Sorry I seem so thick to you on the oil change issue. I truly do understand the need to change oil routinely and we have a record of doing so. I have admitted that we did not check the oil level routinely. The oil was changed in the car by JL 4500 miles prior to the engine problem. I do not consider "filled with oil to the proper level and driven indefinitely’ to fall under the category of routine oil changes at 5,000 per change. Per my view 3 1/2 months and 4500 miles with synthetic oil is not “driven indefinitely.” The oil we requested and paid for was Mobil One synthetic oil. We paid extra for the synthetic oil due to the mileage on the vehicle understanding that synthetic oil is slower to form sludge, lasts longer, and is a better oil for older engines, etc., etc., etc.
I do understand that it is possible that the older engine perhaps consumed ALL of the oil or perhaps 3/4 of the oil in the engine which caused the engine failure. JL will not discuss the incident with me other than to say “tear down the engine and we will send an inspector selected by JL” to determine if the engine was burning oil which will be evidenced by “blue rings”. I admit I do not know which portion of the engine is going to show these mysterious “blue rings.” One post mentioned “blue rings on the pistons.” To date the mechanics I have spoken with are of the opinion that an engine tear down and inspection will not answer the question of what happened to the oil.
My question in the post was “will blue rings in a engine with this mileage be a conclusive test which will prove that the engine was burning oil historically to the level which eventually led to a catastrophic engine failure.” My intuition leads me to believe that this inspection will be inconclusive and is nothing beyond a stalling tactic by JL and another expense to me. JL said the tear down, inspection would run plus $500. Once again, I will point out the JL told me – (1) I would pay for the engine tear down and the inpsection, (2) JL would provide a “third party” inspector, and (3) Finally, I would not be permitted to read the inspection report as it would also be JL’s property.
Your response has been quite valuable as you have voiced the exact argument which I anticipate from JL – you have been a great “devil’s advocate.” However, at least you have been willing to correspond with me.
This week I will meet with an attorney and file a civil claim against JL and supoena the tape. My money is on the tape no longer being available even though I was told it would be saved indefinitely.
OK4450, Yes, I would definitely reveal all of the facts to the judge if asked. I bet the judge has not raised his hood and checked his oil either. I know lots of judges and my guess is that none are terribly mechanically inclined and quite like me go in for routine oil changes and consider that to be adequate. Maybe, he will be sympathetic and also have some concern as to why JL has been so utterly uncooperative.
As far as the tape, in order to go underneath the car the mechanic must use a set of steps within view of the security tape. The GM told me that during an annual inspection there is no reason for anyone to go underneath the car. If the tape shows a mechanic going underneath the car, staying long enough to drain the oil, and then resurfacing via the stairs in view of the security camera – I contend that is fairly strong evidence that the oil was drained. If the tape has no evidence of a mechanic going beneath the car then I am quite satisfied that the fault is mine and I have learned a valuable car maintenance lesson.
On a humorous note, I think you will love this. Yesterday, I was going to check the oil in both our cars with 90K plus miles. Instead, I decided to ask my husband to do so as I was quite busy. His immediate response was "Why the h*@*#ll do you want me to check the oil level. The oil is fine!!! Despite his protests he did and it was fine. Obviously, he is a great example of a totally negligent driver. It is amazing that he had a 1992 Isuzu truck with over 280K miles which still runs great! I am sure the oil in the truck has exceeded 10K miles between changes many, many times. However, now I will keep an eye on that truck as well.
Oil pressure light should be illuminated any time oil level is below pickup level for the oil pump. An illuminated oil pressure light is, I think, pretty hard to not notice. Thus I think you have some responsibility for engine failure.
Mechanic finding of “not a drop of oil” in engine however can only be explained by a hole of some nature in the bottom of the oil pan (that let out all the oil). If there’s no puncture of the pan, the hole through which all the oil went “adios” was the drain hole. You can trash an engine by running it low on oil, but if you do, there will still be some oil left in the pan. I don’t know how low you have to let the oil level get oil starvation in a Camry of that vintage, but I’d estimate that 3 quarts below full will do it. That would still leave at least a quart in the pan.
A Camry with 120K on the clock which has had its oil changed with synthetic every 5K shuld be barely broken. A Camry engine that gets oil changes with synthetic oil at 5K intervals should be good for 300K, provided that timing belt service isn’t neglected, and is done by someone competent.
JL’s claim that the teardown report is their property (when you paid for) it is utter and complete nonsense. If you paid, the report is YOUR property. JL lost all credibilty with their claim of ownership of the report. Much as I dislike legal action, you should file a small-claims suit. I will be very, very surprised if you don’t win. The dollar limit on small claims judgments may not make you “whole”, but as indicated at the start of this thread, you do have to accept some responsibilty for failing to notice an illuminated oil pressure light.
After having read this whole thread.. I would
Get a lawyer if you feel you need it.
Go to small claims (or regular court if it's too big for small claims). Show the service records, which should also indicate if the oil was low on previous changes or not. (I.e. if they changed it and it was a quart low the record would indicate it). This would help establish your car was not geisering oil, and most likely didn't run out after only 5000 miles. (A car *can* burn through it all that fast, but it's not likely to go from 0 to super-leaky in 1 oil change.) If they just inspected it, shouldn't that ALSO have a record if the oil was low or not? In that case the oil hasn't been low for thousands of miles, it ran out since you were at jiffy lube.
As for blue rings being a sign of whatever? Doubt it. That's a sign of heat, and if the engine ran out of oil while going down the highway, that'd probably ALSO make the rings turn blue. The fact you don't check your oil doesn't help though, unfortunately.
Jiffy Lube has insurance to pay for these kinds of mistakes. In court, it'll be up to a judge to decide who to believe -- the evidence may not be conclusive one way or the other but to me it leans towards yourself.
“Show the service records, which should also indicate if the oil was low on previous changes or not. (I.e. if they changed it and it was a quart low the record would indicate it).”
Really?
Your mechanic measures the precise volume of the oil that he drains from your crankcase?
And, the service invoice that he gives you states how much oil was drained?
I have to say that he is a truly extraordinary, detail-oriented mechanic.
In the real world where most mechanics work, the oil is drained with no regard to the volume of what comes out of the crankcase. Whether it is 6 qts, 5 qts, 4 qts, or even less, it simply drains into the collection vessel while the mechanic oils the filter gasket and perhaps checks some other situations while the car is on the lift.
So, forum members, let’s have a poll:
How many of you have mechanics who measure, and report on, the quantity of oil that they drain from your crankcase?
Bluesky, A Tear Down Will Not Prove Anything In This Case. Piston Rings Turning Blue And Engine Bearing Damage Would Result From Running Low Or Out Of Oil For Any Reason.
As I said before going to court is like a dice roll or coin toss. You are correct in that a judge may side with a car owner with records to show maintenance and the judge herself may not ever check oil or think it is prudent to do so.
You can win and I wish you luck. However, you are still blaming JL when you yourself don’t know what happened to the car, otherwise you wouldn’t have to see a tape to convince you one way or another.
We are not really in disagreement. It’s just that I know more about cars than you do and have a more open mind to this type problem.
As I said in my first post on this thread (back in the 20`s somewhere I believe) a mechanic has to be DILIGENT enough to check the level before draining the oil. I know lots that do it if asked. IF ASKED. I know of none personally, that do it as a matter of course. And I have worked (in a non-mechanical capacity), side-by-side with technicians at both a quick-changer, and a dealership.
In this poll, I do not have a mechanic who checks the level in advance.
I propose a secondary poll - what do the members who have been reading thus far, think the result from court will be?
I re-iterate, a 50/50 cost split on fixing the car. Nobody can conclusively say one way or the other what the cause was, nobody can assume or deflect 100% of the blame.
(bluesky12, this is not a dig - merely, let`s get a couple of answers from each side of the fence.)
As to the polls, here’s my 2 cents and it’s in agreement with VDCdriver to some extent.
While it’s not often practical to measure the amount of old oil that is drained I usually keep an eye peeled just to make sure that it’s not drained out in 5 seconds.
I’m also aware that many, especially fast lube facilities, will be busy with other things while underneath the car. They will simply remove the plug, allow the oil to drain, and move on.
It’s also not practical to check the oil before draining. The engine will have been running, oil sloshed all over, etc. and since time is money, no tech is going to allow an engine to tie up a lift or stall for an hour while waiting for the oil to drain down so the level can be checked before draining. Not practical at all.
As to the results of any court proceeding that’s always hard to determine. Courts are only fair some of the time.
My feeling is that the OP will lose this case IF (key word) they do not withhold info or perjure themselves.
If the OP stands in front of the judge with no evidence at all to support this claim and states the hood never comes up to check anything they’re toast; or should be.
Based on what the OP states about the hubby’s attitude about checking the oil my feeling is that this incident will not be the last one either.
If not a lack of engine oil problem then it may be a lack of transmission fluid, lack of engine coolant, or possibly even worse; finding out during a panic stop the brake fluid was a tad low.
…and, based on the informal poll that I posted in a different thread, it is extremely uncommon for a mechanic or service technician to measure the drained oil and to report the quantity of drained oil on the service invoice.
“hwertz” advised the OP to “show his service records”, which would allegedly show the volume of oil that had been drained in preceding oil changes, in order to prove that the Camry in question was not burning oil. Unless the OP has an unusually conscientious mechanic (such as our forum member, Tester), as my survey shows, it is not likely that the car’s service records would reflect how much oil was drained at each oil change.
So, hwertz, I suggest that you stick with your very detail-oriented mechanic, as he is definitely the exception to the rule.
And, I suggest that we all continue to check our oil dipsticks frequently, as would anyone who expects his car to run reliably.
People In This Country Often Use Lawsuits In Place Of Personal Responsibility.
Sue McDonalds If you poor hot coffee on yourself and get burned. Sue a restaurant if you over-eat and get fat. Sue the Little League if your child plays “Left Out” once or twice. Sue your doctor for any reason of your choosing. Ambulance chasing lawyers are standing by at 1-800-Sue-Them.
The maker of the toilet seat that hooks to your truck’s trailer hitch (for campers) had to have it’s legal team advise them to include a warning not to use it while the vehicle is moving!
Like health care, maybe car repair wouldn’t be as expensive for everyone if mechanics didn’t have to “cover their butts” (video, lawyers, etcetera) to defend against sue-happy people.
The U.S seems to lead the pack for lawsuits. Are folks here loosing their personal responsibility?
As I frequently state (or perhaps, pontificate) in this forum, I also believe that personal responsibility is at an all-time low in this country. Everyone wants to blame everyone else for their own shortcomings/oversights/negligence, etc.
However, one point on which I will disagree is that of the infamous McDonald’s “hot coffee” lawsuit. As a part of my Torts class, we studied this case in depth, and I can tell you that certain spin-masters (possibly at the behest of McDonald’s) have spread so much misinformation about this case that the actual facts are almost unversally misunderstood. If you do a bit or research (okay, perhaps a lot of research) on the case, you will find that the realities of that case are quite a bit different from the popular “knowledge” of the case.
But, to return to my original point, I firmly believe that a widespread lack of personal responsibility is one of the biggest problems that we face today.
Generation Gap? A Couple Of Weeks Ago, My Own Kids Were Incredulous . . .
. . . when I found an item that was left over from the days of “personal resposibility” in the garage and brought it out for a little fun.
They couldn’t believe that those “lawn darts” had (dull) points on the end. They would never make it to market, today. Remember when spinner wheels and spinner wheel covers were “outlawed”? I think that was the beginning of the end.
But, what do I know? I’ve got guns, bullets (in a locked locker) knives, pointed scissors, lawn darts, a lawn tractor and a table saw that pre-date most modern “safety features” and “warning labels”, from the old days when people took personal responsibility and decided whether products were suitable for what they intended to do with them and used caution and common sense.
First answer “get a lawyer” gets five stars? who ever did that is impaired.
I suggest you re-read the post.
No on EVER suggest suing or even taking the guy to court…The lawyer suggestion was to get possible evidence. If JL had a tape showing that they screwed up…there’s a good chance they’re NOT going to show it to you unless you get a lawyer to view it. There’s a good chance JL never screwed up (in this case). But you want to get ALL the evidence before making that judgment…NOT just take their word for it.
Years ago, I remember a case of a mechanic forgetting to install oil, on an oil change. It went to court. The judge verdict “that it was the drivers responsibility to see the oil light or gauge come on”