Situation number one, Les Schwab Tires. We have a tire that I noticed (a few weeks ago) had a bald outside edge. I finally took it in and ended up getting two tires. But my interest was also in finding out why this one tire had the problem, not the others. The fellow who came out to talk with me (much later - 90 minutes?) seemed to have just one cause on his brain: it must have a misalignment, but because the bad tire is on the back, it must have been rotated from the front recently. So he was trying to pin me down on when the last alignment and rotations were.
AND THEN he tried a couple of upsales. "We might have to replace four tires. The front have 10-32's [I think that's what he said, but I was honestly tuning him out] which is fine for tread. But with your four wheel drive, if one set of tires is balding and the other has good tread, it can harm your drivetrain because of the different diameters." I'm staring at him, maybe gaping a bit. He might be thinking I am some dumb blonde, but I'm really thinking he's the dumb one. Time out buddy, it's not four wheel drive. The Toyota hybrid means the gas engine runs the front wheels, and the electric engine runs the rear wheels. He backs off a bit, "All I know is the computer comes up with all wheel drive." And then he asks if I've thought about getting prettier wheels. I say with emphasis, maybe too loudly, "It HAS pretty wheels." He says, "Sure, pretty STOCK wheels."
Situation number two, Jiffy Lube. "You've been using 5-20W but Toyota requires 0-20. We only have that in synthetic, so the oil change will be $59.99." Note that is why more than the current special for $19.99. And my reply, "Funny nobody has ever mentioned that in the four years we've had the car. Just go the next one up." I guess that didn't make sense to him, but I finally got through that he should use the closest grade conventional (non-synthetic) oil. And he had to caution, "We just have to let you know because it could affect your warranty."
He should be happy I didn't put him through my usually environmental questions (how do they recycle the used oil, etc.).
Then insult to injury, they didn't even reset the 'maintenance required' message display.
Here's what the Toyota manual really says about oil:
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