Cable bill is 79.99 plus 16,99 sports connection fee. And 12.99 network connection fee. You cannot opt out of these fees. Unless you choose to not have cable. So, it’s $108.00 plus taxes. It is not 79.99. Flat out trickination.
I agree. Although the premise of this thread (automotive shop supplies fees) is not dishonest, a lot of businesses do operate on the business model of advertising a price, but oh wait that’s not really the price. Airlines, hotels, and restaurants are the biggest offenders, but this example from a cable company is the same scam. Advertise a price, but the price does not include a bunch of “junk fees” which you cannot opt out of even if you don’t want or need the “service” which they are purportedly for.
As the saying goes, don’t B.S. me, and don’t insult my intelligence. If you think your hotel room is worth $200 a night, then just call it a $200 per night hotel room. Don’t advertise it as a $95 per night hotel room, and then add a $50 per night resort fee, $30 per night cleaning fee, etc. on top of the advertised rate. If you think your airline ticket is worth $700 then just advertise it as a $700 fare. Don’t advertise it as a $500 fare with another $200 of non-negotiable baggage fees, airport fees, security fees, etc. on top of the advertised price. Etc.
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Never had a core charge for oil🤪
Have run into those “resort fees”, even to use a tiny swimming pool.
Last hotel I stayed in had a king size bed, plenty of room for us and my dog, but no pets allowed😡
Of course they will pass the costs on to the customer, it’s just that some auto shops are smarter than others. The shop I work at is priced at the higher end of the market–in some cases higher than the dealer–but the price is “what you see is what you get.” No added fees or surcharges of any kind. Every shop has operating costs. We pay for garbage to be picked up, we pay for electricity and water. Those things really are no different than oil filter disposal.
We pay a disposal fee for used oil and oil filters, and coolant. So when you see us advertise a conventional oil change for $49.95 or a full synthetic oil change for $89.95, that’s the price. We don’t even have sales tax in this state.
We pay credit card fees when you pay us with your debit or credit card. We charge you for that too, we just don’t itemize it. Well, we charge everyone for that, whether you pay cash, check, or card. It’s just a cost of doing business that’s reflected in the price of your auto repair like the rent or heating bill.
Sure, our hourly labor rate is higher than XYZ garage down the street, but there is no shop supplies surcharge, disposal fee, parts handling fee, hazardous waste charge, or anything like that. In the end we’re really not that much more.
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… and those who pay with cash are essentially just cheating themselves by paying for something from which they get no benefit.
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Still, it is an interesting question how to safely and legally dispose of things like used oil filters, used engine oil, used transmission fluid, and used coolant. I usually just drain as much oil as possible out of the used filter and throw it in my household trash. The oil, coolant, and transmission fluid just collect in bottles in my garage, which I would ultimately like to dispose of. The county hazardous waste dropoff place here is only open during business hours, and only on certain days each month, so I never have time to go.
Which galls me to no end, but I can’t really do anything about it. I have always been a cash kind of guy. My wife is “rewards crazy”, and squeezes every cent she can out of every rewards program out there.
Back when I had my own auto repair shop I sat down with her and said “Look, the business paid $1100 in credit card fees last month, that’s money that would have been in our pocket if everyone paid cash or check. That’s what rewards programs do to businesses.”
I realized that I was simultaneously arguing for her to stop using rewards cards and for me to charge customers more to recoup the costs.
Have you ever been able to stop your wife from doing something? 
One of my late friends was a “cash only” gal because “I save money this way”. 
She also didn’t trust Direct Deposit, so every two weeks–when she was one of the very few people in the school who got a “physical” check–she would race to the bank and lose most (if not all) of her lunch hour waiting for a teller because she also didn’t trust ATMs.
But, she would only withdraw part of the cash that she would need for the ensuing two weeks, with the result that she always had to go back to the bank at least two more times before the next pay period.
And, of course, she used-up a LOT of gas (as well as time… ) unnecessarily because of her belief that she was “saving money” by paying cash for everything.
See?
I was able to bring this back to something automotive in nature. 
do the oil change yourself and buy the stuff at Wal Mart. You’ll come out way ahead and have satisfaction that it’s done right.
[quote=“asemaster, post:48, topic:181400”]
Have you ever been able to stop your wife from doing something? 
If any one has share it with the rest of us how you did it. 
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You will have to wait to dispose of the coolant, but AutoZone and most places like that will recycle the oil and transmission fluids - they often dump both into the same tank. They’ll take the filters too if you want to bring those along.
Our city’s department of sanitation hasn’t had one of those programs where you turn in old engine oil filters for new ones in quite some time now
I’m guessing the pandemic put that on hold
I still dump my old engine oil at work
But I hold onto the engine oil filters for awhile, in case that program is resurrected
Oil filter disposal, I just let as much oil drain out as possible overnight and toss them in the trash (cartridge filters) or scrap metal pile (canister filters). I realize there’s some residual oil, but think about scrapping an entire car. We drain the fluids, but there’s no way practical to get the cars entirely fluid free. The amount of oil left in a drained oil filter is relatively small in comparison.
Oh how far we have come in the last several decades. Back in 1991 I was renting house with 3 other friends. One guy drove a 68 Ranchero. One day I saw him digging a hole in the back yard, maybe 2 feet square and a foot deep, with the dirt removed in a nice sloping pile next to it. He then drove the Ranchero’s left front tire up onto the pile, crawled underneath and drained the oil into the hole, pulled the filter and threw it in the trash can and put a new filter on. After filling the oil he drove the car back around front, filled in the hole and came in for a beer.
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I would like to respectfully disagree.
Every purchase you make with a credit card becomes instantly widely known to marketing companies. That data is highly sought after and is very lucrative.
So what ? All you have to do is ignore the ads or recycle the junk mail . There are so many ways to send you solicitations for products you can’t even live in a cave to escape them .
Not taking advantage of the credit card cashback is foolish .
I wouldn’t go into Walmart if they were the only store in my township. I know there is one, but I have no clue where.
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This is how I dispose of used oil filters.
Generally, a common practice is to puncture the filters, drain the used oil into an appropriate container and then recycle the filters as scrap metal . The drained used oil should be recycled along with the used oil from the oil changes.
Only, I crush the oil filters to remove the oil before tossing them into the scrap metal bin.
Tester
I wonder how much used engine oil and filters returned to Walmart goes into the dumpster.
Walmart sued for allegedly dumping over a million hazardous items a year - CNN