Is the Oil Change Service Dead?

[Joe Marconi]

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[Joe Marconi]

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[bantar]

We do a fair number of oil changes.   We put oil stickers on cars for 3,000, 4,000 and 6,000 miles for Conventional, Synthetic Blend and Full Synthetic oils.  5,000 for Diesels.    I track intervals per type of oil per year and only on cars that I've seen twice or more.  

For 2021, we've seen these average mileage intervals between oil changes:

• 5,189 - Conventional
• 5,370 - Synthetic Blend
• 6,320 - Full Synthetic (this average also includes euros)
• 7,000 - Diesel

What does this tell me??  

Conventional customers (3,000 mile) are saving money in two ways:   1) Buy the cheap stuff and 2) It doesn't need to be changed THAT often!   (73% stretch)

Synthetic Blend customers (4,000 mile) are more likely following the oil change light which turns on about 5,000 miles.  As a category, they are trending too long.  (34% stretch)

Full Synthetic customers (6,000 mile) are staying close to our sticker and possibly the oil change light.  Good boys and girls!  (5% stretch) 

My diesel counts are not high enough to be statistically meaningful (just under 1%). 

Here's the surprising thing.   Over the last 4 years, the oil change intervals have not meaningfully changed.   All categories have very-very tight year-to-year groupings.   What has changed is the time to hit these intervals.  Over the last 2 years, I've seen the time to hit their interval rise 30-40 days (+50 days if you go back 4 years).   This tells us that they are driving less overall.   My data says that Oil Change mileage intervals are not changing...  yet.    Mind you, we are educating our customers to stay close to the intervals for less total-cost-of-ownership.

Definitely Education!    I keep oil control valves on my counter as talking points.   The minute I have to change one of these because your let your maintenance lapse, you've lost the cost-of-ownership battle!  We focus on encouragement, but I sometimes jokingly tell them that we'd prefer that you not take car of your car.   Which side of the shop would you prefer to visit?