Automotive Repair News Today

Braxton Critcher [00:00:05]:
What's up, YouTube fam? Braxton Critcher, back again for automotive repair news today. Today's video is all about training because if you're in the automotive repair industry, you're an owner, you're a technician, you know just how important training is and has always been, but especially in today's times because, gosh, seems like every day there's a new tech added into a vehicle. And so you got to make sure that you're up to date on what that is, how to replace it, how to repair what it does, all the things. And so training is so vital to the health of your repair shop, and that's why I want you to comment. Let me know what kind of training you've done for your repair shop in the past, what kind of training you're planning for in the future, what you found effective, maybe ones that are, aren't as great and just kind of get the conversation going because we're all in this together in the repair industry to help each other grow, improve, even train together in community on YouTube. So subscribe to the channel for more content like this comment below, like, share all that stuff. And Justin Allen is with us today from Hunter Engineering company to talk about their training and what they're kind of doing on that front. So what's up, Justin?

Justin Allen [00:01:25]:
Hey, Braxton. How you doing today?

Braxton Critcher [00:01:27]:
Good, man. Good man. So, man, training is like, that's like the thing you have to train in today's times.

Justin Allen [00:01:34]:
Yeah. I mean, do we. But do we really need more than tick tock and YouTube?

Braxton Critcher [00:01:39]:
No, of course not.

Justin Allen [00:01:40]:
Are we sure? You know, I. Yeah. This is something obviously I'm passionate about. You know, you and I have been connected for a while. Anybody that sees me online knows that the training of our technicians. Mercy. Yeah. The pace at which the technology evolves in these vehicles is outrageous.

Justin Allen [00:01:55]:
And right now, especially with some of these major disruptions, whether that's electronic vehicles of any shape sort or the advanced driver assist systems, the technology that allow these vehicles to be safe going down the road and potentially drive themselves ultimately as well. Right. That stuff is moving so, so quickly that technicians who are not being proactive and choosing to expand their comfort level, at the very least with that stuff, it's a mess. I mean, I think historically, technicians would go get to a point where they're comfortable enough and then, you know, whatever else needs to be done. And by the way, different kinds of technicians. Right. There's those technicians that will pursue every bit of knowledge they can possibly absorb because somehow they're a limitless depository for all this good stuff. But a lot of the rest of them, maybe they want to be good at brakes and they want to be good at tires, and they want to do some tune up type related types of things, but then they decide they're going to draw a line there.

Justin Allen [00:02:51]:
I think as an industry, we're realizing that we've got to make more room for training for everybody. We've got to get people, as the numbers dwindle, quite frankly, as people retire and move out of the automotive industry at this point in time, and we're not getting young enough people in fast enough or different replacements for them from wherever they show up fast enough, I think the training that's going to be necessary for the people still here in the field, the demand is going to be intense.

Braxton Critcher [00:03:16]:
Yeah. You could almost get away with, like you said, training to a certain point and just being comfortable where you're at. I mean, even ten years ago.

Justin Allen [00:03:26]:
Oh, yeah, yeah, man, times changed.

Braxton Critcher [00:03:30]:
I think it was Lucas Underwood that told me maybe a month ago, he was like, the technology that's happening today in vehicles is being installed today.

Justin Allen [00:03:41]:
Right.

Braxton Critcher [00:03:42]:
Um. Because the average age of a car these days is about twelve years on the road.

Justin Allen [00:03:48]:
Right.

Braxton Critcher [00:03:49]:
You won't really see the technology affect the performance, the vitals of a repair shop for a little while, but at some point very soon, 510 years max. I mean, if you don't train to a certain level and continue to train to stay up to date, shops are going to struggle.

Justin Allen [00:04:12]:
Yeah. And the thing is, too, that he's absolutely right with the vehicles that are out today, like, the extraordinary level of technology in the cars right now being sold on the street today. But it's also astounding how the technology from ten years ago is in your shop and it's more advanced than maybe you realized, and it's already showing up, and you've just been kind of ignoring it and pretending it wasn't going to be an issue or that maybe it wasn't going to impact your life. You know, we all age and things change, and maybe it's a problem for us, maybe it's not. But, yeah, there's a lot of shop owners that seem to have been holding out, hoping they'd never have to deal with this particular technology, and only now are realizing that it's already inside their building.

Braxton Critcher [00:04:56]:
Right. Yeah. And you're big on training, man.

Justin Allen [00:05:00]:
I love, I love, yeah. And so I'm a regional trainer, a field trainer for hunter engineering company, and I. I train North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, as far as shop owners and technicians that want to come to us for training and occasionally some stuff out in the field, you know. Yeah, I'm passionate about it because I don't like not what I'm. I don't like not knowing what I'm doing. Right. I think the, you know, when you're young, you don't know anything. You don't know what you're doing, and you figure it out as you go along.

Justin Allen [00:05:27]:
And then we get older and we realize that, oh, maybe I need to leave that other thing to an expert. Right. Well, if you're in the automotive industry, then congratulations, you're the expert. And so the more information you can get and the more precise you can become with your craft, it's just more fun. It's more fun to know what you're doing, I think.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:44]:
Yeah, it's a little more work, but.

Justin Allen [00:05:47]:
It can be a little bit more work, especially on the front side. Right. But that. That work of trying to dig yourself out of a hole is probably a lot worse than knowing how to navigate the hole in the first place.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:56]:
Right. So what's, uh, what's going on at Hunter? What you guys doing as far as training?

Justin Allen [00:06:02]:
Man, I'm super excited about this. So, Hunter engineering company started in 1946 here in North America, and we have been very passionate about training people out in the field ever since. We've done that a lot of different ways, but always human to human, face to face in a classroom or in your shop or whatever, and we've done that for a long, long, long time. Technology has evolved for us, too, not only in the things that we're manufacturing and the tools that we're creating for technicians, but in the technology available to us to spread out that good training. So where historically, you would have a classroom full of people one week at a time and maybe get ten to 18 people in a class or whatever, we knew it was time to find other ways to reach more people, because, again, the demand for training is really ramping up. And so we created a new learning management system, which we call Hunter University, which is online. We had some elements of Hunter University before, but now creating a portal where technicians, no matter where they are in the world, actually, you can register within a matter of moments and be online doing online training modules for all the technology that Hunter brings to the table, all kinds of different angles associated with that, pun intended, and find also all of our in person schedules and training opportunities and things like that as well, where historically, there wasn't a really, you know, there wasn't a lot of a push for online learning. I think the world within the last four years learned that, eh, you know, maybe some online learning opportunities can be utilized in different ways.

Braxton Critcher [00:07:35]:
Right.

Justin Allen [00:07:36]:
So we are very excited. I mean, there's. There's technicians, I'm sure, around the world, who feel far removed from where we do any of the in person training and would love an opportunity to get their hands on some more. And we've created that opportunity, so we're very excited about it.

Braxton Critcher [00:07:50]:
You know, I think that's another hang up. It's not only extra work to train, an extra expense, but most of the time, like you sort of alluded to, it's travel involved, hotels, that kind of stuff. And so if you're able to do things online from the shop, from your house on the weekends, you know, that's a huge advantage. Hey, Justin, I can't hear you.

Justin Allen [00:08:26]:
I'm glad you said so.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:29]:
There you go.

Justin Allen [00:08:30]:
Can you hear me now?

Braxton Critcher [00:08:31]:
Yeah.

Justin Allen [00:08:32]:
Okay, so let's see. Online training. Okay, yeah. So we've all heard stories about technicians who are staying up late at night, watching YouTube videos, finding ways to get more and more information. And all of that is valid training. All that's fantastic. Sometimes some of the things that we're learning online, however, aren't necessarily in our best interest. Right.

Justin Allen [00:08:56]:
Maybe from questionable sources of data. We know that. We know that. We all see stuff that is bogus on the Internet every day. So Hunter University, finding a way to funnel all that good data in, presented in an appropriate way to help people make good decisions and to further their experiences. It's an exciting thing to get to be a part of.

Braxton Critcher [00:09:15]:
What's that look like for a repair shop? Let's say they got five bays, five technicians. Is it per technician or is it an umbrella for the shop?

Justin Allen [00:09:28]:
So that's a great question. So the way that it does work is as an individual, because if you think about our industry as well, people are moving around. There's a lot of moving parts in the automotive industry. I've often told technicians that as long as you're not burning bridges, you know, and leaving a dumpster fire behind you every time you leave somewhere, there's other places you can work. There's always demand for your skills. And so when technicians are moving, potentially, let's say a technician moves three or four times over the course of their career. The. Historically, the issue was maybe you went to hunter training, maybe you got a certificate, maybe you hung it on the wall, maybe the owner hung it in the hallway out in the waiting area or something like that.

Justin Allen [00:10:04]:
Well, you checked out of that place and you never saw that certificate. That certificate again. Right. So by creating your own portal, and again, it's each individual person that wants to plug into that, that stuff will follow them into perpetuity, is the idea. Like you are creating your own hunter learning portal. It's gonna track your progress, it's gonna show you the cool things you've done. It's gonna have copies of those certificates and learning materials in there that you can always reference back to, regardless of where something got left behind or you moved apartments and you lost the book somewhere in the process, all that kind of stuff. Shop owners also are able to register and get inside there to really easily access the calendar and make sense of training opportunities in and around their shop to help out their technicians as easily as possible.

Justin Allen [00:10:44]:
Hmm.

Braxton Critcher [00:10:45]:
Well, that's really great. I feel like that'll help as you bounce around the industry. That's great.

Justin Allen [00:10:52]:
Well, and I think it's funny, too, people who have done hunter training before. Historically, yes, you'd go to the website, you'd see where the next class is, you'd register and be done with it. But that was not an individualized experience. This way we can really tailor it to that individual. Keep up with our, all the data, keep them organized, have everything there together for them. It is fantastic. It's certainly what we all experience on any app that you're doing anything with. Right.

Justin Allen [00:11:15]:
It's all kind of that way to make it as good of an experience for you as possible. And we're just, we're excited to be taking that same technology and do the same thing we can for all of our hunter students.

Braxton Critcher [00:11:26]:
How big of a deal do you think this is for the industry?

Justin Allen [00:11:31]:
I think as the demands for training are ramping up, and again, I mean that because the numbers show that like 650,000 automotive technicians are going to be retiring within the next five to ten years, and there are very, very few people training and coming into our industry. The demand for the people who either are already in it or the way we're going to be bringing people into our industry with very, very limited automotive experience, I think the tremendous. I think it's a tremendous opportunity. I think it is a big deal. You know, and I love this coming year. I've got a real motivation on my part to try to help people understand training opportunities in the shows that we go to. You know, whether that's going out to vision in Kansas city or the ASTA Expo here, heaven in North Carolina, those kinds of things. I want people to really question what's standing between them and getting some of that training.

Justin Allen [00:12:23]:
And sometimes that may be a registration fee or a plane ticket or a hotel room or something like that. But the beauty of Hunter University is that there is nothing standing between you and that opportunity to learn that stuff. You know, you could be on there right now within five minutes, learning more about alignment, competence and adas resets and tire balancing. All of that kind of stuff available to you right now for you and your technicians at any shop. So I think it's a big deal.

Braxton Critcher [00:12:50]:
What else. What else is worth sharing about? One moment. That was my concern with the camera.

Justin Allen [00:12:58]:
Oh, oh. And we're only like 16 minutes in.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:03]:
Maybe it's only 15.

Justin Allen [00:13:06]:
Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:06]:
What else. What else is important that you feel like you should share about Hunter University?

Justin Allen [00:13:14]:
Um, I think. Okay, I've got another thought about the way that it works together with our honey learning channel, hunter learning channel on YouTube, which is an immense database of resources. We can talk about that for a moment.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:28]:
Sure. You mean just rephrase that?

Justin Allen [00:13:32]:
No, yes, definitely. I definitely want you to do that.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:36]:
What else is important to share about Hunter University? Maybe even, like, other things on social, like YouTube?

Justin Allen [00:13:43]:
Sure. Absolutely. So one thing I really love about Hunter University is how well it complements and works together with what we have on YouTube, which is our hunter learning channel. Now, if you are a user of any hunter equipment whatsoever and you're not familiar with the hunter learning channel on YouTube yet, I want to encourage you to do that. Go looking for it. Just Hunter engineering companies search it that way, and you're gonna see our little logo in the Hunter learning channel, separate from our marketing type of stuff. Right. It's not about advertising and showing the different products, but it's procedural steps for alignment work, for changing tires, for balancing, for Adas resets, all of that kind of stuff right there on YouTube.

Justin Allen [00:14:19]:
So these two things together are just such a powerful tool to help technicians be more confident, increase their skillset, and allow them to be more productive and efficient in the shop environment.

Braxton Critcher [00:14:30]:
Cool. Well, thanks, Justin.

Justin Allen [00:14:33]:
Yeah, yeah, Braxton. And I apologize. I think my nephew kind of just called in there at the last second, but, yeah. Thank you. I'm glad to have a chance to be a part of the good that you're spreading around the world.

Braxton Critcher [00:14:46]:
Yep. Be sure to subscribe to the channel, subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Comment below with what you think about Hunter University, what you think about Justin's haircut and anything else that comes to mind. Appreciate you being involved with automotive repair news today. Thanks for watching.