Sorry that you had this experience too. Unfortunately I have talked with lots of car owners with similar stories. Even when you are young and savvy, you have to consider the cost engine teardown, inspection, court cost, attorneys, personal time, etc. against the value of the car. The car was only valued at $5,000 so we have to consider how much more we want to invest in recouping $5K. I am sure Jiffy Lube much like many businesses banks on the fact that we as customers must consider the return on investing even more money into a losing situation.
Jiffy Lube (same location as problem occurred) did all oil changes for the last 2 years. Car had been driven less than 5000 miles since last oil change. Do not have exact # in front of me. Maybe about 4,000 or less. Always used Mobll One synthetic oil. No oil problems had ever been reported by JL during these routine, regular oil changes. I know that JL recommends oil changes every 3000 miles but I believe the standard recommendation is 5000. I will admit that the OP had most likely not checked the oil level since the last change – 3,500 to 4,000 miles.
I have only used a quick change service one time, last winter, and my car leaked oil for for 2 or 3 months and then quit. (quit leaking).
When was your last oil change? Do you ever check your oil between changes? Did they put a new reminder sticker on your car? They would have done this if they changed the oil…Did you check the dip-stick yourself before the car was towed? What type of filter was installed on the car? I bet Jiffy uses a unique brand…
I would bet that Jiffy Lube wins this round. Your car was probably losing it. No warning light is bad for your case. See if the sensor is even connected. There is no security tape or they would have an entire city filled up with them. The same ones are reused over and over. You can never prove that they sabotaged your car.
I think the OP’s theory is correct, i.e.–the person in the pit drained the oil, thinking that the car was there for an oil change rather than an inspection. Since a different person on the shop floor is the one who is supposed to do the oil fill, and since that person was likely the one doing the inspection, no oil was added.
The problem with the security tapes is that while they undoubtedly show what happens on the shop floor, it is unlikely that there is a camera aimed in the pit under the car. And, if the pit is not shown on the security tape, then there will not be any view of the person who drained the oil. No visual evidence of draining the oil=no ability to prove that the oil was drained.
It may be worthwhile for the OP to press the issue, but this may be a hard one to prove. Hopefully, at the very least, the OP and his entire family have learned what is a known issue on this forum, namely that using quick oil change places is more likely to result in serious problems than if someone used a regular mechanic.
As one of our veterans of this board (Mr. Meehan) likes to say, “Never go to a quick oil change place–not even for directions”.
Do I Have This Right?
A 1998 (11-12 years-old) car with 120,000 miles on it ran out of engine oil. The car was possibly driven plus or minus 4,000 miles by somebody who doesn’t check engine oil capacity.
“Car had been driven less than 5000 miles since last oil change. Do not have exact # in front of me. Maybe about 4,000 or less.” . . . " I will admit that the OP had most likely not checked the oil level since the last change – 3,500 to 4,000 miles."
Many cars on the road driven daily will “run out of oil” in 4,000 miles. Some manufacturers even consider one quart per 1,000 miles to be “normal”. Aging cars often will start consuming/leaking oil. Owners must be vigilant about checking oil or having it checked.
Speaking of oil leaks . . . “For some reason, the car was losing transmission fluid which he tried to point out as an engine oil leak. I had seen transmission fluid before and asked the owner of the garage to take a look and confirm that it was not leaking engine oil.”
"I do check where my car is parked at home for oil leaks . . . " Good for you for checking this as a standard procedure and now you have also added checking engine oil following having your car serviced. I would check all the fluids, too.
My cars’ Owner’s Manuals state that it is a good idea to check engine oil at each refueling stop. I would say it’s even more critical at every servicing stop.
How do you keep track of different fluids leaking from the car? Is this an automatic? Do you lift samples of the leaks? Oil dripping from a transmission isn’t necessarily transmission fluid. Gravity and air can play tricks on leaks. I know you had it checked by a mechanic, but new leaks can start at any time and leaks either need to be fixed or checking needs to be done frequently.
This sounds like a case of poor maintenance/car care meets Quick Oil Change Shop, resulting in she said/he said. Sorry to be so crass, but even if they had or hadn’t drained all the oil out, I think this car was doomed as an aging car with an owner/driver neglecting the care it needed.
CSA
It’s been my experience in the past to see the Quicky Lube guy bringing the dipstick to me to have me check the level myself BEFORE paying the bill and driving out the door.
Although I always got good service from the one I went to, (it helps to know the franchise owner and his wife) as soon as I went around the corner of the building I stopped and shut the engine off.
I looked under the vehicle for leaks and after a few minutes rechecked the engine oil level which always showed just a little above the full mark. Normal, for a warm recently run engine.
After I got home, I double checked. (Old habits die hard)
I felt a bit more comfortable after finding out this owner and his wife had their own off-shore boat they used for regular poker runs we have up here every summer plus the fact he bought Corvette chassis from the states, had them shipped to this shop where he proceeded to rebuild them, wiring and all.
When he sold the franchise I stopped going there.
After talking to a few customers (ones I’d talked to when I was going there) later on I found the quality of service had dwindled.
It strikes me as odd that a Jiffy Lube qualifies as a official State Inspection station.
One thing, a car that was having a Safety inspection would be up on a rack (so wheels could be removed) as opposed to a oil change car that is just driven over a open pit.
Knowing the details would probably clear these issues up.
But a JL that can do safety inspections,kinda scary.
I’m not a fan of the fast lube facilities but they do serve a purpose. Most vehicles will not have a problem but a few will suffer because of rushed employees, etc.
However, I’m not convinced the JL is at fault here.
If the JL drained the oil by accident and forgot to add oil that engine would never have gone 20 miles before seizing.
For the sake of argument, assume that JL committed this mistake. This means someone was driving around for 20 miles with a red no oil pressure light glaring at them?
If they did not see this red oil light during that particular 20 mile stretch then it’s quite likely they did not see the oil light glaring while on their way to the JL in the first place.
Unless I overlooked it, the OP says they have oil changes on a 4-5k miles basis.
The question I posed was when the hood was last raised to check the oil level; or is the OP blindly assuming no oil consumption from one oil change to the next because there are no puddles on the floor?
If you pay for the teardown you legally own the report.
But, as I suggested. have it done at an independent shop. Don’t let JL do it. You should try to find a shop that will provide a detailed report and will allow you in the bay to take photos of critical evidence as the teardown is performed. Use a good quality SLR camera, not a fixed-focus cheapo.
Until the inspection program was done away with here in OK most fast lube facilities were also state inspection stations. No matter where the cars were inspected the program was an utter joke.
The insp. program did serve a purpose. It pulled people into the service bays where they often went ahead and has the oil changed, filters, etc.
Their inspection procedure consisted of one licensed inspector (even the tesing for a license was a farce) at the front and one guy at the back. Turn on the lights, wipers, honk the horn, check the brake lights and turn signals, and VOILA!
Fifteen seconds of inspection with 5 minutes allotted for paperwork and scraping the old sticker off.
I was a state inspector while working for dealers and I fought tooth and nail to avoid even becoming an inspector. They made me anyway and when OK started their Recertfication Program I was coerced into that. Being determined not to hold an inspection license I failed the test on purpose by entering the wrong answer on 50% of the questions and botching my application form.
They passed me anyway. 
We did mot check the oil between routine changes. You are correct that we assumed there was no excess oil usage as the oil light never indicated there was a problem and no mechanic had ever mentioned a problem with the car burning oil and there were never any signs such as the smell of oil, oil leakage, or signs of any oil smoke in the exhaust.
Do not know if it is relevant but the driving after the oil change was not one 20 mile trip. It was 2 trips – the first about 12 miles directly after the change to return home and extremely early the following morning. It is possible that the oil light came on during either of these drives and was not noticed. Not to beat this point to death, but a trained JL employee drove the car into and out of the bay and if the oil light was on, he did not take notice of the oil light either.
in saying that I “had seen transmission fluid before”, I meant that I knew what transmission fluid looked like and could differentiate transmission fluid from engine oil. I had not seen transmission fluid leaking from the car before and we had no previous transmission problems with the car. Even though this was an old car, we purchased it new and the car had been maintained regularly. We generally drive our cars for many years. We have a 1989 Toyota pick-up with 280,000 miles with the same routine maintenance that continues to perform very well. Additionallly we have a VW with 90K, Isuzu Ascender with $98K, an another Camry with $90K. We plan to drive all of these vehicles for several more years but you can bet we will be extremely careful with oil changes in the future. I agree that you are correct that it is an excellent idea to check the oil everytime you fuel the car but I think it is fair to say that the non-mechanical owner very seldom opens the hood of his/her car. I always assume that if there is a problem with the oil level, the oil light will alert me to that problem.
“we assumed there was no excess oil usage as the oil light never indicated there was a problem”
Wow!
Another person who has never bothered to read an Owner’s Manual!
The “oil light” on your dashboard is an indication that the oil pump has insufficient pressure. It is not normally an indication of the need to add oil to the crankcase–until it is too late. If you are waiting for the “oil light” to show you when to add oil, therein lies the probable source of the problem.
If you never bothered to look at the dipstick between oil changes, and if you were under the mistaken impression that the oil pressure light would tell you when you needed to add a qt of oil, then this engine was probably being chronically run on a low oil supply. When you force…let’s say…4 qts of oil to do the work of 5 qts, you accelerate engine wear.
The accelerated engine wear causes the remaining oil to be “burned” even more rapidly. Then, when you are down to 3 qts, the rate of engine wear increases geometrically. As the oil in the crankcase got lower and lower over those months when the dipstick was never checked, the remaining oil became thicker and more sludge-filled, could not properly lubricate the engine, and increased the engine wear even more. The lower the oil level became, the more severe the wear of the engine.
Once the oil pressure warning light glows at you, it is essentially too late.
That light means, “Stop engine immediately”, not “add oil”.
In this case, the oil pressure warning light would have come on as soon as the oil level was so low that the oil pump was no longer to provide sufficient lubrication to the bearings. So, unless the warning light was already burned out, it would have started glowing at least a few seconds, or perhaps a couple of minutes before the oil supply in the crankcase was totally depleted.
Based on everything that the OP has told us so far, I tend to doubt that J-Lube has any culpability in this case. This situation sounds to me like a case of poor maintenance, coupled with the driver’s failure to notice the oil pressure light on the dashboard.
Trust me–the Owner’s Manual definitely has a statement about the need to check the oil dipstick frequently, and it also has a statement about what should be done when the “oil light” comes on (Stop engine immediately, or something to that effect). I can guarantee that the manual does not state that the oil pressure warning light should be relied on as an indicator of when you need to add a qt of oil.
You are so right about knowing the owner of a franchise. I provide franchise financing for multiple national franchisees and what often makes or breaks a franchise business is the pride of ownership. The on-hands, close to the operation franchisees thrive due to the owner’s involvement. Often the franchisee who owns many locations has lower sales and customer satisfaction due to inattention to individual stores including employee training. The franchise owner of the JL we took our vehicle too is the largest JL franchise owner in the nation with hundreds of stores and per my experience very, very poor customer service – very arrogant and unresponsive. In fact, I sent a registered letter to the franchise CEO several weeks ago and followed up with a call. To date their has been no response.
In North Carolina JLs are licensed to perform annual safety inspections. Wheels are not removed as a part of the NC inspection. The tire check in NC is that the tread is of a certain depth. The checklist is horn, windshield wipers, brake lights, turn signals, headlights aligned properly, and emission test, and tire tread. I have never seen an actual check of the brakes. I do not know if Jiffy Lube puts the car on a rack but other places I have had cars inspected do not raise the car. Most of the emphasis in NC is the emission test which the Camry passed.
I Understand About The Drips, Now.
Older cars sometimes just start comsuming oil and need monitoring, frequently. Also, waiting for an “oil light” to tell you that you are low on oil is like waiting for your left arm to hurt or go numb before going to a doctor to be treated for heart disease or a heart attack. In both cases it could be too late.
CSA
Being a typical driver, we assumed that if there is an oil usage problem it would be detected during routine oil changes and reported to us. I am sure that is expecting too much but that was our expectations. Actually I do read my car manuals. Maybe I need to go back and take a refresher course on checking the dipstick during every fueling.
I find it ironic that the oil problem occurred less than 1 day after a trip to JL. Had it been a longer period between the JL service and the problem, I would be more inclined to believe it was an OP problem. My main frustration is that JL refused to allow me to see the security tape promised by the store manager which would have quickly satisfied me if the only person who serviced the car was the inspector. Even though the security tape only shows the top of the car, it would have recorded an employee going down into the pit or coming out of the pit during the inspection. Had I been allowed to see the tape and saw no evidence of an employee entering the pit, I would have been very satisfied that JL did not cause the problem. It makes me very suspicious that they were not willing to let me see a tape which could have easily solved this problem.
VDC Driver, I Agree With You On The Oil Pressure Light Situation.
My Bonneville has a gauge for oil pressure, a “Check Gauges - Oil Pressure” warning light, and a chime.
Additionally, it has a “Check Oil Level” warning light and chime that gives a warning when the oil is down one quart. There is physically an oil level sensor installed in the oil pan.
CSA