A Day at Jiffy Lube

[ALBPM]

I don't know how the Toyota Dealers are where you are but I wouldn't let any one else work on my Toyota's.
It's only about $3.00 more to have Toyota change the oil plus they use Toyota oil filters (much prefered over any other brand) and replace the plastic washer on the drain pan bolt.

I made the mistake of taking my 93' 4-Runner to Jiffy Lube once and had about 3 qts of oil left in it when I got home. I was lucky to check it right away. - They had cracked the plastic washer from over tightening and of course didn't have any to replace it with.

[Chrono_Wanderer]

yea... Toyota (at least the dealer in my area) is actually very good. Very professional, virtually no flaw. (Dispite the fact that I don't know anything about car :O) but so far all these years its all good.

BTW: wtf is wrong with juffy lube that is a scary story

[ZokesPro]

At least the guy didn't forget to PROPERLY screw the oil filter back on unlike the f*cking MORON at (damn I don't remember) when my dad took his car to get the oil changed!!!

He had a trip the next day to Ottawa and back and in those 500km's, it was enough to cause visosity break down in one cylinder (the valves were ruined pretty badly in that one cylinder causing the rest of the engine to deteriorate in the next following months).

@gt40: Although I am VERY capable of doing close to 75% of all repairs/tune-ups/replacements on my vehicle, I just don't have the space for it cause I live in an apartement building. Therefore I have to trust that the person working on my car is going to be competent enough to not screw things up. And now adays, everybody is getting screwed over either with replacing good parts with crap parts or juast plain doing work where work is not needed. The only good places left to get your car fixed is at the dealership, but they are so freaking expensive!!! (75$/hour!!!)

[Sethos]

here's a little tip for you guys...

if you need a place to work on your car, but don't have one go over to your local high school, and ask if they have an auto shop somewhere. Usually you can manage to talk the principal or teacher in to either letting you come in after school one day an use their tool, and lifts and such, or you can drop off your car and let the students do the work, and the teacher will watch 'em and make sure it is done right. It's genneraly VERY cheap, sometimes free, but I always give them a little something for it.

~Sethos

[Ajax]

@Brian: It's stories like these that make me happy to have a good mechanic in the family. The ONLY time he wasn't available to help me do a tune-up, I took the car into a local shop where they forced one of the spark plugs in at the wrong angle, and cross threaded the thing. (I'm no mechanic, but I think that's the term he used). That was not cheap to fix.

@MultimediaMan: ROTFLMAO

[Byock]

DAMN! And they wonder why people are afraid of Jiffy Lube!


That is down right crazy! Uh, Can I keep my door on the car please??

[Kooldino]

Yeah, i hear nothing but bad things about IFFY LUBE. If you can do the work yourself, then do it.

[Brian R.]

Immediately after posting the initial comment in this thread, I sent an e-mail on this subject (leaving out the storytelling) to the address posted on the JL home website.

I just received a letter from a Customer Service Rep at JL that apologized for the lack of service I received. He says that he has forwarded my complaint to Regional Manager who is responsible for the operation of that JL store. He also provided me with his phone number so that I may call him if I wished.

"Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. We look forward to providing you with the highest quality service in the near future."

Interesting. Possibly useless, but interesting.

[GNEP]

Let me know how you get on. Sorry from my end - I have been too busy giving the Lubes people (and others... ) a hand with their long term strategic plan and so have only mentioned this in passing so far - will also report back any info I can. Since Shell only bought PQS and the JL businesses last year, it might take a while for things to change for the better though.

[Brian R.]

Shell? I didn't hear about that.

[KvHagedorn]

Just another level of management to isolate the customer from the guy in charge.

[Wombat]

Originally posted by KvHagedorn
Just another level of management to isolate the customer from the guy in charge.

Which is generally a good thing. Depending on the job, you generally want a ratio of 5:1-20:1 between one level and the next, or the supervisor will be too overwhelmed to do things properly.

[KvHagedorn]

The problem is, an oil change place doesn't benefit significantly from economies of scale, so there is no advantage in going to one with a big name and 1000 locations. Every auto service place I have ever been to absolutely sucked if it was part of some megacorp, and had a much better chance of being good the closer the owners were to the business. In this case, the owners are a bunch of rich pricks in suits who almost certainly have absolutely no respect for their employees who get dirty changing oil, so it's highly unlikely that any good employees will stick around, and the ones who do will not give a damn about customer service (returning the favor dealt them by management.)

The place I go to has one single location, I know the owner personally, and he actually works alongside his employees doing the dirty work. There has NEVER been an issue of poor service for me there in the many years I have been his customer. When I had an old BMW, he even passed on some savings to me when he got a bunch of BMW filters cheap. I feel sorry for you guys who have nothing but Jiffy Lube.

[Dr Mordrid]

I have a 3 ton jack, 4 sets of jackstands, four high ramps, an engine hoist, tranny jack, electric & gas welders, an 8 hp air compressor and all the tools I need to freakin' build a car from scratch if I need to.

My Dad started me on helping with auto repairs when I was 6, so from the day I got my first car I've had absolutely no need for the car butchers you see at most repair/maintenance shops.

Dr. Mordrid

[GNEP]

Originally posted by Brian R.
Shell? I didn't hear about that.

Yup. Jiffy Libe still runs as a very independent business though.

Together, Shell's acquisition of all the previously jointly owned/run Texaco gas stations in the US, and the Pennzoil Quaker State (which includes JL) acquisition, makes the Group the largest gas retailer in the US, and also one of the bigger lubes players.

The Texaco base that are belong to us will be rebranded to Shell (if not already over the last 9 months). The PQS Lubes brands stay though as they are quite useful. As does the JL brand.