Discuss : Worst oil change places

[Bgallagher]

Originally Posted By: satinsilver
Last oil change I took my toyota to the Ford dealer after confirming they use Motorcraft oil. Had a coupon for $20 normally $25 no appt needed. Plus they use a quality motorcraft oil filter. After 5k miles normally the oil is black. This time after 5k miles the oil is a medium honey color. Looks and even smells fine. I'm now at 6k miles and it still looks good. I know color isn't a tell all but I thought it was somewhat interesting. No oil consumption either. Just received another $20 coupon in the mail.


Welcome to a clean car! It is a nice feeling lol

I do all of my own work but for things I can't do myself I have a good local guy. Shop is bigger then a gas station but smaller then a dealership in terms of operation and price. They aren't the cheapest but they hire skilled mechanics and offer honest service. No wonder they have been in business for the last 35 years (don't screw the customer, what a wild concept.)

 

[Texan4Life]

Worst oil change place? I have never had anyone change my oil, but I had a friend that used to work a the Groovy Lube in Austin,TX. said ALL vehicles, including diesels, got 5w-30 bulk dino. Paid extra for full syn? you got bulk dino.

they only time they didn't was if a customer request a specific brand from bottles and wanted to watch them poor it in.

 

[Dave Sherman]

Lube Stop did the number on my dad's old Pontiac. It had the 2.5 Iron Duke motor, with the cartridge filter up inside the engine. It had a wide drain plug with a thick rubber gasket, and had the words "Tighten 1/4 after gasket touches" stamped on the drain plug. Lube Stop took that to mean "Tighten as much as humanly possible". After the 12 point socket rounded off the big hex head in the middle at the next oil change when I tried to remove it, I knew something was wrong. My dad tried driving the edge of it with a chisel, but no luck. In the end we took it back to Lube Stop, and they gave us a free oil change along with a new drain plug since they mangled the old one even more getting it off.

I think it was a different Lube Stop I took my Saturn to once, and got nervous when they said "We're out of 10W-30 at the moment". I looked back at the guy and said "Why are you telling me this, when it takes 5W-30?". "Oh, it does?". Fail.

 

[Phishin]

My Valvoline Quick Lube is decent.

I have a coupon that I've been using for the last 2.5 years. So, my oil change costs me $18.82 out the door!! That's cheap fellas. Plus, they top off my fluids (tranny, washer solvent, power steering, etc. etc.)

I run 10w40 in my truck, which they don't carry in Bulk, so they carry up 6 bottles from the store room and dump them in. No bulk oil. Same as you'd buy in the store. 6 quarts of Valvoline oil at Walmart is about $22-23 around here.

 

[Brit33]

Drain plug over-tightening issue here also.

They tightened it up so much it dislodged the nut on the inside of the oil pan. It's held in place with a square metal wedge welded to the pan.
I had to remove the oil pan to fix the issue.

Now I try to do my oil changes myself or I make a deal with the garage that I go down in the pit and put the drain plug in myself!.

Also filters put on too tight!

Best place = in your own garage.

 

[MNgopher]

A lot of this is management dependant. I used to take all our vehicles to one particular Valvoline Instant Oil Change Place. Things were done right and the techs there had to have their act together or they were gone. When that manager left, the place went downhill, and I started doing my own.

Every car I've bought that had a quickie lube change before it had the oil drain plug on way too tight, and the oil filter put on by a gorilla. Very annoying.

Found the same thing on other national type chains (Tires Plus, Firestone, etc...) Management sets the tone. Find a shop that does good work and stick with em. A family member who is a mechanic confirmed the same. He left one shop when the pressure to upsell every job became ridiculous.

 

[fisher83]

Price wise I would have to say the worst for me was Jiffy Lube. I took in a 2001 Hyundai Accent because it was the dead of winter and I didn't feel like doing it. I didn't ask ahead of time how much the oil change would cost, which is my fault, but I assumed around $30 or less. When it was all said and done I got 3.5 quarts of whatever cheap bulk oil and a cheap filter for $47. Had I known this, I would have just braved the cold. I could probably buy the supplies for the whole years worth of oil changes for that much! By the way, I have learned that a set of vice grips and a few taps of a hammer work wonders on a stripped drain plug. Had to do this to get the plugs off of both of my vehicles when I bought them.

 

[dishdude]

Originally Posted By: zerosoma

So later I took my vehicle to a Tires Plus. The first time they changed my oil they were extremely rude to me and kept trying to upsell me on services. I declined. I paid $32 for the oil change and was on my way. Next time I took it to a Tires Plus I couldn't remember if I liked it or not. They were super extremely rude again and the mechanic kept trying to upsell me. I said no, and I got the basic oil change again. But this time my A/C and fan on settings 1-3 did not work anymore. Someone had screwed with my car. I took it back and told them what happened. They said "you can't prove that" but offered to fix it for me for around $65. I told them 'you guys are jerks' and I left.



There is no way they tampered with your blower motor resistor during an oil change. They were doing you a favor offering to replace it for $65. There are just as many misinformed customers as bad shops!

 

[jek]

sounds to me you really need to grow a set....just sayin...

 

[Zako2]

Originally Posted By: Texan4Life
Worst oil change place? I have never had anyone change my oil, but I had a friend that used to work a the Groovy Lube in Austin,TX. said ALL vehicles, including diesels, got 5w-30 bulk dino. Paid extra for full syn? you got bulk dino.



This is the number one reason I will never trust the fast lube places and chain auto service stores to change my oil. I am actually surprised that this shop poured 5W30 instead of 10W30, which is even cheaper oil in bulk.

 

[Stephen_G]

I normally am a DIY guy, but as people here know..winter can make that a impossiblity sometimes.

Best: Jiffylube for doing my coolant properly, replacing the cap with a decent one, and for doing it promptly.

Worst: Local Carwash/Quicklube.

The worst one is the worst thanks to their upselling, my uncle went there once (24 bucks with a car wash included) and was told that he needed to get an engine flush, they pulled the same thing on my 2003 sable...i just had them put 5W30 (they were nice enough to listen to my request for the heavier oil, instead of the ford 5W20 reccomendation, at the time i did not know the engine all that much and used it as a precautionary measure, i used 5W30 for two changes, now 5W20 for the next one since i know the engines health a lot better now) and a FL400S i picked up on the way to the service center from wallyworld. at least they gave me a 3 buck discount for the filter.

I normally do my own oil changes, and i plan to do it in the winter even if it is freezing cold and i am in a rush to get it done.


My rule of thumb now: only time someone other than me touches the car, is when the dealership has a sale going on, or if it is a local place that is not a quick lube, but actualy does work on cars.

 

[zerosoma]

Originally Posted By: jek
sounds to me you really need to grow a set....just sayin...


who were you talking to? or are you just trolling?

no matter who that was intended for, I don't want that kind of [censored] in my thread.

 

[zerosoma]

Originally Posted By: dishdude
Originally Posted By: zerosoma

So later I took my vehicle to a Tires Plus. The first time they changed my oil they were extremely rude to me and kept trying to upsell me on services. I declined. I paid $32 for the oil change and was on my way. Next time I took it to a Tires Plus I couldn't remember if I liked it or not. They were super extremely rude again and the mechanic kept trying to upsell me. I said no, and I got the basic oil change again. But this time my A/C and fan on settings 1-3 did not work anymore. Someone had screwed with my car. I took it back and told them what happened. They said "you can't prove that" but offered to fix it for me for around $65. I told them 'you guys are jerks' and I left.



There is no way they tampered with your blower motor resistor during an oil change. They were doing you a favor offering to replace it for $65. There are just as many misinformed customers as bad shops!



I found it convenient that my AC was working perfectly right as I drove it up to the door, and after I got in when it was finished, it did not work at all on 1, 2, or 3. I walked in and they didn't even offer to look at it, they just said we'll replace it for $$. They already knew what was up.

 

[AlienBug]

I've never had a problem with any quick lube places. I change my own now, but in the 15 years of having quick lubes do it, they've all done it reasonably quickly for $20-$30. Also during the six years I ran a garage that did not specialize in oil changes, I never met any tech that could not master oil changes with 5 minutes instruction.

 

[RF Overlord]

I think the over-tightened drain plug and filter syndrome is due to so many stories about them not being tightened properly and having all the oil fall out of the motor 3 miles from the shop. The quick-change industry probably got tired of paying for so many engine replacements that they decided to go the other way and Superman everything down so it CAN'T fall off.

@AlienBug: You're right, it's a very simple procedure but when management spends most of its time off-site and only cares about profits and upselling, the "technicians" develop a bad work ethic as well.

 

[yonyon]

Originally Posted By: bigblumer

The local NTB was pretty rude to my wife, and tried to sell her some snow tires(not a terrible idea, but not necessary as the tires that were on the car were less than 10k old, and handled quite well), and said she was putting her kids in danger (we don't have any kids). Talk about your hard sell!


If her winter driving skills are so bad she's endangering the lives of children who haven't even been born yet that's pretty bad. I know it's hard to talk to a woman about problems with the way she drives, but if she's that much of a danger it has to be done. Butter her up a little and then just kind of ease into the subject softly. If you don't do it, who will?

 

[fdcg27]

Have not had the experience.
I've owned cars for thirty five years now, and no one other than me has ever changed the oil in any of them.
It's just too cheap and too easy to do it yourself, and no one will take better care of your car than you will.
It is so easy to get a change with syn and a decent filter for ten bucks or so, even five, with deal pricing and MIRs.
Why pay someone more to do a job that you'll do better yourself for less cost?
You can always find a place in which you can perform an oil change, and you can always plan around the cold of winter, or you can tough out the occasional change in biting cold conditions.
Nobody here should be even thinking about oil change places, unless they have physical problems that have rendered it impossible for them to do an oil change.

 

[Jarlaxle]

I had my Jeep's oil changed at a Monro, since they had a sale: oil change & tire rotation for $24...they did an OK job (Valvoline conventional and a "Valvoline" filter I think was a Champion Labs), except for three things.

One, I needed a breaker bar to get the drain plug off.
Two, the gorilla CRANKED down the filter to the point it didn't come loose until Liz and I put TWO wrenches on it.
Three, they charged me NINE DOLLARS for the extra quart of oil my Jeep uses!

They also broke TWO of the center caps on my wheels. Never again!

 

[antiqueshell]

Originally Posted By: zerosoma


I found it convenient that my AC was working perfectly right as I drove it up to the door, and after I got in when it was finished, it did not work at all on 1, 2, or 3. I walked in and they didn't even offer to look at it, they just said we'll replace it for $$. They already knew what was up.


No such thing as a coincidence is there?

I agree with you zero. As a matter of fact I have worked in the industry and worked at five dealerships over the years (as a detailer not a tech) and I can tell you that many many places will purposely break stuff so they can fix it later on. Also another technique is to "set it up" so that they will do just enough damage to an item or items so that it won't break when it comes right out of the shop but possibly a few weeks or months afterwards. Happens all the time, the industry rightly deserves the suspicion the consumers have, it is TOTALLY justified, not to say there aren't good shops out there but there are many many more bad ones than good.

I wonder if that place didn't put a jumper box booster onto your perfectly good battery turned on the car with the fan running and used the "boost" feature on the box, this if the fan was running could burn out the resistor on the speed settings switch.

I believe I had a dealer help my old radiator along to its death by hitting it with a dull mallet helping to create a stress crack just weeks after it went in for an oil change, and previously the year before it was in for an oil change and yep, you guessed it a few weeks later the gas tank suddenly has a leak. BTW we live in the south so no salt is used in the roads here either. Coincidence, I seriously doubt it.

 

[Jocephus]

My Toyota dealer in GA didn't put the oil cap back on my wifes car and oil went everywhere. When she noticed she took it back in and then they tried charging her to clean the motor. She won the argument. (I was deployed)

4 months later we moved from GA to TX. Went to different Toyota dealer and I watched the guy use an impact wrench on the oil drain plug. When I told the service manager, he pretty much ignored me.


You know the free Toyota service? Threw those coupons away...I'm NEVER going to use a Toyota dealer again. (Got a T-Ten certified mechanic to do all the stuff to keep us in warranty now).

Love the car, but this will be our last Toyota.