From the "former urban legend" dept.: Warning re: oil change shops

[liberalhistorian]

I used to think this was just an urban legend. Sure, there were oil change shops I didn't fully trust as far as the veracity of what they always claimed to be "wrong" with whatever car I'd take in for an oil change. Sometimes they were right, but usually they were skirting the edge, just trying to pump up sales volumes. And they never seemed to pull those tricks when my stepdad, son or husband took the car in on their own or when I was with them.

But holy hannah, you will not believe this shit. Hubby took my older car in for an oil change last week; I'd had it for eight years, since before we were together, and it was the car I brought from Ohio when moving out west and that I drove everywhere around the state for a couple years for the job I'd had. It was a very reliable, dependable Buick that only in the past couple of years had started to show its age, which was thirteen years. We no longer took it for too many trips outside town, although it seemed to do somewhat okay with it. Hubby had to drive it several hours to one of the few urban areas in this state to take care of some business and errands and see family. He takes it to an oil change shop and dutifully bides his time in the waiting area, until they come out and tell him the car was ready. He pays, gets in the car and drives merrily on his way. Nearly a half hour later, the car conks out about a block from my former mechanic from when I once lived in that city. Just simply dies, would not budge. He has it towed to the mechanic and they tell him they'll look at it the next morning; he gets a ride to his father's house, which is still in the area, but several towns away. When he called that night to let me know what was up, we figured the car had finally died on its own and started figuring out the finances of trying to replace it.

But holy shit. The next day, the mechanic determines that the car would go no further because, people, guess what the oil change guys had NOT done AFTER they drained all the damned oil from the car's engine? What would you think would be the next logical step after draining oil from an engine? It ain't rocket science, even to a non-mechanic, but I guess it was too hard for the gentlemen to figure out that once they drained a customer's oil, they actually needed to PUT OIL IN IT. That's right, kids, they drained the old oil and DIDN'T PUT ANY NEW OIL IN IT. Which, as you can guess what happens here, quickly and effectively ruined the engine, thus ruining the car. So hubby, being a few hundred miles from home, had to shell out the bucks to rent a car for a couple weeks and start dealing with the oil shop's insurance company.

Fortunately, they didn't fuss and were actually easy to deal with, paying for the rental car and offering a quick and very fair settlement after checking out the car. I think that was likely because it was an old, not-that-valuable car and not a newer, more expensive one. They likely figured that it'd cost them a lot less just to make a settlement than to dig their heels in. The only good thing is that it wasn't our much newer, "good" car, that would have been a real mess.

Yeesh. And you thought it was just an urban legend that they did shit like that! I know I once did. I almost feel sorry for the poor shlub who was rushed and likely somewhere down the line broke procedure, because he's more than likely now out of a job in a very tough market. And imagine him trying to explain why he lost his last job in new interviews!