to work uniquely together. They're going to be combined. They're compounding quite a bit over, the course of a day into over a long period of time. So as we invest into ourselves and grow our knowledge we are hopefully gonna be in a position where we can take that and apply it into what we do. So the value of that is ultimately not only going to reflect, our role and our ability to be successful, but it's also hopefully going to impact our income, right? When we see wealthy, automatically we're going to think money. That's what I think when I hear it, but there's way more to it than that. And, circling back, the, the wealth really in our career is really what lies in between our ears. Our knowledge is going to take us places and as we continually grow that, we have the ability to stay on top of the trends within our industry and keep up it with, as things are evolving. And also just keep up with if we're working in independent shops, right? There's a large array of vehicles we're working on and that's a lot in its own. So ultimately it's endless and we can look at that two ways. We can look at it as, yeah, it's overwhelming, it's a lot or we can view it as this is great because there's always going to be something new to learn. We're ultimately challenged in the environment we're in, which is the ideal environment is to be challenged. Experience. Jim, how do you think experience factors into, building value within ourselves as technicians? Jim Cokonis: For me, I've always taken experience to grow wisdom. I've... Have you ever had your butt put in a bucket by a car and carried out of the shop? Nick Pope: Yeah, more times than I can count. Jim Cokonis: Yeah, that's experience. That's experience, and am I willing to take that and learn from it to not... To me, the craziest thing that you can do is continue to make the same mistake and get frustrated by it. If a method I tried didn't work we used to have this saying called "Fix the car backwards to learn forwards." So review what you did, what didn't go well today, what did go well today, and use that experience to practice in your mind to set your head up for the next time you see that. So that's what experience does for me. It helps my problem-solving. And there- Yeah ... there you go. There's a couple that tie together. Three, the three first, knowledge, experience, and problem-solving all feed off of each other. Nick Pope: Yeah, absolutely. And we could probably even tie consistency in there, 'cause that's happening over and over again, right? And I love how you said, what you said about experience because when we think about experience, what is it? It's in the h- it's in history, right? It's our past, which is ultimately our history, and what's done is done, but what's done is done as a reference for us to examine and articulate, what worked well, what didn't work. Kent Bullard: It's through those repetitions that you build that, that kind of, library of, "Hey, I've solved this problem in the past. This is what I did. I can use this in this new situation." I like what Joe said here, just relevant to building value. He said, "I was a tech at the beginning of my career. Now I oversee several Bosch auto service shops with apprentice technicians, and I wanna help them become certified master techs." So I think sometimes, especially we go back to that conversation of the technician coming out of out of the trade school. It's like, what does their field of view look like? Is it just finding a job so I can take care of myself, or is it this long-term, where's the road actually go? I see, a lot of technicians are in positions now in their careers that, that aren't working on cars. They might be, on a webinar teaching others, Nick Pope: yeah. Kent Bullard: Joe, thank you for the comment. Nick Pope: Yeah, Joe, that's- Just- ... amazing, and that sparked one thing on in my mind, Kent, when you said road, and with Joe's statement that we just saw, right now we have the opportunity to really, rise up. If we are senior level technicians, if we have a lot of experience if we're a foreman, a mentor, whatever the case may be. But there's an old saying "If you wanna know the road ahead, ask those coming back." And when I was young- ... I wish I would've had somebody that was already coming back that was intentional about trying to guide me, right? Nowadays, we have that opportunity and think about just the position that we're in where we can really build people up with knowing what we know, right? Experience, you cannot teach that from a book Kent Bullard: I love that quote Nick Pope: When we talk about measurable goals and results, those are gonna be tied together, and, these might be ind- individual goals where we're working on a certain area where we can improve upon. Maybe it's something new. When we talk about, results results are generally not gonna lie if we're measuring them accurately and we're being honest with ourselves as we monitor them. And it's good to measure, our progress because it's going to motivate us. It's gonna give us live, tangible data where we know where we are. And if we have to make any adjustments along the way, we can do that and that'll increase our ability to improve in all of these areas that you see here a-and then some. I'm gonna move on here. Go ahead, Kent Before we go to the next slide, I'm just curious 'cause as we're talking about going and experiencing new problems, solving new problems, does Joe... Joe, if you're still listening, do you find being a mentor is a new challenge that you're going through right now? Kent Bullard: And do you see that the experience you've had is helping you through that? I'd love to know in the comments Jim Cokonis: Give him a little while to type that out and keep rolling. Nick Pope: We... There we go. He Jim Cokonis: says yes. Straightforward answer. I love Nick Pope: it. I like it. Nice and direct. As we, forward think a little bit here, and we shift gears, what does our opportunity look like? And, as we talk about opportunity, we can really break it down. So for example, if we have 250 days out of the year that we're working over the span of 10 years, that's 2,500 opportunities that we have. 25 opportunities that we have while we're already at work, where we're making a living, doing what we do. But yes, we're going to get better by doing a lot of the same things day in and day out. However, what if, each day we spent a little bit of time being intentional about trying to learn something new and try something new while we're getting in the repetition, while we're making a living, while we're serving our customers Kent Bullard: When you put it like that it's almost a... Sorry to butt in, guys. No, you're good. It's almost a bit of a grace, right? Because maybe I'm not able to leverage every single day, but at the same time, there's hope because tomorrow's another day that I have a new opportunity to learn and grow, rather than saying I didn't learn today, so I'm just gonna stop trying." I, I remember somebody saying that you don't get fat eating one hamburger, and you don't get skinny eating one salad, right? So you've gotta... It's the multitude over a period of time. So if you end up having a cheeseburger on a Friday don't beat yourself up. Come back tomorrow better. Jim Cokonis: Find a better cheeseburger? Yeah. Sorry. Wagyu. You know- so I got a question for you, Nick. When you put something- Yeah ... like this up here- why can't I just learn from doing the job? Why-- W- I'm playing the game every day. Why can't I learn from playing the game? Nick Pope: I don't think that-- I think the real question is, how can I learn by playing the game? Because ultimately we're learning every day, right? We might not really realize it, but when we're in the daily grind we are going to face new things. There's gonna be a car that comes in with an electrical issue that we have not encountered before, right? So we are learning, but are we intentional about it? Meaning if I have an example that comes to mind it's an electrical issue I've had in the past, and we'll just say we have a We'll just make it simple. We have an electrical issue with a, a lighting system, right? We've been down this road before, and automatically we might already know, what the answer is. Do we really know? And when we shift our mind and when we try to create that with a little bit more of an open mindset, we are going to automatically put ourselves in position to learn with the understanding that we do not know, even though we have walked that path before. Does that make sense, Jim? Kent Bullard: It I see it Oh, I was gonna add on, or is that all right, Jim? Jim Cokonis: Go ahead. Kent Bullard: I feel like it's not okay. Jim Cokonis: No, Kent Bullard: it's... Go ahead. I've got my thought in my head. I feel like it has to be, it has to be intentional because when we get in the habits, when you get in the, the, I'm just doing the work, I'm just doing the work, you can turn off... And not to say that those of you aren't doing that out there, but you can turn off your brain, 'cause this is work I've done. This is work I'm used to. This is work. And you fall into those habits rather than having something that is a little more like you said, intentional. It's introspective. What are the things I'm doing specifically that I know that I can improve on, right? It's like going from, hey, I play basketball on the weekends, to somebody who's professionally playing. They

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  Episode #212

  212 - Think Like the Circuit: Mastering Electrical Diagnostics

  Jul 15, 20261h 2mS2

  212 - Think Like the Circuit: Mastering Electrical Diagnostics June 23, 2026 - 01:02:01 Show Summary: Electrical diagnostics become much easier when technicians understand the fundamentals instead of relying on guesswork or the parts cannon. Jim Cokonis and Nick Pope share real shop stories that highlight how critical thinking and a solid understanding of circuits lead to faster and more accurate repairs. They explain how wiring diagrams voltage drop testing and logical troubleshooting can eliminate costly misdiagnoses. The discussion also explores continuous learning teamwork and building stronger communication inside the shop. Finally they challenge technicians to close the gap between thinking they know the answer and proving it with proper testing. Host(s): Kent Bullard, CCO, The Institute for Automotive Business Excellence Nick Pope, Industry Coach, The Institute for Automotive Business Excellence Jim Cokonis, Technical Director, Today's Class Show Highlights: [00:00:00] – Learn why electrical knowledge is essential for every repair today. [00:05:05] – Jim shares a blower motor misdiagnosis that changed his testing approach forever. [00:08:00] – Nick explains how one corroded ground created a lasting lesson. [00:11:45] – A transmission replacement failed because the real problem was electrical. [00:20:05] – Learn how wiring diagrams guide faster and more accurate diagnostics. [00:24:10] – Follow current flow instead of guessing where the fault exists. [00:31:30] – Free circuit simulators help technicians visualize electrical theory and testing. [00:39:20] – Small daily learning habits create top performing technicians over time. [00:44:30] – Think like a circuit to improve communication across the entire shop. [00:49:55] – Strong fundamentals create confident technicians and accurate diagnostics every time. In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry? Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode. 👉 Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/iMqCrP4N6JU Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this! Links & Resources: Want to learn more? Click Here Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here See The Institute's events list: Click Here Want access to our online classes? Click Here ________________________________________ Episode Transcript Disclaimer This transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com . Episode Transcript: Kent Bullard: Hello everybody, and welcome to today's webinar. We are s- kicking off our technical training series. I gotta tell you, the content that we have today is awesome. We've got some incredible instructors with us and some really fun stuff we're gonna cover. So to get things started, I'd like to introduce the webinar. Here we go. Today we're gonna be covering mastering electrical diagnostics, as well as some critical thinking skills. Where's everybody coming from? I'm out of Utah today. We've got some people on the East Coast. Our trainers, instructors are on the East Coast. Let us know in the chat. We're gonna be watching that as we go through this. Our real goal with this series was to dive into a lot of the technical skills, but at the same time some of the critical skills that you need to be a good technician in the shop, to work well with your the skills that you need to develop, the team that... and relationships you need to develop. And so we had a mashup of technical and business training, some development training here, and it's awesome. I've loved to see how these guys have put this content together. Today what we're gonna do is we're gonna dive into some technical content, some critical thinking skills. At the end of this training, we're gonna open up for a Q&A, and we'll actually hang on a few minutes past, maybe 10, 15 minutes after the hour, to answer any additional questions that you guys might have. So first off, we're gonna be asking some questions throughout, so let's practice this. What tool do you guys tend to start with or rely on more when starting electrical diagnostics? And type in the chat either a one or a two to answer the poll. One, a scan tool, or two, an altimeter. Let us know in the comments section. So looks like we've got Southeastern Tennessee, we've got Wyoming, South Florida. Oh my gosh, Milwaukee, Brookfield, Wisconsin, New Jersey. My goodness. So we've got that poll going. Let us know do you tend to start with a scan tool or with your multimeter when you start electrical diagnostics? At the same time, if you guys have any questions I've been in- involved in a lot of these trainings. I've done-- gone and taught classes. I tend to enjoy open discussion and conversation. Now, in this type of circumstance it can be a little challenging, but hey, that's what I'm here for. I'm gonna be your guys' voice with the instructors. So if you have questions or comments or you wanna add to the dialogue, I strongly urge you guys to let us know in the chat, and I'm gonna answer those questions for you or ask those questions for you so we can get them answered. At the same time, let's keep things positive and constructive. We wanna make sure that questions get answered. We don't wanna, maybe punish somebody who, if they don't know what's going on or they do have those curious questions, that's what this space is for, right? So we wanna keep things positive and constructive and again, take notes, key takeaways, and most important, we want you guys to have a lot of fun. So before we introduce our instructors, what I'd like to ask is, what would you rather leave with today? Actually, do we have poll results for that? Can you post those for the first question? All right. Let's try this one then, guys. What would you rather leave with today? Number one, one big idea that you can take back, or number two, several practical tips that you can deploy in the shop. While you guys answer either one or two in the chat, and I think it's just a one or a two. I'm not quite sure how the poll system works, but there we go. We've got a few there. Several practical tips. Love that. The guys that we have on here, we've got Jim Kokonis and Nick Pope. These guys have been some incredible instructors. I'd love to bring them on and introduce them. I'm very excited for the content they're gonna share with you today. We've got a lot to dive into. Welcome guys. Thank you for joining us. And Jim, I'm gonna hand things over to you. Jim Cokonis: Awesome. Welcome everybody. For those that don't know me, Nick and I had a conversation, and I always start off classes with, "My name's Jim Kokonis, and I don't know everything." We were joking about making the title under my name Eternal Student. But I have a question for you, and this is an official poll, but just give us a yeah or a no. Has anybody in the room ever had their hind end put in a bucket and carried out of the shop by a car that was being difficult? I have. I have, and I'm gonna share a story with you early on. But when we think about electricity, i- is there anything on the car that isn't controlled, monitored or communicated with electrical anymore? You don't, you can't even do suspension work and brake work without understanding electricity and systems and how those components work. I'm seeing some yeses in the chat. W- if you're, if you say no to that, I'm like, "What are you working on? Wrought iron gates? I don't know." We've all been humbled by a car, right? Nick? We've all had that, and what I wanted to share with you is that I had a long time ago in my career, I've got a experience highlights. I was diagnosing a vehicle with an inoperative blower motor, and I had bought one of those new-fangled logic probes. You hook it up to power, and you go around and you touch places on the circuit and right? If you touch something that had power, it goes meep, gives you a green light, and you touch something where it's supposed to be on the ground side of the circuit or the low side of the circuit, it goes merp, and it gives you a red light. So I go to the blower motor, and I get my meep, and I get my merp, and I call a blow- call a blower motor. And I put the blower motor in it, and it didn't fix it. For the longest time I had that logic probe. And it was great for some uses, but I had that thing in my toolbox with the pigtail cut off of it to remind me that electrical testing has other aspects of it that we've gotta keep in mind. So with that said- This slide was just an introduction to that conversation. But here's a, here's an interesting one. This is an example of one of the questions, not how it's presented, but the basic question that's on the platform. And this question is- questions aren't designed to test with today's class. They're designed to teach through the question. This particular question is looking for an understanding, and Nick and I had a conversation about that, and he's gonna chime in here in a minute. But the question basically says, which of the following choices apply to testing a circuit or a device with an ohmmeter? And these are the four options. Now, this is what we call a multi-answer question. And so on the real platform, it's always gonna say select all that apply. And it's gonna indicate through a couple different ways that there's more than one answer here. So the- there are two correct answers on this. And a lot of people get this one wrong, be honest with you. And so when they answer the question, they're gonna get a response. If they get it right, it'll look like this. Now, this is an actual screen capture. And it says that it can determine if a wire is completely broken and it can tell if a device has an open circuit. Then it ... An incorrect answer is it can determine if several strands inside of a wire are broken and it confirms if a device is good. What do you guys think about that? Put a comment in the chat. But Nick, what do you think about this? Nick Pope: Jim, this one really resonates with me. I would be lying if I said this does not trigger a memory that stuck with me most of my career. We've all had those, and this one for me started shortly after high school. I was working at the dealership and I had a customer vehicle with the complaint of a flashing four-wheel drive light, and come to find out I had that classic no communication with the four-by-four module. And upon traveling through the Ford trouble tree, I came to the point where I was presented that I needed to replace the module. And I put the module in, went through the programming process, and lo and behold, it was not repaired. And at that point- I had that gut-wrenching feeling. I was sick to my stomach. I felt horrible. Went back, went through the motions, not once, but twice, and ended up coming to the same result. So then at that point, I was embarrassed, I was frustrated I felt horrible. I, I spoke with my manager, and his automatic response shocked me. He automatically walked me over to the foreman, and the shop foreman came over and wanted to help walk me through this. And that really helped me feel a lot better aside from, the obvious, right? And we got to the realization that there was a corroded wire. So it's... in specific, it was a corroded ground wire. And, I knew right away what I did wrong, and I... it just slipped my mind, and at that point I realized a really valuable lesson that has stuck with me my whole life. And, this ties into, resistance is as only as good as the circuit is that can withstand the load of that circuit. And now this is something that I've been able to carry on and share with, all the people I have worked with throughout my career, and it was a very valuable lesson in so many ways, shapes, and forms. However, it really got me to the point where I understood that I have all of these resources around me, resources and service information, resources with tools, with my experience, with my peers, and I need to use them and I need to think for myself to really know why the failure occurred, how it occurred, if there were any other variables to it, to ensure that it is repaired properly and it does not happen a- again. And the one thing I wanna just point out, Jim, is in this process, not only did I have so many great takeaways that stuck with me my entire career, however, there were people there that were there to support me and help me learn this lesson. And yes, it cost the shop money, however, the silver lining is when we have people around us that are willing to invest in us and lift us up in these moments, it sticks and those are the really valuable things of wanting to continue and grow in our careers as technicians. Jim Cokonis: Thanks, Nick. Costing a shop money. Scott made a comment in chat that says an ohmmeter can only tell you when a circuit is bad. There's some other fancy types of tools and things that we can use to see very small changes, but most technicians when they're using an ohmmeter, and they love to give you... And I know Ford is "Check for continuity on this wire, check for continuity on this wire." It only takes, one or two strands to get an ohmmeter to go, "Yep, beep," and give you a continuity tone. And yet it can cost you money. So when we look at that, th- this is a, this was a real vehicle. And you can put your comments into the chat too. Here was a vehicle that had set multiple codes and the transmission was in limp mode All right? And so I've got a, I've got an example of the codes that were set, and I've got an example of the wiring diagram that's on this slide here. And w- we're not gonna dive into everything here, but this vehicle came in and the shop diagnosed it as a bad transmission, and they replaced the transmission. And it didn't fix the vehicle. And so the vehicle got a new PCM put in it. And the reason I know that is because they called me to program it at the time, and I'm like, "Where are you getting this PCM from?" And at the time, they w- the company they were buying it from would bench program this older GM because they had the tools to do it, and they would do it free of charge because they were buying the PCM from them. So I'm like, "They'll do it for you." So they did that. Unbeknownst to me customer was in a rental car while they were trying to figure this thing out 'cause they didn't get it back in time. So the customer's in a rental car. They put a transmission in it. That didn't fix it. They've had a PCM put in it. That didn't fix it. They had the transmission rebuilder, well-known company, send out a test box, and they ran through phone support and did a whole bunch of tests with this specialty box, and they said, "We're gonna send you another transmission." So now it's had a second transmission put in it, and it's still not fixed. And then I got another phone call. "Can you come out and look at this?" And of course, in their mind you have the factory scan tool for this General Motors vehicle. Can you come out here and see if you can see something that we can't see? And so I went out there. I did use my scan tool, but I used their service information and got a look at this thing. I went out and scanned the vehicle. I came in and went to the service information. I went back out. I found a- an area of the wiring that I was interested in. I found a problem. I took a jumper wire and connected from a fusible link to the output of a specific fuse, and then we took and drove the truck and the transmission was normal. Total elapsed time, 20 minutes. What do you guys think was wrong? Any thoughts? Anybody care to, to venture a guess? Kent Bullard: Nick, what do you think? Nick Pope: Gosh. Jim, could it have been a corroded wire? Jim Cokonis: It could have been. It could have been. I'm gonna highlight an area. You see all these shift solenoids? Down here on the right-hand side of this wiring diagram, if you look at that you see the splice S116, and that the PCM shows that's an ignition feed. So the PCM knows when the ignition is turned on, right? And then that wire feeds all of the shift solenoids. I like what- And then the shift solenoids are controlled by the PCM. Kent Bullard: I was gonna, I was gonna add, Scott said something interesting. He said, "There's three fuses in the world: good, bad, and missing." And he says, "Oh, four now, not seated properly." Jim Cokonis: I think I know Scott. If it, at least I know the name. We don't have faces on here, but anyway. Yeah, Scott. Yeah. It... and you're exactly right. But wait a minute, I'm gonna add a fifth. Incorrectly made fuses that are not fuses, they're pieces of wire that burn up harnesses when they should pop. Okay? And we've seen this in the world as well. So now we can make that into five. The whole sum total of the problem with this thing is this particular vehicle had a specific spot in the ignition switch that completed this circuit. And that's coming from a fuse, and I'm sorry the way this went on here, it cut it off. But that fuse is coming from an output of the ignition switch, and it feeds that transmission power. And all of those codes were all circuit-related electrical codes. And if we think about that, if we understand how electricity works, there was a reason why I looked at the codes, I looked at a wiring diagram, and I went straight to a specific spot on the truck to get to the fuse block because it was an easy place to test That computer is doing a voltage drop test at one point in the circuit. We're feeding it voltage, and it is saying that coming through these solenoids, I don't have enough voltage to control this thing. It's declaring a circuit problem A smoke fuse. Yeah, Michael, definitely a smoke fuse. So that's all the computer's doing when we're checking, con- continual component monitoring. It's looking at powers and grounds, and if we understand electricity and we look at this thing, how many of you guys have ever seen a code that says circuit open or shorted to ground? Wait a minute How can that be? How can it be those two different extremes? Back in the day, the, we didn't run a bunch of extra wires, we didn't have a bunch of extra circuits, and the computer, if it wasn't seeing voltage when it should, then either I'm on the control side of this device, like on, on the ground side of this solenoid, and the voltage can't come through the solenoid, so maybe I have an open in the circuit, or this wire is broken, or this wire is shorted to ground, which is making the voltage drop there, and the computer can't see it because it's only looking at one spot. And so the way I used to describe this is the computer only knows what it can see. If that computer was monitoring this little yellow wire here, and it also had the ability to monitor here and monitor up here and monitor over there, it could tell you exactly where the break was. Oh, I've lost voltage between these two points. But the computer can't do that. That's our job. So how well do we understand electricity? And so just like Nick said, he, when he had that one early in his career, it told a, taught him a lesson. When I misdiagnosed that blower motor, it taught me a lesson. And then, 25, almost 30 years ago, I was going out and doing this type of stuff for other shops, and was one of the first mobile diag and programming guys out there, and I can't tell you how many times you'd get there and this complex problem that had spent, three weeks in the shop and had a customer in a rental car turned out to be a pretty straightforward electrical problem So with that in min

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  Episode #211

  211 - It's Not Just Oil: Understanding Modern Lubricants & Service Recommendations

  Jul 9, 20261 hour

  211 - It's Not Just Oil: Understanding Modern Lubricants & Service Recommendations July 8, 2026 - 01:00:14 Show Summary: Modern engine oil is far more than a viscosity rating. Jim Cokonis and Nick Pope explain why manufacturer specifications additives and certifications matter just as much as the oil weight. They break down how oil life monitoring systems actually work why using the wrong lubricant can void warranties and how service information protects both the shop and the customer. The discussion also explores brake fluid engine design and the importance of staying curious as vehicle technology continues to evolve. Host(s): Kent Bullard, CCO, The Institute for Automotive Business Excellence Nick Pope, Industry Coach, The Institute for Automotive Business Excellence Jim Cokonis, Technical Director, Today's Class Show Highlights: [00:00:00] – Modern lubricants require facts over myths and better technical decision making. [00:05:00] – Oil weight alone never determines the best protection for an engine. [00:11:00] – Wrong oil specifications can void warranties and cost thousands. [00:21:00] – Reading oil certifications helps match products to manufacturer requirements. [00:29:00] – Lubricant standards vary because every engine has different engineering priorities. [00:35:00] – Service information beats assumptions when selecting the correct lubricant. [00:42:00] – Even oil filter installation procedures can vary by manufacturer. [00:49:00] – Modern engines rely on advanced lubrication systems and specialized oil formulations. [00:53:00] – Oil life monitors calculate service intervals using real operating conditions. [00:57:00] – Confidence grows through experience but curiosity keeps technicians improving. In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry? Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode. 👉 Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fhJAnd9ZKI8 Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this! Links & Resources: Want to learn more? Click Here Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here See The Institute's events list: Click Here Want access to our online classes? Click Here ________________________________________ Episode Transcript Disclaimer This transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com . Episode Transcript: Kent Bullard: Hello everybody, and I am excited to welcome you back to our technical webinar series for you technical, uh, gearheads out there. Very excited to cover some great content today. Today we're gonna be talking about lubricants, the services there, uh, a lot of great stuff. What I'd love to do is just invite some fantastic trainers, Nick and Jim, on stage with us. They've got some fantastic content for you, uh, talking about oil lubricants plus the service recommendations. It's not just about oil. Nick, Jim, welcome to the stage. Nick Pope: Glad to be here. Thank you, Ken. Glad to be here. Kent Bullard: Hello everybody. Uh, just so that we can get some ground rules laid down, uh, our goal with this series really is to, to provide some of the technical skills plus the critical thinking skills that'll help you be better at your job. There's a few things that we wanna keep in mind as we go forward into this. The first is that we're gonna be asking some questions, and we would love your participation. Those of you out there, let me know that your chat is working, 'cause this is how we'll do the polls later on, by giving me a one, two, or a three in the comments section. As we put these polls on screen, they're gonna have some answers to different questions, and the best way for us to see those is to just answer one, two, or three in the chat. Are you guys excited for some of the content you're covering today? Nick Pope: Absolutely. Jim Cokonis: Absolutely. Kent Bullard: Wonderful. Anybody out there in the, in the comments? Michael, I saw you, uh, jump in there. Let us know you guys are here. Hi, everyone. Um, as we get into it, I wanna make sure that we are, uh... We got a comment that said, "Sound stop," by the way. Uh, just to make sure that we keep things positive and constructive, there's a lot of things we're gonna cover today. Make sure that you guys are, uh, taking notes, taking key takeaways here, but most importantly, we wanna have a lot of fun with this. Tyler, I see you in the chat there. Michael. Awesome. With that said, I'm gonna give the time over to the, to the real experts here, to Nick and Jim Jim Cokonis: I just put a, uh, comment out there that says please ask questions, and we'll get to them as time allows. Because Nick, I think you'd agree, we would much rather speak with everyone than at them for- Nick Pope: I, I do agree. I, I think that we should make this conversational, have some good takeaways at the end of it, but by all means, everybody, please chime in with any questions, experiences, stories. We would love to hear about them. Kent Bullard: As we go into this, I'll be your guys' voice, uh, for the audience. I'm gonna be monitoring the comments for the most part as these guys go into this content. Uh, just we're here to help Jim Cokonis: So that being said, disclaimers. Um, I don't get into... In this short of a format, we're not gonna get into the difference between cenostoke and cenopoise and, and all those, um, terms of the tribologist. There you go. There's a piece of homework if you don't know what a, what a tribologist is- Tribologist ... you can go look that one up. Had the opportunity to speak to a couple of them. They're fascinating people, uh, and they're full of good information. But what we wanna do is, one of the things that I have enjoyed in my career, Nick, I don't know about you, is, is busting myths. Um, sometimes we hear things and information gets passed along by rote, and then we go look up information and look up data, and we go, "Well, that doesn't work the way I thought it did." And so we're not trying to call anybody out, tell you what oil to use, or anything else. Um, this is us calling ourselves, and hopefully everyone else, up to, you know, increase the level of professionalism and fact-driven decision-making as we take care of the motoring public. So you got anything to add to that, Nick? I mean... Nick Pope: I do. You know, we're just talking about oil right now, however, this is universally applicable to all fluids, right? Jim, I remember way back when Ford came out with Mercon V and, you know, they superseded it where you could use it to, uh, any product that used Mercon. And, you know, this is a really good informational s- you know, uh, part of our series where we're gonna really talk about concepts that are going to apply to other fluids, and there will be a lot of takeaways. You know, for me personally, I'll show some vulnerability. I've been in positions where I thought something and I was completely wrong. And, um, you know, for me, the takeaway was I, I learned that I was wrong, and I was aware more moving forward where I needed to keep up with things to keep on that cutting edge. Jim Cokonis: I have a, I have a good friend of mine says, "You know, I was about 10 years into the business and I was getting to the point where I was getting pretty confident and I was learning a lot of things, and I thought it all... I had everything figured out." And he said, "The longer I go, the more I realize I don't know." So that's that perpetual student. Um, l- so now that we've gone through that disclaimer, let's get back over into some of the things that we're going to talk about. Um- We're gonna talk about oil life because it's a big topic out in the field, and, you know, what manufacturers recommend, and I hear the chatter all the time. Um, but can oil last 10,000 miles? Do the maintenance systems work? How do they work? Are there any differences between them? You know, is the maintenance minder on a Mercedes the same as it is on a Toyota? Here, preview. No. Um, oil is oil. Just put that stuff in it. If it says 530 on the cap, put some 530 bottles in it and you're good to go. Is that true? Um, what are the facts? How, how important is the weight of the oil compared to the specifications that the oil meets? And then what does the car know? A lot of modern cars know a lot of things, and some of these sy-systems are quite sophisticated. But there's also things in service information that give us the details behind those recommendations, and we're gonna share some of those, uh, with you as well. So I'm just curious, I don't know if you have a poll for this one, Kent, but have you all ever had a conversation like this in your shop? Yes? No? Um, oil doesn't last that long. The manufacturers aren't building cars to last. They wanna sell you a new car, so they don't care if it, you know, if the oil doesn't last that long and the engine life isn't there. Um, cars will run low on oil before the service interval is reached. Can that be true? Yeah. Could it be because of the oil we put in it? There's a question, and I'm letting that sit out there for a minute. Um, I talked to a tribologist one time because one of the oils that I have been using for years personally, I'm not gonna even tell you what it is, but I'm like, it's a product and the base stock of it is what is used to lubricate jet turbines And then it has additive in it, and one of the additives that it has is ZDDP. Well, if you know anything about what's going on with oil additives and the formulations, you know that ZDDP is something that we have to add to motor oils these days if we're running an old flat tappet cam, like on an old small block or an old Ford. And one of the reasons we've taken the zinc products out of oil is because it can poison catalysts and poison O2 sensors, make them inoperative. So of course we're gonna get check engine lights. It can also, uh, you know, shorten the life of a cat. And so I asked this tribologist, I said, "How can you recommend this oil for a emission-controlled vehicle when it has an admittedly high level of ZDDP?" And here was the answer I got. Nick, tell me what you think about this if you, if you were to listen to this guy. He said, "Look at the flash point-" Yeah ... which is where the oil starts to smoke. If any of you guys are into cooking, you know that certain oils can take higher heat before they start to smoke and burn. Same thing with motor oils. Okay. What the motor oil is made out of and how well it's refined have an impact on what's called flash point. And he says, "If the oil doesn't flash off, the zinc doesn't escape." And that was the answer he gave me. What do you think about that? Nick Pope: I think that makes a lot of sense, and I would love to meet this guy. I'm sure you had some really other key takeaways from him. Do you have any more that stand out aside from that? Jim Cokonis: I had another conversation with another tribologist who built a different product. I won't get into all that. But he was explaining that certain people use products designed for hydrodynamic lubrication, which means, like, y- you know, in a, on a crankshaft, we want hydrodynamic lubrication. We wanna float the parts on a thin film of oil to maintain separation. If the pressures and the intensity ever go beyond that, then we have a situation where we need boundary layer lubrication, and the additives and the formulation of the lubricant are different depending on what we're trying to do. He says, "So if you use a product designed for hydrodynamic lubrication, like motor oil, in an area where the product doesn't have an oil pump and the ability to flow the oil in to maintain that layer, then you don't have the boundary layer lubrication to prevent wear." And since I was using that on some pretty specialized pieces of equipment, that was an education, too. And helped me understand why some people were erroneously using and recommending products because they weren't right for the application. There's another one. Um- Nick Pope: That, that's a good one. And have you ever ran across anything where somebody unconsciously used the wrong type of oil with, uh, having any type of long-term mechanical- That's a- ramifications? Jim Cokonis: That, that's a good one. Um, years ago I was doing a series of maintenance classes for a large organization, and the management team at this particular region, they shared with me that they had a relatively new European vehicle that they were doing all the service work on. Had a r- you know, consistent customer, they trusted them. They did all the work, and they were doing the oil changes on this vehicle, and with relatively low mileage, it developed an engine noise. They took it to the dealership And the dealership said, "We need to see all your service records." Kent Bullard: Mm. Jim Cokonis: And when they looked at the service records, and they looked at the oil that was on all the oil change intervals, the oil was changed within the intervals. It did not meet the specifications for that engine, and the manufacturer voided the warranty on the entire vehicle. Kent Bullard: Wow. Jim Cokonis: Yeah, yeah. Say that backwards. Wow. Wow. Okay. Um, so when you have a situation like that, and they want to take care of their client, of course, they're like, "What do we need to do?" And basically, the manufacturer and the dealer came back and said, "We have to install a new factory engine, and it has to be done at the dealership." And they paid for it, and it was a $15,000 lesson 15 years ago. Kent Bullard: So it's, it's essentially like you just installed the wrong part. Jim Cokonis: Yes. You're allowed to use things that meet the specification that aren't purchased from the dealer, but they have to meet the specification. And the oil that they were using did not. Um, other conversations came up about, you know, transmission fluid, and a lot of places like to use universal transmission fluid. And when you really dig into it and you look at it, and the- you'll see for this transmission, it's okay for top off, but you can't service the whole thing because something will happen with... You know, the additive package isn't right for that transmission. Or you'll also see things like, um, approved for use in this particular application once it's out of warranty. Think about that. Nick Pope: Mm-hmm. Jim Cokonis: So what are they saying? Well, they haven't had the- They're saying they haven't had the, they haven't had the independent testing done to prove, they're confident that it'll work, but they haven't had the independent testing done. Now, if I'm running a shop and I wanna take care of a client's car and I don't wanna get into a contest about who's right and who's wrong, I'm gonna go, "Okay, let me go find something that actually has the approval for that particular product." Make sense? Nick Pope: Yeah, it makes sense. You know, they're, again, kinda circling back to a comment that we alluded to on our first webinar, there's the difference between thinking and knowing, right? I think this is the right oil, but do I know it? And now, you know, uh, as things continue to evolve in our industry, right, that puts us in a position where we need to kind of run along that and, you know, continue to grow ourselves as technicians to keep on that cutting edge. I think about, uh... Go ahead, Kent. Kent Bullard: Oh, I was just gonna ask a, a question. Do you think that depending on the types of vehicles they're working on, they might make the assumption that taking this degree of, of due diligence or looking at these specialty, you know, lubricants and oils, that it is only meant for, like, performance vehicles? Mm-mm. No? Jim Cokonis: No. Um, there, there are non-performance vehicles and we, we've got a slide coming up here very shortly, um, that will get into some of that. And so when we talk about lubricants and fluids for vehicles, everything's got to align. Okay? The type of oil that's being used, its viscosity and performance is going to be different for the way the manufacturers designed that particular motor. And if we look at new engines, they don't have the passage sides and the, the same tolerances and clearances as some of the older products. And so if we try and run some of the older lubricant technologies in those engines, they are not gonna be able to get there. A lot of the wear happens on startup, and if the oil that you're running doesn't have the viscosity to get this thing lubricated fast enough, um, you're, you're gonna cause excessive wear on startup. And so, you know, everybody likes to say these oils are too thin. Well, one of the things we need to do in our minds is realize that the weight of the oil has a whole lot less to do with how well it lubricates than the actual makeup of the components and the type of machine work and everything else. So think about this. You can have a rotary pump, you can have a rotary pump with a clearance of two microns, which is thinner than a human hair, lubricated by diesel fuel. Diesel fuel is not thick. But it lubricates that component spinning at, you know, whatever relative to engine speed Now, if the diesel fuel doesn't have the right lubricity in it or we have a filtration system that isn't keeping it clean enough, then we'll have a situation where we'll end up getting wear and damage. So, you know, the viscosity is not necessarily what drives the lubrication. If you have water on the road, water is not thick. But if there's enough water standing, you can hit that with a 8,000-pound vehicle and hydroplane. You think there's hydrodynamic lubrication? You bet there is. So when we look at this, it's gotta be the material. It's gotta be design and tolerance. It's gotta be the filtration. The lubrication system may have some special things that are done, um, to it to help it handle the changes in loads. Um, what's the structure of the oil? How well refined is it? Um, one of the things I have said for a long, long time is that many of the oils that we sell in the United States as fully synthetic oils can't be sold other places in the country as fully synthetic because-- Or other places in the world. Other places in the world, fully synthetic means that it's gotta be Group IV or Group V base stock, which means it's fully formulated from chemical reactions. It's not made from dead dinosaurs. Um, so one of the interesting things that I learned in doing my research is that Group IV PAO oils are extremely durable. But the trick is, some of the additives that we use won't mix with PAO oil. So many fully synthetic oils are a blend of Group IV and Group V because the ester oils, the Group V fully synthetic oils, they will pick up the things that are used as additives to mix it in and make sure it's distributed throughout the motor. And so that brings us to that last piece of additives, and the additives are the key to success. And here's another interesting thing that I have heard from tribologists, and I'm, and I mean from multiple different companies Not all additives are, um, compatible. And you can add, quote, "an additive package" to a, an oil that's appropriate for the vehicle, and it can nullify the benefits of what that formulation met. Mm. And so I've always been personally hesitant to use, um, motor oil additives, personally. Now, I'm not telling anybody what to do, and you've gotta have your own conversations with your own suppliers, um, and make sure that what you're using is compatible with... The whole system's gotta work toget

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