I just had my oil changed at my dealership(this is where i bought the car new. And they expect me to pay for a new oil pan after they stripped the drain plug. The car is a 2004 Accord with 108 thousand miles on it. Shouldn’t they put the car back the way it came into them? I went round and round with the service manager but they still expect me to pay because the car has so many miles on it. What recourse do I have ?
As always we ask “why a complete oil pan replacement when there are thread repairs and oversize plugs to fix this problem”?
I thought garages had insurance against slip-ups like this. At any rate, I think that the dealer should make the repair.
I had the opposite problem. I had a mechanic misdiagnose a coolant leak in a Ford Maverick that I owned. He was certain, the way it was leaking, that it was the freeze plug behind the transmission. He pulled the transmission and this wasn’t the problem. It turned out to be the heater core. I tried to pay him for at least some of his labor on removing and replacing the transmission, but he wouldn’t take a dime for his time. I also had a Rambler dealer replace the wiper arm transmission when the problem was the motor. They replaced the motor and didn’t charge for the first job–they just took the difference between the wipre arm transmission and the new wiper motor.
I don’t think that you should pay for the repair. Mileage doesn’t wear out an oil drain plug.
Do you always take your car to the same dealer for oil changes? They are likely trying to tell you that some other brainless mechanic stripped the threads, not one of their factory trained high quality techs. If you have used other places for oil changes it just complicates the “who did what to whom, and when” story.
If the dealer won’t install a fix in the old pan have them plug the hole enough to drive the car to another shop. If they won’t do that tell them to pay for a tow to transport the car to another shop since the car wasn’t leaking oil when you brought it to them for the oil change.
Why should you pay for a new oil pan just so they can strip it out again?
The main question is have is whether the dealer has performed every oil change since you bought the car. If not, you’re definitely out of luck.
It’s also possible for an oil drain plug to freeze in the threads due to other influences and the threads may be damaged when the plug is removed. In this case it’s nobody’s fault; just a tragic mechanical fact of life much like a seized spark plug, frozen thermostat housing bolt, stuck brake rotor, or whatever.
That being said, the oil pan should not have to be replaced. There are several methods for repairing this problem; all comparatively simple.
Tap it out for an oversized drain plug (the easiest), thread insert or Heil-Coil, etc.