oil change gone wrong

[Gito]

I thought it was appropriate to post this here.I don't really know where to post this one but since my w116 300sd Benz is to blame then I will post it here. If the post needs to be moved some where else then let it be moved. Changed my oil on Sunday night and let the oil drip from the oil cooler and oil pan overnight. Monday morning I put back the drain bolt and put back the oil cooler line. Around noon, I drove my car out of the garage and dragged a shallow bucket containing nearly 2 gallons of used motor oil and flipped the bucket onto my driveway. Nightmare. My driveway was not only stained but the oil splatter made my concrete look like it rained oil on it. This happened 20 minutes before my dental appointment so I only had time to start the pressure washer and shoot water onto the concrete surface to wash down the oil...bad idea...I had no dirt, no cat litter no soap to emulsify the oil. Made a huge mess all over the driveway. After my appointment I used detergent and scrubbed as hard as I could and only left stains. The brush was more effective than the pressure washing, obviously....I got home this evening and saw a County Vehicle right in front of my house and I immediately started to pace back and forth and waited for him to knock on my door. Well he never walked to my door but walked across the street to look at something on the sidewalk. Also this evening I saw a carpet cleaning van parked 3 houses down the street and I wondered if I was the one who caused the problem indirectly. I purchased a Techniseal product and applied it to the oil stains but the directions said nothing about shaking the bottle first so a huge clump of wet clay looking material could still be seen thru the bottle opening....what a mess...I parked both my cars on the driveway to block the mess and now I'm wondering how the [censored] I'm going to clean this one up...for all of you mechanics or shade tree mechanics, how have you handled this type of incident in the past? What is the best approach and what are the best products to use? I need to clean my driveway up ASAP. I have an HOA(home owners assoc) that loves to walk the streets up and down to look for dead bushes, dead grass, trash cans left outside....etc...But what will they do when they see my driveway....Please..please advise....
And for those of you who haven't sealed your concrete...seal it now before its too late....
P.S. Im not going to blow torch my concrete driveway to get rid of the oil

 

[Danno]

I use powdered detergent on oil spots on my driveway, shake the detergent over the area, step on it to make sure it gets good contact with the oil and sweep up after a couple of hours. Do this dry. No water. Dispose of the swept up dry detergent and absorbed oil in the trash.

 

[Panzerman]

First Calm down-WOW. I could feel you thru the post. Go to Lowes and get the Zep degreaser stuff. its fairly cheap and wicked stuff. It will remove the stains. If they isnt a Lowes nearby, you could probably get away with Walmart Purple Power. For really stubborn stains. like ones that had a oil leak on them for years, Brake cleaner works. I think the degreaser will remove yours quick and easy. It will foam up and take it away.

 

[OldSparks]

Originally Posted By: Danno
I use powdered detergent on oil spots on my driveway, shake the detergent over the area, step on it to make sure it gets good contact with the oil and sweep up after a couple of hours. Do this dry. No water. Dispose of the swept up dry detergent and absorbed oil in the trash.


This^, then use more detergent with water and make a thin paste. Use a scrub brush, then rinse with the hose. Muratic acid can be used for extreme stains.

 

[tc1446]

Not likely you'll ever get the stain out. Might want to consider one of the outdoor stain type paints for concrete to give it a more consistant color.....if the HOA Police will allow it! With your luck, I'd suggest you have it done professionally.

 

[Panzerman]

And too, I actually stained my driveway, its better than sealer or paint. Your communist homeowners [censored]. may not let you go that route, but after 10 years, the stain is starting to wear off, not peal, actually wear off. Thats after countless oil spills and clean-ups and scrubings and pressure washes. Tough stuff.

 

[Falken]

If you removed the oil, and you are just left with the stain after rinsing it away, I am not sure if it is possible to remove the stain as it got into the porosity of the concrete itself.

What I would personally do is buy a large jug of Simple Green and make a strong solution of it, and do as follows:

Get a stiff bristled broom (the kind you'd broom sand with off of a large garage floor) and starting at the top of the driveway use the solution and the broom to scrub down the whole driveway.

Then, when you are done, take a hose and cascade (DON'T SPRAY) the water down the whole driveway until it is thoroughly rinsed.

If you spray you may have tons of soapy suds everywhere that may draw attention. Simple Green is enviro safe so don't worry about it if you use too much.

Now that the driveway is as clean as you can get it, buy 2 pails of black driveway sealer. Mix it up with a paint mixer that you use on a drill.

Once your driveway is painted nobody will know. And if anyone asks what the deal was you can say you got a defective pail of driveway seal and they'd just say "Ohhhhhhhh..."

But this is truly only my 2 cents as I can't see the driveway without any photos, which wouldn't be a good idea for you to post for obvious reasons...

 

[whizbyu]

Originally Posted By: Gito
Changed my oil on Sunday night and let the oil drip from the oil cooler and oil pan overnight. Monday morning I put back the drain bolt and put back the oil cooler line. Around noon, I drove my car out of the garage .....


Did you remember to put fresh oil back in the crankcase?
Aww heck

 

[jdawg89]

This is eaisaly remidied. Move to mexico under the pseudonym rusty shackleford. Lol jk. But move out of the city,seriously. I have 3 vehicles in my yard a pile of scrap metal 16 cords of wood 3 snowmobiles a camping trailer and a pile of micelaneous junk. Never been bothered for it. I love the country. Oh,and I've spilled about 5quarts in my driveway and just left it to be.

 

[CarbonSteel]

A portable power washer will remove it, but you will probably want to do the whole driveway at the same time so that you do not have a brighter part of the driveway in the shape of the spill.

Before I started changing the oil myself, my Azera developed a leak due to the o-ring not being changed on the canister lid and stained the driveway. I tried a number of products including brake cleaner, but they tended to "push" the stain around.

30 minutes with a power washer and the whole driveway appeared like new concrete.

 

[Burt]

Originally Posted By: Panzerman
First Calm down-WOW. I could feel you thru the post.


Note this California. You might have to complete an environmental impact statement, call in the hazardous waste removal team etc. Might have to remediate and replace the driveway.

We had a construction project in California where the previous owner (US government) had dumped off spec gasoline in permeable soil about three decades ago. It went down til it was stopped by clay. You would think we could just let the soil air out and let hydrocarbons evaporate away, but no we had to haul it away and incinerate it.

 

[Vintage]

Degreasers dont always work so well. Use an enzyme type cleaner like oxiclean mixed with very hot water. You will be surprised.

 

[John_K]

A friend of mine lives in a HOA community and they actually got a nasty letter because they had been washing a car and they left a towel over their porch railing to dry. Wow, big crime! I couldn't live in such a place.

John

 

[Gito]

Purchased a product by Techniseal and poured it on to the stains. Halfway thru dispensing the bottle I noticed that the bottle was still heavy yet nothing was coming out of it. I took the cap off and l looked thru and noticed a wet clay like substance just sitting there. I read the instructions on the bottle and there was no mention that the product needed to be shaken. I went to the company that sold me the product and explained what had happened and they said that they would contact the manager on Monday and said that most likely I would get a refund. I have been scrubbing mostly using a brush with laundry detergent. I refuse to give up and hope to try everything in the market. I will first be trying mostly products that don't require much scrubbing. I've seen a few oil eating bacteria products that are used for soil, water, and concrete surfaces. My earlier post is a copy of what I posted in a different car forum so for those that pay attention to detail this incident happened on Monday and the county vehicle drove by tuesday evening...I don't know if the oil eating bacteria products work but it seems like if they can get embedded into the concrete pores it could help a lot. These products eat the oil and then the end product is co2 and water....I will have to order them online and wait for them to be shipped next week. For now I will take the advice of using simple green, detergents, and brush. I don't yet want to use the acids because I'm afraid of the discoloration around the stains. I've seen where the stains remained along with discolored concrete..Looks pretty jacked. Maybe the acids were used incorrectly. I'm also trying a second bottle of techniseal in a little while. This products goes on the concrete as a paste and then it dries up 5-8 hours. Then you sweep up. This time I will shake the bottle

 

[2oldtommy]

Several years ago a large tanker lost a load of motor oil on the interstate near Cincinnati OH. They tried everything to get this off the road. Nothing did the job, until a Proctor and Gamble chemist heard about their plight. P&G sent over a few gallons or so of their Dawn liquid dishwashing detergent. Problem solved according to the report I read. I have used it on small spots on my drive and it works. I cant see any reason not to try it if nothing else will do the job. FWIW--Oldtommy

 

[Falken]

Ah yes tommy, DAWN. That is another one of my favorites next to Simple Green.

I found out about the power of Dawn by mistake from one of those 1$ sample sizes I bought to bring camping.

Well, I used to always do a quick wash after cooking steaks over an open fire in a big cast iron skillet using Sunlight. The "seasoning" always stayed on the skillet pretty well.

Well, when I used Dawn, with very minimal scrubbing after cooking a steak or making bacon and eggs, I noticed that it was stripping off the seasoning off of the pan, exposing shiny raw cast iron.

Dawn is extremely powerful stuff. I got a bottle of Palmolive on sale to wash pots when the dishwasher is full, and it is very watery and barely works.

 

[Gito]

Originally Posted By: 2oldtommy
Several years ago a large tanker lost a load of motor oil on the interstate near Cincinnati OH. They tried everything to get this off the road. Nothing did the job, until a Proctor and Gamble chemist heard about their plight. P&G sent over a few gallons or so of their Dawn liquid dishwashing detergent. Problem solved according to the report I read. I have used it on small spots on my drive and it works. I cant see any reason not to try it if nothing else will do the job. FWIW--Oldtommy


Going to the store later to buy DAWN and give it try

 

[Black_Thunder]

brake cleaner would help lift the stain and then pressure washing and scrubbing with sometime of degreaser would probably make it almost non-existent

 

[Black_Thunder]

and on another note, [censored] cali.

 

[Durangoboy]

Originally Posted By: 2oldtommy
Several years ago a large tanker lost a load of motor oil on the interstate near Cincinnati OH. They tried everything to get this off the road. Nothing did the job, until a Proctor and Gamble chemist heard about their plight. P&G sent over a few gallons or so of their Dawn liquid dishwashing detergent. Problem solved according to the report I read. I have used it on small spots on my drive and it works. I cant see any reason not to try it if nothing else will do the job. FWIW--Oldtommy


This is why I have 6000 shares of Proctor and Gamble stock,,,they have good stuff