Some are good, many suck. Most are just barely staying in business I think, and hire people that they can pay very little because they have little skill or experience. Pretty much the same folks that have jobs at Burger King. Nothing against BK workers, but they’re young, and just want to get through their shift and get down to partying, like any reasonable young kid would. (including myself when I was 17) Randomly you will get some bright, conscientious ones, but I really think the job interview that most give just determines that the worker has a pulse and transportation to the job.
I really think being a mechanic is under rated and a ‘lost art’ The pay sucks, the job is considered menial, and most have to buy their own tools and work at a frantic pace to do well at all. And it really takes a bright, savvy person to do the job right, especially these days. Probably a lot of folks that would have considered being a mechanic a decent career a couple of decades ago, go into engineering or something where the money is better. Quickie lube places as a whole, offer just another barely-above minimum wage job, and attract the people that are just starting out or can’t do better.
If you find a decent quickie lube place, stick with them. The major chains, like Midas, suffer from the same problems.
It’s not just oil & lube places. I don’t trust anyone who touches my car.
What I don’t like about oil & lube places are frequent over/under torquing mistakes, over/under filling, and pressure to buy stuff. I can do the work better myself, it won’t cost as much, I get to see the bottom of the vehicle, and I won’t have oil puddled on the skidplates.
Now if it were a choice between my wife changing the oil in her car and having her stop by an oil & lube place, I’d definitely recommend the second option.
I have been to these places only once in my car driving life. Watched them do the work and drove off. So I don’t have much of an opinion. But I would say that just looking on this board there are plenty of dealers and mechanics that try to up-sell other useless stuff. Also considering the volume of the service provided by JL and similar places, their error rate might not be as bad as we think. On this forum and any where else you will always see the one horror story, nobody posts their regular oil change story, they forget about it for the next 3-7.5K miles.
WE need data to support the lower quality of work here.
I once watched an independent mechanic try to drain the transmission fluid on my Galant. I had to rush to him and show him the other side of the car where the engine was. It happens to everybody I guess.
The slant on this site to the independant garage is not at all justified. I have seen men at the highest most productive points in their careers pull boneheaded things when it comes to auto repair. Simply because the shop is an independant does not mean his employees are not told to upsell (they are) and those employees also make mistakes. The idea that all you get are rejects from burger joints as employees at Quickie Lubes is about as false as the idea that everyone at Community College is 18,smokes weed all day and fails class after class.
The upselling doesn’t really bother me, because I can always say no. And yes, Oil changes are in fact pretty easy, but the details matter. Details like the using right oil weight, not cross-threading the drain plug, not overfilling, not pouring the wrong fluids into the wrong reservoirs, not spilling caustic fluids onto the paint job, failing to clean up when spills happen, remembering to reattach sensors and properly closing up the air box when a filter is replaced.
Now consider the average employee at these places. They tend not to be detail-oriented. Jiffy Lube has gotten every single one of these details wrong on my cars at one time or another, which is why three years ago, I resolved to start doing my own maintenance. I’ve saved several hundred dollars in that time, even after upgrading to synthetic.
I would bet that at least 99% of the oil changes at the “Quicky Lube” places are done without problems. Most of the car driving population is in a hurry and doesn’t understand much about an automobile. These people probably would be even more negligent about oil changes if “Quicky Lube” didn’t exist. These people lump the skilled mechanic working at a dealership or independent garage and the oil changer at the Quicky Lube in the same category.
I have a great independent shop that does all my automotive work. I don’t price shop–I know that the work from this shop is first rate. If I pay a little more for servicing, but the job is done correctly, I soon forget about the price. On the other hand, no matter how low the price, a botched job always sticks in my mind.
I used to do my own servicing–oil changes, spark plugs, etc. However, I can drop my car at my independent and have the car taken care of while I am at work. Since the earth is 3/4 water and only 1/4 land, I spend my time fishing instead of using my spare time servicing the car.
You must be kidding!!!
While i was at one(J.L.),being battered by a “tech” to buy this and that service as my car was having the oil changed,the “Tech” comes to me saying i have a parking light out,and if i want it replaced.
Ya,sure,go ahead!! Wrong answer on my part. he comes back saying its going to take awhile to change the because he was going to have to remove the GRILLE.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with upselling a repair or service as long as it’s a legitimate need and the work is done competently.
In my opinion anyway, if someone brings their car into a shop (dealer or independent) for say a simple oil change I think the mechanic would be remiss if he did not go over the car for any other needs. Several reasons why:
The vast majority of cars often need things the owners are blissfully unaware of. The perception of the car owner is that they haven’t noticed any problems therefore it must be a scam.
It generates money for the mechanic and shop.
It can possibly save someone’s life. (A lady who lived out in the sticks bring a VW in to us once for an oil change and spark plugs only and stated “don’t try to upsell me anything else”.)
As the oil drained, I looked the car over anyway and found both outer CV joint boots shredded and a right side ball joint that was flat gone. She was advised of this and authorized the repairs while thanking us for catching it.
The flip side of that would be that I should have kept my mouth shut, changed the oil and plugs as requested, and sent it out the door.
As to the difficulty of repairs even the simplest things can often take a lot of time. It’s quite possible a parking light bulb could require removal of the grille.
A large bird went through the front of the grille on my Lincoln recently and you should see what is required to change that part. The entire front bumper/valance and a fair number of other things must be removed to access some of the screws which are run into Speed nuts from the INSIDE of the valance. The top 3 screws are no problem; the 7 hidden screw heads are.
(During this process I made a few modifications so now R and R of the grille is a 10 minute job; a process that apparently a building full of Ford engineers never considered.)
You make a good point, but I suspect that the overwhelming majority of the work these places recommend does not fit the category of “legitimate need”. I myself have had to use these places in the past (long story) and despite my firm instructions that I only wanted my oil changed and nothing else was subjected to their scrutinizing the truck and trying to get me to let them do very unnecessary work based on bogus analysis tactics. I’ve also watched them reject a car for a state safety inspection because the trunk light was out, reject a car for minor oil leakage normal to an older car, and check the engine fluids on other cars during this safety inspection, requiring the owner to get the oil changed before giving him a sticker.
Your point assumes that what’s going on in these quickie lube shops is honest and legitimate. On that assmption I respectfully disagree based on my personal experiences.
Triedaq; that 1% not done right represents a lot of damaged or wrecked engines. I personally had the warmup tube on my 70s car wrecked by a major oil company’s quick lube place. My father in law sold his Buick to a friend who had a major department store’s shop drain the oil, replace the plug and not put in any oil. He went exactly 7 miles before the engine seized!
In my area, there is is only one quick lube place I trust. The owner is meticulous, the place is spotless, coffee fresh, and the staff well trained. They carry different brands and quality of oil, and ask you what oil you want for your car.
They run the engine afterwards and also show you the oil level after pulling the dipstick. I’ve never had a problem there.
The problem with the lube places is the “quicky” part. The business model used by these establishments is to offer a cheap price for the oil change; have the work done by low paid workers; not follow a quality assurance program; and up sell additional work and parts. The oil change is a loss leader. Some well managed establishments might be able to make a profit just on the volume but a lot of copy cat establishments can’t, so quality is sacrificed and the entire industry gets a black eye.
While I agree that there is an “independent bias” to the board, the typical “quick lube” place is SO bad that any criticism is truly warranted.
And I should know: I worked at one when I was younger!
The business model was: hire warm bodies, and hire a lot of 'em, 'cause the turnover is epic. Pay was about 25% over minimum. The only good thing I could say is that the owner did try to choose a moderately competent guy to work “in the pit.”
Two of my co-workers were seriously alcoholic, and just about everybody liked to “smoke.” The manager was a total [censored], and (based on his behavior) was under constant pressure to upsell.
I fully agree that a certain percentage of these facilities are crooked as sin and should be avoided like the plague. It’s often extremely difficult to know which ones are which without becoming a guinea pig though.
There are 3 fast lube facilities around here and 2 of them are known to be pretty reputable. The 3rd one I do not know about.
The one that stiffed my youngest son a few years ago down where he lives is apparently one of the crooked ones.
As to state inspections, that’s hard for me to say. When OK had an inspection program I was coerced into becoming an inspector and absolutely loathed it. It was not only a money losing deal for the mechanic (2 bucks a pop) but it was very distracting. The last thing I wanted while in the middle of tightening rod bolts was to be yanked off to perform an inspection. Under the state’s guidelines a proper inspection was supposed to take about an hour and 15 minutes, all for 2 dollars.
The state had about 3 pages of fine print single-spaced type stating the proper method for determining if a cracked windshield would pass or not. No human being could possibly decipher that gibberish and one time after listening to that crap a bit I asked the gentleman from the Dept. of Public Safety (oversaw the program) who was reading through it if he actually understood any of that himself. A minute of silence, sheepish grin, and a humbled “no”.
“Cheap” I would question as most ‘quicky’ places in my area charge up to and over $35 per change. I can have it done at my dealership for $21, but it takes a bit longer, to me the plus of the quicky place is that you are in and out pretty quick.
Quickie Lubes and chain stores can have very experienced employees. How it happens is when a man chooses quickie lube employment over unemployment and many times as men get older and leave the long term high end dealership or independant garage employment they had(for whatever reason) it happens that chain stores are all that are left for them.
My experience with *iffy Lube are similar. In 4 visits before I gave up:
Set the tire pressure too low every time, claiming that VW recommends 26 psi for all VW’s (which they don’t, tire pressure depends on model and tire size)
Broke my electronic key, requiring the car be towed to a dealer.
pushed changing the air filter each time.
This sums it up perfectly for me. To expand a bit, in my area, if someone has much mechanical aptitude, they will not work at a lube place long before they find a better-paying job at a shop, so the lube place has "the rest". One (non-chain one) near me is decent (although there was an awkward moment when they commented how my air filter *really* needed changing, and changed their mind when i commented i'd changed it 2 days ago.) The other big problem at some places is, to speed things up, they'll use air tools to screw in plugs etc. This easily strips threads, or (if it has a torque limiter) if it is misthreaded it ends up barely screwed in. (The one near me screws things in with hand tools)