landtank said:
In my best Ed McMahon voice, "I did not know that!"
Oil Drain Plug Stripped!
- Thread starter Brentbba
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In my best Ed McMahon voice, "I did not know that!"
I am yet to understand how a drain plug is X-thread by any human being. But my guess is the monkey involved used an impact wrench to put the plug back in. Your only option is civil unrest and physical punishment. Or go the helicoil option, not sure which is more humane. In any case, try to corner the criminals into submission. If you need help, I kno some croatians that could help.
Spartan,
As a former manufacturing car guy and also former District Sales Manager, I don't agree with that approach as the first attempt. As a DSM I worked exclusively with Dealers/Owners for a couple years and they won't take that crap from anybody. And they shouldn't. They have a qualified staff and procedure in place to handle things like this that come up in the normal course of business even for the best run dealerships.
If someone comes in the door like that insisting to only speak with the top brass and mentioning court - they have no choice but to immediately go into defensive mode. Don't try this. Be a civil and reasonable human being and you'll get way farther. If you're not being treated well you always have the "I'm gonna sue you" option later that you can use in order to learn that rich people like automotive dealers have excellent and experienced legal teams. That's generally a losing proposition.
DougM
As a former manufacturing car guy and also former District Sales Manager, I don't agree with that approach as the first attempt. As a DSM I worked exclusively with Dealers/Owners for a couple years and they won't take that crap from anybody. And they shouldn't. They have a qualified staff and procedure in place to handle things like this that come up in the normal course of business even for the best run dealerships.
If someone comes in the door like that insisting to only speak with the top brass and mentioning court - they have no choice but to immediately go into defensive mode. Don't try this. Be a civil and reasonable human being and you'll get way farther. If you're not being treated well you always have the "I'm gonna sue you" option later that you can use in order to learn that rich people like automotive dealers have excellent and experienced legal teams. That's generally a losing proposition.
DougM
IdahoDoug said:
I agree 100%, well worded; in business, and in government there is a chain of command for a real reason - delegation of duty, delegation of responsibility etc. If someone comes stomping in to speak to me and they have totally bypassed my management team, and particularly if they are threatening, I am MUCH less inclined to take that threat seriously or to factor that into my response or over-response as the case may be - its almost like their total lack of reasonable respect reveals why they are having problems fixing the problem. If on the other hand someone has tried the chain of command and it has not worked well and they come to me "for help" then not only do I help them but I also follow up and follow through to figure out why none of my management team was able to assist them prior to their plea for help to me. I really think that there is almost never any call to be rude, threatening, etc. Just be good to them and they are likely to be good to you. Sheesh, why is civility so rare anyway, I find I get so much further and so much faster by giving people ALL the right reasons to do ALL the right things. JMHO.
Have a gorgious girl you know underdress and go in there and say that it is her truck and you just have been taking it in there for her. They won't be able to resist, I wouldn't.
alvarorb said:
Does the tranny oil really help that much, should I do it?
alvarorb
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mitchhonore said:
Mitch,
How many miles on your rig?
Have you ever done a tranny flush?
At less than $2 per quart, you've got nothing to loose. Try it and you'll see the diference.
Regards
Alvaro
Read again - I didn't make any reference to being " rude " or threatening. I did use the word calmly. I also said to mention small claims court only if necessary. Not a threat just a simple " Gosh, I wish we could work this out, I'd hate to end up in court over it." will do.
Dealers have a chain of command and the CSR's cannot and will not make a call on this so why waste the time? It is serious enough to warrant speaking with the GM or their head of customer service as required. Too bad if somebody get's their panty's balled. That's what it will take to get this man a new oil pan.
I fielded literally hundreds of calls over the years that bypassed my trained managers. 99.9 percent of those issues were resolved through calming the customer, discussing the issue internally, getting a plan together and implementing it with the whole team involved, instead of wasting the customers time and distracting my team members from productive work issues. And these calls were for much more substantial issues than a little oil pan.
As far as government : local, state and federal - it's all a waste of time.
Legal teams don't matter - I am not an attorney and I have put forth evidence in three courts to have the judge(s) rule in my favor of automotive repair / warranty neglect. BMW M5 clutch failure, Mercedes 420 interior damage and FJ60 emmisions control systems. Proof that dealer / owners will take the crap and eat it when they are at fault.
I am not a litigious person, but I do understand the legal responsibilities that dealers accept when you hand them your key. Unfortunately dealerships are dealerships and they will not treat you fairly unless you treat them as they treat their customers - without respect or fairness.
Dealers have a chain of command and the CSR's cannot and will not make a call on this so why waste the time? It is serious enough to warrant speaking with the GM or their head of customer service as required. Too bad if somebody get's their panty's balled. That's what it will take to get this man a new oil pan.
I fielded literally hundreds of calls over the years that bypassed my trained managers. 99.9 percent of those issues were resolved through calming the customer, discussing the issue internally, getting a plan together and implementing it with the whole team involved, instead of wasting the customers time and distracting my team members from productive work issues. And these calls were for much more substantial issues than a little oil pan.
As far as government : local, state and federal - it's all a waste of time.
Legal teams don't matter - I am not an attorney and I have put forth evidence in three courts to have the judge(s) rule in my favor of automotive repair / warranty neglect. BMW M5 clutch failure, Mercedes 420 interior damage and FJ60 emmisions control systems. Proof that dealer / owners will take the crap and eat it when they are at fault.
I am not a litigious person, but I do understand the legal responsibilities that dealers accept when you hand them your key. Unfortunately dealerships are dealerships and they will not treat you fairly unless you treat them as they treat their customers - without respect or fairness.
Last edited:
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Brentbba said:
Isn't that what you wanted? New oil pan?
They're gonna put oil in there too, no?
That oil pan is suppose to be a bitch to take off, not like a 2F on an FJ40.
Tell us how many hours they claim it takes. Glad you have it resolved.
Tell us how many hours they claim it takes. Glad you have it resolved.
Actually the steel lower, where the drain plug is, is fairly easy. The aluminum upper is the fun one.
- Thread starter
- #37
cruiserdan said:
What he said.
I think I shocked the service writer when I asked him to ensure they cleaned all the old silicone sealant from where the lower pan seats to the upper before applying the new stuff. hehehe
Ken - based on their original 'estimate' to me and knowing what they 'wanted' to charge me for the pan, I'd guess 2 to 2 1/2 hours at book rate. Haven't looked recently at their hourly rate, but it used to be $85/hr and that's what I'm basing my guestimate on.
Brentbba said:
That's the key. I run a tire/lube shop and the person doing the oil change when they find out that it's stripped is usually not at fault. We use a torque wrench and have a chart that tells us the manufacturer's torque specs for the vehicles that we service. When you start to remove the plug you should be able to unthread it by hand all the way out. If not, there's clue number one that there's a problem.
If you start to remove it and are getting a bit of resistance but the resistance stops once the thread is halfway out the you usually just need a new drain plug. The threads in the drain plug are usually twice as long as the threads in the pan. The only threads on the plug that are holding torque are the half closest to the head of it. The rest of the threads just stick through the pan. So if the first half come out a bit tough then it's easy to unscrew by hand the rest of the way then usually it's just the threads on the first half of the plug are damaged and the pan is fine. In that case we just install a new drain plug free of charge for them. Usually when I come across that situation and I've determined that the pan is actually stripped (before I totally remove the plug) I'll find out if we did the service last and if so I let the customer know to get a new pan put on and I'll reimburse them. If somebody else did the service last then I let the customer know that they should take it back to that shop and show them the damage and they should take care of it. I've only come across ONE situation in over a year since we opened up (I figure about 6000 oil changes in that time) where we have come across a stripped pan that was our fault and that was last week. I gladly had a new oil pan installed for that customer at a mechanic shop. Installing an oversize drain plug is not the right thing to do, nor is tapping it out for a larger size plug. It'll just end up giving you more problems down the road again.
I guess what I'm getting at is that the dealership should have realized BEFORE they pulled the plug all the way out that it was damaged. Even if they missed it then, they should have inspected the plug and gasket before it was reinstalled. A plug that needs to be replaced you can hold up to the light and look at the threads and see that the threads on the half closest to the head are angled away from the head from being overtorqued. That was mistake 2 that they made. They should have also felt the resistance when they tried to thread it back in. Mistake 3. And mistake 4 is not taking care of the situation for you. Not only do they (apparently) not plan on fixing it for you, they're planning on charging you for the new oil pan you are going to purchase from them?! I'd find somebody else to change my oil.
cruiserdan said:
for some reason I thought the plug was in the aluminum one.
I have just found that my tranny drain plug is striped and I'm thinking that as changing the tranny oil is infrequent I might soldier the plug back in. Any thoughts or experience of this? I could also drop the pan and put in a bolt with washers on both sides. In future all I need do is loosen the underside bolt. Just thinking aloud. A good time to change the oil filter?
Michael
Michael
