Automotive Repair News Today

Braxton Critcher [00:00:05]:
Well, I have the one and only Chris Cotton on the podcast. What's up, Chris?

Chris Cotton [00:00:12]:
Not much. Just enjoying a beautiful, warm, sunny, no snow on the ground. Ice. Kansas City. Go Kansas City. Just kidding.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:23]:
Yeah, you. You had some troubles getting here, didn't you?

Chris Cotton [00:00:26]:
A little bit. Not too bad. Like, we're. They closed the airport yesterday morning for like four hours, but we came in right after that.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:32]:
Yeah.

Chris Cotton [00:00:32]:
So we were some of the lucky ones, but we came in a day early. I don't teach till tomorrow, but, you know, coming through Denver to Kansas City in basically towards the end of winter, I was like, yeah, we better leave early because something's going to happen. But actually, we kind of skated through, so.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:52]:
By the way, this is Automotive Repair News today. I'm Braxton, he's Chris from Autofix Auto Shop coaching. And I had. So Lucas is always Lucas Underwood. He's always just freaky about flights.

Chris Cotton [00:01:07]:
Oh, yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:08]:
And I always tell him, well, Lucas, you're always so concerned that we're gonna miss our flight and it never happens, so take a chill pill, will ya? And so he texted me Tuesday. We had our flight Wednesday. And so he texted, by the way, we're at Vision in Kansas City, 2025. And he. So he texted me Tuesday. And he was like, you know, it's gonna be dicey. I don't know if we're gonna make it there. There's some storms coming in.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:37]:
I said, lucas, just deep breath. We're gonna be okay. We're gonna get there. And we did get here. But he was partially right because my flight from Asheville to Charlotte and then Charlotte to here, Asheville, 11am Thursday, got canceled at 10pm Wednesday night. Well, then American Airlines then rescheduled my flight and they wanted me to fly from Asheville at 6:00am to wash. No, no, no, I'm sorry. 7:00pm the next day, go to Washington, D.C.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:14]:
stay there overnight, then Wednesday morning, fly from D.C. to Chicago, then Chicago to Kansas City. Get here three in the afternoon on Thursday. I was like, no way. It's not going to happen. So I called America and we worked it out. But Lucas partially was right this time. But out of the four or five times I've flown with him, he's been wrong every other time.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:40]:
So he gets a half point? Yep, he gets a half point.

Chris Cotton [00:02:42]:
He sounds like, I wonder what his birthday is. He sounds like a constant. I love my wife to death, but a constant worrier. Like, she's super anxious around travel and everything.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:50]:
Oh, yeah.

Chris Cotton [00:02:51]:
So she gets worked up. I try to make everything go as smooth as possible. But I don't know. We made it here. It's all good.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:58]:
Yeah. All this. Well, Lucas, I mean, he has some reasons to be that way in some other parts of his life, but he is that guy. Like, okay, he is. And I. And I used to be worried about travel. Like, I used to always be concerned about missing the flight, whatever. But the more I've flown, the more I've just realized, as long as you get there, hour and a half, two hours ahead of time, you.

Braxton Critcher [00:03:19]:
You'll be okay.

Chris Cotton [00:03:19]:
Right. I'm. I'm 52 years old now, so I've learned there's absolutely zero control I have over it.

Braxton Critcher [00:03:25]:
Right.

Chris Cotton [00:03:26]:
That's.

Braxton Critcher [00:03:26]:
I mean.

Chris Cotton [00:03:26]:
And, yeah, I think once you get past that point, you're like, it is what it is. After we're done, I can try, but I don't think it'll do. Maybe he should listen to this and be so. Lucas, hey, come on. There's nothing you can do about it. Get over it. Just. What I have learned, though, is if you get up and try to fly earlier in the morning, then you have more room to correct errors than if you leave it, like, noon or whatever.

Chris Cotton [00:03:49]:
Because if you miss a flight late in the day, you're done. Because it's. Listen, you're in trouble.

Braxton Critcher [00:03:55]:
I'm a big margin guy, leave margin. I like to be on time. Other people in my life aren't that way, but I'm just leave margin. And that's the way it needs to be in flying to.

Chris Cotton [00:04:09]:
Right.

Braxton Critcher [00:04:09]:
So, anyway, we're recording this podcast on. They're not a sponsor of the podcast, but I'm going to tell you what we're using. We're using Hollyland wireless microphones, and I forget the exact version that we're using. You can look them up. Maybe I can post a link in the show notes. But we are sitting upstairs at the.

Chris Cotton [00:04:30]:
Vision Expo out in the open. Like, we can hear a lot of background noise and everything else, but, I mean, these things have been pretty amazing. Like, I don't know why I would need one, but maybe I need to go ahead and grab one of these. Just.

Braxton Critcher [00:04:43]:
I mean. Do you have a podcast, Chris?

Chris Cotton [00:04:45]:
I guess I do, yeah. Well, we have three now. So we've got the weekly. Yeah, but two, we got the Weekly Blitz with Chris Cotton, and then we got the Autofix Technology cast, and then Michael Dougherty's Auto Fix Advisor cast. So I spent.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:01]:
Whenever you go to shows, yeah, she does all you need.

Chris Cotton [00:05:04]:
And then there's this little. I call it a dongle, but I don't know. That just plugs into the bottom of your phone to connect it all, and it looks like it's good to go.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:12]:
It comes. It comes with. And the reason I've got Chris on is I want to talk about technology. And like he already mentioned, he hosts the autofix technology cast. But yeah, so it's got the dongle for, like, an older iPhone, which is what I have. And then it has the dongle.

Chris Cotton [00:05:31]:
Yep.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:32]:
It's usb C. Yep. It goes to the newer and also Androids. But also what I love is it has a dongle that you can plug into your camera. So when I shoot video.

Chris Cotton [00:05:44]:
Oh, with your other camera.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:45]:
Okay. So like, I have a Fujifilm x T4. And so when I shoot video for a client or Lucas at his repair shop, I can plug this dongle into a regular audio jack straight to my camera. It overrides the audio, and it's fantastic. Great, great audio. And these microphones clip right to my. My shirt with, like, magnet. Or you can.

Braxton Critcher [00:06:09]:
You can use the regular clip, but I just use the magnets. So, you know, for repair shop owners who are trying to get into social media, something like this is really great because it was like 120 bucks. The battery life is fantastic. And the audio quality, as you are listening to this show right now, listening, and we're recording upstairs in a convention center, audio quality is great. So for a Parasha punter trying to get into social media videos, it's 120 bucks and you get really good quality. Or if you're like me, you're trying to do a podcast like, Chris, take.

Chris Cotton [00:06:46]:
These wherever you can. Yeah, take them.

Braxton Critcher [00:06:48]:
I'm not going to just record. And I've got an app on my phone that I'm recording the audio directly to, and I can upload it and do my thing. But. So technology has greatly increased in the past five years in life in general. You have the iPhone 15, I have an 11, my phone. I forget when the 11s came out, like six years ago.

Chris Cotton [00:07:13]:
Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:07:13]:
But if we were to compare my video quality to your video quality, it would be night and day. And my video quality compared to the iPhone5 is night and day. So it's crazy what technology has done in the past half decade. So I'm just curious. You've done six or seven episodes at this point of the technology cast. You've talked to some really great guests about technology in the industry. You've been picking their brain. What have you learned where are we.

Chris Cotton [00:07:47]:
At technology wise and technology in the industry? You can kind of look at it like technology with phones. Right. Like, you can be a guy like my dad, who's in his 70s, who still has a flip phone. Like, you know, I don't even know how he makes that work anymore. I guess there's like one or two companies out there left that still service flip phones.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:07]:
Some people like, not even just older folks, some people just want that. They don't care. So there are a few companies, but there's not many.

Chris Cotton [00:08:14]:
So you got. And I could even go further back. Like when I was a kid, there was like bag phones, right? That was the first cell phones. Was like a bag phone.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:21]:
Well, my mom had one in the minivan growing up. She had a bag phone.

Chris Cotton [00:08:24]:
And I can even. My grandpa worked in the oil industry. And I can even remember, like, you couldn't even remove the phone out of the truck. It was like hardwired in.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:32]:
Oh, yeah.

Chris Cotton [00:08:33]:
But 24 hours a day he left his truck running in the front yard or wherever he was at, and the horn would honk and he would run out there and pick up the phone. Yeah. So that's. That takes it back to that. And so anyway, there's varying stages of technology, right. You've got grandpa's car phone, bag phones, brick phones, flip phones, and then smartphones, and then now, like our advanced smartphones. Right. I feel like as an industry, if you take all the industry and kind of squeeze it together, like, we're probably still in the flip phone age, right?

Braxton Critcher [00:09:10]:
Oh, you think so?

Chris Cotton [00:09:11]:
I think so. I don't think we use our technology to our advantage at all. One of the questions I'm going to ask tomorrow is how many of you use DVIs and have a regular process and procedure around it? And my guess is probably a third of the shop owners do DVIs and whatever. I did a class recently in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I did three and asked the same question. And probably a third of them said, yes, we have DVI and yes, we have a process and procedure around it where we all know for all of my clients and even our shop that we bought anybody that goes from a paper inspection to a DVI process, your average repair order increases by like $245 just by switching. So when people say, oh, I can't afford it, that's all hogwash.

Braxton Critcher [00:09:59]:
Right.

Chris Cotton [00:10:00]:
Like, you will make more money by switching to that process. I also feel like the more I talk to shop owners, the more we use about 20% of our systems of the Technology that we have in place. I feel like we have a lot of technology that we use, but we just barely use it enough to do what we need to do and then we don't learn about any of the rest of it. So I still think we have a lot of growth to go and maybe this year, maybe we'll catch up and move from like the flip phone to the, to the smartphone era. But by then, technology advances so fast. Like, what's going to happen in the next year in order to move on? The other, the other part of technology that I don't think about is just the data. And a lot of technology now is based around data, data retrieval, what they do with it, especially like your CRMs, your shop management systems. And I never really thought of data and data analysis as technology, but I guess it's behind the scenes.

Chris Cotton [00:11:00]:
But I would see, I would see that as being huge at this point.

Braxton Critcher [00:11:05]:
Wow. I mean, I think I assumed that we were kind of behind, but I don't think I expected you to say we're like a flip phone.

Chris Cotton [00:11:17]:
Yeah. I think, I think as an industry, we're way behind. Like, if you look at, if you look at what we do and if you look at the total industry, like if you look at 200,000 aftermarket repair shop owners out there, and if you follow the 8020 rule, that means there's about 40,000 shops that are kind of up to date and using technology and everything else. And the other 160,000 are still using pen and paper and they don't have a DVI or anything else. Like, it's. I think if you really got into that number, you'd be shocked to see the lack of technology being used in our industry. Man.

Braxton Critcher [00:12:02]:
Wow. I just, you've kind of like, shut me up, Chris. Did not expect that to come out of your mouth. So I wanted to talk about AI and maybe we can.

Chris Cotton [00:12:14]:
Which we can.

Braxton Critcher [00:12:15]:
Yeah, But I think that's more on the, the advanced side. I think to get to where you can use AI at your shop, you first have to start with some other tech, right?

Chris Cotton [00:12:26]:
Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:12:26]:
So where do you think a shop owner needs to go first if they're sort of way behind?

Chris Cotton [00:12:33]:
Well, if you're like one, if you're writing like pen and paper, or if you have one of the older legacy systems that's not cloud based, you need to upgrade that to a cloud based shop management system.

Braxton Critcher [00:12:49]:
Well, let's, let's leave them to the side.

Chris Cotton [00:12:52]:
Okay.

Braxton Critcher [00:12:53]:
Because I feel like, and I don't know this, but I would hope if you're listening to this podcast, then you at least have shot management system. So let's, let's leave that as the baseline.

Chris Cotton [00:13:04]:
Okay.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:05]:
Let's say you have shop management, maybe you need to upgrade it, right? Maybe you're using DVI or actually use.

Chris Cotton [00:13:11]:
The DVI and have a process.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:12]:
Yeah, let's say, let's say that's the baseline. What is the next. Hey, maybe it is AI. I don't know. What do you think?

Chris Cotton [00:13:21]:
Well, and here's the thing, it's like computer technology back then. It's evolving so fast it's hard to keep up with. And by the time you start then that's already obsolete. And there's something else happened. I think there's some great tools, some cost saving or not, excuse me, some production saving things that you can do or you can use that's automated or AI. You know, one of the things that I like, it still needs to be tweaked a little bit is the AI generated review answering. Like you have to do some tweaking to it, but especially if you're a bigger shop and you're getting like four or five, six, ten reviews a day or a week and you want those to be answered immediately. There's some really good AI stuff around that there was.

Chris Cotton [00:14:09]:
There's some talk about AI driven estimating to like help you create your estimates and make it faster, which I'm very interested in. But I'm like most good service advisors can create an estimate really, really quick in the systems they're using. So I was like, I'm not really excited about it, but I want to see what it can do. And then as far as like AI generated questions and answers, you know, you can use that for chat if you're somebody that might be technology averse. But I will tell you some of the stuff that we've done in our shop just by being able to sell tires on the Internet and having that automated. If you can have some of those things automated and help out with AI, I think it really would help. And then if you've got, you know, technicians typically are not great spellers. They have a great way of putting stuff out there.

Chris Cotton [00:15:12]:
You could copy and paste what they have, put it in AI and let it clean it up and whatever, and then copy and paste that back into the work order. I think things like that would be really, really helpful. My brain works a little differently. Like if you're like, Chris, hey, write me a one page paper. Like some of it's gonna be in Cap. Some of it's gonna be in lower space, some of it's gonna be printed, some of it's gonna be cursive, which I know all you young ones, maybe you, I don't know. Can you even read cursive, Braxton?

Braxton Critcher [00:15:39]:
I can.

Chris Cotton [00:15:40]:
Okay.

Braxton Critcher [00:15:40]:
It just depends on how old you.

Chris Cotton [00:15:43]:
Hieroglyphics and then cursive, right?

Braxton Critcher [00:15:45]:
Yeah. Like if it's my 90 year old grandma, probably not, but you know, my 60 year old mom, I can read her cursive. Cause there's levels.

Chris Cotton [00:15:53]:
Right.

Braxton Critcher [00:15:53]:
But yeah.

Chris Cotton [00:15:54]:
So if you ask me to like hand, Handwrite something without typing would be atrocious. But cursive. Well, my cursive, but my brain switches from uppercase, lowercase cursive. I could have one page and you would see all of that in there.

Braxton Critcher [00:16:12]:
I can read cursive, I can sign my name. But if I had to write cursive, maybe I'm like you.

Chris Cotton [00:16:19]:
Really?

Braxton Critcher [00:16:20]:
It's been so long since I wrote curse.

Chris Cotton [00:16:22]:
Well, it's not, I'm. It's not. I'm out of practice. It's just my brain.

Braxton Critcher [00:16:25]:
I just don't know if I could write cursive right now. I'd have to try that out. I don't know if I could. Yeah, it's been a long time.

Chris Cotton [00:16:32]:
And it's like I read it, but I really try hard to write and make it legible. It is not like you just can't. It's like none of it. But anyway. So you can take, you can use AI stuff like that. And there's some works with. I'd have to get on my computer and look at it. There's some stuff AI wise now where you can take an income statement and put it in there and if you have some parameters set, it will come back and tell you like, what you're doing wrong.

Chris Cotton [00:17:00]:
Like, are your margins low? Are your margins high? Which, you know, maybe that may make coaching obsolete, but it would be an interesting thing for us to be able to do, to scan it in and be like, hey, what are the top five things this shop could do?

Braxton Critcher [00:17:13]:
I think we are a long way away from replacing a lot of things. I think people are scared because there's potential. But I think we are a long way away from replacing most people.

Chris Cotton [00:17:22]:
Right.

Braxton Critcher [00:17:23]:
Especially when you think about coaching.

Chris Cotton [00:17:24]:
Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:17:25]:
Like, oh, well.

Chris Cotton [00:17:27]:
And it could be. So here's the other thing is it might be making.

Braxton Critcher [00:17:31]:
I think we're using the. I think we're wearing the same vest. I just realized that. But. But yeah, it's I think we're both wearing Eddie Bauer.

Chris Cotton [00:17:37]:
Yep. Yeah. And mine has the autofix logo.

Braxton Critcher [00:17:40]:
Different shade of gray.

Chris Cotton [00:17:41]:
Different shade of gray.

Braxton Critcher [00:17:41]:
Anyway, sorry about that. I had to bring that out.

Chris Cotton [00:17:44]:
I just.

Braxton Critcher [00:17:44]:
The more I keep looking at you, like, is that the same vest? I think it is.

Chris Cotton [00:17:48]:
Mine's a couple sizes bigger, but. Well, so I think there's. There's stuff like that that can make you faster. Like, maybe it. Maybe it saves you five minutes a day for that one task, but if you do that one task, like 50 times, then how much time did that save you? So there's all of those things, and they're just coming out. In the industry, there's like, AI texting. Like, I coach a shop that they don't take any inbound phone calls. They text everything the customers are prompted to text in.

Chris Cotton [00:18:22]:
And so now they're creating, like, responses based off of the texts that come in to help get them to the end and schedule without a person even interacting with them at all.

Braxton Critcher [00:18:33]:
And even without having a service advisor.

Chris Cotton [00:18:35]:
Yeah, they have a service advisor, but the service advisor is in the shop taking care of customers that are there. And this is just a function done outside of that to make the service provider.

Braxton Critcher [00:18:44]:
How are their findings? Have they seen a dip or an increase?

Chris Cotton [00:18:47]:
No, they've been doing this for years. Like, this is not a new thing. They're. They're on the west coast and they, like, if you call their shop, you don't get. You never speak to a person, ever. You call the shop, it says, hey, to schedule appointment, text here, or if you'd like to email here, email here.

Braxton Critcher [00:19:04]:
Maybe that's a West coast thing. I don't think that would be very successful. In a lot of other places.

Chris Cotton [00:19:08]:
It's, you know, they've trained their people, and I think. I think people are. People are more used to it than you think. And there are some people that want to be talked to, and there's some people that don't want to be talked to. Like, for me, being a coach and a consultant and I have, like, ton of appointments every day, and I've said this before on my podcast, if I stop to take out the trash, it cost me money. So if I have to stop to talk to somebody to make an appointment or do something like that, if it's something that can be done in 30 seconds versus five minutes, then I'm all the better for it at that point to, like, schedule and stuff.

Braxton Critcher [00:19:48]:
Yeah.

Chris Cotton [00:19:50]:
But if you. If you'll remember, like, Craig. Craig O'Neill, and I did a podcast like recently where we're trying to figure out like how much technology is too much technology before you lose that personal touch. And you know, you have to kind of figure out what that is for your shop. Just like all shops are different in how they profit, their rent, everything like that. Everybody shops going to be different on how they interact with the customers, how they schedule appointments and all that.

Braxton Critcher [00:20:18]:
So have you, have you heard of Voice Controller?

Chris Cotton [00:20:22]:
Explain to me. Like, I may not know that name.

Braxton Critcher [00:20:25]:
But if Voice Controller is a new company technology that came out of Shop Controller, the shop management system.

Chris Cotton [00:20:36]:
Okay.

Braxton Critcher [00:20:37]:
And it is an AI answering phone service.

Chris Cotton [00:20:40]:
Oh, okay, yes, I've heard some of those transcripts back and forth.

Braxton Critcher [00:20:45]:
Yeah, yeah, look into it. You probably should even have Mike Corvarick, their CEO on your show.

Chris Cotton [00:20:50]:
Okay.

Braxton Critcher [00:20:51]:
But it's really interesting because they don't brand it as replacing the actual person.

Chris Cotton [00:21:00]:
Right.

Braxton Critcher [00:21:01]:
Because I mean, I am of the belief, I guess that works for that one shot, but I'm of the belief that there still needs to be that person that answers the phone that you can have that connection with to, you know, brand your shop friendly voice. But when your service advisor's away from the desk or he's on the phone or after hours, this AI answering service answers the phone and it sounds like a per. Like it sounds just like a person.

Chris Cotton [00:21:27]:
Right.

Braxton Critcher [00:21:27]:
And so they say this is a AI answering service just so they're not being shady or whatever.

Chris Cotton [00:21:34]:
Right.

Braxton Critcher [00:21:34]:
And it's crazy. One repair shop, because you know, there's so many things in your, in your business that you don't even know about. Like you don't even know you're missing this whatever.

Chris Cotton [00:21:43]:
Right.

Braxton Critcher [00:21:44]:
And he signed up with Voice controller and in one month booked 10 extra appointments.

Chris Cotton [00:21:51]:
Yeah. From this service, what we're seeing is, and this is the whole thing, right? Like we, like as shop owners, we spend a lot of money trying to get the phone to ring and make sure that we convert stuff like that. And the online appointments convert more than actual people answering the phone.

Braxton Critcher [00:22:07]:
Yeah.

Chris Cotton [00:22:07]:
So other people may want it, but what we're seeing is we're converting more appointments, not using people in most instances. And that thing I was talking about earlier where you put the spreadsheets in and it'll give you like the top five things, like what's wrong with your business. You can also tell it to turn it into a 15 minute two person podcast and it'll create a voice podcast between two people talking about these things in that business.

Braxton Critcher [00:22:38]:
Have you been doing that with Your show.

Chris Cotton [00:22:39]:
I have not. No, not honestly. It would be easier than getting some of these people on sometimes. Like, maybe I should do that. I could just like, start a script and be like, hey, here we go. But no, it's. It's just amazing the things that that AI is doing and is capable of.

Braxton Critcher [00:22:58]:
Yeah.

Chris Cotton [00:22:59]:
And I'm not saying everybody needs to do it, but you need to know about it, like, and be watching it and listening to it and. And just seeing what's out there with it.

Braxton Critcher [00:23:08]:
Yeah.

Chris Cotton [00:23:09]:
What.

Braxton Critcher [00:23:09]:
What else, technology wise, are we not taking advantage of that? We should.

Chris Cotton [00:23:16]:
I think, like, I just recently did a podcast with the garage gurus guys. I don't think we take advantage of the online training at all. Like, and I didn't get it in that episode. I was gonna do a teaser for it, but I'll say it here. They have their online training, up to 10 users, $49 a month, and that is training for your technicians that you can't beat. They have all of their ase test prep, all their other training, everything on there for 49 bucks for up to 10 users. Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:23:50]:
Wow.

Chris Cotton [00:23:50]:
And so, like, every shop in America should subscribe to that and use. Even if you have eight techs or they also have some service advisor training in there and don't use it. So, again, I think we. We see shiny bells and whistles and that's what we're attracted to, but then we want to do it, but then we only use 20% of it instead of going, like, deeper into what. What those things will do.

Braxton Critcher [00:24:12]:
And it probably just goes back to, you know, time, because, you know, shop owner probably thinks, oh, well, I need to tap into this and do this, but I kind of got to set it up first. Well, it takes time.

Chris Cotton [00:24:22]:
We all have the same amount of time. I think it goes back to poor time management. Like, again, people being too busy in their shop and not being able to work on their shop is kind of what it all boils back down to. And they have time. They have the same amount of time as you do. I do. Everybody else does, but they've decided not to make it a priority for whatever.

Braxton Critcher [00:24:42]:
Reason, until, hey, listen, you're calling people out. And I love it because I'm. That I'm that way. I hate excuses. And so many times when somebody says, I don't have time, it's really just an excuse.

Chris Cotton [00:24:54]:
Right? Yeah. You just didn't. You just didn't make time.

Braxton Critcher [00:24:56]:
You didn't prioritize it.

Chris Cotton [00:24:57]:
You didn't prioritize it. Exactly.

Braxton Critcher [00:24:59]:
Yeah.

Chris Cotton [00:24:59]:
Yep.

Braxton Critcher [00:25:00]:
Well, where do you think the industry can be technology wise in five years? You think we can make some strides?

Chris Cotton [00:25:10]:
I think we can make some strides again. It's just people have to learn about it, do it, adapt to it, figure out how it works for you. I recently did. I've been going around the country doing our peer group meetings for this time of year and I kind of did like a state of the union thing at all of those. And one of the things I talked about was we have, cars are breaking more, cars are more unreliable now than they were five years ago. And if you look back at our industry back in the early 2000s, like the big push was, hey, you have to get into preventative maintenance because cars are more reliable, they're going to break down less often. So you have to make sure that you teach your customers about preventative maintenance. I think we've swung all the way back to where we were in the late 90s and the early 2000s to where cars are unreliable.

Chris Cotton [00:26:00]:
I don't want shop owners to forget about preventative maintenance because we still have to do that. But breakdowns are worse now than they've ever been. New cars are unreliable. I'd have to go back. I don't have any of those numbers in front of me.

Braxton Critcher [00:26:15]:
Well, a new car is unreliable because they got a lot of tech in there and tech fails and that, and.

Chris Cotton [00:26:19]:
That'S why, that's why they're failing. But also we've got the tariff situation that's happening. I think we're, we're down millions of units a year in new car sales, which is great for us because the average age keep going up. So, so that part of the outlook is we're all going to be busy, we're going to have a lot to do. But how we handle it, how we schedule it, what we do with those are things that we can use to our advantage. So one, be better at scheduling. If you're a shop that you're proud to be booked out three, four weeks in advance, I say it's bullshit. Like if you're happy because you're booked out three, four weeks, I think you're probably losing more customers than you're getting and you need to figure out a better way to use your space, be more productive.

Chris Cotton [00:27:07]:
One of the big things I'm big on is if you have an eight base shop, you need to figure out how to put eight technicians in that shop. If you have a smaller shop, for sure you need to do that because you know, if you have somebody Sick. You Covid whatever's going around now. The flu. We had a lot of flu going around on the east coast where we had shops that half their employees were gone for like, 6, 7, 10 days, and their sales just plummeted. And then I've gotten off track, Braxton. So really, you have to ask me that question again.

Braxton Critcher [00:27:40]:
You said number one, right? You were like. You were answering the question about where can the industry be in five years?

Chris Cotton [00:27:47]:
Okay, so. So I think the future of the repair is definitely the technology, right? Like, you're. You're going to have to embrace hybrid vehicles on some level. You're going to have to get training on it. I think you're going to have to embrace electric vehicles on some. Some level. I think that there's going to come a time in the next year or two where you have remote technicians that may or may not work in the same town as you do. And maybe somebody calls up to a hotline or answers a Google Ad, and you remote into their car and run your diagnostic scan on it, and it says, okay, we need to do a software update.

Chris Cotton [00:28:26]:
So then your technician sends them an invoice for the software update, they pay it, and you're like, hey, don't touch it for an hour. I'm going to do your software update remotely. And then hit the button and boom, it'll get done. And then there you are. Or that technician is going to remote in and be like, hey, according to what we're seeing on here, you need x hard part. So now I'm going to schedule you in at our shop to get that hard part done, and then they can do the software update.

Braxton Critcher [00:28:52]:
Do you think that's realistic in five years?

Chris Cotton [00:28:54]:
I think so. I think. I think. I mean, if you look at what Tesla's doing, Tesla's doing that right now. Now, no. Some people love Tesla, some people hate Tesla, but I think there's a case for it. And, you know, it's not going to be for everybody, but can you imagine having a room full of technicians billing out at. I don't know.

Chris Cotton [00:29:14]:
I don't know what that's worth. Is it $200 an hour, $250 an hour? And you don't have a brick and mortar shop. You just have the network, the advertising and whatever to be able to do that. I know a guy. I know a guy in Europe that works on Teslas all over the world remotely from Europe, and he does. Tesla's in the United States, Tesla's in Europe, Tesla's in, you know, South America remotely that are out of warranty, and he can do all the software stuff up from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world.

Braxton Critcher [00:29:50]:
Wow.

Chris Cotton [00:29:51]:
So, I mean, the sky's the limit. You just got to figure out how big a piece of that pie you want and what you want to do with it. And, I mean, I could be 100% wrong, but, you know, some of the people I've talked to, it's. I mean, we're doing it now.

Braxton Critcher [00:30:04]:
Yeah. Like, I mean, I just haven't thought about it, but that. I mean, that makes sense as this thing in the future.

Chris Cotton [00:30:08]:
Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't know. Technology is crazy. It's advancing. Just read about it, learn about it. Check the same thing from different sources, though. It's just like the regular news.

Chris Cotton [00:30:20]:
Right? Like. Like, learn about it and see what's going on.

Braxton Critcher [00:30:24]:
Well, he's Chris Cotton from the Auto Fix Technology cast. And if he has blown your mind, like he's blown mine, you need to go listen to his show because he's talking to all the powers that be that. That are, you know, making the technology that we're talking about and making a difference in the industry. And hopefully we grow and use more technology because it will help. Right. But it also will be necessary.

Chris Cotton [00:30:49]:
It's a freight train. It's coming.

Braxton Critcher [00:30:51]:
Yeah. So why not go ahead and try and get ahead of it?

Chris Cotton [00:30:53]:
Yep.

Braxton Critcher [00:30:54]:
So thanks, Chris.

Chris Cotton [00:30:55]:
All right, well, thanks for having me. Sorry I didn't go down the path you wanted me to go down.

Braxton Critcher [00:31:00]:
No, it was great.

Chris Cotton [00:31:01]:
That's why we turned it on here in the convention center with people going up and down the escalator next to us.

Braxton Critcher [00:31:06]:
That's right.

Chris Cotton [00:31:06]:
And all kinds of crazy stuff going on. And, you know, that's why we do what we do. Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:31:11]:
We are at vision, so know if. If I think I'm going to try and release this. Let's see Saturday. So there's like a day and a half left if you want to come say what's up. You know, do that.

Chris Cotton [00:31:21]:
Say hi.

Braxton Critcher [00:31:22]:
Yeah, come. Come jump on my podcast, Automotive Repair News Today. Or come on Chris's and talk about technology. That'd be cool, too. So thanks for listening to Automotive Repair News today. Hey, if you're still here, thank you so much for listening to 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.

Braxton Critcher [00:31:52]:
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