an oil change story

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Jun 30, 2012
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1995 geo tracker soft top. I drive mostly in summer but I got a snow plow for it for last winter. It works great. I do 3000 mile oil changes. Mostly because I like to run 10W40 summer and 5W30 in winter. Its got 184000 miles so a little thicker in summer helps the idle oil pressure. Today (Sunday) oil change day. I have the supertech 10W40 on the shelf and it looks like I have a filter on a quick glance. I didn't change the filter in the fall change so its due. Drop the oil take the filter off. I go to get my new filter. I have a PF47e and a TG9688. Wait a min I don't think that's right. I had taken off a XG3614. I don't have the correct filter.A trip to the nearest auto parts or larger store would be a 45min round trip. Darn. Should I put the old filter back on? NO. Should I use what I have NO. Should I just wait and get a filter tomorrow? Its going to be nice out. I want to drive with the top down. I go to the local cenex and find a FVP1348 filter. The box says its a premium filter. Never heard of the brand but its in the GEO now. Cruising with the top down tomorrow. Moral of the story. Check your filer stock carefully before you drop your oil and filter you moron.
 
Yup. I did the same thing recently.
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Another funny oil change story, changed my dad's oil recently, used a new cheap catch pan from Walmart, I had a significant amount of oil end up on the cardboard I had the pan sitting on, It was a windy day I assumed it blew over the side of the pan when I removed the oil cap and the oil started rushing out. I left the oil sitting in the pan while I went to the store to get something to absorb up the quart or so that had spilled out, then I get back and now about 5quarts of oil has spread beyond the cardboard and onto the driveway, turns out the pan must have had a hairline crack in it that blew out when I drained the roughly 7qts of warm oil out of the Bravada into it.
 
Originally Posted by jacobsond
1995 geo tracker soft top. I drive mostly in summer but I got a snow plow for it for last winter. It works great. I do 3000 mile oil changes. Mostly because I like to run 10W40 summer and 5W30 in winter. Its got 184000 miles so a little thicker in summer helps the idle oil pressure. Today (Sunday) oil change day. I have the supertech 10W40 on the shelf and it looks like I have a filter on a quick glance. I didn't change the filter in the fall change so its due. Drop the oil take the filter off. I go to get my new filter. I have a PF47e and a TG9688. Wait a min I don't think that's right. I had taken off a XG3614. I don't have the correct filter.A trip to the nearest auto parts or larger store would be a 45min round trip. Darn. Should I put the old filter back on? NO. Should I use what I have NO. Should I just wait and get a filter tomorrow? Its going to be nice out. I want to drive with the top down. I go to the local cenex and find a FVP1348 filter. The box says its a premium filter. Never heard of the brand but its in the GEO now. Cruising with the top down tomorrow. Moral of the story. Check your filer stock carefully before you drop your oil and filter you moron.

I hate when things like that happen! Although in this case...if I understand correctly you took off the XG3614 at 6k miles(?) You could have put it back on for two more 3k OCIs.
 
Buy all my filters in bulk, therefore I take advantage of the "bulk" rate pricing when it is most favorable to me. I never realized how much the price of filters fluctuate!
 
Dang. Too bad. Personally, I would have put the filter back on and waited until next time you are in town to get a replacement. Then swap out the filter and top off. That filter would have survived another 100 miles just fine.

I'm OCD on making sure i have everything ready for a service. Oil? Check. Oil filter? Check. Air filter? Check. Cabin filter? Check. Diff fluid? Check. But on that occasion that I forget an oil plug gasket, for example, the old one goes back on.
 
Me, too. Why have multiple gallons of oil in the stash but not a bunch of filters to go with them? I normally add several to my rockauto order whenever I'm buying parts if it makes sense for the shipping costs.

My latest oil change fiasco was draining the oil from my wife's Expedition and finding myself thinking, "Wow, that oil looks clean!" Then remembering that I had changed that car out less than a month before. I'd forgotten to reset the oil life on the dash. Oh, well, not going to pour it back in after it went in my filthy catch pan. Seven quarts of clean-ish Valvoline Modern Engine 0w20 off to the recycler.
 
Originally Posted by ripcord
Me, too. Why have multiple gallons of oil in the stash but not a bunch of filters to go with them? I normally add several to my rockauto order whenever I'm buying parts if it makes sense for the shipping costs..

Oil last ages and is in a sealed bottle, filters have rubber that can rot when it sits, and when you store filters you really need to put them in a conditioned space or store them with dessicant packages in an air tight container if you're gonna keep them in the shed or garage, buying only a few filters at a time is better piece of mind, you get a fresh filter and don't have to worry about rust or rotting gaskets.
 
I always get out everything I need before the change, and make sure they are the right things.
I have several filters in my stash, and know how many of each I have for each vehicle (7 for the Scion, 4 for the Fords, 2 for the new Santa Fe, and 6 for the Hyundai/Kia/Hondas)

Originally Posted by Chris142
Never try to drain 10 qts of oil into a 6qt catch pan.

How about draining 6 qts into a 15 qt pan that you think has 5 qts in it but actually has 10 qts.
Asking for a friend.
whistle.gif


Also don't drain the oil into an enclosed drain pan without taking the vent plug (and main plug) out.


Still not as bad as my last change in my '18 Santa Fe, I forgot to close the drain valve and had poured over 5 qts into the engine before I wondered what that noise was (it was the new oil draining out as I am putting it in). Luckily the drain pan was still under there so did not make a mess, just wasted a bunch of oil.
 
That reminds, there's this channel I watch on YouTube of these guys from Brooklyn that sell used cars, they were talking about when you examining cars to buy from the impound auction, you'd like pull the dip stick out and hide it so the competition couldn't check if it had oil in it, so they had this Honda Prelude that they got from the auction and it was missing the dipstick or something so they shoved a toyota dipstick in it, they sold it to some guy outside the auction or something I think, then he took the car to the mechanic and got an oil change, and the mechanic was a total dipstick and didn't realize the car had the wrong dipstick and put over 10qts of oil in the thing, any competent mechanic would know that no Honda takes 10qts, anyways the guy comes back to them because it's running terrible and smoking out the exhaust, they were confused at why it was running so bad until the kid said that the mechanic put in like 10qt of oil, then they remembered the dipstick thing and drain off the oil cleaned off the plugs and it ran fine again.
 
Eh, pretty sure the Tracker will be just fine....
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Sounds like a story where I cracked my oil filter changing it on my first car. Lucky for my my local hardware store had Pennzoil filters....liked it the same as the Delco filters it normally got....
 
Originally Posted by RyanY

I hate when things like that happen! Although in this case...if I understand correctly you took off the XG3614 at 6k miles(?) You could have put it back on for two more 3k OCIs.


You are exactly right. Thats what I was going to say.
 
Originally Posted by blufeb95
...of these guys from Brooklyn that sell used cars, they were talking about when you examining cars to buy from the impound auction, you'd like pull the dip stick out and hide it so the competition couldn't check if it had oil in it,


Slimeballs.
 
Originally Posted by PimTac
I learned as a child to have everything prepared and ready before tackling any job.



LOL, have you ever done much plumbing work? I don't think I have every done a plumbing job at home or at work where
I didn't get to make at least one extra trip to the store and about 3 extra trips to my tool box.
 
Originally Posted by blufeb95
Originally Posted by ripcord
Me, too. Why have multiple gallons of oil in the stash but not a bunch of filters to go with them? I normally add several to my rockauto order whenever I'm buying parts if it makes sense for the shipping costs..

Oil last ages and is in a sealed bottle, filters have rubber that can rot when it sits, and when you store filters you really need to put them in a conditioned space or store them with dessicant packages in an air tight container if you're gonna keep them in the shed or garage, buying only a few filters at a time is better piece of mind, you get a fresh filter and don't have to worry about rust or rotting gaskets.


this
 
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