As we pulled around the back of the building, we set the timer on our phone. We wanted to see how long this service would take. There were two lanes, the left lane was for oil change, and the right lane was for brakes and other services. We picked the left lane. As we pulled up to the bay door, we were greeted by a nice, clean young gentleman who guided us behind a Cadillac that was the lead car in the bay. We had to drive over the pit where the staff would drain the oil out of our car. The first words he told us were “Nice car, don’t ever get rid of it”. I never thought I’d see the day someone would complement us on our Toyota Camry, but there is a first for everything!

The attendant’s first question was “What oil would you like?” Being a technician and auto shop owner, I know exactly what oil I would like, but would a typical member of the general public, with little to no automotive mechanical background, know the answer to this? I responded, “I believe it calls for conventional, let’s go with that.” He wrote on the front windshield 5w30 Conv and a few other letters. It was good we were in the rear section of the lane as Alissa and I could watch the operation in progress. We saw no less than five employees doing various tasks across the three vehicles in the lanes. All seemed to have a specific job. They were communicating well and the vibe we felt was that this operation was a well-oiled machine.

Our next interaction was when a nice young lady came to the window and handed us a tablet. She asked us to fill out the information requested. Our name, phone number, etc was filled out. There was no section for any services we would like, it was simply a data collection tool. We handed her back the tablet. For the second time, we were not informed of any additional services we may need. A second young lady had our hood open, she filled our washer fluid tank and then proceeded to check and adjust tire pressures. We then felt a jolt in the car, which was the person in the pit under our Camry draining the oil and/or removing the oil filter.

After a few more minutes a gentleman our age came to the driver’s side window. He looked like the leader of the operation so I asked “How is business”. He told us a short story about how this Jiffy Lube used to be a Mobil 1 oil change center and how they are trying to change the perception of how the old operation used to be. I complimented him on his operation and he told us the bill was $68.45. We gave him our credit card, and he ran it into the office, came back with the receipt, and told us to have a nice day.

We kindly backed out of the stall as the Cadillac in front of us was still in the stall ahead of us. We looked down at our time. The oil change service took 18 minutes.

As we drove home we discussed how the experience was better than we had anticipated.