Jiffy Lube Oil Change Review

General Company Information

For 30 years, Jiffy Lube has grown from a local chain in Houston to one of the largest oil change chains in North America with over 2200 locations. They claim to serve over 27 million customers each year. A Shell Oil subsidiary, they are definitely one of the largest players in the United States.

Jiffy Lube pretty much pioneered the quick oil change business model. On their website, they claim their model was “created to fill a gap [in the 1970's] left by the departure of full service gas stations and the emergence of the self-serve model.”

They have a few other unique claims to fame. Jiffy Lube introduced the now-ubiquitous window cling reminder sticker to help drivers keep track of their oil change intervals.

Whether it’s just PR spin or not, Jiffy Lube claims to recycle all their motor oil from oil changes. This oil is re-refined and used for industrial applications, such as concrete manufacturing, electricity generation and heating asphalt to pave roads.

They also appear to be very active in philanthropic pursuits, the Jimmy Fund at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Muscular Dystrophy Association and many local children’s hospitals to name a few.

Since 2004, Jiffy Lube has been making aggressive expansion into China and other foreign countries.

Scams and Expose’s

This site isn’t designed to be an expose site, but out of all the oil change centers we have reviewed, Jiffy Lube seems to consistently have a line of disappointed, and even angry publicly commenting former customers. Take this example of a Southern California TV station investigation, via this summary from Snopes.com:

The report was entitled “Is Your Mechanic Cheating?” and detailed the results obtained by the news team when they took cars to various Jiffy Lube locations around southern California. Through the use of surveillance, surreptitiously marked parts, and tiny cameras hidden within the target cars, the team discovered that at the preponderance of Jiffy Lube locations where they left cars for routine maintenance (e.g., oil changes, fuel filter replacements, transmission flushes), they were charged for work that was never performed. They also encountered a good deal of obfuscation and prevarication from Jiffy Lube employees and officials whom they confronted about the unperformed work, including a district manager who flat-out lied to them about his identity.

Personally I have never had any problems at a Jiffy Lube regarding oil changes, and it is quite possible the complaints may stem from regional attitudes or practices – not company wide policies designed to fleece an unsuspecting public.

Ultimately, you will need to follow our steps outlined in our oil change scams article. In that article we have listed things you can do at an oil change center to detect whether they might have a tendency to scam you.