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Yesterday we had a car roll in. I did my inspection and determined the car needed a trans flush.
Took the R.O to my service writer and handed it off.
He came back “trans flush added, grab Chevy (nickname for a tech) and he will show you how to do it, if you need the help”.
My lead tech came up and I said “great news I up-sold a trans flush, help out your flag hours and keep you out of the soup kitchen next week. I’m going to grab ‘chevy’ and have him walk us through this”
My lead tech then says “nah, we got this don’t worry about it”.
He does a drain and fill, not a flush. I asked another tech how many quarts we need for a drain and fill, and he wanted to know why it wasn’t already on the R.O and if the parts guys gave us the wrong amount.
Come to find out the owner of my dealership owned the car, his son drives the car. Had that technician not caught me asking about the quarts, that would’ve been my job when the owner checked the quality of work.
This is all the direct result of our used car tech not training the LOF techs like he is supposed to. The guy is gone smoking, or shooting the bull for hours at a time. He takes three days to do a used car inspection and brake job. He is supposed to work in the bay right next to the LOF bays so he can show us alignments, brake system flush, everything we need to be ready for flat rate lube tech and subsequently move up to C, and B techs. But, like I said he’s never around. When one of us ask to be shown something he does the work while we watch and takes the rest of the ticket. I’m not even touching on the toxic environment he creates at work.
Our lead lube tech refuses to ask him for help, and the rare occasion we get instruction it’s a joke.
Apparently we’ve gone through 9 lube techs in 14 months. 2 quit and went to a different dealership, and 7 were fired.
I had no idea that a drain and fill was different that actually hooking up a machine. Call me a noob, FNG what ever. Show me something once and I will do it on my own, perfectly every time from that point forward. But when I’m never shown, I can’t really level blame on my own shoulders.
I plan on speaking to my boss. Pretty much figured out what exactly I will say. Condensed version is get that used car tech the f*** away from us, get us a competent tech to train our flat rate guy, who will train us or I’m gone.
Any suggestions on how to handle that situation differently?
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I’m still waking up, so bear with me here. I guess I’m kind of lost here. So to get this straight, a trans flush was sold on a vehicle that happens to belong to the guy who signs your checks. You tell the lead lube guy, and he takes it from you, and instead of showing you how to flush it, he doesn’t even perform the job sold. He does a drain and fill, which is not the same job by any means. Something about not having the quantity of fluid on the ticket, and somehow that’s your fault? Bunch of Moes and Rons work there(put the names together).
First problem is, the job wasn’t done as sold. That’s the lead guy’s fault, as he assumed the job. Quantity of fluid on the ticket, I’m not sure how that goes back to you but I never enjoyed the “dealer experience” either. I don’t expect the service writers to know or to show me how much fluid something takes, personally. Burned too many times by someone with typically no auto experience, I look it up myself and write it on the ticket how much was used. If info is not available, then I put an initial fill in, run it thru the gears, and top off as needed. That’s going with the assumption it’s a drain and fill. Flushes, from my own experience, fill the machine to capacity and let it go.
From my own experience, the GS or lube guys are hourly rate. Eventually if they cut the mustard, they may get moved up. We have one guy who gets an hourly and flat rate bonus. I have him on one side of me, and an all out GS who has the standard answer of ” I know” when you tell him something on the other side. For something small, if they ask for advice or help, I’m happy to oblige. In the case of the GS, if it gets involved at all, he loses the job, period. He lacks common sense anyways(what happens when your parents do everything for you). The other guy, if he needs help or advice, and it’s not too much, then I have no issue. I’m busy with my own work normally, so no real time to take his jobs or do his work. Now if I find myself doing the job for him, then that’s another story. If it’s well over the guy’s head, same thing, he loses it. I haven’t done it yet at this shop, but I have in other shops. At least you want to learn and are willing to go elsewhere if need be. Our GS feels he is entitled to be allowed to do engine work because that’s what he studied a lot in school. This is the guy who left a wheel loose, misses water pumps leaking and belts cracked, and just recently locked the keys in a truck in the shop. If he can’t handle simple stuff, god forbid he works on an engine. He says he wants to learn, but his actions say otherwise. He sits on his bar stool when not doing oil changes, and tries to push my buttons over politics and his weed smoking. Only reason he is still onboard, we haven’t found a good replacement. Ok enough stealing your post. Talk to your boss and if you don’t like what you hear, etc, don’t use the big hammer yet. Go find a job that you want. Talk to the tool guys, they are sometimes a good info source. Pound the streets, etc, and when you find what you’re looking for, then slip your boss “the paper”. Not knowing what part of the country you’re in, there should be other shops in the area that want someone hungry.
I’m hourly, my GS tech is flat rate and considered my lead tech. I’m supposed to be able to go to him with questions, and he shows me things like a trans flush, and cool youtube videos.
We have a used car tech that is supposed to be training all three of us (myself and another LOF tech are hourly, my GS tech is flat rate and I’m about 100% sure I know more than both of them combined). They threw my GS tech into flat rate to basically starve him out. 7 months later he’s still here ( I started about 2 months ago).
When I work with my GS tech and I do the work, the inspection goes under my tech number because the inspection is free, and the work I do goes under his tech number so his flag hours go up. I don’t have a problem with it because my checks don’t get bigger or smaller when it works that way (again I’m hourly, he’s flat rate). Putting the inspection under my tech number shows I did all the work on that car. That’s how they keep track of which LOF tech does what work (we have A LOT of come backs from the other two guys).
So the inspection on the car the owner brought in, went under my tech number. Based on how things work it would be assumed that I did the work and I didn’t perform the job as sold. In reality it was my GS that told me “This is how you do a flush” then proceeded to show me a drain and fill. I didn’t know the difference at that moment in time.
On our R.O’s (repair order) it specifically states what is billed out. Mine said “9 qts for transmission flush”. Parts department gave me 9qts of trans fluid specific to the make,model and year of car I was working on.
My GS tech said “we don’t need 9, I think we need 5qt. Ask the parts guys”. I’m still painfully ignorant to the difference between flush, and drain. Mostly because GS tech says they are the same thing.
This was the beginning of the end.
I walked into parts still wet behind the ears on some stuff, and asked “how many qts for a drain and fill?”
Another tech was standing there as I asked the question. The parts guy said “you better call the service writer and work that out, because it is going to hit the fan. You are asking about a drain and fill, not a flush”. I said “whats the difference”, answer; quite a bit.The tech that was waiting for parts asked me what was going on. I explained, blah blah.
Tech waiting for parts called the service writer, explained what was going on. The service writer told him to tell the GS tech he lost the trans flush, and show me how to use the machine, and he could have; that part of the ticket. He showed me the trans flush. And took everything, tire rotation, filter package, brake service, oil change and trans flush.
He screwed my GS tech with that, and that’s why my GS tech won’t ask for any help. He’s often went and corrected the service writers, only to have certain one’s just lie to him and say they fixed the issue. Granted my GS tech doesn’t keep track of his flag hours, and doesn’t log the work he does so much of that is on him.
The used car tech that is supposed to “train” us, does the same thing (stealing work he didn’t do). If my GS tech ask a question that requires a 20 second answer. The used car tech walks over, flips a switch, turns a valve, or just hits a key then runs off and demands half the guys R.O for the work.
So my GS stopped asking for help. This is help that was supposed to be given to us anyways because we aren’t where we need to be for our level. All three of us. The used car tech gets tossed an extra 4 hours a day for just showing us things on cars because in theory that is time he is losing on his own work. Instead he’s gone 98% of the time (gone smoking, talking to people about his vaping cig, not actually working on cars), and never shows us anything.
If I didn’t muddy the waters any worse, that is the issue.
Things that are supposed to happen don’t.
Techs have been fired for things they didn’t break or even touch, but their tech number somehow found their way onto the RO.
I know more than my GS tech, and he’s flat rate, also cuts so many corners he can take a 50 point star and turn it into a pizza cutter.
The training we are supposed to get on machines, to move us from LOF to GS never happens.
People steal your entire ticket if they turn a bolt for you (literally)
The service writers commit fraud on the techs, and dealership.And that’s just a Thursday afternoon.
I wasn’t kidding. We’ve had 7 techs fired, and two quit in 14 months. It’s like wolf of wall street, minus the sex, money and humor. Plenty of drugs, stupidity and fraud though.
Always drama in shops. With New Years falling in the first week of our pay cycle, two of three techs in our shop are low on hours, me and another guy. The third tech wasn’t, and his dad is a service writer. Another service writer casually mentioned it yesterday am to us. So, is she stirring the pot, or just bringing something to our attention? I’m not jumping to conclusions here yet at least. I know there is some drama up front, 20yrs of experience has taught me how to sniff it out, so we’ll see how things play out. Doesn’t help I’ve had two shops inquire about trying to steal me lately. Talk to management, and if things don’t change, go shopping while you’re still working.
Talk to your boss let him know whats going on. Also if it seems like he is not believing you as gingerly as possible point out the number of LOF techs they have lost and that it is probably due to the issues you are listing. You honestly did not know there was a difference and you went to the one guy who was around that actually explains things to you. I highly doubt they will fire you. It takes stones to talk to the boss. If you are willing to do it, are considerate about it, and are also honest things normally work in your favor.
Welcome to the real world. For every ounce that you are trying, there is someone with higher ranking (either by title or certification) putting in a pound of jack squat. I’m willing to bet the guy charged with “training” you spends most of the day making puppies then complains on payday that he made no money and the shop is ripping him off, yada, yada.
Anyway back to the difference between a flush and a drain and fill. Depending on the vehicle an actual flush isn’t suggested at all and the “proper” means of servicing a transmission is a drain and fill.The term “flush” isn’t even really correct as modern fluid servicing machines are merely fluid exchangers.
[quote=”DaFirnz” post=124873]Welcome to the real world. For every ounce that you are trying, there is someone with higher ranking (either by title or certification) putting in a pound of jack squat. I’m willing to bet the guy charged with “training” you spends most of the day making puppies then complains on payday that he made no money and the shop is ripping him off, yada, yada.[/quote]
He literally does that. He gets his check, throws a childish fit “they screwes up my check” threatens to walk out if it isn’t fixed in 2 hours, and proceeds to disappear for the rest of the day.
I might work with you. You nailed that right on the head. Almost eerie…
There’s those people everywhere in every industry. The one nice thing about this (auto repair) business is that the flat rate system gives you power over how much you make. Maybe some people can’t handle the responsibility.
Talked to my boss today. He said we are going to do some in house training to make sure nothing like this happens again.
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