Auto Care ON AIR

Your customers are not grading you on effort. They are grading you on how fast you move, how easy you are to understand, and whether you treat them like a human being. From Auto Care Connect in Atlanta, Jacki Lutz and Stacey Miller talk with Jay Baer, Hall of Fame speaker and best-selling author, about a customer experience framework that cuts through the fluff and actually works in the real world...

Your feed can make the world feel like it is changing every hour, but your business cannot afford to swing with every alert. We built this Traction Control segment around a simple idea: the real danger today is not missing news, it is overreacting to the wrong news. If headlines about tariffs, AI, war, regulations, or market shifts have your team feeling whiplash, we offer a practical way to slow...

A single sentence from the White House can change the pressure on an issue overnight, and right to repair just got that kind of spotlight. Stacey Miller reacts to the President’s public comments about restrictions that can prevent people from fixing their own cars and choosing where they get repairs and why that matters for drivers, technicians, and independent repair shops across the country. Fro...

One of the biggest career accelerators in the automotive aftermarket is also the simplest: someone decides you’re worth their time. From the Women in Auto Care conference, Jacki Lutz sits down with two award-winning industry leaders, Tanya Hunt (TERREPOWER) and Autumn Lamb (GSP), to get honest about what “investing in people” actually means when calendars are full, budgets are tight, and confidenc...

A dashboard used to be a project. Now it can be a conversation. Host Mike Chung sits down with Arthur Lee, founder of Fyne and a longtime data and business intelligence practitioner, to show what modern AI analytics looks like when large language models and AI agents move from hype to real workflows. Arthur shares how companies are using LLMs to boost productivity, automate repeatable reporting, a...

Gas prices may be the headline, but the next real pinch could show up when you pop the hood. We’re tracking a fast-moving shift in the motor oil market that’s pushing wholesale prices up and putting pressure on some of the most common synthetic motor oil grades, especially the low viscosity oils modern vehicles require. If you’ve noticed oil change costs creeping from the $80–$100 range toward $10...

Training is everywhere in the automotive aftermarket, yet too many teams still treat it like a checkbox and then wonder why sales, retention, and customer experience stay flat. Stacey Miller sat down with Laurie Bacopoulos, founder and CEO of Cobblestone Consulting, to get practical about what actually works when you need training that scales across employees, locations, and channel partners witho...

The hardest part of a difficult conversation isn’t what you say. It’s the story you tell yourself before you ever open your mouth. We’re recording from the Women in Auto Care conference with two award-winning leaders: Courtney Pedler, Lifetime Achievement Award winner and co-founder of Autology Data, and Lauren Briggs, Woman of Excellence with the NAPA Auto Care team. Together, we dig into why wor...

AI is changing how drivers discover and buy aftermarket parts, and the shift is happening faster than most teams are ready for. Mike Chung joined by Jon Hedges, founder of Hedges & Company, to unpack what “digital marketing” truly means in the automotive aftermarket when the customer journey spans Google search, marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, reviews, video, email, and in-store research wi...

Mexico’s vehicle fleet just crossed a milestone that should make every aftermarket planner sit up: 36.1 million vehicles in operation. Stacey Miller sits down with Evaristo Garcia, Founder and CEO of IDF, to unpack the latest Mexico VIO data and what it means for the automotive aftermarket, distribution, and the North American supply chain. They talk through where the growth is really coming from...

Most career advice assumes you already know who you are at 18. We don’t buy that, so we sit down for a real talk about uncertainty, pressure, and the messy path that actually leads to work you like. Jacki Lutz is joined by Zoi Holloway, our communications coordinator at the Auto Care Association, and her Gen Z niece Ayla Ross, a high school senior job shadowing for the week, bringing a fresh point...

Inflation is forcing a new kind of creativity in car ownership and the ripple effects are everywhere in the automotive aftermarket. We talk with Rob Pietrowski, VP of Research at IMR, about what the data says when repair bills rise faster than household budgets: where demand stays steady because maintenance is non-discretionary, and where the real movement happens underneath through brand switchin...

A lot of the biggest threats to the automotive aftermarket don’t start in Washington. They start quietly in a statehouse, inside a bill that sounds harmless until you read the fine print. Stacey Miller is joined by Donovan Ringo, our director of state affairs and grassroots at the Auto Care Association, to break down what it really takes to monitor and respond to fast-moving state legislation acro...

A layoff can feel like a verdict. A tough pivot can feel like proof you failed. We see it differently, and this conversation shows why. From the Women in Auto Care Leadership Conference, we sit down with April Williamson, General Manager at FJC, and Megan Hansen, Category Marketing Manager at NAPA, to talk about perseverance and truth-driven leadership in the automotive aftermarket and beyond. Apr...

A single waterway on the other side of the world can quietly rewrite your cost sheet in the automotive aftermarket. Mike Chung sits down with Stephan Keese, Managing Partner for North America at Roland Berger, to unpack what the Iran conflict and the Strait of Hormuz disruption mean beyond headlines and gas station prices. We keep it practical and operational: what gets constrained, how it moves t...

Gas prices can jump overnight, and when they do, the ripple effects reach far beyond the pump. Stacey Miller unpacks how rising tensions tied to the US Iran conflict could impact the US auto care industry through four pressure points: fuel prices, global supply chains, shipping and logistics costs, and consumer behavior that shifts what drivers fix, delay, or skip. She walks through what higher oi...

Your professional brand is forming right now, in the email you send, the way you show up at a trade show, and how you act when you’re nervous. Jacki Lutz sit down with Northwood University sophomore Caden Olvey and Dana leader and Northwood alum Ryan Devine to talk about what “professional branding” actually looks like inside the automotive aftermarket and heavy duty industry, especially when you’...

Your phone is quietly generating one of the most useful datasets in transportation and auto care, and it’s bigger than most people realize. We talk with Anthony Johnson, solutions engineer at Arity, about how phone-based telematics data becomes mobility intelligence you can actually use, from vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to real-time traffic signals with roughly a 60 second latency. We break down...

A 6-3 Supreme Court ruling just rewrote the tariff playbook and then a brand-new 15% global surcharge arrived days later. Host Stacey Miller unpacks what fell, what stayed, and what stacked, translating fast-moving trade policy into clear steps for auto parts importers, distributors, and service providers who need answers now. We start with the core shift: IEEPA no longer supports tariffs, wiping...

What if the most powerful career move isn’t a promotion, but choosing yourself? Jacki Lutz sits down with two industry powerhouses, Kristine Frost of Shattered Glass Advisory and Tammy Tecklenberg of dott®. to unpack the real story behind career transitions, both planned and unplanned, and how to turn shock into strategy. They explore what it takes to elevate voices historically sidelined and make...

The floor at AAPEX buzzed with more than announcements, it pulsed with practical innovation. Stacey Miller sat down with Chris Jones, group editorial director at Endeavor B2B, to unpack what’s actually moving the aftermarket forward right now: AI that coaches advisors in real time, micro-learning that keeps techs sharp in five-minute bursts, and product design that turns raw data into clear decisi...

What if the numbers you trust most are telling only half the story? Mike Chung sits down with Ben Orlando, host of The Midnight Library of Baseball, to explore how baseball’s most beloved stats—wins, RBIs, errors—became powerful myths and why context changes everything. This is a conversation for statheads and story lovers alike, where the romance of the game meets clear-eyed analysis. We dive int...

What if the difference between burnout and breakthrough is choosing the right kind of hard? We dive into the art of challenging yourself with intention, how to spot energizing resistance, build resilience, and grow without burning out. Auto Care ON AIR host Jacki Lutz, sits down with Liz Whalen, Founder and President of Whalen Search Group, and Rick Schwartz, CEO and Managing Partner of Schwartz A...

CES 2026 didn’t just showcase concept cars, it rewired the roadmap for the entire aftermarket. We unpack how software-defined vehicles, AI-first platforms, connected cockpits, and autonomous fleets are transforming everyday service work into high-value, repeatable revenue. From NVIDIA-led AI toolkits and panoramic displays to lidar-heavy ADAS stacks and open-source software initiatives, we explain...

A revolution is happening in aftermarket marketing: The Automotive Communications Council (ACC) is coming under the Auto Care Association, and with it a stronger community for communicators who turn complex parts and fitment into stories people actually understand. We brought together ACC’s current president, Leyla Saad of ZF Aftermarket, and industry veteran Lance Boldt of AutoNet TV to unpack wh...