Used car dealer servicing....my discovery when servicing my car

[Lord_Lucan]

Hi,

Thought I'd give the car a quick oil change and air filter change today whilst I had a bit of spare time. I've covered 8k miles since purchasing from a used car dealer who claimed to have serviced it as part of the "pre-delivery inspection"

Well the air filter was a dirty and discoloured as I've ever seen and the oil filter was actually fused into the plastic housing and disintegrated into dust on removal leaving the top housing in situ.

Cue lots of swearing and having to puncture the fused plastic thing with a screwdriver and hammer and levering it out and having to clean out all of the fragments of the disintegrated filter. That thing must've been in there at least 2 years if not longer which may well be what the service schedule says but I've never seen anything like it before.

Oh and top it off...using my pela pump I got just under 10 litres of oil out of it!

****** dishonest dealers and cowboy mechanics!

 

[00slk]

Maybe his servicing was a 'Z Service' squirt with a water hose and dry off :lol:

 

[flowrider]

Hi,

Thought I'd give the car a quick oil change and air filter change today whilst I had a bit of spare time. I've covered 8k miles since purchasing from a used car dealer who claimed to have serviced it as part of the "pre-delivery inspection"

Well the air filter was a dirty and discoloured as I've ever seen and the oil filter was actually fused into the plastic housing and disintegrated into dust on removal leaving the top housing in situ.

Cue lots of swearing and having to puncture the fused plastic thing with a screwdriver and hammer and levering it out and having to clean out all of the fragments of the disintegrated filter. That thing must've been in there at least 2 years if not longer which may well be what the service schedule says but I've never seen anything like it before.

Oh and top it off...using my pela pump I got just under 10 litres of oil out of it!

****** dishonest dealers and cowboy mechanics!

For the oil filtef to be fused in place and disintegrate i would think it hasn't been changed for a lot more than 2 years.

 

[Lord_Lucan]

Indeed that was my thinking too...makes me wonder what else hasn't been done on the car. Or has been done incorrectly: i got a shade under 10 litres of oil out of it.

I'm planning on doing the rear diff oil change and glow plugs when it's a bit warmer...maybe even the brake fluid too.

 

[range rover]

I once bought a 230TE and had it serviced, shortly afterwards the oil pressure fell drastically, I had a guy close to home look at it, he said the filter was blocked, naturally enough I blamed the previous service, but in fact the oil previous to my ownership was just topped up and when I had properly serviced the new oil loosened all the carbon, it looked like tea leaves stuck in the end of the gauze in the sump. I couldn't believe anyone being so stupid and careless, I was lucky with that car, the engine never missed a beat, IIRC the front mudguard started to disintegrate with rust. The rear facing seats were far superior build compared to the Volvo 760GLE which replaced the 230TE

 

[alexanderfoti]

All the same. Mine that was "just serviced":

 

[range rover]

You should have seen mine when the sump was removed, absolutely disgusting, the previous owner didn't deserve anything more complicated than a wheelbarrow.

 

[Steve@Avantgarde]

Fair one for being annoyed at being had over, but I have to ask, if you have a natural distrust for "used car dealers and mechanics" and haven't bought from a reputable independent or main dealer, then why has it taken you 8k miles to get around to servicing your car?

I always take the stance in the rare instants that I buy from a dealer is to knock £500 and forget the prep and do it myself.

 

[flowrider]

We take it on trust that when our car goes into a garage to be serviced the work is actually done. How do we know that the oil filter was changed or even that the oil was changed, just because these items are on an invoice doesn't mean they were actually done. Fortunately dodgy garages are not the norm.

 

[Steve@Avantgarde]

Thats where a reputable independent comes in handy!

 

[Lord_Lucan]

Fair one for being annoyed at being had over, but I have to ask, if you have a natural distrust for "used car dealers and mechanics" and haven't bought from a reputable independent or main dealer, then why has it taken you 8k miles to get around to servicing your car?

I always take the stance in the rare instants that I buy from a dealer is to knock £500 and forget the prep and do it myself.

I didn't say I have a natural distrust of user car dealers or mechanics...those are your words not mine.

I prefer to do as much of my car maintenance myself so that I can be confident it's been done correctly but on this occasion I struggled to find time until this weekend (not completely sure why I'm having to explain myself here but oh well).

Flowrider99 makes my point...we don't expect to be lied to and I can appreciate that you'd not do this Steve as you would want to preserve your reputation and win repeat business...sadly some others don't have your ethics.

 

[DREAMER NO2]

I dont trust any garage to do my service .I do it all my self .I know then its been done. But i know others are not so gifted to work on their cars and do have to get the garage to do it .So try them all ,till you find one you will be happy with .

 

[Submariner1]

Hi,

Thought I'd give the car a quick oil change and air filter change today whilst I had a bit of spare time. I've covered 8k miles since purchasing from a used car dealer who claimed to have serviced it as part of the "pre-delivery inspection"

Well the air filter was a dirty and discoloured as I've ever seen and the oil filter was actually fused into the plastic housing and disintegrated into dust on removal leaving the top housing in situ.

Cue lots of swearing and having to puncture the fused plastic thing with a screwdriver and hammer and levering it out and having to clean out all of the fragments of the disintegrated filter. That thing must've been in there at least 2 years if not longer which may well be what the service schedule says but I've never seen anything like it before.

Oh and top it off...using my pela pump I got just under 10 litres of oil out of it!

****** dishonest dealers and cowboy mechanics!

Very sorry for you.
What is the official oil capacity .. 8 liters?
If so I would have been furious, as 2 litres is too much, could have frothed.
Was it very high on the dipstick?
Does it have the correct dipstick in it?

Mine had "just" been serviced 40miles before I bought it.
Straight into a mai dealer for a full B service and some nice Mobil1 0W40
Lots of peace of mind, plus Mobilo cover.

 

[stwat]

Straight into a main dealer,

Lots of peace of mind,

 

[Lord_Lucan]

Very sorry for you.
What is the official oil capacity .. 8 liters?
If so I would have been furious, as 2 litres is too much, could have frothed.
Was it very high on the dipstick?
Does it have the correct dipstick in it?

Mine had "just" been serviced 40miles before I bought it.
Straight into a mai dealer for a full B service and some nice Mobil1 0W40
Lots of peace of mind, plus Mobilo cover.

Official capacity is 6.5 litres from what I've read....I know....how they got it so wrong is beyond me. No dipstick on this model but I measured it using my plea pump.

I guess it's a lesson learnt that people are lying toerags, or incompetent at best.

 

[Submariner1]

I was worried when I got mine, as it had 0.5L too much when hot.
I checked it out with the best MB mechanic I know, and he said I was lucky a) on a 5.5L that amount is fine and would never harm it ( especially as it had only been 160 miles since the oil change, and I kept the reves under 2,500 till the corrective service , and b) the shape of my sump or something stops frothing to some extent; but that at 0.5L too much, it would never be an issue on such a big engine.

He did say, its when you get > 1.5L extra on a small engine; that it can be very harmful, by increasing the crank pressure, and the crank can then "whisk" up the oil, that in turn bulks it up even more etc. His analogy was double cream 1/2 full bowl turns into a full bowl when whisked.
So not only is it bulkier, so it whisks more; but the oil is then hyper-aerated, and air is not a lubricant.
I would be livid, actually if I caught it that bad ..on the first day .. I would not have bought the car.

Its very difficult for you to do anything, as 8,000 miles have passed, and you did it yourself.
Did you not check the oil level for 8,000 miles ?

And I am not being critical, we had a spare 540 BMW at work, so I used that to keep the miles off my SL500. It didn't have a dipstick, so it seemed rather pointless doing the level check, as it apparently warned you in-dash if it was low. So I can appreciate why you might not have looked.

This oil thing, was one of the reasons I went MD for that first service, had it caused damage, I wanted it documented by Mercedes. As it was, in my case it was a total false alarm - and it didnt even warrant an advisory.

If you are right at 10L, thats 3.5L too much. Thats a 54% overfill.
Hate to bear bad news but that does not look good.
But do ask some good mechanic, not a novice like me.

By comparison mine was only 5% over, and that was when really, really hot. And when cold, it was just at the top of the max oil marker

 

[Lord_Lucan]

The car hasn't presented any symptoms of overfilling during the 8k miles covered prior to me servicing it which is why I didn't think I had cause to check the oil....if it had a dipstick I would've checked it as I've checked and topped up the other fluids in that time.

I guess all I can do now is keep a close eye on how it runs and hope no lasting damage has occurred. I covered 70 miles in it yesterday and will do the same each day for the rest of the week so I'm hoping any issues will present themselves soon enough, if there are any. Fingers crossed.

 

[Steve@Avantgarde]

Very sorry for you.

Straight into a mai dealer for a full B service and some nice Mobil1 0W40
Lots of peace of mind, plus Mobilo cover.

I would say that is no fixed guarantee based on the local main dealer here.....

 

[Steve@Avantgarde]

The car hasn't presented any symptoms of overfilling during the 8k miles covered prior to me servicing it which is why I didn't think I had cause to check the oil....if it had a dipstick I would've checked it as I've checked and topped up the other fluids in that time.

I guess all I can do now is keep a close eye on how it runs and hope no lasting damage has occurred. I covered 70 miles in it yesterday and will do the same each day for the rest of the week so I'm hoping any issues will present themselves soon enough, if there are any. Fingers crossed.

If its diesel, with a DPF, the regeneration process can be causing the oil level to rise in the sump by diluting it with diesel....causing it to expand in volume.

I have seen that before a good few times.

 

[LostKiwi]

I would say that is no fixed guarantee based on the local main dealer here.....

Agreed. I had my Smart main dealer serviced twice. On one of those services it has plugs changed. There are 6 plugs and it was obvious when I pulled the plugs myself some time later that they hadn't changed at least one of them as the electrode was almost worn away!

I'd also had them change the engine mounts and some time later whilst under the car noticed they had snapped a bolt and never fixed it.

The only way to be sure a job is done right is with a well respected indy like Steve, Cole or the others on here or to do it yourself.

If you want to be sure a job is done mark the filter and housing with a light scratch and see if it's been moved. A blob of grease under an air filter clip also works, as does a small blob of grease on spark plug cap.