No offense to you pro change folks ------
I'll be sure to pass this along to my service Manager friend at Walmart and his assistant manager, Vietnam Vet, former trucking company owner. They'll get a big laugh out of it.
Here is the truth -- Steve and Bill are great guys with years of oil changing experience.
Bob, The fact that your buddy is vet, or whatever, doesn't mean a thing in this situation. As others point out, he isn't the guy making $7.25 hr. doing the work. Like I stated, they do have great protocol to double check the monkeys, and it does keep the finger tight drain plugs, loose filters, and lug nuts to a minimum. It doesn't do much for the stripped threads in the drain pan, or the cross threaded wheel stud that you have to snap off with a breaker bar. The later BTW, was a gift to me from a Walmart in Anchorage AK. while on the road one summer. It only took $5 in parts, and half an hour to fix, but it never would of happened in the hands of a skilled tech. You are also clearly an outlier, time wise, as the few times I have done business with them, they are so extraordinarily slow, it becomes evident that there is no way that the shop is functioning at a profit.
The last straw for me was a visit to my local store where I left my truck in their "capable hands" and went shopping. An hour and a half later I stopped back to pay the bill, since it was parked way out in the lot, and we had completed our grocery shopping a half hour ago. The idiot then tells me that they couldn't do the work, and just parked it there. I asked why I heard several other customers being paged to report to the auto service counter? The clerk explained that it was because their cars were done. I asked if I was supposed to learn of my vehicle being abandoned in the lot after all my groceries were rotted, and the lights were turned off at night, or if they thought paging me might of been a decent thing to do, since they told me to wait to be paged? The service manager shrugged his shoulders and walked away. The store manager was professional and apologetic, but did nothing to resolve the issue. Years later, I still occasionally see the service manager wandering through the store, with his typical slightly confused, and distant look on his face. I guess when you pay peanuts, that's the caliber of leadership you end up with?
It's good that you have a decent relationship with a reliable store, but too many of them are best avoided.