Why I Ceased Having My Engine Oil Changed by the Dealer
 

Why I ceased having my engine oil changed by the dealer:

1. Typically, the low man on the totem pole gets oil changing duty. "Hey, you, yeah you, when you're done jockeying that customer's car around the back lot get over here as I have some oil changes that need to be done!"
   
   
2. No cost deduction for bringing my own oil versus what their Service Department may or may not have to offer. We wouldn't want the customer to be happy, especially since we can't gouge them for our crappy oil, but we surely can for labor costs.
   
   
3. Learning the hard way that you need to ask for all your used oil containers back; also, numbering each container so that you can verify that they actually used your oil. (And still this is no guarantee that Joe Six Pack* didn't simply store your high-end oil in another container and pump their low-end oil into your engine. There's a happy lot jockey somewhere in the world tonight that he's now running synthetic oil.)
   
   
4. My personal favorite: Far too many stripped oil drain plugs from idiots who cannot discern foot pounds from "that feels about right," let alone use an actual torque wrench. You know you've been had when you look underneath your oil pan and see a shiny new oil drain plug (most likely oversized because the lot jockey used an air ratchet to speed-up your oil change in between his having to drive customers cars around. Whoops!).
   
   
5. When I change my oil, I know it's done correctly. (And I actually change my oil filter...not write-down that I did on a customer's invoice.)**

*Mind you, if Joe Six Pack drinks dark beer, then he's cool; if he drinks piss-water light beer, then he's not.

**For those of you who actually work at a Service Department and take pride in your work—this is not regarding you, and I commend you, but your type is few and far between.

:iagree: That's the way I feel also!

True. I'm always so nervous when I take my car to the dealership service. I'm always thinking someone is not paying attention and making a mistake on my car. I took my car for first oil change to the dealer because it was free of charge . I don't think I'm taking it in anymore. I will do my own.

Planning on doing my first oil change myself this weekend. Either one of you guys use royal purple??

I agree. But anytime i have anything done to my car, i ALWAYS WATCH THEM. Stand there, right next to my car, while they work on it, i dont care what there doing. If they tell you you cant be there, just ask them if there paying for your car, im sure they will shut up.

I believe that MiniCobra1 is using Royal Purple. You might want to contact him about his thoughts on it.

LOL!!!! I would love to see that. I can't imagine how much that would piss them off. If I had the guts, I would do that too :rofl2:

yea, just wait till they pull your car in, and just watch them work on it. Ask them questions too, it's there job.

that's why only my personal friends who work at dealerships(one Honda, one Toyota) touch my car..........even if I have to drive farther, or wait longer........

Youre allowed to be in the work area? Any dealer around me will not allow you into the maitenice bay unless they escort you to your car to show you a "problem".

During my first oil change at 1000 miles, I was talking to the mechanic and standing under the car the entire time. Apparently my Nissan dealer doesn't care a bit.

Most shop in NJ won't allow customer in the work area due to "Insurance reason". Their (dealers/shops) insurance only covers their employees in case of an accident (i.e. lift failure/accident etc). My previous Nissan dealer had a glass window that I can see. This new one, got solid wall :rolleyes:. I can't even see anything :(

I would hate to buy a car from a dealer and fear taking it in for service. It's nice to have a little faith that the dealer's service department will take care of you when you bring your car in for work.

I don't worry about oil changes because a) an untrained monkey can change oil and a filter, b) my dealer confirmed that they use Nissan's recommended ester oil on these cars, and c) I get free service for a year.

After that I will consider doing the work on my own simply because I enjoy it... but I never fear that they are going to treat my car like crap while they throw their poo at each other.

Personally I just enjoy working on my car. So I will do most of the work to it, unless I do not have the tech know-how.

Same here. I don't care whether they mind me breathing down their neck. It's that important. :icon17:

Ditto. Half the fun of owning this car, to me, is doing the mods myself when at all possible. It really adds to the driving experience in my opinion too. You really get to know the car better when your own two hands turned the bolts on it and you've dug around inside it yourself. When I hear or feel something funny on the road, it's really easy for me to picture what's going on with the car, because I've seen it all up close.

I really recommend anyone who cares about their car(s) to at least learn to do basic maintenance tasks themselves, even if they don't feel particularly skilled, inclined, or full of enough free time to do the other stuff.

As for the whole shop insurance thing: there are lots of shops around here like that. Mostly it's the franchise chain places that are the worst about trying to ban all customers from the garage area. But if you dig around, you'll find independent shops that are fine with you being in the garage the whole time under the lift with them, pointing out what you know about the car and what you need done. Just don't hover over the dude's shoulder while he's working, people hate that :) Explain the situation, agree on the work to be done, and then hang back and observe from a little more distance.

^ I agree

definitely agree with you SoCal. i used to work at a Honda dealership as a porter and i would just watch the lube tech guys work sometimes. a lot of them just half-a** the work. ever since i quit a year ago, i've been back to visit and some oil changes. the oil, i buy myself and let them do it-i know them so they use what i buy. but one of my friends in parts told me lube tech has been in a lot of crap for messing ppl's cars. worst story he told me, they forgot to put the oil and you can guess what happened.

One thing I hate about "dealer's/ franchises" doing the oil change is the time it takes to do. Personally I do all the maintenance on my TL and JK, oil changes should take at least a 1/2 hour to drain the pan and not put the drain plug back once the stream of oil is still visible.
I let my cars drain for at least an hour ( crazy but I get an extra pint in the pan ) and I don't use a oil filter wrench, just hand tight.
I'm not sure about the Z's engine and the oil required but I use either Mobil 1 or Castrol Syntech which ever is on sale and I buy a few 5 qt. jugs at a time.

Dont you need a jack, or some other machine to lift up your car in order to change your oil? How do you change your oil?

Also, is royal purple better than Synthetic Mobil oil (the best one)?

Do you guys trust franchise stores, such as Jiffy Lube to change your car oil?

Many thanks.

You're supposed to change the oil in a car?????

I know a guy here in orlando that has worked for one of the Nissan dealerships service departments for over 20 years. I hire him on the side sometimes to help me work on my Z32 whenever I have a job that takes two people. He told me that the oil change guys forget to put oil back in customers cars "probably once a month" and then crank the car on up. When they realize what they did, he said they turn the car off real quick and put oil in it. If it appears theres no damage they just go with it, but he said probably once or twice a year they have to replace engines due to oil change techs forgetting to put in oil.

He also told me, a few years back, that if they saw someone drive up in a Z32 they would tell them almost anything to get them to go away, as they did not like working on them any longer. I can't imagine taking mine to a dealership and I won't take my 370 either unless its an absolute necessity or an alignment or something else I can't do.

:icon18: I'm assuming you're kidding. Right?

Yea! You just drive it till the oil lite comes on.

Yes to jack or ramps or something.

I think Royal Purple is overrated. The top-end Mobil-1s are pretty good, not sure if it's better than RP, but my guess is yes.

PS - Dealers usually have interns changing oil. I've had two cars that had problems with dealer oil changes.

1) Toyota dealer - Forgot to put oil cap back on. After 60 miles I got out and oil was EVERYWHERE. It was coming out of the grill, burning (smelly) on radiator, etc. I took it back, they apologized and power washed my car, but I was never able to get rid of this burnt oil smell in the AC system.

2) Lexus dealer - Put the oil filter on wrong (missed the threads). Oil was getting on the exhaust manifold and left some nice memories on my driveway.

If I don't change the oil myself, I generally find a quick-lube place near where I live, bring my own stuff, and seek out their best guys. If you roll up to those places in a nice ride, they do seem to care more. I had this guy once that was so meticulous, but their place shut down. I got a new place doing the Infiniti now, I'm real happy with the guy that does my changes (he drives a Camaro SS that's in great condition so I know he cares).

I gave up on changing my Infiniti's oil. There's some 22 screws holding up that plastic underguard, it's just an annoyance to take off/take on all the time.

Oh yeah, no worries there. However, my wife's mother drove her car dry and told her husband when the engine seized that she didn't realize you had to change the oil...

I've had a bmw dealership do a brake job on my 6 series (just replacing rotors and pads), long story short I get my car back the pedal is so mushy the brakes barely had any grip and brake fluid WAS all over the engine bay. Long story short, the dealership was at the closing hours. I left the car with them while they gave me an m3 with 300 miles, I put on 600 miles in a day, they didn't say anything.

hehe you mean few and far between :p

you got to keep an eye on ur car while at the dealership, anything bizarre can happen.
like a mysterious hole in the muffler.....lol....happened to my dad....wow, did he ever get so pissed off.

It's not just dealerships either. Several years ago when I got my 350, I went and bought a new set of wheels from Discount Tire. The car only had 500 miles on it. They ordered the wrong offsets for the fronts, so I had to return a couple of days later when the correct front wheels came in. Seeing how they only had to lift the front instead of the whole car, two of their guys just slid service jacks under the car (one on each side). They didn't bother to make sure they were on proper jack points and just jacked the car up. Well, they jacked it up alright. When I got the car back, I got in and I was like what the hell??? There were these two big humps right in the middle of the floor mats on each side. Their service jacks had indented the floor of the car! I was SO freakin' pissed!!! Did I mention my car only had 500 miles on it at that point? So now anytime I need something done with tires, guess what I do? I take the wheels off, load them up in the wife's Murano, and drive them over to the tire shop then remount them myself when I get them home. It's sad how some people just lack any sense of professionalism and just 'wing it'.

good grief. what was the resolution to that? did they pay to have it fixed? unbelievable because jack points are such a simple concept.

one time the guy at discount tire argued me down on proper torque specs for my car until I went out and got the owners manual and showed him.

Royal Purple is better then Mobil 1. Both are great synthetics.

it would have been too simple to just use the car lift and jack the whole car up, change the tires in like 10 mins, but instead they did a sketchy way....dumb ppl.

I had to go get an estimate from a body shop and they cut me a check. Your story reminds me of one time I went to a quick lube place and the guy insisted on inflating all my tires to 45 psi because that's what the sidewall said the max pressure was. I tried to explain to him that just because it's the max, that doesn't make it the recommended pressure, as shown on the sticker inside the door. The idiot just dug his heels in and insisted. He said "Well that's Nissan's recommendation, right? Nissan doesn't make the tires now, do they? Bridgestone does, so I take Bridgestone's word for it over Nissan's!"

Semtex, I do the same thing... I jack the car up in the garage and just bring the wheel and new rubber. You have to make everything idiot proof these days!

I think 40 psi is the best combination for comfort,economy & handling...in my view.

The one time I took a vehicle to a dealership, I regretted it. I took my wife's new Toyota pickup to a dealership in the Dallas area (Toyota of Richardson) for a recalled seatbelt mount, and they offered to do an oil change while I was there. Bad call on my part. When they changed the filter, they left the old gasket stuck to the block, and screwed on the new filter (with its gasket). The stacked gaskets sealed until I got on the highway. The engine spit all of the new oil on the ground and then started knocking. I pulled over and called the dealership, and they sent a tow truck.

The the dealership told me the engine would be fine, as they filled it back up with oil. Uh, no, guys, it has a bad rod knock. Oh no, they said, it will be fine. Well, the rod knock was so bad that they had to yell over the engine! At that point they realized that they couldn't weasel their way out of this one, and they sent me off for a compact rental car while they ordered up a replacement engine. I pointed out that I showed up in a truck, so I shouldn't be stuck in a Turdcel. In the end we compromised on a RAV4.

Three weeks later, I got the truck back. Happy ending, the new engine was better than the old one! Much more peppy. But certainly not worth the pain.

And there are thousands of stories like this. Bottom line: nobody cares about your car more than you do, especially not someone who's changing your oil for money.

these stories are scary!
Maybe this is cuz im in the military, but EVERYONE NEEDS SUPERVISION.

this thread scares the crap out of me, i dont need these thoughts in my head