"http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/flushservices.html"

Despite Honda (and other automakers) issuing warnings against engine
flushes and fuel system cleaning (and refusing warranty work on engines
damaged by these procedures), Some Jiffy Lubes continue to hard sell the
"wallet flush," claiming that the manufacturer _requires_ these procedures.

Now to be fair, it isn't just these places that perform what Click and
Clack used to call "the Bilstein Wallet Flush." I had a Toyota service
department in San Jose (Piercey Toyota) try to push the engine flush on
me (a sure sign to never return to this dealer for service, or sales for
that matter).

"SMS" <scharf.steven (AT) geemail (DOT) com> wrote

Jiffy Lube again?? NBC 4 has busted them in the past for charging for work
they did not perform.

I drive past a Jiffy Lube on my way to work and that is too close for
comfort!

Truckdude wrote:

<snip>

This is a regular occurrence. They get caught, they issue some
statements about how they're going to crack down on units that do this,
then six months to a year later there's another news story about them
doing it again.

They are typically in high rent locations on busy corners so they have
to push as many useless or expensive add-ons to the basic oil change as
possible. They give their sales people a average dollar amount goal per
ticket, typically $50-75, and if they can't meet that goal....

They can't survive on $30 oil changes (actually I have no idea how much
they charge, I'm guessing that an oil change is $30).

They seem to have no shortage of naive customers.

"http://www.jiffylubeproblems.com/"

"Truckdude" <sarah (AT) duh (DOT) com> wrote:

My local Sears automotive department (Phoenix AZ) was busted in a
local TV sting some years back for the doing the same thing. It's
certainly not limited to Jiffy...

"AJL" <nomail (AT) fakeaddress (DOT) com> wrote

Now that you mention it, I remember Sears getting into trouble here in
California as well.

On Nov 13, 11:15*am, SMS <scharf.ste... (AT) geemail (DOT) com> wrote:
there's a place here in town that charges 19.95.. 'super lube' or
something like that..
Most of the time, that won't even cover the cost of materials for most
of the cars I service with the cheapest stuff.. Definitely not saying
it's a good deal, though.

I put a bimmer on the rack once.. the customer complained of a noisy
rear end.. tried to save a couple bucks going to jiffy lube.. the
person left the plug out of the diff.. oops! Never saw that car
again..

"Nza" <thenza (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote

On Nov 13, 11:15 am, SMS <scharf.ste... (AT) geemail (DOT) com> wrote:
there's a place here in town that charges 19.95.. 'super lube' or
something like that..
Most of the time, that won't even cover the cost of materials for most
of the cars I service with the cheapest stuff.. Definitely not saying
it's a good deal, though.

I put a bimmer on the rack once.. the customer complained of a noisy
rear end.. tried to save a couple bucks going to jiffy lube.. the
person left the plug out of the diff.. oops! Never saw that car
again..


My sister had been going to Jiffy Lube. They started being careless. Once
they left the filler cap off the top of the block after changing oil. That
nearly ruined her engine, and 7A's are pretty hard to ruin.

Charles the Curmudgeon

Nza wrote:
If it's costing you more than $19.95 for the cheapest stuff (bulk oil
and a jobber filter) then something's very wrong. I have a relative with
an repair shop and his cost for bulk oil is less than 50 cents per
quart, and the jobber filters are less than $2. An oil change with four
quarts of oil costs him less than $4 in material cost. It's the labor,
and tying up a service bay for 20 minutes, that's the bigger cost. He
charges $30. When I used to go there he kept some OEM filters for my
vehicles. Now we moved too far away and I do it myself. $8 in
non-generic oil and $4 for a Toyota filter and $1 for a drain plug
gasket (what a ripoff!) is $13 in parts.

The Toyota dealers routinely have $30 oil change specials, and you get a
good filter with that, not the $1.50 jobber filters. They also use bulk oil.

Yeah, there's big money in repairing the mistakes of Jiffy Lube.

Toyota dealer in Redding, Ca also pushes the whole gaggle of flushes at each
15k service - I generally folow what Toyota says i the manuals - Ray O has
good points on these flushes.

SMS <scharf.steven (AT) geemail (DOT) com> wrote:

My local Honda dealer (Phoenix AZ) charges $30 as a regular price. My
guess is that they hope for the extra repair jobs that they might
uncover. Or maybe even an occasional car sale. The waiting room and
sales floor are in the same room.

I imagine that the dealers use the same 'quality' type people to
change the oil as Jiffy Lube does. The difference might be that any
mistakes could be fixed on the spot with less hassle.

Unless you change your own oil, and I stopped years ago, you just make
your best judgement about where to get it done and hope. You can get
screwed anywhere you go...