AI Can't Fix your car

Tech levels, AI in the shop, and why 30 years of experience beats a shiny waiting room

Sager & Sons Auto  |  Boise, Idaho  |  Podcast Episode 6

Episode 6 of the Sager & Sons podcast goes somewhere most shops would never talk about publicly: the difference between a technician who actually knows what they're doing and one who's still figuring it out, and why the building they work in tells you almost nothing about which one you're getting.

Dan and Katie also dive into something that's becoming more relevant every year, AI tools in the shop. How they use them, where they fall short, and the story of Dan spending 30 minutes arguing with ChatGPT about a firing order before finally proving it wrong. It's equal parts funny and genuinely useful for any driver trying to understand what's changing in the auto repair world.

What the Building Doesn't Tell You: Technician Skill Levels Explained

Dan opened this episode with something that should matter a lot to every driver in the Treasure Valley: the nicest shop in town isn't necessarily staffed with the most experienced technicians.

In the automotive industry, technicians are generally categorized into skill tiers — A, B, and C level — and there's a wide range of experience and diagnostic ability between them. Most customers have no idea this system even exists.

• A-level technician: The top of the trade. Deep diagnostic capability, factory-level tool knowledge, experienced with complex electrical and engine systems. Dan sits at this level, backed by 30+ years of hands-on experience and ongoing training.
• B-level technician: A solid heavy-line tech who can handle a wide range of repairs and some diagnostics, but may defer the more complex electrical and driveability issues to an A-level.
• C-level technician: Entry-level. Best suited for oil changes, basic maintenance, and straightforward jobs like brake pads under supervision. Still learning.

The problem? Dealerships and large shops often hire fresh graduates and assign work based on who's available, not who's most qualified. You might book an appointment at a polished facility and end up with a C-level tech diagnosing a complex issue your car really needs an A-level mind on.

"A lot of the nice fancy shops or big pretty shops, or like the dealership, they may have the fancy tools, but they don't have the knowledge behind the workers. They're hiring kids right out of college." ~ Dan Sager

At Sager & Sons, the shop may be a cozy, unpretentious building on the Boise Bench, but every significant repair goes through Dan's diagnostic filter. That's 30+ years of training you can't replicate with a remodel.

When you're vetting a shop, the question to ask isn't "how nice is the lobby?" It's "who is actually going to be working on my vehicle, and what's their background?" A shop that can answer that question clearly is a shop worth trusting. Learn more about our team and their certifications here.

AI in the Shop: A Useful Tool With Very Real Limits

Dan is genuinely enthusiastic about AI tools, particularly ChatGPT, and uses them regularly as part of his diagnostic process. But he's also spent enough time working with them to know exactly where they get it right and where they'll confidently steer you wrong.

He shared two stories that nail both sides of this.

Story 1: The PCM wiring diagram. Dan was tracking down a specific wire in a complex connector while working on a PCM. He fed the AI a wiring diagram and pin-out, and it correctly identified the pin number. The problem? It had the wrong connector. Dan already knew the right answer, was testing the AI, and caught the error before it mattered. Someone without his experience might not have.

Story 2: The rocker arm that almost bent the valves. This one is more serious. Alec, watching Dan use AI for an assembly reference, tried it himself on a small block Chevy with adjustable rocker arms. The AI told him to bolt them down solid. That is the wrong procedure for an adjustable rocker arm. If Alec had turned that engine over with the rockers fully locked down, the valves would have bent. Dan caught it in time, walked Alec through the correct process, and let him hear the difference in the engine sound once it was set properly.

"AI is not going to fix your car without you knowing exactly what you're talking about. It told him to bolt them down. He would have bent the valves." ~ Dan Sager

The takeaway isn't that AI is bad. Dan uses it constantly and finds real value in it for research, learning, and cross-referencing. The takeaway is that AI is a tool, and like any tool, it requires a skilled hand to use it correctly. In the wrong hands, a confident wrong answer from an AI can cause serious, expensive damage.

This is exactly why proper diagnostics at Sager & Sons always comes back to Dan's own experience and factory-sourced documentation, not just whatever a language model suggests.

Why AI Will Never Replace 30 Years Behind a Wrench

Dan's frustration with AI isn't that it exists, it's that it can be overconfident. He spent 30 minutes in a back-and-forth with ChatGPT about a diesel firing order. He knew he was right, had the factory Ford schematic to prove it, and the AI kept arguing, right up until he sent it the actual source document. Then it apologized and told him he was brilliant.

That tendency to people-please, to agree once challenged even if it was right the first time, is one of the most important things to understand about these tools. They are not authoritative. They are probabilistic. And in automotive diagnostics, the difference between a correct answer and a plausible-sounding wrong answer can be the difference between a $200 repair and a destroyed engine.

"It's already been proven: it is a people pleaser. It will boost your ego and tell you how wonderful and smart and brilliant you are. Unless you tell it to challenge you." ~ Dan Sager

Dan's current approach is to use AI the way a sharp technician uses any reference tool: as a starting point for cross-checking, not as a final word. He'll use it to generate a hypothesis, then verify it against factory documentation. That combination, AI speed plus decades of trained judgment, is genuinely powerful. AI alone, in the hands of someone without that foundation, is a liability.

The Education Gap (And Why It Matters to You as a Driver)

One of the more personal threads in this episode was a conversation about learning styles and the education system. Dan dropped out in eighth or ninth grade, not because he wasn't intelligent, but because the standard one-size-fits-all classroom model didn't work for how his brain processes information. He's spent decades learning automotive systems by working on them, by looking at an engine a thousand different ways until every piece of it makes sense.

Katie, who was Montessori-educated and later earned a bachelor's degree, made a point that resonated: the traditional education system teaches one way, and if you don't learn that way, you get left behind. AI, she argued, may finally change that, because it can adapt to how you learn, whether that's visual, auditory, hands-on, or through repetition.

"I've never learned so much in my life as these last couple of years with AI. I'm just a sponge. And I would have never learned these things without it." ~ Katie Sager

What does this have to do with your car? More than you might think. The same gap that exists in general education exists in automotive consumer education. Most drivers don't know what a differential does, what a C-level tech is, or why a phone estimate is unreliable, because nobody's ever explained it to them in a way that actually landed. That's part of what this podcast, and these posts, are here to fix.

An educated driver is a better customer and a harder one to mislead. Understanding even the basics of how your vehicle works, and what to look for in the shop taking care of it, puts you in a much stronger position. That's a win for everyone.

Experience You Can Actually See, Not Just a Shop You Can Instagram

Sager & Sons isn't the flashiest building on the Boise Bench. But when you bring your vehicle to us, you get Dan Sager's 30+ years of diagnostic experience on every significant repair, ASE-certified technicians at every level of your vehicle's service, and a team that uses every tool available, including AI, the right way.

• 📋 Complimentary vehicle health inspection with every visit, photos and video sent to your phone
• 🔍 Factory-level diagnostic tools and software used by a tech who actually knows how to read them
• 💬 Clear explanations of what we found and why, no jargon, no pressure
• ✅ 3-year / 36,000-mile nationwide warranty on qualifying repairs

👉 Book Your Appointment at Sager & Sons Auto

📞 Call us: 208-761-9406  |  🚨 Emergency Tow: 208-213-7447

📍 6126 W. Franklin St., Boise, ID  |  Mon–Fri, 8:00AM–5:00PM

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