Why are we surprised? (Jiffy Lube TV exposé)

Smaller towns that are likely to do that, are generally too small for
a jiffy luve. They'd also be too small for the apparant APV they have,
it seems. Of course, if costas gave us the city, it'd be pretty easy
to prove/disprove.

Personally, i think its a crock.

 

I think they knew in advance Leo would say that.

Yup. I think the deck was stacked here.

Right, they said that they took THAT car to 9 out of 5. They didn't say
that they went to 9 out of 5 stations with -A- car.

They could have taken a different car to every Jiffy Lube in the city
and observed the results, then made a list of high-probability fraud
lube stations and went to them with the car they actually used in the
sting operation.

However, let me say this - I don't think that the ratio makes really any
difference here, even though I'm pretty positive that the TV station
pre-checked the lube stations before doing the sting, in order to get
a high ratio (to make the news more interesting)

I think the average moron TV viewer would probably say "ho hum"
if it was just 1 station found to be defrauding people, and that the TV
news people knew that, and worked very hard to create a story that
would trap a lot of them so the average viewer would actually put down
the bag of bon-bon's and get excited.

BUT, I think it is absolutely deplorable that even ONE station would have
been caught. Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but to me, the fact that a
single one would exist that would do this, means that the internal
investigations
in the Jiffy Lube company that are supposed to prevent this from happening
are seriously fucked up.

As even more evidence of this, it appears that the Jiffy Lubes that had
defrauded people are still in operation. I think all of them should have
been
shut down by the Jiffy Lube corporation. Mainly as a warning to the rest
of the 10,000 other stations in the country that if your caught doing this,
you lose everything.

I don't think they lied about that ratio, I think they had a list of high
probability
defrauding Jiffy Lubes and went to them. I don't think those particular
Jiffy Lubes were randomly selected.

If all customers took their old parts, the mechanics would not have this
kind of stack of parts to do this with.

In my case for both my vans I bought one of those "lifetime" alignments
so after the initial $150 or whatever the damage was, I can get as many
alignments as I want for no additional cost. Thus I don't have much
incentive to get before and after reports since if I don't like the
alignment
that results, I can just keep taking it back over and over. I assume the
shop knows this and realizes it's cheaper for themselves in the long run
to just do it right from the beginning. In fact, I think at the place that
I
go to, they give you before and after figures without asking anyway.

But I do agree with your logic, and the fact is very likely that it would
take more time to fake the alignment "before" numbers than to just
do the alignment.

Anyway, with alignments they are also easy to double check. If the vehicle
isn't pulling to one side or another, and turns don't throw you one side or
another, and the vehicle has good wet traction, and the tire wear is normal,
then it's aligned no matter what the computer says.

Ted

 

Why does that make a difference? Fraud is fraud. Leo was the
proverbial "useful idiot" for the "news team". He and everyone else
involved deserve whatever comes of it. No lost sleep on my part over that.

Again - I don't see what difference that makes. They identified several
Jiffy Lubes that apparently routinely use the same tactic to defraud
customers. One car used for all or several cars - I don't see what
bearing it has on anything. But perhaps I'm missing your point on that.

That would be one way of doing it. Would the results have been
different for all the extra effort that would have required? The
"insiders" saved them the trouble of discovery, or should I say, *was*
their method of discovery.

Maybe - but somehow I won't lose any sleep over that. Sleezy shops are
sleezy shops.

Maybe. But they didn't fabricate the story like has been done on
homelessness as one reporter did a few years ago (forget the city), or
the totally staged and fabricated dog fighting story that was done in
Denver a few years ago.

Hence the title of this thread.

Maybe there's too much at stake for them to truly cut out the fraud in
their franchises that they maybe have been turning a blind eye to. You
weren't born yesterday. Maybe they are addicted to fraud. But
hopefully the publicity will do damage and they'll get religion, or if
not go bankrupt - probably not much chance of that.

Likely true.

And if frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their butts when they hopped.
IOW - that will never happen in the real world.

My experience with deals like that is that the shop eventually starts
short-shrifting you on the service, and about the 4th or 5th time yuou
come in expecting a real alignment, they start going thru the motions
and actually start giving you doses of intentional incompetence hoping
that you'll start going somewhere else because they're losing money on
each full alignment they would subsequently be doing.

Not saying that's true with the shop you're using, but I don't go for
deals like that because it is not economically sound for the shop if
they are truly doing the same full alignment procedure that they give
the pay-as-you-go customers. Then you have to ask yourself "Why don't
they just lower their regular alignment price - they must be charging
way too much on their one-shot alignment.

The vehicle behavior is part of the
"audit"/check-and-balances\proof-is-in-the-pudding accounting analogy.
The results of the alignment have to pass the smell test when compared
to the numbers - otherwise suspicions are raised and require focused
attention.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

om:

I actually would not have replaced the plugs at this point, nor
even taken the car in for the service, it was a warranty issue.
I normally do all my own servicing. I was just interested in
why they wanted to (and if they actually would) change the plugs
at this point.
It is after all possible that the mechanic just didn't read the
note about the old parts, they did actually replace the plugs.

 

You have a point. Considering that Jiffy Lube was caught doing this
before, not once but twice in this very same region, you do have to
wonder how many times they will get caught before the light bulb comes
on.

Sometimes it's better if they do NOT do the work. I went to a quickie
lube place that I let con me into changing the differential oil in my
Plymouth. The rear failed about two weeks later. A coincidence? That's
the last time I would let any non-mechanic who is not trained near my
vehicle. Would someone who knows cars work at a quickie lube for very
low wages comparatively?

I went to a Jiffy Lube once. I never returned because I was annoyed
that the young attractive but somewhat clueless girl was trying to sell
me a transmission service that I did not ask for. I do not think she
even asked me when was my last transmission service.

In my neck of the woods, a local tv station once did a sting like this.
They disconnected the wire going to the distributor so the car would
not start. And they brought it to a bunch of service stations.

One, just one, out of all those service stations told the complete
truth. That one, lonely service station said, it's just the distributor
wire. I cannot remember if they charged for the service or just said,
take it and forget it, no charge.

 

Yeah - they probably went out of business and all the others are still
there! LOL!

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Out of curiosity, I went to Jiffy Lube's web site and punched in Los
Angeles, CA (the TV station's location) on their "Store Locator". Guess
how many Jiffy Lubes are within a 10 mile radius (the locator's default)
of L.A. Ten. I don't consider a 90% sample of the LA universe as
stacking the deck.

Reference:
http://www.jiffylube.com/StoreLocat...tate=CA&country=US&filt=No+Preference&sgtID=0

If we want to give JL the benefit of the doubt and say that, at least on
that particular day, the tenth store would not have ripped them off,
then we still have a 50% fraud rate with no room for a "stacked deck"
argument. 50%.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Good job. The known "universe." It's a real pleasure to see a solution
in inferential statistics where there are no inferences because the
universe is known.

I know. You could say for the unknown 10th would need some inferences.
I guess Fisher's Exact Test could be used here? Or if the TV station
had gotten the 10th, that would have been most excellent. But a 90%
sample is not chopped liver.

What are the odds here or the confidence intervals? The least
percentage would be 50% if the 10th were truthful as you, Bill,
surmised. The most would be 6 out of 10 or 60%?

So there is 100% chance that at least 1/2 the Jiffy Lubes will screw
you in the LA area. Is that a reasonable statement?

But what are the odds that 60% of the LA Jiffy Lubes will screw you?
Wait, it's 60%. The worst case scenario is 60% or 6 out of 10.

Anybody remember their stat? I'm making some mistake above. Or not?

 

Naw, that's not the con game on this one. This is a tire place. The fine
print restricts you to 1 alignment every 6 months, so it's easy to see what
the game is.
Most people that get the lifetime alignment will do a couple of alignments
then after a couple years they will forget that they got a lifetime
alignment
and stop taking it in every 6 months. And this is a shop that charges
for a "50 point inspection" that they offer every time you take the vehicle
in. (you can decline the inspection, I always do) and I'm sure most of the
people
taking vehicles in don't decline the inspection. If they find a problem
and you pay them to fix it, they don't charge for the inspection. If
they don't find the problem then you get charged $25 for the inspection.

The other thing is that an alignment gives them an opportunity to check
for split CV boots and shot inner tie rods, both of which are lucrative
jobs. And of course, if you have the axle apart to replace the rack or
the axle, why not put new brakes on and save the labor? And we noticed
that tire is getting worn, so why not a new set of tires, we have them on
sale? And while it's in, when was the last time you changed your oil?
And so on and so on.

I've sat in the waiting room and evesdropped on the counter people, they
are experts at it. And I really haven't heard anything immoral or illegal
in what they are doing. The number of people that are like me, who are
just there for the free alignment and who otherwise do our own maintainence,
are probably 1% of the population, the tire place can easily afford to
give us our free alignments. Espically when we come in during the slow
times
when their techs would otherwise just be sweeping the shop floor or
something.
because we don't want to spend all day standing around. But the other 99%
of the population, it's frightening. Maintainence? What's that? You mean
I really shouldn't be driving around on that right front tire that has a
leak in
it and that I always forget to put air in, so now the belts are all broken
and
split inside it and the carcass is bulging? Gee, I thought a light on the
dash
would come on if there was a problem. What do you mean, the air filter
needs to be replaced? Isn't the one the factory put in supposed to last the
life of the car?

Actually with this shop the lifetime is about 3 times more expensive, which
I think they do to deter the real cheapskates. It is the old story you can
get more money out of the average person if you take smaller amounts more
frequently. The real cheapskates won't pay for the lifetime because it's
so much more expensive, but over the long run they will pay more money
on alignments done at the same frequency a lifetime alignment is done at.

Ted

 

I took my daughter's new car for an oil change (600 miles ) and they told me
it needed a new gas filter. I looked at the one in their hand and it was old
and filthy.
Good bye Jiffy Lube forever.

 

This reminds me of a (fictional) story I read years ago, where the "hero"
worked in a garage with an old mechanic who cheated everyone. His two
favorite tools: a spray can of black paint, and a spray can of silver paint.
Depending on what color the old part was, he'd just repaint it to look like
a new one, then charge the customer for a new part.