A rant against oil change chains

[ScouseJohnny]

Oh dear. Long story short:

Normally, I take my car to a local, independent shop, but I was worried it was overdue an oil-change and today a colleague asked me to lunch; across the street from the Indian restaurant was a Mida$ (where everything apparently turns to shit, not gold).

I thought, "What the heck, even they can't f**k up a simple oil change. I'm here anyway, two birds, one stone."

As the young kid backed my Jeep out of the shop post-oil change, something akin to the Exxon Valdez disaster poured onto the ground: Um, Sir, I dunno what happened. We didn't do nothin' wrong.

Boss Man: Holy Shit! SWITCH IT OFF! Push it back into the shop! Jesus H. Christ. Are you retarded?

The barely-trained kid (according to the Boss Man), "Just grabbed the wrong filter."

Boss Man then launched into a tirade about how he, "Can't get proper help."

This is my problem, why? You just charged me $80 for oil, filter, and air filter. You're telling me no competent young man in this Virginian city wants to train to be a motor mechanic?

To be fair to Boss Man he tried very hard to make it right - he was embarrassed and gave me a coupon for a free oil change. He sprayed all of the oil off the underside of the car, personally. He was courteous, and did his best.

I felt bad for him, but if you run a business and hire unskilled workers, then supervise them properly or your business will suffer from their ineptitude.

Saddest thing: when I was young, training to be a motor mechanic was a good prospect for a young man with some mechanical aptitude. Now, apparently, there's not much interest in that trade.

Note: two miles down the road I pulled over at a gas station and lifted the hood. The kid had left the oil cap on top of the windshield washer reservoir. I replaced it, called the shop, got mad...again the owner apologized, sincerely. But what can you do?

Well, without being unkind, you can go to a proper mechanic...like the local independent shop.

 

Edited February 2, 2017 by ScouseJohnny

[colin007]

$80??? For what?? Was it a $60 air filter? You should be able to get an oil change at any of those places for $20...And he should've given you that oil change for free instead of the next one, why would you ever go back?

[ScouseJohnny]

11 minutes ago, colin007 said:

$80??? For what?? Was it a $60 air filter? You should be able to get an oil change at any of those places for $20...And he should've given you that oil change for free instead of the next one, why would you ever go back?

I won't go back. The oil change was $35, as was the air filter change; tax and disposal fees, etc, took care of the other $10.

It was the Three Stooges approach to car care that upset me the most. A decent man trying to do his best - but your business lives or dies by its employees. His were clueless.

Edited February 2, 2017 by ScouseJohnny

[Patch]

I have a 2000 dodge truck. I call it "Timex" because it hs taken a licken and just keeps on ticking. Over the years, just about every friend, or family member who needed a truck to haul something has used it. 

Back when it was newer, my wife and I took it to WalMart to pck up something. While there, I got an oil change, and had them replace the air filter. When done shopping, I paid the guy, got my keys and went to the truck. I started it up and and the oil light came on.

Without opening the hood I got the manager to come out to the truck. When we opened the hood, the first thing we both saw was the air cleaner housing was gone, and the oil cap was missing. Upon further inspection we found there was no oil in the crank case, but there was a new oil filter installed. 

Ok, so the guy got busy and forgot to put new oil in the motor. I can sort of get that. It's Walmart, and I know better. However when I asked for the air cleaner and cover, the mechanic said there was no cover there when he opened the hood. Calm and cool,  asked why I was charged for an air filter if there was no place to put it? Also that there was indeed a air filter cover when I brought it in. 

I really lost it when I found my air filter housing, in about 20 broken pieces,  in the the trash can. The guy had busted it trying replace the air filter. 

Luckily I did not go to jail that day, as my wife was there to keep me from going to much balistic. 

[SavvySwede]

This is why I always do it myself. Less than $20 for a 5qt container of oil and under $10 for a filter at Walmart. Averages out to less than $25 per oil change and you don't have to worry about someone stripping the bolt on your oil pan or f@#%ing up the gasket on the filter.

[Hacker James]

Poor kid, probably got fired NOT.

[Jeremie Boop]

Originally, my plan was just to take my car back to the dealer for normal maintenance like oil changes, but instead I've started using the local Valvoline. It's not cheap, partially because my car uses full synthetic and I tell them to stick with the manufacturer's suggested oil. I can't say that I've ever had a bad experience and when taking my fiance's car to get serviced they even caught that the splash guard under her engine bay had every bolt barely screwed in. Sure, I could do it myself, as I have done in the past, but it wouldn't save me all that much and being able to get a full record of servicing in the event that I need it for selling/trading in the car will be nice.

[Slowcelica]

14 hours ago, Patch said:

I have a 2000 dodge truck. I call it "Timex" because it hs taken a licken and just keeps on ticking. Over the years, just about every friend, or family member who needed a truck to haul something has used it. 

Back when it was newer, my wife and I took it to WalMart to pck up something. While there, I got an oil change, and had them replace the air filter. When done shopping, I paid the guy, got my keys and went to the truck. I started it up and and the oil light came on.

Without opening the hood I got the manager to come out to the truck. When we opened the hood, the first thing we both saw was the air cleaner housing was gone, and the oil cap was missing. Upon further inspection we found there was no oil in the crank case, but there was a new oil filter installed. 

Ok, so the guy got busy and forgot to put new oil in the motor. I can sort of get that. It's Walmart, and I know better. However when I asked for the air cleaner and cover, the mechanic said there was no cover there when he opened the hood. Calm and cool,  asked why I was charged for an air filter if there was no place to put it? Also that there was indeed a air filter cover when I brought it in. 

I really lost it when I found my air filter housing, in about 20 broken pieces,  in the the trash can. The guy had busted it trying replace the air filter. 

Luckily I did not go to jail that day, as my wife was there to keep me from going to much balistic. 

I hope you made them pay for a new air filter housing.

To anyone in the thread using places like this for oil changes, why not do it yourself. It takes 30 mins tops, most of that time is spent getting the stuff together and cleaning up. You can then make sure it's done right, with better quality oil than you get at those quick change $20 special crap, and the list of pluses goes on and on.

[NJpatbee]

In the NJ/NY area we have a lot of Jiffy Lube knock off type places and I have used them a couple of times but refuse to go back.   The entire time my oil and filter is being changed the head mechanic is making a list of anything that could possibly need maintenance on my car and trying to upsell me with a comment that it could be dangerous.  The last (2nd) time I used one of these shops I got into quite a shouting match with the mechanic and insisted that he just change the oil and filter and stop the sales line.  Besides doing it yourself, around here the best deal and service is from small service shops where they are happy to see you and you give them repeat business..

[Patch]

2 hours ago, Slowcelica said:

I hope you made them pay for a new air filter housing.

To anyone in the thread using places like this for oil changes, why not do it yourself. It takes 30 mins tops, most of that time is spent getting the stuff together and cleaning up. You can then make sure it's done right, with better quality oil than you get at those quick change $20 special crap, and the list of pluses goes on and on.

Doing your own oil change is the way to go, as long as the old oil is disposed of properly. 

[jamo]

I go to the dealer for my oil changes. I did with my previous cars, which were over 150k miles and took synthetic oil. It was actually cheaper with those cars to take it to the dealer, especially since they used to send me a thousand mailer coupons a week. 

I've also changed it myself before. I probably would do that now if I had off-street parking. 

[Yukari]

15 hours ago, SavvySwede said:

This is why I always do it myself. Less than $20 for a 5qt container of oil and under $10 for a filter at Walmart. Averages out to less than $25 per oil change and you don't have to worry about someone stripping the bolt on your oil pan or f@#%ing up the gasket on the filter.

I always do oil change myself for the same reason.

31 minutes ago, Patch said:

Doing your own oil change is the way to go, as long as the old oil is disposed of properly. 

Fortunately, all auto parts stores are required to take used oils from customers (and non customers) in CO.

[nevets88]

Off topic but what about tire rotations? Don't most places overdo it on tightening the lug nuts? I think there are manual wrenches you can buy that measure how much pressure you're applying?

[cipher]

27 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

Off topic but what about tire rotations? Don't most places overdo it on tightening the lug nuts? I think there are manual wrenches you can buy that measure how much pressure you're applying?

Yeah there are torque kits used for this.  That being said, I doubt most guys rotating tires do it properly all the time.

[Slowcelica]

20 hours ago, Patch said:

Doing your own oil change is the way to go, as long as the old oil is disposed of properly. 

Here you can take the old oil to a parts store such as autozone, and dispose of it free of charge.

19 hours ago, nevets88 said:

Off topic but what about tire rotations? Don't most places overdo it on tightening the lug nuts? I think there are manual wrenches you can buy that measure how much pressure you're applying?

You should tighten your lug nuts to the torque specification for your car, using a torque wrench. It's not nearly as tight as people think.

[k-troop]

Back in the day when you had to change the oil in your car every other week, I had a Jiffy Lube incident.  Apparently the kid replaced the plug in the oil pan only finger tight, and it rattled out a few blocks down the road.  That was super uncool.

Now-a-days I just take it to the dealer for scheduled maintenance.  It's rarely "just an oil change" per the service manual, and with newer cars it's only once a year (or 10k miles) anyway.  I'm not a tinkerer, so I'm cool with the dealership giving my car a once-over at least annually.

[jamo]

1 hour ago, k-troop said:

Now-a-days I just take it to the dealer for scheduled maintenance.  It's rarely "just an oil change" per the service manual, and with newer cars it's only once a year (or 10k miles) anyway.  I'm not a tinkerer, so I'm cool with the dealership giving my car a once-over at least annually.

That's what I do as well.

[Shooting29]

I uses a valvoline oil change shop. My favorite reason is you drive in the front, drive out the back and never get out of your vehicle. Also, my truck has a skid plate that must be removed to access the oil filter. 

I changed my own oil in this truck once and spent $50 on oil and a filter plus time driving around buying supplies and then time actually doing the work, and cleaning up. It's not worth the headache to save $30.

I'll continue to pay $80, be in and out in less than 15 minutes and never crawl around on the ground having oil run all the way up to my armpit.