I had an experience that I wish I could say was unusual but it seems pretty common at its heart. I took my chick magnet of a 97’ green Ford Taurus to one of those quick lube type places to get the oil changed before I had to drive up to Seattle for a Conference Board meeting. All was well, I paid my $19.98 for the oil change and the next day hit the road. When I pulled into the parking lot in Seattle I noticed the smell of burning oil, not a huge white cloud of smoke. (I have owned that car in my past). Just enough that I could tell there was oil burning somewhere. I wasn’t in a position to grab my coveralls and lay down in the parking lot and crawl under the car to investigate. Since my oil light wasn’t on, and the car seemed to drive fine, I just let it go - went to my meeting and drove back to Vancouver that evening. I got home and the same smell was there. I hoped that maybe the oil change guy had just spilt some oil on the manifold when filling it or something, but I figured 5 hours of driving would have burned up any spilt oil. I went to bed and decided to tackle it in the morning.
Got up the next morning, went to the garage looked under the car and there was a pancake size oil puddle under the car ( The ma and pop style restaurant pancake size, not those little 4 at a time size pancakes). It was right under the drain plug so I figured that the oil change guy just hadn’t tightened the drain plug. I hopped in the car took it back to the shop told them the situation. The guy at the counter was very nice. He got me right in and yelled down to the tech who was working in that 7th level of hell oil pit below the cars to check for an oil leak. I hear in about 2 seconds “Nope it’s not our stuff, there is oil all over the back of the engine...” The guy by my window repeats the message I just heard coming form before mentioned pit of despair. “Great now I have to go to the mechanic and shovel money into the car to figure out why oil is shooting out the back of my engine.” I was thinking.
I am a pretty mechanical guy, so before I took it to my mechanic, I figured I’d jack up the car and just take a look for myself to see if it is something simple like a gasket leak or more involved. I jacked the car up, got on my crawler, slid underneath and sure enough there was oil all over the oil pan streaking back to the catalytic converter where it was smoking. BUT, as I am laying under my car I can see about every two or three seconds a drip of oil coming from the oil drain plug. I grabbed an old shop rag wiped the oil off of everything checked for any other trails from other leaks found exactly ZERO. I put my socket wrench on the drain plug gave it a half turn and wallah!! leak stopped.
WARNING Grumpy old man alert!!! What the hell? So the oil lube guy was either incompetent and couldn’t see the drip of oil coming every two seconds from the drain plug, or was so afraid to make things right which might require some extra work that his automatic response is “It’s not our stuff...”
Have you ever been in the position to do something that is good, or is the right thing, but decided that it was too inconvenient? I find this attitude everywhere. What is even more sobering is that as I work with local churchs I hear it all the time. “That would be great but I don’t have time...” “I am not willing to be in charge...” “It would be great if YOU did something about that...” “That's pretty inconvenient. What if we did something less than that?...”
It is now the second week of Lent and like many years before, the congregation I serve has many members who are observing Lenten disciplines like prayer and fasting, reading scripture, introspection and meditation, and confession. For many of us we find that Lent is that time where we really discover what our lives are dedicated to. If you are like me you find that the things I am really dedicated to aren’t the things I should be dedicated to, (Or better said THE THING I should be dedicated to).
So as I was starting to work up a good mad about my lazy oil change worker, I realized that I have said “nope its not my stuff...” too many times myself - over things more important that an oil grain plug.
I hope this is a wonderful, enlightening and holy season of Lent for you friends!
2 comments:
As a quick lube employee I empathize with you. This store treated you in a totally unacceptable way and I would encourage you to tell as many people as possible to avoid them. I hope their tech was just incompetent because if not they lied to cover their mistake. Mistakes do happen especially with untrained technicians and it's not uncommon to leave a plug loose. But it's just bad business sense to lie when all you need to do is tighten a plug. Anyway, I'm glad you were able to find the good in your experience and improve yourself. I think everyone could learn a lesson from that.
I like draining the oil from the bottom of the crank case, and using a quick oil drain valve. The ball valve replaces your oil drain plug , and allows you to drain the oil with its lever. You don't need to take off the plug with a wrench and hand anymore. Besides, you can avoid stripping the plug threads and ruining the expensive oil pan. For more info, check the site: www.qwikvalve.com
I bought one for my vehicle and it has been working really well. Great product.
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