Has the Wrong Person Been Inspecting Your Cars This Whole Time?
I've been speaking at a lot of events lately, and every single time I mention this one thing, people stop me, pull me aside, and want to know more. At the last conference I spoke at, I hadn’t even made it back to my table before four people stopped me to ask about it. Four people. In that short walk. So let me just tell you what it is.
Every Other Shop Does It One Way—except us.
In the auto repair world, there's a standard way of doing things. You bring your car in, a technician inspects it, takes pictures and videos of everything that's wrong, puts it all together, and then that information gets passed up the chain.
Every shop does it that way. There are user groups with thousands of members, and this is just how it's done across the board. Except at our shop.
We don't have our technicians do the inspections. We have our service advisors do it. I know that sounds simple. But the implications of that one decision ripple through everything: the quality of the inspection, the trust with the customer, the ethics of the recommendations, and the productivity of the entire shop.
Let me break down why.
Technicians Are Here to Fix Cars. That's It.
Here's something a lot of people outside the industry don't fully understand about how technicians get paid. It's called a flat rate system. They get paid for what they produce, not for how many hours they're physically in the building. Fix ten hours worth of work, you get paid for ten hours. Fix fifteen, you get paid for fifteen. Fix eight, you get paid for eight.
That system works great when everyone is doing their job. But the moment you put a technician in charge of the inspection, you've created a conflict of interest. And most shops don't even realize they've done it.
Think about it from the technician's perspective.
It's Friday afternoon. He's got two cars to finish. He's got plans. And now you're handing him another car to inspect. In the back of his mind, he's already thinking about wrapping up his week. If that inspection turns up a job he doesn't want to do, or a job that's going to keep him late, you know what happens? He might not tell you about it. He's only human after all. And the system has put him in a position where his personal interests and the customer's interests are not aligned.
Now flip it the other direction.
What if that same technician is having a slow week? Not enough hours, not enough production. Now there's a temptation to find things wrong with a car that maybe aren't wrong, or to exaggerate what needs to be done, just to fill up his time sheet. Both scenarios are bad. And both scenarios happen every day in shops all over the country.
The Service Advisor Changes Everything
When our service advisor does the inspection — not the technician — none of that applies. The service advisor isn't getting paid based on what gets fixed. They have no personal stake in whether a job is big or small, whether it happens today or next week, whether it's a job someone wants to do or doesn't. They look at the car completely objectively.
And then, and this is the part customers really respond to, when we call you to go over what we found, our service advisor can say: I personally inspected your vehicle.
Not "my technician said."
Not "we were told."
Its: “I looked at it myself, and here's what I found.”
As a customer, this feels like a breath of fresh air. Because someone is taking personal ownership of what they're telling you. There's accountability attached to it. Trust is built right there in that moment.
Compare that to calling your dealership and hearing, "Oh, the technician said..." That's a game of telephone. That's one person's filtered opinion passed through another person. Who looked at it? What exactly did they see? It gets fuzzy fast.
And Our Technicians Actually Make More Money
Because our technicians aren't spending their time doing inspections, they're spending their time doing what they actually get paid to do — fixing cars. And technicians, generally speaking, don't love doing inspections. They love turning wrenches. They love diagnosing problems. They love the actual work. The paperwork, the photos, the walkaround is not why they got into this job.
When you take that off their plate, production goes up. You can waste 40% of a technician's day just on inspections. That's almost half a day of potential income, gone. When our guys don't have to do that, they're producing more, which means they're making more — and they're doing the part of the job they actually enjoy.
Everybody wins.
This lesson applies way beyond auto repair.
When you design your systems, think carefully about who should own what, and where conflicts of interest might be hiding in plain sight — you protect your customers, your team, and you build something that actually works like it’s supposed to.
Most shops just inherited the way things have always been done and never questioned it. We questioned it. And it's made a significant difference.
So when people ask me what sets us apart operationally, this is usually where I start. Because the moment I explain it, the response is always the same. Oh my God. You need to teach me how to do this. Every single time.
If this made you rethink how your shop operates, you’re not alone. Most owners know something feels off in their process — they just can’t pinpoint where the breakdown is or how to fix it without creating new problems. That’s exactly what we help with at AutoShop Answers.
We break down the systems inside your shop, identify where conflicts, inefficiencies, and missed opportunities are hiding, and show you how to rebuild them in a way that works seamlessly for your team and customers.
If you want to run a shop where trust is higher, production is stronger, and your people are doing the work they’re actually meant to do, learn more about how we can help at AutoShop Answers.
