An oil pan is simply a pan, just like a pan of water on the stove. The oil pump draws oil up out of the pan via a “pickup tube” the receiving end of which sits below the oil pool level near the bottom of the pool, pumps it through the engine, and it drains back down into the pan. The only way replacing the pan can result in a fried motor is if that pickup tube is not properly adjusted and is being blocked. That DOES happen. It should be set 1/4" to 3/8" from the bottom of the pan, unobstructed, but not everyone bothers to check.
Congratulations on getting the vehicle back up and running. Just out of curiosity, why was the oil pan replaced in the first place?
Every shop has their own way of doing things but speaking as a mechanic who likes to know, I’ve often spent some of my time tearing something apart for free just to get rid of the curious bug.
Engine out and with an air wrench it shouldn’t take very long at all to rip something apart and find out what’s going on inside.
It’s the same reason I’ve used (some might call it a stupid reason…) to justify cutting apart an ignition module, fuel pump, or what have you. Then again, that’s just me because not knowing grates on me to no end.
Me too, ok4450. I have always been intrigued by why things failed.
My gut is telling me this might be a case of the oil pan being changed due to the drain plug threads being stripped, a scam that has long gotten my dander up. I hope the OP posts back with the answer.
As to what actually caused the engine to fail, I wish I could, but my guess is that it has already gone out for a “core charge”.
I don’t get that bit about installing a new pan because of stripped drain plug threads either. The only thing I can figure is that:
The shop will make more money installing a new pan labor-wise and the parts markup comes into play.
Some younger, naive mechanic considers tapping threads a foray into the unknown and is simply afraid to do it for fear that it won’t work out right and may come back to bite him.
The absolute worst I’ve ever seen for drain plug thread problems is Subarus; especially if a plug is reinstalled without a gasket. I’ve had to wrestle more of those things than I can remember and not once was a new pan ever needed except in one case.
Some Subaru dealer in OR had omitted the gasket before the car owner took off on a cross-country trip. On the way back through OK City they stopped to get the oil changed and all hxxx came to pass. The job just snowballed until I had the pan off and clamped in a vise. Glowing red from the torch the plug appeared to break loose. Unfortunately, it was a roughly 3" diameter section of the pan that ripped out.
Four hours on an oil change after brazing the pan back together…
I did provide them a written statement and the car owner said they were going to rip the dealer apart when they got back home after taking a few pics of this debacle. All because of a 1.00 gasket and a pair of ham fists in Salem…
“The job just snowballed until I had the pan off and clamped in a vise. Glowing red from the torch the plug appeared to break loose. Unfortunately, it was a roughly 3” diameter section of the pan that ripped out.
Four hours on an oil change after brazing the pan back together…"
At that point why on earth did you not just install a brand new pan? Surely you had one in stock if you were at the dealer? Wouldn’t a new pan have been a more complete repair?
I have to agree that in that case a new pan was warranted. But that isn’t the situation we see so often here that fries me. The situation that gets my dander up is when I read that someone has been told by a dealer that they need a new pan because the drain threads are stripped. It just makes me livid when I read that.
In the situation OK described, the plug had bonded to the bung hole for all eternity. Getting something like that apart can take unimaginable bad turns. Sometimes stuff simply will not come apart.
TSM, Just last week I drilled and helicoiled a drain plug on a V6 Accord. Before you commend me for my actions, just realize that I’m fat and lazy and spending 10 minutes fixing the pan was the fastest and easiest way to get the car out of the bay. Pulling the exhaust, brackets, and oil pan would have been almost like working.
@asemaster, we did not have a pan in stock and it was on a late Friday afternoon. We did not stock oil pans simply because we never replaced them due to drain plug thread issues.
As I mentioned, this particular job was the only one that ever required a new pan.
This started out as mangling the hex head to no avail. It then evolved into the air chisel (common procedure on them), followed by slight torch heat and air chisel; also to no avail.
The young lady customer was insistent upon finishing the oil change so it came down to pan removal, dump the oil, clean the pan, lock it into a vise, and have at it.
With the pan glowing red I figured the plug would come loose easily. Not. After much wrestling something gave and unfortunately it was a hunk of the pan with a drain plug still frozen in place.
At that point it was braze it together and head to OR.
A few weeks later the service manager got a call from the young lady who said that the dealer up there had provided a new oil pan and reimbursed her for our charges after looking at the abomination that was on the car and reading the statement I gave her.
No word on whether the guy responsible for that oil change got the axe or not…
The dealers can be just as bad as a quicky place in some circumstances. It’s often not the ‘real’ mechanics that do the grunt work like oil changes, but whatever lackey they have around the place it seems.
I took my car in for an unrelated issue. Upon getting it back, I was told that “We messed up and gave you a free oil change too.” Which would make most people happy, but in this case meant that they’d dumped my 7 quarts of full synthetic that had been in the crankcase for less than 200 miles and put in whatever bargain dino oil they use for their oil change specials. I made them do the oil change again with full synthetic.
Upon doing the next oil change myself (which is what I usually do if the weather isn’t awful), I discovered that the guy that puts the lug nuts on the space shuttle had apparently tightened my drain plug with an impact wrench, and mostly rounded the corners off it to boot. I managed to get it out with a huge pair of Vice grips, but it was destroyed and had to be replaced.
There was a time when the real mechanics as mentioned by oblivion did do all of the grunt work like oil changes on so on.
The trend has been for dealers to try and compete with fast lubes, chain stores, Wal Mart, etc and they only way they can do that is:
Screw the real mechanics over.
Have a young, low wage lackey as mentioned doing the job. Said lackey runs across bad threads and they probably will recommend a new pan out of sheer ignorance. They may also recommend a myriad of flushes on a 15k miles car; again from sheer ignorance.
