Shop Owner Roundtable Recap: Call It Heavy Metal

What’s big and loud and qualifies as heavy metal?

(Spoiler alert: It’s not any of the awesome bands you were about to list off. Well…it is, but for the purposes of this article we’re talking about a specific kind of equipment.)

That’s right, gang. Shop Owner Roundtable is your one-way ticket to midnight — er, to an in-depth conversation with diesel repair professionals, and right now nothing else matters because Patrick and Chris were joined by Jordan Steen of Six Gun Diesel Performance & Repair and Matt Bean of EMS Repair and Towing. You might remember them from previous appearances on this very blog, as Jordan chatted with us about running a one-man repair shop while Matt Bean introduced us to the world of heavy equipment a few years ago. 

While both are capable of handling all kinds of heavy repair, they focus on large equipment — hence the headbanging amount of heavy metal this writer is trying to cram into the article. 

So if you’ve been down too long in the midnight sea (aka sweating it out in the dog days of summer) and want to know how these guys repair and maintain some pretty incredible machines, you’re in luck! 

You can, of course, behold the whole webinar (along with witnessing Matt emerge victorious in the first-ever Fullbay shootout…which, we want to be clear, involved Nerf guns), but as usual, we’re recapping some of our favorite parts below.

THE NATURE OF HEAVY EQUIPMENT REPAIR

Before we do anything else, let’s zero in on the basics of heavy equipment. 

Yes, they all fall under the classification of metal machine, but heavy equipment is…well, it’s equipment. It tends to be huge — sometimes 200,000 pounds! Too huge (and therefore expensive) to just haul into a shop. The heavy equipment field, as a result, is largely mobile, as the machines get repaired in the field.

Fun fact: Lots of the mobile repair trucks in the heavy equipment world have cranes because the machines are so. dang. big. “We are talking a hundred-plus pound battery that you gotta sling six [feet] up in the air into the excavator,” Jordan says. “Well, I’m not carrying it. I’m not gonna get four of them up there. I’ll be dead by the end of that. So you hook to the crane, swing it around, and be done with it.”

There also aren’t a lot of labor guides out there for heavy equipment, although manufacturers and dealers often have some form of internal documentation for their own people to use. 

So. No labor guide to light the way. Gigantic equipment that you definitely don’t want falling on top of you. And all the stuff you can’t always account for. Jordan and Matt operate in Iowa and Montana, respectively, better known as states that have Real Weather. They’re working on machinery that’s been outside that entire time. Often, they don’t know what shape it will be in when they get there (or how much of a beating they’re going to take from the elements while they’re on site). 

Estimates, as you might imagine, can be hard to do. Matt refers to them as “guesstimates,” and usually they cover a best-case scenario. The customer is well aware that, “If everything goes well, here’s what it will cost. But, he cautions, that guesstimate is “the best it’s going to get. It only goes up from there.” 

A GOOD FIELD TECH IS HARD TO FIND

As the webinar proceeds, Chris brings up a question: “Where are the techs that know how to do this stuff?”

“Where are the techs that know how to do this stuff?” Matt echoes.

Uh-oh. Sounds like the heavy equipment world is having the same kind of problems as the regular heavy-duty world.

In some cases, it’s worse. 

There are two proven ways to find a heavy equipment tech:

1. Poach them from your competition.
2. Find someone who’s frustrated with their current gig and wants to try something else.

It’s a hard field to work in. “You need to add in a clean driving record, a CDL, and somebody who wants to work those hours outside,” Matt says. “Shop work is hard enough. You’re dirty, it’s hot, it’s loud. Now you work out in a blizzard or rainstorm.” 

“It’s a different mentality,” Jordan agrees. “When you’re looking at a field tech, he’s not gonna throw his hands up in the air when he can’t figure out how to get the job done because he doesn’t have the exact right tool. Like, I put a strap on a wrench and put my crane on it to get a bolt loose.”

You need someone who’s willing to think outside the box, often in horrible weather. As a result, field techs are hard to find — and expensive, often commanding 30% or more than an in-shop tech. 

Matt advises building your own techs: finding someone with the aptitude and attitude who won’t give up when they run into roadblocks. They may be expensive as they learn, but the reality is “the [guys] that have 20 years of experience … they’re not looking for a job.” 

PARTS IS PARTS

You know what heavy equipment techs are often looking for?

PARTS. 

During his presentation at Diesel Connect, Jordan mentioned that while the rest of the industry might finally be getting past the parts shortage, it was a different story for the heavy equipment crew. Like the folks of Starship Troopers, we wanted to know more.

Something to know about heavy equipment: a lot of it is old. Like, really old. Yellow iron isn’t quite as constricted by emissions regulations as big rigs, so a lot of it is kept in service for a very, very long time. Despite this, there’s not a huge aftermarket for it. 

Jordan and Matt are in agreement: an independent heavy tech’s only option for major parts is usually their competition — the dealer. 

If a customer has an account with the dealership, Jordan will run the parts through there. “I’ll look up the parts, I’ll order the parts, and they’re paying for my hours of looking up the parts just the same as they would if a dealer tech was there,” he explains. “And if I’m running for parts, they’re paying for me to drive to go get them.”

A customer account is also useful because these big components are freakin’ expensive. “It’s easy to spend ten grand on parts,” Matt says. “And then now you’re waiting thirty, forty, sixty days to get paid, and you’ve got ten, fifteen, twenty thousand bucks on your Cat account.”

Another reason for customer accounts: It removes the technician from the weird “Where are my PARTS?” dance that most repair folks have experienced more than they’d like. If the heavy equipment tech is the one ordering the parts, and those parts are delayed, they have to deal with the customer…and then turn around and ask the dealer where those parts are. That’s time pulled away from actually working. 

So yeah, better for everyone if the customer is paying directly.

BEHOLD THE ROUNDTABLE

Like many epic songs, this article has gotten long…but there’s way more to the webinar, and we think you should watch it in its entirety. 

Other topics the guys discuss include:

• Why they initially set out to forge their own destinies
• Setting and evaluating labor rates
• Being wary at auctions (“Not everything at auction is junk, but everybody’s junk is at auction”)
• Why nose hair is your first line of defense (um, and other safety measures)
• And more! 

It was one heck of an awesome webinar. Go and give it a listen — we’ll all meet back here soon enough for the next one!