Automotive Repair News Today

Braxton Critcher [00:00:05]:
What's going on with you, Donny?

Donny Seyfer [00:00:07]:
Well, it's good to see you today. How are you, braxton?

Braxton Critcher [00:00:09]:
I'm good. You know, Johnny on the spot. Anybody ever called you Donny on the spot?

Donny Seyfer [00:00:16]:
Yeah, it's happened.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:17]:
Can we start that? Is that. Is that a thing?

Donny Seyfer [00:00:19]:
Yeah, go for it, man.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:22]:
There's a lot happening with nastiff right now. Uh, excited to have you on. Um, the most important one, I guess, is the election coming up, but seems like you're always involved in something, so there's never a time when we could have you on and not just talk for 2 hours, but.

Donny Seyfer [00:00:39]:
Well, there's a lot. There's a lot to do, and there are a lot of areas where new technologies are coming, and we have to be on the front edge of that so that by the time it hits the repair shops, they have what they need. And so a lot of what we do is sew in the background, and I tell my team, hey, if we did this right, the shops never know we did it, because, you know, we just work with the automakers, and we've got a constant touch base with them. So what's new? How can we help? What can we do for you? You know, how can we help support our technicians who are going to help support the people who buy your vehicles?

Braxton Critcher [00:01:19]:
Can't be sneaky on us.

Donny Seyfer [00:01:21]:
Well, and that's the thing. It doesn't need to be a bunch of drama. That's why we've got these advisory committees and we've got our teams. Our teams tell us what's going on right now. And then my team looks for what's coming down the road. And we try to anticipate that some automakers, they really don't have all their dots connected because they've got development team over here, and they've got their folks that work directly with us. And sometimes a development team lets them know the day things are released. Oh, yeah, by the way.

Donny Seyfer [00:01:52]:
And that's when we find out, you know, get it out there. And the texts are like, you know, this doesn't work right?

Braxton Critcher [00:01:58]:
And you don't like drama. I was starting to think you did.

Donny Seyfer [00:02:02]:
No, I just like to solve problems and move on. That's what we do.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:07]:
Hey, you got, you know, speaking of elections, there's elections everywhere happening right now, and so the Nasdaq elections are coming up, but you're throwing a curveball on us, Donnie. Things are changing a little bit this year. So, you know, we were just talking about. It seems like whenever you tell somebody something new, I just kind of went through this with the automotive service tire alliance expo. They changed it from the. Well, they changed it from the AST to asta, and that threw everybody off. And they were still asking why, what and whatever. So that's gonna take, like, a couple of years to get people educated on that.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:49]:
So you guys are doing something similar with elections. So tell me what that is.

Donny Seyfer [00:02:55]:
Well, so it's funny, but in, when we first launched in 2000, the members of Nasdaq fit on a single page of a spreadsheet. And so when you had elections, you could put out an email and say, okay, here's our slate. So we do this a little bit differently. So our nominations committee, because our board knows what spaces we need to fill, because our bylaws require certain types of individuals to come from certain parts of the entire automotive vertical. So we create a slate, and that slate has, here's the. Usually about five people, right? Because we're also set up so that we would never replace the entire board at one time and lose all of that institutional knowledge at one time. So here's the slate of the roughly five people that are. Are either due for renewal or are new.

Donny Seyfer [00:03:45]:
And so the members get to vote on that. Well, so that was then. And we now have 44,300 members as of yesterday, who, majority of which can vote. We have a few canadian members. We support Canada because, you know, we just love the technicians, wherever they are, but we support Canada, but they can't vote according to our bylaws. So that means we've got roughly 42,000 people that can vote. And we used to do it by email. Well, it was nightmarish because you're, like, chasing down all these emails where they're either saying yes or no, but then a lot of people would send us notes, hey, how's it going? And what about this? And you're like, did you actually vote while you did this?

Braxton Critcher [00:04:33]:
Oh, my gosh. They would hit reply and just ask questions and not vote.

Donny Seyfer [00:04:36]:
Yeah. On our no reply email, which actually, I shouldn't give this secret up, but it's actually. We can see them.

Braxton Critcher [00:04:45]:
It is a reply email, huh?

Donny Seyfer [00:04:46]:
Yeah. I just push them to support and say, can you help these guys?

Braxton Critcher [00:04:49]:
Well, there's more drama for you.

Donny Seyfer [00:04:51]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, what we determined was that potentially we could have accuracy problems because you're trying to track down and keep track of emails. And then we have people who forward emails to other members and you can't keep track. So we said, okay, let's just build a little component inside of SDRM or NaSDAq.org, where you can log in and we put a little notification up that says, hey, here. You know, go here. Click, and click your vote, which, you know, it's simple. It's a yes or a no. And so that's the change.

Donny Seyfer [00:05:26]:
And it'll be, I think it's probably, we put email out, we'll put another one out at about 15 days into the end of the cycle because it's a 30 day. And just make sure that those who've either forgotten or had any kind of issue or confusion can get back to us and we can show them how to get in there.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:46]:
So I'm just gonna reiterate what you just said. It's on the website. Vote on the website. And don't send Donnie emails to the. Do not reply email. Don't. Don't do that. I know when you hear something you're not supposed to do, you just, you have to do it that way.

Braxton Critcher [00:06:06]:
Don't do it. Stop. No.

Donny Seyfer [00:06:07]:
Yeah, just, well, it'll get responded to much quicker if you go to our support desk. There's four people instead of me who's traveling a lot looking at that email, and I only just look because all of a sudden a response comes back and you're like, I wonder what that's about? And a lot of times they're really just requests for support. And that ship has sailed for me. I mean, I'm just not that down in the weeds every day with how to fix a document or things like that. The team that does it for us is really good.

Braxton Critcher [00:06:43]:
Last time you were on here, we talked about locksmiths and scan tools being stolen from repair shops, and it brought up a lot of commentary. There were a lot of people that asked questions. A lot of people were hot and bothered. You know, that that happens a lot with whatever you do. But I. So you, I noticed on the press release you guys are adding a new board member for locksmiths because of that very issue, because it's a growing one.

Donny Seyfer [00:07:19]:
Yeah. Well, even before we started working on this program, the number of locksmiths in the program has sort of reached. Reached a point where it made sense. So 44,000 members, roughly 5000 of those are locksmiths. So that makes us. And I'm sure some of the locksmith associations will be very upset about me saying this. That makes us the biggest locksmith organization, association in the industry.

Braxton Critcher [00:07:48]:
Really?

Donny Seyfer [00:07:49]:
Yeah. So if we're representing them that way, then they need to have representation on the board. And so we went out to industry and said, give us somebody that you think is a good addition, because Claude Hensley, who's on our board now, he's amazing. I mean, the amount of effort he puts into all of this, and he's very even handed with everything. And he helped launch SDRM from the beginning. So he's our legacy guy. But we wanted a young locksmith who's very in tune with. With kind of what's going on in that part of the industry.

Donny Seyfer [00:08:28]:
And so they suggested Stephen Hoffman, and we did our normal nomination committee vetting and all that committee really liked Stephen, and so that's how we got on the status. I'm sorry, on the slate, but we had to change the bylaws because we sort of had a conundrum. Right. We've got 15 amazing board members who all put a lot of effort into Nasdaq. And so to add one, we would have had to give up somebody and somebody who potentially is a major contributor to the efforts that we do. So the board said, let's just add somebody until somebody's ready to retire. So we amended the bylaws, and then when we have an open seat in our at large positions, then we'll take it back to 15. And because 15 is a big board to get together.

Braxton Critcher [00:09:30]:
It is. Yeah.

Donny Seyfer [00:09:31]:
Pulling a phone call together is a challenge. And you look down our list at who's who, it's even harder because of who they are. So, anyway, we're excited. Steven's a really smart guy, and he gets it from both sides of the equation. He looks at everything with an open mind, which is what you need to have with group that represents, you know, in essence, three different disciplines.

Braxton Critcher [00:09:57]:
This is kind of off topic, but, you know, the. The rise of AI in the industry is just like every other industry. It's, I think, scaring a lot of people. What. What are you seeing? What are you guys expecting from more AI in shops and in the automotive industry?

Donny Seyfer [00:10:16]:
Well, I think it's a double edged sword, right? I mean, some of it is so cool, the things they're able to do. I mean, we've sort of watched Aiden on diagnostic network because I've been involved with that a little bit. We've watched that develop from when Aidan was initially telling people how to steal cars using YouTube videos, when they would ask a security related question to now saying, well, here's how the automaker recommends you do it. And so we've seen that evolution, but we're careful at Nasdaq about kind of giving up the secret sauce. So that AI could be used to try to work around our program, and it's not really a protectionist thing as much as it is. We run a security program, and people, they don't necessarily get that. So there's a sweet spot between keeping all your members up to speed on what's going on and helping the bad guys figure out how to exploit them.

Braxton Critcher [00:11:21]:
I was talking with Mike and some other folks from shop controller, and they just released this thing called voice controller where, and another, other shop management systems have done this, but I think theirs is cutting edge, where they have an AI service that answers the phone. You know, when your service advisor is away from the desk, even after hours, it'll answer the phone. And they are trying to decide if they should tell the person on the other side of the phone if that's AI or not, because that's how good the voice sounds, that's how smart the intelligence is, that they can have a natural conversation with the customer. And, I mean, it's wild. It's amazing. I mean, obviously, it's still new. There's a lot of kinks to work out, but I'm amazed at the things that AI is able to do and help the industry. You know, obviously, like you said, there are.

Braxton Critcher [00:12:29]:
There are, for sure things with theft and helping people be criminals that you try to avoid and figure those things out. But, my goodness, done the right way, just like everything, it can really help the industry.

Donny Seyfer [00:12:44]:
Yeah, no, there's. There's no question that the. Of course, from, you know, kind of. Kind of. From a spiritual point of view, I just wonder about how we dehumanize the process a little bit, because there's connections that humans have when they talk to each other that AI can't replicate, but on the other hand, providing better and more responsive customer service that never needs to rest and all of that never gets upset. Those are very valuable things. I saw a deal this morning where you can take a picture you've got and generate a headshot using aih.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:24]:
Really?

Donny Seyfer [00:13:24]:
And I'm like, well, that's kind of cool, but is anything real?

Braxton Critcher [00:13:30]:
Yeah, there's. I mean, there's. Yeah, I mean, there. There's videos online that are, that are AI. Like, I saw a movie called Fall Guy. Have you heard about that movie fall guy? It's on Netflix now.

Donny Seyfer [00:13:51]:
Okay.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:52]:
And it. At the end of the, the movie, there was a scene where the fall guy was framed for a crime by the criminal going through with the crime, but then going back on the video surveillance and replacing his face with someone else to frame them.

Donny Seyfer [00:14:14]:
Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:14:14]:
And I'm like, you know, that's a real thing. Like, that could happen. It's like, yes. That's crazy.

Donny Seyfer [00:14:23]:
Yep. No, no doubt. Well, there's a lot of things that we have to. We have to think about, and I think that, you know, we're seeing some folks maybe apply the brakes a little bit and say, okay, so what are the unintended consequences? Yeah, I think that's good. It's a good test.

Braxton Critcher [00:14:43]:
What are some other things that is happening in the industry that you guys are involved in that folks should know about?

Donny Seyfer [00:14:48]:
Well, so if you've seen our most recent release, our email, we've had multiple wins with automakers who have been slow at getting solutions out. So Nissan, whom we've been working on since basically 2020, has released their j 2534 version of their consult four software and cross my fingers, I haven't heard any noise that there's any problems. So that's fantastic.

Braxton Critcher [00:15:22]:
You've been doing sneaky stuff with that one, too. People don't know about it.

Donny Seyfer [00:15:25]:
Well, it's. We actually. We publish it, but no one reads it.

Braxton Critcher [00:15:30]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Donny Seyfer [00:15:31]:
So we did, back in about two years ago, almost now we did a, what we call an information request review. So that's what happens after a member submits a service information request and the automaker either fails to comply or the tech doesn't think that they solve the problem. So we had three technicians who requested this IRR, and so that means we put together a little committee, that is three automakers, three experts in that brand, and then our managing director, Holly, moderates it and then compiles it all into one document, which then we send to the automaker as, this is what you should do, because they signed an agreement with, with us saying that they agreed to a fair and reasonable solution. Now, if the automaker doesn't agree with us, well, they can go to arbitration outside of Nasdaq with that shop. But they never said they didn't agree with us. It was just took them forever to get it done. And this is what happens with technology quite a bit. So there really were three issues.

Donny Seyfer [00:16:44]:
Two of them are now resolved. One was this J 25 34 version of the software that was not out and the tools been out for quite some time, and it wasn't available. But then the other issue was there were a lot of warranty issues happening, particularly with transmissions. I'm sorry, but you got all this dinging going on. I turned off.

Braxton Critcher [00:17:04]:
You're a popular guy. What can I say? You're Donnie on the spot. Come on.

Donny Seyfer [00:17:08]:
Yeah. So it would seem. But anyway, the warranty concerns were mostly around CVT's, and if there was a problem with them, some of the dealers were saying, well, it won't be warrantied because you didn't program it at the dealership. I'm like, no, that's not going to fly. That's a Magnus and Moss violation. We had the FTC on the phone after we did the IRR, and we didn't get a response. We went to the FTC and said, so, what do you think? And we had, like, six of their attorneys on there, and like, oh, clear. Magnus and Moss violation.

Donny Seyfer [00:17:43]:
So we went back to Nissan and said, can we, you know, can we work this out? You guys really need to fix this. So what they did was they created a new warranty document because we understood their situation. They've got techs who don't take the time to fill out the paperwork. Right? And then they've got dealerships who don't take time to fill the paperwork out, right. And then Nissan's on the other end of it going, well, what are we supposed to do here? Is this a warranty? Is it not a warranty? So long and short of it is that what they agreed to do with us was update that documentation that's been done? And then they also put a message out to all their dealers saying, yeah, so here there's this little law in the United States called the Magnus and moss act, and you should be aware of it, and, you know, you're basically violating it on our behalf when you say it's not covered by warranty because you didn't use us to program. You know, as long as you program with the proper equipment and you use the right calibration, then you're in business. Which leads us to the third thing that still isn't resolved, and that is the right calibration. Getting that information has been extremely challenging, and when you go to the support desk that supports that for Nissan, we have guys who get the wrong information sometimes and then brick the module inside of a.

Donny Seyfer [00:19:01]:
Inside of a CVT, which results in, guess what, you know, unless you really are tricky, it's hard to fix that solution and or fix that problem. So that pieces in the works. They have a, they have a solution for the dealers that doesn't work. That works really well, and it's very fast, but our solution can take sometimes days to get a response, and that doesn't fly.

Braxton Critcher [00:19:25]:
Yeah.

Donny Seyfer [00:19:26]:
So they're building out a piece of software. What we're told, I don't have many details on it yet that will be able to do that work. So you'll be able to look up the vehicle by Vin and get a good answer because there's stuff sort of sprinkled by model year and model all over the place, whether it's in their catalog or it's in a disc that comes with a transmission. You know, all of those things are sources. But the guys struggle with it. I mean, and the guys that we've had on this committee, these are experts. I mean, they're Nissan guys. They know their stuff.

Donny Seyfer [00:20:02]:
Some of them worked at dealers. So that's what we've been working on there. Hyundai and Kia, we've been working on their j 2534 software with them. It's been a struggle because their tool is Android based, a requirement because they're korean, and they're to use a korean national company, which is Samsung, who uses their tablets are all Android based. So that meant that Hyundai and Kia had to write their software from Android to Windows. And so that was a major undertaking. So that software should be available at the very beginning of 2025. We originally were planning for, we were told was going to be November of this year.

Donny Seyfer [00:20:55]:
But I just had a meeting with them. I was just in their headquarters two days ago, and they showed us where they're at going. Honda had a problem where their payment system was broken, and that resulted in folks with annual subscriptions even not being able to get into it, into service Express. So they've got that fixed. So General Motors had a whole bunch of mdis that were out there that were not theirs. They were counterfeit. And they went to run a software update for security, and they bricked every single one of those things. They won't work anymore.

Donny Seyfer [00:21:34]:
Well, of course, they were counterfeit to begin with, but a lot of shops either don't know or don't care that they bought one, right? And sometimes they paid the same money for the, you know, for the counterfeit that they would have for the others. So. And so then, you know, Nasdaq support desk lit up, GM support desk lit up. And, I mean, it was like I got a phone call. Well, we didn't know this was going to happen, but guess what happened this afternoon? So GM had to scramble and put up a new portal to purchased those things because they didn't have enough of them when this happened. They weren't planning to kill everybody's fake counterfeit mdis, but it happened. So those, those are just the things we've done in the last 30 days, but sometimes two to three years to get to that point.

Braxton Critcher [00:22:19]:
Yeah, it's less than 30 days from the election. Tell me this, how often do you guys have elections? What's your election cycle?

Donny Seyfer [00:22:28]:
Every, we do every year. Every about roughly a third of the board every year. So. And we usually, we try to get them out at the beginning of October or the end of September. This year we had, we really ran it down to the wire because we were doing these by law changes and I had to get them in front of the board for approval. And I mean, we had approved everything in principle, but we wanted to, you know, make sure that we had done everything we needed to do. So. Yeah, so, you know, we ran that down to the wire.

Donny Seyfer [00:23:02]:
I don't think we launched that thing until like the second or 3 October and our general meetings on the 4 November. And we want to be able to announce there. Right. So like, this is our bogey, guys. Gotta get to this date.

Braxton Critcher [00:23:15]:
Well, because it's crunch time and that election deadline is coming up and there's a national election and state elections doesn't need to get lost. So go ahead. You can vote now. Like, take care of that. So go to the nest if website, if you remember. Go ahead and vote. It is on the website. Just to say that again, it's not an email.

Braxton Critcher [00:23:44]:
So go to the Nastiff website and vote today before you put it off and then you forget, whatever. So take care of that today and let us know in the comments what your thoughts are about what's happening with everything in the industry, especially AI, you know, let us know your, and, and with the scan tools and, you know, all of that stuff. So hit us up, let us know. Give us your thoughts and ask questions. We appreciate that. You know, it's good for this community to, to be together, ask questions so we can all grow together, too. So do that in the comments. And appreciate you talking with us today, Donnie.

Donny Seyfer [00:24:27]:
Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you.

Braxton Critcher [00:24:28]:
Braxton Automotive repair news today. Thanks for listening. Hey, if you're still here, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Automotive Repair News today. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment. Like share, subscribe to the podcast. That'll help us out a big deal and help grow the show. And you know what? While you're at it, slap on a review, too. If you feel like this content is helpful for the industry.

Braxton Critcher [00:24:54]:
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