So why is oil change $20 but add $4 for oil disposal? Jeez, just charge 24?
Many times it’s deceptive advertising. They advertise for a specific price…but then have numerous ad-ons that bring the price up. One place will charge $22 for an oil change…the other $20. So you go to the place with the lower price. But then there’s all these extra fee’s that the price is now MORE then the other place that was doing the oil change for $22 (which included everything). I have no problem what-so-ever adding the disposal fee in…but it would be nice to know these things before hand. Tires is a big thing around here. It’s almost impossible to compare tire prices based on advertising.
Actually, I was going to post something similar. Around where I live, Sheetz and Get-go stations all have free air…seems to be a requirement for a franchise.
Personally, I like to encourage free air (as a public safety issue) and would patronize a store with free air even if it were a bit more expensive. (Let’s say, up to 3c/gallon for sure, and probably up to 5c.)
I’m a little surprised about the person who posted about customers showing up for the free air and not buying anything. I mean, if I go to the effort of driving to the station, I’d at least top off unless the prices are absurd…and then I’d buy a soda or something instead.
It’s kind of like the rationale of tipping at a restaurant I’ll never visit again: the small amount of cash I’d save is insufficient compensation for the psychic discomfort of knowing I acted like a jerk. (It still surprises me how many people out there apparently aren’t wired like that.)
Strangely enough, I find that using credit / debit cards is often faster than cash in my area of upstate NY. Probably because many cashiers seem to be barely present mentally, so taking cash and getting change out is a tax on their mental facilities. Then there are the older people who seem to enjoy trying to use a check - which takes them 5 minutes to work out, or like to hunt around their person for exact change for 5 minutes.
Or - you know, swipe a card and out. That said, there are the people who for whatever reason have a little paper case for their card that also massively extends their checkout time as they stand there futzing with getting the card out of it, then struggle to get it back in the case. Look, if you’ve got a 5 minute prep to pay procedure and 5 minute get things back together after paying procedure - fine, but do it while waiting in line, and after leaving the line so everyone else isn’t standing there wondering if you’re off you meds or something. Paying for a $20 lunch or store purchase shouldn’t be time equivalent to submitting a 1040A.
I actually don’t love itemized charges, it just makes me want to overthink if x line item was really needed. Personally, I’d like prices to be what it costs (I’m inured to + tax, but I’d rather that was included in advertised prices) out the door. If a shop is itemizing, it should be part of any estimate or detailed in a pamphlet before work is done. I hate it when a tire shop will estimate (as happened to my sister) $480 for tires per their ads, and then charge $620 when you go to leave because they didn’t mention that there was extra charges for installing the tires, fees, tire stems etc. It’s not that my family doesn’t know there is usually a cost to install tires and new stems etc - but that the estimate didn’t include any of that when they were asking for a service of installed new tires!! It’s not like my sister asked to just have the tires tossed in the trunk and later agreed on the phone to have them installed!
Needless to say, not going back to that store. Personally, I think it should be illegal to not be required to give an accurate estimate before work is done, and not OK to go and fix other things the shop “is sure you would have OKed, and please pay X more than agreed for that work”. I mean, call me first. These shops must get a lot of people who just can’t pay that “extra” easily or at all, leaving everyone in a bad place.
I had that feeling (thread title) when coming back from Japan in 1976. I was stationed there with my family in 1973. We landed in California. I went to buy a pack of cigarettes and they wanted $.75 a pack, it was like $.30 when I left. When I asked the girl if she was ashamed to charge that much, said I could just quit smoking if I didn’t like it, so after ten years of smoking, I did.
Then after buying a car, I stop at a gas station to get a map for our cross country trip to my new duty station and they wanted $1.25, They were free when I left. I’m ashamed of what I said then, I think I asked the pump jockey if his mother knew he was charging this much for a free map.
We have a gas station in town that is the old fashioned full service type, no self serve option. They clean your windshield, check your tires and oil and have free air, The gas is ethanol free, but its a buck or more per gallon higher than the norm. They even have two service bays and they don’t sell snack items. It is not a “Tiger Mart”.
As for the supplies issue, a single charge of say $5 or increase the shop rate by $5/hr to cover supplies? A break even for a one hour job, but what about an 8 hour job? Just ask for the “out the door” cost in the first place. Get a second or third estimate with the “out the door” cost and compare. That’s just good business.
You should remember that back in the days of the “service station”, they had one or two bays where they did maintenance on vehicles and used compressed air to run their tools. So the compressor was paid for by the service bays. Todays “convenience marts” do not need compressed air to operate anything that they make a profit from, so they have no need for one. To justify the cost of the compressor and its operation, they have to charge for air.
When the Super America stations here started installing those pay-for-air pumps, I promptly quit patronizing them. The Holiday Stations here in the Twin Cities almost all have high pressure regular air hoses for free instead of those sputtering pieces of junk the SA stations have. Care to take a guess what brand of gas I buy now???
EDIT: the Holiday stations hoses get their air from the air compressor they use to maintain the water pressure for their car wash, so they’re running it anyway.
Long ago in Pecos Texas the main service station had a public toilet across the street in a vacant lot (most of the block was vacant). It was a toilet attached to a concrete slab with a circular shower curtain around it for those who insisted on privacy.
