jiffy lube joints

[Mike Arman <armanmik@n-jcenter.com>]

To the lister who contemplated taking the car to a jiffy lube to save a few
bucks - 

DON'T DO IT!!!!!!  While I have absolutely no qualms about saving money,
these Jiffy Lube places (and that's a generic name as well as a TM) are
totally guaranteed to destroy your car and overcharge you for the
opportunity to do it.

Example: Wife has a Mazda 323, before we were married, took it to JL, had
"Fuel System Cleanout Service" done for "Only $69.95". Service consisted of
changing a $4.00 fuel filter and pouring a can of mouse milk (wasn't even
techron) into the gas tank. And that was at a brand name place - a Chevron
"quick lube". Only bonus was that at least they didn't damage the car that time!

Example: Many years ago took an 83 K car to a competitor of above. When they
finished, they slammed the hood shut so hard that they dented it! Now in all
honesty, I wasn't in love with the car either, but I didn't despise it
enough to smash it!

There are many, many opportunities for ignorant "Monkey Lads" (TM courtesy
of Phil Payne) to destroy your car. The most obvious one is ATF in the
hydraulic system - care to spend $1,500 on new rack, bomb, pump, hoses, and
then install same? Try to get the JL joint to pay for this, too!

These people are quite happy destroying simple cars like Chebbys and Furds -
they simply don't know anything about finicky, delicate cars like Audis.
I've had over 100 cars since I was 18 years old, and Audi is one of the very
few that you MUST know something about BEFORE you start working on it. This
is NOT a learn as you go car - many things are not intuitive and are not
obvious to the $5.00 an hour high school dropout down in the grease pit at
JL. Unlike domestic stuff and generic oriental cars, which will soldier on
for 250,000 miles with no oil, no fan belts, bad bearings, burned valves,
etc., these cars need to be RIGHT, or really expensive, really bad things
will happen.

Find some other Audi owners and ask them where they get their work done.
Look around - you really do want someone to work on your car who has at the
very least seen maybe one or two of them before.

Best Regards,

Mike Arman