May 1, 2017

Meet Vinny Himes of Lead Foot Diesel Performance in Metro Atlanta

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Vinny Himes.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Jonathan Brooklyn started Lead Foot Diesel 10 years ago out of what he saw, was a necessity in the diesel industry. He started out land clearing in Florida, in that business you naturally need diesel trucks and diesel powered equipment. When he made the move to Georgia he started noticing some very shady and careless practices from diesel shops and dealerships in the area. The worst thing he experienced was a lot of misdiagnosis.

When a diesel engine has a problem, it will in many cases throw a check engine light on the dash or gauge cluster. When a shop plugs a scanner into the truck or vehicle to read the codes, they will see something along these lines:

Trouble Code: P0088 Fault Location: Fuel rail/system pressure too high Probable Cause: Fuel Pump, fuel pressure regulator, fuel supply line blockage, mechanical fault

At that point, the mechanic scanning the vehicle has several options, start replacing parts till the issue is fixed, test each individual part that could be suspect until the faulty part is pound, or replace all the parts listed at once and hope that fixes it.

The right thing to do as a “Professional” is to spend the extra time and go through all the parts that could be causing the issue so you are only replacing the part or parts needed. This ensures that the customer’s money is being spent wisely and the job is done right the first time. The other two options we refer to as “Throwing parts at the problem” this is not good practice, it is not professional, and it costs the customer thousands of dollars in some cases.

That is the issue Jonathan saw and that is why land clearing took a back seat and Lead Foot Diesel Performance was started. He not only wanted to fix diesel trucks, he wanted to help people. He has taught all of us employed here at Lead Foot Diesel to do what’s right for our customers, he has taught us that every person that walks through the door is to be treated with respect, treated as family and friends, not just names and dollar signs.

I worked for a parts company for many years in Idaho, Jonathan bought parts from me. We got along great dealing with each other over the phone. I looked forward to him calling in for parts, we always laughed and joked around on the phone, he always asked how my day was going and I would do the same. After several years of doing business together we ended up going on a cruise put on for the top shops in the industry, by the parts manufacturers that we used.

Jonathan and I were instant best friends, our wives had a blast that week, and every time he called for parts after that he would offer me a job, or ask when I was going to move to Georgia. I would always laugh and say something along the lines of “I wish” or “Yeah right”

I grew up in Montana ranching cattle and playing with horses, my dad was in the military most of my life and was not always around, I was raised by the crusty old ranchers in the Swan Valley next door to Montana’s Bob Marshal Wilderness, I grew up wild and free. The economy there was pretty rough, you either ended up in the cattle business, the logging industry or construction. I worked at several ranches from the time I was 8 years old till I turned 15, then I started a full-time job at a log home company which eventually turned into a Timber Framing company. I got married at 19 and started my own timber framing company when I was 20 years old. The building industry was booming back then and I decided to move away from Montana to Couer d’ Alene Idaho where there were no timber framing companies.

Business wise this was a smart move, but my wife wasn’t very happy about living 3 hours away from all of her family. Naturally owning a timber frame company, I had big equipment and large amounts of timber and tools I had to move around to different job sights. I bought my first diesel truck when I was still in high school, and have always driven diesel trucks because of the lines of work I was in. Montana and Idaho are very remote places, there’s not a dealership or diesel shop around every corner, sometimes it was a 4 or 5-hour drive from my job sights to the nearest shop, and my experience was very similar to Jonathan’s. Good shops where hard to find, good diesel mechanics were even more elusive.

Out of necessity, I had to start learning how to fix my own trucks. I got descent at it and ended up making a few very good friends through diesel repairs I had done and questions I had to ask. Timber framing was great and money was coming in faster than I could spend it, a good friend of mine had finished diesel tech school and wanted to open a shop. I had the money and he had the know-how, all I wanted from my investment was to be able to hang out at the shop after normal business hours to tinker and learn. For several years, we had a lot of fun and I was learning a lot.

I ended up breaking my back on a construction site, I was told I would be down for 6 months’ minimum. I was bummed out but I had good employees, I figured we would get through just fine. The economy tanked overnight. I lost everything, but my house and my truck. I grew up poor, I never needed money to be happy. I immediately started looking for work, nobody was hiring. I ran into a guy who’s truck I used to work on, and he owned an online diesel parts business. He offered me a job answering phones. I was nervous, all I had ever done was construction and ranching, I knew nothing about computers, I couldn’t even turn one on. I started at $10 an hour and within a few weeks I was making almost $20 an hour and he made me sales manager. The business grew fast and we were doing over a million a month in sales. This all lead up to Jonathan offering me a job every time he called for parts. My wife wasn’t happy about the 3-hour drive to her mom’s house, I knew she would never agree to move across the country.

The day came were the business that had grown so fast started having personnel issues. I didn’t see myself going up anymore and decided it was time to move on, Jonathan called that night and asked me if I wanted hard wood floors in my office or carpet. He would always say things like this as a joke, but that night I replied “Hard wood, see you Saturday”

My wife and I had spent a lot of time talking about getting out of Idaho, we were never really happy there. Georgia was a big move, but she was actually excited about it. The move went unbelievably well and everything seemed to fall into place.

When we first got here Lead Foot Diesel was doing very well, we were in a two bay door shop with a very small office off Hwy. 81 in Loganville. Jonathan and his two main mechanics worked in the shop, his wife and sister ran the phones and the books, I started out helping in the shop and dealing with the few phone calls we got each day. I started focusing on social media, and with the help of a good friend, we built the website for the business. There were days I felt like Jonathan was paying me way too much, things weren’t picking up as fast as I wanted them too. Only two months after I moved here Jonathan decided we needed a more efficient shop, so we found a building with 8 drive through bays, triple the office space and a huge lot. We moved everything from the small shop over a long weekend and that’s when things really took off, we had a very professional looking shop and offices, our Facebook page was on fire! I stayed up till 2:00am most nights writing articles for the company website, and my blog. I back linked everything on my blog to www.leadfootdiesel.com and it was working. Our social media presence was booming and it was reflected in our shop.

It doesn’t feel like I have only been here for four and a half years. We have accomplished so much as a business. Between me running the office side and Jonathan running the shop side it has been a very successful venture. We come to work every day with one thing in mind, who can we help today? We are all human here, we make mistakes, how we respond to those mistakes is what has gotten us to where we are along with our many successes. We aren’t getting rich, but that’s not what it’s about. Our families are happy, we are doing what is right for our customers and we go to bed every night with a clear conscience. I decided at a young age to live my life with no regrets, the economy crashed and to others it seems like I lost everything, but in fact I gained so much more than money can buy. I work with people I consider family, we work for customers that we consider friends. The move to Georgia is the best thing I have done for my family, we love the people here and we couldn’t be happier with the location!

Has it been a smooth road?
Business is never smooth, even though all of our successes, there are always going to be trials. Our most common problem is people that we have to work with, that don’t understand anything about a diesel engine. We may replace the head gaskets on an engine and when we do a big job like that we give the customer pictures of the whole process from start to finish. When they look at those pictures of the engine all tore apart and in their mind, they think we rebuilt the whole engine. When in fact we only rebuilt the top end, but when their starter fails a month later they expect us to warranty the starter, when in fact we never touched the starter. That’s a constant never ending battle, and we have lost customers over instances like that.

Another major problem we run into as a business is employees, like any business you get good ones and bad ones, it has taken years to compile the team we have now, and they are truly some of the most talented and loyal guys we could ever ask for.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Lead Foot Diesel Performance – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
We are diesel mechanics, a lot of shop tend to lean one way other the other when it comes to what brand trucks they specialize in. We started out primarily working on Ford Powerstrokes, but over the years as we hire more guys we have ended up with techs that specialize in Duramax, Cummins and Powerstroke. I would say we are best known for figuring out how to make the 6.0L Powerstroke a very reliable platform as they had a lot of factory flaws in their initial design.

The number one thing that sets us apart from every other diesel shop is Jonathan. His overall “Do what’s right for the customer” attitude is what’s made this business so successful. We go the extra mile with our diagnostics to ensure we are doing the right repair the first time, this takes time which impatient customers may not always appreciate, on big jobs like engine rebuilds and head gasket repairs, most of the work we do can’t be seen by the custom once we finish the job. To keep us honest and to show them we did exactly what they paid for, we attach pictures of the repair process to their invoice so they know we did what we charged them for, I know a lot of people in this industry, I have never seen that as part of a service before.

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
We aren’t dead in the middle of Atlanta, but in our line of work we rely on the city of Atlanta for parts, towing services, shipping etc. The thing I love most about Atlanta is the people in general are so friendly and caring, this is the number one thing I love most about my move to Georgia.

I don’t like the traffic, but who does?

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