Dealer left engine oil without the cap-went offroading heavy

Yeap,it's your vehicle,so its your job too check repairs done by somebody else.
Personally if I was doing what the O.P. was doing,off roading I would of been checking my oil level DAILY.

 

I'll share my anecdote. An older couple, family friends, gifted me a 15 year old mercedes, one owner, dealer serviced, stack of records. I go out in the morning to check tire pressure. The door specs the front tires as 245/40r18 28psi, rears as 265/35r18 33psi. The 265s were up front at 21psi and the 245s on the rear at 25psi. Serviced at the dealer 6 weeks ago.

I don't think it's cool to have to check work, or to understand how everything works so you can then catch errors. But it's definitely not cool to be driving around out of spec.

 

Kind of off topic now, but I left the oil filler cap off my 1st truck, an old ‘85 D Ram50, and it spat up enough oil to start a lil fire under the hood.
Good times!

 

OP. - I f you in there cleaning your engine, take a look at the positive terminal under the protective cover on your battery. Other than that, pretty much agree with everybody else here..

 

Couple thoughts to help you sleep at night:

Keep in mind the crankcase builds up pressure from blow-by gasses that are diverted by the PCV valve back into the intake. So with the cap off, your blow-by gasses would have been exiting the filler cap, and maybe keeping any dust from entering. The crankcase is essentially a positive pressure environment, which is one method of keeping stuff dust-free.

also, your oil filter is post-pan, so anything that got in the pan, should eventually end up in the oil filter if it’s light enough to be in suspension.

 

Damn, have not thought of those in a long time. The Ram 50 was a spiffed over Izusu right? I dove both versions for a while driving for an auto parts place. Simple, light, kind of fun really, but no one will even call them fast; I want to say 80% pedal to the metal to get up to speed (With some shifting to boot). IIRC they weren't really all that cheap that's why I could not afford one of my own.

 

Ram 50 was a Mitsubishi. The GM trucks were Isuzu.

 

This

Still had the Mitzu badge on the engine.
It was a great truck. Still ran fine when I donated it (but had bad body rot and needed, well everything)