Jeff Turner and Melissa Turner own and run Mad Engine Solutions from their workshop in the centre of Mackay. While the couple have worked in the automotive industry for many years, they established their own business in 2018, specialising in engine reconditioning services.

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WHAT PRODUCTS AND SERVICES DO YOU OFFER AT MAD ENGINE SOLUTIONS?

MT: We offer services including reconditioned engines, cylinder head machining, crack repair, flywheel grinding and honing, and other mechanical services such as diagnostics and repairs, component testing and more.

JT: Basically, from engine reconditioning to drive-in drive-out servicing, but our main core is engine conditioning and the more in-depth engine side of things.

ENGINE RECONDITIONING IS A SPECIALISED SERVICE. WHO ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS?

MT: About 70 per cent of our work comes direct from the trade or is referred from the trade. Retail customers do contact us, but they are often referred to us by another mechanic.

JT: If you’re not mechanically minded, then you tend to reach out to a local general mechanic. If they want to take that job on, they’ll give us a call. Sometimes they’ll pull the motor and send it to us, other times they’ll refer the customer. We’re finding more and more now that they’re stepping away and referring the customer straight to us.

IT SOUNDS LIKE THE AUTOMOTIVE BUSINESS COMMUNITY AROUND YOU WORKS CLOSELY TOGETHER. IS THAT IMPORTANT?

JT: That sense of business community is really important anywhere. If you don’t communicate, you get nowhere. If you try to act solely on your own and not work with people, forget about it. We help each other out, loan tools to each other and so on. They might not come to us a lot, but one day they’re going to remember it and say, “I’m going go to these guys because they helped me out.”

HOW DID YOU COME TO ESTABLISH THE BUSINESS AND WHAT IS YOUR BACKGROUND IN THE INDUSTRY?

JT: I originally started as a delivery driver in the spare parts shop, then went into the workshop and worked my way up to running it, becoming a spare parts interpreter and light vehicle mechanic on the way. I was there for 22 years before our employer decided to close the business. We decided to take the plunge and start our own business.

MT: I was working at the same shop as a parts interpreter as well as doing the workshop paperwork, and was there for 19 years. That work was what we knew, and we also knew that it was a busy shop. So, starting MAD Engine Solutions was a gamble, but a calculated one.

Our engine builder, Ray, had worked with Jeff there for more than 20 years, so when that business closed there were three of us that were all going to have to find a job in the same industry. There was work around and we could have got a job, but you don’t have the same flexibility as you do when you’ve got your own place. We work well together, and Ray came with us and is still with us today.

JT: Initially, it was tough and very stressful, but we’re pretty happy with where we’re at and we actually thought it would take longer to get to this point.

WHO IS ON THE TEAM AT MAD ENGINE SOLUTIONS?

MT: As well as Ray, our main engine builder, we have our son Cody, who has just qualified, and we have four apprentices – Thomas who is going into his third year,
Kai who is a second-year, Dean who is in his fourth year, and Eden, who recently started with us and who has come up from NSW.

We always do a trial before we make the decision of taking on staff. My reasoning is that they have to fit in with the rest of the team. That’s important. We get together for smoko and lunch, we talk and joke together, we’re all friends and everyone is willing to help each other out when needed.

JT: That bond is really important. Your staff are the backbone of your business. We have really good staff and without them, things would be a lot harder. Lots of people are looking for good staff and we’re extremely lucky.

IS ENGINE RECONDITIONING A DYING ART?

JT: It’s not the work that is dying but rather it is about finding employees who are interested in it. I don’t think some people even realise it’s a thing, especially up this way. They push mining so much – jobs like boiler making, diesel fitting and so on – and that’s all you ever see advertised.

MT: Of our four apprentices, two of them who were keen to learn how an engine goes, while the other two were really interested in putting a car together and pulling it apart. And that’s a really good mix for us. We asked our boys at the interview stage, “What do you see yourself doing? We’re not a general mechanical shop. What sort of thing are you’re looking for?” to make sure they were going to fit in. And that’s important because they’ve got to fit into the shop and start doing the basics like resizing rods and head testing and things like that.

DO ALL YOUR STAFF TRAIN WITH THE MTA INSTITUTE?

JT: Yes. We put our guys on as light vehicle mechanics because the MTA Institute offer that as an apprenticeship. We cover everything they need in their training. For example, in the shop we do a bit of general mechanical but there are other mechanics in town who, if needed, we can send them to so that they cover all those areas of their apprenticeship. And we have mechanical apprentices come here to do their modules for the engine side of things.

MT: Our apprentices do things exactly the way that we want them done. They’ve been here since school pretty much, so they’ve learned the way that we do things, and it just works.

WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN AN APPRENTICE?

JT: Passion is probably the most important thing. You can teach a person as long as they want to learn. If they don’t want to learn and they’re just here for a paycheque, you’ll never be able to teach them. You’ve got to be passionate and that’s the major thing we look for in an apprentice.

YOU ESTABLISHED MAD ENGINE SOLUTIONS NOT LONG BEFORE THE COVID PANDEMIC HIT. DID COVID IMPACT THE BUSINESS?

MT: We had about two weeks of work booked in and then our phones just stopped ringing and we thought, “This is going be bad.” We were wondering what we were going to do and then – and I don’t know whether it was an announcement that they [the Government] were going to give money or whether it was the superannuation thing – but our phones just went from barely ringing to ringing non-stop and we had the busiest six months after that. It was insane!

It was people at home, working on project cars that had been sitting in the shed for years, and they were taking engines out and bringing them to us to have heads done and so on. It was crazy. It continued like that into Christmas of 2020, and when we came back at the start of the year the phone was still ringing non-stop.

JT: It was very weird in 2021 because it was as stressful trying to get things out as it had been trying to get work in! While it isn’t as hectic now because we have learned to scale things down, it really hasn’t dropped off.

MELISSA, IS IT TOUGH BEING A FEMALE BUSINESS OWNER IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY?

MT: I grew up in the industry – my parents were in the industry and my brother is a mechanic – but for a female, you’ve got to have pretty tough skin. A lot of people think you know nothing and that can be frustrating at times. However, I think it is getting better. It’s probably been 10 years since I worked in spare parts answering the phones all the time, and there weren’t a lot of females in the industry then. Now, there are females at all dealerships, and ladies everywhere. I’m a member of the MTA Queensland Auto Women group, and they’ve all dealt with the same issue. But it is improving.

WHY DID YOU JOIN MTA QUEENSLAND AND WHAT HAVE BEEN THE BENEFITS OF BEING A MEMBER?

MT: Being able to tell people you are a member of MTA Queensland is a big thing. It’s a well-known name. And there’s advice that you can get on a lot of things – industrial relations information and recommendations and so on. We managed to set up all our workplace health and safety with a company that was recommended. The wage stuff is great too. You have one person who knows who you are and who you can call or email anytime to get accurate information.
Regarding the training of our apprentices, we know exactly what they are up to and we don’t have to chase anything. It’s all up to date and the communication is great with the trainer.

TELL ME ABOUT THE NAME ‘MAD ENGINE SOLUTIONS’. HOW DID YOU COME BY THAT?

MT: Our youngest daughter thought it stood for ‘Mum And Dad’! Actually, it’s Mackay And District, although Jeff likes to tell people that ‘you’ve got to be mad to do it’!

YOU’VE RECENTLY CHANGED YOUR OPENING HOURS AND ARE NOW CLOSED EVERY SECOND FRIDAY. WHY DID YOU COME TO THAT DECISION?

MT: A few other places in town are doing a 9-day fortnight and it’s a good incentive when you’re competing for staff that are working at the mining companies and who do four-on-three-off or five-on-four-off and are getting a long weekend all the time.

There is an appeal to having that extra day. Normally, come the weekend, you’re busy doing things and by the time you’ve done any jobs around the house, the weekend’s over and you’ve had no family time. Now, we can do all that sort of stuff on Friday and have that time.

We thought we’d give it a trial and see how it goes. Now we open from 7:30am until 4:30pm Monday to Thursday, and 7:30am to 4pm every second Friday and that means we are still working the 76 hours over the fortnight. It’s early days and we’ll see how it goes but having that extra half-hour at the end of the day has been productive – the boys just seem to smash through the work.

YOU MENTIONED YOU ARE AHEAD OF WHERE YOU THOUGHT YOU MIGHT BE WHEN YOU STARTED THE BUSINESS. WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE?

JT: We probably don’t want to grow a crazy amount more as far as staffing goes, but will do some fine tuning, be more productive, and upgrade our machines. We’ve got a talented team, so we will look at fine tuning.

Source: Motor Trader e-Magazine (February 2023)

16 February 2023