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It is actually a good idea to clean your car well before taking it in for service. The service people will see that you are fussy about your car and will probably take better care of it because they will not want to hear complaints. I usually make it a point of cleaning the car really well and then specifically telling the service manager that I am extremely fussy about the car before ever leaving it. I never take my car in for service anyway, I don't trust anybody... I do all my own work. But I am forced to take my cars in for state inspection. So far the bozos at the dealer stripped wheel studs during inspection... twice! Had to replace them. Gee, you can't even have someone remove and replace a WHEEL, let alone doing any other type of complicated work. It's a damn shame. Last time the guy says to me that the stud was already stripped when he went to take off the lug nut. I know this was a blatent lie because I had removed and replaced the wheels myself the day before with a hand wrench, I know for a fact that ALL the lug nuts on my car were on perfectly, torqued perfectly. This bozo removed the nut and then cross-threaded it back on with his air-wrench.... then has the balls to tell me he found it stripped.
Another good idea is to put a sheet or blanket over your seats and also throw some old floor mats on top of your good mats before taking the car in.
Jiffy Lube? Do you really want some high school drop-out punk wrenching your car? I actually have nightmares about this sort of thing occasionally. Very scary.
Buy a good new car (which does not need much service for the first 100,000 miles), do all the simple service yourself (oil, brakes, fuel filter, etc), and then when the car needs more major type service or repair (usually at
100k miles +), sell the car and buy another one. This way you NEVER need to bring the car to a shop. I have a `96 Chevy that has 86k miles on it... the car has NEVER been to a shop for service or repair since the day it left the showroom brand new. At 100k miles it will need a spark plug change... on this car you need to tilt the engine to get the plugs out, it looks like a real pain to do it... I'll probably just leave it alone until it has about
110k miles on it, and then just sell it. You gotta figure that after 110k miles or so, a lot of things might start breaking anyway. The goal is to NEVER need to go to a shop for repairs. The money you will save by not being ripped off by a shop can go toward the purchase of a nice new car. The time you will save and heartache you will avoid is also worth a great deal, maybe even more than the money saved.