Texas Service Stations Caught Cheating Customers

When you pay for a synthetic oil change, you are paying a higher price for a higher quality of oil that will help protect your car’s engine. The synthetic oil has fewer contaminants, and it will help improve the performance of your car and extend its life. Asking for synthetic oil significantly raises the cost of an oil change thanks to the benefits this oil provides.

In an investigative report, news station KXAN discovered that some shops in central Texas were cheating their customers out of this higher quality oil even when they paid for it.

The reporting team posed as customers purchasing synthetic oil changes from several shops. The team then took a sample of the new oil in the engine and sent it off to a lab for testing. Six times, they found that the supposedly high quality oil that they paid for with the oil change was actually a cheap, low-quality oil.

A former employee of one of the shops tipped KXAN off to the problem, revealing that the employees would refill bottles of synthetic oil with lower-quality oil. Therefore, it looked like they were using synthetic oil for the service since the bottles were labeled as such, but they were really putting cheap oil in the engines.

Unfortunately, the KXAN team confirmed that there is no way for customers to know if they have been swindled by paying for a synthetic oil change and getting the cheaper oil instead other than to pay the hundreds of dollars for laboratory testing. There are only two ways that customers can protect themselves: 1) By bringing their own synthetic oil to the shop, and 2) by only shopping with reputable service stations that they trust.

The problem with the first option is that customers still don’t know if the synthetic oil they bring in to be used in the oil change is actually used.

Fortunately, no such reports have surfaced here in Ohio or Cincinnati. McCluskey Chevrolet prides itself on providing the best service each and every time, and that includes conducting a synthetic oil change with the best quality oils and the best workmanship. We are transparent in our practices, and we have a sterling reputation in our community.