| By :
Steve Tarini
After starting an oil change business I quickly realized that my income was fairly consistent. It was difficult to keep increasing car counts all the time because just as soon as you get three new customers you lost two because the guy down the street is offering a special deal. Try doing what I did and start doing something the average quick lubes are not doing. Struggling with this for a while I decided to attended a seminar about synthetic oils and I was shocked to learn some fascinating facts that up to this time I had no idea. One of the first things I learned was that in all of Europe there is no such thing as a 3,000 mile oil change, in fact you can't even find a quick lube shop in all of Europe. You see Europeans have been changing their oil once a year or about 25,000 miles for well over two decades. I was surprised when I heard all the facts about extended drain intervals and I feel most people would be open to this concept if explained properly. How can it be possible to go 25,000 miles between oil changes? Further research pointed to the quality of oil Europe was using and needless to say their quality standards were so much higher then those of the U.S. Our research also showed that Europeans have very few engine rebuild shops in their country. You see when using higher quality synthetics engines don't typically wear out like the most American made cars do when using inferior petroleum oil. What does all this mean to someone in the oil change business here in the U.S.? For starters you might ask yourself; why can't we offer annual oil changes? If Europeans can achieve these types of intervals using higher quality synthetics then why can't we. Having your car worked on just once a year is something Europeans are accustomed to. This is why you don't see any quick lubes, the car dealerships do all the work. Typically all the fluids are changed and any other maintenance items are attended to and out the door you go. There may be times when a vehicle has to be seen more than once a year if a problem comes up, but Europeans don't see the need to service a vehicle every 3,000 miles especially if all you're doing is changing the oil. So why can't this same concept be adopted here in the U.S.? There are synthetic oils made right here in the United States that exceed the specs of the oils used in Europe. In fact the specs for these oils is actually higher than most European specs. Our shop converted over to a once a year oil change system and our customers love the time they saved and as an extra benefit their cars ran better and got better fuel mileage. We haven't experience one problem since switching over and our profits have never been higher. We even discovered the company we deal with has a system in place that not only allows us to make about a 30-35% profit on every oil change, but to also earn commissions directly from the parent company. We are making an additional $2000.00 a month in commissions alone on top of the profits we make on our oil changes. This system works and we will never go back to offering 3,000 mile oil changes again. If someone ever comes in and wants a cheap oil change we just send them down to the quick lube because it isn't worth our time anymore to make fifteen dollars on an oil change. And besides we are not comfortable with offering any of the motor oils currently available here in the U.S. none of them even come close to performing up to the standard of oil we now use. If this concept is something you're hearing for the first time perhaps it's time to start exploring this option. Offering high quality synthetic oils similar to the ones offered in Europe to my customers was an easy decision. This is something every quick lube or garage service center should consider adding to their business.
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