Originally Posted By: jeepman3071
Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit
Something like a transmission filter is more than obvious; there's no reason why anyone who touches the underside of a car wouldn't know the difference in the filters unless it's someone who has no qualifications whatsoever and has no business playing mechanic at a Walmart.
A customer has a reasonable expectation that whoever the shop has working on their car knows the difference between a transmission filter and an engine oil filter. Trying to shift the blame off Walmart is the only folly here.
This exactly.
There are plenty of people who know absolutely nothing about cars who expect that the people whom they are paying to do a job will do it correctly. One of my Ex-GFs had a car that was a 5 speed. She went to a place to have her car serviced and came back with a bill for an ATF change. They charged her $49.99 for a service that couldn't possibly be performed on her car. She paid for it because she trusted the "professional" to know what he was doing, and that since he was a "professional" he would know when to change fluids in her particular vehicle. The same way we trust Cable TV guys, Dentists, and Pilots to do their job, because they are the experts, and they know how to do things we can't.
If someone can't do a job that they are getting paid to do, they shouldn't be doing it. There are really no excuses for Wal-Mart, and their management is the responsible party. I can change the oil in a car I've never touched before, and it takes me 1.3 seconds to look up the oil capacity, oil weight, and compatible filter numbers. There are even pictures showing where the drain plug and filters are. Not to mention the owners manual, All-Data, etc. This isn't an issue of not understanding how to do a job, this is laziness and incompetence. Sadly, it usually starts at management and works its way down.
I largely agree but you also need to factor in those excess charges are a matter of profit making policy / upselling. And the whole ruse of advertising a low price but it being very rarely attainable and being an upsell opportunity.
Ironically, part of the reason that the quality of work is so bad at a place like Walmart is that in a market as big as the US there's a race to the bottom for lowest price and hence cost to attract volume to make profit. With some things, it works against the consumer who wants quality work. Walmart is also affected by the aforementioned cheap oil changes outlets who use it as a ruse to upsell.
When asked for advice for where to get an oil change from someone I know who cannot do it themselves or hasn't time or knowledge to seek out good alternatives, either I point them to a good independent who I've used who knows their make or I tell them to look for online coupons from their nearest dealers and to get the free multipoint inspection. $30-$40 vs an advertised $20 place is worth the reduction in risk and improvement in work quality.
Recently, I learnt that someone we know got their Lexus oil changes at Jiffy Lube. I used to have the dealer do my Lexus oil change because there was always a $50 deal for oil change and rotation. Out of interest I looked up the procedure to change an oil filter on that model Lexus and I'm even more convinced that it's better to take it to a quality independent or a dealer. Just too much of an opportunity for it not to be changed or be done sloppily.
