Tipster Toland pointed us toward the Stonecipher Report which contains an entry about a weary traveler who, against his better judgment, decided to get his oil changed at Wal-Mart. After his car was returned, he noticed that his oil monitoring system was still indicating 10% oil life. He asked the Wal-Mart employee if the oil had actually been changed to which she replied, “Yep, I know it was, cause I did it myself.” He then went to go check the dipstick and discovered the oil hadn’t been changed after all. His post, inside…
Hey everyone, been on the road for two days now and I’m about to pull out of Idaho Falls, ID and head north and then east into Montana.
The drive has been beautiful so far. Eastern Oregon is incredible. I had driven through there in the past, but it was night time and I didn’t know what I was missing, but wow, one of the most colorful places I’ve ever been.
My travel was delayed a bit, however, when I stopped to get my oil changed, and I thought the story was worth passing along.
Now, I ordinarily avoid Wal-Mart like the plague, but I needed a change and I was about to hit a piece of road with no services for over 100 miles, so I figured I better get it done while I had the chance.
Sadly, the ONLY place in town to change my oil was at the local Wal-Mart. So as sick as it made my stomach, I pulled up and did it.
The girl (yes, not a woman) who took my information seemed friendly at first. She politely inquired about the full car load of stuff and said “you must be going somewhere cool.”
“Chicago” I said with a smile.
I handed her the keys to the car and stepped out. She told me it would be a 20-minute wait, so I grabbed the iPod and the paper I had and went into the waiting room.
By the way, the one thing I was happy about was that at least this oil change was going to be cheap. Under $25.
About 25 minutes later the girl came into the waiting room and told me the car was ready. I paid, took back my keys and jumped in, ready to hit the open road again.
But when I turned on my car the oil monitoring system said I was still at 10% of my oil’s life.
That was weird.
I got out of the car and asked the girl if she was sure that the oil change had in fact been done. She said “Yep, I know it was, cause I did it myself.”
“Can you explain why my car is telling me it hasn’t been?”
“Well we don’t reset the meter in any of those Japanese cars” was her response.
I thought maybe she was right. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure if this was something that had to be reset myself or if the car automatically did it upon an oil change.
The only way to find out was to check for myself. So I headed back to the car, popped the hood, and stuck in the dipstick.
Sure enough, it was almost empty.
Unreal. They had just charged me $24 and told me they had changed the oil, but it was never done! They knew they were the only place for miles and miles, this could cause serious problems for people without the monitoring system to alert them it wasn’t done.
If it wasn’t for that I never would have thought to double check. In the future I will.
Anyhow, at this point I wasn’t Wal-mart’s happiest customer ever. So I went back in and told the girl what I found.
She called in the mechanic and IN FRONT OF ME said to him “why didn’t you change the oil?” Clearly she either forgot, or just didn’t care that she had already told me that SHE had done it.
His response was “You told me to just pull it into the lot, you didn’t say anything about an oil change.”
I was on the mechanic’s side for a minute until he looked at me and said “When we get these foreign cars in here, sometimes it gets confusing.”
Now I was just livid.
First of all, my car being foreign was 100%, fully and completely irrelevant to the fact that they had just charged me $24 to allow my car to sit in their garage for 24 minutes before pulling it into their parking lot. A dollar a minute. Wow.
On top of that, the disdain for my foreign car was becoming very apparent now. Which was also irritating. My bet is that neither of these people knew that while their own American cars were built by foreign workers for next-to-nothing wages, all of my Honda Civic (with the exception of the engine) was assembled in Ohio by well paid, and highly skilled Americans.
The parts were also produced in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, once again, by American workers.
Long story short, I thought about getting a manager and demanding my money back. And in retrospect, I should have. But I wanted to get back to the road and try to keep my blood pressure low. So I waited a few more minutes while the mechanic replaced the oil in my ever-so-complex Civic and instead of getting my money back I’ll just blog about what a rotten, evil and horrible place Wal-Mart is.
I hate Wal-Mart. Ok, so now it’s time for me to hit the road, so much for this being a quick note.
The lesson: When your gut says don’t go to Wal-Mart, listen to your gut. Also, it is a good idea to check your engine’s dipstick no matter where you get your oil changed.
A Quick Note From Idaho (And Why I Hate Wal-Mart) [Stonecipher]
(Photo: Getty)
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@mndjkc The passive-agressive locals I enountered were not Californians, this is certain. I was out in that area of the country to do a job for the company I worked for in various locations. It was like a trip to the twilight zone.
@Eyebrows McGee – For those readers who don’t understand FIB it stands for Fricking (well, stronger) Illinois Ba$tard.
The background is: Illinois doesn’t have a heck of a lot of state parks that are much more than flat treeless fields and definitely fewer lakes than Wisconsin. Options for recreation are somewhat more limited. It’s not my opinion either – I remember sitting in an apartment in Chicago where I was living, looking at the state park map and saying – “You’ve GOT to be kidding.”
I grew up in Wisconsin in a town that was 11 miles from the state line… and am not offended in the least by the FIB concept – I’ve said it more than once, myself.
Illinois sales tax covers everything except books and newspapers. From anywhere on the north side of Chicago the drive to the closest group of stores in Wisconsin is a little under an hour and a half. Given that you’re going to pay 8% tax on your milk in Chicago, it’s no wonder that the grocery store parking lots in Wisconsin are jammed on weekends with FIBs.
The State of Wisconsin has some written and unwritten policies to discourage them. Written policies come in the form of higher “non-resident” fees for state and county parks. A car-load of residents might pay $5.00. A car-load of non-residents may well pay $35.00.
The other one is more insidious. Small Wisconsin towns use speed enforcement as a giant cash cow. The cops all know the locals so they are less likely to get a ticket (they are also, well, local… they will show up in court to fight it). But if the speed limit is 25 and the car with the Wisconsin plates is doing 38 and the car with the out-of-state plates is doing 37 — the car with the out of state plates is the one thats going to get the ticket. Far less likely to make the trip all the way back and go to court. (The entire area around Lake Geneva, WI is the VERY worst. That entire county is a speed trap.)
The police agencies without exception deny that this is the case. All it takes is a drive up I-94 from the state line at Kenosha as far north as you’re going (I used to drive Chicago to Minneapolis and was WELL AWARE that my Illinois car may as well have had a huge dollar-sign shaped target on it!). Anyone with eyes and a brain can see that the Wisconsin drivers are speeding as much as everyone else – but 90% of the cars pulled over have out of state plates.
I was pulled over once in a car with Minnesota plates. I was doing 76mph, 11 over. However when the trooper came back to the car he asked, “Did you used to live at [address] in [name of Wisconsin city]?” I replied in the affirmative. He handed me a warning and told me to slow down and have a nice day.
As for oil changes – I have a local mechanic I trust here in Phoenix and ONLY that mechanic handles oil chanages. I do mean, mechanic. As in certified.
The employees of the typical quickie-oil-change place don’t give a damn about your car. They are working there for a variety of reasons, like not graduating from high school, having to buy diapers for a baby they did not plan on or to buy weed – or some combination of all three.
@WiglyWorm:
Interesting features. I had heard they were possibly coming out, but thats not how honda and GM do it. I was told that any kind of qualitative measurement would be skewed by the fact that oils vary so wildly in many respects.
I once got a bad flat tire in Northwest Indiana and was towed to Wal-mart, apparently the once place remotely nearby to get tires. They only had one of my tires so I only replaced a single tire. As soon as I got back on the expressway, my tire pressure warning light came on. When I checked the pressure, none of the tires matched, but the new tire replaced by Wal-mart was about 15 psi off from the set pressure. I can’t believe they let me drive away like that.
@beavis88:
Volkswagen and Land Rover both say that. Its true that some of it can get eaten up, but their systems are more disposed to doing it. Thats why people call landrovers leaky pieces of shit.
I owed a VW bug. Its tendancy to suck and the fact that its virtually impossible to change the tires led me to sell it.
Check oil cold, transmission fluid warm.
All you guys bashing the guys story as implausible because there wasn’t any oil on the dipstick after the oil change: Regardless of the state of the engine before the oil change, the measurement after the change should have shown a measurable amount of clear oil on the dipstick if they had actually refilled it. Either that or they “forgot” to recap the drain hole or reinstall the filter. No matter how you slice it, they didn’t do the job that he had paid for.
And I’m not surprised you got an attitude about foreign cars. Even if someone in that town does drive a Honda, it’s probably an SUV or pickup.
I hipped to the write-your-initials-on-the-oil-filter when a nice independent place in IL wrote initials and date in paint pen on the filter plus paint penned the edge of the re-installed drain plug to oil pan.
I expanded on this by initials, date, mileage, and weight of oil so I will never forget what I previously put in the car/truck.
My family also had a family friend lose his Honda Accord engine when a dufus didn’t refill with oil…
“Eastern Oregon is incredible. I had driven through there in the past, but it was night time and I didn’t know what I was missing, but wow, one of the most colorful places I’ve ever been.”
See, he’s set us up to know he’s lieing right here.
The gorge is gorgeous, but once you leave the gorge you’re looking at desert and army chemical dump facilities for eons… It might be pretty for the first 15 minutes, then your brain freezes over with boredom and you realize you’re passing through the lease interesting landscape on earth.
Not to say there aren’t pretty places in Eastern Oregon, there are, just nothing you’d see passing through the main highways. Unless this guy is doing a “pretty tour” of eastern Oregon with all his free time, i call BS.
Boy Idaho Falls must be growing. I don’t even remember there being a WalMart there when I lived there. Of course that was 25 years ago…
“The lesson: When your gut says don’t go to Wal-Mart, listen to your gut.”
No, as the guy said, Wal-Mart was his only option. It was the only place offering an oil change for the next 100 miles. Sounds like you need to read your own articles a bit more closely it seems.
One more oil change “mechanic” error (this guy even had that accreditation patch on):
Him: Your car is pretty new. Did you repaint it?
Me: No, it hasn’t been repainted.
Him: Well, looking underneath, I can tell that it’s been repainted.
Me: It’s a Saturn. There ain’t a splotch of paint on most of it. How can you tell that?
Him: …
I’ve owned several “foreign” and “american” cars and one of each was a pain in the ass to change the oil on due to filter location, BUT not impossible. One was a Saturn SL2, and the other a Nissan Altima, both had their filters on the back of the motor. This is normal for transverse mounted engines but they both had some obstructions making it a little hard. It just happens…
But it’s Wal-Mart.
@karmaghost:
Not being overly critical of your post but does Google Maps also give the hours of operation for these other places? Maybe Wal-Mart was the only place open when this happened. Or perhaps it was the only place he could get into right away.
@battra92: Phew…. 2 1/2 hour drive from WHERE?? Geeez, maybe I should just send you some of their BBQ sauce and you can do your own BBQ for much cheaper!!
On a personal note… my friend had her wedding there at the log cabin with a buffet…. DIVINE.
My dad went to Wal-Mart for an oil-change and specifically asked for synthetic oil. He usually does it himself, but it was a new car that wanted 5W-20 oil and he didn’t have any on hand. After dropping the car off, he then proceeded to buy a shotgun for reasons unrelated to the story.
When the assistant manager went to put the shotgun in the car (you’re not allowed to carry guns in the store), my father happened to notice through the window was pouring el-cheapo, Wal-Mart brand oil into the car!
So my dad confronted the assistant manager, who said that while he did pay extra for the synthetic oil, it was impossible to adjust a work order for some mumbo-jumbo reason. He demands to talk to the general manager, who comes back (about 45 minutes later), apologizes, and voids the initial sale, and has the clerk re-ring it — again charging extra for the synthetic oil!
So, kind of pissed off at this point, he demands to see the manager again, and he comes back 30 minutes later — with a state trooper. The GM asked the trooper to arrest my dad for fraud!
To make a long story short, the trooper talks to my dad, finds the 5 quarts of 5W-20 in a garbage can, listens to the incoherent and conflicting stories of the staff, and makes the manager refund the money that he never paid for the oil change!
@tekno-yanqui: You said
“Consider yourself lucky you didn’t raise your voice or you wouldn’t have had a chance to post until you made bail.”
Um what the fuck ever!
It is his RIGHT to raise his voice when he is ripped off, and THEY should have been arrested for fraud, not HIM. Raising his voice IS NOT a crime. YOU need to get a clue.
Just because you would have been a wimp bottom-feeder in the store doesn’t mean everyone else should, and if they have spines they should be arrested.
Being an assertive / even aggressive consumer and standing up for your rights IS NOT A CRIME. EVER. PERIOD.
@bwcbwc: No, you check oil when its warm. Not cold. Read your manual.
People should just learn how to change there oil. It’s not that hard like pulling out a engine or transmission. I use to help people, but I don’t want to be bothered with the sub-standard job these so-called “techs” do anymore. The “friend” calls me up and asks me to change this oil. I actually had to take off the oil pan and use a pair of vise grips on the inside to get the rest of the plug cause he took it to the local quick-oil shop{Now known as Valvoline Quick lube} and those morons busted the head clean off.
In the end,I had to re-tap the hole and put in a new drainplug for it. I asked him to pay me for the drainplug and he has the nerve to say no, so I told him to get bent and don’t come back.
Seems everyone wants to be your friend when you know your stuff about cars and you put out your own money for there car.
I’ll pile on.
This guy known nothing about cars and is a DBag for going off on Wal-Mart when all he needed to do was RTFM and reset the dumb “oil life” monitor on his Honda.
They changed the oil. Also, this story (or one almost EXACTLY like it) was on digg a bit ago, but it seems some of the details have changed a bit. I think this may be one in a series of “let’s make up some shit to bash Wal-Mart” posts.
I’ve bought tires at Sam’s Club for years. They do a great job, they’re cheap, fast, and courteous.
First, there’s a Pennzoil literally across the lot from the only walmart in IF (ammon, actually). Second, apparently the walmart is in OP’s mind the only place in IF to get your oil changed, because it’s pretty much diametrically opposite of any place you’d get on the highway from to head east, coupled with the fact that you actually have to TRY to avoid an exit with a jiffy lube or Pennzoil within spitting distance in the IF area. Third, dude just got a MAJOR screwjob and didn’t even involve a manager?! riiight. complete bullshit, I’m guessing he went through Lolo pass anyways and never saw SE idaho
@bbvk05:
Umm wow.. engines burn oil over time, that is a fact. It shouldn’t be near empty though, since the engine was just on, its not a perfect matter.
But the color of the oil would be clear to indicate if it was changed or not as it was supposedly just changed.
Walmart’s behavior here was appalling, a person who did not know much about their car could have caused real damage thinking it was just changed.
@ShadowFalls:
As if I was disputing that engines burn oil at all. In a well functioning engine it would hardly be noticeable, especially using the POS dipstick that comes with the things.
Your other points about the clarity and color of the oil were made by myself and others before the “do engines burn oil?” discussion took place, and I think we agree on them.
The OP’s story is implausible on its face because he likely did not check the oil correctly and because his standard for if the oil was changed being “low on oil” is not a way to determine if, in fact, the oil was changed. That was the point. If the oil was noticeably outside of the operating range the OP has bigger problems and thats a fact, and even though engines do burn very small amounts of oil.
I call bullshit. If your new Civic is leaking oil – especially before its first oil change – you have a major, major problem…and wouldn’t be able to drive from Oregon to Chicago. You need to get to a Honda dealer and fast…and, as you indicated that you knew nothing about the meter being reset, the car is either brand new…or new used…either way, these meters are fairly new and your car is probably still under warranty. Take it to the dealer immediately…this is a major, major problem.
I have been using Walmart for my oil changes for a number of years and am very happy with their service. They have large windows where I can watch them work on my car, they always reset my oil change monitor and wrap the left over oil in the bottle in a plastic bag and put it on the floor of my car.
Wherever I go, I know there will be a Walmart close by, and they will honor the work done at all other Walmarts. I have had the Walmart in Durango, CO fix a problem caused by the Walmart in Albuquerque (actually my husband’s fault…) for no charge with no hassle. I like that kind of service.
One of the major flaws with Wal-Mart TLE is the workers. While they try to hire competent workers, it rarely happens. The TLE I work at is filled with lazy slobs that would rather sit and talk about sports or the latest video game than work on cars. I chose to work there because it was a change of career for me.
I spent 2 years working as a social worker and finally decided that enough was enough. I realized that I had a love for working on my car, but breaking into the business is a pain in the ass when you are beyond college years and such.
@ LUV2CattleCall Don’t know where you got that information from but every oil change comes with 5 quarts of oil. Anything above that and you get charged the going rate for each additional quart. Even partial quarts are charged the full quart price. So if your car takes 6.1 quarts of oil, expect to pay for 7.
We ran our mitsubishi mirage for several years without changing the oil. Every car person I told about that freaked out and said it’s SO DANGEROUS, but geez the 152,000 mile engine has never broken down and is still running great. Now we change the oil at regular intervals, but it’s definitely not the end of the world if you run a few thousands miles over.
@Tonguetied: @g4lt:
Actually there are two (since I lived there about 2 years ago) Walmarts in Idaho Falls. One in Ammon, and a newer one at I-15 and Broadway, IIRC.
@karmaghost:
Indeed. Idaho Falls is probably the biggest city on I-15 between Pocatello, Idaho and Butte, Montana. There should have been myriad of places that would have changed his oil for him. Though, if it was late at night, then it would be safe to bet that a lot of places were closed, but the OP seems to imply that it was daytime.
Judging by the fact that the OP was going to Montana, I am going to guess that he went to the Walmart at I-15 and Broadway St. in Idaho Falls. I had a tire changed there once. They did a pretty good job. I can’t remember what the problem was, but they ended up not charging me for labor to put the thing on.
The very last time I had Wal-Mart change my oil, I told them I wanted 5W-20 in the car once and they put 10W-30 in it. I didn’t notice until I got home and saw the sticker. It freaked me out to think that they couldn’t follow simple directions, so I have resolved to not get my oil changed at Wally World ever again!
But the whole errors in geography thing makes me question the story.
Cheers!
@mospeada: Not sure how that rant contributed the this thread. Can you clarify?
you all sell Wal-Mart short. without them and their pricing the entire retail sector would be giving you the shaft. Hate Wally World but at the same time better lover them
I took my car to Wally World for an oil change once, and when they gave me the keys and I started to pull out, I almost lost a tire. I got out and looked and found that all of the lugnuts were taken off both of my driver side tires. I went back in to ask where the lugnuts were, as I knew for a fact that they were there before — just had my tires replaced a week prior @ Sams — and they said there weren’t any on there to begin with. I went straight up and talked to the store manager, who I’d known quite well because I *worked* there at the time, and he went and pulled tape and saw a random mechanic who wasn’t even working on my car take the lugnuts off and put them in a dish while the other mechs were doing the oil change. Um…? Typical of Wal-Mart, I guess.
Darren O:
Do you work for Wal-Mart or a company that does business with/accepts money from Wal-Mart? You have to ask around here. I have my suspicions.
In Waterloo Ontario there is a shop, Economy Lube, I have been using for 20 years for oil changes. This is not a big corporate chain and was only one location when I started using them (5 locations now). From my first visit and continuing to this day the last thing the technician does is pull the dipstick and show me the level of clean oil in the engine. This reinforces for them and for me that the job has been done. They have done this each and every time without fail. As a result of this and competent all round customer service I have been a faithful customer for 20 years.
So listen up big corporations… great customer service can gold plate the bottom line. Stephen, the owner, no longer does the shop work himself and he drives very expensive cars now and is doing very very well. The technicians that do the work are paid decent wages and this keeps them working in the shop. I know quite a few by name and recognize most of them regardless of which location I go to. As a result I am confident that they know what they are doing. I do still watch what is going on with my vehicles and this pays off.
They aren’t yet perfect. There have been a couple of times a too keen counter jockey has tried too hard to do up sells with the oil change. More than the typical “would you like fries with that…”. They caught my wife a couple of times and she bought services not needed, duplicating work I do myself. I have helped her see the light and wise up to the sell… she doesn’t get fries any more.
Interestingly, last year one of their new trainees accidentally started draining the transmission in my wife’s Subaru, easy mistake on a Subaru and not the first time I’ve seen it happen. I caught the mistake before the trainee’s trainer as his view was obstructed. I commented to the desk manager, he commented to the trainer, who constructively corrected the trainee. No swearing, cursing, berating, or threats, just correction. A very good practice if you want to have good competent staff working for you.
And, yes, the unscheduled transmission flush and fill was free that morning… as was the oil change… and decent coffee.
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