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Yet another company goes on to the list of those that I'd like to strangle
My car needed an oil change yesterday, and now my transmission is in peril.
It's not like my car has special requirements aside from needing fairly standard synthetic oil, for the most part oil changes are fairly straightforward. And Subaru makes them quite easy on newer models: the oil filter is mounted on the top front of the engine! Once the oil is drained, you can remove the filter with a bare minimum of mess and fuss. It's a very sweet design.
We've been getting our oil changed at a tire shop that also does basic fluids. It's a regional chain that, for the most part, has been reasonable. I've had three problems with them in the past: they sold me a set of tires that were actually high-speed rated and inappropriate for someone who needed snow conditions (different location), they recommended a set of snow tires that when I looked at online recommendations were horrible in the snow (ended up buying fantastic snow tires from a place that gets LOTS of snow, Ruidoso) and they damaged the drain plug on my wife's car by a tech using the wrong wrench, and they replaced that eventually.
No, this time the "technician" messed up and removed the wrong drain plus, removing an unknown amount of fluid from my transmission. He put it back immediately upon seeing that he'd removed the wrong plug, but an unknown amount of liquid had escaped.
Here's the thing: engines have increasingly become sealed units, and the transmission and differential even more so. On my car, there's not even a dip stick to check the level. Get it serviced per specified intervals, and you should be fine. The car has to be connected to a computer for the car computer to tell how much fluid has to be added. The oil change place does not have such a device as they do not have a permanent mechanic.
I know what having no fluid in a transmission does to it. I'd had my '05 all-wheel drive Toyota Matrix for just a few months when I hit a rock going down the mountain to the darkroom to develop some film one day. I immediately put it in to neutral and coasted off the road in to a pullout, but the tranny was already dead. When the shop sales guy told me what happened, the only place that fluid could have come from was the tranny and the differential, both of which are bad to lose fluid from. We got the car on to a lift and he showed me the drain plug, it wasn't immediately obvious which sump it drained. We consulted the owner's manual and it doesn't show which sump it was, but it emphasized that these aren't to be serviced casually.
I call the El Paso Subaru dealership and arrange for me to email a service guy a photo of where the fluid came from. He identifies it as the tranny and says to not drive it, obviously, so the plan is to flatbed tow it to El Paso to the dealership and they'll set things right.
Surprisingly I actually wasn't too pissed off when this happened and I'm pretty level-headed and collected in a crisis. Shit like this is bound to happen occasionally. But I know from experience and 45 days without my Toyota Matrix that a car without transmission fluid means a car without a transmission, so the car was now undrivable until this was resolved. So flatbed my car to the Subaru dealership in El Paso, get me a rental car for two days as my wife was working Tuesday night (so I thought: turned out she was off) and everything should be fine.
But I started getting increasingly pissed off at the sales guy at the tire shop. I told him I'd have to have a rental and that we'd have to arrange a flat bed tow. And the guy just stood there. Didn't offer any assistance. Didn't offer to call higher up the food chain. Finally offered to call Enterprise Rentals, a block away. He calls them and arranges for a car that I'll walk over to pick up. There's still the tow to arrange. I ask him about tow companies, he has no suggestions. And now I'm getting really pissed. He's been totally passive, I've had to initiate everything to get my car taken care of, and I'm about to lose my cool and start shouting, something that I really don't want to do in public.
Finally with his lack of help I tell him that I'm going to walk to get the rental and I'll figure out the tow afterwards. It's now 6pm, I've been there since about a quarter to 3. I walk to Enterprise, there's someone at the counter so I step in to a side office to call my wife and tell her what's going on. She hasn't left for the observatory yet because, as it turns out, she's not working! She can come and get me, so we don't need a rental car. One less hassle. Cancel rental car and go back to dealership.
Mister Passive has spent an action token: he's called his region manager! I get to talk to the region manager and he says that they have the correct computer equipment and other tools to service my car in El Paso, and that this morning they will send up a certified mechanic and will set my car straight. So theoretically, my car should be put straight this afternoon.
But there will be a lingering problem: I don't know how much fluid was lost. I don't know if they'll tell me when I pick it up how much fluid was put back in. They had better! If it was just an ounce or two, if the "technician" was quick enough screwing the plug back in, it shouldn't be a big deal, it shouldn't be a problem. But if it lost a lot of fluid, there may be issues because....
The car was driven.
Some oil change places have a pit where there's a basement that a tech can work underneath your car without your car needing a lift. This place does not have one. So the car had been on a lift to be serviced, and when Mister Passive took me out to discuss the problem, it was not on the lift, it was then driven back on to the lift so we could see underneath. So it was driven twice, albeit very short distances, with a diminished fluid level in the transmission. I told the guy before I left that they need to push my car off the lift and not drive it as they would be open another hour last night as they'd need the lift as their second lift was broken.
So there is the possibility that my transmission is screwed up and may have to be replaced. I really should have stood my ground and have had it taken by flatbed to the dealership in El Paso.
One thing is certain: they're not getting any of my business again. We do over $200 worth of business in oil changes with them a year, which won't make much of a dent in their revenues, but I'm sure wherever we end up that they'll appreciate it.
And I just talked to the tech from El Paso. He added a quart of fluid, which means a lot was lost. Which means potential trouble, which means I get to call the dealership in El Paso again.
There's a reason why they don't have the equipment for filling the tranny here in Alamogordo and they had to bring a mechanic up from El Paso: they can't hire and retain a qualified mechanic up here. Shallow and poor quality labor pool. I think that extends to their oil change pool.
It's not like my car has special requirements aside from needing fairly standard synthetic oil, for the most part oil changes are fairly straightforward. And Subaru makes them quite easy on newer models: the oil filter is mounted on the top front of the engine! Once the oil is drained, you can remove the filter with a bare minimum of mess and fuss. It's a very sweet design.
We've been getting our oil changed at a tire shop that also does basic fluids. It's a regional chain that, for the most part, has been reasonable. I've had three problems with them in the past: they sold me a set of tires that were actually high-speed rated and inappropriate for someone who needed snow conditions (different location), they recommended a set of snow tires that when I looked at online recommendations were horrible in the snow (ended up buying fantastic snow tires from a place that gets LOTS of snow, Ruidoso) and they damaged the drain plug on my wife's car by a tech using the wrong wrench, and they replaced that eventually.
No, this time the "technician" messed up and removed the wrong drain plus, removing an unknown amount of fluid from my transmission. He put it back immediately upon seeing that he'd removed the wrong plug, but an unknown amount of liquid had escaped.
Here's the thing: engines have increasingly become sealed units, and the transmission and differential even more so. On my car, there's not even a dip stick to check the level. Get it serviced per specified intervals, and you should be fine. The car has to be connected to a computer for the car computer to tell how much fluid has to be added. The oil change place does not have such a device as they do not have a permanent mechanic.
I know what having no fluid in a transmission does to it. I'd had my '05 all-wheel drive Toyota Matrix for just a few months when I hit a rock going down the mountain to the darkroom to develop some film one day. I immediately put it in to neutral and coasted off the road in to a pullout, but the tranny was already dead. When the shop sales guy told me what happened, the only place that fluid could have come from was the tranny and the differential, both of which are bad to lose fluid from. We got the car on to a lift and he showed me the drain plug, it wasn't immediately obvious which sump it drained. We consulted the owner's manual and it doesn't show which sump it was, but it emphasized that these aren't to be serviced casually.
I call the El Paso Subaru dealership and arrange for me to email a service guy a photo of where the fluid came from. He identifies it as the tranny and says to not drive it, obviously, so the plan is to flatbed tow it to El Paso to the dealership and they'll set things right.
Surprisingly I actually wasn't too pissed off when this happened and I'm pretty level-headed and collected in a crisis. Shit like this is bound to happen occasionally. But I know from experience and 45 days without my Toyota Matrix that a car without transmission fluid means a car without a transmission, so the car was now undrivable until this was resolved. So flatbed my car to the Subaru dealership in El Paso, get me a rental car for two days as my wife was working Tuesday night (so I thought: turned out she was off) and everything should be fine.
But I started getting increasingly pissed off at the sales guy at the tire shop. I told him I'd have to have a rental and that we'd have to arrange a flat bed tow. And the guy just stood there. Didn't offer any assistance. Didn't offer to call higher up the food chain. Finally offered to call Enterprise Rentals, a block away. He calls them and arranges for a car that I'll walk over to pick up. There's still the tow to arrange. I ask him about tow companies, he has no suggestions. And now I'm getting really pissed. He's been totally passive, I've had to initiate everything to get my car taken care of, and I'm about to lose my cool and start shouting, something that I really don't want to do in public.
Finally with his lack of help I tell him that I'm going to walk to get the rental and I'll figure out the tow afterwards. It's now 6pm, I've been there since about a quarter to 3. I walk to Enterprise, there's someone at the counter so I step in to a side office to call my wife and tell her what's going on. She hasn't left for the observatory yet because, as it turns out, she's not working! She can come and get me, so we don't need a rental car. One less hassle. Cancel rental car and go back to dealership.
Mister Passive has spent an action token: he's called his region manager! I get to talk to the region manager and he says that they have the correct computer equipment and other tools to service my car in El Paso, and that this morning they will send up a certified mechanic and will set my car straight. So theoretically, my car should be put straight this afternoon.
But there will be a lingering problem: I don't know how much fluid was lost. I don't know if they'll tell me when I pick it up how much fluid was put back in. They had better! If it was just an ounce or two, if the "technician" was quick enough screwing the plug back in, it shouldn't be a big deal, it shouldn't be a problem. But if it lost a lot of fluid, there may be issues because....
The car was driven.
Some oil change places have a pit where there's a basement that a tech can work underneath your car without your car needing a lift. This place does not have one. So the car had been on a lift to be serviced, and when Mister Passive took me out to discuss the problem, it was not on the lift, it was then driven back on to the lift so we could see underneath. So it was driven twice, albeit very short distances, with a diminished fluid level in the transmission. I told the guy before I left that they need to push my car off the lift and not drive it as they would be open another hour last night as they'd need the lift as their second lift was broken.
So there is the possibility that my transmission is screwed up and may have to be replaced. I really should have stood my ground and have had it taken by flatbed to the dealership in El Paso.
One thing is certain: they're not getting any of my business again. We do over $200 worth of business in oil changes with them a year, which won't make much of a dent in their revenues, but I'm sure wherever we end up that they'll appreciate it.
And I just talked to the tech from El Paso. He added a quart of fluid, which means a lot was lost. Which means potential trouble, which means I get to call the dealership in El Paso again.
There's a reason why they don't have the equipment for filling the tranny here in Alamogordo and they had to bring a mechanic up from El Paso: they can't hire and retain a qualified mechanic up here. Shallow and poor quality labor pool. I think that extends to their oil change pool.
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Hoping your transmission is fine. We had to drop a new clutch into our car last year and the two day job (day one: take it apart, see what's wrong, order parts; day two, put everything together) turned into Wed-Thu-Fri-(closed weekend)-pick it up at 4:30 Monday. They had a loaner for us, but we put more gas into that Infiniti in those 6 days than we put into our Echo in a month.
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[insert usual discussion about Cars These Days and serviceability thereof]
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