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I’m aware that this is a shit post, buuuut I just want to point out if this was very old oil it would be black sludge. This oil looks contaminated. Probably with coolant. If we’re going to do a sexism let’s at least accurately identify the engine problem.
“She added washer fluid to the 710 cap”
Nah. In my experience it’s normally dudes that cause this problem by pouring cold coolant into a hot engine. Hot engine block plus cold fluid = BAD. The engine block cracks. If you ever need to add coolant only do it when your vehicle is cold (If it’s an emergency and you can’t wait for the engine to cool make sure the engine is ON and you add coolant slowly). If this only happened because someone just poured the wrong fluid into the wrong hole, hell yeah, because I’d rather do a clean out then have to replace my whole god damn engine.
Wow if your engine block cracks because you put room temp coolant in, you should consider a better make of vehicle. That’s ridiculous.
Thermal shock.
I am familiar with it, however if your engine cracks from room temp coolant you have a crap product. We do it all the time and that never happens. 20 years now and not once. Buy a better product.
Edit: anyone downvoting, it’s metallurgy and thickness. Kind of like how you can crack glass with cold or cool water. But your coffee makers glass carafe should be tempered and if you put room temp water in it when hot, it should not crack. If it does, don’t buy that brand coffee maker.
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I don’t understand how anyone can do this. If you’ve spent thousands on an asset that (in the USA) one relies on, surely you’d at least get it serviced once a year. I wonder what her house is like.
A subculture of “the damn mechanic is always just trying to rip me off” will do that.
That’s kind of me because as someone who knows computers well and knows how computer repair places are, I can assume mechanics are the same. I usually plan to do my own repairs but I hate cars, am lazy, and rarely drive mine so I usually go way too long before just taking it in far later than I should have
edit: my car is 700km past when it should have had an oil change and the muffler is loose and bouncing around right now for example :)
Muffler is probable a.$20 fix, if you do it yourself. They hang them from what amounts to two really thick rubber bands. There are two hooks on the muffler and two on the car. That should stop the bouncing. Just ask auto zone for “muffler mounting bands.”
Regarding “the mechanic always rips me off” - find a good one. When the muffler was loose because of a broken hanger the garage called me, told me and asked me if they should repair it by the book (switching out an 800 Euro part) or just weld the hanger - that would be “The OEM doesn’t allow it, so less OEM warranty, but it’s only Eur 10.”
They basically asked me to allow them to ignore idiotic OEM instructions. (Yes it was an “official” garage by the OEM)
Here you are forced by law to get your car serviced periodically. Mechanics are known to try to rip you off every time.
Plus, I could easily raise the counter argument that if I spend thousands on a machine, it better be reliable without needing to get serviced all the time
I’m going to guess by here you mean Scotland (given your username). An MOT (annual inspection) is not a service. The inspection is just to ensure the car is road worthy. Oil and filter changes, for example, are not a part of it.
I do live in Scotland. And yeah, MOT just shows the vehicle is legally compliant. Could pass MOT and blow a piston the next day because it’s not had any oil put in for 10 years.
It’s not Scotland, I Just use that username.
I think the oil change is not part of the inspection here either. If the oil change was that important, it would be required to be roadworthy. Like working brakes and safe tires. If it is not that important… Then it’s not important
Yea that’s not how that works. The tires and brakes stop you from hurting someone else. If you don’t change your oil you will only financially hurt yourself. You probably should not own a car if you don’t understand the absolute minimum basics. Like you shouldn’t have a dog if you think it doesn’t ever need to go outside because it’s pooping just fine on your living room floor. Just complete idiocy.
Alright, I’m tired of this thread, so let’s get this over with.
I know how an engine works, at least to some degree. I know why you need oil. I was pulling your (plural) legs.
Part 1: The fact is that mechanics do try to make you buy stuff and services you don’t really need. It’s just a fact, they are salespeople, it’s their job to convince you to buy stuff. You don’t get to be upset when people say “those pesky mechanics are always trying to make you spend money”, because that is literally in the job description.
Part 2: Unfortunately, we have built a society where everyone needs a car. So we have to make it so anyone can use a car effectively, not only car enthusiasts. Thinking that only some specially skilled and knowledgeable people should be allowed to drive is elitist bullshit. If as you say “these people should not own a car” but then we have made owning cars mandatory, means we have failed all those people as a society.
“BuT iT’s NoT dAnGeRoUs, It’S oNlY fInAnCiAl”… And? Even having a car insurance is only a financial matter, and yet it’s illegal to drive without it.
No get off your collective high horses.
No you’re still being an idiot. You should not own anything unless you understand the basic ways to maintain it. You CAN still own it, but you shouldn’t. When your engine seizes you are making a terrible financial decision and contributing to a huge amount of environmental waste. Like a dog, if you are not responsible enough to take care of it, you just should not have one.
If you don’t trust mechanics, that’s on you. Spend the time to find one you can trust. Otherwise learn how to do it yourself, but follow the manual created by the people that engineered the vehicle. Anyone can use a car effectively and anyone can learn to change oil and brakes. The only truly difficult one is tires because you need machines. Mounting and balancing tires at a shop is cheap, so it’s not a big deal. You saying that thinking only specialized people can drive cars is a weird thing you made up. You can download your car manual for free. You can watch a youtube video telling you how to change your oil. There is no specialization. You are either dumb, lazy, or some combination of both. Your part 1 and 2 are both complete lies AND not even what your were originally saying about changing oil. Are there some scammy people out there in every industry? Yea. So go somewhere else if you don’t want to bother to figure it out yourself.
Plus, I could easily raise the counter argument that if I spend thousands on a machine, it better be reliable without needing to get serviced all the time
So I guess you never wash your expensive clothes? A vehicle is essentially a tool. And if a tool doesn’t get upkeep every once in awhile then it’s going to break. Why would anyone spend some people’s annual income on a tool and not treat it with care and give it proper upkeep so it lasts long enough to be worth spending that much money on?
I have a single piece of expensive clothes. I have never washed it because I wore it only once for my graduation.
Plus, washing isn’t servicing. It’s just washing. I would also wash my car, sometimes.
Treating with care is also not servicing. If I haven’t broken it, and it needs servicing, then it broke by itself. If it broke by itself, then it’s a scam and has no business being expensive, I will have to pay for repairing it anyway.
Btw, comparing clothes to a car is a false analogy because they don’t cost nearly as much. And before you bring up some stupid expensive designer outfits, I refuse to acknowledge them as clothes, they are just shiny gimmicks for rich assholes
It’s true clothes are not a good analogy.
Machines that operate at high rpm are in a category of their own, and a car is probably the only one most people ever own. There are metal parts inside separated by fractions of a mm, moving past each other at like 30-40 mph, back and forth like 100 times a second. It heavily depends on good lubricating oil to prevent heat from friction building up and wrecking the whole thing.
And the oil is a consumable, it degrades as it does its job, and needs replacing every now and again. It’s not part of the MOT inspection because it isn’t a risk to other road users, just damaging your expensive bit of kit (and wasting the environmental cost of the energy and materials that went into manufacturing it in the first place).
If a car breaks on the road it’s a danger to road users, this is just a fact. If it’s really that important it should be part of MOT. As simple as that.
If it’s not that important, then you should not get over people’s asses for that.
True, but breaking by not being able to speed up is less catastrophic than breaking by not being able to slow down, or not being able to turn.
Probably the most likely failure mode from old oil would be seizing up when the engine’s cold, so it just won’t start next time.
But you do you, I’m just saying they’re designed with oil changes in mind, and if you do that one basic bit of maintenance it’ll save you money in the long run…
When I met my wife she complained the car was often smokey and lacked power up hill.
First think I checked was oil level.
It had none.
So I asked when she had the oil changed last, and she replied with something like “Oil change? What’s that?”
That car got donated to the wrecker for tax receipt program.
She’s not good with details, but also never had a dad or car guy influence in her life to explain what maintenance was all about.
RTFM is a way of life. I’m not a car person by any means. I’m about as good at mechanics as fish are at cycling. I just read the manual, and do what it says, if I can. If not, I take the device to someone who can. Most devices come with documents made by intelligent, educated and experienced people who just want to help make it work.
Many people just throw instructions away. Have you seen IKEA returns. Much of that is people not following the pictures
Don’t you have mandatory inspections?
Nope. If you bought it new off a dealer they would nag you for maintenance. But if you bought private and were oblivious to maintenance needs there would be nobody reminding.
Personally I don’t get it, because I always want to know how stuff works or care info, but she saw it as an appliance. You run it till you call a repair person
Much of the world does not have mandatory inspections. For example, where I live in kansas, and your car only needs inspected if you bought it from an out-of-state seller
A lot of people are more irresponsible than you can possibly imagine, and, if you point that out to them, you are harming them.
People live life without understanding how things work.
We need a r/justrolledintotheshop equivalent here. There was a lot of gold there…or shiny flakes in the sump at least
Lol, I can’t even process what I’m looking at.
Crude butter
If you think that’s bad, look at all the random stuff australian shouty nugget man put into cars instead of oil.
Franks dad? He’s alright mate. Those cars had it coming.
Customer states: Not getting good gas mileage.
It isn’t supposed to look like that?
Forbidden chocolate milk.
Big deal, I never change the oil in my leaf.
You should be changing the reduction gear oil.
I actually did that last weekend! It’s really easy. One tool, one drain pan, not quite two quarts of ATF. Then its done for another 60k miles.
Nowhere near as messy and difficult as changing engine oil. And I even gained some range.
