Obviously, nothing good can come from that type of abuse…
The next time that somebody posts a question including “I don’t know when–if ever–the oil was changed”, I suggest that we refer them to this link.
Good post! I normally tell those who want to do that kind of thing that the engine will seize up by 60,000 miles. Some will do it long before that.
It looks like someone barbecued an entire pig in there!
The only surprise to me is that it ever made it to 84k miles.
That being said, I’ve seem some engines that looked worse than that with only about 1/3 the number of miles
It’s sad, and disgusting, that someone would take a nice car and abuse it like that.
The only thing worse than not changing your oil is not checking it. It will take quite a while for sludge to kill it, letting it run out of oil will kill it at any mileage.
A few years ago a Dodge Dakota was towed in. Customer said oil light came on while driving. he checked and added as needed, then drove several more miles and the light came on again and the engine got noisy so he called a tow. The truck had about 75,000 miles on it.
While discussing what could be wrong and approving some teardown time he mentioned how good of a truck it had been. All it ever needed was an oil change and 4 tires at about 60,000 miles.
Yes, one oil change at 60,000 miles. It still had the original wiper blades (or what was left of them).
We removed the oil pan, cleaned the hardened chocolate pudding from the pan and oil pickup, refilled it and sent him on his way with no warranty of any kind.
undoubtedly there was all sorts of molasses under the valve covers, also . . .
Good thing you didn’t warranty anything
Funny thing about that guy/truck…his “ladyfriend” is a long time customer here and we still maintain her 77 Pinto quite well.
The service manager at a local Ford dealer was telling me a few years ago about a customer who came in and bought a top of the line F Series Kindcab pickup with every conceivable option available on it.
The customer brought it in at 3k miles for the first oil change.
At about 25k+ miles the truck came in on the hook. The guy had never changed or checked the oil again after the oil change at 3k miles.
A combination of coked oil and low oil level wiped the engine out and of course the owner went ballistic over Ford’s refusal to warranty the engine.
Pretty sad that someone will shell out 45 grand for a truck and trash it because of a comparatively few dollars worth of oil.
+1 to @ok4450 — Isn’t that always the way? $45 grand for a truck and $30 for an oil change once in a while is too expensive to consider.
Reminds me of a doctor with a Cadillac. 3 of the 4 tires with slow leaks, 2 plugged already. Very near the wear bars and winter is approaching. She didn’t want to spend the $1000 for the big tires her performance Caddy needed and there were no cheap ones in her size.
A doctor with a performance Cadillac skimping on the rubber could easily mean that if she’s lucky another doctor may be attending to her future medical needs in the ER instead of a mortuary.
I know a guy with a college degree and working as an IT expert who refuses to spend any money on a car other than oil changes and tires. He has a Honda Odessey and an Accord, both of which have timing belts.
I tactfully suggested that the Accord’s timing belt was 3 year and thousands of miles overdue, and he went nearly ballistic calling dealers gougers. His wife, however, asked my advice and she is getting the belt changed and transmission fluid changed at her own expense.
“she is getting the belt changed and transmission fluid changed at her own expense.”
…and if she is smart, she won’t even mention that maintenance to the loose cannon to whom she is married.
Anyway…kudos to you for talking with the more rational member of that marriage.
I’m reminded of the well dressed and living in a somewhat affluent area of OK City lady who bought a new Subaru from a dealer I worked for.
She came back in after not too many thousands of miles over a couple of months time and wanted the oil changed.
The total on this was about 40+ dollars.
She balked and said she could get it done for 20 or so right down the street. Fine, their business model is different than ours.
Later that day the car came in on the tow truck with a wiped out engine due to the oil filter not being tightened and no oil in it. She screamed bloody murder over that engine not being covered under warranty and even sicced corporate Subaru of America on us.
Of course she neglected to tell SOA the part about the guys a few blocks down the street being the ones responsible for saving her 20 bucks…
SOA correctly told her tough luck also once that iota of info was related to them. Even odder was that after I installed a new engine being paid for by her with hopes for reimbursement by the fast lube guys she still did not blame them; she blamed us, SOA, and the car itself.
Methinks she needed therapy or a Comprehension 101 course… 
^ You can fix the car, but you can’t fix the customer.
Electro-shock treatment at the service counter may work… or not. 
We had another Subaru owner once who complained about us because we refused to allow him to do his own clutch job outside the service entrance door in the parking lot even though he said he would buy the clutch parts from us. He stated that he “might need some tips and a few tools…”
Sorry bud, that train wreck is not gonna happen. He told SOA we “were trying to rip him off”.
Must be a relative of the cheap oil change lady.
I think that if some of these customers who complain about prices charged at independent shops and dealers did their own work, maybe they wouldn’t complain. When I was working, I didn’t have the time to do my own automotive work and I depended on my car. I gladly paid a shop to do my work. Now that I am retired, I have become so involved in other activities, I still don’t have time to do my own work. I donated my creeper and auto ramps to GoodWill. I did keep my small electric tire pump and tire gauge to check my tires and I check under the hood–oil, coolant level, etc. when I buy gasoline. I follow the maintenance schedule in the owner’s manual, but the maintenance is done by the professionals.
I sometimes think I save money by not price shopping. I buy my tires at an independent tire shop where I also have my brake work done. This past week, I took our 4Runner to this shop because the right rear tire was losing air. The shop found a nail in the tire and also a leaking oil seal The tire was repaired and the oil seal replaced and there was no charge.
Proves synthetic and large sump goes a long time!!! 84k is impressive with 1 oil change.
The owner should get it cleaned up oil changed and trade that beat horse in.
There should be a law against this kind of abuse.
Two stories come to mind.
One was a high school football coach at the school where I taught auto shop 40 years ago. He brought his ten year old Ford station wagon in because the oil light was on. He asked us to find out why. Well, the first thing was the gook on the dipstick only slightly resembled oil. I suggested an oil and filter change. When one of my students pulled the oil plug he got nothing. I poked around in there with a screw driver and found sludge. I had one of the students add a quart of clean solvent and run the engine for a few minutes. Then he drained about four quarts of really nasty stuff from the pan, and refilled it with five quarts of oil. He replaced the filter, and all seemed to be well. I told the coach to bring it back in 500 miles for another oil change as the fresh oil was sure to break all sorts of interesting stuff loose. He never did. In his defense, he had grown up in NYC and never drove or owned a car until he graduated from a college near here. Football scholarship, you know. Apparently no one had ever explained to him anything about the care and feeding of a car. I tried, but he didn’t seem to care.
A more recent story was a friend of a friend who bought a new Suzuki SX4, and drove it 25000+ miles without even checking the oil. He even DROVE it to the (former) dealer since it was making a BAD noise. Um yeah. It had a rod hanging out the side of the block. Of course they refused to replace the engine under warranty.