Engine seized 1,000 miles after oil change

She’s, she’s gone.

 

I was really hoping for some closure on this one

 

Well she's definitely not coming back now!

 

She will come back if she gets a new engine for free. Or at least says she does.

She ain’t getting a new engine for free.

 

Or maybe she took advice from some here or elsewhere not to discuss it anymore online where it can be seen. Here's hoping.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4q6eaLn2mY&t=23s

 

Bet you believe in the Easter Wabbit to?

 

Giggle

Seems to be more of a fishing expedition than a edumacated quest for knowledge... Barbieee

!

 

I'm back again with a follow up.

Jiffy Lube is claiming they put 5.5 quarts in the truck and it burned off in 1000 miles, despite no evidence of that -- no blue smoke, no overheating, no oil sensor light illuminated.

Here's the thing: Prior to the August 10 oil change, I went almost 10000 miles without changing the oil. I know, my bad -- BUT, how can the same truck that just went 10000 miles without an oil change suddenly burn off 5.5 quarts of oil in 1000 miles?

I will share the letter I got from them -- which is incredibly dismissive and asinine. The guy concludes that the only possible reason my truck burned 5.5 quarts of oil in 11 days is "excessive oil burn rate" or theft. Despite the oil pan plug being in place and wiped clean.

Help is appreciated.

 

Did you ever check the oil from the time they changed it prior to your trip. Even before going on a long road trip it’s a good idea to check all your fluids and tire pressure. If you had of checked your oil the day after your oil change you would have known if they put oil in. Expensive lesson.

 

The 4cyl engine has a 10k oil change spec anyway right? Since it uses that 0w synthetic oil.

 

I think that at this point the forum can’t do much for you. You either need to keep pressing this at higher and higher levels of Jiffy Lube corporate or you need to go ahead and begin working with an attorney to explore your legal options and make some cost/benefit/risk decisions. No matter what technical advice you get here, I think this becomes an issue of how it’s communicated to the company, or how it’s handled by a lawyer.

Hopefully given your line of work you have easy access to an attorney who could assist and maybe do so cheaply.

 

Even if a person checked the oil before the road trip, how would they be able to prove that the oil was missing and that it was an error by Jiffy Lube? Take a photo or video of a dry dipstick? How does that prove they didn't put oil in? Seems like the only way to definitively prove anything is to check the oil in the parking lot directly after the service. Anything else will be extremely difficult to prove given the undocumented events while driving, parked, etc....

 

I never did business with a garage or shop where I had to check their work afterwards. If you do, then perhaps you should rethink that relationship. I've been driving for over 50 years, did my own maintenance when I was younger, and been around automobiles since I was five.

 

2nd gen 4cylinder the cap says 0w20 or 5w30 only the 3rd gen 4cylinder says only 0w20

 

This type of thing could happen anywhere. Unless you do it yourself, you don't know exactly what is done, no matter where you go. In this case, the scenario directly after the oil change indicates a very high likelihood that the shop didn't complete the work correctly. However, it also appears extremely difficult to prove they are at fault, especially based on their claim that "excessive oil burn rate" is to blame. How much would it cost a person to disprove that claim?

I maintain that the only way a person could prove a shop's negligence is for them to check and document the work as soon as they pickup the vehicle, before even leaving the parking lot. And in that case, the engine never would have seized in the first place. I assume that as soon as you leave their lot, they "aren't responsible". Jiffy Lube even has cameras that show them "completing the work", and the victim in this case has video footage of their vehicle sitting for several days. That's more documentation than I'd expect, and yet we can all still see that it's difficult to prove anything.

It sucks that a shop requires you to trust them, but won't honor that trust on the back side of a problem. It's why I try to do nearly all the work on a vehicle myself.

 

If it leaked out id expect the bottom of the vehicle to be covered in oil. Is it?


Trying to come up with some soet of verifable way to disprove them. That seems like an unrealistic amount of burnt oil.

 

A shop absolutely has potential liability for the consequences of work done incorrectly (negligence) if it leads to damage later and the work can be shown to be responsible for the outcome. There is no legal protection for this negligence just because the customer
Didn’t discover it. We on this forum are DYI’rs and expect people who own vehicles to have a certain level of technical ability. But that’s not a reasonable expectation, and it’s not reasonable to expect a person with no auto tech expertise to verify that any maintenance or repair was performed correctly. Customers pay shops to provide that technical expertise and to perform the work they promised. Thus the potential for liability.

Think of a wheel being removed and reinstalled for tire work. The lugs aren’t tightened, wheel comes off on the highway leading to an accident. The shop that failed to tighten the lugs is wide open for a lawsuit. Is the customer supposed to show up with a torque wrench and check the tire is secured? Well, I actually will do that, but, it’s unreasonable to expect any customer to do so. Not everyone has a torque wrench, or knows the correct torque value, or is even physically capable of tightening lug nuts.

 

A tire shop I did some business with required customers to agree to return to the shop at about 500 miles to have the torque rechecked. I usually didn't do that, but did recheck the lug nuts for tightness after a few days. I'd guess that they had an issue with that in the past. Overall, they were very good to deal with and even replaced a wheel when one of their guys pounded on the valve stem to loosen it so he could put in a new TPMS sensor.

I agree with the rest of your statement. I'm not a lawyer, but my non lawyer opinion is that absent customer negligence the shop is responsible for their workmanship.

 

I don't disagree with the line of thinking, but in your scenario, how do you prove that the shop didn't tighten them correctly? You just tell them that you didn't do anything to them after leaving the shop? What are they gonna say, "Oh, ok - here's $60k for a new vehicle and $150k for medical bills. Sorry about that." No... They're gonna say, "Prove it." At that point, how can a person prove they didn't do something to compromise the lug nut torque?

I'm only asking, because it seems difficult to prove, and I'd LOVE to find out that a court could make that leap and help the victim in these cases. I just have a hard time seeing how such proof can be supplied.

I could see a shop admitting a mistake and covering something small, like forgetting to replace windshield wipers in good faith. But new motors, injuries, etc...become legal matters, and it's a different arena.