My wife drives an 01 Sentra and I get the oil changed at Jiffy Lube for conveniance sakes as she only drives about 5000 miles per year. I was washing our cars today and decided to open up the hood and check her oil.

When I pulled the dipstick out I almost knocked myself out due to there not being the regular metal stick attached to it. To my disbelief I simply had the plastic handle in my hand and was furious. I was not furious because it was broken but for the fact that they knowingly broke the stick and didn't think enough to let me know it was broken.

While doing research on the net I found out that this is a weak spot on the car and several people have had problems with their dipsticks breaking. So now I am thinking about piecies of plastic in the crankcase and how I would retrieve the metal shaft.

The retrieval process many used was with a shop vac but I had an electronic air mattress pump that has a reverse pump feature and used it to suck the metal shaft out of the dipstick sleeve.

I am going to give the folks at Jiffy a piece of my mind tomorrow but for the life of me can't understand why they failed to inform me of the damage.

 

They didn't want to take responsibility of it...

I wouldn't be surprised if the assholes say YOU broke it when checking the oil, that's the sort of thing you expect from these places. They take no blame for their stupidity then turn it around on you.

Unleash the fury

 

damn that sucks

go cause a commotion

 

that is so shitty. i wonder what they are gonna say when you show up.

 

"you get what you pay for"

 

Well I hate to say it, but if it's a weak spot, could they have in fact not done it maliciously? Perhaps it broke putting it back in? Or maybe it was so weak that it did in fact break when you pulled it out and didn't notice?

I'm just playing devil's advocate... I mean, if you're gonna go all "disgruntled customer" at some guy in the jiffy lube that probably wasn't the one that actually did the work, at least consider that.

...no I don't work for JL. I would never take a car there anyway. Even if it was a Nissan.

 

No offense taken. Like I said earlier I am not mad that the dipstick broke as it was truly defective and no I did not break it. Trust me on that. I am upset that they did not have the courtesy to let me know it was broken. Here is a link of others with the same problem- http://www.broomeman.com/mt/archives/001156.html

 

FYI, Jiffy Lube probably did not break that. It is a common issue with the Sentra of those years. My friend also has a 00 Sentra GXE and his dipstick did the same thing. b15sentra.net you might want to research it if you don't believe me.

 

It's also possible that it broke already in the tube. You really have no way to prove anything.

 

How exactly does one break a dipstick?

 

I wouldn't put it past them. My car was broken by a Quick Lube place. It was the Texaco Express Lube On Ponce De Leon. They have a different name now that the previous owners went out of business to duck the mounting lawsuits (mine included) that were coming their way. Never take your car to one of these places. They hire monkeys right off of the street that don't know anything, and Jiffy Lube uses some of the cheapest oil that I have ever seen. I let them change the oil in my wife's old cavalier and less than 500 miles later, the car was making all kinds of noises so I took it to my mechanic and the oil was dirty again. My mechanic looked at it and it looked like the stuff that Jed shot out of the ground. He said that Jiffy Lube uses cheap oil and if you think about it, those places usually cost more than the dealership to change oil. I only go to the dealership for oil changes if my mechanic cannot get to it. I have a nice crack in my oil pan to remind me of why. As for Jiffy lube, My mother had her infiniti over filled with oil once, and a second time, they didn't even bother to put oil back in the car. Luckily she caught it because the car was running so loudly. My grandmother got an oil change in her lincoln but they didn't put a filter on it so you can imagine the mess that she came out to after she went to the store. I could go on all night about the horror stories of the jerks that ducked me and about 100 other customers with broken vehicles. They should close all of these places down. (Whew! glad that I got that off of my chest) Now back on topic, I wouldn't bother with them if it is something inexpensive and there is a known issue with it. These guys are not exactly the poster children for taking responsibility for their actions. My long

 

Live and learn...never go to Jiffy Lube.

 

I agree. They did a study on them and found that 5 out of 9 of them where dishonest. They marked parts with Xs or some kind of letter and then asked them to change whatever it was and 5 out of 9 still had the old part in them. They charged my friend 54 bucks for an air filter and a regular oil change. Acura does it cheaper for synthetic and with them you get a car wash and they check the major compontients of your car for you.