Thanks everyone, your comments have been truly helpful!
NYBo, that might be true except for the loud tapping noise in the original post combined with the mechanic telling him he had no oil in the engine. Certainly the engineās life has been shortened. Hopefully heāll get some more use out of it.
Cranks survive a large lateral pulse with every cylinder firing. Without a pressurized fluid barrier to ride on, well, all we can do is hope. I think the best thing the OP can do now is to change his/her fluid monitoring protocols and hope for the best.
1 Like
Being down a couple of quarts can cause hydraulic lifters to collapse and make quite a racket.
Good point, my friend. Letās hope thatās all it wasā¦ although lifters banging on the cam lobes isnāt healthy either. Hopefully this will only result in an educational opportunity for the OP.
If an engine oil leak is slow enough you might not notice it. A defective PCV could be part of the explanation. Suggest to have the entire PCV system checked, and the valve replaced for good measure. That shouldnāt be overly expensive. The PCV valve itself is probably less than $10. If the PCV valve was defective for some time, crankcase pressures could build up and an engine seal might have been damaged. Ask the shop to check for that, esp the front main and front cam seal and rear main for sign of oil leaks there. And the valve covers for leaks.
Besides leaking out onto the ground, or evaporating into the air on the hot engine surface, oil can go right into the engine, get burned in the cylinders, and go out the tailpipe. If that was severe enough youād notice an unusual amount of smoke out the tailpipe. But a small amount, you probably wouldnāt notice it. It might show up on an emissions test though.
When your shop said there was āno engine oilā I expect they meant there was no oil showing on the end of the dipstick. This doesnāt imply there was actually no oil in the engine at all. There probably was still some at the bottom of the crankcase. As long as the oil level is above the oil pump pick up tube, the engine continues to get lubricated. Itās like if you are drinking a coca cola which was almost gone, as long as the straw is still in the liquid you still get just as much of a sip as if the glass was full. Itās just when the oil level is low, the oil is constantly being re-circulated and what remains gets over-used, which over time can have an adverse effect on its ability to lubricate and cool the engine.
I think you guys are a little rough on the mechanic. If the mechanic has been providing satisfactory service to @Kiskya305 for sometime, then he deserves a chance to redeem himself. Some of this could be a āfailure to communicateā.
I sure would hate it if @Kiskya305 starts another thread with something like, āI took my car to another mechanic and he says I need $xxxx.xx of URGENTLY needed repairsā or something like that.
Iām mostly rough on the owner, for not checking his oil level at all
As for the mechanic, itās always possible he said āall the right thingsā but the owner somehow misinterpreted it
Weāve all seen that happen numerous times, and the end result is invariably the owner talking smack, saying what an idiot the mechanic is, and telling their neighbors, friends, etc. to never bring their car there for repairs and/or service
Or the owner blaming the car maker: āIāll never buy another Studebakerā
Going forward, suggest to chose among the list of oils specād in the owners manual, both the type (synthetic vs dino) and the weight. If the ownerās manual says it is ok to use dinosaur oil (conventional) that would be my preference, and change it and the filter out more frequently, every 3,000-5,000 miles. If synthetic is required, I still would change it out on that schedule or at least no more than 4,000 - 6,000 miles. If you drive a ānormalā number of miles per year, oil should be changed by miles driven rather than time. Change at the lower miles end of the scale if you do a lot of stop and go city & suburban driving. At the higher end of the scale if you do mostly high speed freeway driving.
Check at a Suzuki dealer for the price of their oem filters. Often the dealer sells oil filters for about the same price as the aftermarket. If so, go with the dealerās recommended filter.
Are there actually any Suzuki auto dealers left, following the companyās exit from the US marketplace ~4 years ago?
I expect the OP isnāt located in the USA.
I disagree with you
I think OP is in the USA
The Suzuki Grand Vitara was sold here, and I believe Suzuki still had a modest presence in 2007
Also . . . OP mentions ā104,000 milesā . . . if he were somewhere else, he might be mentioning kilometers
1 Like
Correct. My options are General Motors dealerships or local mechanics.