Engine Problem - Incorrect Oil Change

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Originally Posted By: blkworth
Also I am trying to take this company to court. I think they over torqued it. Also I am having the mechanic check on the filter to determine if the correct filter was installed. It is a chance that they installed the incorrect filter. Also I will add to the more pictures of the under-carriage...


It's all a possibility at this point. If you can prove that the damage occurred as a direct result of that oil change you will have a case. If something else was just as likely to cause it, you are probably wasting your time and money. It can't be proven that it was overtorqued since the cartridge cap has been removed. If the wrong filter was used, maybe you have something, but beyond that it's hard to tell if the shop really did something negligent.

Women that age are not kind to cars. What may have just been a small, forgettable bump in the road to her could have been enough to throw something into the cartridge cap and break it.
 
Has anyone removed the cap on the filter housing yet? I hope not! If not, have your mechanic use a torque wrench to remove it and find out what the torque value was. Like others have said, I bet they torqued the heck out of it and it failed.

Just like drain plugs, the covers on canister oil filters don't need that much torque to tighten them and it's easy to overtighten.
 
Originally Posted By: blkworth
Also I was not driving it, but my daughter was. It was sitting at her dorm for a few weeks and she tried to start it and it would not...


This is very puzzling. It makes it sound like enough oil leaked out over these few weeks so that the car would not start. But before those few weeks it was usable.

Therefore, oil should have been spotted, since enough leaked in those few weeks while it was sitting, for the car to no longer start.

Additionally, is the consensus that the car was slowly leaking oil through the oil filter while being driven? If so, and no oil warning light came on, it suggests that a lot of oil leaked while the car was sitting a few weeks. But again there is no sign of leaked oil!

I also don't understand how the evidence was removed through snow plowing - how would you plow snow from under a car?.

But if it true that it was a slow leak, that no warning came on while it was being driven, and that the oil drained while the car was sitting, then there might not be any engine damage.
 
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Check the picture link again. I added some more pictures...The car was towed to an engine shop. I have been fighting this for over two months.
 
Originally Posted By: blkworth
Check the picture link again. I added some more pictures...The car was towed to an engine shop. I have been fighting this for over two months.


Not the same filter type, but after looking at the new pics it reminds me of a double gasket filter problem I had many years ago. Where the problem only showed itself under pressure. The bottom of the Mazda is soaked in oil behind the filter, indicating the car was moving. So I would wonder if it was tight enough rather than too tight.
 
It looks like the car was driven for a bit with the crack, based on the trail of oil under the engine and across that black cross-member appearing soaked with liquid.

It did happen to my cousin's old Blazer where the low oil warning came on moments before the engine seized up due to lack of oil. He didn't have time to get it shut off before it seized.
 
The mechanic said he does not know what could have happened or caused it. He also said it was on extremely tight. He does not see any evidence that it was hit by something, because the undercarriage does not show any damage etc...
 
Originally Posted By: blkworth
Thanks Brons2 for correcting my spelling. :). The picture is of the canister of the car. Also I was not driving it, but my daughter was. It was sitting at her dorm for a few weeks and she tried to start it and it would not...


I have a problem with this story, which could be some sort of stretch. If it was running and about to seize when she parked it, it was running with a red oil light on and probably something chiming or dinging. On the next cold start, even if there were by that point no oil in it at all, it would have run for a couple minutes until the bearings overheated and seized.

Not saying WM isn't liable, but it may be a good time to corner someone and get the *exact* story.

The lousy part about dorm parking is you never get the same spot twice, so you wouldn't notice an oil slick forming. If you pay for this engine out of pocket, there'll be a good lesson in occasionally looking under one's car.

The "platicalurgist" in me wonders about that crack and how it could have formed so much later after the oil change, with its lifetime of stress, and possibly recent trauma.

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my tire shop files oil filter gaskets away forever with completed repair orders in case a customer comes back with a busted engine, blaming a double gasket. WM is also pretty paranoid about lawsuits, slapping blue goo on drain plugs and filters, and having a manager check work.
 
Originally Posted By: sciphi
It looks like the car was driven for a bit with the crack, based on the trail of oil under the engine and across that black cross-member appearing soaked with liquid.

It did happen to my cousin's old Blazer where the low oil warning came on moments before the engine seized up due to lack of oil. He didn't have time to get it shut off before it seized.
(background: I am a mech E and have done FMEA forensics)I Agree the car was driven to its demise. Analysing the available photos, I see no evidence of the canister or undercarriage being struck and damaged whilst being driving over road debris. The exhaust and converter and resonator behind the drivetrain are all covered with oil which was trailed under the car by air moving at speed. The oil pressure warning light would have indicated and the MIL would have lit. Check with scangauge. Vehicle was run no oil pressure without any doubt. (unrelated: I noticed some odd and seemingly severe bodywork repair under the drivers door weld seam area. Was this repaired at one time?). Without having the part in hand, I would make an assumption that the part failed along a polymer meld line either due to overtorquing stress (camming over the lower flutes compressing the sidewall) or thermo cycling age related failure a combination of the two. The Last service tech should have noted any worn or unserviceable part. I say it's on them but somewhat hard to prove. Absolutely get the as-installed torque and have a impartial witness and photos/MPEG video of the event. Good luck.
 
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Originally Posted By: ARCOgraphite
Originally Posted By: sciphi
It looks like the car was driven for a bit with the crack, based on the trail of oil under the engine and across that black cross-member appearing soaked with liquid.

It did happen to my cousin's old Blazer where the low oil warning came on moments before the engine seized up due to lack of oil. He didn't have time to get it shut off before it seized.
(background: I am a mech E and have done FMEA forensics)I Agree the car was driven to its demise. Analysing the available photos, I see no evidence of the canister or undercarriage being struck and damaged whilst being driving over road debris. The exhaust and converter and resonator behind the drivetrain are all covered with oil which was trailed under the car by air moving at speed. The oil pressure warning light would have indicated and the MIL would have lit. Check with scangauge. Vehicle was run no oil pressure without any doubt. (unrelated: I noticed some odd and seemingly severe bodywork repair under the drivers door weld seam area. Was this repaired at one time?). Without having the part in hand, I would make an assumption that the part failed along a polymer meld line either due to overtorquing stress (camming over the lower flutes compressing the sidewall) or thermo cycling age related failure a combination of the two. The Last service tech should have noted any worn or unserviceable part. I say it's on them but somewhat hard to prove. Absolutely get the as-installed torque and have a impartial witness and photos/MPEG video of the event. Good luck.


Well done Sherlock. I tend to agree with you.

It is clear oil was spraying with the car driven. Now, the question is, did enough come out to make lamps light up and did your daughter ignore them?

If they didn't come on, is it feasible that the crack was tiny when the car was being driven, and expanded when the car was parked out in the cold, and then a lot of oil drained out? If that happened, then why wasn't a lot of oil discovered under the car when it was found not to start?

So the chances are that the car was driven with warning lamps on.

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Originally Posted By: blkworth
Check the picture link again. I added some more pictures...The car was towed to an engine shop. I have been fighting this for over two months.


So did the engine shop say there was engine damage? If enough oil leaked out while it was sitting, then on some Mazda's it's possible there is an oil level switch that might have disabled the car from turning over and starting (just a theory). Did the engine actually crank over and not start, or did the engine not even crank when she tried to start it after sitting?
 
No matter how the event progressed, the engine would have been making noise and/or indicating a oil pressure problem long before the engine seized... If the oil leaked out while parked(not likely), the engine would not be seized until it ran a few minutes... With all the oil on the catalytic converter and exhaust pipe behind it, hard to believe there wasn't smoke rolling from under the car when running...
 
Originally Posted By: ComfyShorts
We will need pictures of said daughter for analysis.


Or he could send off for a UDA .........

It was an 18 year DCI
 
I find this puzzling. You know what I think. I bet you it was probably over tightened. But I bet you the car gave some obvious warning signs. If nothing else the awful smell. The smoke and at one point or another a warning light. So someone probably did a shoddy job but she either a :ignored it or b: is clueless as a blind cat and didn't realize. The second isn't meant to be offensive but peoplenare clueless especially girls at that age. I would know my fiance is 19 I'm 20 and good God she is pretty clueless at times. Its in the women spieces or something. If you can prove and get them to pay for repair. Great but I doubt it. And in my opinion I would be asking your daughter to help pay for it. Because her fault or not she should be responsible for car she is driving and pay attention to what's going on around it. Check tire pressure oil level and looking underneath it from time to time and anyone who owns a car should do it. I wish you luck. And I hope you get it resolved. Keep us posted
 
Absolutely not Walmarts fault. If it was going to fail it would have right after the oil change. For 2000 miles the oil should have been checked several times. Did she not notice it was low? In order for it to have siezed, it would have to have been driven quite some time with no oil, engines don't sieze instantly. The was on unless it was broken. The original post doesn't say if the oil level was checked after it was seized.
 
Absolutely not Walmarts fault. If it was going to fail it would have right after the oil change. For 2000 miles the oil should have been checked several times. Did she not notice it was low? In order for it to have siezed, it would have to have been driven quite some time with no oil, engines don't sieze instantly. The light was on unless it was broken, which isn't walwarts fault. The engine would have been making terrible noise too for sure. The original post doesn't say if the oil level was checked after it was seized.

I'm assuming this was a Mazda 3 or something that has the same engine. Those caps are notorious for cracking. The plastic is brittle and people tend to over torque them. Proving they over torqued it will be impossible.

You may get Walmart to buy a new engine if you complain enough. The squeaky wheel gets the grease and Walmart has
got a large hush fund.
 
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