My wife went 25,000 miles without an oil change!!!

[GOPBasher]

They flushed the thing out and it's still not clean! We have to get flushes every 2000 miles for the next three oil changes! What the fuck? :wtf: I hate when massive procrastination cost me money. :grr:

[Burma Jones]

1. I Oil my Wife up every 3000 miles

That's a lotta fun.

[progmom]

2. .

:spray:

[MindPilot]

3. ROTFLMFAO!!!! eom

:rofl:

[GOPBasher]

63. That sounds good. :-) n/t

[Goldmund]

4. Is this a gratuitous sex thread...

...or is it mature discussion of human sexuality? Hmmm...

[GOPBasher]

5. No, it's a gratuitous "I'm really fucking pissed" thread. n/t

[Spinzonner]

6. What weight is she ?

[GOPBasher]

9. Huh?

:shrug:

[GOPisEvil]

7. Holy crap!!!

You're lucky she didn't seize the motor. :wow:

[GOPBasher]

11. Yeah, you can say that again.

I don't know how it didn't!

[Jack from Charlotte]

8. That's not any big deal..........

And you don't need to flush anything. There have been studies showing cars going without oil changes for 75,000 miles. The engines were taken apart and the internal components weighted. Compared to cars with oil changes every 5,000 miles.... there was virtually no difference.

Just change the oil on the regular schedule and all will be fine.

Flushes? What a load of crap some people sell.

[GOPBasher]

14. You may be right, but I don't know enough about cars

to take chances.

[Jack from Charlotte]

22. Look sport........

Do you know what the dip stick on a car is? It's the item that you pull from the engine to check the oil level. Pull it out and check it. If the oil level is full and the oil is even semi clean.... you're fine. Also, check your car's manual and see if it says ANYTHING about a "flush." It doesn't.

If you don't want to take a risk.... then it's a risk if I tell you to be safe you should change you're fuel pump, too. That's just additional stupid advice to cost you money. Now the fact that some mechanic type said you need to "flush" your oil 3 more times.... tells you this. He's either incompetent or a thief. And you need to go elsewhere....

[MindPilot]

27. please don't be so quick to jump on the guy doing the work

In many cases the employers--especially if they are chain stores--have a pay structure that requires the tech to "up-sell" additional services just to make a decent living. In some cases they are penalized if they *don't* push enough extra stuff.

I can remember being told that "every car with more than 20k needs shocks". On one occasion, a customer wanted a battery replaced, but all he really needed was the alternator belt tightened. I was threatened with firing for not selling him the battery. It's easy to develop an us vs them mentality when dealing with the motoring public.

[Jack from Charlotte]

32. I don't condone lying.....

Call it "upsell" if you want but it's still lying and it's fraud. Now if one is faced with not feeding a family without having to lie.... So be it.

But it's still lying.

[MindPilot]

35. I wouldn't go that far. Sometimes it's over selling perhaps, but not fraud

Fraud is when you charge for an engine overhaul, but just give it a nice paint job and have a staring role on a 60 Minutes hidden camera.

I just want people to know that people who fix cars aren't intrinsically out to screw the public, but that the industry and the working environment certainly condone and encourage pushing as much product and service as possible.

There are many areas where there can be legitimate differences of profession opinion, and this flushing thing is one of them. There are people who believe it is absolutely necessary in a situation like this, I happen to not be one of them.

The other issue is a technician has to do a whole lot of CYA. When you have to sit in a court room and answer why you did or didn't preform such and such a procedure, like a doctor, you learn to cover all the bases.

[northzax]

41. just out of curiosity

if you went to the doctor with a stomach ache, and he removed your appendix, knowing you didn't need the operation, and that it had nothing to do with your stomachache would you consider that to be 'upselling' or malpractice?

[MindPilot]

47. Oh come on; that's a ludicrous analogy

It's more like going to the doctor and your stomach ache and he is pretty sure that a couple doses of Pepto will take care of the problem but puts you on some medication, does a bunch of bloodwork and orders an MRI because he has to get it right the first time.

Edit: spelling

[northzax]

49. no, that would be overprescribing

what you are talking about it flat out telling someone they need a service that has nothing to do with their problem. Ordering a test to cover your ass (like for a rare stomach disorder that matches the symptoms) is over-prescribing. Selling someone a new starter when they only need a new battery is the equivalent of removing the appendix to cure a belly ache. just one's on a car, and the other's on a person.

[MindPilot]

52. over-selling or over-prescribing? The only difference is one is

on a car, the other is on a person. The example you give (starter/battery) looks more like misdiagnosis to me.

I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say "what you are talking about it flat out telling someone they need a service that has nothing to do with their problem."

There is post after post in this very thread of people who went too long between oil changes or didn't get it done at all. So if you come in with a broken fan belt and I see that your oil has reverted to crude, wouldn't you want to know about it? That perfectly fits with what you describe as telling someone they need a service that has nothing to do with their problem. How about if you buy new tires and I notice your brakes are worn out?

When a technician recommends a service that is seemingly unrelated to the immediate problem, he may be trying to rip you off, but in a vast majority of cases he is trying to save you the time, aggravation and expense of an on-the-road breakdown. He may even be saving your life.

[northzax]

54. I was referring to your post, #27

where you said you had been threatened with being fired for not selling someone a battery who didn't need one. that wasn't a case of misdiagnosis, it was a case of selling something that you knew they didn't need. in a doctor, that's malpractice.

I have no opinion on 'flushing' at all. I do know that if, as a mechanic, you think it's useless, then you should not be selling it to people.

[MindPilot]

57. OK, I understand now

And I *didn't* sell the guy the battery--IIRC--I didn't even charge him for tightening the belt...just to piss off the boss. (I kept that job only long enough to find another.) My point was the techs are often under a lot of pressure to sell unnecessary stuff.

Usually if there is a question, the tech himself is the one who is going to give you the straight scoop, not the service writer or the shop manager.

Sometimes--frequently as a matter of fact--customers ask to have things done they don't need. Try to tell them otherwise and they don't want to hear it. OK, man, you wanna give me money, I'll take it because you're gonna give it to somebody and it might as well be me.

Years ago there was an guy who was convinced he needed to "uncoil the springs" regularly. He would come to the shop every couple months pay the $3 for the hoist fee, I'd put his car up in the air, let it sit for five minutes (he'd time it) back on the ground and off he went. Sometimes he would stop by later in the day to comment on how much better it ran. So every situation is different.

[2Design]

80. some guy tried to sell me a battery - said when they checked mine

it had xxxx
I had seen them do it to others before me
I looked at the 'suppose reading' and realized the paper he was showing me had a time stamp on it - lite - but there in lower right

the time was two hours before I got there

he did not sell a battery
I just never went back there

I was fixing to head out on a long trip and did not want to have car trouble - so he had almost hooked me

but that was outright lying to me
Mechant auto place - it is a chain
this was laskin road in Virginia Beach - stay away

[GOPBasher]

61. Yeah, I can do that. :-) n/t

[UncleSepp]

59. But you know enough to be pissed at your wife?

[GOPBasher]

64. Well, she KNEW that she was supposed to change it, she just

procrastinated! There's a difference there. :-)

[UncleSepp]

95. Ahh, I see!

That I understand very well! :-)

Hubby drove my car into another car and wrecked the front bumper, right in the middle, so that the license plate holder won't hold a license plate. He knows that he did it, knows that it's illegal to drive without a front license plate in this state, and yet let it go unrepaired for ... oh, about three years?

[seemunkee]

10. Same here

Valve guides and head gaskets replaced and it still smokes when you start it.

[GOPBasher]

15. That sucks. I know what you're going through, though. n/t

[givemebackmycountry]

12. Never mind what weight she is....

Is she the "synthetic" type?

[GOPBasher]

62. I don't know, but for now at least our oil is. :-) n/t

[redqueen]

72. Will that help?

Unless the car's brand new, isn't synthetic a waste of money?

[GOPBasher]

94. I'm not sure. Good question. I'll have to look into it. n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. My dad was a miser

He also knew nothing about mechanics and thought oil changes were just the auto industry's way to get some of his hard earned money. So he bought a brand new car and never had the oil changed.

:rofl:
We teased him about that for years.

[GOPBasher]

16. What happened to the new car?

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. It fried and died

I don't remember how many miles it had on it. It was really kinda funny. I had just started dating my hubby who is very mechanical. So my dad asked him to look at his car because it was running funny. And my hubby did and told my dad there was no oil in the car. My dad said what does that mean and hubby said well you may want to go shopping for a new car. Then of course hubby ran home and told his dad (who was an engineer and very mechanical) and his whole family. They thought he was dating a girl from a pretty strange family; we didn't even change the oil in our cars.

But after that, my dad was a fanatic about changing oil in his cars.

[GOPBasher]

65. That sucks. :-( n/t

[MindPilot]

17. a tale from my time in the dealership service department

car comes in with what first appeared to be a locked up starter. After determining it was a seized engine, I began to remove the oil pan to see how bad the damage was. Nothing came out when I pulled the drain plug so i went ahead and removed the pan. When I got the last bolt out, it was much heavier than I expected and I dropped it. It landed upside down and when I picked it up there was--like a jello mold--a oil pan-shaped glob of what 75,000 miles earlier had been motor oil. Yes, this car, a 1975 Ford LTD had gone 75,000 miles on the factory-installed oil and filter.

On edit: 25K shouldn't have hurt anything as long as the cooling system was in good shape. I reccomend another oil and filter change within the next 500 to 1000 miles to wash out any leftover crud, then get back on the regular schedule. Don't bother with flushing; that's just a waste of money.

[GOPBasher]

18. Wow!!!!!

That is just crazy. Apparently, that person didn't know you're supposed to change your oil! :shrug:

[MindPilot]

19. it was probably proud2blib's dad...

pay me now or pay me (even more) later

[Jack from Charlotte]

24. Good advice, IMO. *

[wideopen]

20. Dude,use amsoil

I got sick of changing oil all the time and I am also a terrible procrastinator, so I switched oils. I now go 10k and don't even think about changing it. They say you can go 25k with it but that just seems wrong.

[Jack from Charlotte]

23. or any other synthetic oil.......

and go 10,000 to 20,000 miles between changes.

[aeolian]

29. then you must use Das Uberfilter

:wow:

[GOPBasher]

66. Hmmm. I should look into that. We do have a synthetic oil

in there now, but I don't know amsoil is. I'll have to look into it, thanks! :-)

[SoCalDem]

25. The car I bought from my mother went SIX YEARS without

an oil change... What did we know?? There was no man around to tell us to do it, or to do it. We just bought gas & oil every sercice station stop.. Once I bought it from her, I always wondered why it smoked so much.

I started dating a guy who was a race car driver, and he aske "When was the last time you changed the oil in that bomb"? y answer../ "Change the oil??"

He about fell over laughing.. It took a blow torch to get the thingie underneath off to even drain it :)

[Patiod]

33. How are you supposed to know this?

I did that to my first car. No one had ever told me you need to change the oil - not driver's ed, not my dad, not anyone - I guess they just assumed it was common knowledge. But teen girl reading (Seventeen, Glamour) doesn't cover stuff like that, and it's not exactly teen girl conversation, it's not stuff your mom teaches you.

God looks after fools, though, because the day my engine started acting funny (60,000 miles + w/o an oil change) the car was totaled while I was stopped at a red light (accident in intersection spun into my car). The insurance settlement allowed me to buy a new car.

My mechanic said the engine had about 2 more days left on it when the body was totaled.

Have been really good about regular oil changes ever since.

[AngryAmish]

85. Read the manual

(mounting a really high horse here)

Cars are dangerous, expensive things. One should always read the manual. Manual will tell you about changing oil, changing tires etc.

My dad was a mechanic and a gearhead. I was changing oil when I was 10 - you see I could fit under the car easier. Or maybe my Dad was just lazy. Maybe he could have fetched his own beer too but that is a different story.

[GOPBasher]

67. Whoa, well I hope it worked out okay! :-)

[AlCzervik]

26. my sister in law used to have a caddy, one of those big ones from the 70's

and she went past 50,000 without changing or checking the oil-to this day she hasn't lived it down.

[GOPBasher]

70. Wow!! That's amazing it went that long! n/t

[Kathleen04]

28. My cousin

killed his Toyota Corolla that way. :eyes: Certain parts of the family (the grandparents) are only allowed to think that the car died of its own volition.. :7

[GOPBasher]

71. Yeah, that'll do it. :-) n/t

[MrSandman]

30. Wow...

:spray:

At least you kow the crankcase doesn't leak. Or did the oil get checked in between times(I bet that stunk).

[GOPBasher]

73. Yeah we checked it. That's true! n/t

[Dave Reynolds]

31. I knew a young lady

years ago who let her car go 110,000 miles without changing the oil. She asked me to do it, and I did. The car threw a rod 2000 miles later, and she was pissed at me about it.

[GOPBasher]

74. I can't believe that!

I wonder how it's possible to go that long! :shrug:

[Dave Reynolds]

96. She swore up and down

that she never had it changed, and she had the car since new.

It was an old AMC Gremlin, of all things.

[AngryAmish]

34. My friend Mike

Inherited a Honda Accord with 80k miles and a small gas leak. He was told, once, that a chain store would not change the oil because of the gas leak. So instead of fixing the leak (even temporarily with duct tape) he didn't change the oil for three years. Folks, it is real easy to chage your own oil. Anyway, it blew up real good.

I gotta say, I have gone 5 -7k without changing oil out of lazyness. Just check the oil every month or so to make sure you don't have a leak.

[MindPilot]

38. Fuel contamination in the oil can be very nasty

Best case it severely reduces the lubricating quality of the oil. Worst case, if there happens to be an ignition source, the resultant explosion can literally blow the engine open. In between, it can cause O2 sensor failure, catalytic converter meltdown and possibly fire.

If it was an oil-change chain, it was very appropriate to refuse to work on a vehicle with a fuel leak especially if the leak was causing oil contamination.

[AngryAmish]

43. No, the leak was drip-drip kind

A hole in the tank to the floor.

[AllegroRondo]

40. 5-7k is OK for most cars

I bought a Toyota Corolla last year, and the owners manual recommneds changes at 5,000 for heavy driving, or 7,500 for light driving.

[GOPBasher]

75. I've gone that far, too. I don't think it has to be every

3k necessarily, but man, 25,000!

[Terran]

36. Got to agree with some of the other posters here...

I'm not a car expert AT ALL, but I never heard of flushing out a car's oil system. I'll bet if you just get it done regularly every 3000 miles from now on, you'll be just fine.

[MindPilot]

37. Sometimes it's a appropriate procedure

My problem with it is that I feel it can scrub too much buildup too fast which will essentially leave you with an engine that needs to be worn-in again. I prefer to clean the the inside of the engine with a series of more frequent oil and filter changes.

In situations where you don't have that opportunity--prepping a used car for example--flushing may be entirely appropriate.

[GOPBasher]

76. You're probably right. I'm hearing that from a lot of people. n/t

[gulfcoastliberal]

39. Whatever happened to the toilet-paper bypass filters?

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this. They were based on the premise that the oil never runs out, just gets dirty. Heere's links for those too lazy, ignorant, or maybe even environmentally aware to want to change the oil every 3 months/3000 miles...

General Info with including below links: http://utterpower.com/oil.htm

Frantz Oil Filter: http://www.wefilterit.com/frantz_facts2.htm

GulfCoastFilters:
http://www.gulfcoastfilters.com/how_do_i_eliminate_routine_oil_c.htm

[MindPilot]

48. They work very well -- too well in fact

The filtering is so efficient that it extracts some of the detergents and the larger lubricating particles and actually reduces the cleansing and lubricating qualities of the oil.

At least that's what I've been told by the engineer-types. And believe me if the manufacturers could get away with using an oil filter as cheap as a roll of Charmin, they'd do it in a heartbeat.

Not sure how the newer synthetic lubricants work with them.

[GOPBasher]

77. I never heard of those, but thanks for the links! n/t

[Lilyhoney]

42. My husband went about 25,000 without changing oil too.

I could'nt believe it. 1985 Hyundai Excel. Great little car. We sold it here in town and has 140,000 miles on it now.

[GOPBasher]

78. Ours is a Hyundai, too.

These cars must be pretty good to withstand that. :-)

[swag]

44. I take my wife everywhere, but she always finds her way home.

[GOPBasher]

79. Yeah, that happens.:-) n/t

[Shell Beau]

45. Which reminds me that I need to get my changed.

[GOPBasher]

81. Me too, actually. :-) n/t

[SmileyBoy]

46. I went over 10,000 miles without an oil change.

Then I got one last month. It wasn't too bad, though. Seemed like I had some pretty long-lasting oil in there. But they told me I needed a transmission flush and a coolant flush soon.

[GOPBasher]

82. Yeah, that doesn't sound bad to me, now! :-) n/t

[catmandu57]

50. Remember the commercial of the monkey who could change oil?

It's not that hard of a job I even crawl my crippled ass under the car to change oil. It doesn't need done every 3000, that's just people wanting to make money. 5000 - 7000, more if you don't drive every day, and forget the flushing.
Tommy maiotzzi (sp) of click and clack the car guys had a dodge colt that he decided to quit changing the oil in just to see what happened, unfortunately I quit listening to national propaganda and don't know how it turned out.

[MindPilot]

60. Most manufacturers now recommend 7500 miles with normal driving

and 3000 for extreme conditions. Unfortunately most driving these days fall in into the latter category, stop & go, temperature extremes, or sustained high speed. The oil-change chains want to sell lots of service, while the car-makers want their vehicles to seem as maintenance-free as possible. As always the truth is someplace in the middle.

I've seen plenty of cars with 25k 30k on the clock before their first oil change and they were just fine, but a regular oil change is real cheap insurance.

[GOPBasher]

83. yeah, I get it done about every 5000 miles. I should learn

how to do it myself. :-)

[dancing kali]

51. Don't be too hard on your wife.

If she was driving without any oil, you could be upset... but it sounds like she just kept putting more oil in and didn't have it changed at all. At least she kept oil in it. Unless they're told directly by someone that something needs to be done to the car, and reminded about it until it becomes habit, some folks will live in blissful ignorance.

I've never heard that one MUST change the oil... (except in new car warranties where it is required to keep the warranty valid) only that it is a really good idea to do so regularly. I've become aware of the benefits of doing it from continuing to do the twice yearly maintenance visits to the dealer after the warranty expired. I think the oil gets changed once a year.

I drive a 1987 small pickup that we bought new from the dealer... and haven't had any real major engine problems in the entire time I've had it. The mileage is still good and it still passes AirCare (provincial mandatory emissions testing the car has to pass before getting your registration/insurance renewal) with flying colours. Before the truck, however, I wouldn't have known that this was a good thing to do. I am also a complete mechanical idiot which is why I take the car in to have the nice boy take care of it... but if I were less of a princess I would learn to do it myself. I hear it's not difficult.

I think the every 2000 mile flushes is BS and would do some research before I started forking out the money. There's an NPR show called Car Talk that might have a web site... I don't know since I've never thought of checking before now... I seem to remember hearing them talking about how often one has to flush the oil when I was driving in the States one weekend.

[GOPBasher]

84. I'm not really that mad at her, just shocked. And yeah, I'm listening

to all the posters who are telling me that the flush every 2000 miles is bs. :-)

[ProfessorGAC]

53. Yikes!

I feel bad when i get to 4k. And i KNOW that the every 3000 miles thing is an oil industry marketing deal.

Most reputable mechanics will tell you that if you do it every 5k it will be fine, but since that means, for most people 3 instead of 5 oil changes a year, the extra $40 is probably worth it.

When i was working on a project back in the late 80's that involved improving the process for the manufacture of detergents that go into motor oils, i found out then that the base oil, without detergent is good for about 2500 miles. Add the detergent and you should be able to triple that!

And that was over 15 years ago!

But, 25k. Eeeeeep!
The Professor

[GOPBasher]

86. Wow, that's interesting (the detergent thing)

That's some interesting research.

And yeah, can you believe 25k?!?! :shrug:

[Mutley]

55. holy craP!

i thought i was bad when i went 6000+ miles.

[GOPBasher]

87. Me too. I'm astonished she procrastinated this long. n/t

[Kraklen]

56. I'd hate to see what's in the oil filter.

I don't usually change the oil in my car, I don't mind paying ten bucks so some teen at Oil Can Henry's can do that. But I service our vaccuum pumps monthly. We bought a used one from surplus and the first thing I did was went to change the oil. I thought, boy, that's odd, nothing's draining out. So I added some flushing oil, let it run for five minutes and my god, that shit was disgusting. Completely drained it out, filled it again with flushing oil, and it still drained as black as the queen of spades. I used a whole gallon of flushing oil on the thing and that's a lot, considering it only holds less than a half liter. And the sediment, I've never seen that much sediment before ever. You could melt it down and build a new pump out of it. It's working now, but I don't know how much longer its got.

[GOPBasher]

88. Yeah, it was horrible. It took a long time to flush it all out. n/t

[goodboy]

58. lucky the engine didn't seize. then you'd be proper-fucked (nt)

[GOPBasher]

89. You can say that again! n/t

[Bouncy Ball]

68. I'm about to go 6,000 miles without one.

But payday is in a few days and I'm going to get an oil change right away!

I normally don't go that long, maybe 4,000 miles or so. (It's no longer under warranty.)

[GOPBasher]

90. Yeah, I usually go about 4k-5k. n/t

[48pan]

69. My wife has never checked...

anything under the hood in 23 years. When the engine light came on once, she ignored it for a week until I saw it.

[GOPBasher]

91. Mine is like that too. It's pretty irritating. :-) n/t

[2Design]

92. my last car - went 250,000 miles because I changed the oil

every 3-5000 miles

It was worth it

[GOPBasher]

93. Wow! That's awesome milage! n/t