Saving on Oil Changes

Monday April 12, 2010

My car has been reminding me that it needed an oil change all weekend, so I made plans to take care of it today. The last time I got an oil change, I took the car to Jiffy Lube. I wanted the convenience of a quick turnaround and didn’t mind paying what I thought would be a “little” more. Well, after they convinced that this filter and that thingee needed changing or else might engine might explode (I exaggerate… a tad), I drove off $80 poorer. I was determined to not let that happen this time.

First thing I did was look at my random coupon folder. When I get the mailers from places like Val Pak or Money Mailer, I quickly flip through them and pull out any thing that I think I *might* use and throw it in a manilla folder. Most of the time, it’s for services I’m unlikely to need, but I know that life happens, so I usually snag the automotive ones. Anywho, I scanned my folder to see what I had in the way of oil changes. Several of the places were not convenient, but one happened to be walking distance from my kids’ preschool. However, their coupon was for a $24.95 oil change and I had another coupon that was for a $16.95 oil change. I decided to go to the more convenient one and see what kind of deal I could strike. Plus, the cheaper place was a garage that I have had bad experiences with in the past, so I had already sworn them off.

Anywho, we swung into Midas this morning with my two coupons in hand – one was the competitor’s coupon for $16.95, and the other was the Midas coupon for $24.95. I asked if they honored competitors coupons and was told, “Sure.” But, when I pulled out my $16.95 coupon, the guy behind the counter said he’d have to check with his boss. Now, I knew 16.95 was a way low price – most of the other ads were coupons for $19.95. The boss said no. Before pulling out my $24.95 coupon, I asked, “What’s the lowest you can do?” He said, “19.95″. I said, “SOLD!”

19.95 had been my target price all along – getting for even less would have been a treat, but I was happy to have beaten their advertised coupon price just buy doing a tiny bit of research and not being afraid to ask.