I’m making that necessary trip to the local Jiffy Lube again, and as always, the mechanics here are giving me my weight in bullshit. After the eightieth time getting hassled about shit that I know isn’t in need of a fix, I have to wonder whether or not these guys are on commission. Here’s what went down:
Me: “I see you have your yellow checklist there. Lets get this over with quickly. I just have the time for an oil change today, so no extraneous services, alright?”
Him: “You sure you dont want a car wash?”
Me: “No, just the oil please.”
Him: “Looks like your air filter is pretty dusty and cracked. You want us to…”
Me: *picks up air filter, shakes it a bit* “No thanks. Just the oil.”
Him: “Well we’re running a special on engine cleaning. It gets all the gunk and dirt and stuff out and it’s normally 89.99 but today it’s only fif…”
Me: “No time. Just oil.”
Him: “How about your tires? Do you get them rotated someplace else or…”
Me: “Look man, I don’t want to be rude but I don’t even have time for the oil change now, so can we please just get on with this?”
Him: “OK man, sure thing. …. you know, your fuel filter is supposed to be changed every sixty thousand miles and you still have the factory one. See the fuel filter gathers all of the gunk and dirt that comes…”
Me: *places face in hands* “I know what a fuel filter does, and I can replace it myself, just like I’m seriously considering doing with the oil, so please, Please. Please.
Him: “How about your windshield wipers? 18 bucks to replace those, they’re pretty thrashed.”
Me: “I SAID..uh…hmm… well shit, yeah, why not. Now that you’ve upsold me, can you change the oil?”
Him: “Sure man, no problem. Now if I knock five bucks off the price of the engine cleaning, would you…”
Me: *walks away*
Now why would I even consider the windshield wipers on a hot summer’s day? Well, considering the fact that I’ve been meaning to put new ones on since last winter and still haven’t gotten around to it, I can stand to pay the five bucks labor charge to have them do it instead. Although you have to wonder what kind of a lazy prick would pay to have his wipers installed, but balks at the idea of someone else replacing the fuel filter? Just me baby, just me. Well, me and all of the other lazy sociopaths out there.
hah, jiffy lubeyes, they do work on commission. two buddies of mine in glen ellyn, IL, work at jiffy lube and try to sell the shit out of everything they have. dunno how much commission they get, but if its as bad as you say, its probably quite a bit.
I hate those bastards.There is only one of those places near me that doesn’t try to sell me their entire portfolio with each visit. One of them tried to really rip me off once. I went in for an oil and filter change only to have the guy drag me to the car and explain how dirty my transmission fluid was. He went on with his little speech about how it was full of metal filings and how their special flush service could clean it out and make it damn near like new again. I let him finish his little speech before telling him that the transmission in question had less than 20k miles on it, was a factory warranty replacement, was serviced at a dealer, and what he was showing me wasn’t even transmission fluid. He had taken a drop of oil off the dipstick and slapped it on his little color chart and tried to pass it off as really bad transmission fluid. Damn apartment complexes for not letting people change their own oil…
Jiffy Lube I managed a jiffy Lube. I quit that job about 13 years ago. The way it worked then was like this: Each \”hood tech\” gets commission on everything he sells whether it be service or parts. The assistant manager then gets a commission at the end of the month equal to HALF that of the total commissions earned by all the hood techs. The manager gets a bonus based on his ATP (average ticket price) the goal is about 6.00 over oil change cost. so if the OC is 24.00 the goal is 3.00 for every dollar you average over 30.00 for the months total. You get about 500.00 so if your average ATP is say 34.00 for the month you’ll get 2000.00 in commissions. It’s a hot miserable job. Customers yell at you to JUST CHANGE THE OIL all day long 7 days a week.
local shopstheyll change my oil and be lucky i wont peel out on their dumbasses. i try to avoid all megolithic companies as much as possible.
Not Always The CaseI got my oil changed the other day at the local Firestone. Lucky me I use a company credit card to do all the charges. I was supposed to get the fuel filters changed when they realized that a Dodge Ram has fuel filters requiring real labor to work on. Needless to say, they made it very evident that they weren’t about to be bothered with this work, no matter how much they could charge. Guess you just got the workaholics.
uhmWhy does this post sound so familiar…