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Gas & Oil Servicing

Why you should avoid Jiffy Lube for an oil change

Jiffy Lube is a national chain that exists to perform the task of changing the oil in your car. Bear in mind that there may be some great outlets of this chain around the country; however my writings here deal with one particular branch in Charleston, SC.

I worked part-time at this particular location between 1987 and 1988. My job varied daily between one of the three positions. Let me describe these positions briefly:

1. This person is the one who cleans the windows of the car and performs the interior cleaning by vacuuming carpets, etc. This is normally performed while the car waits outside in line to enter the service bay.

2. This is the person at the top of the bay. Their duties are to inspect windshield wipers, belts, fluid levels, remove the oil fill cap, and if the oil filter is accessible from above, remove the oil filter. Once the filter and plug are reinstalled, they also refill your engine oil to the proper level.

3. This person is under the floor of the bay and they remove the oil plug to allow your engine's oil to drain into a rolling tank as well as remove the oil filter and install a new filter if it cannot be reached from above. If you have opted for the lube job, they also perform this.

Reasons I vote to avoid Jiffy Lube:

1. They use "tank" oil meaning you do not know the specific brand of oil going into your car and there is no guarantee of the weight. How do you know your car is getting 5W-30, 10W-40, or other specific oil weight as prescribed by your car manufacturer if you cannot see the labels of what they are putting into your car? Yes, you can opt to purchased bottled oil at a substantially increase in cost for the service.

2. The air and oil filters Jiffy Lube sold during my time with them were Purolator filters.

3. The people working in Jiffy Lube are not always the most honorable (I will give a story explaining this later).

The people working on your car are "encouraged" to try to sell you filters, wipers, etc that your car may not truly need. I would be "spoken to" frequently for failing to attempt to try to "sell" air filters because the customer would have a brand new Fram under the hood and I refused to deceive customers that way. I repeatedly informed my supervisor that if I could not take the filter that is in their car along with a new one to the customer to show them why they should consider purchasing a filter, I would not recommend the replacement of that filter. It didn't go over


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