Dealer Service Center Oil Change Nightmare

[FRS-Texas]

Hey guys.... I'm looking for a little guidance here.... Below is an accountof what is/has happened the past few days.



My Scion is a 2014 Argento FR-S that was bought Feb. 2014. Before itwas dropped off at the dealer, it had about 8400 miles on the motor.

On August 9, 2014 I took it to the Service department of the Dealer I boughtit at for the 7500 mile service and oil change (Yes, it was a little late).

After waiting about 1-1.5 hours, they said it was finished. I got thekeys and went about my day, running errands, lunch, etc.... Well, about1-1.5 hours later I got a call from the Service rep that they "may havenot put enough fluid in, or may have made a mistake". Since I wasover 10 miles away they wanted to tow it "because it may do damage to thecar".

So, the tow truck towed the car back to the dealer with me riding shotgunsince the Service rep said it may just take 10-15 minutes........ (HAHAHA!)

After 20-30 minutes the Service rep approached me and said "The serviceTech accidently filled your oil pan with Transmission Fluid instead ofoil".... My reaction was.... Huh??? What the..... He thenproceeded to say, they were flushing out the transmission fluid and doinganother oil change, the right way.....

When he walked away, I proceeded to make phone calls to anyone and everyoneI knew who may be able to give me advice....

One thing they all said was, "DO NOT ACCEPT THE CAR!!!" (Which Ididn't, but that parts coming up)

I then called my insurance company to get their advice.... the claimsrep.... thought I was pulling a practical joke.... (Wish I was doing that)

I started the claims process which is on hold currently....

During my long conversation with my insurance company the Service rep wastrying to give me my keys, which I kept refusing... Then the Director ofService started to approach me trying to give me my keys.... I told him,"I'm on the phone with my insurance company", he took off running...

After I got off the phone, the Director of Service wanted to talk. Heapologized for the issue and what they did, he took full responsibility for itand wanted to work with me to resolve the issue...... We discussedseveral options:

1. Extend the warranty to 100k miles

2. Replace the motor

3. New car swap

Well, my first reaction was go with #2 or #3 because who would want toextend a warranty on a car that will probably have issues later....

Monday afternoon I met with the Director of Service, their SalesManager and a Scion Sales guy to discuss what happened and what I waslooking for in the new car swap..... Up to this point I was upset theymade the mistake but I was willing to work with them to resolve the issue inorder to maintain a relationship with the dealer.... This is where they startedto go downhill....

The sales team basically were trying to sell me a NEW car at MSRP, giving mea bad Trade-In value on my now destroyed car, and a payment plan that didn'tadd up (72 months at $465ish per month)....

That deal would mean, I would owe my current loan about $2k, and pay about$33k for a new FR-S because they put transmission fluid in my oil during aroutine oil change......

And they also said they couldn’t replace the engine…… (didn’t give me a reason why)

Needless to say, I walked out....

I received a call later that night to "offer me" them paying offmy current loan, they keep the car, and I could go somewhere else.... So theywanted me to take a loss of about $10k (Down payment and 6 months of payments)for their mistake.... Putting Transmission Fluid in the Oil.... During aROUTINE OIL CHANGE.......

During the call, I mentioned I filed a complaint with Scion which theyresponded, the offer I just got will not be there for a long time....

Needless to say, I said thanks, but NO thanks.....

Scion just called me back..... They said they CAN'T HELP because it's aDEALER SERVICE ISSUE and not a MANUFACTOR DEFECT..... I asked to speak to his manager, who issupposed to call me tomorrow….. Which he said, she will just reiterate what hetold me….. Oh and they refused to send me any documentation stating that theycan’t intervene….

So….. That’s where I am folks…. I need help…. I have no idea what to do…. Ifyou have real suggestions, I’d like to hear them…. Please, no jokes, no sarcasm,or trolling…. I’m not in the mood….



Thanks for reading and hopefully (praying to baby Jesus) this will getsettled soon….

[Sellout]

Start calling lawyers

[mike the snake]

I knew a mechanic that would run ATF in old cars to loosen sludge up. Not sure if that's terrible or not, but if you didn't run the car hard, and it was just for a few miles, I think that possibly no damage or harm was actually done.

Extended 100K warranty sounds pretty good. Carte Blanche to beat the living snot out of that engine and you know it's covered if anything happens.

[Fastbrew]

This really sucks. You could consider taking one of their deals and then suing in small claims for up to 5G for your time etc. Document everything.

All that said - it probably didn't hurt your engine (as sick as that may sound). You caught it quickly.

[xxBrun0xx]

Honestly, I'd take the 100k warranty and run. If you have issues down the road, which I doubt you will, you'll more than likely get everything that was affected replaced anyways. Your insurance company thought you were joking because there's absolutely no way they'll get involved for anything like that. You could try the BBB if you really wanted, or you could just take a free warranty and let it go. I have a hunch your engine is just fine. You'd be surprised how long new engines can run on little to no lubrication.

[DaDr00]

I read this on Facebook and was utterly horrified. I recently had a mildly annoying run-in with a local dealership here in comparison to your encounter.

They'd done a regular oil change (thanks Toyota Care) and checkup on the car and "topped off" the coolant. I drove it home and the next day popped the hood to show a friend and there was coolant all over the engine bay! Looked down in the reservoir tank and they'd filled coolant up to the cap! There are clearly lines on the tank that say MIN and MAX. I unbolted the reservoir and dumped the excess coolant, then took some Windex and sprayed all the coolant residue and sprayed off with a brief power wash spurt. This was one of many issues I had with them. Needless to say, I will not be going back. The icing on the cake was when the service manager came out to me to apologize: "Sorry we had to learn on your car". GTFO

If I were you in your situation, I'd first talk to a lawyer that's familiar with such claims. I'd then also talk to the insurance company as to if there's a valid claim that could be put into litigation. But if both of those come back unsatisfying, I'd try to bargain with the dealership to get the 100k warranty (that is if you don't plan on heavily modifying or racing it) and an extended Toyota Care for another year with free oil changes. But even then, I'd be extremely leery of going back to that dealership.

Good Luck.

[stugray]

If you only drove it for ~10 miles, I would guess that the engine is OK.

IF you decide to take the car back with the 100K warranty, I would demand (at a minimum) that they:
Perform 3 oil changes with new oil and let the car run for ~1 hour each time.
Give you free oil changes for the next 5k miles with a change every 1k miles and free oil analysis from Blackstone.
If it survives that long and the analysis doesnt show anything out of the ordinary, I would think you are out of the woods.

Other than the auto trans fluid burning from over temp (for the short duration that you drove it) and the possible risk to seals (from the different additives), I would think that it wouldnt cause serious damage.

I am curious what the oil pressure would do under the circumstances.

[zc06_kisstherain]

OP, you don't have to post same stuff on all forum sections

[FRS-Texas]

Didn't know where to post it....... My bad....

[Cope52]

This sounds like something Jiffy Lube would do. How far was the car driven after? I would think the motor could be saved if it was little. Our cars have the world's easiest oil change--can be done in 7 minutes with the car on the ground for 35 clams. If you do end up getting a new car out of this, get a stick! Best of luck.

[eric6]

Realistically the dealership is trying to do the right thing... they could have lied and not even said anything about the ATF. They didn't though, they told it how it was.

I would take the extended warranty, a free oil change, and ask them to run a few blackstone oil analysis and be on my way. If the engine got damaged (which I doubt it did, like stated above, ATF has a lot of cleaners in it and is used to clean out sludge from old engines) it will be causing issues well under 100k miles.

This is coming from someone who used to work as a tech. It was an honest mistake, and with how shady a lot of dealership are, they told the truth and offered a few reasonable options to you.

[mike the snake]

I read in one of the responses to the OP's multiple same threads, that ATF is the exact same viscosity as 0-20 motor oil, so I'd expect no differences in oil pressure.

Originally Posted by stugray

If you only drove it for ~10 miles, I would guess that the engine is OK.

IF you decide to take the car back with the 100K warranty, I would demand (at a minimum) that they:
Perform 3 oil changes with new oil and let the car run for ~1 hour each time.
Give you free oil changes for the next 5k miles with a change every 1k miles and free oil analysis from Blackstone.
If it survives that long and the analysis doesnt show anything out of the ordinary, I would think you are out of the woods.

Other than the auto trans fluid burning from over temp (for the short duration that you drove it) and the possible risk to seals (from the different additives), I would think that it wouldnt cause serious damage.

I am curious what the oil pressure would do under the circumstances.

[wheelhaus]

I also understand lower viscosity motor oil and ATF are nearly the same viscosity, just different additives, etc. At least they filled the engine with an oil designed to lube metal, and didn't fill your engine with coolant or washer fluid- something that would have been immediately catastrophic. Unless you plan on doing a lot of engine mods, the 100k warranty sounds like a good plan.

stugray's quoted advice above sounds perfectly reasonable with the blackstone testing, etc. Maybe have that typed up in a formal letter and have the Director of Service sign a copy for your records.

[FRS-Texas]

k guys..... As you can see, I've deleted all my posts relating to the car problems I've had the past 6 days. I showed good faith to the dealership to help us come to a mutually agreeable corse of action to resolve my "issue". The outcome is this.... For the next 5000 miles, I am getting a free oil change every 1000 miles along with oil samples to send to Blackstone Labs for analysis. Based on those ongoing results more action (repairs, etc) may need to be done. Along with that, they are extending my warranty 75k miles for 5 years. Yes, this isn't the greatest conclusion but it was the best thing considering all the money I could spend on legal fees, an expert witness, master mechanics, etc. all on the hope that I could prove damage was done.
In conclusion, I am satisfied with the end results and that's really all that matters.


Also, I'd like to thank all the people who tried to help me with this issue in the group.... This is why I love the community, when people have real problems, most people try to offer real advice..... (Haters gonna hate.... Horses gonna horse.....)