Before you wised up here, ever do stupid stuff?

[ledslinger]

Besides being a 3K changer, I once dropped a fill of 10W30 early out of my 2001 Accord because it wasn't a 5W and it worried me.

I likely would have continued to run 5W20 past the warranty period in this car in hindsight, but many fills of 5W30 got it to 270K miles in good shape.

 

[Trav]

I still change it at 3-5K never any longer. So i guess i still do stupid stuff. LOL

 

[JC1]

Yes many years ago I let other people change my oil. Before joining BITOG I used to use an oil filter for only only OCI.

 

[Olas]

I used to use cheap filters until I saw pictures of them cut open on here..

 

[zach1900]

I ran the same oil for a couple years in my old Accord with flippy headlights. It didn't seem to mind.

 

[Falken]

I used to use only FRAM until I started lurking on BITOG way before I joined.

I learned about WIX from this website.

 

[leroyd92]

i use to think if 530 is good 2050 is better...


in my defense, when the ambient temp is only 60* away from engine operating temp you get dumb ideas.......

 

[19jacobob93]

I only joined when I was 19 or 20 so I was terrible before hand!
Main stupid thing I did before I had a clue was go nearly 25,000km on cheap dino 15w40. That's not the worst part, about 10,000 km into that fill I overheated the engine big time and drove well over half an hour with zero coolant, probably cooking that cheap oil which I then went on to drive another 15,000 km with!!!
Makes me cringe thinking about it but all it did was make my lifters rattle a bit from the build up it caused in them.
Other than that I once used a full bottle of lucas stabilizer plus 4 liters of 15w40. Must have been at least equivalent to a 60 weight and it knocked like crazy on the bottom end in a morning. Switched straight back to 10w30.
Before then on my first car (Mitsubishi Diamante with that Mits/Chrysler 2.6 engine) would burn more oil that it did fuel so I used to shove 2 or 3 bottles of cheap stop smoke (its probably more than twice the thickness of Lucas, took 10 mins to empty a bottle in!) that engine blew a head gasket at 299k, I was aiming for 300k and missed by about an hours worth of driving!

 

[eljefino]

I haven't made any mistakes, and would continue to not make them. It takes a person of poor morality to choose that path to begin with.

*cough*

No, wait, nevermind, that's another poster.

I found the "Knize family minimopar filter cutup" from the late 90s, pre-bitog, and they endorsed Champ/STP and slammed Fram.

 

[tojo1968]

I believed Restore and Slick 50 actually worked....

 

[barkingspider]

I bought and used slick 50 in my 1984 fiero.

 

[Chris142]

Burned up a 340 Chrysler because I was too cheap to buy a $7 qt of oil.this was when oil was $.99 a qt.I thought $7 was robbery

 

[gfh77665]

When I was a kid (16-22), I did not care about my vehicles. I neglected them. Went way too long on OCI's.

Lesson learned!

 

[dlundblad]

I would change my oil and run 6k intervals with a leaking RMS without checkout my oil. I checked it one time and it was below the minimum line.. The oil light never came on though.

 

[Errtt]

Did an OC once (years ago when I was a kid) then started the car. No oil pressure, ticking keep going, shut it off after ~ 15 seconds.
Forgot to put the drain plug in. Had to find a friend to go and get me oil while I had the mess of all that oil to clean up.
I still can't believe I didn't check the stick level 1st, and ran it ~ 15 seconds before it hit my brain to shut it off. Never did that again. Didn't seem to hurt the engine.

 

[Doog]

Paid zero attention to oil changes. As long as it "wasn't gritty" on the dipstick...all was fine.

 

[demarpaint]

Long before the days of cordless phones I was doing an oil change and my girlfriend called. I had to go inside to take the call, I came out added the 5 qts of oil to the car, but forgot to put the new filter on. Needless to say when I started then engine I had a mess on my hands.

 

[JTK]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
I haven't made any mistakes, and would continue to not make them. It takes a person of poor morality to choose that path to begin with.

*cough*

No, wait, nevermind, that's another poster.

LOL! That's about perfect.

 

[Doog]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Long before the days of cordless phones I was doing an oil change and my girlfriend called. I had to go inside to take the call, I came out added the 5 qts of oil to the car, but forgot to put the new filter on. Needless to say when I started then engine I had a mess on my hands.


I have found that leaving the drain bolt out instead allows the new oil you just bought to evacuate much faster leaving that nice 3 foot round puddle on your once spotless garage floor. Then you get to ask your friend or neighbor for a ride to the store for "some oil". So I prefer this method to leaving the filter off.

 

[friendly_jacek]

before BITOG i ran cheap oils (SH and SJ at the time) for full 6000-7000 miles per the owner manuals. never engine problems with those beater cars. there was probably some varnish but i didn't care. i thought expensive Mobil 1 was for suckers only.