acuraowner91

Brought ~100k mile TL into a dealership for $50 oil change knowing i would probably also get a list of things i should repair/keep up to date but i didnt expect to be almost locked into paying additional repairs before leaving.

I had been taking the car to an indy for years who i am iffy on but thats another story. First time at this dealership so they know it has been serviced elsewhere. Anyway, an hour after waiting the service mgr comes to me and has bad news (oh surprise!). When doing the oil change the oil pan thread got stripped/bolt broke (as best as i could understand). They said whoever had been doing the oil changes prior had tightened it way too much and also didnt leave a nut that was supposed to be there. Anyway, this is unfortunate but it isnt their fault it is someone elses and he insinuates the car cant be driven away (he danced around that) until it is resolved. They can either change the oil pan or the lower cost fix is a "timesert" but he said that is also temporary fix. That will be $140 on top of the oil change. I basically said this is ridiculous and I said to have them show me. They explained it but i didnt fully understand whether the bolt broke or thread stripped. When i went out there the mechanics were yucking it up and one guy came up to me with "hey man who does your oil changes they left off a washer/nut". I said , look i came here and agreed to a $50 oil change, the car was fine when i brought it here and now it is not fine. I said i dont have $200 to spend on an oil change. The mechanic said they rather than the the timesert fix they can try to put a new bolt in there but at any time it could leak or come out while driving, yada yada. They also said this happens fairly often (1st time for me in 20 years of driving!). It all smelled like a well rehearsed and fool proof scheme that they can get away with because a non acura shop has been doing the work on it prior. They ended up putting a longer bolt on it but said to drive it carefully until i get it fixed, which should be asap. Is a heli coil the best and most cost effective next step?

I read about a similar type of situation online where a jiffy lube type of place said a problem came up during the oil change and they cannot let the car leave the lot until it is fixed. The person ended up calling the police... This dealership didnt use that explicit language but it smelled like a similar situation.

So is this a legit but unfortunate occurrence and not the dealerships fault? Does it smell like a scam?

acuraowner91

Also, what would you have done in my situation? Should i have asked to talk to a manager and raised hell or is this a situation where the indy shop probably did screw up and this dealership is just the messenger.

Acura-OC

At this point it is impossible to say who screwed up since you didn't do it yourself. I know if feels like a hostage situation but you cannot drive without oil.

eaf

Yeah, I'd say that the parallel with situations where they don't let you leave because you "have faulty breaks" is what can actually be called ridiculous, not what happened at the dealership here. Surely they didn't hold the OP hostage, they just told him that he would put his car at risk if he continued to drive like this, and then the bill would be many $K to replace the engine.

And while indeed we can't know for sure whether there was a washer or not, the story is rather convincing. Oil change places do forget to replace that crush washer, and do overtighten the drain plug. I remember, when I bought my first used Pontiac, and decided to do an oil change, I had to go to 4 or 5 places, because the plug was screwed so tightly, they stripped the bolt's head and couldn't take it out.

And the dealer here did his best trying to help. Even went for a longer bolt as a temporary workaround to use those few remaining threads that are probably not stripped yet.

acuraowner91

Your post is reasonable and points valid but a couple things. The service mgr did not offer a solution for less than $140 in addition to the oil change, the mechanic did later on. After asking for an explanation from the mechanic I said that the option they gave me isnt feasible as I came in for a $50 oil change and the car was fine when i brought it in - then the mechanic said they can try a short term fix. Secondly, it was an independent mechanic, not an oil change place, who has done all the prior work on the car. I can see the prior mechanic being to blame but the fact that they didnt offer me a short term solution until only after i bi**ed is what made it feel like a shake down.

nfnsquared

Your indy should have been using a torque wrench set to 29ft-lbs to tighten the bolt.

Sounds like your indy didn't replace/put the crush washer back on. I assume the dealer put one on before putting the longer bolt in?

If the longer bolt threads fine, then it could last the lifetime of the car... or not.

At any rate, even if your indy did indeed over-tighten the bolt, the idiot dealer techs should have stopped when they realized how tight the bolt was.

TL-GIXXER

I have literally changed oil/filers HUNDREDS of times on my cars, motorcycles and lawn equipment.... As well as having worked in a shop throughout high school and college.

I have never stripped an oil pan or drain plug. I have never had a drain plug that couldn't be removed. There were FILTERS that were difficult to remove at times due to incompetent people using oil filter wrenches to tighten them.... And I would at times have to drive a large screwdriver through the filter to get leverage, but never had issues to plugs.

Weird.

And that's why I'm glad my friend owns a 4-bay shop that I can use at any time

Hi speed

iTrader: (3)

An honest shop would own up to damaging your car. A larger diameter bolt would fix the situation for 25 cents. Lack of a crush washer seems like a strange reason to strip the oil pan threads. Breaking things and asking the customer to pay to fix it, blaming it on the last shop are all dishonest business practices.

Ken1997TL

This is a tough one. Either could be at fault really and I wouldn't assign blame without more information.

polobunny

As Ken above said, hard to say. Bolt could have been cross threaded. Lack of washer doesn't make the bolt magically problematic. It can simply leave your car leaking oil. If the bolt was over-tightened it's a bad move from the Acura tech to try so hard to remove it to the point of breaking it. Either way, someone somewhere used a #!&* impact improperly and it happens more often than you would think.

truonghthe

I had a similar issue with my Lexus the young adviser (kid from college) trying to told me "the tech having a hard time to to the oil change since your oil pan is has been cross threaded" I then ask for the service manager come to his desk and provide me with further explanation. After blah blah services needed to be done including a rear differential fluid flush (which I already did 5k miles ago) he about to go into the oil pan I told him flat out that my car has been doing oil change by this dealer for the past 1.5 years with all the document I still keep. You guy lied and try to get me spend money or someone working here fuck it up, either way you guy can take care of this problem. I also made a comment to the manager "if you guy gona BS at least do your homework before telling me the rear diff fluid need to be done" so you tell me you charged me for the fee and never done the flush or you guy just flat lying now? The manager can only said "let me do a further investigate" then quickly disappear. I then contact the regional dealer file a complaint about the issue, next oil change that service adviser is no longer there lol.