Shop Floor Report: May 23, 2026

Your Shop Is About to Run Out of Motor Oil

Since late February, Iran has been blockading the Strait of Hormuz. If you don’t know what that is — it’s a narrow waterway in the Middle East where a massive chunk of the world’s oil passes through. That blockade has cut off 44% of the U.S. supply of Group III synthetic base oil. That’s the base stock that goes into every bottle of synthetic motor oil you pull off the shelf.

The price of Group III base oil has doubled. We’re talking over $10 a gallon for the raw material before it even gets blended, bottled, and shipped to your parts store. The grades getting hit the hardest are the thin ones — 0W-8, 0W-16, 0W-20. Those are the exact grades that Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai, and Kia spec in almost every modern engine they build. The cars sitting in your bay right now.

Toyota and Nissan are already warning their dealers internally. The Independent Lubricant Manufacturers Association (ILMA) used the word “imminent” to describe the shortage. U.S. domestic supply of Group III is expected to run out by June. Not December. June. Next month.

This isn’t going to resolve quickly either. Industry analysts are saying mid-2027 before supply normalizes — and that assumes the Hormuz situation gets resolved, which nobody is guaranteeing.

What this means for your shop: Talk to your parts supplier this week. Not next week. This week. Find out what they have in stock, what they can hold for you, and what their allocation looks like. If your shop does 30 oil changes a day and you can’t get 0W-20, that’s not an inconvenience — that’s lost revenue every single day. Stock up on the grades you use most while you still can. And start having the conversation with your service advisors now about price increases, because the customer is going to see it at the counter. A $49.99 oil change is about to become a $69.99 oil change, and the customer needs to understand why before they’re standing at the register.

If you’re a flat rate tech, this matters to you too. If the shop can’t get oil, it can’t sell oil changes. That’s gravy work that keeps your hours up between the big jobs. Pay attention to what’s happening upstream — it flows downhill to your paycheck.

Memorial Day: 45 Million on the Road

AAA is projecting 45 million travelers on the road this Memorial Day weekend. That’s the most in years. Triple A also expects over 350,000 roadside assistance calls between Friday and Monday. Overheated engines, blown tires, dead batteries, transmission failures on loaded-down SUVs pulling campers up mountain grades.

Gas is sitting at $4.56 a gallon nationally — a four-year high — and the summer forecast has it pushing $4.80 through Labor Day. That’s directly tied to the same Hormuz situation driving the oil shortage. Everything connects.

If you’ve been in this trade more than a couple years, you already know what Tuesday looks like. The Tuesday after Memorial Day is one of the heaviest days of the year for service drive traffic. Cars that “made a weird noise on the highway” but the owner pushed through the trip anyway. Overdue maintenance that finally became undeniable at mile 400 of a road trip. Check engine lights that came on somewhere in Virginia and got ignored until they got home.

Get your bay organized now. Clear your bench. Make sure your scan tool is charged. Tuesday is coming.

Tech Life: Your Hands Are Your Career

Last week we talked about boots. This week it’s your hands. Cracked knuckles, chemical burns from brake cleaner, cuts that never healed right because you went right back to work. Skin so dried out it splits open every winter. Fingertips that go numb after a long day on the impact gun. You’re gripping ratchets, fighting rusted bolts, pulling connectors off sensors with your fingertips, holding test leads steady on tiny pins — eight, ten, twelve hours a day. Carpal tunnel so bad you can’t grip a ratchet anymore. That’s not a career change — that’s a forced exit. Your hands are the one tool in your box that can’t be replaced.

Gloves that actually work in the bay: The MaxiFlex Ultimate 34-874 is the gold standard for precision work — sensor connectors, wiring harness routing, anything where you need to feel what you’re touching. They’re thin enough that you forget you’re wearing them but tough enough to keep your skin off sharp edges. Mechanix Originals or M-Pact for general teardown and assembly — pulling intake manifolds, suspension work, anything where you’re gripping hard and bumping knuckles on frame rails. Foam nitrile disposables (not the cheap ones — the 8-mil thick ones) for chemical work: brake cleaner, carb cleaner, parts washer solvent, coolant, anything that eats skin.

Skin care isn’t soft — it’s maintenance: Brake cleaner, carb cleaner, and parts washer solvent strip the natural oils out of your skin every time they touch it. Over years, that leads to cracking, dermatitis, and skin that won’t heal. Keep a tub of O’Keeffe’s Working Hands at your toolbox. Use it after you wash up, every time. In winter, when the shop is cold and dry, your skin cracks faster — that’s not just painful, it’s an infection risk when you’re working around dirty parts and used fluids all day. A $8 tub of hand cream lasts months and keeps your skin from splitting open.

The stuff nobody talks about: If you’re running an impact gun all day, look into anti-vibration gloves. Repeated vibration causes real damage to the nerves and blood vessels in your hands — it’s called Hand-Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAVS), and it’s more common in techs than most people realize. The early signs are tingling and numbness in your fingertips, especially in cold weather. Your fingers turn white when it’s cold out. You drop small parts because your grip isn’t what it used to be. By the time it’s obvious, the damage is done.

Wrist stretches: Do them. I’m serious. Thirty seconds between jobs. Extend your arm, pull your fingers back gently with the other hand, hold for 15 seconds. Flip it — curl your fingers down, press gently, hold for 15. Do both hands. Open and close your fists ten times. Roll your wrists in circles. It takes less time than walking to the parts counter. Carpal tunnel doesn’t show up overnight — it builds over years of repetitive gripping, and by the time you feel it, you’re already behind on preventing it.

Grip strength matters too: A lot of techs lose grip strength over the years without realizing it. Keep a grip strengthener in your toolbox — the adjustable kind, not the cheap foam ones. Squeeze it between jobs. Stronger hands fatigue slower, and fatigued hands are how you slip and bust a knuckle on a crossmember.

Run preventative maintenance on your body the same way you do on a customer’s car. Your hands are what keep you earning. Protect them.

This is general workplace gear info for techs in physical trades. If you’re experiencing numbness, tingling, or chronic pain in your hands, see a doctor — early intervention makes a real difference with carpal tunnel and HAVS.

Industry Watch

GM Cuts 600 IT Jobs for AI

General Motors is cutting 600 IT positions and replacing them with AI systems. This isn’t in the factory — it’s on the corporate side. But it’s worth watching because every major automaker is investing heavily in AI right now. The vehicles coming off the line in 2027 and 2028 will have more AI-driven systems than anything we’ve seen. That’s more systems to diagnose, more software to understand, more reasons to stay current on training.

The REPAIR Act Just Got Gutted

The federal REPAIR Act — the right-to-repair bill that would have forced automakers to share diagnostic data, scan tool access, and calibration software with independent shops on fair terms — got stripped down in the highway bill that passed the House on May 19. The key enforcement provisions are gone. What’s left is language without teeth. Independent shops needed this bill. Dealership techs might not feel it directly, but if you ever plan to go independent or work at an independent shop, this matters. The fight for fair access to manufacturer repair data just got harder.

ASE Is Building an ADAS Calibration Credential

ASE announced on May 21 that they’re developing a new credential specifically for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) calibration. That means camera calibration, radar calibration, LiDAR calibration — all the procedures you have to do after a windshield replacement, a suspension alignment, or a collision repair on any modern vehicle. This has been a gray area for years — who’s qualified, what’s the standard, how do you prove competency. ASE is finally formalizing it. If you’re already doing ADAS work, get on their list for early information. If you’re not doing ADAS work yet, start learning. This is where the industry is going and the techs who get certified early will own that work.

Ram Recalls 12,700 Trucks — Because They’re Too Fast

This one made me laugh. Ram is recalling 12,736 2500 HD pickups because the speed limiter was set wrong — the trucks can exceed the maximum speed rating of their own tires. They ship with R-rated tires (106 mph max) and Ram normally limits the truck to 105 mph. Somewhere in production, the calibration got missed. The fix is a PCM software update at the dealer. If you’re a Stellantis tech, expect to see a few of these roll through. Quick flash, easy flag time.

Ferrari’s First Electric Car Drops This Sunday

Ferrari reveals the Luce on May 25 — their first fully electric vehicle. Over 1,000 horsepower, four motors, 122 kWh battery, 329 miles of range, 350 kW charging. The interior was designed by Jony Ive — the guy who designed every Apple product you’ve ever used. Starting price is reportedly over $500,000. You won’t be seeing one in your bay anytime soon, but pay attention to the technology. What Ferrari builds at $500K today filters into mainstream vehicles within a decade. Four-motor AWD systems, 800-volt architecture, mechanical controls instead of touchscreens — the engineering decisions being made at this level shape what you’ll be diagnosing in 2035.

The Bottom Line

The oil shortage is real and it’s coming fast. Get ahead of it now — stock up, talk to your suppliers, prepare your customers. Memorial Day traffic is about to flood the service drive. The REPAIR Act lost its teeth but the fight continues. ASE is formalizing ADAS calibration — get in early. And Ferrari just proved that electric doesn’t mean boring. Stay sharp out there. See you next week.