Customers rely on repair shops and techs to keep their vehicles running smoothly. But information doesn’t always reach them as clearly, especially with inspection results. Customers often get reports full of tech jargon that leave them confused. Between giant blocks of text, blurry images and hidden notes, the important information ends up feeling like one more hassle. Calls with a service advisor can be just as frustrating. The customer remembers very little and hangs up feeling helpless.
That confusion costs shops. A AAA survey found that two out of three U.S. drivers don’t trust auto repair shops in general. The top reasons were recommendations for unnecessary services (76%) and overcharging (73%). When customers don’t understand what they’re looking at, many assume they’re being upsold.
Uwe Kleinschmidt, CEO and founder of AutoTechIQ, knows this problem well. He has spent his career talking with service advisors every day and hearing what breaks down between the bay and the customer. Chief Sales Officer Justin Goins sees the other side of it in demos: shop owners tell him their time is stretched thin and their customers mistake information for sales pressure. In this episode, recorded at SuperConference, Uwe and Justin join host Jason Patel to talk about the AI-powered tool TechAidIQ and how it solves the inspection photo problem.
TechAidIQ was built out of necessity. It simplifies inspection results so customers can actually understand them. As Uwe explains, the miscommunication starts as soon as the inspection begins, and that’s where TechAidIQ steps in. Photos are taken, notes are recorded and each recommendation is explained clearly, so there’s no room for confusion. He also shares AutoQuoteIQ, a newer tool built for advisors who lose time sourcing parts and building quotes. He talks about why success makes companies and shops afraid of risk, and why AI only gets better when the people using it keep training it.
This episode is for shop owners and service managers who want to grow with AI tools. It’s also worth a listen if you’re thinking about a second location, or if you just want to work fewer days without the shop falling apart.
Tune in to episode 156 of Maximum Octane if you’re trying to figure out where AI fits in your shop and what it can’t do for you. You’ll come away with a few things to try at your next team meeting.
Meet the Guests
Uwe Kleinschmidt founded AutoVitals and now leads AutoTechIQ. He has spent years building technology that helps repair shops strengthen their digital inspection processes, communicate better with customers and get better business results. Many ideas he pushed more than a decade ago are only now showing up across the industry’s software. He credits that to listening: his team talks with service advisors constantly and focuses on value before features.
“As long as we are open-minded and talk about value before we talk about features,” Uwe says, “then we are in a good space.”
Justin Goins is an automotive technology and sales leader who has worked with independent shops and multi-location operators to improve performance and growth. His automotive roots go back to the beginning. His parents still have a photo of him as a baby in a diaper, lying under his grandfather’s tow truck with a wrench in his hand and grease on his leg. He took automotive and advanced electrical classes in school, served in the military and then moved into sales. That’s where he found what he loves: talking with people and solving their problems.
“It’s a good way to feed a family,” Justin says. “But at the same time, you’re helping other people do the same thing.”
Plain Language Is Now the Minimum
Uwe starts by explaining that AI rewriting tech notes in plain English is no longer a selling point. Large language models handle that easily, and nearly every DVI vendor will offer it sooner or later.
The bigger problem is how customers actually look at an inspection. They open the link and see too much text. They tap a photo, and on a phone it fills the screen and covers the notes. They stare at it, can’t tell what they’re looking at, try once more and give up. Then the service advisor has to call and explain everything, doing about 80% of the talking.
Jason notes that customers don’t retain much of what they hear on those calls. Uwe adds that a long explanation often comes across as sales pressure.
A Photo That Explains Itself
AutoTechIQ built TechAidIQ to close that gap. It works as an add-on to existing DVI platforms, and the company currently lists support for Tekmetric and AutoVitals. When a technician takes a photo and adds notes, the tool enhances the image automatically. It places an arrow on the problem area and adds a caption that explains what the issue is, what the fix is and why it matters.
“The why is really important,” Uwe says. “That’s the reason for approval.”
Now a customer who skips the text can tap the image and still understand what’s going on. The follow-up call gets shorter, and the customer is the one asking questions. Often the first question is simply, “How much?”
“If the customer is already asking questions,” Jason says, “we’re in a good spot.”
This matches what the wider industry reports about visual inspections. Vendor and training data often credit DVIs with photos and video with a 20–30% lift in approval rates. These figures come from vendors, not independent studies, so treat them as directional. AutoTechIQ’s position is that customers don’t trust what they don’t understand. Shops that teach customers instead of relying on their authority see more approvals.
Jason calls back to a phrase from the first time he met Uwe: “Information is the new currency.”
AutoQuoteIQ and the Time Problem
The conversation then turns to estimating, which Jason calls one of the biggest gaps in the market today. Advisors lose hours building estimates, sourcing parts and working out exactly what a job needs.
Justin says the main thing he hears from shop owners is that their time is worth more than ever and they’re wearing too many hats. One owner told him in a demo that morning that saving 10 to 15 minutes on every estimate would add up quickly. He could answer the phone, talk with customers, help a tech who’s stuck or work on growing the business.
That’s what AutoQuoteIQ is designed to do. AutoTechIQ announced the launch in March 2026, describing an estimating platform that uses AI, the shop’s historical data and millions of work orders to turn inspection data into structured, easy-to-understand estimates. According to the AutoQuoteIQ product site, the estimate is ready in two minutes or less after the DVI is finished, and the service advisor reviews it and makes corrections only when needed.
Where to Start with AI: Put Yourself in the Customer’s Shoes
Jason asks what a shop with no AI at all should start with. Uwe’s answer has nothing to do with AI.
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and look at how you communicate with them.
His recommendation is simple. At every shop meeting, pick a random inspection and have the team play the customer. “The light bulbs go on left and right,” Uwe says, because it’s hard to see past your own assumptions about what’s clear.
He believes the more a shop empowers its customers, the more work they approve, and he says his numbers are starting to show it. That also means giving customers more control, which is hard for many advisors and owners.
Uwe recalls hearing a shop trainer advise owners never to send inspections to customers because customers might take them to a competitor. He calls that exactly the wrong direction. Customers already look things up on Google before they come in. If a shop doesn’t give them good information, they’ll find it somewhere else, possibly the wrong information.
“Like WebMD for everything,” Jason jokes. “A runny nose is not cancer.”
How Fast Things Are Moving
Uwe shares a story that shows how quickly AI is changing what’s possible. In a team meeting, he described to his engineers what he considered the best DVI process. At the next meeting, they told him they had a surprise: a working prototype.
The prototype takes a video of a technician walking around a vehicle and explaining what’s wrong. It pulls out still images, enhances them with TechAidIQ, keeps short video clips where a photo can’t show the issue (such as noises or moving parts) and builds a complete inspection result.
The team built it in 15 hours using AI.
“If you have a software company that tells you we’re going to be done in a year,” Uwe says, “they’re in the wrong century.”
Combined with the estimator, he expects a shop could have a complete estimate in about 12 to 15 minutes. He invites the industry to help figure out what the best process looks like, “if there is one.”
Why Success Makes Change Harder
Jason asks why more established software companies aren’t building tools like these. Uwe says risk-taking isn’t treated as a virtue in this industry, and he doesn’t understand why. “I don’t know how to do it without risk,” he says. “It would be boring.”
The challenge, he explains, is that the more successful a company becomes, the harder it is to change and keep thinking fresh. That’s true for software companies and for shops. It’s also part of why he started a new company from scratch.
Justin has worked at larger companies and sees the difference every day. At AutoTechIQ, if a customer says something isn’t working or suggests an improvement, the team can actually look at it and act. It doesn’t get passed from one person to the next until someone says, “Maybe we’ll think about it later.”
Jason says independent shops have the same advantage. Small businesses can test and adjust much faster than big ones. The problem is that many owners are afraid of breaking something that already works.
The One Risk Not to Take
When Jason asks which risks shops shouldn’t take, Uwe doesn’t hesitate: don’t believe AI will solve anything for you without you.
“AI is never a hundred percent correct, and it’s never a hundred percent wrong,” he says. Even AutoTechIQ’s own TechAidIQ login page reminds users that AI generates the results and that they should check them for accuracy.
He shares a story from the TechAidIQ pilot, which ran with about 50 shops. The team built a one-click feedback button into the tool, so a service advisor could capture a snapshot and tell the AI exactly what to improve.
One service manager told Uwe the tool’s notes were much worse than what his own shop wrote. He said his shop’s notes set it apart from the competition. Uwe asked him to use the feedback button to bring the AI up to his shop’s level. A few weeks later, the shop owner came back after a week away for surgery and told his team that TechAidIQ was amazing.
“You have to really think of the AI as a human, with all its strengths and weaknesses,” Uwe says. “The more you train somebody, the better they become. And if you think you can stop, that’s the wrong decision.”
Let Your Team Break It First
Jason ties this to what he calls shiny penny syndrome. AI is exciting, but it can do real damage when it’s used carelessly. His example is an automated Google review responder that makes things up in public replies to customers.
His advice: ask your people to break the tools you put in place before your customers do. If your team finds the problems first, you can fix them before they ever reach a customer.
He also takes Uwe’s team meeting exercise further. At least once a month, walk through your entire customer journey from start to finish. Begin with every way you bring in customers, including social media ads, Google ads and everything else, and follow the process all the way through to the payment screen.
“Some people have never seen their payment screen,” Jason says. Then they’re surprised when customers have trouble paying.
Who Uses the Tools Isn’t Always Who You Expect
Uwe admits AutoTechIQ didn’t design TechAidIQ for technicians, despite the name. The primary user was supposed to be the service advisor. The team assumed techs should spend their time producing billable hours, not marking photos red, yellow or green.
But some shops now have techs use it. One legitimate reason is that some shops staff the counter with advisors who work more like hotel receptionists than automotive experts, so the tech ends up doing the translating.
Jason was a tech first, and he sees another benefit. Techs can focus on taking a better photo instead of writing grammatically perfect notes, and let the tool handle the rest. He compares it to switching from a hand ratchet to an electric one. You finish in half the time. And sometimes people use the “wrong” tool for a job and discover a need nobody planned for, which is where innovation comes from.
The Advisor Job Asks Too Much
Uwe then says out loud what he thinks everyone already knows: the service advisor job description describes an impossible person. Shops want someone as meticulous as an accountant and as outgoing as a hospitality pro.
“Show me that person,” he says.
Advisors already work in a nonstop, interruption-driven environment, and now everyone expects them to never make a mistake on an estimate. That’s why Uwe sees AutoQuoteIQ as more than a time-saver. It gives advisors a consistent foundation they can review and adjust. If the AI is trained well, the mistakes stop.
It also helps with speed of service. Most shops Uwe talks to say they’d need to hire more people to deliver it, which adds cost. “With this tool,” he says, “anybody can do speed of service.”
Jason sees AI as a catalyst that helps people in any role level up quickly and lowers the barrier to entry for every position in the shop. For advisors, Uwe adds, that means more time for “the bubbly side of that job description,” which is building relationships with customers.
Consistency Is What Lets a Shop Grow
Justin brings the conversation back to a theme from a call he had that day: consistency. He mentions a post he saw saying a large share of shop owners never open a second location. The jump from being the best tech in the building to stepping back as CEO is hard.
His answer is to put the right tools in place so the basics run the same way every time: which parts get quoted, what pricing matrix is used and where the margins land.
“That’s what McDonald’s does,” Justin says. “That’s the franchise model.”
“The fries in California taste the same as the fries in North Carolina,” Jason adds.
When the basics are locked in, opening the second, third or fifth location gets much easier. Hiring gets easier too, because the tools help new people succeed.
Jason points out that growth doesn’t have to mean more locations. For some owners, it means working three days a week instead of five, or leaving early every afternoon. “Think of it as something less,” he says. The right systems make life easier for the owner, the team, new hires and customers alike.
Episode Takeaways
- 04:41 Uwe explains that plain-language notes are now the minimum, since most DVI vendors will have LLMs rewriting tech jargon.
- 07:29 Justin shares what a shop owner told him in a demo that morning: saving 10 to 15 minutes on every estimate frees him up to answer phones, help a stuck tech and work on the business.
- 08:39 The advice Uwe gives shops with no AI at all has nothing to do with AI.
- 13:37 Why risk-taking isn’t treated as a virtue in this industry, and why Uwe started over with a new company.
- 16:49 AI won’t solve anything without you. Uwe walks through TechAidIQ’s pilot with about 50 shops.
- 22:59 Why the advisor job description asks for too much, and how an AI-built estimate can help.
- 26:42 Justin explains why consistency is the key to growth.
Final Thoughts from the Guests
- Uwe Kleinschmidt: “AI is garbage in, garbage out. It’s up to you to create the right input.”
- Justin Goins: “Customer experience is gonna be everything.”
- Jason Patel: Walk through your whole customer journey from every way you bring in customers. Have your team, friends and family do it too, and find the gaps. “Tools do make your life easier. They just have to be used correctly.”
Connect with Uwe Kleinschmidt:
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