[keysersoze]

Originally Posted by Speedy1975

This is about the best advice in this thread. All the "1.5 quarts low is no big deal" comments are a bunch of fan boys. It's completely unacceptable and if this is what is accepted no wonder the techs get away with it. If I were running that service department this tech would have been fired.

Jesus christ dude. They made a mistake, owned up to it and came to your house and topped your car off.

If this is such a big deal to you I'm surprised you ever take your car to the dealership and allow them to change your oil. If you can't trust them with this don't let them change it.

I can't believe you would fire someone for a mistake like that. I hope you are never in a position where you make a mistake and your manager has the same salt you have for this person and fires you.

[2008 corvette]

my free oil change was done and the next one I did myself. I only had 7 quarts total. the dealership just doesn't know

[C5Txfan]

Originally Posted by 00 Trans Ram

You know, now that I've typed this up, I realize that I'm wrong. Most places (dealerships and garages) would have said, "I don't know. We put 10 quarts in there. Something must be wrong with your dipstick. Bring it back in and we'll take a look at that (at our normal rate of $60/hr)."

$60 hr ??? damn I want to use your dealership - around here it starts @ $109 hr and up !

[Speedy1975]

Sorry to say I'm in a senior leadership position and I expect accuracy from my employees. My leadership expects the same from me, but then I'm in a profession where mistakes aren't well tolerated as they are typically very costly.

Yes I fully understand engines, how they work, down to the oil pickup. Go ahead and only fill your car with 8.5 quarts of oil and have a ball. Lemme know how that turns out for you

Some of the rest of you guys could use a course in reading comprehension LOL

[Zeke.Malvo]

Originally Posted by keysersoze

Jesus christ dude. They made a mistake, owned up to it and came to your house and topped your car off.

If this is such a big deal to you I'm surprised you ever take your car to the dealership and allow them to change your oil. If you can't trust them with this don't let them change it.

I can't believe you would fire someone for a mistake like that. I hope you are never in a position where you make a mistake and your manager has the same salt you have for this person and fires you.

+1

Firing someone every time a mistake was made would be insane. Mistakes happen.

[Speedy1975]

It's not a mistake, it's negligence, checking the oil dipstick is SOP at this dealership and this tech ignored it. You guys half ass your jobs to eh?

[Mr. Wyndham]

Originally Posted by Speedy1975

It's not a mistake, it's negligence, checking the oil dipstick is SOP at this dealership and this tech ignored it. You guys half ass your jobs to eh?

I agree with you to a point.

If this guy was new...and first time mistake sort of deal? Ok, fine...get a talking to.

But if I were that person's manager, and I had to drive out to your house to fill up oil, in an effort to retain your business because this tech made a repeated mistake like this - I would, in fact, fire him/her.

Been through situations like this (on the management side) several times. Starts with a discussion. Continues with coaching...starts to decline with restatement and a "final" sort of warning...then, termination.

Gotta have pride in what you do and how you do it. Whatever you do.

If you don't...why are you doing it?

Still....*moderator hat on*.....let's play nice, gentlemen.

[Marty McFlew]

Originally Posted by Speedy1975

So lured by the "free" oil changes my 2SS came with, I checked around and found what seemed like a pretty decent dealership. I mean it's just an oil change right? Who can mess that up? 10 quarts of synthetic add up so seemed like a no brainer.

Service center is great. Enclosed delivery with giant automated doors that shoot up and down in seconds when you pull in. Nice cute attendant to check you in, and a nice lobby with 70" TV, breakfast, coffee, snacks, and complimentary brand new laptops for customer to use while waiting. I sat at the bay window looking in to the service dept so I could watch the work being done.

I see the tech change the oil, he was careful to put the arms of the lift in the right spots, all good signs.

I asked them to cross check my work on the rear differential oil cooler line recall and to mark that as completed for my car in their system at the same time. I saw a different tech come over and check, scribble some notes in the paper work, and done.

Now, my gut told me to check the oil level before I moved the car, but the cute girl had already opened the door for me and I didn't wanna come off rude opening the hood and asking for a paper towel, so I drove home.

Checked when I got in my garage and sure enough, oil didn't even register on the dipstick!

I called the dealer back and asked for the head honcho over service to pull my vehicles record and tell me how many quarts the tech had put in the crank case. 9.0 was his answer. Sooooo, I said, how many quarts does a 2016 LT1 take.....he tapped some keys....."oh I'm sorry Mr. XXXXX 10 quarts is the proper amount, and I grill and grill these guys that the last thing they do before closing the hood is check the dip stick".

So then I tell him I'm certainly not going to start the car and I needed someone to bring me oil to get the level proper. THEN we'd discuss how to check for engine damage and what we were going to do from there. Mr. Head Honcho does come to my home immediately with oil, I let him double check the dip stick, and watch me add 1.5 quarts to make it mid way on the dip stick reading.

I then told him I'd drive this oil for a few thousand miles and would then send off a sample for analysis to Blackstone Labs, at his expense, which he agreed, and we'd see what the analysis says and go from there. I then called GM to document the issue with them as well, for all the good it'll do if the engine has bearing damage.

I'm doubtful it hurt anything driving the 15 miles home, but geeze you can't even get a proper oil change at what appears to be an excellent dealer.

I think it takes 10 qts to handle all the additional squirt zones for track use. For a normal 15 mile drive home running it 2 qts low probably wouldn't hurt it but yeh they should always check the stick.

[Rusty35]

Originally Posted by Speedy1975

It's not a mistake, it's negligence, checking the oil dipstick is SOP at this dealership and this tech ignored it. You guys half ass your jobs to eh?

Can you give us an example of a mistake that isn't due to negligence?

What profession is it that doesn't make mistakes, It sure isnt NASA, or our government, or Defense industry.
Now that I think about, I don't remember ever meeting a human that didn't make mistakes on a daily basis.
I have meet a few that denied making mistakes, but none that were as perfect as they thought they were.

[Zeke.Malvo]

Originally Posted by Rusty35

Can you give us an example of a mistake that isn't due to negligence?

What profession is it that doesn't make mistakes, It sure isnt NASA, or our government, or Defense industry.
Now that I think about, I don't remember ever meeting a human that didn't make mistakes on a daily basis.
I have meet a few that denied making mistakes, but none that were as perfect as they thought they were.

NO, everyone must be perfect 100% of the time! LOL

I've worked at a dealership before, these types of customers are not the norm. Life is too short, if the tech is any decent, the manager probably just told the tech "hey, heads up when doing an oil change... but don't worry about it. People like that aren't worth it."

[Speedy1975]

Originally Posted by Rusty35

Can you give us an example of a mistake that isn't due to negligence?

Sure, tech gets in customer vehicle and has grease on his elbow. Shop policy is to wash up before entering said vehicle and tech just simply misses the spot on his elbow and gets a smudge on he arm rest or other area.

Back to the point at hand.....

Mr. slacker oil change tech probably does 12 oil changes a day. I'd say each one takes 30 minutes and technically that would be 16 a day, but he's a slacker as we've already established, so let's call it 12.

They use a dispenser system at this dealer to put the oil in the sump, which is pretty common. They're not pouring the oil in from containers. The SM mentioned this as a big risk when we chatted as the dispenser system can get off on calibration and not dispense the commanded amount of oil. We see this in my example as the paperwork showed 9.0 qts dispensed, but I only got 8.5. 1/2 a quart isn't terrible but it would be on the edge of what I'd be OK with as a SM and would want it something less than that.

Now let's discuss what would happen if that dispenser got way off. Now it's only dispensing 2.5 quarts. Mr. slacker oil change tech performs 12 oil changes and summarily burns up 12 engines in the process as the improper amount of oil was dispensed AND he didn't catch the issue as he was not checking the dip stick as he was trained.

Pretty expensive day for the service department, and I'd wager more folks than just Mr. slacker tech would lose their jobs.

I also gotta wonder if I come back in 6 months and post a similar thread, only instead of referencing my Camaro, I instead reference my Dodge Challenger. I wonder if all these "oh it's no big deal" responses would be the same, or would it be dog pile on the idiots at Dodge LOL. Would be an interesting experiment and would be telling for the character of information one could reasonably expect from this forum.

OH, and Mr. slacker oil change tech also did not reset the oil change monitor in the car. That was the first indication I saw of potential problems on the drive home.

[SmAC]

Originally Posted by Speedy1975

Oh, btw, they did tell me of 30 cars that had come through they had not had to replace the lines on a SINGLE car. That all of them had been fine with just cutting off the offending body stud. None they had inspected had made any sort of contact, which is how mine was, I had 1/2" of clearance but cut the stud anyway. He said they only replace the lines IF contact had been made.

Not to go off topic but I guess I will..... I don't believe this is how the recall is worded. I believe its a build date issue on the line. If it was built before (or after) a certain date it gets replaced regardless. Mine had zero contact and was replaced because the date fell into the failure zone

[IOMike]

Originally Posted by Speedy1975

Sorry to say I'm in a senior leadership position and I expect accuracy from my employees. My leadership expects the same from me, but then I'm in a profession where mistakes aren't well tolerated as they are typically very costly.

Yes I fully understand engines, how they work, down to the oil pickup. Go ahead and only fill your car with 8.5 quarts of oil and have a ball. Lemme know how that turns out for you

Some of the rest of you guys could use a course in reading comprehension LOL

So you said 9 qts in, now it's 8.5. Either way, that's 85-90% of the correct amount of oil. No, that's not correct and I would definitely add oil to the correct amount. The guy needs some training/coaching. Not to be canned over this.

While I always put the correct amount of oil in, it's not like a few thousand miles later I've never noticed that it's a quart low (like my Tahoe, which takes far less than 10 quarts, so a higher percentage of oil missing) and the oil pressure gauge never showed a drop in pressure. I also didn't immediately sell the thing and it had driven with -1 qt for longer than 15 miles.

Everyone understands your frustration and you have every right to be. But you're making mountains out of mole hills.

[Rusty35]

Originally Posted by Speedy1975

Sure, tech gets in customer vehicle and has grease on his elbow. Shop policy is to wash up before entering said vehicle and tech just simply misses the spot on his elbow and gets a smudge on he arm rest or other area.

Back to the point at hand.....

Mr. slacker oil change tech probably does 12 oil changes a day. I'd say each one takes 30 minutes and technically that would be 16 a day, but he's a slacker as we've already established, so let's call it 12.

They use a dispenser system at this dealer to put the oil in the sump, which is pretty common. They're not pouring the oil in from containers. The SM mentioned this as a big risk when we chatted as the dispenser system can get off on calibration and not dispense the commanded amount of oil. We see this in my example as the paperwork showed 9.0 qts dispensed, but I only got 8.5. 1/2 a quart isn't terrible but it would be on the edge of what I'd be OK with as a SM and would want it something less than that.

Now let's discuss what would happen if that dispenser got way off. Now it's only dispensing 2.5 quarts. Mr. slacker oil change tech performs 12 oil changes and summarily burns up 12 engines in the process as the improper amount of oil was dispensed AND he didn't catch the issue as he was not checking the dip stick as he was trained.

Pretty expensive day for the service department, and I'd wager more folks than just Mr. slacker tech would lose their jobs.

I also gotta wonder if I come back in 6 months and post a similar thread, only instead of referencing my Camaro, I instead reference my Dodge Challenger. I wonder if all these "oh it's no big deal" responses would be the same, or would it be dog pile on the idiots at Dodge LOL. Would be an interesting experiment and would be telling for the character of information one could reasonably expect from this forum.

OH, and Mr. slacker oil change tech also did not reset the oil change monitor in the car. That was the first indication I saw of potential problems on the drive home.

The Tech neglected to look at his elbow and clean it.

The tech leaving the oil level low and not checking when finished is unacceptable.
Solution , add oil, remind tech to check oil level before delivering vehicle.
No need to burn the dealership and kill all the employees.