Jiffy Lube? Not Quite

originally posted on SurfJedi's Musings

I let my car go further than I would have liked without an oil change, so I took it in today. Things kept coming up to prevent my task, so I had no choice but to just get it done today. Unfortunately the place advertising $14.95 oil changes was not open today. I decided to give Jiffy Lube a chance.

When I got there I was pleased to find a short line. This short line turned out to be misleading. The people were very friendly when I pulled up, and pointed out where I should park my car. If you read my post about Wal-Mart you would know that this was a great start to my day. I was told to sit down and a guy would fill out the paperwork. I had my wife with me in her car, as oil changes typically take forever. The plan was to go to lunch and pick up my car when we were done. This was not to be.

A few minutes go by and nobody has contacted me regarding paper work. I walk outside from time to time to make sure I have been noticed, and after 15 minutes or so I was approached. I was on the phone with my wife who was still waiting in her car when the guy started calling out some name. It wasn't mine so I kept talking. Finally he got my attention and repeated this name and confirmed I had the Taurus. I told him the Taurus was mine but he had the wrong name. I then remembered the JiffyLube sticker on my windshield. The last owner was in the system.

I went through the process with the guy, making sure all my data was recorded. He tried to sell me the usual extras, but I had found out a moment before that the price would be more than double what I usually pay at Wal-Mart. I told him I would wait to buy the extras until the "sticker shock" wore off in the future. As he got to the bottom of the form, a older lady pulled up in her truck. He told me to "Hold on sec" and tried to convince the lady to sell him her truck. Apparently he either knew her or she was a regular customer, as they continued to talk as old friends. I finally got his attention and asked how much longer the process would take, as I wanted to go to lunch with my wife. He said "15 minutes". I told my wife it would be 15 minutes. It wasn't.

A quick price comparison follows:

	Wal-Mart	Jiffy Lube
Oil Change	$27	$39
Tire Rotation	$1.50/tire	$20

While I was waiting a lady was called to the front because her car was finished. He gave her the final price and she was confused. She asked him if they had done all the extra stuff. Apparently the price was lower than she expected. She had asked for a fuel filter and a tire rotation. This wasn't on the paper work he told her so she asked him to do the work. To their credit he went into the garage and hounded the guys to get her stuff finished quickly. At least they didn't try to argue with her.

Finally my turn came. He gave me the final price which turned out to be slightly lower than the quote. It was only a dollar or two, but I was still happy about it. When all was said and done it took about an hour. Considering the fact that my car was first in line in it's particular stall, I don't think it should have taken an hour. I will be making the trek to Simi Valley to let Wal-Mart do my next oil change.

RATING:

Time Warner Cable

I switched to Time Warner Cable when I left Dish Network. Part of the reason I left Dish Network involved my DVR breaking, and therefore an inability to record shows, pause, rewind, fast-forward and such. This is a feature that one has to pay for, and I expect it to work. Dish Network didn't seem to agree, and I was to find out only too soon, neither does Time Warner.

At the time I signed up, I was in the process of leaving Verizon's DSL and Phone services. I was looking for the fastest internet connection I could get, which at the time was Verizon. I knew Time Warner had an Internet Service Provider (ISP) called Roadrunner, which in past experience was a nightmare. The salesman signed me up for the three pack bundle, which included 10mbps internet, cable TV, and a voice-over-IP phone service. He told me that I was in a fiber optic area, and that I would really be getting 15mbps, which I was pretty stoked about. He was wrong.

Considering the 10/15mbps rates were identical, I didn't complain when I found that I was in reality getting the 10mbps speed. What I did complain about was the fact that my upstairs DVR stopped recording. I was annoyed at the fact that I had to rent two DVRs for Time Warner, when Dish Network only took one. I was far more than annoyed when the thing broke in the first three days.

Eventually the DVR fixed itself, about a week later. We thought that we were out of the woods. We weren't. The downstairs DVR decided to fail. At this point we were also wondering what happened to our phone service, as our install date had passed. I called to figure out what was going on.

As for the phone, apparently the salesman screwed up and the phone order was dropped without notification. The DVR support person made me jump through some hoops, and nothing happened. It eventually fixed itself, as the upstairs one had done before. A couple of weeks later guess what happened. Yup, the upstairs DVR broke again.

In the mean time Dish Network had offered me a sweet deal to come back, so I decided to take them up on it. I got a salesgirl who didn't want my business, so I was forced to crawl back to Time Warner. I called and asked for a technician to come in, and asked for all charges to be reduced/dropped. They complied to their credit, and sent a tech out.

The tech was pretty good, and found that our signal was weak, and did his best to fix it. He boosted the signal by 4 times the original strength. The DVR was still out, so he replaced it. He offered to come by without a work order if anything wasn't working, which we are about to take him up on. Want to know what happened as soon as he left? The downstairs DVR broke again! Now I am furious with Time Warner. This stuff is way too expensive to put up with this kind of garbage.

I went back to Dish Network, hoping to get a more cooperative salesman. I managed to find one, and began the sign-up process when I hit another roadblock. This time it was not the salesman, but Dish Network itself that didn't want my business. I explain this in my Dish Network review, so I will move on.

I am now at a crossroads. I can't get Dish Network, and don't want Time Warner. One of my friends has gone the Netflix only route, which I am tempted to try. I can get DVDs of my favorite shows for less than half the price of cable. What is a disgruntled consumer to do?

Time Warner cable has a few redeeming qualities which I will cover to make this a fair review. Every time I have called I got a very friendly customer service rep. They aren't all knowledgeable, but at least they are friendly. The last guy I talked to was VERY good. He listened to my technical opinions and agreed that I was on the right track with my assessment. He sent out a tech and credited my account with no hassle.

The tech was another asset to Time Warner. He went above and beyond when he made the house call. My wife was very impressed with his service and he was on time. This is something that can be rare in the cable business.

The two positives mentioned above being considered, I still cannot recommend Time Warner cable. I plan to remain on the RoadRunner ISP, which the tech was able to fix, but I cannot justify wasting any more money on Time Warner's cable service. I give Time Warner a .5 out of 5 for value, but an 3 out of 5 for the customer service personnel I have encountered. Overall, 1 out of 5.

RATING:

Dish Network

I was a Dish Network customer in Cherry Valley, CA for 2 years when I moved to Oxnard. During that whole time I had a great experience. Everything worked as it was supposed to, and the one time it broke they fixed it quickly. Keep in mind that Cherry Valley is in the middle of nowhere.

I moved to Oxnard and intended to cancel my service, as I had been told I would have to pay for the move since I refused to pay an extra $6 per month for insurance. When I called to cancel they convinced me to sign another two year contract without paying to move my service. I should have followed my gut on this one.

The Dish Network tech came to my house and installed the service. Within a day we lost the ability to watch TV upstairs. I looked the connections over, and then called customer service. They walked me through some stuff, but were unable to resolve the issue. They were going to send a tech out, so we ended the call amiably. I took another look at the cabling, and decided the tech didn't know what he was doing. I had uninstalled the unit from my old house, and knew how it was supposed to look. In moments I fixed the TV. I rerouted the cabling to the appropriate places and changed the signal from air to cable, as it was plugged in by a coax cable. This fixed the problem so we called off the house call.

Well, a few days later it broke again. My wife called and they attempted to force us to pay for the house call. She explained that one was already going to be sent, that we fixed the first problem ourselves, and had only had our service for three days. This fell on deaf ears. Finally she asked to talk to the manager, at which point the girl immediately approved the house call at no charge.

Well, it turned out that the tech had put a staple through the coax cable when he tried to hide it under the carpet near my fireplace. He replaced the cable and things started working...until the DVR broke.

I ordered a new DVR and waited for it. What happened next wasn't Dish Network's fault, but the way they handled it made them complicit. The forecast that week was the biggest storm California had seen in years. All the news stations were preparing us for some massive rain storms to come through southern California, dropping as much as 14 inches of rain in the first day. What did UPS do about this? They left my new DVR in a puddle at my front door, in open sky getting rained on. I put the box on some towels and promptly called Dish Network to arrange for another DVR, explaining what had happened.

I was told that I had to turn in the wet DVR before I could get another one, so I got the instructions for returning it. I told them I wasn't going to pay for service since I wasn't receiving service, and he told me that he credited my account. Apparently he didn't pass the word on to his company, as they cut off the service for nonpayment. This was after I had confirmed with 3 separate people on 3 separate days that I owed nothing.

I was not happy, to put it as kindly as possible. I spent the next week on the phone with customer service, trying to get the mess sorted out. I logged 12 hours in three days during that week, and was so fed up with Dish Network that I decided to move on.

While I had great service in Cherry Valley, my horrible experience in Oxnard forces me to give Dish Network a rating of 1 out of 10 for both value and customer service.

********Update**********

After switching to Time Warner Cable I received a call from Dish Network's retention department. They offered me a pretty sweet deal, but I told her I would be in a better position to decide in a couple of days and she should call me back. The deal was 3 months free (1st, 10th, and 20th months), $14 off the first 6 months, and no contract.

I called back a couple of weeks later and was told that the girl had no business offering me that deal, and that she couldn't honor it. I was dismayed, but accepted my fate. Things kept getting worse with Time Warner, so I tried again. Apparently I was two weeks too late this time. I was signing up for the exact deal I mention above, when my credit card raised a flag on their system. He asked me if it was a real credit card or a debit card. I told him it was a debit card with a Visa logo on it, therefore making it qualify as a Visa.

He explained to me that two weeks ago Dish Network implemented a rule that only credit card holders could become new customers. The DVR costs $600, it was explained to me, and Dish Network wanted to protect themselves from loss. Having already turned in my broken DVR and following their instructions to the letter, I found this rather insulting. I do not have a credit card, as I prefer to pay for any luxuries in cash, thus better managing my money. The fact that I don't have a credit card should not be the reason I don't qualify for a service I had for two years. I never missed a payment, and they got their equipment back. They even managed to purge me from the system, so even if I was delinquent, which I wasn't they had no way of proving it. I was denied solely because I am being responsible with my money. Bad form Dish Network, bad form.

RATING: