I go in for tire repair and the man asks about my windshield wipers....?

This is done primarily because the more the repair shop sells the better the managers bonus is. This practice is nothing new, I worked at a repair company and when the car was on the lift for exhaust work we were to look for "bad" shocks, etc. I worked at a parts store and if we sold a alternator we would ask the customer if they needed a belt too, it was called making sure that the customer had everything they needed to do the job right and I like that idea. But the other stuff that you were talking about is nothing new as I said earlier