Mr. Lube Canada

My complaint is somewhat generic, given that many businesses and individuals working in the "quick-oil change and car maintenance industry" have reputations for "milking" the customer and manipulating people who have little knowledge of automobiles. I have a friend who worked for this company years back and even he spoke of more than one story when he himself did extra but needless work on a car simply because the customer didn't know any better. Nevertheless, I will make my complaint in the hopes of further increasing the awareness off the practices of SOME of the workers who change oil and other car fluids for a living. This was not decent and/or honest business and they can be sure that they've lost my patronage forever. In this case, an employee from Mr Lube, A Canadian based car service company, is the culprit. This "technician" certainly had a way with words; it's too bad for him that I'm the strong and silent type. To put it bluntly, all I wanted...all I needed...was an oil change. However, the guy who performed the oil change was quite assertive when it came to other fluid changes that, in his opinion, were "urgently" in need of being done. I turned his offer down simply because as I had gotten the work done on the particular fluids he was so dead-set on replacing just a month earlier. I don't money in the hundred dollar range that easily. I gave him the benefit of the doubt though, and returned to the business which had changed out the fluids in question, my transmission and engine coolant fluids. In fact, this guy told me that I should do that if I wasn't going to let him do the work in the name of Mr Lube. Well, I'll give him credit for saying that I guess...

I'll admit that I'm not a backyard mechanic; I know little beyond the basic principles of automobiles but something seemed fishy and I was going to find out.

It took it to the shop being accused of the bad workmanship and it took a half an hour to: heed my complaint, bring my car into the shop and do the testing. Turns out that both fluids were fine, in great condition actually and the man I spoke too was a bit embarrassed for both of us. Why? Because Mr. Man from Mr Lube had either tried to trick me or had no idea what he was talking about. I'm very thankful that I decided to go back instead of having him do the job. THERE WAS NO JOB TO DO. MR LUBE HAD WASTED MY TIME, THEN I WENT AND WASTED CANADIAN TIRES TIME, FOR NO GOOD REASON. Basically, the technician from Mr Lube told me that my transmission fluid was nasty because of a few bubbles. Bubbles happen people, the fluid wasn't in tip-top shape but it was still acceptable. And who knows, maybe he stirred it around in the reservoir a little bit? I wouldn't put it past him but that's just speculation and nothing more. What really got me though was how he spoke of my cars engine coolant as being terribly dirty and that there was over 3000 dollars worth of engine parts at risk. He said that it was brown and dirty when it should of been a nice florescent green. Turns out he was wrong; the coolants colour and condition had changed very little, if at all, since the techs at Canadian Tire added it to the reservoir. IT WAS SUPPOSE TO LOOK THAT WAY. To sum it up, the person who changed my oil had either lied to me straight-up or was not trained/educated enough to know that there's more than one engine coolant in common existence. Allow me to paraphrase, he said something like "your engine coolant should look fluorescent green so it must be real dirty and nasty, your engines at risk, it'll only take me twenty minutes to replace, blah blah blah." Whether he was trying to put one over on me or he was just ignorant and inexperienced, I will not be going back. This experience was an eye-opener for me. By writing this, I don't mean to slander an entire corporation, that's not my intent. Having said that, my intention was to present the facts and that's what I did; none of the fluids required changing and I did not have to spend over 100 dollars in maintenance costs. This guy worked for a Mr Lube franchise and it's not the only incident I've heard of regarding this company

P.S. Did I mention that he was a supervisor?