Good advice CSA
is this your moms car than? your wife was/is coming home without that car? i dont know how your wife got to that place. not that it makes any difference in the repairs needed on that car.
If you are going to keep the car for a number of years after the repair you may want to purchase a rebuilt engine from these guys. You will get a 3 year/100k mile warranty on the engine.
http://coloisr.com/
Whoa…you have to get this story straight before anything else.
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If I understand correctly, I believe the dealership has almost no culpability in the unfortunate series of events. No one can explain how the oil disappeared in a week. That means it’s probably been low a LONG time. Even if they had checked and found it low (4.5 qts then?) the damage was already done. It wasn’t dead like it likely is now but it had both feet in the grave. Expecting them to cover ANY of this expense is unfounded IMO…
I said yes. That doesn’t mean she was responsible for doing it on that car at that time, because it’s not her car, and on the astonishingly rare occasion that I borrow someone’s car for an hour, I do not give it a thorough inspection first. It’s their job to have the oil situation under control, not mine.
But the question was whether there is a need to do it, and the answer is unquestionably yes, because she does need to be doing that on her car.
rebuilt engine alone is around $3k, so if that includes engine and labor that does sound like a decent price. That’s about what a 95 Outback sells for here in Denver, but yours would be ‘like new’ ! ha.
had my Subaru transmission rebuilt for $2k when the car was eight years old, never regretted it, drove it another five years…
Then I think the jury is still out on this one. There’s a good chance that Mrs. Bneff will be cognizant of tire and oil care after this and the need to settle any arguments will be moot. 
CSA
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If the engine went for 3 years and 20-30k miles with no oil changes it was damaged goods from the get-go.
Once on the highway, an engine in this condition can consume oil whereas around town driving the consumption may have been far less.
I wonder if there was maintenance recommended on that inspection report that was declined.
Story seems straight to me… It is plausible my M.I.L. is negligent for not checking oil for a couple years (we found documentation of oil change 15k miles/2 years prior) and the car gradually lost oil to the point of an engine seize. So there is plenty of blame on this side. But also the dealership said they checked the oil & topped up fluids, but really didn’t. Then 7 days later, kaboom.
I talked to the service manager at the dealership today, it took ~3 minutes for me to catch him in a lie. He started by giving me the spiel that he didn’t know a lot about the situation, bla bla bla. After I brought him up to speed, he told me their comprehensive check does not include checking the oil or topping off fluids and that he can’t confirm that we were verbally told the fluids were topped up. And that checking the texture of the oil when a head gasket is leaking is not a standard procedure - even though they verbally confirmed the head gasket was leaking antifreeze outside the engine, not inside. But 2 minutes later he told me the technician did document the oil level as “red” on a check sheet and that must mean we were notified of the situation. Wait, I thought that wasn’t part of the comprehensive check… I’m still playing the reasonable guy card and didn’t make a big deal out of it. Maybe he was thumbing through some paperwork while we were talking.
So, given that the oil level was flagged as “red” on the technician’s check sheet, I asked how a technician could document checking the oil, see that it was multiple quarts low and/or low enough to imminently seize the engine and not top up the oil and then let the car drive off the lot. And I further wondered how they could tell my wife/M.I.L. that they DID top up the fluids. The manager had no response to that one but then threw me another curve…
That’s when he told me that the car was towed in with an excessively high oil level. Hmmm… (a) could have been relevant info a few minutes ago, (b) the manager suddenly seems to know a lot of details about a situation he just told me he knew little about. I’m suspicious, but I will say it is possible it was overfilled, 5 quarts low seems hard to believe and I didn’t fill it up myself. (I’m checking w/ the guy that filled it with 5 quarts, both he and my wife insisted the dipstick was dry when they started filling oil). We agreed he could simply check how overfilled the crankcase is, subtract that from the 5 qts, and that would be a rough estimate of how far down it was. He went to check the oil level on the dip stick and said he’d call me right back… 3 hours ago. If he comes back and says it the car is miraculously overfilled by 5 quarts I guess I have no further play.
So it ain’t going well w/ the dealer.
First thing I wondered too. There apparently is a paper record… But they didn’t give that record to my wife, they only spoke to her verbally. I’ll try to get a copy when I speak to the manager next. I’m depending on the dealership to be honest. They could easily cover something like this up with a new backdated record. I really want to believe the premium we pay dealerships comes with honesty.
Who pays for the oil? If a customer doesn’t want the services performed they are unlikely to want to pay $30 for oil.
The shop that I worked at in 2008 their multi point inspection included topping off fluid levels. They were unaware that I was giving away 2 to 3 quarts of oil each day.
Today we top off washer fluid, power steering, coolant and brake fluid but motor oil and transmission fluid the customer must pay for. So yes we top off fluids but not all of them for free.
Sorry Shadowfax, the mother was not a rental agency. When you borrow someone’s property you have a duty to care for it and return it in the same condition or it’s on your dime. If the item was flagged as red, it is the customer’s responsibility to arrange for a resolution, not the mechanic. Trying to pin a problem with a borrowed car on a dealer is just not legitimate.
Now as a son in law, seems to me part of being in the family is to help fill in for the FIL who is no longer there. As much as I’ve talked about it I’m sure the wife would not be very diligent on oil changes and service as I am and would hope that someone would help her maintain things like the house, cars, etc. This whole thing is starting to stink. Yeah sure take my car for a five state trip and it hasn’t been serviced for two years but good luck. Three people at least dropping the ball and trying to say the dealer is at fault. He probably was just shaking his head wondering in the car would make it around the block but no one paid attention.
At any rate, legally you owe her an engine. If it were Hertz, it would be their problem. Might want to find an engine with a head gasket and oil leak problem to return it to the same condition as before.
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I don’t think this car is worth $5400 dollars and I have never seen a engine change estimate come in on budget. It sounds harsh, but I don’t think your wife bears any responsibility for this. The outcome would have not been any different if her mother was driving. I knew someone who blew up his new car within his 3 year 36000 mile period because he had never checked of changed his oil. The dealer sent him home to try to find receipts for oil changes and then called him at home and said , don’t bother to look, there is no oil in the engine and we are not covering it. He almost blew up his next new one too, but this time he heard funny noises and took the car to his son who sold it to him. His son discovered no oil on the dipstick and it stopped making noise when refilled. His noise was clatter from the lifters, your wife’s horrible noise was probably bearing failure.
Whoa, hold on there guys.
My wife flew to Michigan and borrowed the car, she wasn’t driving it across the country. That may have been a bit ambiguous, but geez, clarify that before flaming the post. I’m also not sure where the allegation came from that we are ‘trying to pin the problem’ on someone else. Or the implication my wife/M.I.L. were unwilling to pay for a few quarts of oil. Or how the expert legal advice came to be relevant. I’ve been very clear, we were never told the oil was a problem and were actually told all fluids were topped off. I’m 5 states away and piecing the situation together has been a process - I am extremely thankful you gals/guys helped me think it through. There is no need to flame the thread or invent facts.
Bottom line, we have a car to fix. Now, at the very least, it is extremely relevant that a dealership technician could check the oil, find it to be multiple quarts low, flag it as a problem, not top the oil off, then have the front office tell the customer the fluids were topped off. Would YOU pay that same dealership $5400 to replace your engine? Especially if they offered up a bunch of excuses and passed the buck? On the flip side, stuff happens. I get that too. It seems like the mark of a good operation is to sit down, talk it out, and get to an amicable, reasonable solution. That is a dealership I might give a second chance.
PS
New estimate: car was 2.5 qts low, not 5. Hoping for final resolution Friday morning.
Whoa Nellie! Hold on! Back up the Subaru!
Did I misunderstand this discussion from the get go?
I need some clarification.
(A) For some reason I thought Wife drove her car to visit Mom and they took Mom’s car for a drive.
(B) If wife borrowed a car from Mom to drive 5 states out and then 5 states back, that changes everything for me.
I’m not commenting anymore until I know if it’s the A or B, above.
Except… I don’t even drive any of my cars 5 states out… I rent from Enterprise and they assure me I won’t run out of anything, but gas or they’ll bring me out another car to blow up.
CSA
Yeah that may change things a little but I still don’t understand the back and forth calls to the dealer. To me the dealer is out of it. Even though 2 1/2 quarts down is a lot, I don’t think that was the reason for the engine failure alone. It was a bum engine ready to fail regardless of the oil level due to lack of maintenance.
The problem is when you borrow something whether a car or weed whacker, you assume responsibility for it. You break it, you own it. That’s just the way the law works. If you rent something, that’s different. What does the MIL say about the whole thing? I guess if it were me, I’d just say time to replace the car and learn about the importance of maintenance.
I check my oil level every Saturday morning like my Father did. One time my Kia was slightly below full. The oil pan needed a reseal covered under warranty. There are far to many who purchase a new vehicle and may as well have the hood welded shut! Idiots!
I would trust any of my cars (and I have lots of them) for a long road trip. They are maintained by me and don’t consume fluids, but when I travel I like to relax. What if some jack-wagon hits your car in some jerk-water town or you hit a stray moose on the loose?
It’s either airlines or rental car. I need unexpected problems with a vehicle like I need tap-dance lessons.
Done properly, I can rent a car for a vacation trip and have it cost me not much more than using my own vehicle (factoring in maintenance, mpg, wear and tear on wear items, etcetera). I have tons of insurance for that same reason (possibly what they call over-insured).
I thrive on peace of mind. Many of my day to day decisions are made for peace of mind. I’m just trying to maintain an even strain. I am totally gruntled.
CSA