PSA: don't ever, ever, ever, ever goto a quickie oil change franchise.

[Maestro]

MY son's friend work at one right before and after it changed names to Valvoline. It was a Mobile 1 quick change privately owned. TYhe Owner was there every day and watch over everything. The friend said the owner sold it to Valvoline, and it all changed, he said it was run by a bunch of idiots, the best part he said, Valvoline installed cameras everywhere, they had to run a camera on the underside of the car, then show the old filter being taken off, then a new one being put in, they had to show the mileage on the cluster, they had to show the oil coming out and the oil going in. Everything they did required the tech to record it on a camera.

The employees were told the customers are all thieves, they will drain the oil out or put back a old filter and claim the work was never done and sue them for car damage.

Not to say the local BMW dealer was a whole lot better when it came to oil changes. I found oil spilled all over my engine bay, you could see they attempted to clean it up. They also broke off the plastic door on the aero panel which cover the oil drain and would not replace it. they claim I must if ripped it off.

[3.0L]

Sadly, these quick lube rack joints staffed by high school dropouts don't have a corner on the stupidity market.

I had a soon-to-graduate senior engineering student come in my shop at the university one day, asking me what he should do to fix the squeak in the front wheel of his bicycle.

So I asked, "Did you try lubricating the wheel bearings?"

Blank stare.

[TXSTYLE]

[carve]

A lot of these places hire people who are barely qualified to change oil, and will fight to the end when the mess up. They ruined the differential in my dads truck, will often charge for things they don't do, such as a trans flush when they just did a drain and fill, will use low-quality fluids and filters, and often do things like cross thread in plugs with an impact wrench. I change my own fluids (except brake fluid- so much better with their pump.

With DIY I can also go the extra mile, such as pre-filling oil filters, or in my SH-AWD car, driving it around for a minute so I can add that extra quarter liter of fluid to the diff.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by 3.0L

Sadly, these quick lube rack joints staffed by high school dropouts don't have a corner on the stupidity market.

I had a soon-to-graduate senior engineering student come in my shop at the university one day, asking me what he should do to fix the squeak in the front wheel of his bicycle.

So I asked, "Did you try lubricating the wheel bearings?"

Blank stare.

Reminds me of a girl I knew in college. Nice girl. Smart...book smart. Got all A's getting her EE degree. I remember one day she had called over to our apartment. One of my buddies/roommates answers the phone and I can hear someone being hysterical on the other end. My buddy hangs up and says he has to go over to her house because she doesn't know how to reset a circuit breaker.

[zx10guy]

Man. Some of you are rough. The guy made a mistake that he admits. Just because someone owns a certain type of car doesn't mean they're out to just throw money away either. While I won't go to a quick change lube place, I won't beat up someone else who does. The guy found a deal Groupon/Coupon and felt like taking advantage of it. There are tons of millionaires driving around in beaters while there are tons of people driving around in higher end/luxury cars leveraged to the hilt in credit debt.

[Blksnowflake]

Originally Posted by TXSTYLE

[John 070]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

Reminds me of a girl I knew in college. Nice girl. Smart...book smart. Got all A's getting her EE degree. I remember one day she had called over to our apartment. One of my buddies/roommates answers the phone and I can hear someone being hysterical on the other end. My buddy hangs up and says he has to go over to her house because she doesn't know how to reset a circuit breaker.

Yeah but one doesn't have to do with the other. I knew a guy in college who was an EE major, and I asked him what should I do, the plug on my iron broke off. He told me nothing you can do, get a new iron. The other roommate laughed and said go to the supermarket and buy a new plug (you cut the cord, and then the new plug has screws and you screw it on). When you are 19, or 22, there's a lot you don't know. Did you know how to change an electrical panel when you were 19? I didn't. But I do today.

[John 070]

On the oil change thing I can't think of a car which you would not DIY....the BMW is a pita because it's so low, but I still like DIY...

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by John 070

Yeah but one doesn't have to do with the other. I knew a guy in college who was an EE major, and I asked him what should I do, the plug on my iron broke off. He told me nothing you can do, get a new iron. The other roommate laughed and said go to the supermarket and buy a new plug (you cut the cord, and then the new plug has screws and you screw it on). When you are 19, or 22, there's a lot you don't know. Did you know how to change an electrical panel when you were 19? I didn't. But I do today.

We're not talking about changing out a panel or re-wiring one. It's simple. Circuit breakers have been discussed in various electronics classes just like resisters, inductors, capacitors, etc. I can understand not knowing which circuit breaker is tripped if one has never seen one tripped. But when we're telling someone that can analyze the crap out of a schematic/circuit diagram how to find the breaker and to just flip the switch back and forth and she still doesn't get it...there's a problem here. And this is indicative of many college grads. All book smarts but no common sense in applying that knowledge.

[Delta0311]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

We're not talking about changing out a panel or re-wiring one. It's simple. Circuit breakers have been discussed in various electronics classes just like resisters, inductors, capacitors, etc. I can understand not knowing which circuit breaker is tripped if one has never seen one tripped. But when we're telling someone that can analyze the crap out of a schematic/circuit diagram how to find the breaker and to just flip the switch back and forth and she still doesn't get it...there's a problem here. And this is indicative of many college grads. All book smarts but no common sense in applying that knowledge.

Dude I work in IT so don't even get me started on people's ability to follow SIMPLE step by step instructions. I pretty much have a permanent face palm.

[MrPrena]

Originally Posted by NemesisX

The 10th, 25th, and 50th percentile IQs for auto mechanics are 75, 85, and 95, respectively. Their median IQ (95) is slightly less than the median for the entire population (100).

Janitors are smarter than Physicist and Scientists. (see below)

[John 070]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

All book smarts but no common sense in applying that knowledge.

Exactly, as they have no work experience. However, they will learn rather rapidly.

My HS buddy got a mech e degree, but today he is a mutual fund mgr living in a ex NBA basketball player's house. Engineers top out at what, 130k a lot of the time, they are not buying homes like that. imho his engineering background made getting a CFA much easier for him.

Realize there are many people who reach age 25, and have never actually worked before, either no need, or they were too busy studying.

There are others like myself, who had to work. One is not necessarily better than the other.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by John 070

Exactly, as they have no work experience. However, they will learn rather rapidly.

My HS buddy got a mech e degree, but today he is a mutual fund mgr living in a ex NBA basketball player's house. Engineers top out at what, 130k a lot of the time, they are not buying homes like that. imho his engineering background made getting a CFA much easier for him.

Realize there are many people who reach age 25, and have never actually worked before, either no need, or they were too busy studying.

There are others like myself, who had to work. One is not necessarily better than the other.

It has nothing to do about work experience. It's about if you study something to make it your career at least have some interest in applying it. With my roommates, 4 of them present while this situation was happening with the circuit breaker, not one of them worked as an electrician's apprentice. Two were studying to be EEs. The other two were in the Mech E program. And I was in the Materials Science Engineering program. All of us knew how to reset a circuit breaker. As I said, we told her how to go about doing it and she still couldn't do it.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by Delta0311

Dude I work in IT so don't even get me started on people's ability to follow SIMPLE step by step instructions. I pretty much have a permanent face palm.

I also currently work at an IT company and have years of experience in the field. So I know what you mean about the permanent face palm. Recently, I had this situation with an incident at my current employer. Mind you...large IT company with people who are supposedly (or should be) IT savvy. Someone sends an email out to a large distro. Some felt the email doesn't apply to them. So what do these geniuses do? They reply all telling everyone else in the distro that they shouldn't be receiving this email and to take them off the distro list. Of course, it can't stop there. So other knuckle heads reply back to the just replied all saying take me off the distro list too. Then to top it off, the reply all emails are replied to telling everyone to stop replying all. This goes on for a few hours flooding my inbox.

I just hope those idiots abusing the email system got disciplined or fired.

[John 070]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

It has nothing to do about work experience. It's about if you study something to make it your career at least have some interest in applying it. With my roommates, 4 of them present while this situation was happening with the circuit breaker, not one of them worked as an electrician's apprentice. Two were studying to be EEs. The other two were in the Mech E program. And I was in the Materials Science Engineering program. All of us knew how to reset a circuit breaker. As I said, we told her how to go about doing it and she still couldn't do it.

Sorry, but I don't agree. The reason I know a lot about a particular subject today, is that my employer plucked me out when I was 26 and put me on a track. Why? Because by the time I was 32, they would be paying 100k less than the going rate, and have someone with experience, also loyal to the firm and "in" with the culture.

Grad school gave me a foundation, but what I do has more to do with what my former employer taught me in the real world.

Not only can I reset a circuit breaker, but I can replace the panel. That came from home ownership, not undergrad or grad school.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by John 070

Sorry, but I don't agree. The reason I know a lot about a particular subject today, is that my employer plucked me out when I was 26 and put me on a track. Why? Because by the time I was 32, they would be paying 100k less than the going rate, and have someone with experience, also loyal to the firm and "in" with the culture.

Grad school gave me a foundation, but what I do has more to do with what my former employer taught me in the real world.

Not only can I reset a circuit breaker, but I can replace the panel. That came from home ownership, not undergrad or grad school.

Fine and that's your prerogative. And I have my set opinions which you won't change. At the heart of this is someone who is supposed to be cream of the crop in what our Universities can churn out. But can't follow simple directions. You can have all the job training in the world. You can't teach common sense.

[NEFARIOUS]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

I also currently work at an IT company and have years of experience in the field. So I know what you mean about the permanent face palm. Recently, I had this situation with an incident at my current employer. Mind you...large IT company with people who are supposedly (or should be) IT savvy. Someone sends an email out to a large distro. Some felt the email doesn't apply to them. So what do these geniuses do? They reply all telling everyone else in the distro that they shouldn't be receiving this email and to take them off the distro list. Of course, it can't stop there. So other knuckle heads reply back to the just replied all saying take me off the distro list too. Then to top it off, the reply all emails are replied to telling everyone to stop replying all. This goes on for a few hours flooding my inbox.

I just hope those idiots abusing the email system got disciplined or fired.

Watch... It's probably one informing them that there's a system update after a vulnerability that has already decommissioned 2 computers and to not shut down the computers so that you can apply the patch... Then you find 20% of the computers in an enterprise are still turned off, and you have to go and turn them on one by one and use the admin password and count the amount of minutes you won't get to go home on time, then deal with the end user not knowing how to log back into their own account "it used to be one click and I just enter the password"...

In one place that I admin'd, there's an area of the wall that is darker than usual since that's where I used to stand against the wall and bang my head .

[NEFARIOUS]

Originally Posted by Maestro

Not to say the local BMW dealer was a whole lot better when it came to oil changes. I found oil spilled all over my engine bay, you could see they attempted to clean it up. They also broke off the plastic door on the aero panel which cover the oil drain and would not replace it. they claim I must if ripped it off.

When I took it to the dealer hoping that they'd do an inspection now that I came across a bit of a lump sum, I wanted to go to Vegas for my 30th birthday, and I'm not a certified expert with cars...

They just haphazardly told me I needed new brakes and the reason the sensor was tripped was because of the rotor being concave but the pads were fine, and they "don't know why there's a lot of grease in the bottom".

Well, I should've done my own oil change again instead, since I discovered the source of the grinding noise... Keep in mind I haven't replaced the rear brakes before or did anything that warranted taking off the rear wheels, but I discovered this: The rear brake pads were exhibiting uneven wear, the brake pad sensor frayed off from what appears to be friction (maybe it popped out of the retainer), and the stock rotors were in good enough condition to be turned... But the front was because a CV boot I bought and replaced 6 months ago was torn again .

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by NEFARIOUS

Watch... It's probably one informing them that there's a system update after a vulnerability that has already decommissioned 2 computers and to not shut down the computers so that you can apply the patch... Then you find 20% of the computers in an enterprise are still turned off, and you have to go and turn them on one by one and use the admin password and count the amount of minutes you won't get to go home on time, then deal with the end user not knowing how to log back into their own account "it used to be one click and I just enter the password"...

You need to get some client management/automation software. Or at least your company needs to. There are management tools which will do a wake on LAN on powered down workstations so patches can be done without having to go to them one by one to turn them on manually.

Here's an example:

http://software.dell.com/kace/

In one place that I admin'd, there's an area of the wall that is darker than usual since that's where I used to stand against the wall and bang my head .

LOL. This hits home for me as I can picture the times when I've been banging my head against the wall too.

[NEFARIOUS]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

You need to get some client management/automation software.

Well, coulda woulda shoulda... I got hired to this one firm who didn't know diddly squat about finding a good candidate, so their entire infrastructure was out of wack since their long-running admin left and they hired some idiot through an Asian classifieds website that just knew how to talk a big game until something went wrong and they fired him (if I told you some of the stuff I've found, I'm surprised he lasted 8 months... If he was in a team, he'd be out in less than a week)... Half the computers in there weren't setup for enterprise infrastructure; some were even just pirated XP (and there was a Win7 recovery partition) ... Took me 3 weeks just to bring everything back up to enterprise level, and yes, that included WOL (which half the computers weren't config'd to do, hence why I had the interim solution of asking people to do me that favor).