The Iced Coffee Hour - The Untold Story of ChrisFix | FACE REVEAL

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

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Chris Fix is the largest automotive channel on YouTube with nearly 10 million subscribers teaching people how to fix their cars. However, most people have no idea who he actually is, and he's never agreed to do a podcast until now.

This is my first podcast ever. So here is the entire story of Chris Fix, and trust me, it is not what you'd expect. Oh, and by the way, if you enjoy episodes like this, make sure to subscribe

because we post brand new episodes every single week. Thank you guys so much. And now let's begin. Hey guys, Chris Fix here with the Graham Steffin Show. What's going on? What's up? Welcome to the nice coffee hour.

It's so weird seeing you here, but like hearing your voice because I've seen your videos before. You've never shown your face on the videos. And you've never done podcasts before. Never. This is my first podcast ever. That's crazy. Thank you so much for doing this.

And also we got the, I believe you're the largest automotive channel on YouTube. Yeah, yeah. Almost 10 million subscribers. Just under 10 million. Hopefully hit 10 million next year. And at the end of the day, it's just a number. It's just cool how many people hearing that number, how many people I'm able to help, you know.

So there's people who are interested enough to subscribe and join and watch my videos every month, you know? And that's also 10 years on YouTube, right? Yeah. Well, so the beginning wasn't really, it was me making fishing videos and having a good time with my friends and putting me hitting waves on a boat to the music. So it wasn't always like this.

It was just when I got my first car, I wanted to learn how to fix cars so I wasn't reliant on somebody else and also I saw what like mechanics did to my parents when they brought a car in and so I was like well know what let me be reliant on myself let me learn these skills and

picked them up from different places from my dad he would teach me how to change brakes my dad's friends mechanics that are in the family or that we're friends with and I just go from there and learn as much as I can tinkering is huge once you know the basics you could

okay I just need to remove this bolt, you know, a certain size socket fits on there, you remove it, and you could break things down and put things together. It's pretty bare bones. Yeah, simple. You know, Macy's Audi was out of AC fluid, and it was YouTube that taught me how to refill that incredibly easy. Like, you don't even need to take it into a shop to refill air conditioner fluid or the Freon. Yeah. It's so easy to do it. It was like a five-minute YouTube video, though. Yeah, you got to pull my refrigerant video, so then you could see, always wear gloves, you know, eye protection so you don't hurt yourself.

Any protections. Yeah, so I guess if you did. I was worried the thing was going to blow up in my face. I'm always super careful. What happens if like this just explodes? My hand's gone. Yeah, yeah. I'm always just,

I'm super careful because I want to teach people how to be careful so it's like they don't get hurt doing this because a trip to the hospital is going to cost you a lot more than saving, you know, a thousand bucks. Yeah. Are you ever worried about liability? If you have a video teaching someone how to do something and they screw it up or they get hurt, like has that ever.

come back to you? Oh, it's never come back to me. I think I am very thorough. I mean, there's always the disclaimers in the description. I think people know going on YouTube and doing it yourself, like you're taking that risk yourself. You're gathering that information. You know, I'm not licensed or anything. I'm not showing people, hey, this is how you do it as a licensed technician. You know, you have to follow this method. It doesn't cost. You know, it's free for the public to use as an educational piece. So I've never really had that concern. And I'm also super, super thorough. And I always cover, like, I just, right away, I just talked about, oh, yeah, the first thing I

did was like safety goggles and gloves and gloves for protection. Because right away, I think, okay, that refrigerant could be cold, you know, and it could cause you frostbite or could shoot out at you, which, you know, you also learn from experience that that happens. Yeah. So I'm not really concerned about that, no. And I also, I forget, I don't care about, well, I shouldn't say I don't care, but I'm less concerned about the liability as much as I don't want my viewers to get

hurt. Like, they're all very important to me. So I want to make sure I teach them the right way to do it. That way they are smart about it. You always hear, okay, use the respirator. And you'll see people like, oh, you don't need to use a respirator. I'm like, it's a good idea. You're working on, you know, sanding. Anytime you sand, you should use a respirator. Even though, like, not everybody in the industry will do that. Let's start here. I'm sure the viewers are going to wonder about the helmet. Sure. No one's seen your face. It's, so you're probably watching. You're like, okay, this is a little weird. And I get it. But you have to understand there's two things. One, my videos are all about teaching you guys how to fix your cars.

So if you are learning how to fix your car, you don't need to worry about me. Like, I'm not important. And I was never, in my mind, I'm never important. It's the information that's important. That's why I spend, you know, a week before I make a video gathering as much information, going out and learning about, okay, this individual car, how is this done? Okay, how about this car? And what are people going to run into? So it's not like it's about me at all. It's always about here's what we're doing. And I'll be completely honest with you. I never thought about turning the camera around. Never? I know it sounds weird.

It was like I look back and I think back it's never come to my mind to be like, oh, let me film this way. Because if I'm talking about breaks, I'm filming the brakes. Do you think that's maybe a 10 years ago thing? Like when you first started, fewer people were vlogging. Like I was good friends with Gordon F-Spot. And up until recently, he's never showed his face.

I'm like, dude, you've got to show your face. Because he started around the same time as, or just I guess just after James the Stradman. Okay. And Stratman's channel just blew up. But I think a lot of that was that connection of just like showing his face and like who he is as a person versus just filming from behind a camera.

For sure. There's connections people make in different ways. I think the connection people make to me is not as a, it's not me in my personality as much as they're able to get their car fixed because of me. So I was just at CMA. That's why my voice sounds a little weird. I've been doing demonstrations all week talking to thousands of fans. It's incredible. And anytime I talk to those fans, it wasn't like, hey, your YouTube videos are so entertaining. They're so, you made me laugh. And there's nothing wrong with people who make people laugh or entertain people at all. It was, hey, you changed my life because

I learned how to fix cars. I'm now super interested in cars. or I don't like working on cars, but I was concerned if I go to a mechanic they'd rip me off. But I learned from your videos, like, what they said was accurate, or I was able to speak smartly about it. It's my new hobby. I became a technician. I was able to get to work and not get fired. I couldn't afford to change my brakes, but, you know, I was able to through your videos, and now I can get to work and not get fired.

It's all positive things like that. Yeah. And it's less because of, you know, what's behind here and more because of what you see in front of you. Yeah. So when you go in public, do you wear, you don't wear the helmet. You don't wear the whole apparatus, right? Like you'll show your face. Yeah.

So at Seema, for example, I will sometimes walk around with this on. Seema's very car-oriented. So I'd say about like 75% of the people there know me. So, and there's a lot of people and there's a lot of cameras. So I'll walk around wearing the helmet. When I do my demonstrations or whatever, I wear my helmet. I was a nominee for influencer of the year. through Seema and to the dinner

I wore shirt tie and I had my helmet but during the dinner it's like fancy you know yeah during the dinner I put my helmet under the table nobody knew who I am because I don't have any there's none of this on me there's no hat they just don't know who I am just my friends like Adam LZ know who it knows who I am and T.J Hunt they know who I am

nobody else does they're not going to take pictures so you know try to expose me so I just take the helmet off nobody knows if I win put the helmet on and walk up on stage but let's say that some of the car as you drive might be recognizable. Maybe in the area you live in, have you ever had it where people like snap pictures or videos

and be like, you're the guy driving, that car? You want to know what? I don't know if it's just luck or if it's really my fans. My fans are pretty respectable. Like, I've gotten pictures taken and they blur the license plate for me. And not everybody knows how to do that, you know? Right. So it takes, like, extra effort to do that,

and they'll blur license plates. My face is a little too exposed through the glass, so they'll lightly darken the glass or blur. or the glass. Maybe that's keeping some of the mystery alive. Like, they want to be the ones to say, hey, I saw it, but you can't. But you can't? I saw it.

Exactly. I get questions like that. Hey, can I get a picture without the message? Just for me, you know, I'm like, there's too much risk involved in that. I work pretty hard at keeping it secret on purpose. And so that's the one aspect. Again, there's two aspects. The one aspect is, hey, it's not about me.

It never was about me. And even that 10 million subscribers, I still tried not to keep it about me, which is probably why I'd never done a podcast. But I like to just keep it about the work that's getting done. And the next thing is my friend, so at Sima, I took my race team. I was very fortunate to bring them out, and we do the lemons race. And my best friend, Garrett took me out to dinner. I was like an appreciation.

Thank you. We went to a nice Wolfgang Puck restaurant. He was so excited. He's like, oh, the stakes are great here. And I wore none of my swag. Normally, like this is my, this and khakis is my uniform. This is why I wear every day. Yeah.

Like a Steve Jobs thing where I, you should seem like. My closet. It's smart. Yeah. This, I had the college shirt on. I had nice pants, you know, and nothing on me except that. And nobody knew who I was. But even if you're in your hometown and you're going out wearing just a Chris Fick shirt,

it just doesn't, like, it never happens where people try to snap photos or anything? No, you know, everybody was really respectful. One person tried to do that. And they told them, what are you doing? What the heck are you doing, you know? And my fans are great. That's incredible. That is incredible.

That is incredible. Because my viewers are like me. It's not about the fame or anything. They just want to learn how to fix their car. They just want to enjoy the car community. So, yeah. I mean, eventually, I'm sure somebody will try, but I do my best to, like, be reasonable,

and hopefully they respect it and all you could do. Do you think one day you'll do a face reveal like Dream did? Maybe 10 million subscribers. I might have something kind of planned. We'll see. That would be, that would be an incredible occasion to be, like at 10 million subscribers, Like, that's an unbavailable number.

Like, like, yeah. But you're getting there. You're incredibly close. Yeah, you're very close. Yeah. I feel like you could get there within a month or two if you just posted a few shorts. But first, we want to thank our sponsor, Vid IQ. Guys, we have all been using Vid IQ on our channels for literally years now.

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by using a link down below in the description and signing up. And now with that said, let's get back to the podcast. I think it would be cool to talk about, because you started YouTube, I know you didn't say technically 10 years ago, right? Yeah, yeah. But like, where you were in the beginning of your YouTube career, because now you're doing it full time. And how you basically ramped that up until now. And when you realized you could probably do it as a business.

What were you doing before YouTube? Okay. This is going to be an interesting story. I don't think anybody really knows this. So this is a first. But I started, I love fishing in marine biology and the ocean. That's why you like the reef thing. That's why I like the reef thing.

Oh, that's so cool. Yeah. So I actually became marine biologist. But I'll start like back a little bit more. So I wanted to go to this marine biology high school. It's like out by me, they do these specialized high schools, almost like vocational schools. but for stuff that's not necessarily technically technical. Like it's not like auto mechanics and hairdressers and HVAC.

It's like marine biology and biotech and pre-med and computer science. I wanted to go to the marine biology one. And I missed it by one person. So they only accepted like 30 people and I was number 31. My parents pushed so hard. They talked to politicians. I was able to go in the next year of high school. But I ended up getting into the culinary version of it in my school, like near my house.

and I was like, what the heck? I could cook fish. I always take that, if there's an opportunity and I could include what my passion is and see, like, value in it, like everybody's got to eat, everybody's got to cook. Here's a good opportunity. I did the culinary school thing.

Went there, learned all about cooking. I was able to run cross-country and track varsity all four years. I just loved athletics. That was always a big part of my family. And I just, at the end of that, I got credits to go to college, and I think it was two years or two, I forget, two semesters, two years, something like that, where those, that culinary school would count towards college.

Culinary college didn't sound like real college to me. It is. And looking back, I learned so much, but it's real college, but it's specific for culinary. I actually think that's better. But I wanted that formal education of, you know, math, science, history, English, you know, that's what I was used to my whole life. That's what everybody goes to school for. So I decided to apply to Rutgers.

and do and go to marine biology, become a marine scientist. Yeah, it's a good school for that. I loved it. It was awesome. We did crazy things. We sent a unmanned glider. It looks like a cruise missile

that goes up and down in the ocean all the way across the Atlantic. First time ever. It was a cool thing to be a part of it. I didn't even play a huge role or anything. I helped guide it once or twice, but I still felt like part of this team that did something cool.

And it was really neat. Every oceanography class, A's. Like, no problem. And it wasn't like, Like, oh, I have to study. It was, this is going to be awesome. I can't wait to read and learn. I learned that I do better at not reading.

I hate, I shouldn't say hate. I dislike reading. I like learning visually, like with the professor, or on YouTube. And that's when I started driving, you know. This is college driving around. I drove to school to save money. I thought that was a smart. In 1996, 84 Corvette.

No way. Yeah. So I had an old DeVille. and 92 Cadillac DeVille. That was technically like my first car. Wow. And got into an accident, somebody ran a red light. And my parents were super proud of me.

They're like, want to know what? Let's get you something. I think we had like a $10,000 budget. They said, let's get you something under $10 grand. My dad loves corvettes. I wanted a Chrysler Crossfire. I don't know if you ever seen it. I remember this.

What year did this come out? 2003, four? Something like that. And they didn't run very long. But it looked unique. It had the wing that went up on its own or you press a button. Like, I just loved the quirkiness of, of stuff like that.

Like the coops. Yeah, it's unique, it's different. Like, how many do you see around? I love that stuff. My dad loves corvettes. One day we went down to, like, this dealership row, we call it, and there's a corvette for sale, and we took for a test drive. He drove, and we got back, and we were smiling ear to ear.

And the salesman is like, it looks like you guys had fun. And from there, I understood what cars could make you, how they could make you feel something. It's not just transport from A to B. It's not just looks. It's also a feel. And so we looked for a Corvette. It was my dad's mission too.

We got one. And a beautiful car. And I drove it back and forth to school. That was 10 grand, but to stay one semester at school was 10 grand. Did your parents ever worry about safety with a car or no? I was always very responsible. Like, since second grade, we've had a boat. That's like, since we love boating so much, we've had a boat.

And my dad would let me drive the boat. I mean, I'm giving him on his lap and stuff. Sure. But even as I got older, I would go out on a, I have this like 10 foot boat with a little five horse power motor. They'd let me go out. I don't know how. Like if I ever have kids, I don't know how I would let them do this, but they let me go out. They trusted me enough.

And I would go out on this little boat and take my own fishing trips and stuff. So I think they knew I'd be respectful of the speed, the power. And it's not to say I didn't make stupid mistakes. I feel like we all do it. I spun out once in the rain by accident because I gave it too much power, you know? But I knew that I was given an amazing. opportunity to have like this car who drives a corvette to school right you know and i i loved this car i didn't want to damage it i took so the care i took for this thing i cleaned it all the time

it's like how i learned a lot of the detailing stuff i've done um so i don't think i think they might have been concerned a little like any parent but they uh they knew i was responsible so but yeah college was great okay i uh i worked for the homeland department homeland security through port security uh with stevens institute and that's uh was it marcus brownley He went there. Okay. So I worked with Homeland Security there. Did the port security.

We could detect a snapping shrimp versus a scuba diver. So they wanted that kind of, you know, marine biology aspect of it. And then that's when YouTube's like, hey. And in the meantime, I had like some videos in the background of me fishing, going on excursions of fishing trips and doing research and stuff like that. And then a couple of how-to videos because any time I had to change the brakes or something or trying to think change the oil. Yeah.

One of the first videos I did was me going to a Corvette meet and greet. And it's just all the people with Corvettes. And I was like really young. Everybody else was older. I met one other friend who is still my friend now who was young. And I just filmed us driving around, having a good time. And anytime I needed to fix something, like the water pump went on the Corvette. I was like, forms are great.

That's like what we used back then. But they're just pictures. They're static. I didn't know how this guy got from here to here with the picture and a little text. I was like, I could teach people how to go from here to here in a video really smoothly. So, no, sorry. No, no, you're good. I was just going to ask for the motivation when you initially started creating those how-toes wasn't necessarily to potentially turn it into a business.

But it was just because you couldn't find resources like that that could accurately and easily show you how to fix cars. Exactly. You wanted to help other people, basically. Exactly. I just wanted to help people. This is going to sound weird. I didn't know what subscribers were. I didn't know you could make money on YouTube.

I didn't know that was a thing. Like, it was just, I didn't mind providing free content. I thought it was better than making a forum post trying to explain this all. I was like, I'll just make a video on explaining it. So, yeah, I started making those videos, and people started, like, watching on. Like, hey, I like this. And I would go off of views. Again, I didn't know what subscribers were.

I knew what a view was. I didn't know what subscribers were. So I'd just go off of, hey, this got a lot of views. So people obviously need to learn this. So what can I do that's similar to this? water pump let's do um what did i do next like oil change i'm like everybody has to change their oil then break job and and and these videos were like quick and dirty you know i didn't have i had a little panasonic lumix camera um this is before i don't even know if cell phones were were like you know what

we have now you know we we can't you couldn't film on a cell phone for sure yeah um and i just do my best and try to teach people and i took my time was very slow i talked cautiously and and like deeper voice and not as excited. I was very cautious, you know, and it just got bigger and bigger. Square knows that in hospitality, efficiency is everything. That's why the system lets you take payments.

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at squareup.com. And so you would learn from forms. So you'd go on the forums, learn how to do this yourself. And then if that issue came up again, you would video it. Correct, to a degree. It's smoother. Okay. Correct.

Yeah. Like a lot, at this point of my life, I knew a lot of this stuff from boating. Sure. So boat engines and car engines are the same. The heat exchangers are different. One has a radiator. One has a heat exchanger with salt water going through it. Otherwise, it's got spark plugs.

You know, it's got a belt. It's got a water pump. It's got all cooling. It's got all these things. that cars have. It doesn't have breaks, so I had to learn breaks. I learned that from my dad and my dad's friend. And so I, to afford a boat, because I love fishing, my parents knew that, they always always were huge supporters of everything I did. They're like, hey, it's going to be, you know, we're cutting it clothes with the finances with a boat. It's expensive, but if we maintain it,

we winterize it, we do all that stuff, give it a try. So we got a smaller boat, and my dad would be like, okay, here's a spark plug, here's how to do it. Go do the other seven. And I'd be able to fit in the tight places where you can't normally reach, you know, as an adult. And I'd be like doing this. And then my boat neighbors would be like, hey, how about $100 to go do that to mine? And here's like, I think this is like fifth grade now. Fifth grade, me like, okay. Or here's a tool set.

I have this really nice tool set. It's yours. Just do the spark plugs. Just change the water pump. I can't get in this tight area. Can you connect these wires? Can you splice these wires, you know? Simple things like that that I would learn and they'd teach me.

And so I just learned from all over. Anywhere I could learn from, I would try to learn from. Wow. Yeah. And then how long did you begin doing that? Like, what was your work schedule like? When would you have time to film these videos? So it's college.

It's like studying and I worked at pizza on Sundays. So like, it's just whenever. I've always, I was very good at studying efficiently. So I would just, there was a lot of spare time. I don't know. I didn't realize how much spare time. Because I was always like, oh, man, I wish I could just skip college and go straight into a job because I saw if I could make money right away, then I'd be better off down the road.

You could invest it. That's why I followed you. So I knew that at early age. I was like, man, I wish I could just get right into this and just skip all this other stuff, just the stuff that I, like, want to learn and need to learn to get a job done, like the marine biology thing. This is right around when the economy was shot. And so I was at Rutgers. I graduated. They actually accepted me into their grad program because they liked what I did with the outreach, the videos and stuff. I took these complex topics and I made them simple. for like the general public to know, which is really hard. That's one of the hardest things in science.

Like if you, and if you mess that up, you mess up everything for everybody. All the controversy around global climate change and all this stuff is because scientists, not all of them know how to explain things. So like if you could take things and explain it in a way that makes sense and that's real, like it's a lot better for science, you know? So I went to get my master's and my sister sent me an email for the New Jersey State Police. And this was supposed to go to my cousin. And I sent it to them, but I was like, oh, they have the Marine Division.

And I really liked the Marine Division. When I go fishing, I see them out there. The Marine Police were always, like, really nice people. They always waived. They take care of you if, like, something bad happened. You know, they're right there. I saw myself, I could do that. I could hang in my head.

You know, this is young, naive me. I'm like, I could go fishing in my spare time on the boat, you know? And realistically, I learned that's not the case. But so I applied, so there's, like, 25,000 other people. It was the first time they had the application process open. and in a long time, like in like 10 years. And I got accepted. 230 people got accepted.

Wow. And I was like, do I continue this master's? And everybody I spoke to was like, it's going to be tough to get a job. You're going to have to go get your PhD. And then after that, you have two more years where you're doing your postdoc. And I'm like, my advisor at Rutgers is like, you see all these names? There's three jobs here for professor. You see this?

This is somebody that, you know, you applied to go to school. Their school down in Miami. They want to work here. And I had all these professors that have like 10, 20 years of experience. How am I supposed to do that out of postdoc? Like how are they, why are they going to pick me over somebody who has crazy years of experience? So I'm like, I'm getting stuck in this. I love it.

I love marine biology. I'm going to get stuck here and I'd have to work for the government or something, which isn't, there's nothing wrong with that, but it was not what I wanted to do. I wanted to, like, become a professor and have my own class and do my own research. I didn't want to do like government research. I was like, I'm kind of getting stuck into an area that I, I just, didn't really necessarily wanted to be. And I couldn't find an opportunity

and the state police thing came up. I got in. I'm very physically fit. Like doing the runs, no problem. I was a cross-country track person. Pushed up. I scored 100% on their physical fitness test. I must be sane. I passed their background investigation. No criminal record, none of that stuff. The paperwork, I'm not even

going to lie to you. Twelve inches. Stacks. It took six months to do all the paperwork. They knew more about me than I knew about me. They're like, hey, on this day, why did you have this police interaction and I'd be like what's it really? I don't know I have to really think about that

the background investigator she was super nice she was like you have to figure it out and then you have to write an essay on why you had this police interaction that you didn't list and I was like so I looked at pictures to figure out dates and like oh that's when I saw a power line fall and I called the police to let them know so it was like simple things like that but they like they make it they do a couple things they make it really difficult

to weed out all the people were like yeah I'll be State trooper, you know, no, no, no. Like, if you want it, you're going to have to work for it. And so I did all that. Passed the psych test, past PT, past all that stuff, I got in, and it was the most epic, miserable experience of my life. So it was, it's worse than the military. We had military guys in there, and they're like, what the heck is this?

They make it miserable on purpose. They want people to leave, and they want to teach you that, you know, you follow orders, follow all lawful commands, you know? And it was tough. It's a sleepaway academy, so you sleep Monday through Friday, and then you have the weekend to gain your weight back, and I'll explain that in a second, and maybe get some rest, and probably not,

because you have work that homework you need to do. So you wake up in the morning, let's just say on the first day, the first day we got there, woke up in the morning, get to the academy, you get yelled at. And I've never been yelled at like this in my life. What do they yell at you for? Anything, anything, anything. Literally, like one guy's hair wasn't short enough.

Another guy, I'll give you an example. You're supposed to sound off, you know. When they're like blah, blah, blah, you go, here, sir, I'm not gonna yell in the mic, but you yell here, sir, as loud as you can. Not natural to do, there's one girl was yelling, here sir, and it sounded like she was whispering. And we're all just like, you can't,

we have to stand at attention, you're looking straight, and we're just like, what is she doing? She's, the troopers surrounded her, they're like a swarm of bees. And they just want to hear you sound off. And I don't know what her problem was or what she was nervous. I don't know. She couldn't yell.

And that was the last time we saw her, you know. Wow. So I'm confused. This is for a Marine policeman? Correct. State troopers. So the state troopers have the aviation. They have the Marine police.

They have drug and forth. They have all these. It's the whole entire state. The police work for the whole entire state. They go basically where it's really bad or there's no funding for regular police. So they're going to try. train you for everything so that they could be like, we're going to put you here. Yeah.

So we have boxing, we have swimming, we have all these different things. And they put you in the worst locations. Like they put you as far away as possible from your house. So yeah, so what's that schedule like then? Yeah, so I'll, it's interesting. So I go through the academy. I'm a quarter of the way through, which felt like three years. It's a six-month academy.

And we're boxing and they find your weaknesses. Mine is, you know, I'm pretty skinny. like I'm smaller. They put me up against a guy who's like 250, 260 pounds, you know, and we're boxing. And he gets, I know to protect my face, you know, duck in and protect from getting knocked out. Didn't know to protect my ribs. So he snapped one of my ribs. I didn't know was broken.

And there's no time to like, they ask any injuries. And I was like, oh, if I say you have an injury, they're going to send me to the hospital. I'm going to lose time. I could get put on injury leave. and I don't want to do this again. So I just went with it. And then a week later, I kept going with it. And I was like, I couldn't breathe.

So we'd be doing, so in the middle of the night, they'll pull the fire alarm. It'll be like 1 o'clock in the morning. And we'll be out doing PT for hours until it's 4 or 5 o'clock. And then have you go back in and it's freezing cold out. You go into a nice warm room. The room just spins when you're trying to sleep. You don't sleep.

You get back up and you go and do your daily routine. And it was miserable, but it taught me a while. I'll explain that in a second. And so at one point we're doing sit-ups for an hour straight. And it's not physically possible. And they pick on the weak ones to like, hey, like, you're not doing any sit-ups. So they'll surround you and yell at you and stuff. And I was, every time I go up, crack, crack, crack.

And then after that hour, we had to do jumping jacks. And I was winded. Every time I lift my arms up for the jumping jack, I could feel my ribs. It was bad. And I was cramping up because I couldn't breathe. And I was like, I pushed this for a week. Like, I boxed again. Yeah, wow.

I swam. And there's a lot more stuff every day. It was just nonstop work. So anyway, long story short, any injuries? Here, sir. Went to the hospital. Rib was broken off. And they were like, yeah, you're done.

Like, you have a year of recovery before he could go back. And I was like, what the heck am I going to be doing for a year? And it's funny, one of the troopers before I left, he's like, this job. It sucks. Like it's not fun. You see all the worst stuff. You go all the worst calls. It's not like you it made me really respect the police. They're not going there and and seeing the best stuff. They're seeing the worst stuff. And he said, I hope you never come back. And he's like, I don't mean that in a bad way, but I hope you go find a job on Wall Street or, you know, something. He said something like that. And, you know, I kind of stuck with me. And in the meantime, I was like, what do I do? I work at Pecco as like somebody who takes care of the aquariums. And I was like, I have this YouTube channel in the background with a couple of videos. It was making me like gas money for. the week, like 20 bucks a week or something. I said, let me double down on that. Something I could do from home. I could do with broken ribs. And I started working on the YouTube videos. I made two videos a week. Now, back then, it's completely different. If you look at my old videos, you would get it. So I made those videos, and it started growing exponentially. And brand started

seeing that. Like, I remember 3M flew me out to their headquarters. That's big. Yeah. Wow. Like 3M, you know? I went from going from like, I don't, I don't even know how many subscribers I had maybe 10,000, because again, I didn't focus on subscribers. I just wanted the views because I wanted to teach as many people as possible. So I didn't have many subscribers. 3M, and this is early in YouTube's infancy. You know, like, people didn't know it was like a real thing. So I went to 3M.

They taught me how to do body work. They taught me because they wanted me to learn their products and stuff. But for me, it was like, hey, it's sandpaper. Like, I could use 3M. I could use any company. It's still sanding bodywork. Like, it's the same thing. So it was great.

I got to learn all this stuff. and I kept going to these cool events. I got to drive, never came to fruition, but the Eulio, which was like a three-wheel car that got 84 miles a gallon. It was really inexpensive. And it was all these cool things. I was helping a lot of people.

And the troopers, I knew some troopers and bad things were happening to them. Some passed away. Some got hit by drunk drivers. Like a lot of bad things. And my parents knew that. I knew that. Like friends knew that.

And they're like, hey, maybe you should run with this YouTube thing. You're young enough. If it doesn't work, you could always go back to the police. You'd always go back to school, whatever, anything. And I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I always wanted to open up a restaurant, like a subway, or not like a real restaurant, but like a franchise.

Where I could expand and grow. And this was my chance for the American dream to start my own business and do my own thing. So I just started making videos. And I took the hardcore of the state police, you could never do anything right, which is like the comments. No sleep, which is like editing nonstop. Making sure you're still professional, making sure that you say the right things. Again, state police, recipe, that's the culinary school.

How to create a recipe or a formula to create a good dish. My videos are a recipe. So I was able to recreate each video, even though it was different, oil change, break change. And then the marine biology, complex topics, making really simple. I put all those things into one package for everybody. And that's kind of how the channel blew up. That is an incredible story. Crazy, right?

That was you're a great storyteller, by the way. Nobody knows this except like my friends and stuff. So this is the first. Yeah. You got podcast exclusive, guys. That was great. You told that so well. Thank you.

Man, where do we even start? I'm curious so much about the training academy. Do they pay you for those six months that you're there? How does that work? They make it the most miserable thing possible because they want the best of the best. In some ways, it hurts them because I was smaller. Like, I'm 150 pounds. Like, it's not big for a trooper.

But there's a reason. because like on the highway, a car blows past you, they joked about it, you know, when they're doing our body mass index thing, you know, they go over and they're like, you're a twig. Like, you're going to get blown over by a semi. So I get it. And if somebody's fighting you as a trooper,

you're by yourself, backup's 20 minutes away. Like, there's a lot of scary things, you know. So they pick on those weaknesses on purpose. So, like, it's tough. They make it really difficult, and everybody has a weakness, you know, and they find it quickly in the academy. Have you always been really disciplined?

Because it seems like, everything that you've put your mind to in the past, whether that be education like academia or the academy thing, it seems like you've always just worked extremely hard. Has that always been the case for you? Or is that something that you're always having to be like mindful of, hey, I got to buckle down. I got to work hard or is that just innately who you are? For sure. I think it's a combination of who I am. But I think it's the reason I'm that way is because my parents. Like I saw how hard my dad worked to allow my mom to stay home and raise us, you know? So I saw how he him constantly go to work and he still made sure he came to our soccer practices or cross-country

meets but he was working non-stop and he started and he was at a low position and he worked his way all the way to the top and I saw that and uh you know they're always the ones that like pushed me to like be as good as I can and then I didn't want to disappoint and at the same time I saw the value in being trying to be it's not better than everybody else but trying to stand out from everybody else not just working hard but being passionate about it and uh that was always like i just i thrive myself i couldn't find myself sitting around you know i always have to do something i like to try new things like i started beekeeping i know nothing about wow that's cool but i just when did you start doing that it's this is my second year now the first year they didn't do so well but it's a learning experience

and this year hopefully they make it through the winter i feel like you like anything with the helmet like you would have to wear that i have the whole bell on you you should take up fencing afterwards hey Actually, like, I'd love to try it. You know, I love trying to... I went to a rodeo the other day. I've never been. It was... I just everything.

I love learning and experiencing new things. And, like, I just started Chris Fish. And it's Chris Fix, but for boats and fishing. And specifically for the marine stuff. There's not a lot of people. It's expensive. Boats are expensive. So I'm like, I could teach people like I do on Chris Fix for fixing their boat.

Like, I put throughhole transducers in, which the guy quoted me like 15 grand for... the GPS radar, through hole transducers. I'm like, I can't pay that. That's crazy. So I bought them myself and like, I know what I need to do. I show how to do it and teach people. Now Raymarine, the company, the products I used, it's not sponsored or anything.

Like I bought everything myself. They used my videos to teach their installers. I had the guy from Raymarine tell me. I was like, that's pretty cool. Do I get any money for that? Like can you like, you know, can I get some free product? Can I get a nice flare, you know, like night vision cameras? Yeah.

I got to tell you, unlike Raymarine, I am sponsored by Lexar. Oh my gosh. So, but I did want to say, you have saved me a ton of money. Awesome. I watched your video on buying a used car. I think when you were buying a Jaguar. Yeah. Right?

changed and um i did them myself and now that i make a little bit of money i will never do that again because it was so sketchy like with the spring thing do you know i'm talking about the yeah yeah yeah yeah i get it it was so sketchy so i'll never do that again so the question that i'm getting to is are there anything in cars that you would tell your fans not to touch themselves or Or is it kind of like the, maybe you need more experience? I'm just curious if there's anything that you think that's kind of like, maybe you shouldn't do that. I mean, it's always based on doing what you're comfortable with. You should never like, like, I was like pushing myself.

But like, so the rear glass on my mom's Milan broke. And people are like, oh, you have to have a glass professional do it. I'm like, okay, I get why. Like if you do it wrong, the glass could come out. But like, if I follow the processes that, like, they use. And as long as I'm smart about it, like, it'll be fine and it is fine. Same thing with breaks.

People are like, hey, you're going to teach somebody how to do breaks from it. I'm like, I just showed the whole process. It's completely right. And like, for people who don't know how to do breaks,

they're the ones who are going to be like, oh, it's complex. You need to, you know, you can't do that. Really not hard. Like, it's, it's simple. They fit in place.

There's, I think there's four bolts. You know, if you're replacing rotors, there's four bolts. What's, I'm curious, what's your formula for making videos? Because I would see your videos and think,

there's only so many times you could teach people how to change the brakes and, like, do the common stuff. So how do you keep current, keep a schedule? I would imagine you just, you start doing, like, throwing a Lambo. Or like, throw an oil change on the Ford GT. Use the car and like, hey, here's how to do it. Like, no one has the Ford GT, but, like, curious how it's different maybe. I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, this is kind of like what I dread now because I work. I, you have 10 million people watching your every move. and you have people waiting for you to mess up. And I do things that are out of my comfort rage sometimes that are really complex. And since I try to make these videos relatable to all different cars, I try to cover different things. So if I'm like taking a clutch out and I know, okay,

well, this clutch is going to look different than the clutch on another car. I'm going to try to explain both, but then there might be this one person who has this clutch. So I try to make it that you could follow all, like, whatever car you have, you could get the job done. So I take a week sometimes writing out outlines, making sure I'll go outside and I'll do the job on the, we're just going to make this. Breaks are easy.

You do it your eyes closed at this point. So I'll go and, but just as an example, I'll go and do the brakes on the other side of the car. And I'll write everything out. What's the process? What did I have a hard time doing? Even knowing what I'm doing, what did I have a hard time doing? Okay, this boat was kind of tough. So I'm going to teach people, okay, they're going to run into the same issue.

So how are they going to get this off? Okay, use a torch or use leverage, so get a breaker bar. What happens if you break that bolt and, you know, it's in there? Because a lot of people are afraid to work on the cars because the what-ifs. What if I break it so bad that I can't fix it or I get stuck? At the end of the day, you could just tow it. You know, it costs you a little more money, but it's worth the risk. So I come out with this really long outline, and it has to be like, it can't be like hours long this video.

So I have to narrow it down. I have to pick the right things. And I have to make it as like a recipe. I have to make it easy to find. I can't just jump from point to point. So how do you do this? And then I'll go and film. And I'm bad at speaking.

Like right now, it's easy. Like I feel like this is good because we're having a conversation. But in the videos, I'm not good at speaking. Like, it takes me. I'm the same way. I say the same thing multiple times until I get it right. Yeah. So it's hard.

And one thing I learned is when you're trying to worry, because I film and do everything myself, I hold the camera and I'll use my hand gestures to point and all the stuff, pick things up, talk about it. You're watching the camera. You're watching for white balance. You're watching for contrast. You're watching for exposure.

You're watching for focus. You're also trying to think about what to say smartly and concise and efficiently. And you're not trying to talk about things that are out of the scope of your outline. Plus, you already only have a limited amount of time. Otherwise, the video could go on for hours. I mess up. I take cuts. A minute of my video probably takes me like three hours to film at the end of the day.

Like if you broke it down. Like realistically, the intro minute is fast. We're talking about like the planning. or just like just filming? Just the filming. Wow. Yeah. There's a lot of shots that I have to put things back

to make sure I get that shot again because it was out of focus. And you can't see because if the camera's here, you're working around the camera, it's hard enough to work on cars with the space you're given. Now put this big DSLR camera with a big mic

so you can hear the stereo noise and get your hands behind it or around it. It's impossible. You don't realize, and I'm not realistic. I'll get this done in 20 minutes. I'll be able to knock this out, you know?

My friend's belt just started. I'm like, oh, I'll make a video real quick before I go to Seema and, you know, have content to edit on the plane. And I start filming, I start planning. I'm like, this, let's be real here. This is never going to happen. So there's a lot. It takes a lot of time to get these shots.

And just a shot of getting a belt. There's a radiator in the way. How do you go around that? Do you disassemble the radiator? Use a smaller camera. Sometimes you have to disassemble the radiator to do a job that doesn't require it. And I don't show that in the background. You don't need to know the radio is disassembled so I could put my camera in there.

It has nothing to do with the video of changing your belt. But because I want the viewers to see exactly what they could see in the process, I'll do that. And it might be crazy, but that's what I do. And then when I make, you make mistakes, you know. When I make mistakes, I say something wrong or I'll say nut instead of bowl or whatever. In that case, that's simple enough to fix and post. But sometimes I'll go back out and reshoot it because I just don't like how it comes out. So this isn't a five-paragraph essay that you constantly produce.

This is a dissertation. So at the end of the day, this video will be the best, the best video you watched on YouTube for how to change your, whatever it is, how to change your bricks, how to change your, a clock, or whatever. But then how do you top that? Because I'm sure it's like me where you've explained a concept, but nobody goes back and watches the old video, so you've got to do it again. Well, that's the good thing.

I do. My old videos still get hundreds of thousands of views. So that's why these are dissertations. These are, like, it's the science that you could go back to, It's still real. It's still relevant. So they'll watch these old videos and it's still perfectly fine. But how do you keep finding things to fix?

You have junk cars. I have like 12 junk cars. Yeah, well, they're not all junk, but I have 12 cars. But let's say it. Yeah, like the brakes, you make a few videos and that. Like you're done with brakes. Then you go on to the radiator. You're done with the radiator.

Like how many components are in a car that you could realistically go and like, I'm going to fix this today and it's different. I have enough videos for like planned out in my head for the next five, maybe even 10 years. Like things just happen. Like the glass breaking on my mom's car. That was just freak. My dad slammed the trunk. Glass broke.

Boom, video. I got a flat the other day. Boom, video. It's a short actually. I'll post it, you know? I love that. So I'm going to see how that does, even though. Like it was very my niche, you know?

It's like how to quickly, it's good for being quick because that's when you need it. Yeah. So it's just, there's tons of things. I was driving my Hummer to go. To go to the race with, I'm towing more than I probably should tow with a Hummer. And the transfer case clunks. I'm like, oh, no, you got to be kidding me. I'm afraid it's going to lock up.

So I got towed home and how to replace the transfer case or how to rebuild it. And speaking of cars, you know, my Volvo, I mean, no, but I mean, I did buy this Volvo offogram. And I just need to take the door panel off. Speaking of which, you still haven't paid for that Volvo. You don't have to air your grievances on the podcast. He hasn't paid for the Volvo? No. You make your friends pay for cars you give them?

Oh, oh, oh, that was the biggest comment that we got last time. Evidently, they don't pay, though. So that's, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, really, it was free. That's the other cool thing. Like, a lot of the cars that you see on my channel that kind of, like, disappear. I don't sell cars. I have a problem.

So they either go into storage or I see somebody who needs a car that I know. And I'm like, hey, you know, this Prius is like good Prius now with the battery. I'll say, like, how much it's worth on the channel. And, like, I sold it for that much. because that's how much is worth. And then I'll just like, hey, I'll sell it to you for a dollar, you know, and give it to somebody who actually needs it. And I find that, like, it's cool that I'm able to do that through my YouTube channel.

Just from the viewers watching, I'm able to help somebody out in their life and make a difference. So I help another person with a trailblazer. And it's not like they can't take care of themselves. They can. But having this weight off your chest of, hey, I need a new lease or, hey, I need a fine to use car. I know the car's good. I worked on it, you know? and the car is bulletproof now.

So, yeah, perfect. Do you buy cars then just to fix them up? Yeah, so I feel like that's a lot of, when I get a car, that's why I buy it. Like I never buy a good, I haven't bought a good car except the Hummer, but even the Hummer, like, when I bought it, I didn't want a project car and I saw the deal of it. You know, I'm like, oh man, for a Dermax swap, this was like a really good price. Why? I went to go see it and I'm like, now I know why. And I was like, I told myself, I called my dad.

I'm like, yeah, dad, this needs too much work. And he's asking too much. My dad's like, you fool all the way out there. Just make him an offer. And I told the guy like, hey, I'm going to make you an offer. You're not going to like it. But I'm here. My dad told me to.

And I was making all these excuses, right? And I made him the offer. And eventually he just like, and I wouldn't go up. I told myself, that's it. And eventually he, okay. And now have another project car. But yeah, so I like cheap project cars. I can't tell you about a lot of the new ones because they haven't come out yet.

And they're not coming out. I'm very slow because I take a lot of time with the videos. So, but one of them I got really cheap and it just needs a couple of things and an affordable Supercar, like actually affordable. Like I paid 20 grand for it. Do you tell us what car it is? I can't. Can you bleep it out?

Yes. So I got a great car. Wow. That's a deal. It's a death trap. Yeah, don't those have a ton of issues usually? No. The window regulators don't work.

That's one of the main issues. So I knew that and they're expensive. They're like, I think it was $500 each regulator. And the bolt comes out of the. crank shaft and causes issues and you might need to completely rebuild the engine. And this boat was starting to come out. The owner is like, oh, I don't know why the belt is coming off. And I'm like, here's a risk I take.

It either needs a new engine and the engine is very unique. So it would be expensive. I'm like, do I take this risk? And it took it. Can't you just look at the car and be like, hey, just give me 10 minutes to look at this? A lot of this stuff you have to do. In order to get deals, you need to do stuff that is very, risky. It's risk reward. If you have time to go look at a car, so does some other person.

They could see it. They're an expert too. They could see it. They could take that risk. But if you buy a car from somewhere, there's not a lot of people where not a lot of people are going to pay this money, it's the risk. And then you get shipped to you. And the reward is, like, this should turn out good. Like, I can't wait to show everybody. So, and I have another car like that as well. I could keep going on. But the free car, my neighbor gave me. He's like, hey, I'm getting rid of this car. They wanted like a hundred bucks to tow it away. I'm like, well, no, don't do that you know it's worth money in the parts and cats just give it to this i have a junkyard that i'm friendly with they'll pay you like 300 500 bucks for it it's like how about this why don't

you take it and try to start if not go do that and and the money's yours i'm like okay i remember bringing the car back to it's the the red honda it's the how to start a free car um and he told me all the stuff they tried to do to it and the mechanics that he had i guess just didn't diagnose it right And I was like, I'll just show the steps of doing it. I'll show my process. And if it works awesome, if it doesn't, then I'll show the process of getting rid of a junk car. And it would be the timing. You know, I showed, okay, check compression, check fuel, check spark, check air, check timing.

That's pretty much everything, you know. And it was just the timing. The belt skipped a few teeth. Wow. Luckily, I don't know if it was interference or not, but luckily it didn't interfere. You don't have, like, pistons hitting valves. And people loved it. I think that has like 15 million views or something, 10 million.

million views, something like that. Because it gives people like that, hey, I can get a free car from a neighbor. That's a possibility. I can find a junk car that's inexpensive. $500 trailblazer, $300 del Sol. I spent a lot of time looking for these deals. They're real deals. They're real life.

Like, this is real. I don't fake anything. And it takes a lot of time to find these things. Anybody looking for cars could be that. So your goal is to find average cars that a lot of people could afford and show, like, is there a reason you don't say you go to the who Vs? approach be like i'm going to buy this 1990 Ferrari whatever you know three four eight and i'm going to fix that up and do cool cars like that like exotics that just break down all the time which is

awesome yeah no that's uh i'd say there's two reasons for that one is if i brought a Ferrari to my driveway it would get stolen like having cars out on my driveway versus having like a nice garage to keep cars in it'll get stolen so like that's the first thing so i can't really have like super nice things and the second reason is and the more important reason is it's not what my viewers are doing. You know, my viewers are normal people like me who are just trying to fix their car and they want to learn about cars.

They want to buy an affordable car, fix it up, start a new hobby, start a new passion, customize it maybe, you know, make it their own, go to a car show, or just get to work. And it's not, it's not, people aren't buying Ferraris, like what percent of the population has a Ferrari, you know,

versus what percent of the population has a Honda Civic or a Prius or, you know. So were you going to get deals? Like if someone is watching this right now, They want to get a good deal on a good used car. What would you do? So I like using a bunch of different places. So I like using eBay Motors, Facebook Marketplace.

Craigs is used to be good, but now I think they charge you because it's not good anymore. So I don't even look. But those two are the main place, but there's a site called Auto Tempest that it takes all these sites and you do one search and it'll search all of them at once, which saves me time because, you know, we don't have a lot of time when we're doing all these YouTube videos. So I'll just constantly search that for something I'm interested in. The Del Sol. People love that thing. They're waiting for the turbo, and I've been not good about it. The whole COVID thing messed stuff up. And it was just supposed to be a joke. I was supposed to make a video on replacing Piston Return Springs. I love the Honda del Sol. So I was like, I'll do it on that car. And I found one with a head gasket leak. And I was like, this is perfect. I'll make the joke video. And then, you know, I'll fix it. Then I have a little Honda to drive around. I always love the Del Sol. It's quirky. It's cool. It's unique. It's different. People want to see it get turbo. They want to see more about it. And they just, they fell in love with it. A thing that I thought was a joke where, okay, it's Piston Return Springs. April Fool is cool.

And they're like, oh, what else you're going to do to it? Like, we know this is a joke, but what else? Like, we want to see cool stuff. Yeah. So. I always see comments on YouTube videos that say, like, oh, if this guy's car breaks down, he gets excited. So I'm here to ask you, is it true?

Would you get excited if your car stopped working while you're driving? To a degree. So like the Hummer, that's my daily driver. When it broke down. And it's not easy to work on because technically you should be inside with a lift. and the parts are expensive. And that's like the one, like you're talking about the Ferrari,

that's like my version of the Ferrari. That's my dream car. Nobody has them, because they only made like 11,000, and they had all the military ones. But it's not like, each one. Yeah, you're not coming to my channel

to learn how to fix an H1. At least most people. There are, so a lot of the Hummer guys, I've become friends with them, which is awesome. You know, but what is that? You know, let's just say 3,000 people.

Like, none of my videos have 3,000 views. They all have, you know, millions of views. So people are watching it for fun. But, But so like that's like my version of the Ferrari. And what was the question? I'm going inside. Like, do you get excited?

Do I get excited? Yeah. So that situation, no. I was not excited. It was like, you got to be kidding me. This is my daily. And this is the one car I bought that I didn't want to work on, even though I knew it was kind of a project car.

I did all the little things. When the other cars break a little bit. Yeah. Like when the rear glass broke, my dad's like, oh, we could call, you know, the glass company, safe, whatever, you know. And we called them up and they're like, oh, it's going to be like $500. and we could get to you in like a week. We're like, it's going to rain.

So I'm like, okay, this is not just my experience. This is millions of people's experience. I'm like, hold it. Let's get the glass from the junkyard, ordered it on eBay, got it through a junkyard. They shipped it to me, and I showed how to fix it. And it's a real life example of like a bad situation. That's good.

The tire, the flat in the tire. So my neighbor just had work done at her house, and they didn't clean the street very well, nails all over. And there's a flat. in multiple cars, unfortunately. I was like, this is a real life example. It's not just happening to me.

This is happening to millions of people. Let me show you how to do that. So I take a bad situation and I'm not like excited. I'm not like, yeah, my car is broken. You're just out there laying nails down. Exactly. People are like, your cars are always breaking. Like, it's real life, you know.

Like, I buy cars that are not well taken care of before I get them. And that's the whole point. That's why they're so cheap. And they break down until I fix all the parts. Like my pickup truck was like, we got it. really cheap and it was not taking care of. And so thing after thing broke and I fixed each thing. And now it's, you know, it's good. Have you ever broke a car on purpose to make a video about it? I haven't. And I don't have the time to do that. People are like, hey, you just broke that on purpose.

I see how, I forget, oh, there's coolant coming out. And one of my videos have shown how to install an intake on the Mustang, a performance intake. And they think it's some people, not, it's got to be a small percentage. You're like, oh, you just, you broke that so you could show that. No, coolant's pouring out of there because it's a common problem on these. The plastic cracks and I drift the car, so it expedites that. And now I'm showing how to replace it, you know? So you were talking about that mystery car earlier that you're like, sometimes you got to take a gamble and, you know, see, see if you can get a deal. I think the average version of that that I think like a normal person would go through is, have you ever seen like on Carvana that something's like, I don't know,

I don't know what they call it, but like they said they inspected it. Have you ever bought a vehicle on Carvana and actually like looked at it as somebody who knows what they're looking at? I haven't bought a car on Carvana because their prices. That would be an amazing video though, especially right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. Carvana is having a lot of issues because the titling. I don't know if they solved those issues. Many issues.

The other issue is that they lose on average $3,200 in every car they say. They're highly unprofitable. And the only time they've ever made money was one quarter of, order in 2021 when the inventory that they bought from 2020 went up in value. It's the only time they've ever been profitable. That's interesting. See, I don't know the finance side of that. The finances are a dumpster fire.

It's so bad. Not profitable, but still have this multi-billion. Is it billion or is it high millions? I don't know what your valuation is now. I think it's going to be zero. Well, yeah. So, but like Uber, isn't Uber not profitable or something? Or they haven't.

They posted some profit. But it's like, it's on the line. And think about, like, everybody uses Uber. Like came to Vegas. Uber, boom, that's the first thing I thought of, you know? What Uber am I going to get? So, but yeah, I haven't bought a car from Carvana, mostly because they're supposed to be good.

Like, the cars are supposed to be inspected. They're supposed to be, like, when you buy it from them, you're supposed to be getting a car that is, you know, you don't have the shady dealers, like, putting sawdust in the coolant to try to cover a head gasket leak. now whether or not I mean they're not doing it obviously but the cars they're getting could potentially have those problems

and their professionals could miss it there's so many things that that you see in the industry that like it's shady you know like how do people do this how can you how can you get somebody a car that's this messed up and know it's going to fail you want to hear that tell us about some of the shady tricks

so the PT Cruiser I don't like the PT Cruiser my parents got my sister a PT cruiser for her first car and it was perfectly fine I didn't do the inspection. This was when I was younger, so I didn't do the inspection or anything. You know,

they got it from a, you know, a reputable used car dealer. And it ran fine for years. Like, it was good for, I shouldn't say years. It ran fine for a year. And that is a long enough time where you're like,

okay, it's not the dealer that did anything wrong when something goes wrong. My parents are driving on the highway. All of a sudden, boom. The temperature spikes. Before my dad could even get over to pull off,

car just, the engine melted. it overheated. Wow. The head gasket went. Well, the head gasket, they used sawdust. They didn't even use a good product. They used sawdust to clog the head gasket. And eventually it just, it went.

Now, can you prove it was the dealer that did that? No, it could have been the guy who traded into the dealer or the dealer or the dealer got it from or whatever. And can you say, like, the dealer knew about it? No. But somebody knew about it. Along the line, somebody did something like shady that ended up hurting somebody down the line.

you know luckily it was we were in a i mean we lost money on that car you know it had to be junked there's no by the time it was used and and uh a year later and the miles that were put on it and then the head gasket going i was like i'm just going to take it apart to see what went wrong and there's sawdust everywhere the whole cooling system what do they do that what does the sawdust do so it's it's and it doesn't like don't even try it they have better products i actually did a video on legit products to save you from a head gasket leak. Like my dad's jag had a head gasket leak and he needed to use it for work. So I was like, we're not replacing the head gas.

I don't want to do this. You have to drop the whole engine cradle. And it's like just $3,000 in parts. If the dealer did it, it was like $6,000. So it's worth more than the car. And I was like, I don't want to do this. But he's like, well, I really like this car. I just want to use it to get through the winter.

So I got a head gasket sealer in a bottle. And they're great products now, surprisingly. Everybody hates them. But for this type of situation, the car is junk. You're never going to be able to, you're not selling it. You're going to donate it or for parts of the junkyard, you know. You're not going to try to sell it. And you just want to try to get a little bit more time out of it.

You pour it in the radiator and it has a liquid glass. So when the combustion gases, which are really hot, touch that liquid glass, it evaporates the water from it and leaves behind the glass. Wow. So it only happens where the combustion gases are coming out at the head gasket. So it doesn't clog your radiator. And I pulled the radiator out and I showed all the veins. on like, look, no clogs. It doesn't clog any of that.

So the sawdust, what it does is kind of the same. The coolant, the reason why you're losing coolant is it's going through the head gasket into the engine. So the sawdust is in there mixed in the coolant and it builds up more and more. The idea is it builds up more and more than clogs it. It doesn't work. The gasket sealers in a can actually today are decent and they actually do work for that. They get bad rep because the old ones stink.

The dealers and people, everybody who's shady and wants to just like pass something. something off that's bad, could do it to their car. And I get it. It's not a good thing. But if you're like an honest person, you're doing it to try to help yourself so you have more time with your car, I think it's great. What other things happen like that? So the sawdust one, I got a car from an online salvage auction. And this taught me a lot. I was going to do salvage auction videos. I was going to teach people like, hey, here's a good way to get a really cheap car that has like a branded title like salvage, flooded, whatever. And here's what to look for. Here's what you could do it to fix it. And I got this salvage, and this has never been seen by anybody, I got this

salvage BMW to make this video. And I didn't know any better. And this BMW has been basically passed around. And everybody thinks the same as me. Oh, look of this thing. It's awesome. And they get it. And it's been, they took drywall screws and they screwed them in to keep the bumper together. Wow. They welded the tie rod instead of replacing the tie rod. They banged out stuff. So it was a front end collision. They cut the airbags and close the airbag covers. They left it open so if you look at the pictures carefully, you're like, the airbag looks a little weird.

But if you're like looking quickly, you're not seeing it in person, and they cut the airbag out so you can't see it. So like a lot of shady things like that, I'm like, I can't make these videos because I'm not a trained professional, but I see enough cars where I'm like, I could pick these things up and I missed them. So I'm like, well, I know what?

I'm going to stay away from this stuff. And I called the company, the salvage company. I'm like, listen, I know it's as is, where it is, and it's all my fault, but this is dangerous. Like, this is welded tie rods. Like, you falsely represented a vehicle that, like, the sheet metal screws going in, then covered and painted, so you can't see it. And it looks like the bumper's still on. I took those screws out behind. That's a mess.

So it's people basically getting this junk car, and they're passing it around, fixing it up enough so that they could get their money back, you know? Wow. So it's, like, it gives everybody a bad name, you know? Are there any types of cars you would stay away from, any makes or models or like certain situations, like flooded cars maybe? Yeah, so I'm a big advocate of drive, go get what you like. So, like my dad, like that Jaguar X type. Everybody in the comments could, we'll be, oh, you know, the Jaguar X type's a horrible car, it's unreliable, and are they right to a degree, maybe? This car didn't give us many problems, but it's something he enjoyed.

And he had the means to use me to fix it up, you know? So like, so like get something you really like, the Hummer, Hummer H1, horrible. Like, technically is a horrible vehicle to street drive. It's made to go in tank tracks, off road, 35 miles an hour, and a convoy. Not 55 miles an hour on a highway, on the road, you know, all that stuff. So I'm a big advocate of get a car that you like. That way, you know, if something does go wrong, whatever, you're fixing a car you like. You get the drive.

Life is so short. Just enjoy driving what you want, you know. Now, flood cars, especially since the hurricane down in Florida, and I was actually just talking to my buddy about this, saltwater is horrible. So it's hard to tell if the car's been flooded above the car. How much? Sometimes it's just like, if you hit the door still, sometimes it's like, hey, this is a write-off. It's a flood car.

You don't know what's going to happen in the future. Water gets in all the computers on the floorboards. Like, there could be issues, and how's the insurance company deal with that? They just write it off. They say, okay, it's totaled. And you get that car. You could clean out all the water, dry it. up and if it runs it could run fine forever or you might have an issue five years down the line a year

down the line i don't know if i would say stay away from anything because there's a price you could get really expensive cars for cheap for doing that but just know the risk reward no like hey i'm buying this thing there's a chance it's not what i expect not like buying a new car where it's warranted and all that stuff have a little confidence in your abilities and and just do what makes sense like know the don't be there's no good deals like know that there i shouldn't say there's no good deals. When you have a good deal, there's a reason. Let's put it that way. Sure. So know that there's that situation and you could fall into that, the bad part of it and have a problem. And I mean, you've worked on so many cars. I'm sure you've probably noticed a pattern with certain

makes though. It's like, oh, unlike, you know, a Ford Focus or whatever, this tends to go wrong or this, the Ford Focus tends to have more problems than like a Toyota Camry or Corolla. Is there any, like, pattern that you recognize amongst certain makes where, you know, stuff tends to go wrong more so with those cars. Let's say someone wants to buy a used car. They don't know anything about the seller. They don't know anything about anything, right? But they just see a Camry and a Ford Focus.

Yeah. Would you lean them in know one of the two directions? Go test drive it. See which one you like better. Which one do you think looks better? And I mean, both of those are economy cars. So, like, every car has its problems. Every single one.

Every single car. So, like, Toyota, everybody says Toyota is so great. They don't break down. They do. Just like every other car. They do have great reliability. but when they do break down, those parts, Toyota parts are expensive. I just rebuilt, it's a marine engine.

It's Yanmar, but it's a division of Toyota or whatever. They use Toyota parts. The parts are crazy. It's like insanely expensive compared to a Ford part where they have so many and they're really not that expensive. I really honestly truly believe that you should drive stuff that you want to drive. And I'll stick to that. But yeah, like every car. So like when you're looking to buy a car, it's good to go and type in like a kind of

problems for XYZ, your year, make and model. I could use, let's use the Mustang, the drifts thing, for example. Very common issue with that. The odometer stops working because the little gear in there gets stripped out. And you don't know the real mileage. And if you're test driving the car, you don't notice it not going up. You could have 500,000 miles on that car and it says 120. So that's like a common problem that basically affects them all. I was talking about the air intake has the coolant going through it and it leaks because it's plastic. It cracks. very common problem with those the bushings in the rear suspension they go bad over time

and you know you could have bad suspension problems and easy to fix but another common problem that's different than if you're looking at a minivan or something you know so try to learn those problems by just doing some quick research type in the year-making model and on YouTube and something to see if like you're making model fix

and then you're missing a keyword what are you fixing and those keywords will hopefully like fill in like radiator will fill in okay well this has a guy will be like oh there's a radiator problem on these cars so let me show you how to fix it you learn that what are your thoughts right now on the used car market used car market is i think a big bubble i think it's gonna so i'm not a finance guy and i could be completely wrong i feel like it's like a 2008 bubble with the housing i feel like it's similar with the used cars people are paying 20 30 100 000 over msrp depending on what it is i saw the new what was it super oh no the the the nisososos

on the 400. Oh, yeah, the Z? Yeah, it was like 49,000 sticker, and they wanted 105 dealer markup. You know what, someone's paying it? Yeah, well, those people, like no offense to them, but they're part of the reason this is a problem. I love the free market and I love it to self-regulate, but like money was pumped into our economy and now people have extra money to spend, and now they're using this money in

bad ways and poor decision ways. they're buying these cars over sticker. You should never pay over MSRP. I could get at MSRP for every single car out there or less. Well, I shouldn't say every single car. Every normal car out there. Sports cars and limited edition things like every you'll get a

Ford, an F-150 or something. And the guy's like, oh, we have a price markup because of the, whatever it is, whatever their excuses, pinstripes, you know, you can get that at MSRP. You go find somewhere else. Spend a few minutes to go shopping. There are dealers that will do only MSRP. And

I think people paying more than that. The car is worth MSRP. After you take a car off the lot, it's worth less. Right now, no, but the economy's going to simmer down, and then it will be worth less. I think it's crazy how it's become so normalized now to drive a car and then expect to sell it for more. I remember, well, we all remember.

The good old days. Yeah, the good old days. When it became common sense that the car would immediately lose 20% of its value as soon as you drive it off the lawn. Yep. And now it's not the case. It's so odd, but I was doing research for a video that I had posting this week, and BMW said that they're going to be producing less to keep their price point the same. They don't want to make more and have their cars drop in price anymore.

Tesla is a great example of this of just like a build-to-order, and they're increasing the cost of autopilot to keep those used cars from hitting the market at a lower price and impacting sales. Ford even came out and said that they want to now do a build-to-order model, or they're looking into it, where customers would be able to purchase cars direct. Now, that might just be the electric cars for right now. But that's how they want to move. It always starts somewhere, you know. Yeah, but Mercedes also chimed in and said something similar, that they want to focus more on the luxury market,

which means they want to keep their prices the same. So I think all these auto manufacturers are realizing, if people are paying this price, we would be stupid to make more and drive the price down. We may as well make less, charge more. We have higher profit. We'll have the same profit margins, making less cars, less overhead.

Yeah, I mean, as the manufacturer, that kind of makes sense. It does. And there's no proof. Like, they're saying, oh, it's, you know, because we can't get chips and stuff like that, which is probably true. Yes. There's no proof, though. Like, it's not like there's a way we could audit that and see that.

Yeah, I've heard stories. I've heard stories that a lot of the dealers are keeping cars on the sidelines to make it look like they're, you know, they don't have inventory to make you pay more. But who knows? Yeah, you just don't. The chip shortage just seemed to be that, the, main narrative right now is that there's not a big enough supply of chips they can't make as many cars as there is demand but even for the used cars i mean it's just it's it's it's extended throughout

everything right now i find that as like job security because once they start doing this only like really wealthy people are going to be able to afford new cars they're going to just go up and value like getting a new car right now think about it the f-150 or it was an f450 or it was an f-450 or 3-50 i pulled up in uh that was dropped off in that car's like 120 grand that's a house i know in some states Like, that's a house. The issue I think right now is with the loans that it's so easy to get an auto loan. Yep. And unlike a house where they do an appraisal and they have someone physically go and check out the house, do the comps, it doesn't exist with cars.

It's just what price are you paying will give you 150% of that to account for tax and registration, license and fees. There you go. Enjoy. And there's very little oversight on loans. Exactly. That's why I think it would be like 2008. I think so. Because that's what happened in 2008 with the housing, right?

Correct me if I'm wrong. People were getting loans that they probably shouldn't have gotten, and then the market crashed because they couldn't pay. What's even crazier is that I don't know the exact statistics. I believe it was 20% of people admitted to lying on their car loan application to get the car that they wanted. Another one was that, and maybe correct me, Alex, because you edited the video. But there was another part where I think it was only 30% of the loans that were submitted were actually verified. So you have a big portion that were never verified.

and you have one in five people lying on their application. Think of how easy it is just to write, because they don't do income checks. Write $100,000 instead of $80. Get the car that you want. I think what's happening is that it's kind of going towards that area where people are no longer looking at the price of the car and they're looking at the monthly payment.

And so when banks start offering these 86-month ridiculous car loans, it's like, well, you know, who cares? because, you know, my payment's only, only $700. Like, you know, so you can't afford that, though. Yeah, so that was, that was another crazy thing is that the average car payment is now just over $700 a month. The average loan is 76 months. Well, the average loan is 72 months. There you go.

Yep. The average person, 72 months. But the average person gets a new car at 71.6 months. So, like, right as they're about to pay off the car, they sell the car, roll it into another 72 month loan, and start the process over again. They never fully owned the car. How crazy is that?

That is insane. Yeah. Holy cow. I mean, I've only ever had old, old cars my entire life. Yeah, I've never had a new car. Never? You've never bought a new car? So I'm a believer of using your skills to get a lower price.

Tesla was the only car that I bought new. What about the, well, you leased, I guess, the Mercedes, right? That was a sub lease. That was a sub lease. I didn't even release that. Yeah, because the guy put like $5,000 down. And then he had 18 months left of his lease. It was swapel lease.com.

And so I just picked up this guy's deal, and he had prepaid for the maintenance. So, like, I got all of this stuff free. I think my payment was, oh gosh, I think it was $430 a month or something like that. But it was like a somewhat brand new C class. And it was like the C class with the sport or whatever it was. But that was a great car.

It's cool getting deals, even if it's something simple like that. I don't know there's something more special about the car when you get it as a deal versus you get ripped off. I don't know how, if I got ripped off, I would, I don't know if resents the right word, but I hate my car because I got one on me. You know, like somebody, somebody ripped me off with this thing. And every time I see that car, I knew they got me. So I think getting the deals is like, that's like what keeps me happy with my cars.

Well, you'll be able to get good deals because in the video that I'm posting, it was found that subcompact car prices, have fallen 3.6% week over week. Interesting. And they're continuing to go down. The only category that did not go down a price were the sports and luxury vehicles. This is exactly what happened.

How I remember it in 2008, the Hummer came out, the H2 and H3, and they were gas guzzlers and everybody's like, has all this money. The Hummer just came out, the EV Hummer came out now. You know, what you just explained. Now, and all this is,

it's just like mirroring what I saw in 2008. So, I mean, it's just things I'm connecting. Again, not a finance person. People saw the Hummer as a good tax ride-off because it's weight. Yeah, over 6,000 pounds. Over 6,000 pounds. So that had, it was funny. In L.A., they called it the real estate agent car

because all the realtors are buying the car for the ride-off. But you also have to be able to afford the fuel. That's true, too. And the maintenance. This is true. Yeah. And then when things go sour, what's the first thing you get rid of your luxuries, like your boats, your luxury cars?

No. And then, like, Hummer, to me, is a luxury car, you know, and get rid of all these luxury things in the market falls. That Hummer that they drove. They gave me the new H-1, well, not H-1, the Hummer EV. Pardon me what really wants that car. Three seconds, zero to 60. I thought, 9,000 pounds.

I thought it was 2.9. Or it might even be 2.9. Beat three seconds. Is there a part of you that would buy that? Yeah, not for the price. Right now they're selling about 200 grand. Well, I don't know what you can. Like, never go for it.

Like I said, never. go above MSRP. But MSRP is like 115. Yeah. Even at that price, like... I just think it's such a cool looking car.

I like it. Cosmetics. Look. Yeah. And the crab walk is really neat. It's such a gimmick. The crab walk is useless. I use it off road.

It's completely useless. But the rear steer, after having rear steer and taking it off road, it lets you make these turning, the turning race is insane. It lets you go really tight and you don't have to back up and make K-turn.

Like my Hummer Offrow, I took in the same spot, my Hummer and this Hummer, I have to make a K-turn to go around this certain area. This thing, rear steers automatically, you go right around. Crab Walk, I'll be honest with you. I mean, there might be a way to use it that, like, it's useful for. Yeah. It's just a gimmick. It's cool. It's really cool. I do you go down the room.

I love the range that you could get on a car of that size to get, what was it, like, 250 miles. I think it's three something. But don't let that fool you because the one downside was it was like 80 bucks to fill up. and also at a home charger, like 120 volt, it took forever to charge. Really? Yeah, you would have to definitely get, like, so I used 150, I think they go by amp hours or amps or,

I don't know exactly what the chargers go by. I know 150 is pretty high. And for 20 minutes, it went up 70 miles, I think. And then, but if you use a home charger, it could take, like, a day to fully charge it. Maybe even longer. I don't want, I hate giving statistics. Wait, is that a 240 volt?

No, 120 volt. So like a normal home charge. Yeah. You know, if you... That's not bad. I mean, because I was charging my model three at just with an extension cord. And I just plugged it in.

Yeah. It got five miles per hour. I didn't care. I rarely drive anyway. So it's always charged. See, but for us, we work from home, like, and you have other vehicles. Oh, yeah.

For somebody who needs to get back and forth to work. Oh, yeah. And they have to rely on this. Like, I don't know, it's just... They're pushing it too fast. they're forcing it instead of like like making it like another decision we can make so that's just it bothers me because they're like hey we're not making gas cars anymore we're banning them like that that hurts like gas cars it's cool like the you see the new jim kana kim block he used the electric car it was

awesome it was really crazy cool he went through vegas to like he has this electric Audi it was really neat but it was just missing and they did a great job with the production they did a great job with the stunts, we're just missing the noise. It sounded like an electric car, which is, I guess, kind of cool, but it's missing that and the flashes and the bangs and you know what's going on in there. It's like organized chaos into the engine and like, I don't know. I guess that's just us growing up with that. Maybe the new generation doesn't care.

I think it's probably just what you're used to. It's not like I buy cars based on how the exhaust sounds, you know? Like does it sound really cool or is it like kind of lame? Yeah. Do you think that's going to make gas powered cars more expensive? Just like in terms of like a like a this is one of the few gas powered cars left like the old Ferraris and Being like a naturally aspirated car It's gonna be like a manual transmission. Yeah, yeah

Yeah, yeah yeah stick shift is now more expensive instead of cheaper I I don't know I honestly don't know Jay Leno said that he thinks it's gonna be like the horse Everybody used horses and then finally came out with the car but horses now are like a luxury, you know, they're expensive Whereas horses back then were a necessity so it wasn't expensive so you're on to something I think initially no But eventually probably, yeah. What do you think about the move towards automatics and e-gears versus manual?

Of course, trying to bring it back for manual. I like just the innovation. Like, it's all good. I personally like stick, but I get it. Like if you've been in a stick car and you're in traffic, it's miserable. Yeah. Like, especially if you have like a performance clutch or something.

But at the same time, if you're on the racetrack, if you're drifting, you need a stick car. You know, that's just something that you really want. It's all personal preference. Like, it stinks because I know mass production. They want to bring the prices down as much as possible. But I wish they could always give that option so that like this is going to be my fun car so I want it stick This is going to be my daily driver so I want it automatic. I don't know

Yeah one thing you mentioned earlier that surprised me you were mentioning editing your videos You edit yourself. Yes, I do ever so everything my channel is done by me except any contracts I make I have a lawyer I don't know the legal mumbo jumbo although I've gotten pretty good at it because I've seen enough But I always like to be extra careful and like with there's no competes and there's all this and that I like making sure I'm like a handshake is like a real thing you know I'm honest and to my word so what's your team look like just you and a lawyer well the lawyer isn't really on my team she's just somebody a hire when I have stuff yeah that I need legal things done um so yeah that's yeah that's incredible that's one of the few people I think that that could get to we'll round up we'll say 10 million subscribers on their own yeah very few people have done that without without you know a team behind them it's cool it's it's uh It goes to show you what you could do in your driveway at home with common hand tools by yourself. And do you do the audio in real time as you're fixing up the car or is it something that you put in afterwards? I've always wondered that.

I've wondered that so much. So I answer four hours of comments every day. Like that's, I like to help people. Four hours? Four hours? Wow. Every day. Every day. What hour to what hour?

Sometimes it's sporadic. Most of the time when I wake up, it's like an hour. Like I'll get right up, brush my teeth, eat some breakfasts all that has or stuff. And do you start by newest? Or do you do like top comments? Newest. If people want to get their comment responded to, how do they do it? It's just, they just have to comment a lot, right?

Throughout the day. Yeah, I mean, there is, I didn't like doing this, but this is what people wanted me to do. You could, like, pay you for the membership thing. I made it 99 cents as cheap as possible so that your comment comes to the top so I could get it. And the reason I did that is because that's the only way you could, like, guarantee I see it.

Otherwise, I mean, it's like how many comments a second do you get, you know? So I do try to answer four hours a day. and I can't answer all of them. It's a lot. Yeah. But it's important because this is like part of like the learning process. It's like going to a class with your professor and you can't ask questions. Those are the worst classes.

But if you have a question, you could raise your hand and they can help you. That's great. I see a lot of similarities between you and Graham. Yeah. Chris, are you like afraid that, you know, bringing in an editor, somebody to help is going to change the content or change how, you know, maybe people perceive it. Maybe they don't know your style or is there a different hesitation?

If I could bring it an editor, I'd do it in a second. I've had multiple people try to edit my videos. The way I film, people hate me. So going back to the audio question, yes, it's done while I film, but it's also done post sometimes. So like if you want to hear, I shouldn't even say post. It's done right after I fix it. Let's just say we're unscrewing a bolt. I want you to hear that ratchet noise.

But if I'm talking while I'm ratcheting, it goes over that. You don't hear both, or you hear like a mix of it. So they get that really crisp sound. I'll ratchet away. You hear the ratcheting noise. I won't say anything. And then right after that, I'll take the bolt out, and you'll hear the bolt come out. Like, that's how quiet it is.

And then I'll flip the mic around and say, okay, now we're going to use a 16 millimeter socket. Well, I don't know why I pick 16. Now we use a 17 millimeter socket, and we're going to break this loose. And you hear that snap. I'll stop the audio. You'll hear that snap of the bolt breaking loose. And we're going to remove this the rest of the way, and you'll hear the ratchet. So now you have this really crisp audio.

And is it extra work? Yes, a lot. Like it like triples the editing time. And then if there's like a mistake, I'll go over and do voiceover. Like sometimes I just say things. I'm like, why am I dumb? Like why? How did I not catch that?

I said some, I said nut instead of bolt. Like, what the heck? And I'll go back to where I was at the car and I'll put the mic there. If the wheel was off, I'd take the wheel off. So I have the same exact audio. Yep. And I would try to mimic that audio. And if it works, great.

If not, I'll reshoot that whole thing. It's so funny. I do the exact same thing. For B-roll, when I could just speak, I'll sit in the exact same spot, put the curtains in the exact same way. Say it. Yeah. Can't tell.

The mic facing the same. Everything is the same. I know that's one of your concerns with the helmet. You know, you guys are like, oh, you know, it might sound a little bit different for the different mics, and, like, we want to make sure it sounds real crisp, and I totally get that. And so hopefully, you know, it doesn't mess things up too much. That is crazy about the comments because I answered every single comment, or like 99.99% of comments until I hit a million subscribers.

Same. Same exact thing. Yeah, it was actually here in Vegas. I couldn't keep up. My first trip in Vegas, I couldn't keep up. That was the first time I was like, oh, man, I went to Seema. I'm like, I'm answering comments before I go to Seema. It was taking so much time.

I'm like, this is the first time. This is it. That is crazy. Yeah, I would wake up in the morning, and I wouldn't get out of bed until all the comments were answered from the night prior, and then I'd go to bed, but not go to sleep until I answered all the comments. And it would be like, it must have been about four to five hours a day that I was spending just answering comments.

And I just wanted to keep it up until I had a million. And I went down to an hour a day after that, just answering comments. That's good. But even know, every time I post a video for the first hour after posting, I'm there just answering comments. It's always Alex and I. People are floored. They're like, they think it's a bot or they think I pay someone else to answer comments. Little do they know.

It's me and Alex's comments from his own account. But I'm sitting on the couch answering comments. And everyone's like, this is Graham. Graham wouldn't. I'm like, yeah, it's me. Yeah. Actually answering comments. Yeah, it's really important.

On all the platforms. It's a lot of work. Even DMs, like, sometimes I tell people, hey, because on YouTube there's no way to, oh, my carmix is like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah sound. And they just type it out. There's no way to hear that sound. But hey, you end me on Instagram real quick, the video.

I'll try to listen and diagnose it, you know. It's not always possible, but I try, you know. Yeah. But that's good. I'm glad I'm not the only one. No, I've never met anyone else who's gotten to your point without help. I think Stradman is another example. He had an editor and camera guy briefly, I think, for what, eight months to a year.

But now it's just him. And I don't think he has any other plans of changing it. And I think that's what keeps it, like, really homey and authentic. Yep. It's just that it's just like him and a camera. He's the one that's editing. You know his kind of sense of humor in there. Something personal about it.

You could give two chefs the same recipe, and it would taste different. Yeah. So, like, I could give the footage and give it to, I could edit it and I have an editor edit it. It would be completely different. Even if they try to mimic your style. and stuff because I've tried it I've I have a file on my Google Drive that when people email me and say hey I want to edit for you I could do it I know I can I hope I hope

they can I like I I would love to have a life because right now I just work 16 hours a day seven days a week what's your schedule like now work walk is through like an average day what would what would that look like sure I wake up I'll get some breakfast I'll answer comments you know brush your teeth that's simple stuff go right to whatever I'm Let's just say I'm planning a video. Go right to my computer and start whatever I need to do to plan for that video. Right and outline, go through it in my head, whatever it is. And let's just say we're filming that day, right?

I'll set everything out. Set all the cars up. So I work in a driveway. I work outside. Hopefully the guy next door isn't doing a lawn. Next door is not a problem. Across the street, the problem because he blows his leaves like a lot. And you can't have that re-h- Yeah, I hate that all day.

And then also the leaves and the fumes. It smells so bad. The leaves all over. So I'll move the cars around I'll set everything up Make sure like the lighting is good I have these big They call soffits

The lighting Soft boxes yeah I have that set up And I'll get the tools set up And I'll run through everything And start writing things down And make sure okay I have this I have this

I got the intro ready Let's shoot the intro today And I'll shoot the intro And I'll take a million cuts I'll make sure the tools are like Perfectly set up I say everything efficiently smoothly I'll go in and edit it

And be like I got that intro By the time I'm done doing that it's uh usually i don't break for lunch i kind of just work through that it's kind of near dinner time i'll eat dinner and then after dinner i'll go back to my my office my whatever and i'll work on the computer edit plan for the next day answer comments go to sleep repeat so you're a reason you don't have a warehouse or something so you that you could prevent sound distractions it's it's so tempting but i really feel like people seeing me do these what they think is

complex things. It's just a car. But what they see as complex things done in my driveway at home with common hand tools. I try not to use power tools. But I mean, more and more people are getting power tools today, but I try not to not to use specialized tools unless you could rent it for free or it's like a complete necessity. You could, like you see me doing this at home my driveway. Like it's it's no no lifts. Jack stands and jacks. Like everybody, if you're working on a car, that's the bare minimum. What I'm doing is like the bare minimum. So you could do it yourself. It's it's, it's, it's. It's. It stinks, though, because you can't make videos quickly. When that neighbor's out there, I can't work. How do you balance that with the social life? Or do you just accept that, like, hey, right now I've got to grind. This is my time to head down. For sure. So I grind.

That's just like how I've always been. And I do take, like, okay, my friends say, let's go fishing today. I'm like, today we're going fishing. And that's kind of why I started Chris Fish because I felt bad fishing. And this is how bad it got, or how bad it still is. I felt bad fishing because I'm not making the YouTube videos. And because I read the comments, they're like, oh, what the heck's taking so long? And I'm like, I'm out fishing today and I see what the heck's taking so long.

And I'm like, I owe it to them to like not go fishing and just continue to work on this project, even though it's going to, you know, it's just constant work. And it's not healthy. So I'm like, oh, if I make a fishing video channel, then I could video as I, I just made more work for myself, really. But I try to like come up with a reason to like, to monetize it. Go fishing, you know. That's funny. That's why I started the.

Graham Steffen after hours originally. I'm like, hey, listen, we work. We could just film it. Yeah. We could film ourselves making money and make more. And so we just did that. That was the, so we created this to family, but it was easier when Jack was living here. Just make more work for yourself.

It was. You don't think about it. You're like, oh, we're just, I'll go fishing. I'll just film it. In the moment we thought it was, I mean, we were being productive. They're great videos. It's fun, by the way, to look back at those videos. Oh, yeah.

Because it's a trip because now those videos are like a year and a half old. could look back at what we were doing that day year and a half ago and they're so well done like the amount of work that went into making a silly little log but like Alex has been so long editing those things remember those Alex and you'd come those were my babies like I you did a great job but you know what though I feel like all that was part of like a lead up to doing what I'm doing now you know I feel like without that everything would be different because I there were some pretty bad edits and there were some pretty good at it and I feel like it all it all was a learning experience Yeah, and the first video is edited by, we had this guy Colby come in, and he edited the first one, then Alex, I think, edited the second one. And you see the difference between styles, too. It's like the same content, but different editing, totally different, like, senses of humor we're putting that. But, yeah, we just created way more work. Yeah. But we kept it up for a year. Did a full year of vlogs once a week. Hey, it's good to try stuff, you know? It's always worth giving something a try and see what happens. Yeah. Otherwise, you'll never know. I have a question to ask, man. You came here. I opened the door for you and you were wearing that helmet. Like, I'm just curious, like, I just really want to see what's underneath. Like, is that, is that possible, like, just for me or us?

You want to know what? Just for you guys. Really? Oh, my gosh. Just for you guys. We have to be, have some contracts. I'll have you guys signed, you know? Yeah, sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Let's see. Take the helmet off. Oh, my gosh. Suspense.

No. Oh my gosh. Seriously? Crazy, right? Whoa. You're so handsome. Jack, calm down, man. Holy mackerel.

Wow. Wow. I cannot believe what I'm seeing with my own eyes. So now you guys know the reason why I got the hummish. Wow. It's to keep the ladies away. Does the keep the ladies away? Yeah.

Yeah. How can people find a mechanic that they can trust and do you trust mechanics? It's a great question. I have, okay, this is going to be tough for me because I've never used a mechanic. I kind of pride myself on that. Oh, wow. So, like, I'll try to fix everything. I mean, I used, like, tire change places.

I think the best way to do it is word of mouth. Like, who do your friends use and do you like them? They like them? And then you just go that way. That's probably the best way to go about it because they're going to be completely honest, you know? And what about when you go to get an oil change? No, I've never gotten an oil change. God, that's crazy.

Okay, so when people go to get oil changes, a lot of the times you go for the oil, And they say, oh, this is broken, this is broken, this is broken. This is broken. This, like, literally create a list of 10 things that you apparently need to fix ASAP on your car. Or the flushes. And when you say, well, is my car going to break if I don't fix this stuff? They always go, eh, you know, it's, I can't guarantee you anything. Every single time I get an oil change.

So I like to believe that most people are going to be, like, be good people, you know, and they, they see, like, hey, a boot is ripped on a ball joint. And they're like, hey, might need a new ball joint. or you see the boots ripped on an axle. And they're like, you know, you could get dirt in there. You're going to need new axle, or at least replace the axle boot. And they see these things. And does it need to be changed right there?

If you could, yeah. If it's hard to afford it, like, doesn't, no, not necessarily. But their job is to point out anything they could see that is potentially wrong. And in your head, like, you want to have, it's not the space shuttle, but you want to have everything running perfect. That way you don't get stranded, you know? But do you need to replace every, like, I drift. I've race a lemons, BMW, like, we do stuff that's like, we make it work, you know.

So I've seen, I've run on cars, on tires, I've drifted on tires that have had plugs in them. You drift just fine. And some people are like, oh, once you get a plug, you should really, you know, get it patched inside. I've run plugs forever. And like, realistically, no, it's fine. But it's hard to answer it. That's why it's important to find somebody that you could trust, you know, somebody that, like, has great reviews from your friends and family. Because those are people are going to be honest with you.

But I mean, the reason why I made my channel was because if you don't know those things, you don't know how to fix your own car, you have to rely on somebody else. And automotive has a bad rep for getting taken advantage. I went to Valvaline. I got my oil done there. And they did my transmission fluid. And then I went back, you know, four months or so later to go get my oil done again. And the person checks my transmission fluid as they usually do.

And he's all, yo, this is so overfilled. And I was like, well, what does that mean? Because I have no idea. Like, if they say my transmission, fluid is overfill. I don't know if that's bad or he thinks that, oh, it's pretty bad.

And I'm there and I'm texting my friend who like sells cars. He like buys cars cheap and then fixes him up and resells. I'm like, do I need to fix? It's lucky, you know? I'm like, do I need to fix this problem?

He's like, ah, you're probably fine. I'm like, okay. Yeah. So it's just, it's a common thing.

It just happens. Yeah. So like an overfilled transmission, it could cause parts to have too much pressure inside of those seals or like overfilled oil. The bottom of the rod could hit the oil. and create bubbles, and the bubbles get sucked up. And now a bubble isn't oil, it's air. It's not protecting the components that need to be protected, you know?

So like there's, it's like anything else. There's truth to everything. And there's also people who are just not good people and trying to take advantage of you. That's why, again, super important to find people you trust. Because at least you hope they don't take advantage of you. What do you think is the ugliest car? Ugliest car. It's got to be the Aztec.

You know, like, that doesn't do it for me. Is that the one that, uh, from Breaking Bad? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I have to think about that. Why not? Maybe I'll put that down in the comments. How's that sound?

Sure. Okay. I'm, I'm so sorry, but I think a PT Cruiser is just that. I don't know. Don't be sorry. I thought the same thing.

My parents got, I was like, no. It looks like an insect is what it kind of looks like. You know, the key of soul. I don't really like that one. Yeah,

that's, yeah, that's not a good one. Yeah, that's, I would agree with that. I kind of like to have the soul look, But I also like the Hummer H1. Like, I like that boxy.

I like the, I like the Hummer H1. It's just I don't like that one window that kind of curbs around. It bothers me. Yeah, I get that. I hated the look of the, uh, the Pagani. You hate it? Oh, it was so,

get out of here. Get out of your Knox. I don't even stop here. All right. So anyway, the Pagani is like my unaffordable dream car, you know, like the one that I'll never get. Alex will never say that ever. No,

it's because it's a little dream car? Is it the Hummer? The Hummer is my real dream. That's the affordable dream car, the unattainable. Like, what's a, what's a, Agani Zonda now? Like, yeah, three million bucks, probably. That's never going to happen. Yeah.

You know, so like, I shouldn't say never. Maybe, man. I should never say never, because I'm a really hard worker. I bet you could do it a few good investments. You watch the main show. You subscribe to Graham Steffen, make a few good investments over a long enough period. And there you go. Thank you so much, man.

Of course. Thanks for having. This is great. First podcast ever. You guys are all loved it. This was a great episode. I really appreciate this. You're a fantastic storyteller.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Any message you want to impart on our. Reviewers before we close it off? No, just always. So you heard my story of how I kind of got started doing my thing. And I think like always, when you have something that comes up, when you're when you're going to school and you have this opportunity, as long as you can find some interest in it,

take that opportunity. Even if it's not exactly what you want, worst case scenario, you learn something new and you fall back and you start doing something else. So always take your opportunity and not just working hard, but being passionate about it. That's important. because everybody works hard. Like, no matter, I shouldn't say everybody. Most people will work hard, but not everybody will be passionate about it.

And that's where you differentiate yourself. Perfect. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. No problem.