8/15/20 47.99?

   
    We just bought our newest used car two weeks ago and already it needed an oil change.  I thought that was a bit shitty of Ford to release it that way, but oh well.  The car, a Ford Ecosport, has been awesome.  Wife has been driving it back and forth and I had it the last couple of days, she drove her badass Telluride on Thursday, and I really like how it handles.  It is like driving a little toy car or a dune buggy zipping around turns much faster than I ever could in the big Excursion.  Saying Wife can put miles on a car is saying it mildly.  We bought the car two weekends ago and it only had 31,400 miles or so.  Today, I looked at the odometer and it is already at 34,500 miles or so.  As much as this sucks, at least those miles were not put on the Ka Telluride, which was much more expensive and is our real family car, if that defines anything nowadays.
    Apparently, cars are doing something different on their oil changes.  I am not sure if this is because of the newer synthetic blends and they don't break down as fast, or if the engines are just more resilient and we really care about the environment, so we keep our oil longer.  Either way, instead of oil changes every 3,000 miles, some cars are stretching that to 7,500 miles or 6 months, whichever comes first. 
    I went to Ford this morning as soon as I woke up, that being around 9:30am.  By the time I got there and in line, it was 10:30am.  The guy said it would be about an hour.  I've done this before, I figured I would walk around the lot and look at the new cars, then the old ones with no one to tell me it is too hot and/or I am bored.  Man, it was really hot and I could barely stand it.  It doesn't help that all the Expeditions are close to $70,000, the lifted cool F-150s are even more than that, and I couldn't even find the F-250s.  Those are about the vehicles I think I might end up buying for myself, eventually.  I was a little disappointed to see that there was no coffee available for the customers, although it was almost too hot for it.  By the time I made my way around from new to used, I noticed my car was already up on the rack, so I got closer, it only took 30 minutes.
    Last time I was there for an oil change I seemed to be rushing them when I quickly went and asked for the ticket to pay right after the oil change, so I decided to be good and just wait in the lobby with the other humans.  When the service guy came, he had the ticket in hand and I noticed $47.99 at the bottom.  I did not like that, but he was talking about "we could have recommended this and that, but nothing else was scheduled for your car, so it is just the oil change this time."  I asked "and that is $47.99, seems like a bit much, y'all have coupons all the time for oil changes for $19.99 and stuff."  He tried playing it off like "yeah, sometimes we have coupon days but you need to bring the coupon in, anyway, when you get our service review if you could give us 5 stars across the board, it really helps us."  I don't like to argue over a couple of bucks, so I had given him the card and he had run it, so I was really just voicing my dissatisfaction with the price, I told him "you think y'all deserve 5 stars with an almost $50 oil change?"  Suddenly, he changed his song, he slowed down and said he was going to refund my money.  I told him don't worry about it, you already ran it, I just wanted to say you all are charging way too much.  He surprised me by asking me what would be fair.  I said "uh, maybe $25-$27.99."   He then took off like $17 and change to make it that amount.
    It took an extra 5 minutes, which I don't ever like being that guy, but come on, it is a tiny engine, there is no way it should be that much, especially when they constantly shit on Jiffy Lube and really suggest that we should do all our services in house.  So yeah, I felt stupid waiting for a dinky $17, but I left feeling that $27.99 was a fair charge for the oil change.