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Latest dealer experience

Went to my dealer for a tire rotation and to get mud flaps installed on my

02 Impala LS. When I picked the car up, they had changed the oil without my O.K. Normally it wouldn't have been a big deal except they drained out my Mobil 1 and put in whatever stuff they use. Since the M1 had a couple K on it I didn't make a huge deal about that, but I did let them know I wasn't pleased that they performed work without a written or verbal OK.

The good news is that they took the charge off my bill. The bad news, and the reason I change the oil myself, is that they overfilled it - about 1/4" above the fill mark on the stick. Everything I've ever read indicates that this is a bad thing to do, so I drained about 1/2 quart out the next morning. The other funny thing about this dealership is that they call you a couple of days later to make sure that you will only give them praise on the survey from GM. If you're anything less than 100% pleased you don't get a survey!

The other good news is that the tire lugs we're actually pretty close to being torqued right, unlike my Dodge dealer, where some lugs are so tight it takes all of my strength/weight (6'3" and around 240) to get them off and others where you can almost spin them off by hand.

The point of this rambling is that if you can't trust the dealers (who supposedly know these machines better than anyone) to so simple things like rotate tired and change oil correctly, how can you trust them on the big stuff? How many "average" car owners even bother (or know how) to double-check the shop's work?

Reply to
gad
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1/4 " of oil over the full mark on the dipstick probably isn't anything to worry about. I've been adding extra oil to my car for awhile now and the good thing is by the time 3000 miles has passed since the last oil change its still on the full mark.

No foaming here.

========= Harryface =========

1991 Pontiac Bonneville LE 3800 V6 ( C ), Black/Slate Grey _~_~_~279, 495 miles_~_~_

~_~_~_~_U.S.A._~_~_~_~_~_

~~~The Former Fleet ~~~

89 Cavalier Z 24 convertible 78 Holiday 88 coupe 68 LeSabre convertible 73 Impala sedan
Reply to
Harry Face

There is a chance that they did not add too much oil to your car. Since most places - even dealerships - rush cars in and out of the lube bay in an effort to get as many done in a day as possible, there is a chance that they just didn't let it drain long enough. This can be a problem if the motor was just run and the oil didn't have time to settle back down into the pan before draining. This is especially an issue with my new 2500HD pickup with the Duramax diesel. It takes the oil close to 30 minutes to quit draining when I change it. It's easy enough to add exactly as much as your vehicle requires, but I can guarantee that they don't measure how much came out in the first place. I'm not saying that this is right or a good excuse, but there aren't many rocket surgeons changing oil these days.

Cheers - Jonathan

Reply to
Jonathan Race

"gad" wrote

I've never seen any evidence that being overfull by a 1/4" will do any damage to an engine. Obviously, it's best to keep the oil level where it should, I don't think anyone would argue against that. A lot also depends on when a person checks the oil level. Some people (including techs) just yard the stick out a few seconds after shutting off the engine. At this point, you will read about 1/2 a liter down on the dipstick. If you wait a bit, it will come up to the full mark. We have the occasional customer who is absolutely anal about their oil level. I now make it a habit to underfill engines by about 1/2 a liter. This way, I don't have to deal with the irate customer who sees their oil level an

1/8 of an inch overfull.

Ian

Reply to
shiden_Kai

As a general rule I wouldn't over fill the crank case by more than 1/2 of a quart. The reason is that there are some motors if not all that require a certain amount of oil splash from the crankshaft to lubricate the cylinder walls etc. If it's too full or too low there can be inadequate lubrication to the motor.

Brian

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