The Fast Lube Rip Off

Cars become more complex every year, and do-it-yourself guys like me find it harder to maintain a late model car. Routine maintenance service at dealerships generates its share of problems, but the growth of the quick lube business has created a firestorm of complaints.

Just Google the name of your nearest expeditious petroleum exchange franchise with "sucks" as a suffix.

But while we peer into the sometimes seedy world of easy lubes, remember: it's a tough job and somebody's got to do it. There are bad, better, and best among these operations. Let's try to weed a few of the worst out.

Have Ya Heard About the Midnight Rambler?

In the early years of the automobile business, hand painted signs advertised "mechanic on duty" outside the quickly growing number of "service stations."

In 1972 I was a newly married, financially struggling college sophomore. I got a night job in a service station at a busy intersection in Madison, WI.

At full service stations, attendants pumped all the gas, checked customers oil, washed windows, and generally made nice. We did lots of light mechanical work; oil changes, thermostats, mufflers, and flat tires.

The old "full-service" station business model was in trouble, as convenience stores with self-service gas pumps popped up selling the high margin impulse items that had supported the mechanic traffic.

The owner, whose real name wasn't Pete, worked the day shift. I went to school days and worked evenings four to midnight. Pete had re-mortgaged his farm to buy the gas station, and was very dissatisfied with the shrinking profits.

He taught me all the station driveway tricks, like inserting the dipstick with a thumb underneath the flange so it showed exactly one quart low. After practice on customers who remained in their car, I learned to do this with the customer standing there watching.

Once the hood went up, I'd start to work on the thumbscrew that secured the air cleaner.

"Look ma'am, there's too much dust in your air cleaner, even dead grasshoppers and a butterfly",

"Needs a new one, shouldn't drive on without it, sure hope we got the right part."

In those days, in summer, even a two week old air filter would have a couple bugs on it.

Our best sales were in the winter months, when we'd tow in frozen-up cars, so cold they wouldn't jump start. When a battery gets too cold, it acts a lot like a bad cell. We sold plenty of new batteries to these folks.

Most of the batteries we replaced took a charge after we took them in the office to warm up. Old batteries went in the trash in those days, but there was a guy who came and paid good money for many of ours.

But despite these heroic efforts, sales continued to slide.

Pete, who kept a loaded .38 snub nosed revolver in his desk, thought he knew all the tricks of the trade. He left the desk unlocked at night, expecting me to use the gun to resist a stick-up.

Although he had taught me well, I learned a few extra tricks. The student was determined to become a master. Next to that pistol lay the keys to the gas pumps.

I'd simply adjust the price to $00.01, and make 30 cents on every discounted gallon I sold to my school buddies and other special customers. Gas station markup on that sixty cent gas was only about 4 cents.

There was also a scam that involved turning up the price and effectively overcharging the straight customers. I passed this one up as too risky: what if somebody got wise and squawked?

Every morning he'd use a stick to measure the tanks to make sure they roughly matched the gallons sold on the pump meters. Real cautious, I don't think he trusted me. But he could never get wise to my scam.

After doing this for a while, I had my own little inside business going. Quite a few customers came in between 10:00 PM and midnight for discounts on fuel, oil changes, and other services.

After a year, I transferred to a better school and moved upstate.

A couple years later I stopped in Madison and drove by to see Pete. The station, though modern, was vacant. Pete was gone, along with the old fashioned "service station."

Comes a Horseman

By the early 80's industry pioneer Jiffy Lube was rolling out new franchises to much fanfare.

At that time, Detroit big 3 franchised dealerships saw oil changes as a waste of their tech's time and let the oil change business slip away.

Seeking instant gratification, customers flocked to have car maintenance done at the automotive equivalent of Burger King while en route to another appointment.

Eventually, the majority of oil changes were performed by “quick lubes” of various types. Few segments of the automotive business have grown as rapidly as the quick lube industry.

Quick lube shops offering bargain lubrication service are still popping up everywhere. Mobil, Penzoil, Valvoline, Castrol, and other oil companies all offer franchises to increase distribution of their products.

The old service station ethics challenge carried over into the evolved model that replaced it.

In 1991 I bought a brand new Ford Ranger 4x4 V6 pickup. With about 6,000 miles, I took it to a Q-lube for its second oil change. I specified a premium oil, the tech agreed and I made sure to watch as he took the yellow bottles off the top shelf and poured the contents into my block.

After less than 200 miles, my new engine began knocking like it was running dry.

Lucky for me, I was one downhill block from my driveway. I shut it down and coasted home. I drained the oil, which had the watery viscosity of gasoline.

Whatever was in those yellow bottles wasn't put there by the factory.

The Population Bomb: Density and Demographics

Today the U.S. fast lube market is overbuilt. There are over over 2,200 Jiffy Lube locations alone, and hundreds of copycat chains. This is a price driven service business with very narrow margins, a saturated commodity market whose leading price competition is Wal-Mart.

But small business entrepreneurs, mostly new entrants to the industry, continue to flock to this market.

For lube shops, location is everything. The average customer drives 5.7 miles to get an oil change, commonly stopping at the first place they see.

People tend to have their oil changed in three places: near the house, close to work, or wherever they see a fast lube near vacation destinations.

Many new stores are opening in areas where traffic is high but demographics and location do not support another shop. Lots of the new owners have not done their homework.

With flat or declining car counts, the existing players cannot afford to lose a single customer. The typical small oil store has two or three bays, processes 25-30 cars a day and averages about $50.00 per ticket. The national average is around 37 cars: at least 35 cars a day are needed to prosper.

There has also been a shift in the attitude of car dealerships toward the oil change business. Dealers have begun installing lubes into existing service bays or building free-standing lube shops on the dealership property.

The upselling model has come to dealer shops big time and they regret dropping the lube game. Oil changes are becoming a loss-leader. But Wal-Mart, big tire distributors, and car dealerships have plenty of products to upsell to a captive audience.

If that level of competition wasn't bad enough, a new corps of mobile fast lube operators sprang up. Working out of vans, these guys brought the fast lubrication game on-site, to the customer. Your driveway, workplace parking lot, airport rental car parking, or any level location was fair game.

The result is an industry squeezed even tighter than the car dealers themselves.

Inferior Products: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

The results of an oil change are not something a customer can see physically.

To most car owners, oil is just black stuff they'd rather not touch. But just exactly what oil is going in your car while you are ushered to a waiting room?

Owner's manual recommendations conflict with the single weight SAE30 bulk oil pumped delivery method needed to move cars quickly through the shop.

When the State of California wanted to deal with waste oil disposal, they approached hurry lube chains with proposals for using recycled oil. Some shops already knew how.

There is a very large difference in the ability of various petroleum filtration products to capture micron-sized particulate contamination. Today poor quality oil filters, made-in-China, can easily be substituted.

Chronic Upselling

Since there is little money in actual speedy lube service, operators must try to grow into other areas. The profits are almost always in the additional sales, the object is to raise the average ticket to $60-100.

The upselling revolution, pushing the customer to buy additional products, is well underway in every auto shop including dealerships.

But at many speed oil shops technical expertise is often lacking to offer additional service.

Automatic transmission flushes, manual gear box fluid changes, and windshield wipers offer the quickest money. With customers so uninformed, once the car is in the shop, and they are in the waiting room, anything could be claimed to be wrong with the car.

Lube techs, like their on-site managers, usually have a bonus plan which encourages them to sell unneeded and overpriced services.

Pumping overpriced, and often low quality, bulk fluids mixed onsite (antifreeze and windshield washer fluid) has provided a profit center for some enterprising shops.

A Good Man is Hard to Find

Reliable, honest, full time lube bay help is seriously hard to find. Labor costs and productivity are a priority for owners, but how does a lube shop doing only 23 cars a day pay for experience?

The absolute lack of career advancement assures inexperience in these low-wage high-turnover jobs.

Some of the better operations have added a training department.

A typical lube tech, 17 to 25 years old, was a marginal graduate or dropped out of high school.

People in this group often lack a fully developed work ethic.

Many began with the assumption they would enjoy working on cars. Doing speed-lubes isn't what they imagined.

Management imperatives for labor productivity produce short cuts and serious mistakes.

The Sting: Low Quality Service

In the trade-off of service vs. speed, service is always the loser.

For starters, a major factor in the quality of an oil change is TIME!

Oil at the bottom of the pan carries the heaviest particles. As that last hundred drops of oil crawls across the bottom of the pan, little flakes of metal can be seen.

A proper oil change requires a fully warmed-up motor and at least 5 minutes waiting for the dripping to slow to a crawl. And this assumes there is no sludge in the pan or galleries. It takes the one resource fast lubes are short of to do correctly. Quality quick lube is a world class oxymoron, a walking contradiction.

The condition of used oil speaks volumes to qualified mechanics. Commercial fleets use oil analysis to determine internal engine wear, trading a vehicle as metal ratios begin to slide.

One easy way to cut corners is to leave some oil in the engine. As soon as the dirty petroleum flow slows to a manageable level, wipe with a shop rag and reinsert the drain plug.

If there is still a quart of oil left in the block, one less quart has to be added. This is an opportunity for graft.

Another old service station trick was to run out and pull the dipstick as soon as the customer turned off the engine. Oil takes a while to run back to the bottom of the engine, so this would usually produce the desired "quart low" reading.

In a really fast lube shop operation on a cool engine, the pit man can pull the drain plug, drop the oil, and replace the plug while oil is still running down from the upper cam bearings or rocker arms. Especially in sludged up mills, lots of oil can be still stacked up, pooled above obscured galleries.

Air pressure operated fluid evacuation machines, which pump out oil though the dipstick tube, are employed in some shops. These cannot remove 100% of the old lubricant. 80% is typical under two-minute-drill conditions on warm motors. These can never remove oil sludge from pans or galleries.

Dealers and good lube shops won't do this, and manufacturers don't recommend it.

Cars with damaged oil drain plugs often get this treatment, partly due to the high damage claim costs that plague the business.

Lube fast operations often add incorrect spec fluids to transmission fluid, brake fluid, power steering fluid, antifreeze, and fuel. It is just too easy for them to substitute a cheaper or available incorrect fluid and cause permanent damage to your vehicle.

Overfilling the crankcase can damage an engine, techs must look up every job and not work from memory. Technical bulletins (TSB), available at dealerships, may not be consulted at fast lubes.

Changes in the engine compartment have made it harder for fast lubes to service cars. Hard to reach filters encourage workers to forget that task.

The rubber o-ring gasket on the oil filter, which seals it to the block, has always been problematic. This seal can fail if it is not oiled before installation, but this step is often skipped.

Older vehicles may still have grease Zerk fittings to lubricate the suspension. These may be covered with dirt and are often neglected.

Improperly replaced transmission, differential and transfer case drain and refill plugs are common in fast-paced automotive service bays.

Aluminum Oil Pans

Aluminum oil pans, used on many Chryslers, Volkswagens, and Hondas, require a torque wrench and some finesse to avoid damage. The torque wrench is the magic wand carried only by full ranked automotive technicians. Manufacturers are very picky about torque specifications, which measure the tightness of bolts.

Too loose, the drain bolt vibrates off, too tight it strips threads or damages the oil pan.

The top two or three threads of a typical bolt carry the majority of the load. Over tightening or cross threading pan bolts is extremely common in cars worked on in less auspicious shops. Once the oil pan is damaged, the blame casting starts.

A tech, finding or causing damage to a bolt or pan, may or may not choose to ask his manager for advice.

Stop gap repairs are the usual remedy. Sometimes a stripped bolt can be run back in the hole, and the car sent on its way. Although some will run a tap through the hole, this is unacceptable where they caused the damage. Often the only way to fix the problem is a new oil pan, about $600.

How many shops would inform a customer that their oil drain aperture had to be tapped or an over sized self cutting plug was used? Not many. This happened to me once; they said I had just received a "free new drain plug."

Months later I discovered the nonstandard thread pattern.

There are many stories of late model cars going in for service and coming out with an electronic fault code far beyond the lube shop's ability to diagnose. Sometimes they have just bumped a wire off its terminal, other times driving the car to a real technician could damage it.

As these shops try to expand into other relatively mundane services, such as tire rotation, problems develop. The simple job of tire rotation has become more complex, resulting in incorrect wheel placements, stripped lug studs, and rim damage.

Steal Away

Lube store owners often sweeten the salary package with free oil changes. This is like free hamburgers for fast food employees: might as well call it a benefit because workers will find a way to take it.

Shops like these just naturally end up with lots of "US government work" going on. This is mechanic code for inside entrepreneurship (crime). There are always opportunities to sell take-off parts in the community. When near-new PVC valves, air filters, batteries, and other parts are removed, they present an opening.

It doesn't take long for the opening to widen.

How many customers would even try to check to see if hidden parts were actually replaced?

If the old and new oil filters are identical, time and money suggest simply wiping off the old oil filter with a shop rag and passing it off as a new one. Even the tech-savvy may not notice if their same-brand oil filter was not changed.

This offers a source for brand new parts, shown on the owner's books as installed, but actually moving out onto the street.

Just last month, my son's Thunderbird came back from a Wal-Mart oil change with the exact same oil filter it went in with. We took the car out to our lot and did the whole job again. Could have been an honest mistake, or could'a been a boost job.

Don't care, won't go back.

One chronic owner compliant is employee cell phone abuse. Sure, they are mostly talking social trash, but some are doing a brisk business locating buyers for the parts train.

Lube shop owners have begun installing security cameras over the cash register, entrance, exit, and at all four corners in the bay. This protects them from both customers and employees.

Some chains are installing cameras and screens positioned so the customer can sit in their car and verify the work being performed.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Who will survive this oil change shop shakeout is the question. I think poorly educated consumers are part of the problem. We can influence the selection of survivors by avoiding the bad shops.

Pressures for dishonesty, long ingrained, could force legitimate operators, stuck doing oil changes and selling only needed repairs, out of the game.

Since most car owners will still have to use this industry we can't just dismiss it. Like the independent franchised car dealership, consumers must learn to evaluate lube shops.

Satisfaction is dependent on store management and technician tenure and quality. Many of the people working in this business do a good job under tough conditions for few thanks. Our job as consumers is to find these quality providers and reward them. Buyer Beware.

Be sure to check out this must see video about Jiffy Lube
TV Station Fast Lube Expose

A short, funny anecdote about my earliest years in the oil change business:
Oil Change Special: The Risk of Amateur Lube Technicians

Jiffy Lube Complaints at consumeraffairs.com

Another Antijiffy Lube site