Being a YouTuber While Working as a Dealership Tech with JT the Car Guy

JT the Car Guy (0:07)

I want to go in with the top quality part, and in my opinion, the part that Mopar suggests OEM is what I like to go with. There are customers that demand, no, I want the Aluminum Cooler. Okay, I'm never going to fight anybody on what you want me to put on your car. I'm going to put an Aluminum Durban Cooler on it, but that is my whole beef with that. And I had to refrain from yelling out the proper name, so I revised the name to my liking, but it's still bad for me how some people don't know why I call it that. We live in a free speech society, freedom of speech society. I should be able to say what I want to say, right? But there are consequences to what you say.

I don't want to end up in court for defamation.

Jeff Compton (0:57)

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another exciting episode of the Jaded Mechanic Podcast. It is a, it feels like autumn already up here, but it's not, it's still only September, but your boy went fishing this morning, and it was the first time they didn't wear shorts. It's cold, we're up into the 50s already in the morning, so in your 50s, that's that metric stuff. But yeah, 55 degrees Fahrenheit was what it was this morning when we kicked the boat in. And we caught some fish, but it's tough. We had some fog still in the water when we launched, and I was thinking about like... Wow, this is gonna be gone really fast, so I'm just enjoying it while I can. We got a new friend of mine on tonight, and a lot of people, I think, are gonna recognize the face and the voice and the name, but those who don't, I really wanted to bring them on and highlight, because he did a shout out for me almost a year ago.

So I ended up with an episode with Eric the Car Guy, and I was watching back again and finally got around to, you know, because like, you know me, it's hard to keep up with everybody. So I finally got into watching a lot of his recent content, and he's a Chrysler technician. All right, I guess you say Stellantis now. For me, I'm old school cat like him. It's all a mole part of me.

JT, the Car Guy. How are you, bro?

JT the Car Guy (2:13)

I'm good, man. I'm good. Thanks for having me on, man.

Jeff Compton (2:16)

Oh, dude, this has been this is overdue, really. Like I've been like I was saying before we got on. I've been a big fan of yours for a long time, and it was just a situation that like I was going back through and I'd saw how you had been. You've got your own YouTube channel. You got two channels, don't you, JT?

JT the Car Guy (2:32)

Oh, yeah, man. I had to because some things I can speak about. It's weird about my YouTube mechanic channel. They only want to see assholes and elbow cars, working on cars. They don't want to hear nothing about the other side of the industry. Best believe there are other sides to the industry, political sides, all kinds of crazy stuff. I had no choice but to create another channel so I can speak freely in this type of setting.

I'm not in a shop, I'm not dirty, I'm not working on a wrench so I can actually put an American hat on and go with the flow. Yeah.

Jeff Compton (3:07)

Now, how long have you been on YouTube?

JT the Car Guy (3:09)

Oh, man. It's funny. The weird thing about YouTube is I started doing, if you look at my channel, I started with music videos. But I've been a mechanic forever, a long time. It just dawned on me since this is what I really know and I can regurgitate as far as teaching this. Why did I start this channel a long time ago?

Especially back in the heyday. I'm actually knocking myself in the head for not starting my automotive channel a longer time ago, up until now. But if I had to guess, it's been solid for the last eight years maybe.

Jeff Compton (3:46)

Good for you, bro. Good for you.

JT the Car Guy (3:48)

Back when YouTube was really paying. They're going through some changes now. But I got in when, in fact, my daughter got married off YouTube salary and my house got, yes, the money was really flowing.

Jeff Compton (4:02)

Good for you, JT. Me and we were talking before we got on, I've been on the social media space for damn, it feels like 15 years, right? In the sense of sharing. So we get to talk them back about the guests that really reached out between and got us together was Eric the Car Guy, one of the old school, really the old G's of that kind of our content on YouTube, right? And you said some really nice things about the interview that I did with him last year at SEMA. And I came back around to that and again, I'm like, I got to reach out and get to know JT a little bit better because I love watching, like I watch a lot of your content because it's relatable to me, right? It's in the Chrysler store. And you know, but I don't put up like you've seen me, I don't do how to videos, I don't do repair videos. A lot of people, I think, don't even think I'm a mechanic, right? Because it's like I just sit here and talk.