Good Kragen, bad Kragen...

Personally I love the very relevant questions they ask when you're shopping for parts. You know, like when you're ask for an alternator and they ask if the vehicle has an automatic or manual trans. Need wiper blades? Hmmm...is that a 2 or 4 wheel drive? But at least they have the best parts China makes!

I've found an easy way of improving your luck at the oil dump:

When I'm ready to change the oil on the vehicles around here; I go down the local Checker Auto (the desert-dwelling version of Kragen), grab their one shopping cart, fill it up with a case of oil, oil filters, air filters, hand cleaner, etc , park the cart in front of their one cash register, and, while the parts are being rung up, ask if you can dump some old oil. Guy at the register just wants to get me in and out of their with my $50 load of stuff so he can sell the next local boy some more neon kits and that bling-bling fart can! Leave the cart right there at the register, grab the oil jug, stand patiently and politely ask the nearest guy if you can "go on back" to dump the oil. Don't just charge back there; it's not polite and it will only serve to speed things up for the guys standing in line behind your abandoned shopping cart. While you're back there, be sure to take time to clean up your spills, and any spills made by previous sloppy oil-dumpers. Take all the time you need to do a good job.

Do this a couple of times, and you can send them into spasms when you walk in the door. Somebody will fly over the counter and offer to dump your oil jug for you, leaving you time to shop at leisure When you push their one cart loaded with oil to the register, your jug will be presented to you empty and wiped clean


I have to admit that I did not discover this procedure on my own. I learned it firsthand from two gentlmen (one from Oregon, one from Wisconsin) who did the very same thing to me.





Still Dreamin'

The Kragen in Tustin just let me go to the back and dump the oils, the one in Irvine have the counter persons do it and sign my name . I guess different one have different policies depending on where the recycle drums are stored.

I don't know if the kind of pay they get reflex the kind of service you get.

I had the local auto zone ignore me for a while, so I just left my jugs of oil next to their counter and walked out. I'm sure they figured it out eventually.