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OP, I sure hope you didn't go 20K miles between oil changes. Advice, stay away from Jiffy Lube and visit your dealer next time or find a good mechanic who you can develop a good relationship with to change it.
Yes, that's often not the dealership.
Different businesses of course operate differently, and the individual customer-relationship philosophies of the owners and managers certainly matter a great deal. In my experience, I've had best luck going to a mid-sized independent shop and making clear up front that I'd like to be a consistent patron. Yes, put me on your mailing list, remember my face, give me good advice good service and reasonable prices, and I'll use you for everything. I seem to be able to develop that relationship better with mid-sized independent shops than with dealerships...but the dealerships in my area are all huge.
Different businesses of course operate differently, and the individual customer-relationship philosophies of the owners and managers certainly matter a great deal. In my experience, I've had best luck going to a mid-sized independent shop and making clear up front that I'd like to be a consistent patron. Yes, put me on your mailing list, remember my face, give me good advice good service and reasonable prices, and I'll use you for everything. I seem to be able to develop that relationship better with mid-sized independent shops than with dealerships...but the dealerships in my area are all huge.
I go to the Honda dealer and always get sent there specials. I also ask for the same service advisor rather than getting a new one.
Went to a Jiffy Lube for an oil change as it was Sunday and nothing else in the area was open. The tech told me my car (2013 Nissan Altima) had a "synthetic oil requirement" and I could not use conventional oil, even though I'd had my oil changed there once previously (20K miles ago) and conventional oil was used. Total bill was $96.....no extras were done other than topping off my windshield wiper fluid. I was shocked but the work was done and I had no room to argue at that point. Curious for folks who know better than I, was I fleeced here?
Probably not screwed with needing synthetic oil, but the price seems very high. Synthetic oil change for my vehicle runs about $65 after all parts, labor, and tax.
Depending on where you are, $80 for synthetic oil change is not out of the norm. Using synthetic when you just need conventional is the rip off part.
Where I live, synthetic oil change cost:
- Craigslist posting for $50 oil change at independent shop, but yelp review is horrible at those places.
- Some places offer $69 with coupon deal.
- Normal rate is $80+.
But minimum wage here in northern California is $11, and around 1/2 of the cities have $15 minimum wage. So I suspect services prices here are likely higher than other places.
No, you weren't necessarily fleeced, but you did pay way too much for a simple oil change. One of the things I like to do when getting a new vehicle is read the owner's manual. By doing so, I found out two things about oil changes on my new truck. My new truck uses 0W-20 oil, whereas my old truck with the same engine used 5W-30. And my new truck holds 8 qts of oil, as opposed to 6 qts for my old truck. I always use synthetic, so that's not an issue. Usually the oil filler cap will tell you what kind of oil to use. I do my own oil changes, which will cost me $22.88 for a 5 qt jug of Mobil 1 0W-20, $13.50 for 3 qts of Mobil 1 0W-20 and $12 for a Mobil 1 oil filter. That's a little under $50 for oil and filter. You car only takes 4 or 5 qts of oil, so it should cost less than $40 for your oil and filter, if you buy your own. Jiffy Lube buys oil by the drum and filters by the case, so they had maybe $20 worth of oil and filter in you car and maybe $5 to $8 worth of labor. They didn't do too bad on your oil change.
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