The little lady I've been seeing is leaving on a road trip today with her daughter (< 3yrs old) Its over 1200 miles one way where she's going and being the automotive minded person I am, asked her the last time she had her oil changed... this is where it starts

I tell her, after we get off work, we'll go get everything you need for an oil change and I'll take it to my shop and show you how to do it. She drives a '06 Ford Escape 3.0L... decent little SUV... so, we go and get 5qts of Castrol, good filter, some wiper blades, some washer fluid, water wetter, and a couple other misc things... We head over to the shop... Lets Pause the story....

She had been complaining about how it just "didnt feel he same" and how it made a noise when she cranked it up in the morning... I asked her if she'd checked the oil, she said, it looked fine. She grew up around a logging company so I figured her dad had taught her the VERY basic task of checking her oil.... I guess he didnt... at least not properly. I fugured it was just getting some miles on it and it needed plugs, oil change etc etc... just some TLC, and it'd be fine... little did I know.... Lets go back to me at the shop with her car....

I pulled it up on the lift and rotated the tires for her, balanced them on our machine, greased the front end... and just did some regular maintenance stuff... now it comes time to pull the drain plug, now I had noticed on the fill cap some black junk, I just figured it was from the oil change being a little overdue, no biggie... but the plug comes out... and no oil comes with it... I'm freakin livid at this point... I pull the oil filter, and this gumbo mud-looking sludge **** runs out of the engine block... I told her there's no way IN HELL the car would have made it to Texas from Virginia like this... so I let it sit, let whatever was going to fall out of it, fall and sat and drank a coke... I sent her to the store to get more oil and another filter (plus the one I had) I lowered the car, pulled the dipstick, and olf course it looked full to her... the entire thing was black like road tar... you couldnt even tell it had two little holes in it.... it was terrible, I was afraid the little motor was hurt badly...

I put a new filter on it, fill it with fresh oil, and as soon as I crank it, the taps, and ticks are gone... inagine that... the ****** has oil now... I let it run for about 5 minutes, drain about a quart out, then added a little shy of a quart of transsmission fluid to the oil... This is an old mechanics trick they use to clean varnish and sludge out of motors... and continued to let it run... it idled for about 10 minutes... everything seemed good... I let it run on the lift for a total of about 20 minutes, changing the RPM's slightly to clean out some of the passages and oil pump... then drained it again...

I have NEVER seen this much **** come out of a motor.... I flooded a 350 in a river once... and didnt have this much **** in it. I took off the oil filter I just put on it, cut it open and examined it... no metal to my absolute suprise, but plenty of black caramalized carbon ****... I let it completely drain...

Filled it back up, new filter, 5qts of Castrol, no ticks, squeaks, power is back, and even after letting it sit overnight... it cranked right up this morning with no noises at all... just like it started up warm. I was extremely relieved.

She got the chance to see the not so nice side of me last night because of it and I explained to her why, I dont want her car to quit on her in the middle of nowhere with her and her daughter without cell signal, or anything... that would be bad.... so once I realized I was lecturing her like she was my own LOL, I stopped and just told her I was concerned for her safety... when she gets back its getting ANOTHER oil change, brakes, tires, trans flush and filter, and whatever else it needs...



Cliffs notes:

-Do g/f a favor and do some work on car before road trip

-go to change the oil, OOPS, no oil... jump through hoops to clean motor out

-come to the verge of getting upset because of what she did to her car...

-calm down, go home, eat some dinner... get some nookie

 

SO IT WAS ALL WORTH IT

 

Sounds like fun Ben. For that reason my wife knows how to change oil and tires Probably can do a trans swap by now too

I would have just used some sea foam or engine cleanser vice the trans fluid.

You may want to make sure she puts unleaded in also... not deisel.

 

she will here shortly too, I will not have that "I dont know, I just took it to someone" bullshit... I was pissed dude... She can change a tire, the oil thing got away from her this time I guess...

I have dont the trans fluid thing in a couple different motors, works like a charm you just cant leave it in there, or take it to any kind of high RPM's (over 2500 I'd say)

-dude, you cant give her too much **** about it next time you talk to her LOL... I pretty much made her feel like **** over it even though I didnt mean to...

 

but one of my friends tried that little task on his gfs murano! He was gonna change her oil for her. Hes not exactly mechanically enclined...

HE DRAINS EVERY BIT OF HER TRANSMISSION FLUID OUT! THEN PLUGS IT BACK UP AND POURS 5 MORE QUARTS OF OIL INTO THE MOTOR!!! CRANKS IT AND RUNS IT IN THE CARPORT BC IT WONT GO ANYWHERE! HE HAD NO IDEA WHAT HE DID. HE CALLS THE DEALER AND THEY TELL HIM WHAT HAPPENED. HE NOW HAS TO BUY TRANSMISSION FLUID FOR THE THING WHICH IS VERY EXPENSIVE AND SHE HAS NO RIDE UNTIL THE NEXT EVENIN WHEN HE GETS THE TRANS FILLED BACK UP. That was some funny crap!

 

Oh.... ahhh...... ok.........

 

LMAO... that's funny.

 

oh, I did a short stint at a Jiffy Lube as a manager. I had my guy in the pit yell out, "Hey, why is this motor oil red?"... even the customer knew what it was.... I just dropped to my knees and told him plug it and ran down to the pit to show him the correct drain plug. on the plus side for the customer they got a drain and fill of tranny fluid for free

 

well, when she gets back, youre gonna want to take that castrol oil out. its good that the motor is runnin and that there was no damage done, but castrol does jack **** for "sludge protection"
do some research, and find how many oil refineries castrol owns. none. castrol buys the cheapest oil they can find, put an additive i it, and mark it up about 200% and sell it in a pretty bottle. do some more research. their "synthetic oil" isnt even a synthetic oil. its a minor blend that has been purified and had enough additives put in to be classified as a type 3 sytnhetic(if i remember correctly, it was a class three per the epa oil standards) which is the lowest form of synthetic. same with their cynthetic blend.
you;d be better off buying advanced auto's brand of oil for half as much. which is actually halvoline oil in a different bottle.

kendall and mobil 1 FTW

 

ever tear down a motor that ran Castrol GTX? Apparently not, last one I looked at still looked the same as the day it was put together

My vehicles have all run Castrol GTX or Mobile 1 full syn. exclusively.