In honor of MBL's recent oil change thread, I thought it would be a fun exercise to get some of the horror stories out in the open since seemingly everyone has one.

Nothing too shocking. They cross-threaded the drain plug on my wife's Volvo. They also routinely said her car was overdue on maintenance like flushing the radiator that I recently DIY'd.


Before anyone asks, no I couldn't change the oil on her car myself. I was out of state on temporary domestic assignment 8 months or so out of that year.

my only story is the first (and last time) i took my truck to walmart they overfilled the engine by at least 2 quarts. thankfully i had checked before i even left the parking lot.

Not a horror story, but mildly irritating:

Never forget to put the drain plug back in. I did it once when I was very young (probably my second or third oil change ever, 16 yrs old). I put 5 quarts in. Never looked down (I was on a slight incline). Fresh oil everywhere. Freaking nightmare. To top it off, that was the only oil I had and my parents where out of town and didn't leave keys to their cars. I had to put the old oil back in my truck (with a clean filter!) and drive to Pep Boys to get clean oil.

I also picked up some oil cleaner powder while I was there. Killed some grass near the driveway. Grass didn't grown in that spot for years. Dad still makes fun of me for it nearly 10 years later.

My grandfather used to change his own oil until he got too old to do it, so he took it to the local Walmart. He was a couple of miles up te road when his oil light came on and he lost oil pressure. Turns out, the dumbasses didn't put the plug back in or didn't tighten it and the oil drained out as he was driving. I'm fairly certain that all of those idiots would of had their ass kicked by an 80 year old man if the store manager didn't admit their mistake.

Not my vehicles but back in the late 80's when I worked at a Parts Store we increased our stock of the "tough cork" transmission gaskets once one of those quick change places opened up near us.

They would sell a certain gender on the transmission fluid and filter change and end up screwing up the tranny pan. Their fix was to use the "tough cork" (fancy name for double thickness) gasket or try to put 2 on to get it to seal.

My sister had a place put on an oil filter that didn't have a gasket on it. Fortunately they noticed it when they pulled it out of the bay and took care of it and gave her a coupon for her next change free.

I forgot to move the oil catch pan one time and made a large mess when I backed out of the garage. At least it wasn't the new oil.

Was changing the oil on a 7.3L PS and didn't notice the filter didn't have a gasket.

Left a nice little trail all the way to where I parked it.

Facepalmed

And put on a new filter

Grego calls it the Audi Valdez story.

The drain plug on my S4 is very large, and the hole in the oil pan is not.

take off the bolt and unleash 9.5 QUARTS OF FURY on to the unwilling drain pan. It couldn't drain through the hole fast enough and definitely overflowed.

That was fun.

not.

I have twice had to make the filter drive of shame when I could not get the old oil filter off the vehicle. I considered employing the screw driver skewer but I was not ready to fully commit at that point.

For some reason I had a very hard time finding a filter wrench to work on my old 2.7L Toyota Tacoma. A strap wrench wouldn’t fit in the space and I couldn’t find a socket to fit the factory Toyota filters very well. I finally found a socket that fit. . . . a few months before I sold the truck.

I once drained and refilled the engine oil from our tractor only then to realize that I forgot to put the washer gasket back on the drain plug.

The first time I changed the oil in our new to us Expedition I just knew the 5.4L required 6 quarts of oil like my previous 2 pickup trucks only to find out that it actually held 7 quarts . . . and that I had only purchased 5 quarts of oil.

While I suppose I should be embarrassed by these episodes I figure if you haven’t had any screw-ups you haven’t done it enough yet to be good at it.

Learning the hard way has been the best way for me, in most aspects of my life.

^^^That always seems to happen with those drain pans with the small hole in the middle. I've also dropped the drain plug into the pan which stops up the hole and makes it overflow as well. Nothing like putting your hand in hot oil to try to get the plug out of the pan.


Dumbest oil change related thing I've down is forgot to put the filler cap back in the valve cover on my 2000 Dodge Cummins in high school. I never saw any oil leak out of it, but it always smelled like oil. The next time I opened the hood, the under hood insulation fell out and was saturated with oil. The filler cap was still sitting on the radiator.

quote:

---

^^^That always seems to happen with those drain pans with the small hole in the middle. I've also dropped the drain plug into the pan which stops up the hole and makes it overflow as well. Nothing like putting your hand in hot oil to try to get the plug out of the pan.

---

Most of the time the drain pans will have a 2nd vent hole, make sure that hole is open...if not a vent hole then slightly loosen the drain cap on the pan for more venting.

yeah, i've left the vent closed more than once but realized quickly when i saw the oil backing up.

you could also ream out the hole a little (tee hee) in the catch container.

My roommate in college got the oil in his Eclipse changed at Wal-Mart. He drove it for a couple of months until it just stopped. Said he noticed it has been smoking for a while but didn't bother to figure out why. Wal-Mart had left the fill cap off and eventually he ran out of oil. They denied responsibility and his parents ended up paying to have his engine replaced.

Last month I took my Q5 to the corner Kwik Lube place to rotate the tires because the Audi dealership wanted $40 to do it. I hand the guy the key and he just sits in it for a minute not moving. I go show him how to start the car. He then proceeds to alternate jackrabbit starts and slamming on the brakes the whole way to the garage. That made me really nervous, should have stopped him right then. I watch him in the back for a few minutes walking around and looking under the car all confused. He brings the car back around and says he can't get the car on the lift and gives me the key back.

Well...at least he didn't F it up

Several years ago, not an oil change place, but a popular mechanic in town....one of his guys did some work on my pickup. I paid it out and proceeded to drive it for a couple of weeks on the farm, in the dirt, etc. Popped the hood for some reason, and found my air cleaner box wide open with the filter sort of lying there. No telling how many critters and how much dust, grass and weeds it sucked up.

POed at myself for not checking sooner.

yeah, I think I had the vent closed, too.

I'm still not convinced that the drain hole could handle the fury of that much head pressure. 9.5 quarts is fcking ridiculous. It drains out FOREVER. I could have watched an episode of Murder, She Wrote in the time it took to fully drain

John Deere tractor. Takes 17 quarts, the drain plug takes an 1 and 1/16 wrench to remove. Be prepared with at least a 5 gallon bucket, and two are better. Try to pick a day when the wind isn't blowing. Prepare to get an oil bath regardless.

yeah, i've changed it on a diesel Ingersoll air compressor trailer. I had never seen so much black oil in my life

Found out the hard way that the oil filters for Saturns and Suzuki Forenzas are very similar, but not exact. The outside dimensions are the same, but the threads on the Suzuki are a little bit smaller.

My dad had an extra filter in the garage and we didn't double check that it was the right one. It went on fine and even tightened down. When I turned it on to make sure the oil light went out the filter blew off and oil went everywhere.

Double check your filter size.

I always made sure the pan was properly vented. My Dodge took 10 or 11 quarts and it drained so fast at first that it would almost, but not quite, overrun the top part of the pan every time. I would center the drain on the oil pan with the drain pan so it could drop straight through the hole. This usually required a little adjusting as soon as the drain plug came out. The alternative was backing out the drain plug a little at a time and letting it drain slowly around the plug. I never had enough patience for that though.

Went into the local GM dealer with Pappy before a trip, he wanted them to change the oil and look the car over before we headed to Colorado. The manager came out, shook our hands and we were shooting the breeze. He told us about a gal who had her car towed in recently because it stopped running.

Come to find out, her daddy bought it new for her. She put 30,000 miles on it with no oil changes. No one had ever told her that oil changes were important. The car just stopped running one day, so she had it towed to the dealer, wanting them to fix it.

My mother used to work in the trust department at a large bank. She had one customer who was an heir to a trust that had the same problem as above. She never had the oil changed in her Volvo. This same lady also didn't understand why the ATM machine wouldn't give her cash sometimes. She thought ATMs were just a convenience provided by the bank. She had no idea that the cash was tied to her account with a monthly stipend and was in fact limited. Same lady also began having her Manhattan apartment rental remodeled before being stopped by building staff and told she wasn't allowed to.

The oil drain pan that I had been using for years had gotten pretty nasty and I lost the cap for the center hole so I decided to buy a new one. Proceeded to drain oil into the new container and was laying on the ground waiting for it to finish draining and noticed that my shoulder was suddenly very warm. Looked over and realized that I was laying in a pool of warm used oil. The new pan had a hole in it.

I've made about every mistake you can.

My last one was driving after an oil change and noticing the smell of burning oil. Didn't think much about it, because it was likely just the spilled oil from the filter change. But then it became a significant amount of smoke.

Looked under the hood and I had forgotten to put the oil cap back on and it was sputterin all kinds of oil everywhere in the engine compartment. Luckily, the oil cap was still sitting right there on top of the engine.

First change on my diesel, checked to make sure my catch pan had enough capacity thought I was good. Didn't think that the drain plug was much larger and much higher than anything I had changed before. Oil comes pouring out like crazy hits the pan and I get an oil bath. 3 gallon bucket was used after that when draining.

I'm sure most all of you do this, but after you start the motor after you change it or have it changed...check for leaks underneath and that everything under the hood is as it should be...BEFORE you hop in and take off

Several years ago right before Christmas (like Dec 23rd), I took my Exploder that I had at the time to Wally World for a quick oil change.
Got back home, loaded the car up with luggage and headed out. Just happened to stop at a Sonic on the way out and parked where we were facing the building (not just the canopy).
I noticed that there seemed to be some smoke coming from the engine, but it was only because the building was in front of the car that I could see it. Luckily another W was right down the road, so we drove over there. They took one look at it and put me at the front of the line to get worked on. Seems that the oil filter had cracked and was spraying oil on the engine! Glad I noticed it before we got further up the road. It would have been very inconvenient to happen while we were out of town especially when most shops would be closed for the holiday.

The only other thing was actually kind of funny. On the Exploder the air filter was wedged up under the edge/lip of the engine compartment, so it was quite a pain to get open. Usually I ended up changing it myself, but a couple times I actually did buy it from the shop because the worker actually took the time to get it open. Most of the time, they just “checked” it off on the report.

Back in the late 70's, I change the oil in my Cougar and failed to realize the oil filter gasket did not come off with the filter. I screwed on the new filter and gasket. About 100 miles later, the seal between the two gaskets blew and oil shot all over the engine compartment and up on the windshield. Lots of smoke and a huge mess. After that I always double checked to make sure the old gasket came off with the filter.

[This message has been edited by coppellag82 (edited 4/11/2011 8:48p).]

Cummins 8.3L takes 24 quarts. I can watch an episode of Pawn Stars while it's draining. Need an ICE CHEST to catch all of that.

Never had too many issues. My dad had problems with either a Dodge Dart or a Crysler Cordoba. The filter was put on with a monkey-man. After 4 hours of trying to get it off, took a screwdriver to it and torqued it off.

That and an alignment issue is why we never took cars in to get fixed (barring tires and tranny work).

I did have issues with a tranny gasket on the Blingin' blazer and required a mechanic (had to lift the tranny to get the gasket on completely. PITA).

~egon

A Horror Story:

I had to stop by one of the shops in Conroe for an oil change back in 2008. And the people who worked there interchanged the power and brake fluids! After the passage of 4 days or so, the brakes started acting funny. And one fine morning, the brakes stopped working while I was trying to get my car out of the parking lot. I ended up rear ending one of the parked cars!

Power fluid?

Damn...wish my car had that...

Bought a new catch pan for changing oil on my 6.7 turbo cummins. Found out the hard way that the oil pan on the truck drains faster than the catch pan can consume it. My drive way looked like the BP oil spill.

I've since gone back to the old faithful of using a 5 gallon joint compound bucket.