Yes, every once in a while someone comes up with an oil changing business idea and it never pans out. It is simply impossible to make a living doing oil changes. When people need to get their oil changed, they have 3 options:
1. Do it themselves - good for DIYers like us who enjoy working on their cars and have the knowledge, ability, and tools to do it. We do it mostly because we enjoy it and/or don't trust someone else to do it, as you usually save only a little money over having someone else do it.
2. Take the car to a Jiffy Lube or other "quick oil change" place and get the oil changed for about $30. These places do NOT make any money off of a $30 oil change. The oil change is just to get you in the door where they can hopefully upsell you on things that are actually profitable, like transmission fluid changes, air filters and wiper blades. If you decline all those things and just go with the oil change only, they lost money. But they'll make it up on the next guy who gets upsold.
3. Take the car to a dealer or an independent repair shop. These places may charge a little more than the quick-lube place, but they're still not making any money off the oil change. They change the oil both as a courtesy to their customers, and (like the quick-lube places), use it as an opportunity to inspect the car and hopefully upsell you on other (profitable) repairs and maintenance. The upsells may or may not be warranted, depending on how honest the dealer/shop is.
Point is, you're never going to make any money doing JUST oil changes. All of the businesses that change oil also offer other services so they can actually make money, because the oil changes themselves don't make anything. You'd have to charge significantly more money than the local quick-lube place to make any profit, and hardly anybody is going to be willing to pay that price for little-to-no perceived extra value.
