My son bought a Ford Puma with a six-month warranty. A couple of days later(!?) the sump plug came out, presumably because it had not been tightened up at the last service. As a result the oil pissed out all over the road unbeknown to my son. The oli light came on, and my son proceeded to drive it about another half a mile to his work where he parked it. After work, he decided to drive it home(?!) and after a couple of hundred yards, the engine died. He got a tow home from the RAC. I got hold of a new sump-plug, fitted it and filled it up with oil. The engine turned over, but would not start.
Questions Do Ford Puma's have some sort of safety device fitted, so that it cuts out and this has to be reset by a mechanic? Or, will the car not start because the engine is knackered? Also, is the damage likely to be covered by the warranty?
I would imagine that as he failed to immediately stop the engine when the oil light came on, as the instruction book would have told him, any warranty would be voided.
If it was a purchased, insurance type warranty, the provider would have probably wriggled out of it in any case.
Actually, if it turns over ok i.e. it's not terminally seized then I would expect it to start. It might sound like a tumble dryer full of bolts but it ought to run if only briefly. The starty bits in engines are at the top end which ought to still be ok and the seizy bits if you drive without oil are at the bottom end and all they do is transmit the power to the gearbox. If the rings and bores are so knackered that there is no compression then that would prevent it starting but that's easily checked with a compression tester. I think it would take more than half a mile of driving to get like that though so you maybe want to check his version of events again.
If your son tells the garage that he pulled over immediately the first time the oil light came on, checked the level, found it was empty, had it towed and then later it wouldn't start then yes. If he tells the story above they'll fall around laughing so hard they'll probably give themselves severe internal injuries and have to be taken to hospital.
Do you find that giving your son a good slap every now and then knocks some sense into him or is it a long lost cause? However to be fair to him, although the oil warning light coming on means stop NOW!!!! not sometime later when you feel like it, because they trigger at such a low pressure, maybe 5 to 7 psi, if they come on under load it generally means "Hi, this is just to let you know your crank bearings died 3 milliseconds ago and it's now too late to do anything about it. Have a nice day y'all."
Mind you I've had cars with engines so shagged, like my old Fiesta CVH, the light would come on every now and then, usually under hard cornering, and they've struggled on like that for ages. The difference of course being that they did actually have a full sump of oil in them even if the crank bearings were long since toast and each loss of pressure was only for a second or two. My current ride, a 2001 Focus, has an oil pressure light that comes on almost every day at some time or other but I'm happy enough that the engine is actually still fine to drive. Why I'm so blasé about it I'll leave to the imagination of our dear readers.
I think all cars should have oil pressure gauges not just warning lights set to trigger so low it's too late to do anything if they come on. That would be far too sensible for the car industry though.
"Dave Baker" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:
Would that engine have hydraulic tappets? It's entirely possible they've emptied themselves of oil, so the valves just aren't being opened. If that is the case, a bloody good churning will get enough pressure into enough tappets to start, which'll fill the rest in due course.
That certainly seemed to be the case when I had the head stripped off the Saab for HG replacement, anyway - I emptied the tappets of all the old goopy filth, manually, and it took a fair while to start - and even longer to quiet down - but once it did, it was fine.
That would just give the average driver one more thing to ignore :-)
A better approach might be if the ECU had an analogue oil pressure signal that it could act on in a phased shutdown mode, rather like Ford's method of overheating protection.
What? Spend money on bits that randomly reduce the performance (every time the oil surges in the sump) and result in fewer engine sales?
OK one car maker has claimed one engine they make can be driven though a desert with no water.
About 7K miles ago I did a 70mph oil change when the filter which had been on for 4K miles decided to spin off at 7K rpm. On seeing the huge cloud of smoke I backed off to about 3K rpm, the idiot light came on a few times before I found a place to stop, refit the filter and refill. The recently failed headgasket may have something to do with that event or it may be down to futher daily exploration of the redline.
too easy to twist off again, but at least you would know it was deliberate, either use a different head sump plug to normal or weld it up and use a sucker to change the oil a-la smart car etc.
Update and more advice please chaps.... The engine is definitely knackered..... Questions.... The car cost =A32000, is it worth considering getting a new engine put in, if so, does anyone know anywhere in South London that would do that? How much is it worth for spares? Cheers Paul (dismayed parent)
No. He will pay for it. Just trying to be a good dad and help him make the right decision, I dont want him pissing even more money up against the wall.
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