Socialism In The Service Drive | SDR #375

Is socialism coming to your service drive? In this episode of Service Drive Revolution, Chris Collins, Chris Hogland, and Adam Krey dig into one of the biggest conversations building inside fixed operations: technician pay, flat rate vs. hourly, student debt, apprenticeship programs, entitlement, leadership, and why dealerships have to stop ignoring the people who actually produce the labor.

The team also answers a live fixed ops question about labor gross percentage, posted labor rate, and Effective Labor Rate. Chris explains why posted labor rate is one of the least important numbers in the service department, why ELR is the number that actually matters, and how smart dealerships separate labor into categories like competitive labor, maintenance labor, repair labor, diagnosis, diesel, and heavy-duty labor.

If you are a service manager, fixed ops director, dealer principal, general manager, technician, or advisor, this episode is about the future of your service department.

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Welcome to Service Drive Revolution

01:05 SDR Live Academy and weekly live training

03:00 Top Dog 2026 and transcending the service drive

09:30 Why service managers should think bigger

13:20 Listener question: labor gross, door rate, and ELR

16:45 Why posted labor rate does not matter as much as ELR

21:00 Competitive labor, maintenance labor, repair labor, and diagnosis

25:30 How smart pricing strategy increases ELR