Jiffy Lube done messed up

Got a call from Jiffy Lube on Sunday. Showed up to find out they wanted to take me to a customers house. Turns out they didn’t tighten something down and the home owners car left a puddle of oil.

They said the tried everything to get the oil out. I could tell. They etched the concrete with a pressure washer and I told them the only thing they can do is call a concrete company. She said she wanted to see what it’s like under the oil. I said, that’s silly, but ok.

My only job was to soak up the oil and my “Sunday” rate is $500. After 20 minutes or so of grinding in Oil Dri with my boots and sweeping it in, I hosed it off to show her the concrete was damaged. Got cash. Went home. This business can be weird sometimes, but if I can make $500/hour dancing on cat litter I’ll take weird every day.

7 Likes

I’ll try to upload the before pic tomorrow. It’s not working…

Sounds like a great day. I hope you come across more like that

1 Like

Conscience ???

Relevance???

1 Like

When they called I told them that was my minimum for hooking up short notice on a Sunday. They agreed before I ever even saw the project.

1 Like

For the record: I don’t feel bad about it at all.

3 Likes

@JimLuke like I said above, that was agreed to before I ever saw the project. On the phone she used the words “major oil spill”.

I even gave her a way out. If she had listened about calling a concrete company and said roger that, I would’ve went home without charging a dime.

1 Like

Sometimes I envy you guys in the bigger cities. If I tried to get $500 for spreading oil sorb, I would still be able to hear the person laughing even after they hung up. Then they would run all over Mayberry and tell everyone how I tried to rip them off.

In your case the citified lady will probably tell her friends that she had a friendly professional cleaning contractor who only charged her $500 to come out on a Sunday and perform an oil remediation process using specialized granular material and some spreading equipment and then disposed of said granular material off-site. No wonder she thinks its a bargain, lol.

8 Likes

Once I had a wheel seal leak gear oil on a customer’s driveway while we were there cleaning out some gutters. When we drove off the tire tracked the oil all down the drive. I used this the same day and it came out great. Customer was completely happy with the result.

3 Likes

Where are you from Steve?

I’ve wondered about that stuff. It wasn’t the homeowner who paid. It was the regional manager for jiffy lube. I couldn’t get $500 from a homeowner if I washed it, removed oil, and sealed it probably.

The Corp paid the bill.

I’m a 2 hours drive North of Nashville, TN

Classic. The only thing funnier would be if they had given you the oil sorb from their own supply, lol. They probably wanted a legit cleaning contractor to show that they made a reasonable effort to handle the problem by hiring a professional to come out immediately to handle the issue. Pretty good on their part actually.

3 Likes

She said they tried the same thing just didn’t grind it in. I told her it’s the clay that absorbs it and you have to grind it in to porous concrete.

Funny thing is I sweep it up and put it back in the bucket to reuse later. A $4 bag of oil dri.

They’ll probably never call me again because they know the trick.

She did say the bays need washed, but I don’t have a reclaim system so I won’t get that job either. Lol

2 Likes

She stood there the entire time so I like to consider the $500 a tax for making me uncomfortable.

4 Likes

You should have told her that by grinding up the oil sorb you were creating potential ignition hazard from the dust/oil reaction, which could create a fireball and burn you both to death. I’ll bet she would have moved then.

8 Likes

:joy: noted for future use.

1 Like

http://www.eatoils.com/product/bt200

2 Likes

http://www.etowahchemicals.com/chemicals/industrial-strength-cleaning/concrete-cleaners