Many people get their vehicle’s oil changed – and tires rotated – at those “quick” or “express” lube joints that promise to do the work cheaply and quickly. Sometimes, that leads to the job not being done properly.
And you can guess who usually pays for that.
What happens, sometimes – and why?
One of the most common things is that the “technician” – who may have very little training or is just in a hurry, because these shops make their money on volume; i.e., on getting as many oil changes done per hour as possible – adds too much or not enough oil to the engine after draining the old oil. The reason why this happens is because unlike you or me adding fresh oil quart by quart (or via a jug that holds a gallon) most quick-lube places transfer the fresh oil from a drum using a gun that pumps the oil back into the engine. And this works just fine if the technician is paying attention – and has checked to make sure exactly how much oil he’s supposed to pump into your engine before pumping it in. And – after he’s done – double checking to make sure he did in fact enough and not too much (or too little).
This is why you ought to check to make sure the level is correct – before you leave the shop’s parking lot. Is it annoying to have to do this? To have to pop the hood and pull (and check) the dipstick? Sure, of course. But it’s less annoying – and potentially a lot less expensive – to make sure the level’s correct before you drive off the lot and find out later that the technician put too much (or too little) oil inside your engine. Either being bad for your engine and possibly very bad, if you drive around for long enough that way.
Another good thing to check before you leave the shop’s parking lot is whether anything’s dripping that wasn’t before. If it wasn’t, then it shouldn’t be. If it is, then you might have either of two possible problems – one of them serious. The first of the two is that the technician over-tightened the new oil filter. This can over-compress the gasket between the filter and the engine, resulting in leaks. It can also make it a pain to get the filter off next time.
The other source of drips is a drain plug bolt that was cross-threaded stripped when the technician re-installed it. When this happens, the technician may not want to tell you he did it – for all the obvious reasons. A cross-threaded bolt hole can usually be repaired, but it involves time and some skill to do that. It may require replacing the oil pan and that’s not cheap and guess who’ll be paying for that if the technician owns up to damaging it? So he might just put the drain bolt back into the damaged hole and hope it holds – for just long enough to establish plausible deniability. If the bolt works loose after you drive away and you lose all the oil in the engine – and end up needing a new engine – the shop may disclaim any responsibility and leave you holding the bag.
Even if it is just a leak, due to oil seeping past damaged threads, it’s still a pain to repair the threads and not cheap, either – if you have to pay a mechanic who knows how to use a tap and die set to do the repair.
You can greatly reduce the chances of this happening to you by letting the vehicle idle for a couple of minutes and then looking underneath where you’re parked for any drips on the pavement. If you find any, do not leave the shop’s parking lot. Go back in and tell the counter guy about the drips and ask him to put the car on the lift to look and see why. Ask to be allowed to come into the service bay to see for yourself. There should be no oil seeping from the drain plug bolt. And you ought not to be able to wiggle the bolt. If you can, the threads are probably damaged – and you’d better make sure it gets fixed before you drive the car off the lot.
Other quick-lube and express shop perils include over (and under) inflated tires and over (and under) tightened lug nuts, both occurrences happening for the same reasons – carelessness and pressure to get the work done as quickly as possible.
Over-inflated tires will wear faster and make your vehicle’s ride harsher. Under-inflated tires will reduce your gas mileage and may negatively affect both handling and braking performance. Over-tightening lug nuts can warp brakes rotors, which are not cheap to replace. Not tightening them enough can cause them to come loose, which can lead to a wheel coming off while you’re driving.
It’s easy to double-check air pressure yourself, using a “stick” you can buy for less than $10 at any auto parts store. Keeping one of these in the car is good policy and using it to verify tire pressure is better (because more accurate) than relying on tire pressure sensors and displays that may not be accurate.
Lug nuts being over (or under) tightened is a little harder to check. But you can ask the shop to torque the lug nuts manually – using a torque wrench rather than an air gun – and this will all-but-eliminate mistakes.
. . .
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The worst of these quickie-lube places is Jiffy-Lube. For some reason my mother never let me do maintenance on her ’94 Taurus wagon preferring instead to bring it to a lube shop. One year I brought it to the local Jiffy-Lube hoping to save time. For some reason, it was packed with cars. I had to wait forever in the waiting room. When it was FINALLY done, I went to collect the report and swiftly left. It wasn’t until I got home I realized the money collection monkey gave me the wrong report! It was for this lady’s Pontiac that was ahead of me. She got mine. I haven’t been back. And that Jiffy-Lube doesn’t seem to do much business these days.
How many Lexus dealers does it take to change a lightbulb?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZzp70DbAC0
Good one, watched it all.
Also, the Oil Spec. is important. My cars use 0w/40 however the oil must be 50200, 50500, 50700. A lot of 0w/40 oils are not this specification. Also, all wheel torques are not the same. My S1 is 122Nm, my T6 is 180Nm and my Trabant is 75Nm. I find, most tire shops in the US and Mexico tighten in a circle and tighten to the required limit the first time instead of doing it in increments of 10-15Nm.
I do as much as I can myself, and leave the big stuff I don’t want to tackle for the experts. I am a family of 5 with 6 vehicles, our newest vehicle being a 2011. It’s a chore keeping them all up to date on maintenance items. It’s always something, but if I can do it myself, I’m only out the cost of parts.
Good reminders on the oil, tires etc.
I just changed the oil and filter on my 2021 Mustang Cobra SVT. It took me about two hours to complete the job. The car sits real low and after jacking it up I was afraid to slide underneath from the front. Instead I took off the drivers side wheel because the oil pan bolt is easily accessible using a an extension on the breaker bar. I waited about 30 min for the oil to drain. The only mistake I made was that after I emptied a 5 qt jug of 5W20 synthetic, I picked up a qt of 5W30 and poured out about half a qt before I realized my mistake. Taking out the filter was easy because I use a special friction glove. In the army if we couldn’t remove the filter we just stuck a screwdriver into the housing and turned it.
I didn’t torque the lug nuts because after about 55 years one gets idea of tightness. But I will eventually check with a torque wrench. Usually I’m within 5, 10 %.
“after jacking it up I was afraid to slide underneath from the front”
ALWAYS use a pair of jack stands under the frame. Never slide under using only the hydraulic jack. They can fail, or the car can slide off.
Also, if the drain plug is on the back of the pan, jacking it up in the front will help to drain the pan.
Good point about using jack stands. I forgot to mention that I used a jack stand after I raised the car using a floor jack. I don’t trust just using a floor jack. I dropped the car so that the jack stand would support most of the weight. I know of a few stories where people were injured/killed. I actually saw one man working underneath his car on the street while using only the car jack. That was one brave man.
Never entrust your life to a .25 cent O-ring in a floor jack.
Never Ever! I can’t trust those places (including the dealers) to do any of those things correctly because of the time constraints they’re under. Another thing to screw up? Those crazy ass cartridge filters so prevalent on vehicles now. Talk about a PIA compared to the spin on’s!
Lots of modern cars, like most anything from VWAG, have electronic oil level gauges. If you took one of these things to a quick lube place, you couldn’t even check if they put in enough oil! It takes a few miles of driving before they are “ready” to show you the oil level. The only way to get the oil level while filling is to use a manufacturer specific computer. What quick lube place would do that?
A dunce that I know took a oil cooled Porsche 911 to one of these places. They drained out the gallons of oil in that car, and put 4 qt back in, and his engine seized minutes later.
In the ‘health care’ [sic] field, this ‘coded’ 911 would be called an iatrogenic fatality.
Any nurse can tell you similar ‘whoops!’ stories.
Dr Fauci will see you now …
Dr Fauci.
Dr. Mengele.
Dr. Kevorkian.
…
Vaccine advocates who died of COVID
The search words used.
All search results are pro-vaccine, not much mention of severe reaction to Covid vaccines and those advocating vaccines dying from vaccine anaphylaxis.
So you know the data has been corrupted. All about making sure you are vaccinated, all it really is in the search.
Tiffany Dover suffered a reaction and passed out.
295,000 people die from medical maladministration in the medical industrial complex every year. Horsepistols are no place to be.
Vioxx killed an approximate 500,000 patients over the time period when it was available as a prescription medicine.
Merck executives walk free.
Merck is still alive, price is down 60 dollars per share from its high of 134 USD.
A friend that’s a lawyer, his wife decided to be a big help and get the Kia SUV oil changed for him as he was very busy. This Kia had a cartridge, not spin on filter. Of course the quick lube place screwed up the housing oring. She ran it out of oil on the drive home & engine was toast as she rolled in the driveway.
Shop tried to deny responsibility that didn’t go well for them once he pulled out his WA Bar card. They ate a $6500 bill for the replacement engine & labor.
Lesson to all, follow Eric’s advice & avoid an expensive hassle filled failure. If you can’t do it yourself find a legit shop not a quick lube place.
I also change my V6 Jeep oil as the plastic housing cartridge filter is easily destroyed. There is a tech bulletin to NOT twist the old filter cartridge out of the plastic cap as it can destroy the pressure relief valve, pull only! And the plastic cap has an oring to carefully replace. Then the cap has a specific torque, I put white paint marks on cap & housing so I know exactly where that torque point is – seated but not any further.
I always change the oil in vehicles I own.
Forgot to tighten the oil filter, filled the engine with five quarts of oil, started the engine, in a few minutes, the oil had leaked out the oil filter that was loose.
I used 10 quarts of oil to change the oil in the engine that day, been there and done that.
There was probably a quart of oil in the oil pan when the loose oil filter was discovered.
Everybody makes mistakes.
A torque wrench is required to cinch lug nuts at the right torque.
An employee for Boeing had a job where all he did was make sure the torque wrenches were properly calibrated.
When it gets down to nuts and bolts, you mind your p’s and q’s.
All reasonable advice in the article . . . But that assumes your average person could identify any of the strange devices Eric mentions such as:
Dip stick
Drain plug
Oil Filter
Won’t be holding my breath.
Best advice of all comes from Raider Girl 🙂
I thought those were bondage terms…
Thank you, BID. A fed man is a happy man.
Did you say dipstick, you got a greasy rod?
Just finished the oil and filter on the ‘91 Silverado. In 34 years no one has done this but me. Your shop mugwump with a wrench and no brains cannot be trusted.
I have plenty of time to: check to make sure the old oil filter gasket came off with the filter – a double gasket guaranteed to blow out. I pre fill the new filter, do you really think it’s good for a quart of air to travel thru your main bearings? Even a side mount filter can be at least partially filled. Carefully install the new filter hand tighten 3/4 to 1 turn max. Install the drain plug and hand tighten to just snug and a bit more but no more, torque wrench preferred if you have room. The mugwump won’t know the difference between an aluminum vs steel oil pan & probably will strip both eventually.
I also pick the filter and oil & since it’s my labor at zero cost no need to scrimp on the filter and oil quality.
I don’t care what vehicle I own, I change the oil myself.
I get to choose the best oil filter (Purolator Boss), and the best oil (Amsoil or Royal Purple).
You don’t get to choose what they put in at a lube shop. No thanks.
For driveway oil changes – I’m a really big fan of the fumoto valve.
Too scary. I feel like if I drive over a branch or something it might open the valve while I’m driving. I’ve never found removing and replacing the drain plug to be burdensome.
Hard to do on newer cars with the drain plug under a cover or worse. Absolutely great to do a valve and pipe elbow on stuff like garden tractors.
Where I live, right next to a local grocery store was once a small tire & oil change shop that I took my car to for an oil change. One thing that was convenient about that was whenever my vehicle was inside the shop for an oil change, I’d go inside the grocery store and do some grocery shopping. In all the times I took vehicles I’ve driven to that shop for an oil change, I’ve NEVER had a problem afterward. Unfortunately though, the guy who ran that shop for years retired several years ago and the shop ended up closing permanently.
Sadly, I have come to the conclusion long ago that generally speaking you can not trust anyone to do anything.
Subhumanoids are everywhere not just Walmart..
Amen, brother. This especially applies to those credentialed by the state, doctors, lawyers, PEs, etc. once they have the license to steal, quality and care go out the window.
Have you seen some of the cretin’s that work for the public schools?
I don’t mean to be unkind, but one would have to be a sadist send their children to be abused by these freaks..
Fluoride.. it’s what for dinner.
My oldest daughter teaches math and science in a rural school. I hear more than most.
I have my reservations about doctors and lawyers but I’m a P.E. and have been brought in front of the Board a couple of times by clients who aren’t professionals because know better. The difference with me is the Board takes the accuser’s side and I have to work hard to prove my case to a biased political board. The medical board and attorney bar close rank and protect their own. We’re thrown to the wolves by our licensing agency, who’s more worried about diversity than experience.
Plus we have a very weak professional association, mine being the ASCE but the ASME, IEEE are no better. The AMA in particular commands respect (that is probably not deserved), the ASCE grovels and begs for recognition and dignity.
The only reason these organizations seem to exist is to produce buildings codes that municipalities can adopt and even that avenue of revenue was recently stunted when the courts found any code that is adopted publicly must then be made public and open. So the NEC and ICC can no longer force electricians and architects to buy a book every revision period. I happen to agree with the logic and am kind of happy to see their arrogance and greed be shown for what it is. The print a public digital copy that is locked and can’t be searched, so they still force you to pay to use the find and copy-paste features of your PDF app.
Despite all of that I still think licensing engineers is useful. There has to be some way to demonstrate competency. What fails us is the state boards, which are corrupt bureaucracies. I think a free market would develop to provide the service, we’d still have to do the same sorts of things – graduate engineering school, pass an initial knowledge (general engineering) exam, then do 4 years internship and then apply to take your professional discipline licensing exam. After that I have to do 30 hours continuing education and renew my license every 2 years, carry errors & omissions liability insurance and mark every design with my personal stamp, which carries a minimum of 10 years liability against defect or errors. And if there’s a failure that shows me at fault I can be held liable professionally AND personally. So I’m forced to follow the code to the letter even knowing some of it is contradictory or possibly wrong.
I’ve been doing this 30 years now and the headaches are only accumulating. I’m not sure I have the final decade in me to get to retirement age. I’m not alone and I look around at conferences. The new faces are coming from who knows where, new immigrants, temporary visa holders and the like. They’re good followers, do not question or think, just follow the directions.
There’s a reckoning coming not unlike you’re seeing with aircraft that are being designed and maintained by a new generation of unaccountable and indifferent people. When in your memory have there been so many aircraft wrecks?
Well, after the Minnesota bridge failure and the pointing of fingers the blame was laid on the people who do the stuff no one else understood. Fine, you deal with the infrastructure.
No need to license engineers. Just another artifact of the widespread corruption that has taken over western civilization.
Lots of amazing engineering has been done for centuries if not millennia without a PE’s stamp.
The pyramids still stand.
Amazing cathedrals
Wooden rail road trestles and tunnels through mountains that are still used to this day.
That’ll be true soon enough again. The quality of work being produced by the official pipeline is becoming horrifying.
Most people have no idea the knowledge and brainpower employed to build our modern society. I agree there is a purpose to your Professional Engineering license and appreciate those like you with the brains and drive to reach this accomplishment.
Aerospace M.E. Tech for 35 years, there is no substitute for skilled engineering. Pinnacle for commercial aviation was the 777, not thrilled with rehashing the old dogs for the modern era so the execs have more stock coupons to clip.
Hi, Albert, yes, I’m aware of all that. After sacrificing for many years to get my BSME, I found out about licensing and refused to go along. I found a niche without it, or have skated around the edges and avoided it, and have made a successful career for myself.
Unfortunately, credentialism is rampant and all the interactions I’ve had with PE’s involve some kid who took the test looking for details to quibble about in my projects. (What color wire to use on the prints going to a UL panel builder for instance- easily rectified but not worth the price of the review by the test taking kid.) EE’s don’t understand automation, nor do electricians. ME’s understand more, structure and motors mostly, and CE’s continue to play in their sandboxes with their sewers. But the big PE firms I do subcontract for charge a hell of a lot for those credentials. Thus the phrase. “License to steal”. There are many fine people who bowed to the system and got that PE, but it is a corrupting and controlling thing that society is far better off without.
@Eric – The quickie lube places will also botch the torque and gap on the spark plugs.
Never let them do those.
Hand torque the nuts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvUIm0BcRMk
Florida used to be fun.
Before I forget, the star of the commercials, Sam Behr, ran a shoe store in Orlando for decades where the motto was, “We fit any human.”
Behr’s store was a victim of redevelopment in Downtown Orlando in the 90s which was, in turn, a casualty of Disney greed within a decade.
His ads in the 70s/80s were pure gold. “Tahrs ain’t purtty!” and a whole bunch of others. Yes, back when fun was important.
My dad once had an oil change done (at a dealership!) and when he got home and pulled the dipstick he almost shit himself. Didn’t show any oil. Turns out they only put two quarts in when five were required. The dealership never checked the dipstick to verify the level after they filled it. Luckily, no harm was done. He took it back and they filled it properly and gave an an extended engine warranty that he never needed.
Makes you wonder how many vehicle problems are caused by “technician” fuck-ups, though. Like “medical mistakes” that kill patients, probably a fair number. I never understood how people could take very expensive cars into shops that assigned routine but critical tasks to moronic or immature minimum wage kids.
Many years ago I was in a tire shop pricing out tires and watching the techs through a glass partition. There was a nice new Saab in there with aluminum center caps over the lugs and I watched as the tire monkey carelessly pried each one of with a crowbar. Kinked each one. Just slapped ’em back on that way.
Unless you have a specific mechanic who is very trustworthy and you know him personally, do your own oil changes. Do your own tire rotations. It isn’t hard to do it right.
Here’s a small assortment of what I’ve experienced when I used to use oil change franchises and other shops.
1- At one place they told me the last guy had way over tightened the filter and he couldn’t get it off. My response was the last one was put on by an ASE certified mechanic and by the way you are turning the filter the wrong way to loosen it. The filter was actually physically twisted in appearance. My kudos to the Ford engineer that designed the 4.6 liter filter mount.
2- The guy that reused the old drain plug gasket such that I had to go back and have them put on a new gasket because it dripped.
3- My buddy who seemed to be the one that had to do all his immediate family’s winter tire installs including after a mechanic way over tightened the lug nuts that could only be loosened with the aid of a breaker bar and 3 or 4 feet of pipe over the handle.
4- My brother who mostly uses quick lube places so no one ever drove the car to even notice the rear diff bearings were shot. By the time I heard it the warranty was expired and the dealers response was sorry but you should have come in when the noise started. He traded it in on a Subaru.
5- A mechanic who when told my ignition was cutting out said the problem was my alternator due to low voltage output but also wound up billing me for new points/ condenser and cap/ rotor all of which were less than 4 months old at the time. In retrospect I should have just put the old condenser back in. The alternator he put in by the way needed repairs after about 5 months….
There is an Option 2…just marry a man who knows how to do this. When he is done make him a sandwich.
“make him a sandwich”
Sooo…that’s what you call it…eh?
Hi Mark,
There is a secret that most women don’t know…If you don’t your man to stray you keep his belly full and his balls empty. I have yet to proven wrong in 30 years. 😁
[2 thumbs up]
Works for me too! My husband is a retired Owner-operator. Cummins is his favorite diesel and mine too along with the TDI VW put in Mk4 vehicles. We never go to quick oil change places.
Thank you, Jetta. I don’t know why 90% of women can’t figure this out.
Welcome to the board. It is always nice to have another gal around. 🙂
God bless you, RG.
‘Option 2 … just marry a man who knows how to do this.’ — RG
Gov Jared Polis liked this comment. 🙂
Hi Jim,
I guarantee Marlon Reis has no idea how to change oil.
Well then, I guess Marlon just bakes cookies in his cute pink apron … and then bitches about it, like Hillary.