Yeah, I got sucked into some clickbait. Here’s a quote from one page:
Remember pulling into a gas station and having a technician rush out to service your car while pumping a tank full of gas? It most states that was phased out in the ‘70s, and frankly we feel like it should make a come back. Whether you pulled into a Texaco, a Gulf, or a Phillips 66 you were likely to have someone and give you a proper tune up, check your tires, hoses, and even change your oil if you needed it. That kind of service came to an end in the ‘80s for the most part, but for the most glorious decade getting your car taken care of was as easy as pulling into a full service station.
OK, ‘technician’ isn’t the right word. And I never saw anyone get a ‘proper tune-up’ at the pumps. (The gas stations tended to have garages attached though, instead of a mini-mart.) But the pump-jockey did fill up your tank, check your oil, check the coolant, check your tires, check the belts, and clean your windshield – with no surcharge.
The click-bait is for people who might be nostalgic for those services. But do we really need those services nowadays? I have a 1966 MGB, and I’d appreciate someone checking the fan belt for wear, age, and tension. The fan belt is something that I keep a sharp ear out for. My car doesn’t consume oil, but it would be nice to have eyes on the dipstick every time I refueled. My cooling system works properly (within limits of the design), but I remember when cars overheated frequently. Yeah, a full-service fill-up would be great… in that car. The 1999 Jeep Cherokee? The Toyota Prius? Not really an issue. Yes, I’ve had serpentine belts replaced. Yes, I’ve had water pumps replaced. But for the most part, there’s no actual need for the ‘full services’ of the past on modern vehicles.
I personally don’t see the need. I can get all that done at Walmart. If I’m just stopping for gas, I want to get to where I’m going sooner rather than later.
I don’t currently drive, but yeah. I don’t get the nostalgia thing either. I have no desire to bring back the 1960s either, and modern cars don’t really need an 18 year old poking around in it, especially in this day and era where it’s uncommon to have kids spinning wrenches on the family car once they’ve entered high school.
I’ll leave the era of ‘full service’ to old movies along with rotary dial phones and telegrams.
Go back 50 years and mechanics worked bumper to bumper on just about any domestic car that rolled in the door. There were commonly specialty shops for transmissions, etc but for the most part one guy could fix just about anything. In another life I was in the Motor Vehicle Mechanical Repair trade. That’s not even close to being the reality with today’s cars.
Actually, I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago, after watching (for the upteenth time) the movie Back to the Future. When Marty McFly first walks into downtown Hill Valley, a car drives up to the gas station, setting off the bell and about five or six pump jockeys run out, and start checking the tires, cleaning the windshield and checking the motor oil. I wondered if that many people actually worked on each car, although I know it was exaggerated for comedic purposes.
What percentage of the cars on the road are classics like your '66 MGB? Probably very small. Makes no sense to set up full service stations across the country for such a small % of vehicles. It would make more sense for you to move to NJ or Oregon where full service stations are mandated.
Gas was a lot more profitable back then. Nowadays, gas station owners barely break even on gas, and make their money on snacks. So you’d need a surcharge to offer this service. And any gas station that let you pump your own for a discount would get all the customers, and their full service competitors wouldn’t get any. This is just not an idea that will come back any time soon. Labor is too expensive, gas is too expensive, and cars are far more reliable. They just don’t need servicing every time you gas up anymore. That’s why all the service stations became convenience stores in the 80s and 90s.
My first job was a gas jockey mumblety mumblety years ago (it was before I had a license & it was relatively close to my house). We’d check fluids but never belts.
There are a lot of 10+ to cars out there that aren’t what they were when they were new. Probably checking the oil more frequently would benefit the majority of those car owned by non-mechanical types but today’s mechanics are much closer to electrical engineers than to mechanics anymore.
Nowadays I can pull into a quick oil change place, request a full-service oil change, and get things like the OP mentions done to my car. I do this every few months. As long as I don’t have a “special-needs car,” that seems perfectly adequate.
In Oregon, at least, it used to be pretty standard for them to clean the windshield without being asked, and to offer to check the oil. That ended probably 15-20 years ago if not longer. You may get someone to do it if you ask, but if they agree, you might have to wait a while, I would think. The staffing is usually so low you have to wait a bit for them to start and end the pump.
And I thought NJ ended mandatory full service. Ah, I see it was the statewide law that changed, and some localities still require it.
There was a time when checking your oil on a weekly basis was a necessity. Unless you currently drive a very old or very high mileage car, this is no longer the case for you (thankfully). Tires are also much better today, and many cars display the pressure in each.
When I was a kid in the 80s, admittedly when full service gas stations were already waning, it wasn’t uncommon for gas stations to have a full service side and a self service side. If I remember correctly back then they did charge more if you used full service (because I remember asking my dad why he didn’t – he said he didn’t want to pay extra for it).
As far as I know we are still no-self-serve in NJ.
I did a quick Google and found a headline that made it look like NJ was the one with “some localities still require it” but further reading showed that they were talking about Oregon.
And I’m certain that if I asked, they would do those nice things like checking oil and washing the windshield, but that stuff was standard in the 70s–no need to ask for it, in fact they would do the asking.
I read of an adventurous Boston lawyer’s road trip to Chicago and back in 1903. The drive took three weeks IIRC. The car needed replacement parts every day or two and an engine rebuild more than once a week.
Fast-forward a half-century to those weekly oil checks and engine rebuilds every 5k-10k miles. Could better technologies then have reduced service calls? Yes, and long ago - “…the [1915] Fergus, which reduced maintenance to a minimum. A few points needed to be checked or serviced every six months, instead of the myriad greasers on the average car which needed attention at least once a week.” (DB Wise, Veteran and Vintage Cars, 1971)
Might “planned obsolescence” have delayed US automakers from improving technology? Until foreign competition from ca. 1960 onward, cars lasted 3 years - so you got serviced regularly until you had to buy new every 3 years - 4 if you were cheap and lucky. Grease monkeys stayed busy, sure thing. How many of today’s youngish men who might be mechanics are relegated to the alt.right because such jobs are gone?
I like driving north to Oregon so someone else can pump fuel in lousy weather.
Exactly. This sounds similar to griping about airlines. If one airline includes free checked baggage, a few inches more room, a good meal, etc. and charges $100 more for the ticket, few people buy that ticket. Most people want the cheapest possible ticket, but that doesn’t stop them then griping about the fact that service is pared down to a minimum.
What people say they want is not always what their behavior as consumers shows that they really want. Both airlines and gas stations give us the latter.