Technician Spotlight: Tell us about yourself. What is your name, role, and number of years you’ve been in the industry?
Jori Campbelle, I am a Line Tech and I have been here with Town Nissan 6 years and in the industry 6 years.
View full postJori Campbelle, I am a Line Tech and I have been here with Town Nissan 6 years and in the industry 6 years.
View full postOur shop is closed Sundays for family day. The advisor/tech schedule is on a three-week rotation. For example, an advisor and their team will have Monday off and work Tuesday-Saturday. The next two weeks they would work Monday through Friday, then the cycle starts again. We find that having a weekday off allows you flexibility and 3-day weekends are always nice!
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Here are some of our staff picks for Shop Talk post of the month. Be sure to vote for your favorite and leave a comment below on why you chose the post. Voting ends on Monday, June 7th:
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Coming Soon!!!!!! One position for our next Service Advisor!!!! No experience necessary! The single most important trait to cement the success of joining our winning team is a great personality, a willingness and wanting to learn, grow, get better, play well with others, be part of a "team" thought process, supportive, great energy, a desirer to provide a high level of service to each other and our clients. Likes being appreciated, Ok with working 5 days a week, having major holidays off, Ok with leaving work at 5:00PM, Make a great living, plan on having a career not a job for the next 20 + years. Look us up and browse our positions. Have a question? All you have to do is ask! Our emails and phone numbers are all over the place.
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🎉 As we celebrate 10 years under the ownership of Jackson Automotive Group, join us in honoring Alex, our outstanding Service Drive Manager! 🎉
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One of our clients, Craig’s Car Care, recently connected with a technician via WrenchWay. Their goals aligned so well that the technician accepted a position and decided to make the big move from North Carolina to Texas to work at the shop.
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Congratulations to Joshua Bowman for guessing last week’s Loneliest Number!
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🌟 Employee Spotlight: Congratulations to Cody, our Employee of the Month! 🌟
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Joe's gives back to local fundraisers by donating fun gift baskets with a Joe's Gift Card!
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Beautiful Red 356C here for maintenance
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LBCC Dyno Day is always a blast. This year we got to feature the new BZ4X and GR Corolla to some future and current students!
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We had the pleasure of hosting the Houston Lead Program (Letting Everyone Achieve Dreams) students at Chastang Ford as part of their field trip to explore various career opportunities in the Automotive industry. We took them on test drives and allowed them to experience the power and agility of the Ford Lightning, Bronco Sport, and Ford Raptor! We were thrilled to showcase our dealership and provide insight into the day-to-day operations of an Automotive dealership while also giving them a hands-on experience with some of our most exciting vehicles. It's always great to see the next generation of professionals taking steps toward their future careers. Thanks for visiting, Houston Lead Program students!
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One of our very own technicians, Julio Losh, and the Goon Squad drift team stealing the show at the Monster Truck Insanity Tour!
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Just a few of our coworkers enjoying a day at the park ⚾️
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Fox Valley Buick GMC is honored to be able to partner with Naomi's House. Naomi's house is a Chicago based rehabilitation program for women that come out of the human trafficking industry. Fox Valley Buick GMC is honored to be able to provided vehicles to these women to help propel them forward in their journey.
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Flat rate, and wether it’s fair has been a hot button issue for years. While many technicians are for flat rate, the general consensus is that most are against it. Years ago it wasn’t uncommon to flag 50-60 hours in a week without breaking a sweat. Many techs will tell you that those numbers have only become more difficult to reach, if not impossible, as time has passed. During this time vehicle warranties have started lasting longer, vehicles require less maintenance (according to the manufacturer), and vehicles have become more complex. What’s your opinion? Leave a comment below
Other
Thanks for bringing up this important topic, Craig. It's very timely because we're also going to be hosting a roundtable where we're bringing on 4 technician to discuss flat rate. It's free to attend and anyone can register here: https://wrenchway.com/events/flat-rates-contribution-to-the-technician-shortage/
Technician
So, Lucas Underwood on the "Changing the Industry Podcast" a week ago said, "Flat rate is a lazy man's management method." I agree. Flat rate can be made to work, if the entire team is on board and no one person gets stuck doing all the crap work (unless said person is paid hourly or salary and isn't under the gun from management for low hours). Usually what happens is a favorite tech gets fed, other techs pick up the scraps, and one really good tech starves to death. The good tech leaves, the others flounder, the attitude goes in the toilet, and the shop ends up circling the drain. Yes, labor times are down, sometimes grossly inaccurate, and the quick maintenance jobs that used to allow us to make up time are few and far between. A few very gifted techs can still turn those outstanding hours, but they are rare. A few gifted service managers make flat rate work for their location. They aren't the lazy kind Lucas was referring to. For everyone else, flat rate is a punishment to those who do good quality work and an easy way to create friction and anger in the shop.
Technician
I've worked flat rate for 38 years, don't really have an issue with it. First thing you need to realize, clocking 60 hour weeks plus wasn't difficult for a few reasons, first is, most shops were open 6 days a week and we worked an average of 70 hours a week. Another thing was we only worked on a handful of makes and models back then, repetitiveness of vehicles we worked on made it that you'd become very good on doing repairs because you've done it many times and you knew the tricks to get the job done quickly. The amount of makes and models now, along with the fact vehicles are driven 15-20 yrs plus just adds to the amount that you the tech need to know and be great at to clock a ton of hours. You need to be flexible in your estimating of vehicles in today world, if a vehicle comes in and a complex service you know is going to take a tech longer than book time, don't be afraid to slightly adjust the labor also. Shops and techs are out to make money and stay in business, if for example an evap core job pays 8.5 hours and the past few you've done takes 10, adjust labor on next repair. Shops have to realize that in today's world, no tech, even the best and most experienced is going to have the knowledge to be the best and fastest on the amount of makes, models and years of vehicles on the road. It's not humanly possible. Have my labor amounts dropped a bit over the years, yes, but I'm also down to working a 45 hour week compared to close to 75 I would work year round not long ago and I'm 56 years old and my body isn't like it was at 20 yrs old either. I think my point is, be flexible yet fair, make the shop, tech and customer happy and satisfied, if you don't, more techs will continually leave the industry.
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