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Fast food isn't good for you and it's not good for your car....why fast-lube places are bad for your vehicle
Fast food isn't good for you and it's not good for your car....why fast-lube places are bad for your vehicle
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About this episode
Fast lube places may seem convenient, but they often compromise your vehicle's health. The host argues that just like fast food is bad for your body, quick oil changes can lead to neglecting essential maintenance. He emphasizes the importance of thorough inspections and following the owner's manual to maintain your car's value. With anecdotes from his experiences, he encourages listeners to build relationships with their dealership service departments for better care and to avoid the pitfalls of quick fixes that can lead to costly repairs down the road.
Topics:
fast lube dangers
vehicle maintenance
owner's manual importance
service department relationships
multi-point inspections
oil change advice
resale value
customer service in dealerships
long-term vehicle care
Email Lennie at [email protected]
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Ford Bronco
"...say that probably 50% minimum are. We sold a Ford Bronco this morning, and the customers were picking it u..."
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Nissan Altima
"...,000 for an extended service contract on a Nissan Altima. He said, no. I said, well, that's not"
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Hey, folks, welcome back to another edition of my car guru, where you learn the ins and
outs, the ups and downs of the car business, and how it affects your car life.
That's really all that matters, isn't it?
Although we delve into the history of the car business, cars in general, you know, I
don't know that that many people are really interested in the car business, except how
it affects them.
This little section of Four Lane Road down here, in Greenville, Tennessee, we call it
the 11E Bypass, although when we moved here in 1971, people kept referring to the
Lebanese Bypass, and my mom said, Max, that's my dad, what is the, where's
Lebanese? He said, honey, I don't know. Everybody talks about the Lebanese
Bypass, and nobody seems to know where Lebanese is. It was 11E. It's just what we
do here in Tennessee. We, you know, we're poetic. We change words so that nobody
outside of this area can even remotely understand them. But I call this little
section the gauntlet, because it's kind of, it's very dense. The road really
closes in there. You don't have the big berms. You have no berm, basically, on
each side of the road. There is a turn lane in the middle, but dare not use it.
I mean, if you use that, that turn lane, your life is in jeopardy. If you're
trying to get into, well, there's lows and there's a big rental place there
and there's multiple grocery stores and shoe stores. It's really just too
compact. It needs to be bypassed. It really does. I used to have a car
lot, a little used car lot there. And we suffered from people just not wanting to
go into it because it was just too congested there. Well, now they're
building a fast food place for cars. That's what I call these fast lube
places. And it's going to be right there in the gauntlet. And people, I
guess, when they're in a hurry, say, Oh, gosh, I need an old change. They're
going to drive in there and feed their vehicle fast food. Now, my
cardiologist says that, Lenny, don't eat fast food. Stay away from French
fries, anything fried. It's not good for you. You need to put good stuff in.
Well, I'm here to tell you that you need to put good stuff in to your
vehicle. And your vehicle deserves more than a five-minute experience at a
quick loop place. I know it's convenient. It's ready when you are. You
know, everything has to be fast in this society now. Instant. We need instant
gratification, instant information. How do libraries survive? Who knows? You
know, everything has to be open all the time. I remember when we first
moved to Greenville, Tennessee, that none of the stores, none of them, were
open on Sunday. There were no liquor stores and you couldn't buy any type
of alcoholic beverages, beer or anything on Sunday. You could on
Saturday. And if you were inventive, you could buy it just about any time
you wanted to. That's one of those things that teenagers figure out,
right? Unfortunately. Hope there's no teenagers listening. But you know,
there's just certain things that you should not worry about getting
done quickly. We're cheaply for that matter. Because some things are worth
paying for, paying a little extra for. And one of those things I believe is
your automotive maintenance. Now, if you're a consumer of everything fast,
you don't like waiting. You don't want to wait. You don't really see the
value in it. You've always had your oil changed at the fast loop
place. You know, when you need tires, you just go to the tire store
when you need a battery. I don't know where you go. And nobody's really
looking at your vehicle on a complete basis, actually inspecting it from
one end to the other and following the maintenance schedule that's in the
owner's manual. Speaking of owner's manual, is your owner's manual in
your vehicle still wrapped in plastic in the glove box? I would say
that probably 50% minimum are. We sold a Ford Bronco this morning, and
the customers were picking it up. And I went to the vehicle, because I
just wanted to check if my salesperson had done his job. So I
opened up the glove box. And the window sticker was in there, the
cleanup shop had done their job. They had pulled the window sticker off
and stuck it in the glove box. That's what we do. But there was the
owner's manual in the warranty book, nicely wrapped in plastic as it
came from the factory. That's not how we do it at Gateway. And I went to the
salesperson, I said, that's not how we do it at Gateway, right? No, sorry,
boss, I just got I was going to get to it. I said, okay, I'll give you the
benefit of the doubt. I had it in my hand and I handed it to him. And so
I think it's important as a car dealer when we're selling new vehicle to go
over. Some of the documents that are in the glove box, you know, some
cars don't come with manuals anymore. They think everybody has a
smartphone or an email address. And they think that's all they have to
do is saves them on paper cost. So they just draw it up one time and
then send it to people. And that's good. I can appreciate that. I'm
I'm an admirer and lover of technology to a certain extent. But
the problem is people just don't look at it. They don't go to the
maintenance section. And they say, Okay, what needs to be done at
at each mileage interval, to be able to keep my car in good shape,
the motive for doing that should be to keep your car in good
shape and to improve the resale value of your car when you trade
it in. To me, that's common sense. You know, how many other
things that you own, carry value with them as they as you
go down the road over time. Now, granted, cars depreciate. But
still, it's probably the second or third or four, it's in the top
10 anyway, of assets that you own. And if you take care of it, do
you take care of the other stuff? I mean, your stocks and bonds
and your gold and your arrowheads talk to a gentleman the
other day who collects arrowheads. Big time. I guarantee
takes care of them, you know, keep some nice and displayed and
watches over them, even though, you know, the actual cash value
is not that great. But the car is different. I mean, if you buy
$100,000 car, probably three, four years from now, it's still
worth 50 if you've taken care of it. But if you haven't, it'd
be like a vehicle we traded for last week. Fairly late model,
I'm not gonna say what it is, because I'm afraid they might
be listening. But it was a could have been a very nice car,
easily worth in the high 20s, low 30s. But because it's been
abused and not taken care of so many different flaws. It has
some serious issues that could have been solved early on if
they had had it serviced here. But no, they went for
convenience. And they had their oil changes at a big box
store that does that, you know, something like a Walmart or a
Target or probably Walmart. And so their vehicle was in sad
shape and worth in the lotines. And that's on them. And I'd be
willing to bet that they don't take care of hardly anything.
You can tell a lot about people about how they take care of
their car. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm being judgmental. But it's
true. I mean, they can be good people, but take care of
what you own. And you will be rewarded for it. The best place
to do that if you buy a new vehicle, or you buy a late model
used vehicle, take it to the dealership that sells that brand.
Yeah, but they give terrible service. Well, if you've had a
bad experience, make sure somebody knows about it. Go
complain or go to another dealer that sells that brand.
They're not all bad. Matter of fact, some of them are
pretty cool. I think our shop is really cool, our waiting
areas and and our people, they're nice and they're friendly
and they're competent. And so are our texts. Do we make
mistakes? Yes, we're human. People make mistakes. What do
they do when they make one though? That's the key. Okay, I'll
take my first break. I'll be back here in just a minute.
In the my car guru guidebook, which is available to you for
free 32 pages of automotive experience and wisdom for my 47
years of doing this, just saying that makes me feel tired. But
now I still have plenty of energy because my goal is to help
people improve their car life. Because everybody has one. You
know, it's kind of like those stickers that you see on the
back of cars that says Lake life or salt life. Does that
mean they like salt? Or that they just really like being at the
beach? I never have been able to figure that one out. But yeah,
the car life is is very impactful. When you agree, then
your life kind of fall apart when your car's in the shop and
you're have or you're without, or you have to borrow
something from somebody else. You know, in the car guru
guidebook, I talk about the importance of complaining. When
you get bad service, it's very common. I had my daughter, my
middle child had to be in the hospital this weekend. Well,
Monday and Tuesday, they had to do a lot of testing,
everything's fine. But you know, sometimes you have these
aches and pains and so forth, and they need to be
diagnosed. She had just hit 40 to imagine that. But she's
fine. But there were very stark contrasts between the
level of service that was given by different people in that
hospital. And in a funny how people can be looking at you,
but looking right through you and really not listening and
not providing things that you ask for until you ask the third
or fourth time. Yet other people very attentive. I mean,
just jump up as soon as you walk in and look you in the eye
and smile and make you feel good. And oh my goodness,
doesn't it just improve your experience when that happens?
It's one of the reasons I like to go to pals or Chick-fil-A. You
know, they're just I don't know. They're working hard on
making their people warm and accommodating. What's
McDonald's doing? Putting up screens that you have to
interact with and eliminating people that you have to
interact with. I don't even care if I ever go to another
one of those restaurants, because they don't care about
people. I'd rather give people jobs, not computers, not AI. I
know it's coming. But I'd rather deal with folks even though
they fail sometimes. But it's a learning experience, right? So
in most card, this is from the cargo route guidebook in most
new car dealerships, there's a basic organizational
structure in the service department that you need to
be aware of. At the bottom of the pecking order is the
greeter. And I'll summarize here. And then there's a
service advisor. Now if you are having a problem, and you
want to escalate it, you do it nicely. And the next person
you talk to is a service manager. And in some dealerships,
you think that you were trying to talk to the president of
the United States. He's not. He's just a service manager. But
sometimes they think they're so important that they don't
have time to talk to you this way. Have you talked to a
service advisor? You know so. But there are others like my
dealership. If you want to talk to the service manager, all you
have to do is ask for him and here he comes. And he wants to
know what he can do to help you. That's what you want to see
isn't it? Now if you have a legitimate complaint about an
issue, in the right kind of dealership, you know what
happens next? That week when they have their service
advisor meeting, your situation will be brought up. And
they'll be talking about okay, how can we avoid or prevent this
from happening again? But if you hadn't gone in to complain,
you said, I'm just going to go to Walmart. Then you haven't
done them a service, you haven't done yourself a service,
the only people you've helped is Walmart and they don't need
any help. So what did I do about my experience? Well, I
have a buddy that works is in administration in that
particular hospital, or that hospital conglomerate. And I just
think he needs to know about it. You know, it's a cultural
thing. It's also you can't control people's moods on a
daily day to day basis when you have thousands of employees
somebody's going to be sour. That's just the way it is. But
you have to continually make them aware of it, you're
not going to be able to change all the behaviors all the
time. But if you change enough behaviors, most of the
time, it will reflect positively on your business. So
complain, but be nice. You know, if you're really upset, I
understand that sometimes folks need to escalate beyond the
service manager, maybe talk to the general manager of the
dealership, I would always do that before I complain. But
please never threaten that you are going to do something on
social media, if you don't get what you want, because
you know what that is. That's extortion. And they can
actually sue you for that. It's true. It's happening all over
this country right now where people are bad mouth and
businesses, and or threatening to where they go into a
business and they say, if you don't give me that that
free oil change, then I'm going to rip you apart on
Facebook. And if they have a recording of you saying
that, which a lot of businesses do, they'll have
cameras up all over the place and they can record what's
being said, then you're in deep doo doo. But that's the wrong
way to handle it anyway. I mean, be a human. Be nice. Go in
and talk to the people help them improve their business. You
know, they'll really really appreciate you as a
customer to they'll treat you with kid gloves. And you
want them to you want when you drive into that
service department, you want that service advisor to
look up and say, Hello, Mrs. Jones, what can we do for
you today? And it's just easy. And you trust them. You like
them. And they do good work and they want to do good work for
you. You go in yelling and screaming and pitching a fit.
People don't want to help people like that. They probably
have to but they just really don't want to. So get to
know your service advisor. So he will get to know you
that's right out of the cargo route guidebook. One of
the other things that I want you to do is go get
your car checked out. If it hasn't, let's say you've
been going to the fast loop place for the last eight or
10 times. And you just haven't, you don't have any
relationships at the dealership. You're driving a
Hyundai or Kia or, you know, it doesn't matter what it
is. Then go back to that dealership and we're
making an appointment, call him. So I need to get
my car checked out for the winter. You know, bad
weather is coming. I want to get it serviced. I
want you to check my cooling system breaks. I
want to end to end inspection. They normally do
that when they change your oil. That's one of the
big advantages of going to a car dealership is they
use something called a multi-point inspection
form. And so they check all of this stuff and they
may find something. You know, when you come to my
dealership, for example, I invested a ton of money
in this laser scanner that when you drive your
vehicle into my service drive, I think it's hit
with 48 different lasers. The front end, it doesn't
burn holes in it. It actually measures the toe end
and the either the caster or the camber. I can't
remember, but it tells whether your car is in
alignment or not. And it doesn't cost you
anything. We look up on the screen and it'll
say it'll give either green or red. If it's in
the red, then you need to have a front end
alignment. If it's in the green, you're good
to go. So that's free. But you're not going to get
that at the fast loop place. Nor are you going
to get all the other important systems
inspected. Yeah, well, they always try to sell
me something. Well, it's because your vehicle
is due for something. Now, I am not a big fan
of flushes. The only flush, you know, as far
as a coolant flush or a transmission flush, all
that stuff, the only flush that I'm
interested in is the cooling system flush. I
want to get all that old coolant out of there
out of the engine block out of the heater
core, get all that out of there, put fresh,
high quality cooling in my system so that
winter comes. I'm protected to minus 20
degrees or whatever. And I also want to make
sure that they pressure test the system, that
I don't have any leaks. And then I want
my battery tested. I want to know what my
cold cranking amps are and how much they've
deteriorated since I installed this
battery. And if it's weak, then I want a new
battery and I want a battery that matches
the factory specifications, what it calls
for. Because as sensitive as the electrical
systems are on modern vehicles, you better
get exactly the right battery. So if
you're driving a Honda, get a Honda
battery. If you're driving a Ford, get
a Ford battery. Make sure it's for your
vehicle and see what we do at the
dealership and what they would do at the
Honda or Toyota or Hyundai or whatever, is
they're going to get the battery based on
what your VIN number is, your 17-digit
VIN number. Because that tells them what it
was born with. And that's what you need to
put back on it. So I want my battery
good. I want my tires good. You know, if
my tread depth isn't good and we do
happen to have some bad weather, then I
want to make sure that my tires have
adequate tread depth and that my tires
aren't too old. You know, really? Your tires
can get too old? Yeah. They're over seven
years old. You need to replace them. And a
lot of people think that, well, that's
crazy. Lenny, I've never heard it. That's
true, though. That's what the tire
manufacturers say. You think they have
have a little bias built into that?
They may. They just might, but the
auto makers suggest that as well
because rubber deteriorates. It's a
natural product. And over time, high
temperatures, low temperatures, it starts
developing cracks. And those cracks can
lead to catastrophic tire failure when
you're going down the road. Okay, I'm
going to take my last break and I'll be
back in just one minute or so.
So I shipped out a bunch of copies of
the My Car Guru guidebook yesterday. If
you need one and you need to print
it out, just call the dealership 423-639-5151
and just tell that whoever answers the
phone, hey, I need my Car Guru guidebook
printed out and they'll write down your
name and address and I'll send it to
you. Otherwise, just send me your or
text me to 423-552-2020 your email
address and I'll email you a PDF
version of the My Car Guru guidebook.
Now, the guidebook does not supersede
the maintenance schedule or anything
like that in your owner's manual. That's
something else you need to review,
especially if you just bought a new car.
Like this lady just took delivery of the
new Bronco. You know, if that thing was
left in plastic, it would probably be
in plastic 36 months from now. It's
important that the salesman takes
that out and says, you know, you
really need to read this. Not the
whole thing. I mean, it's about the
complete operation of your vehicle,
but review the maintenance schedule,
understand what the warranty is. Plus, she
bought an extended service contract. She
needs to know how that works with the
factory warranty and which one, you know,
you need to use and when. You know,
there's so many people that buy stuff
at car dealers, you know, especially in
the finance office and they forget
that they have it. I mean, it's
amazing. I think the number of people
who buy prepaid maintenance, I think
it's like 70% use it. 30% forget
they have it and they start going to
these fast loop places and and it's
just wasted money. So that's why I think
it's a big mistake when people don't
get their paperwork out the day after
they buy a car or a couple days later
and just review everything. Make sure
that, you know, what they said they
were going to do, they do. Make sure
that they follow up that they wrote
down somewhere that you were supposed
to get free floor mats and vent
visors and a free trailer hitch or
whatever. Get all that stuff in
writing and then review it. Just get it
out on your kitchen table or wherever
while you're sitting there watching
Wheel of Fortune and just look at it
and just make sure, wait a minute, what's
this? I didn't know I bought an
extended service contract. You know, if
you deal with a payment packer and
that's those dealerships that
close the deal based on payment, you
didn't really know what you paid for
the car and you're dealing with
folks who illegally pack payments
with products that you didn't know
you had, then the best time to
take care of that is 24 hours later,
not 48 hours, 24. You know, if you
bought a car on Saturday, go in on
Monday and say, listen, I don't know
what all this extra stuff is, but I
don't want it. I didn't agree to this.
Well, you signed it. Well, I didn't
know it was in there. He was
shoving so many different papers in
front of me and I was just signing
everything he said. I've heard
that so many times. I mean these
people that listen to my show,
especially locally, and then all
of a sudden they come down and
it's been a year or whatever and they
say, well, you look at this paperwork.
I said, sure, when did you buy the car?
Well, a year ago and I didn't know I
bought all this stuff. I mean, I was
wondering why this one elderly
gentleman came in and they had
printed out all his stuff. Well, they
didn't print it out. They put it on
a flash card and he didn't even
know what that was. He said, I
think they said my paperwork's on
this. I put it in my computer and I
said, do you know you paid $5,000?
It was over $5,000 for an extended
service contract on a Nissan Altima.
He said, no. I said, well, that's not
good, but you can cancel it. But he
had financed the vehicle and so his
cancellation was going to go to the
bank. It wasn't going to do anything
to his monthly payment. He wanted
his payment to go down and I said,
that's not happening unless you
refinanced the car and then that
probably won't happen either. But
you need to cancel this warranty
if you don't want it because
it's extremely overpriced and he
didn't know he had bought it. He
didn't remember anything and I don't
doubt that because that's how these
yahoo's operate. So you just got to be
careful. Read the paperwork, know
what you're signing. Don't just
sign everything they put off. No, you
need to sign here, sign here, sign
sign. You know, it is, it's the
pressure, it's the speed of the
transaction that they're counting
on that you won't notice what
you're actually signing. It's
unfortunate, but that's life. Well
thanks for listening to this
edition of My Car Guru. Call me if
you need me 423-552-2020 or send me an
email to LennyLawson2020 at gmail.com
and I'll see you next time.
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