Warning and a Rant

Last month decided that i would take the daily car to the local quick lube. I went all was good people was friendly and i thought they did a half way decent job. At that time. Last week we started smelling something burning. I thought possibly one of us had ran over a plastic bag or whatever and it was burning on the exhaust. The week before i had checked the oil and it was fine. Well thursday night decide i would look under the car and thats when i saw a mess. An oil mess from hell. I got up checked the dipstick and it was dry as could be.... :no: Crawd back under the car and noticed that the oil filter was not probably tight and was cross threaded on.... :( . I was 45 minutes away what the heck am i going to do. Took the plunge ran down to walmart for another new oil filter and more oil. The first oil change cost me 37 bucks and then the second oil change another 20 bucks... :pale: I examined the old oil filter and sure enough u could see where the threads was cross threaded...

Ive called the manager. Next up is to call the corporate office which is located in burlington....

usually i do the oil changes etc. etc. myself....

That stinks dude. I'm stuck with letting people do my oil on the Yaris because of the warranty. I hate it.

I had the same thing happened to me but it was at another place in Florence. My son and I were going to a Car Show in Columbus Ohio. This was about 6 years ago and I'm hauling tail up I-75, left lane in my Mustang 5.0 5 Speed. All of a sudden the car jerked forward and shut down. Had no idea what it was. Had it towed back home and found out later that when they changed the oil, they didn't put the bolt back in the oil pan. It took me almost two years for them to replace my engine and pay for all my costs that was charged. I've never went back to them.

It doesn't take much, being most of those type of places, an employee could get mad at their boss or have a bad day and take it out on your car.

my personal opion is that all instant oil change places, their employees all should be a.s.e certified.

Kenny Schmidt's story is one to share here. Most of you know Kenny. He worked at the one in Southgate. A Ford van came in and the girl could not get it to start. While the girl is in the van with the door open she pulled the gearshift down and back up. Problem is Kenny grabs a screw driver and jumps the solenoid from under the hood and it starts! The girls feet are hanging out the door. She can't hit the brake. The van goes flying out the garage door catching the van door and folding it back.
How would you like to be the owner of that van? lol

never heard that one before

I agree they should be certified. But I do have to say, we run a fleet of 37 trucks and the Smith Bros Quick Lube and Car Wash we use has never given us cause for complaint. They have been servicing our fleet for over ten years. Of course it may have a lot to do with the fact that they're independant with only 4 locations around Nashville. It's pretty nice getting a free wash with your oil change. Works great for the pick-ups but the guys with the vans still have to wash their own.

Admin wrote:I'm stuck with letting people do my oil on the Yaris because of the warranty. I hate it.

My wife has a KIA with the 100,000 mile warranty. The dealer told me that as long as i saved the reciepts for the parts and recorded the mileage on them KIA would honor it. 'Course I haven't had to try it out yet.

People are 99% awesome to deal with but man it sucks of it's your 1% day!

update: met up with erlanger store manager and i'm impressed. The KID that changed out my oil filter is FIRED. The manager returned me my 37 dollars for the oil change, threw on a new set of wiper arms, topped off all the fluids, plus a gift card for my next service. I'm glad to see that there is still a few people out there that cares about their customers......

Then he went in his office and thanked the oil change angels that he wasn't fighting over a cooked engine.

From down in the pit. I have managed and assitant managed a couple of those places. Got summons to court over a rattling engine. I wasn't even working the day the chick was there. Come to find out she drove it to the next town over and was having some tires put on. When the owner of the tire place saw we had serviced the car, he brought the owner out and spun the filter off by hand and told her our store ruined her engine. Another thing to point out is that this was a week to the day that she'd got the oil change and that the oil still showed full on the stick. When she came to us to complain and demand a new GM crate engine, the district manager and myself went out to look at it, but she wouldn't let us. She left in a huff and the next week we all got a summons to court.

How does it end? The judge has had us do service on his cars before and knows us, she drives the car to court that day, the tire guy refuses to show to back up her story and when the judge goes out starts the car and listens to it "rattle" he see that it's holding 35 pounds of oil pressure and idles rather nicely for a Z28 Camaro with almost 200K on the odometer. Yeah you guess it, case dismssed.

To top it off she comes back the next week wanting an oil change. Didn't happen.

When I was working down south and putting 3000 miles on my daily a month I would let wally world change the oil during the winter months,one day time seemed to have the truck on the rack for a very long time but did not think too much about it until the next oil change which I done myself and noticed a different drain plug so it looks like the stripped it out and came close to putting a new oil pan in it. They done one more before I went to work up home and had a oil filter blow out on the way to work,I was close enough to limp home and change the oil so from now on I do my own oil changes.