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Oil prices……………..??
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Sigh….
The ‘peace of mind’ Jeff & his Eagle Scouts plus the rest of his staff…priceless to us newbies!
“No, problem, I can have one of the boys pick you and Vicki up at the airport”
“Jeff, just a quick minute of your time to explain [fill in the blank]”
“Thanks Jeff for responding so fast to my 1) text, 2) email, 3) call”
“We always store some extra flooring material so if you have damage we can match it”
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tr;uk……………..your a very funny man!
Bill’s been paid.
Service not questioned.
Oil prices was the subject.(in case some-all- missed it)
Jon;
I buy genuine Mobil delvac 1300…….no second grade crap in my engine.
I’ve had oil changes on the road many times………with the 50 amp + other ‘services’.
Even rotella was half Jeff’s price!
This ain’t my first rodeo.
I know…….the deck is stacked against me here. Ya’ll just got bought off with $100….sums it up.
So………if you’re mad at your hard earned bucks…………..
He will continue……….I won’t.
Gotta go get some work done and still make my other appointments.
btw…….I didn’t skip out/ Jeff knew I had to go, and never presented me with a bill…..cause we weren’t sure we were done. Bill came via email
…….couldn’t wait a week for airbags.
I’m outta here……..Ol(loner)Ben
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A little shocking to hear a member slamming a advertiser in the elite class as Jeff. Going after one of the really good guys in the repair side of high end toys.
Over a oil change….really !
Here is another example of short thinking about what goes into running a repair shop. We are not talking about finding a garage location, unload your tool box and go to work. I have some idea of the thousands of dollars spent to get Jeff’s shop running on all 8 cylinders.
I would strongly suggest you shop around for cheap oil changes which are usually done by morons who know nothing about quality service. Have your oil change done by shops who use bulk oil storage tanks labeled name brand. Investigations have been done that determined cheap recycled oil is in fact in the tank.
Interesting fact here Jeff trusted you to drive away with an unpaid bill and you then find time to slam him.
Jeff, don’t give him any slack on the bill. Ben, pay up !
AL
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Starting to get a sense of why Ol Ben feels he’s a loner. Never even checked what we’ve been charged for oil and I’m not going to either. Geo.
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Al;
I’ve had my service done at one or more of those places…….you know–morons and such?….maybe bulk oil??
Let’s see now…….the name of the joints was ‘Prevost, Jacksonville’………’Liberty, Chicago’…..??
One last time……….I just asked about oil prices………not oil changes/ service.
Jeff is good……but………he ain’t the ‘Holy Grail’…………….!!!
Now I’m branded a ‘non-paying whelcher’…..??
I am questioning my intellect level………..(by the company you keep??)
Pound away ya’ll………..I, for one, can take it.
……but I do know when to move on, before I get completely dragged down to your level.
Now is that time……………………..
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This reminds me of a customer who was fussing at me about the travel trailer I had sold him. I had done all I knew to do for him. He fussed and he fussed and, when I finally had enough, I said to him, “My Customer Satisfaction Index on the travel trailer brand you have is 99%….I’d hate to think you might be the 1% who just doesn’t like doing business with me.”
Sometimes, it’s just the way it is.
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Ol Ben,
No need to leave PC as it’s just my opinion. I respect yours as you believed you had been taken advantage of.
So whats the big deal. So you had no clue this would happen when you hit “send” ?
I think you took everyone by surprise as Jeff has done so many good things for his customers.
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Guys,
This is dangerously close to personal attacks, and maybe actually has crossed the line. I think it is OK to discuss the issue, and maybe Ben is right about oil prices, maybe not but let’s keep the conversation civil and speak to the issue.
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After 25+ years of working in corporate America (hell, corporate world as most of that time has been with international business), The same amount of years interacting on online email lists, BBS’s, Forums, Social Media I like to think I’ve come a little ways in how to diplomatically handle some situations online or in a professional environment (still not perfect, but I still have some years under my belt to get there).
One thing I learned many years ago was to deal with issues directly and make sure I got to either a feasible agreement or at a complete impasse before I say anything negative about any business in public.
Asking for experience in regards to shops going rate/markup on materials is good and educational. However coming out of the starting gate naming names and directly attacking their business practices rarely turns out the way you want it to turn out. Generally you receive very little sympathy, at worst you come across like that cranky old man down the road when you were a teenager who shook his cane in the air while yelling at you blasted teenagers to get off his front yard.
Here is my take away from this.
For me, I know Jeff’s oil prices is slightly higher then what I can get it with the NAPA discount we get. He isn’t getting that discount. He gets shop rates from NAPA I am sure. Sometimes it’s better then what we get with our cards, sometimes it’s worse. As a business owner and a shop owner, they almost NEVER pass on their savings to the customer. Markup is very common. I have brought my own oil to many different shops (even dealers) and asked to use my oil rather then theirs. Got me exactly what I wanted at the price I was able to hunt down. This works out okay for cars and trucks. I dont mind grabbing 3 gallons of oil for my Dodge truck to hand over to the shop. For the Prevost? Hell if Im going to handle that much oil just to save a couple dollars.
On top of that Jeff needs to deal with the waist. Again, at the amount these coaches hold, that’s not cool to put that on the shop.
I am sure Jeff or any other shop will give you the price of materials up front. I personally never ask him to give me a detailed estimate on most work. For big items such as Cruise Air replacements or a new holding tank? Ye, but for an oil/filter change? Nope. I dont have the capacity to deal with doing the change myself and handling the old oil so I am okay with paying a marked up rate and his shop rate.
Jeff has never held back the fact that he marks up parts/materials. He told me straight up he has a slight markup on all his things when we talked about the cost of a new stainless steel holding tank. He told me his cost and my cost. Got to respect someone who is that honest.
Does he make mistakes? Yes, I go through all my work orders, add everything up parts and work. I did find once where the math was off. Called him and within about 30 seconds I had a credit on the books. Heck, I forgot about it the next time I was there (six months later). He actually reminded me about it when we squared up the bill.
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I am not taking sides on this issue. I pointed out earlier apart from selling the oil he must inventory, Jeff has costs few consider, ranging from disposal of the old oil to the waste generated from the containers and the fact he has to more than cover expenses to have the profits required to keep him in business.
But I do know oil can be purchased less expensively. The link is below. But I am going to let the world know that if Jeff sells his oil for that price or uses oil provided by the owner he should add $20 per gallon for all the other costs associated with putting in a gallon of oil in a coach unless the owner wants to take the oil drained from the bus along with all the empty containers.
I change my own oil and filters and every time I do that I have to take the waste oil and containers ot the Knox County transfer stations. It is a pain in the butt, costs me at least an hour of my time but is the only way we can deal with such waste.
http://www.farmandfleet.com/products/228828-mobil-delvac-1300-super-15w40-diesel-engine-oil.html.
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The right way to handle this problem would have been for Ben to deal with this directly with Jeff. The fact that he used this forum to trash Jeff’s business was wrong. If anyone had a personal attack, it was Jeff.
Hope we can move on, this will pass, it won’t be the last as time this happens in one form or another as time goes on. The good news, is we can have this discussion out in the open.
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My twin brother and I own Three shops with wheel lifts just like Jeff’s and techs to do the work and we do the work too , but this is crazy I can tell you the cost of a shop is through the roof and we work on about 30 buses a day and the hauling of them with Landalls and tow trucks , most of the people that answer hear don’t own a shop but I do three of them we work on more buses in one week than most do in a month, we have been in business since 1956 when we opened the first shop, we deal with all kinds of people and some you can make happy and some you can’t , we have given deals to some to ease the heat but they still bad mouth you , so , what do you do , charge them the going rate and pay the expenses and move on, don’t break down in our area or need service !!!!! It might cost some money!!!!!! This is are theroy, We can not compromise are price integrity for every sqeaky wheel !!!!!! Most of the time people who complain about the price are meantally un armed to have this conversation with !!!!!! The end !!!!! I don’t think you can take are Birthday away . Just are thoughts on the matter!!!!!!!
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He is, in fact, the Holy Grail.
He changed the oil on my bus, and the bill was over $4000. I think he did some other stuff to it, too.
I don’t know how much he charged me for oil. I did not care. I paid for his expertise, as well has the fluids.
I don’t have a lot of money, but I have a lot more money than I do time. I cannot afford to have to have something done over, I cannot tolerate incompetence. I have had a lousy experience with service on my bus one time, and it cost me money and time. I don’t want to do that again.
When I place my prayer mat down each afternoon, I face Vonore, TN.
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People don’t realize what it takes to run a shop. Had Owned one since 1985 when I started my own business. Several times we went out to fix a problem in the field with our Welding Equipment and had a 3 hour minimum on unit plus materials. That included what I paid the man running it. Told them upfront about Minimum. Had folks tell me it only took 30 or 45 minutes to fix problem and you charged $75 bucks x 3 hours. That didn’t include driving to get there. They would tell me the number of rods or time Mig or Tig was run. Told them “Turn around and look at $85,000 bucks worth of goodies on 1 ton rig” . Buy you one or 4 like we had and fix it yourself. Guess that’s why I counted my marbles, sold out, and retired a couple years ago.
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Colt’s confused, his mat faces Coburg.
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