Yeah we agree but when the engine all of a sudden takes an oil dump, whether for engine problem, drain bolt falling out, or loose filter, regular checking of the oil wouldn’t prevent the problem. At any rate sounds like the OP is on his own on this one unless they take mercy on him or there is a class action like on the Olds diesels. Another vote for a low oil light-gotta add at least $15 to the cost of a car.
I highly suspect op may be one of those guys that doesn’t check the oil level at all between oil changes
and I’ll continue to suspect that until I hear otherwise
If he would have checked the oil level often and topped off . . . as many of us regulars do . . . then he could have legitimately showed up at the dealer and said in spite of maintaining the oil level like he’s supposed to do, the engine developed a problem and can they please help him
And then the dealer and corporate could have said “This guy did everything right, he upheld his end of the agreement, let’s help him out”
But instead, they can easily say “This guy never pulled the dipstick even once between services. And now he’s got a problem. Why should we help him?”
I’m just going to throw a question out there, and it’s not just for you . . .
If an engine fails or is severely damaged and it’s low on oil, what happens if the customer adds fresh oil to bring it up to the full mark and then has the car towed to a dealer?
Would an analysis conclusively reveal that 3qts of fresh oil were just added AFTER engine failure, thus proving the engine was in fact severely low on oil when it failed . . . ?
I brought that up, because I suspect it’s happened more than a few times
I suspect that if several quarts of fresh oil was added to an engine which has already seized, it would be quite obvious upon draining the oil. Presumably, the new oil and the extremely dirty old oil would stratify since the engine never ran after the new oil was added. However, that is not the situation being discussed in this thread. Since this engine ran for some distance after the oil was added, I suspect that the oil is fully mixed, and the addition of oil would be undetectable.
Also, we are not talking about an engine which is known to be robust and reliable. We are talking about an engine with a known design defect, which is known to fail way more often than other manufacturers’ engines used in similar vehicles. Sure, it is possible that this was a perfectly good engine which failed due to being run low on oil, and if only it was maintained properly, it would have lasted for 200,000 miles or more. It is also possible that this engine failed due to a design/manufacturing defect, and would have failed even if the owner had changed the oil several times a year, and topped it off every week.