Automotive Repair News Today

Braxton Critcher [00:00:05]:
This is automotive repair news today. Thanks for listening. I'm Braxton Kritcher. And if you have a hunter alignment system in your repair shop, you know.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:17]:
That twice a year they come out with win align updates, one in May and another in the fall. So the first of 2024 just came out a few weeks ago.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:26]:
And so I thought it'd be good.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:28]:
To have Justin Allen from Hunter on.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:30]:
The podcast to talk about the importance.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:32]:
Of these updates, especially today with all the new technology happening in vehicles to stay up to date on these updates.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:38]:
To better serve your customers. So Justin, being the good guy that he is, came on the podcast and we talked about that and so much more relating to your repair shop. Here's our conversation. Justin Allen, good morning. Braxton Hunter. How are you, man?

Justin Allen [00:00:59]:
I'm doing really good. How about yourself?

Braxton Critcher [00:01:00]:
Good. Do people ever call you Justin Hunter or Hunter Allen?

Justin Allen [00:01:06]:
Yes. There's a lot of misnomer going on out there.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:09]:
I think it's partially your fault. J. Allen Hunter.

Justin Allen [00:01:13]:
My fault? I know.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:14]:
J. Allen Hunter.

Justin Allen [00:01:16]:
The letter J is often used to reference me, just J, which is fine. And then there is definitely the question about whether or not I own the company or am largely tied to the company as a family member, which I'm not at all.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:31]:
CEO Justin Allen.

Justin Allen [00:01:32]:
That's right. That's right. I'm passionate. I love the company. But no, none of that. In other words, like, there's people that I think have expectations of the things that I can do for them as a result of it. And no, I can give you great information, but that's about it.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:45]:
So Justin Allen from Hunter is joining us on automotive repair news today.

Justin Allen [00:01:52]:
Excited to be here.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:53]:
The news to share is that you guys just released your biannual win align report.

Justin Allen [00:02:00]:
Sure.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:01]:
So tell me about that, because I don't know what that means.

Justin Allen [00:02:05]:
Yeah, right, right. And I was so excited when you reached out about that. Let me. Let's break this down real quick. Yeah. So a customer buys a hunter engineering company alignment machine, and they make this investment in this product to help them line up cars appropriately. And for decades, this wasn't all that complicated. You know, you would have specifications for every vehicle that's going to roll in.

Justin Allen [00:02:30]:
We went computerized around the, like, 1980 ish. So the alignment machine would tell you which direction to point all these wheels and tires. And so that's great. As time passed, we started incorporating things like animations of how to do those adjustments, videos of how to do those adjustments, digital photos, ultimately of how to do those adjustments. And so it became this capsule of so much usable data for a technician to make their lives easier, help them be a little bit more productive and efficient. And now part of why you're seeing it show up on the website is these doggone advanced drivers assist systems, which are amazing and some of which have to be recalibrated after an alignment. Right. So what we are seeing is manufacturers are evolving super fast as far as this technology and what does it take to recalibrate it and under which circumstances do we need to recalibrate it and whatever.

Justin Allen [00:03:37]:
So our specification update, for as long as I know, has always been twice a year. So we do a November release and a may release to give people access to the latest and greatest version of those specifications. And historically, people would update their software, let's say, in the average independent retail world, yeah, maybe every other year, just so that they could stay reasonably ahead of that stuff. But there was a sense that brand new vehicles, of course, were probably going to the dealership for most of their services. And so the independent shop didn't feel much urgency to have the latest version of that data. Well, now, in some instances, manufacturers are retroactively changing the requirements for some of these recalibrations. So that's to say that, let's say from 2019 through 2023, they said, oh, you absolutely have to do X, Y and Z at the end of that alignment. Now they're going back and saying, well, you have to do X and Y, but maybe not z, maybe you don't have to do that.

Justin Allen [00:04:48]:
Maybe we're okay, or you're not going to have to do x, but you have to do z. And we're going to add on a letter K. You're going to have to do that now, too. So it's evolving all over the place. And the reasonable approach to keeping those specifications updated more frequently is to help prevent you having some chaos. We don't want you to do more work than you had to do, but we also don't want you to miss out on something that you definitely were supposed to do, but you just didn't know any better. So those win a line updates, that's what comes out twice a year. And I had seen, it's so funny, I had seen it on the website the day before you notified me about it and said, hey, what about this and that popping up on the website? That's a fairly new idea of ours, I believe, to help people be aware of it, because, yeah, that stuff is moving so fast.

Justin Allen [00:05:42]:
Are you currently driving a vehicle that has any of you told me you drove a whole lot yesterday.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:46]:
Yeah.

Justin Allen [00:05:47]:
Are you driving a vehicle that has any of these advanced driver assist systems.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:50]:
In it, like automatic braking, things like.

Justin Allen [00:05:53]:
That, of cruise control, blind spot monitoring, lane departure warning, any of that kind of stuff? Not at this point, no. Okay.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:59]:
My wife does.

Justin Allen [00:06:00]:
Okay. But also referencing a video that I shot a couple days ago. Yeah. Either you are doing it currently, or somebody that you love is doing this. And have you heard any feedback from your wife as far as what she thinks about those systems?

Braxton Critcher [00:06:19]:
She loves the, like, car detection, I guess. Like the blind spot detection, I guess, is what it's called because I guess we get lazy about not turning our head and like to use the side view. But if you're gonna turn, that thing's gonna tell you.

Justin Allen [00:06:37]:
Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:06:37]:
And, yeah, that's been really cool. She likes that part a lot.

Justin Allen [00:06:40]:
Okay, so you've just pointed out two of the most intense things happening in the automotive industry associated with this stuff. One, you said she loves it, and these moments are fantastic. Right? Like, this is not a staged conversation between you and I. You said she loves it of your own accord. Exactly what I said in the video yesterday. People that are important to you love this stuff, even if you've never touched it and never driven it. The second thing you said is that it's making you lazy. Right.

Justin Allen [00:07:07]:
It's allowing you to drive comfortably without turning and looking over your shoulder to check that blind spot. Is that responsible in any way, shape, or form? Nope, definitely not. Right. But this is the behavior that we're seeing evolve for everybody that is driving these cars. Now, in 2018, AAA did a survey of about 1200 users of these types of vehicles, and they found that, like, the percentages are somewhere between 30 and 70% of the people that were experiencing this stuff were like, absolutely, I love it. And absolutely, I'm becoming a more careless driver. I'm feeling comfortable doing other things. That said, while my cruise control is turned on, because I'm not having to pay attention to that car in front of me or whatever.

Justin Allen [00:07:53]:
So these, what, what we're saying here is that indeed people that are using. Cause this is all the standard stuff on cars now. Like, you know, you can go to a dealership and order a manual transmission. There were times in the eighties or whatever that you could order cars without a radio in it, right? But the standard stuff is including these packages. In fact, I think I heard last week that automatic automatically, uh, collision avoidance of some sort. Meaning it's going to see something stopped in front of you and your car. Is going to slam on the brakes. I think that was officially signed into like a government mandate just last week.

Justin Allen [00:08:26]:
I don't know when, usually when they do that.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:28]:
You might have heard that in automotive repair news today, Justin, wouldn't that have.

Justin Allen [00:08:32]:
Been a cool place to have encountered that? Because it's entirely possible that's what happened.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:35]:
So that was on last week's show. Yeah.

Justin Allen [00:08:37]:
This, then that must be where it crossed my radar. Do you remember, are they saying like, that'll be true for model 2027? 2029. Okay, so we're still a few years.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:48]:
Out in September, 2029. It'll be required for a new model. Yeah.

Justin Allen [00:08:53]:
Yeah. Right. So that's effectively the 2030 model year and beyond there is what they're saying right now. Now 2029 is still five years away. Right. And this stuff is moving so fast that I'm not going to be surprised if there aren't other mandates between here and there that they start kicking into that same process because moving so quickly. So all of that back to say that people love this stuff, it needs to work properly because they're lazy and they're dependent upon that stuff. And the other survey that came out last year in 2023, in February, was about the fact that 60% to 75% of these systems are not working properly.

Justin Allen [00:09:32]:
After people have had any kind of service performed on the vehicle, that impacted it. 60% to 75% not working properly, meaning a second return to whoever worked on it to get it figured out. And the shops, I mean, this is real life. Shop owners have been slow to embrace this as a necessity. They just have your alignment machine. When you pull up these specs and pull up the car, it tells you, hey, you're going to need to recalibrate that thing. Here's what it's going to take to do it. Do you have the special tools? Do you know the procedures? What are you going to do? It tells you that.

Justin Allen [00:10:08]:
And people have just kind of skipped that screen because you can say, okay, click ok, click okay. Kind of like we do on these when it asks you to like, read all the fine print and then accept terms and conditions. Hurry up.

Braxton Critcher [00:10:20]:
Next. Next.

Justin Allen [00:10:21]:
Right. What are we doing? Yeah, so shops are doing that same thing. And so one of the things we teach in our classes, or at least I do, you know, in the hunter alignment classes and AdAs classes, is the importance of slowing down and reading those screens. So that feeds us right back into those when align updates, that specification update gives you all the data, gives you the right screens, lets you know what you are treading into and allows you to make an educated decision on what's going to be right for your shop today.

Braxton Critcher [00:10:49]:
Yeah.

Justin Allen [00:10:50]:
So, yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:10:51]:
Can I say one thing I don't like about the new tech in car?

Justin Allen [00:10:54]:
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Braxton Critcher [00:10:56]:
Bark this up the chain. I don't like that. When you are. I drove a 2021 or 2022 transit a month or two ago and it had the cruise control assist, I guess, what it's called. And I'm on the interstate going like 75 and I get within 60ft of this car in front of me and it wants to turn it off or slow down. Yeah. And I'm like, no, I know what I'm doing. Don't do that.

Braxton Critcher [00:11:25]:
I'll pass the car when I get close enough, whatever. And it tries to, like, slow down to their speed, you know, like that, don't like.

Justin Allen [00:11:33]:
Right.

Braxton Critcher [00:11:33]:
Not.

Justin Allen [00:11:34]:
So that's the adaptive cruise control. Right. And it. You set it for predetermined distance per mile per hour. So you can change it, you can regulate. So, on the Toyotas, on the newest version of Toyotas, there are four distances that you can select, right. To make it pickier or less pickier, depending on what you want. And all the manufacturers have pretty much some version of that.

Justin Allen [00:11:54]:
And so let's say you had it on setting three, then that's, let's say that's three car lengths for 10 miles an hour or one, you know, whatever it is.

Braxton Critcher [00:12:03]:
Yeah.

Justin Allen [00:12:03]:
And it calculates that stuff and does a killer, killer job about it. And your complaint is the most common one. I want to go. I'm going to joke about you here for a second. I want to go 83 miles an hour, dog on it, on the interstate. And this thing is slowing me down to 68. And I'm just minding my own business and I don't know what just happened, because what happens is, you realize I've been following this car for 15 minutes. Have I been going 68 miles an hour for 15 minutes?

Braxton Critcher [00:12:28]:
I just lost five minutes of my right.

Justin Allen [00:12:30]:
I'm trying to beat the gps and I can't beat it because this thing just slowed me down. So, yes, you're 100% right. That that can be a little bit of an annoyance. Now, the first car I had with it was a 2015 Toyota Prius V. I really did not like that feature. Now, several years later, the Times that that feature has saved me from colliding with somebody over and over again is outrageous and it's phenomenal. And I've learned to love it. I have learned to be proactive and get over.

Justin Allen [00:13:00]:
When I see a car coming to make sure I can maintain, because I always, like, for fuel economy's sake, I want to maintain my speed.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:06]:
Yeah.

Justin Allen [00:13:06]:
Um, but you got to think of it this way. You went to bojangles this morning, hypothetically.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:14]:
How'd you know that?

Justin Allen [00:13:15]:
I know. And they've got that smoked sausage biscuit as a special this time of year, right? So you get that fileted open, smoked sausage, and you've got the egg and the cheese, and it's amazing. And you're there munching on your biscuit while you're driving down the road, and that half of that sausage drops out on the floor. Well, fortunately, you washed your car, cleaned out the inside a couple days ago, and it's clean enough. Five second rule. Whatever. You're gonna go for that sausage. You're gonna pick that sausage up.

Justin Allen [00:13:38]:
You're not losing half of the meat out of your biscuit. And so it's kind of a misty, rainy morning there in the mountains, right? And you. You go for it. You reach down there, and you're trying to make sense of where that thing is, and you touch it. You make contact, but you can't quite get it. So what's the next thing you have to do? You're gonna have to look, right? So now you look down. You can see where you shuffled it over. This time, you're gonna have to be more intense, right? So here you are steering the wheel, and you're gonna do this number.

Justin Allen [00:14:01]:
You're gonna go all the way down there to grab that thing, and your car is gonna slam on the brakes for you before you hit that car in front of you that had come to a complete stop because there was a family of geese crossing the road or something and you didn't know it, and your car just saved your life, because we're all gonna die for the biscuit. We're going to die for the biscuit. So, circumstances like that, it does exactly what it's supposed to do. It doesn't get distracted by the biscuit or the new version of the. Whatever that's driving by that you think is gorgeous and amazing. It's phenomenal. And my favorite thing about that feature is that it doesn't care whether or not the person's brake lights in front of you function. You know.

Justin Allen [00:14:38]:
You know how that. That feeling when you're following somebody whose brake lights are no good and you're like, oh, crap. I really have to focus on this car to make sure I don't rear end it. The adaptive cruise control doesn't care at all about brake lights. And I love that feature. That's been another one that's happened several times and been like, man, this is fantastic. I don't have to think about it at all. So I understand your frustration with it, and it is beautiful technology that is taking over our brains.

Braxton Critcher [00:15:01]:
You did just frustrate half of the United States.

Braxton Critcher [00:15:04]:
That doesn't have bojangles, though, when you mentioned that.

Justin Allen [00:15:07]:
Those poor, poor people. Bless their hearts.

Braxton Critcher [00:15:09]:
I know, bless them. Bless them.

Justin Allen [00:15:11]:
Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:15:12]:
Uh, what else about, uh, Hunter, or when aligned, should people know about what's, what else is going on?

Justin Allen [00:15:18]:
Hunter loves you. Hunter wants you to have the best experience possible. One of the things about these updates is that we come to your shop and we do it in person. Now some who knows what the future holds of technology. Uh, as a 49 year old individual, I have seen the zero Internet world and now I've seen a pretty good Internet world. And there was a lot of stuff in between. People who have watched the evolution of computers remember the blue screen of death, right? Like where there were lots of times where you're minding your own business on a computer doing your own thing, it would just lock up and then you're stuck. We've also seen app updates on software versions on PCs and phones and stuff where you have it set up to automatically.

Justin Allen [00:16:07]:
You have it set up to automatically update those apps and it will not work. Right. The new version of the app doesn't work or whatever because it is non compatible with whatever was happening before. And so the idea of our software updating itself at your shop and us just hoping for the best doesn't really work for us. You know, historically, most of us have seen something that was supposed to update itself go poorly.

Braxton Critcher [00:16:38]:
Yeah.

Justin Allen [00:16:39]:
We come in in person and physically do that update so that we can keep an eye on it in the process to make sure everything goes okay, to make sure that your system is up and running, because imagine if you're trying to update it yourself and something were to glitch in your Internet service, right, where it got confused on that data and your liner said, this is not acceptable, and I don't know what to do. Then you're stuck waiting for us to come in for service. And whether that's an hour or, you know, 48 hours, whatever it would be, you would be miserable. So we don't want people to have that miserable experience. So when it comes to software updates and specification updates, we like to come in to make sure you're in as good a shape as possible. So I think that's a valid thing to keep in mind when you're considering when and how you're going to do it.

Braxton Critcher [00:17:21]:
Anything else you'd like to add?

Justin Allen [00:17:26]:
No. I'm just excited to watch this technology grow with all of us. And as an industry, it's pretty disruptive. You know, we've been comfortable with very normal stuff and blaming people for driving habits and stuff for so long that this is a step toward a much safer road experience for all of us. And so we're embracing that. We're excited about it. We can't control it, so we might as well make the most of it.

Braxton Critcher [00:17:52]:
We go to Bojangles for lunch.

Justin Allen [00:17:54]:
Yeah. Let's go get us some boats. It's bow time, y'all.

Braxton Critcher [00:17:56]:
Bow time.

Justin Allen [00:18:00]:
Right.

Braxton Critcher [00:18:01]:
Well, thank you, Justin. Appreciate it.

Justin Allen [00:18:03]:
Absolutely. Thank you. Braxton.