I stopped by a local (nearest shop to me - ten miles away) auto repair shop to pick up some farm fresh eggs (they’re sold there), grab a coffee (it’s free there), and BS (it’s spoken there) a little with the guys.
While I was there, a customer dropped off a Ford Windstar van and told of two problems. The van was getting poor mileage and had a troublesome oil leak. Once up in the air, the source of the oil that was clinging to and dripping from the underside of the vehicle, from the engine on back, was identified.
I kid you not, the oil filter metal had rusted through and no longer held oil !
The fix was an oil change and new filter.
Unbelievable or what ?
Good god. Doesn’t surprise me (at least not as much as the fact that you can get eggs at the mechanic’s now), but it does go to show you why you need a thorough inspection when you buy a used car, doesn’t it.
I wonder how many years that oil filter (and motor oil) had been in place.
If it was as long as I suspect, an oil leak is the least of this guy’s worries.
And I’ll bet that if the shop had suggested that the owner might need other maintenance done the owner would have been appalled and called them crooks.
This is a good reason to purchase the optional oil filter undercoating when purchasing a new car. The dealers only charge $250 for this and guarantee that the oil filter won’t rust out for 10 years or it will be replaced.
Years ago when unleaded gas came into existence I worked as a mechanic while going to college…
We started seeing a lot of cars with sludge problems (due to the increase temps from the unleaded gas). One guy brought his car in for an oil change. Dropped it off on his way to work…We finally got around to it by 3pm…I pulled the drain plug…and basically the oil just oozed out…It was like a black paste…I never saw anything like that before…I asked the old mechanic I worked for to look at it…“Said he started seeing that when Unleaded gas came out”.
I remember sludge problems before unleaded gasoline. The Chevrolet 6 engine and the Ford 6 and V-8 engines from the early 1950s through the early 1960s were bad about plugging up the oil lines to the rocker arm shafts. Outside oil line kits were available to correct the problem.
I had a 1955 Pontiac that I purchased in 1962. The dealer had overhauled the engine. However, the studs through which the ball mounted rocker arms would plug up and the rocker arms would chirp. I had the stud pulled and an oil gallery cleaned out but never got rid of the problem. Unfortunately, an oil filter was an option on the 1955 Pontiac and mine didn’t have this option. I did retrofit an oil filter from a wrecked Pontiac, but it was probably too late. Since the rocker arms were the ball and stud type, there was no way to fit an outside oil line.
