As AAA club members, my wife and I went to a recently opened AAA facility that does oil changes. We looked online to check prices and saw $18.95 for members and $23.95 for non-members. We brought in 2 cars: an all-wheel drive vehicle and a standard sedan. We went on a Saturday morning on a "first come-first served basis and were second in line. It took two hours for the sedan to be serviced and I received a bill that totaled nearly $40. What they don't tell you is that there is an additional charge for the filter and labor. They also said that I needed a coupon as well to receive a reduced price, as if being a member wasn't good enough. This is classic "bait and switch". As for the all-wheel drive vehicle: they recommended various other services totaling over $700! I had them replace front and rear differential fluid and transmission fluid along with oil & filter for nearly $380, a price which seems overly inflated. I had to leave this car at the shop and be inconvenienced later on in the day to go back to pick it up, rather than being able to wait a reasonable amount of time and drive it away as I had planned. When I used other oil change specialty shops in the past, I always had my car back after a short wait, and for less money. The bottom line is that they made few bucks on me once, but lost my business for life. I know that my word of mouth will cause them to lose other people's business as well.
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