Automotive

Walmart oil change KILLED my engine!!!!

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  • Jun 21st, 2007 7:56 am
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Dec 31, 1969
jleeyoo wrote: car: 2003 mazda protege 5; 90,000km

how do you explain oil light coming on when there is enough oil in engine.

The computer that controls all those light has a counter and needs to be reset when you change your oil. Its possible that Wal-Mart is at fault and if I were you I'd try to get them to pay for the new engine, or settle for whatever they give you. But automobiles are bad up of a series of individual components just like your TV,radio, mp3 player etc. They can ruin without anything being wrong with them. Now I am not saying Wal-Mart is not to blame here but you could be at fault as well or it could just be a coinsidence that your engine blew after an oil change. Ohh yeah Wal-Mart only put about 1 liter or so of engine oil in the car. Its on the fine print of the poster they have in the store so they are protected if anyone goes to court about it.
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Jul 18, 2006
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Damn...that's the exact car I want as well.
You're not funny.
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Apr 12, 2007
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Shaner wrote: There are some things you NEVER cheap out on, car maintenance is one of those things.
+1
gman wrote: Saved for a candy and lose a factory.
Not many realize that a l.o.f. at a Mazda Dealership is about $35.
urban1 wrote: Most dealerships have lot jockeys do oil changes but look at some of the people you run into walmart.
No, they don't. In fact the liability insurance for the shop doesn't cover them if something should happen.
< The original ASK ME ANYTHING ABOUT BUYING A NEW MAZDA >

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Sep 3, 2003
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billdozer wrote: Damn...that's the exact car I want as well.
Don't be a cheap tard like him, do your oil changes at home. Even if it might take four hours.
Deal with it.
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Jan 22, 2004
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It is possible that the engine flush caused the sludge to dislodge and plugged some oil passages causing the oil pressure light to go off.

Doing an engine flush on an old engine is like switching from mineral motor oil to synthetic. Dirts inside got off and plug smaller oil passages which is not detected by the oil pressure sensor. Result is pre-mature bearing failure.

Did you have a problem (and what kind) on you engine that you were trying to fix with the engine flush or you were just doing the flush for no reason.

I personally would be very hesitate to do things like engine shampoo, engine flush etc...
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Oct 25, 2003
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DragonZealot wrote: I personally would be very hesitate to do things like engine shampoo, engine flush etc...
Engine shampoo deals with cleaning the exterior of the engine.... There should never be a problem with an engine shampoo when done properly.

If you wanted to properly flush your engine from sludge, you should've went with a milder more trusted solution, such as www.auto-rx.com
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Aug 19, 2005
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Man, I feel sorry for your car. I own one and would never in a million years trust walmart's car care services. I've always done my service maintenance at a Mazda Dealer without any problems. I drive a 2002 Mazda Protege 5, with 114, 000km+. I mean come on, a full service at Mazda costs me maybe a maximum of $35 after taxes (usually $25-30) which I believe is very cheap for an oil change and filter from a dealer. Guess you've learnt your lesson, but if I were you I'd fight Walmart for what happened anyways.
"It's how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success."
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Jan 22, 2004
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B0000rt wrote: Engine shampoo deals with cleaning the exterior of the engine.... There should never be a problem with an engine shampoo when done properly.

Agree but the key is "done properly". To save time, the shop may not protect some electrical connectors and shampoo/water go in causing a short or corrosion down the road.

Very little benefits for the risk.
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Jul 3, 2006
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I'll readily admit that I'm totally in the dark when it comes to automotive stuff, but I fail to see how running a car for a few minutes without oil can actually ruin the engine.

Last year, my wife and I spent 4 days in Manhattan. To save some $$$ on airfare, we decided to drive to Buffalo, and fly into NYC from there. We were about 5 minutes away from the Queenston-Lewiston bridge to the USA, when the yellow "low oil light" on my 2000 VW Golf came on. Since we were already running really late for our flight, I ignored the warning and decided to try to make it to the airport which was about 40 minutes away. Half an hour later, the red oil light came on and a warning bell started chiming. By that time, I was already in Buffalo and only about ten minutes from the airport so I kept driving since I had no idea where the nearest gas station was and we needed to catch our flight. We made it to the airport, parked the car and went to NYC. Four days later we flew back into Buffalo just after midnight, and set out to find a gas station that was still open. I drove around for about twenty minutes with the red oil light on until I finally found a "NOCO" gas station. I pulled in and when I checked my oil, the dipstick came out totally dry. I ended up buying 2 bottles of oil, filled up my car and then drove back to Toronto without any problems. A few days later I took my car into the dealership and had them check it out...they said everything was fine, but I had them do an oil and filter change anyways. To this day, I have not had a problem with my engine.

Based on my experience, I have a hard time understanding how a Mazda engine can get ruined with only a few minutes of driving without oil, when I drove my VW Golf for half an hour without oil and had absolutely no problems.
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May 10, 2005
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Pintobean is right.
There is no way that in that short time that the bearings will be so damaged that you need a new engine. More over, there is very little chance the Mazda mechanic would be able to tell the bearings were damaged beyond repair until he tore down the engine, which I am sure they did not do. Also, if this was the case and there was bearing damage, they can be replaced and not need a whole engine.
I think that the OP is posting for the fun of it or they are being hosed by their local dealer.
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pintobean wrote: I'll readily admit that I'm totally in the dark when it comes to automotive stuff, but I fail to see how running a car for a few minutes without oil can actually ruin the engine.
LOL. Say the second part of that first, and the first part second. At that point it should be clear why you fail to see the second part ;) The first part of the statement also explains why I have to make such a lengthy response to explain this, LOL.
pintobean wrote: Last year, my wife and I spent 4 days in Manhattan. To save some $$$ on airfare, we decided to drive to Buffalo, and fly into NYC from there. We were about 5 minutes away from the Queenston-Lewiston bridge to the USA, when the yellow "low oil light" on my 2000 VW Golf came on. Since we were already running really late for our flight, I ignored the warning and decided to try to make it to the airport which was about 40 minutes away. Half an hour later, the red oil light came on and a warning bell started chiming. By that time, I was already in Buffalo and only about ten minutes from the airport so I kept driving since I had no idea where the nearest gas station was and we needed to catch our flight. We made it to the airport, parked the car and went to NYC. Four days later we flew back into Buffalo just after midnight, and set out to find a gas station that was still open. I drove around for about twenty minutes with the red oil light on until I finally found a "NOCO" gas station. I pulled in and when I checked my oil, the dipstick came out totally dry. I ended up buying 2 bottles of oil, filled up my car and then drove back to Toronto without any problems. A few days later I took my car into the dealership and had them check it out...they said everything was fine, but I had them do an oil and filter change anyways. To this day, I have not had a problem with my engine.
A few things to be said here. One, you got lucky don't think you didn't. Two, every engine is different and will have it's oil pressure light come on at different points; furthermore since every engine is different oiling systems (though basically the same on most cars out there as most are wet sump) still differ in certain ways. You said the dipstick was dry, however the dipstick can be dry and you can still have oil in the engine. Your mention of adding only 2L to get back to full indicates this. How many litres of oil do you have in the crankcase on that car? Surely it is not 2L. Therefore you probably still had 2+ L in the engine.

In many cars the dipstick stops reading after 2L low. The "ADD" mark on an automotive dipstick on virtually all cars means "add 1L to fill". The ADD mark is fairly low on the dipstick and you drop another litre out of the crankcase and the dipstick might not show any oil, when (depening on the crankcase capacity) in reality you might have anywhere from 2-4L left in the engine at that point.

Also the oil pressure light may react (depending on how it's set up) such that as soon as it senses low oil pressure it comes on and stays on, until you shut it down; regardless of whether oil pressure is regained. So you could have gone around a corner or bend or something else which let the pressure drop enough to trigger the light and it remained on thereafter eventhough you still had some or even good oil pressure. I'm assuming there is no oil pressure gauge in this car, correct? If that's the case you don't really know what oil pressure you had, just that it went "low" enough for long enough to satisfy the requirements of what they set the idiot light to come on at.

Another thing is you have no idea the damage you actually caused to your engine, if you did cause any. You said that your dealership checked it out, but I seriously doubt they dismantled the whole top end of the engine and looked in the cylinder bores, or removed the oil pan and inspected the crank and bearings. (This would have cost you upwards of a thousand by the way.) Because the engine was still running fine, they probably just told you nothing was wrong and to do any kind of teardown would be far too costly given the car runs okay as is. They might have done a compression test and perhaps a leak-down test as well, and that could have checked out within specs. But you have no idea what the compression was before the incident do you? So what still falls within the "good" engineering spec does not necessarily translate into no damage done at all.

You could have put a lot of wear on your engine during that incident--perhaps more than you would have over the life of the vehicle just in that one trip. But you can't really know for sure. All you know is the car still runs okay, and that's good, yes. But you can't say "hey I ran my engine on no oil (which isn't true you still had some) for this long and caused no damage (also not true because you can't be certain unless you tore down the engine)".

Draining the oil entirely out of the vehicle and then having ZERO oil, is another story. And perhaps you could even run one engine with no oil for longer than another--it all depends.

The fact is, whether you fail to realise it or not, running an engine with no oil can cause severe internal damage in just a matter of moments.
pintobean wrote: Based on my experience, I have a hard time understanding how a Mazda engine can get ruined with only a few minutes of driving without oil, when I drove my VW Golf for half an hour without oil and had absolutely no problems.
Again, unfortunately your experience doesn't really show anything. It shows that you drove on 2L low of oil, had low oil pressure at one point in time during the trip, and the engine kept running later on. You have no idea about how much oil you actually had, how long you lost oil pressure for, how low the oil pressure really got, or how much extra wear you put on that engine in that incident.
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Thanks for the lengthy post ES_Revenge :)

I have no intention of hijacking this thread so I'll just restrict myself to saying that it really scares me to hear that a Mazda engine could die and need replacing after only a few minutes of being run without oil. One would think that there should be some sort of warning light that would come on to warn about this impending failure.

Oh well...sorry to hear about your problems OP...hopefully you can prove that Walmart was behind the damage and can get them to pay for the new engine.
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I beg to differ.

I was on my way with a friend in thier honda civic out to cayuga. The oil warning light started to blink for about 5 minutes and we ignired it thinking the car is full of electrical gremlins. 10 minutes later we heard a strange sound from the engine. We pulled over..opened the hood and opened the oil cap..smoke was coming out of it. I look under the car and feel for the oil pan nut... it was missing. The oil drained right out and the bearing were gone. Had to get the car towed back to TO.
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Aug 27, 2004
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pintobean wrote: Thanks for the lengthy post ES_Revenge :)

I have no intention of hijacking this thread so I'll just restrict myself to saying that it really scares me to hear that a Mazda engine could die and need replacing after only a few minutes of being run without oil. One would think that there should be some sort of warning light that would come on to warn about this impending failure.
I think ES_Revenge's point was that MOST engines, if not ALL engines, will die and need replacing after a few SECONDS of being run without oil.

And there is a warning light... it's the oil pressure light. For example, the "standard" GM owner's manual blurb describes it as follow
*** CAUTION ***
Do not keep driving if the oil pressure is low. If you do, your engine can become so hot that it catches fire. You or others could be burned. Check your engine

Notice: Lack of proper engine oil maintenance may damage the engine. The repairs would not be covered by your warranty. Always follow the maintenance schedule in this manual for changing engine oil.

This light tells you if there could be a problem with your engine oil pressure.

...
When the light comes on and stays on, it means that oil is not flowing through your engine properly. You could be low on oil and you might have some other system problem.
Furthermore, the same GM car that I randomly picked on also has one of those DIC things, and there's a "OIL PRESSURE LOW STOP ENGINE" message that will show up on there. The manual describes that message as follow.
Notice: If you drive your vehicle while the engine oil pressure is low, severe engine damage may occur. If a low oil pressure warning appears on the instrument panel cluster and/or DIC, stop the vehicle as soon as possible. Do not drive the vehicle until the cause of the low oil pressure is corrected. See Engine Oil on page 5-15 for more information.

This message will display when the vehicle's engine oil pressure is low. The oil pressure light will also appear on the instrument panel cluster. See Oil Pressure Light on page 3-47 [Note: that's the blurb I pasted above].

Stop the vehicle immediately, as engine damage can result from driving a vehicle with low oil pressure. Have the vehicle serviced by your GM dealer as soon as possible when this message is displayed.
Of course, no one except me actually READS the owner's manuals of cars, but that seems rather clear, no? It's probably THE most strongly worded warning in this entire manual...
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this reminds me of those Slick50 informercials a few years back... "wooo.. engine # 5 is still running strong, and remember we drained ALL the oil, AMAZING isn't it?, For 2 easy payments of 19.99...."
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Dec 13, 2006
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Never again with Wal-mart oil changes. We did oil change from Wal-mart and next day drove to New York on Caravan. Everything was fine until half-way the oil light came up. checked the oil level - was full. Then drove for some more time. After a while as we were almost reaching the destination - some noises started like the piston is damaged or something. Somehow reached the destination and went to dealership to show the problem. They informed the oil was bone dry and luckily the engine is not damaged. They did the oil change and replaced the filter.

Came bak to TO and went to Wal-Mart and showed them the invoice where the dealer wrote the problem. Sure enought the Manager said it was not there problem. Told him to provide their HO #. Called the HO and reproted the problem. They reimbursed the invoice amount and gave me 2 Years on engine warranty. Almost a year went back no problems as such - only had to replace the O2 sensors lately.

Never trust Wal-Mart for Oil changes - bad experience.
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I had done my last one at Walmart but I stood there to make sure everythign was done properly.

But after this, no more!
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Feb 22, 2006
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This is not surprising, my brothers friend worked at Walmart doing this kind of work for a year or so and made it his mission to **** over people whenever he could. His excuse? None, he was simple moron who loved to **** over people. Re-using old oil, ****ing up drain plugs, you name it he did. He FINALLY got canned after being caught by his manager's wife.

Really, I wish they made doing simple car maintenance a part of the exam for G1 and G2 drivers. Jack that **** up and learn that doing this kind of stuff isn
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[quote="weales" post_id="5220952" time="1181850857" user_id="40072"]Really, I wish they made doing simple car maintenance a part of the exam for G1 and G2 drivers. Jack that **** up and learn that doing this kind of stuff isn
Thoughts and Prayers to the many thousands of civilians who perished from terrorists acts.
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Beradon wrote: Here's the thing, if you do it yourself and you screw up your car, then you pay out of your pocket.
If you let an establishment do the work and they f**k up your car, they are responsible for it.
Ummm...I know what you're getting at...but don't you think that your statement is a little broad?

We all know that "establishments" will do whatever they can to avoid admitting responsibility for f**king up something. This thread is a perfect example of that...you can also refer to the various Best Buy and Future Shop PSP threads for more proof of this phenomenon.

At the same time, I can't agree with the comment made by weales either. I don't change my own oil, I take my car to a trusted mechanic and let him do it but it's not out of laziness...I just have better things to spend my time on.

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