How Much Should Convenience Cost?

Recently, I found myself sitting in my car, in dire need of an oil change. I had yelped oil change stations, and there were only a few options that were open on a Sunday. The comments say Jiffy Lube is ridiculously expensive, but when I called Firestone and they said it’d take several hours, and Jiffy said fifteen minutes, I was sold.

Upon arrival, they directed my car into the station, courteously escorted me inside, pointed me in the direction of free tea and went right to work on my car. The lady then tried to up sell me on everything from a new air filter (fine, go ahead and make my engine breath again) to a new transmission (uhm hells no).

When it was all said and done, I was there for maybe twenty minutes and paid over sixty dollars ($40 ish for the oil and $20 ish for an air filter).

On the face of it, I’m mad that an oil change is that much. Every other time at other places, it’s been between $25–35. It’s ridiculous how much they’re charging considering at a minimum, I’d be paying $44 here.

But is it really that outrageous?

Not only did they have me in an out within a half an hour, they were open on a Sunday, and provided super courteous and friendly service. On top of that, they vacuumed my car (had I know that, I would have cleaned out the piles of stuff), tested my tire pressure, found a leak in my transmission fluid, topped off my windshield wiper fluid and washed my windows and dash board.

Let’s be real, I never do any single one of those things myself. It’s a long list of little things that make my cars quality of life a bit nicer. So rather than going somewhere else during my lunch break that takes over an hour, Jiffy does a whole lot in a short amount of time. And yes, there’s an obvious spike in the price for it, but for an extra $10 dollars, it’s a hell of a lot more convenient.

Originally published at astoldoverbrunch.com on December 8, 2014.