Fin,
I'm no mechanic, but I find that changing to oil and filter on my Vanagon to be a very easy and quick thing to do myself.  I bought a drainpan from Discount Auto Parts, I drain the oil, replace the filter and refill it all myself.  The drained oil goes right back to Discount, but I have a larger drainpan, so I don't have to dump it every time.
Since I've had to helicoil my drainplug, (well, my mechanic did this for me), I won't let anyone touch it anymore.  Trasko makes a cool kit to make draining easier, and it's in the $25 range, but I've not done it just yet.
So, in my opinion, if this is something you can do yourself, do it, but I've never trusted these quick-change outfits, not even with the wife's car :-)
Good luck!
     -Robert
-----Original Message-----
From: Fin Beven <FinBeven@MSN.COM>
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Sent: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 12:02:15 -0700
Subject: JiffyLube, extras

Full confession....  I have virtually no expertise when it comes to the
care-and-feeding of engines.  But I do change my oil frequently.  I bought my
1990 just one year ago, it now has about 145,000 on the original engine and
trans, and I have no record of what service it had before that (there were
several owners).

Today I was at my local Jiffy-Lube, and they offered me two "extras":

  1.. Flushing and re-filling the Automatic Transmission Fluid.  They wanted
$89.99 for this.
  2.. "Fuel System Cleaning".  They were to put some sort of additive into the
gas-tank, then open up one of the vacuum tubes and drain some sort of cleaning
fluid into the system.  They wanted $59.99 for this.
My impression is that shops like this use the oil change as the inducement to
get you into the shop, then "get you" with the extras.

Does anyone have an opinion as to whether either of these processes are
necessary, and if so, how often they should be done.

Thanks,

Fin Beven
1990 Carat, Custom Camper Conversion
Pasadena, CA