I took my car in for an oil change and tire rotation today, the "recommended service" according to the car's trip computer. The place I went to, Hogan & Sons in Falls Church, sent me an email coupon for a $15.95 oil change because I had been there before and signed up for their email list. I went in at 2:00PM, there was hardly anyone there, they said they could get it done by 3:00PM.
First surprise: Honda recommends 5W20 oil, but their $15.95 oil change only includes 5W30 oil. Where does it say that on the coupon? They don't. They said the recommended oil is $7 more. Not a big deal, but I told them that for the price they want to charge, I can go to Jiffy Lube down the street with a $5 coupon and have it done in half the time. Ok, they said, they would throw in the tire rotation. Total estimate: $28 and change after fees and taxes.
I had my son with me, so we took a walk. At 2:55, they call me and said that the transmission fluid needs changing, and according to the manufacturer's recommended 30K mile service, the cabin air filter needs changing as well. Second surprise: they quote me a total of over $400 for all of the services. That's the oil change, (free) tire rotation, motor air filter, cabin air filter, and transmission fluid.
Now let's break it down: $71 and change for the motor air filter ($40 for the filter and $31 labor), $100 and change for the cabin air filter ($33 for the filter and $67 for labor, "the glove box needs to be removed", they said), and $159 for the transmission fluid change, not including the taxes and fluid disposal fee. I said forget it, just do the oil change and tire rotation.
They didn't call when the car was done, but we got back to the shop at 3:15 and it was done. Ok, great. I paid, put my son in the car, then drove the few minutes to the Advance Auto and picked up both air filters for $33. After getting home, the motor air filter took just a few minutes to swap out. I had to do a little Internet research to figure out how to pop out the glove box, but once I found the information, it took me just 10 minutes to swap out the filter.
So let's do the math. What do they charge for labor at the service shop these days, $40/hr? If I did both air filter swaps in 15 minutes total, (and I hardly know anything about cars) that should be $10 in labor costs. Besides the fact that the filters were overpriced by 100%, there is no way they should be charging nearly an hour labor for the car air filter, and nearly two hours for the cabin air filter. That's just ridiculous, since they should have the experience and tools to do the job even faster than I could.
I guess it pays to be not only an informed consumer, but also be a little handy, because I saved $140 today. I can't feel ripped off since I avoided paying for the overpriced service, but I can't help but think of all the people who do pay for these services because they don't know how to turn a few screws or how to do the research to do a simple filter replacement.
Now the transmission fluid I'm probably not going to do myself, at least not in the middle of winter. But now I'm going to shop around.
