Bought a used 2018 Trax 13 months ago, Then 2 weeks ago the turbo seized, due to oil not getting to the turbo causing the engine as well as the turbo needing to be replaced. The vehicle has 39,000 miles on it.
The oil looks like cottage dark cottage cheese. The dealer says the warranty will not cover any of the repair. They recommend $ 9000 for a new engine, or repair only the turbo with some chemicals to flush the engine costing $22500. Please help if anyone knows anything about this.
In the year that you owned it, How often did you change the oil ?
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AdditionallyâŠ
Is this vehicle used mostly for short-trip, local driving?
Was the correct Dexos-spec synthetic oil used every time that the oil was changed?
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I would guess the oil had never been changed. That description of the oil is horrible.
Being a 2018 with relatively low miles, it might be worth a new (or new used) engine. I bet used 2018 engines will be hard to come by, though.
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Did the oil look normal each time you checked the level?
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It was abused and is not covered by any warranty. Iâm assuming the 22+ grand for chemicals and flushing is a typo. Typo or no typo; chemicals and flushing is pointless.
Warranty is for defects in material or workmanship; not for mechanical murder by you and/or prior owners,.
You have been asked about changing the oil and actually checking the oil level on a regular basis. You state turbo/engine trashed because of lack of oil. That comes across as oil sludging due to lack of oil changes and/or never checking the oil level.
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Yup!
This falls under the category of owner neglect/abuse.
Whether that neglect/abuse was done by the previous owner, or the OP, or by both of them, no vehicle manufacturer is going to foot the bill for those repairsânor should they.
Note for the OP: If the previous owner was the one who abused the vehicle by never changing the oil, a pre-purchase inspection by your mechanic would likely have revealed that situation. I know that this is a very expensive way for the OP to learn that lesson, but hopefully it will help with her future vehicle purchases.
Best laugh of the day!
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Iâm going to take a little different stance on this. If sheâs only had the vehicle 13 months, sheâs only probably needed one or possibly two oil changes. I doubt the engine sludged to the point of failure in 13 months even if she never changed the oil, unless she drives a ton of miles. If this car was sold at a dealer, they shouldâve seen the sludge (which was inevitably there) when they changed the oil and put it on the lot.
I think the dealer ought to pay to repair it if sheâs done those one or two oil changes needed in the 13 months sheâs owned it and it wasnât low on oil when she bought it in. But we havenât heard back on thatâŠ
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Granted, there are some unknowns involved here that need to be clarified by the OP but itâs difficult for me to see how someone who checks their oil (an unknown) could go for 13 months without knowing it looked like âdark cottage cheeseâ.
And the OP never said that the engine was full of oil; only that it was dark and both turbo and engine were wiped. Never checked the oil and only 2 quarts remaining? Who knows.
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Mileage unknown. Service history unknown.
Where is the OP? We would really like to know how many miles the SUV was driven during her ownership, and what maintenance if any was done. Also, it is very common for people to do something which ruins a car engine, such as overheating or running it low on oil, and then they sell or trade-in the car ASAP while it still runsâleaving the next owner to deal with the headache.
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To your point about trading a bad vehicle in, I went to high school with a girl whoâs grandfather owned the local Ford dealership. When she got her license they gave her a brand new 1993 (I think) Ford Probe GT. Probe is an awful name for a car, but thatâs beside the point. One weekend I saw her in town with the car and it was knocking. I checked the oil and the dipstick was dry. I went and got a quart of oil and poured it in, then had to go buy another quart to get it to the right level. I asked her when sheâd had the oil changed and she said she hadnât done it yetâŠas in ever. The car had around 30k miles. Soon after, she had something else to drive and that Probe was some other poor sapâs problem. Maybe it still had a warranty. If I was the second buyer, Iâd sure want the dealer to honor it. Sure, it was neglected and it wasnât the manufacturerâs fault that the engine died. But the dealership (in that case) sold someone a junker and should be on the hook for it, somehow.
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If the OP received one of these and signed it with an X present in the upper box then their options are zero. The lower box spells out what if any warranty they do have. That is usually 30 days to 6 months and even that is dependent upon the root cause of the failure.
Ford dodged a bullet with the Probe, some in Fordâs executive suite wanted the Probe to be the ânewâ Mustang.
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To be honest, the Ford Probe was a great car, and millions of them were sold. When I was in high school, the Probe was a car that everyone wanted. I never cared for 2-door cars, but if I did, I would have happily owned one. They were available with trim levels ranging from basic with hand-crank windows and non-powered seats, all the way up to high-end with power everything.
GM was going to replace the Camaro and Firebird with a FWD model code named the GM80âŠ
The car got pretty far along in the late 80s before someone smothered that one in its sleep!
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It was essentially a Mazda MX-6 with different body styling, and it was probably the most reliable Ford sold at that time, probably because Mazda played such a significant role in its design and development. I liked the styling of the Mazda better than that of the Probe, but they were both good cars.
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I looked at both the Probe and the MX6 and decided on the MX6 due to itâs swoopy styling. That V6 wasnât the most powerful engine out there, but it was smooth as silk and a joy to drive.