A few days ago, the oil light in my wife’s Jeep started ringing with attention. This was curious because she had just been Jiffy Lube a month earlier. We immediately thought that it had to be one of two things: Jiffy Lube had made some kind of error or the car had a part malfunction. I braced myself for the later as it doesn’t seem normal that a car would run for a month fine if Jiffy Lube had made the error. I hoped that they didn’t reset the oil light and it wasn’t really a problem.

Last night after my wife got home from work (she took the bus and didn’t need the car), we went back to Jiffy Lube to see what their explanation was. They were closed. It was 6:30PM. (That’s one of my wife’s biggest pet peeve’s – places that are closed after the traditional 9-5 workday so you can’t get errands done.) After calming her down, we went to AutoZone, checked the oil, and added new oil. You are probably wondering why I hadn’t checked the oil before now. I have no good answer for you. On the way home, we stopped for gas, and noticed that the new oil was already leaking out.

At this point, I figured something is wrong with the car. There’s a mechanic less than a mile from my house. I check his Yelp ratings and they are fantastic – almost suspiciously fantastic. Everyone gave him 5 stars. The comments were great and I decided that I’d take the car to him in the morning. I called him up, he told me bring the car down. I explained the problem and he said that if it was just something that needed tightening there would be no charge. He also said that he was working on another car right now and his two assistants were away. He asked if it would be okay if he called me in an hour when he had a chance to look at it. I was prepared to wait three days – an hour would be the fastest mechanic in the history of the world. It did take him a whole 75 minutes to call me back, but he explained the problem and said that he could do it, or I could take it back to Jiffy Lube and they should fix it as it was their error. I told him that I’d like to take it to Jiffy Lube and give them a piece of my mind. I go to pick up the car, and he has it still on the lift. He brings a light and shows me the problem with the oil filter. Then he brings it down and tells me to go. I offer to pay him. He says it’s free. I was prepared for that from our earlier talk and had Mr. Jackson ready for him. I’m sure that wasn’t enough, but he’ll get my business forever and I think he knows this.

I go to Jiffy Lube. I explain the situation and they look at the car. The guy takes me outside so that the other customers can’t hear. He says that it was just a little wet and not leaking. I explained that it was bone dry and I had to put in 3 quarts the night before, so there’s definitely something going wrong. He says they’ll look at it again. Ten minutes pass and he says that it’s fixed. He doesn’t say what he fixed, but I’m focusing on what he’s going to do for the run-around that this caused. I expected to get at least two free oil changes. Instead he said, that next time I come in, just ask for the manager and he’ll give me half off. He didn’t give me a piece of paper or write down my name (that I saw), so I don’t know how they’ll know. It really doesn’t matter because if all they are willing to give me is half off, Jiffy Lube has lost my business forever.