I remember a young woman drove in and had her oil and filter changed at one of the quick lube places. The name of the place will not be mentioned.

After they finished she paid them and drove on to work. Along the way her oil filter came unscrewed and fell off. All the oil ran out of her engine. Her red light came on as she was on the expressway. Her engine burned up and was ruined because she was not paying attention to the light and didn't know what it meant anyway.

The quick lube said they were not responsible.

The main reason I change my own oil and filter.

The other thing a guy at work was complaining about the low mpg he was getting in his Honda. I asked him if he had changed his air filter lately.

He said he didn't remember. I told him at lunch time lets go out and check your air filter to see how it looks.

So at lunch we went out to his Honda, raised the hood, and I could not believe my eyes.

Never in my entire life have I ever seen green grass growing out from an air filter housing. Yep, green grass. I removed the top nut and pulled the air filter out. It was caked solid with dirt and grass sprouting out all arround it. Hold it up to the direct sun light and its a blank - solid dirt.

I told the guy that this is the first air filter I ever saw that needed mowing.

It turns out the guy drives a lot on country dirt roads to get to the highway. Lots of dust and dirt. No telling how much went into his engine.

I was afraid to look at the oil filter and oil. It was probably just as bad, but at lunch I had no way to check it. His bearings were probably sanpapered down to nothing with all the dirt in the oil.

He bought a new air filter, cleaned it up and traded it off on a new car.

Did you happen to buy his used Honda? I hope not.

Strange things go on in the automotive world.

 

When i used to change oil for a place that will go un-mentioned, this lady came in with her Dodge car, and had decided that she needed her oil changed, and of course I said "Sure I'd be happy too." When I used to change oil, I was the one who ran the shop, and I absolutely hate these Walmart type shops where you are nothing but a number.

I got the dodge on the lift and pulled the plug....normally this is when the oil comes out....

nothing...

so i put a screw driver in the drain hole, cause when i drove it upon the lift it had oil pressure....all i got was a black gooy mess..I ended up pulling the pan and used a putty knife to clean it. you could tell where the crank had run through this black goo..

So i cleaned er up good put some good oil and a filter on, and started it up and ran with no problems.

I asked the lady when was the last time the oil was changed, she said "oh about 30,000 miles ago, cause that's what my husband always does with his trucks, and he's a mechanic for the local repair shop."

Kinda scary huh?

I told the lady 3000 miles or 6 months as that was our policy.

Later I heard that her hsuband had to close his shop due to lawsuits.....

super

 

Jeepers, I'm gonna buy a Dodge. Actually, I already have a Dodge 360 lying around. I could save money on the oil changes.

I'd rather take a beating than take one of my cars to a quick lube place. I've had similarly bad experiences with them. I, too, change all the oil around my place to make sure it gets done right.

 

My Mother got over 55k out of the original Oil in her '99 Ranger XLT, im not kiddin. Now i change the oil in her '02 F-150.

I went to change the Air filter in the same truck and it was Full of dog food and Rat Turds. The rats were taking our dog food and puting it in the Filter Box.

 

>
>
>Did you happen to buy his used Honda? I hope not.
>
Nope, got the wife a new one.

Those Hondas seem to have a life of their own. I have a friend at work, she puts about 150 or so miles a day on her civic just driving to work and back. She replaces the tires more often then she changes the oil. I did an oil change for her once, about 3 quarts of the nastiest looking oil I have ever seen kinda fell out of the engine. I asked when she changed the oil last. She said her ex-husband changed it last, at this point she had been divorced for over a year. The car has over 350,000 miles now and she still drives it to work everyday.

 

hitecdan - after my experiences and your experiences, I wonder why all the fuss about which oil to use? Or which filter to use?

Well, anyway I always change my own oil and filter using motorcraft oil and motorcraft filter.

Oh, another instance. one time my daughter came in and said "I am low on water". I went out to the garage and handed her a jug of Prestone and told her that its already mixed 50/50.

Later she came back in saying "my car wont start and its spewing stuff all over everywhere".

I ran out to her car and found the problem.

She was low on battery water. She did not tell me she was low on battery water, so I thought she was talking about the radiator.

Prestone sure does not work in your battery.

I had to buy her a new battery. A SEALED UP BATTERY. NO CAPS.

 

Heh heh, you have to be VERY specific with women to find out which 'thingie' they're talking about!

I had a boss that told me 'ONCE' he changed the oil on his Accord and the drain oil he described sounded pretty nasty. After he refilled with fresh oil and started the engine, he said it started smoking so bad he vowed never to do it again. Eventualy the smoke stopped but the Accord kept running. When he transfered out of CA, he was still driving the Accord with presumably the same oil.

 

Talk about crazy things. I used to work at a quick lube place. Worst thing I seen happen there. A girl in a little toyota car came puffing over the hill, slowing traffic and spittin out smoke like crazy. All the employees saw her and said 'crap, whatd we do now?'

Turns out, a shop had changes her oil in some other town, and she said it just started to crap out. Pop the hood, and would'nt ya know, NO OIL FILTER :-staun So we explained the situation to her, and she called the other shop. They said there is no way it would have left like that, so the filter musta been STOLEN. Are you kiddin me? Not only is it a $1 oil filter, but those Toyotas have the filter in a spot that cant even be gotten from under the car, so the 'thieves' would have had to jimmy the hood off just for an oil filter. At least it wasn't our fault. Its funny to see the absolute incompetence at these oil change places. I guess thats why I made assistant manager so quick. Too many times things like that happened to us. I tell everyone I know not to take there cars to a quick lube, and my shop was the best one around.

 

>
>hitecdan - after my experiences and your experiences, I
>wonder why all the fuss about which oil to use? Or which
>filter to use?
>
I’ve noticed an interesting trend when it comes to oil changes. My friend that I noted in my previous post does not change her oil on a regular basis. Her car runs and has lots of miles on it, but she is constantly having other problems with it. Every other month it’s in the shop for some engine repair. Could be it’s a really driven car, but not changing the oil doesn’t help either. I have another buddy, he refuses to change his oil before it has 10,000 miles on it. According to him, changing your oil every 3,000 miles is a “waste of time and money” (his favorite catch phrase for not doing something). He’s gone through 3 Suburban now, all have had engine trouble of some sort, and I’m still driving the same F-150. Could be the cheap *** Chevys he keeps buying (some people will never learn) or his lack of oil changes. These are just two examples I can think of and by no means are my observations scientific, but I know people that have notice the same trend.

 

Perhaps you are right. My theory is that for all of us that change our oil and filter every 3,000 miles or sooner. Well these folks care about their car/truck. More than likely they are doing other preventative things also besides changing oil and filter. All of these other things makes their vehicles have less problems and last longer. They just take better care overall of their vehicles.

Others - they never do anything till it quits, then they start complaining.

"Pay me now, or pay me latter" is very true.

 

>Others - they never do anything till it quits, then they
>start complaining.
>
>"Pay me now, or pay me latter" is very true.

yep!

 

You say stay away from the quick lube joints, here's one for you.

I went to the VW Dealer for my brand new Jetta a few years back. I had *no* place to work on it, and it needed a 30K service, and I didn't know of a reputable shop around, so I decided to bite the bullet and pay dealer prices. Had the oil changed, and a list of about 20 other things.

About 1000 miles later, the oil light comes on while I'll tooling down the parkway. I'm rather surprised, as I just had it changed. I pulled off on the next exit and drove right into a service station. I parked the car, got out, and bought a quart of oil. I came out with the quart in my hand, looked at the car, turned right around, and walked right back and got my $2 for the quart of oil.

Why, you ask?

Because the dealer had not tightened my oil drain plug sufficiently. As soon as I stopped the car, all the oil ran out in a big puddle. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, standing there with a quart of oil in my hand, watching 4 quarts pour onto the ground.

From now on, I do my *own* oil changes, thankyouverymuch.

 

 

As a youth, I was a pump jockey at a Standard station. We charged about about $15 for an L-O-F (lube - oil - filter) job. One gal got tired of paying and had her brother tell her how to change the oil and filter. One day she calls up and the car won't start. We send the wrecker. He can't start her either so tows her in. Opened the hood - it's a little four banger. She mentions that she just changed her oil.... pull the dipstick and oil shoots out the top of the tube.

Looked at the air filter - it's soaked with oil and there is oil in the carb. "Excuse me miss, how much oil did you put in the car?"

"Just what my brother said - 4 and a half gallons - but it wouldn't take it all."

We pulled the spark plugs and oil spews from all of the plug holes. I held a rag over the plug holes to soak up the oil while the mechanic cranked the engine so the pistons could pump the oil out of the engine. Put the proper amount of oil in, gassed her up, and started it up. Blue smoke, man, lots of blue smoke. We let it idle on the drive for 3 hours and it finally stopped blowing blue smoke. The mechanic says, "watch this!". He gets in the car, revs it a bit, and we had blue smoke just like when it fired up.

Heck, just buying that much oil was more than the cost of the L-O-F, I wonder why that didn't tip her off?

Amazing!

 

4-1/2 gallons?