Current Events > One of my technicians got fired today for leaving the oil cap off a vehicle.

(+) Yeah! (+)

The customer was absolutely furious and demanded a new vehicle. I can't say I blame him - it's a 2017 Ford F-150 that he bought from us new, and it had issues with its remote start system from the get-go. But that's just background info.

So he brings it in this morning, and the engine bay is coated with oil. It stinks to high heaven, and looks like a high pressure line blew. NOPE - some dumbass just left the oil cap off. He'd been driving it around like that for two and a half months before he noticed the engine having problems (which either speaks to the reliability of modern engines and oils, or suggests that he has a lousy sense of smell).

I'm not really sympathetic to the tech, since I've seen him do shady stuff like replacing perfectly good batteries under warranty by testing a dead one he kept under his bench.

So, yeah. Interesting day today.

sheesh
---

That's funny because something similar happened to one of my technicians today, The customer was absolutely furious and demanded a new vehicle. I can't say I blame him - it's a 2017 Ford F-150 that he bought from us new, and it had issues with its remote start system from the get-go. But that's just background info.

So he brings it in this morning, and the engine bay is coated with oil. It stinks to high heaven, and looks like a high pressure line blew. NOPE - some dumbass just left the oil cap off. He'd been driving it around like that for two and a half months before he noticed the engine having problems (which either speaks to the reliability of modern engines and oils, or suggests that he has a lousy sense of smell).

I'm not really sympathetic to the tech, since I've seen him do shady stuff like replacing perfectly good batteries under warranty by testing a dead one he kept under his bench.

So, yeah. Interesting day today.
---

The car still went vroom vroom in the end so I don't see the problem.
---

did he get a new car?
---

treewojima posted...

I'm not really sympathetic to the tech, since I've seen him do shady stuff like replacing perfectly good batteries under warranty by testing a dead one he kept under his bench.

why would he do that? like did he steal the good batteries that got replaced or something?
---

FLUFFYGERM posted...

did he get a new car?

Possibly. I don't know how my service director handled it. The only time I spoke to the customer was on the phone, when he called to ask what was going on. I knew something was wrong when I asked another tech if he knew about the truck, and he said "I'm staying out of this. Go talk to [boss]."

Later on, my boss came in and talked to us about what was going on, and mentioned that the tech in question was unfortunately no longer with us.

It's the kind of thing that happens that you don't really ask management about, because it starts to turn into gossip.

Yikes, that's a pretty serious error to make lol.

Would this require a replacement of the engine?
---

I would demand a new car too. Oil is a big deal and a busted engine would be thousands. Especially if this tech is a bitch who does shady shit like that.
---

He'd been driving it around like that for two and a half months

Any your company still copped to the blame?
Or is this some copy/pasta I haven't see . . . since you admitted to witnessing stealing from customers . . .
---

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

He'd been driving it around like that for two and a half months

Any your company still copped to the blame?
Or is this some copy/pasta I haven't see . . . since you admitted to witnessing stealing from customers . . .

Yeah this.

Its been so long that any number of things could have happened between then and now. Seems crazy to me that theyd blame the tech for it and fire him unless this was just an excuse
---

KILBOTz posted...

treewojima posted...

I'm not really sympathetic to the tech, since I've seen him do shady stuff like replacing perfectly good batteries under warranty by testing a dead one he kept under his bench.

why would he do that? like did he steal the good batteries that got replaced or something?

No, but he was payed based on flat rate, so the more work he could claim to have cranked out, the more money he got. I'm not sure if he actually replaced the batteries in the vehicles or not.

It pissed me off because there were several times I had to try to explain to customers why their batteries were replaced when they weren't experiencing any battery concerns, and I knew why.

treewojima posted...

It pissed me off because there were several times I had to try to explain to customers why their batteries were replaced when they weren't experiencing any battery concerns, and I knew why.

Get some fucking integrity you piece of shit.
Congrats on a successful troll tho.
---

TheGoldenEel posted...

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

He'd been driving it around like that for two and a half months

Any your company still copped to the blame?
Or is this some copy/pasta I haven't see . . . since you admitted to witnessing stealing from customers . . .

Yeah this.

Its been so long that any number of things could have happened between then and now. Seems crazy to me that theyd blame the tech for it and fire him unless this was just an excuse

That's what sucks about working in the car service business. It attracts a lot of liars and bullshitters. I (unfortunately) happen to be good at both, but I do my best to leverage it for the good of the customer. I don't like selling or ripping people off, but I'll happily pretend that a vehicle's odometer reads juuuuust under the mileage limit for warranty coverage rather than be honest and tell them they're fucked.

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

treewojima posted...

It pissed me off because there were several times I had to try to explain to customers why their batteries were replaced when they weren't experiencing any battery concerns, and I knew why.

Get some fucking integrity you piece of shit.
Congrats on a successful troll tho.

Lol, if I had been honest and told the customer that the technician pretended that the battery had failed and replaced it under warranty so that Ford would throw him an extra two-tenths of an hour, they'd (rightfully) never want to set foot in a dealership again. The whole goddamn dealership industry is based on lies and deceit.

I can't wait to quit this job, honestly.

treewojima posted...

The whole goddamn dealership industry is based on lies and deceit.

Yeah, there are pretty few fields more shady than dealerships and most of them are illegal.
---

About 10 years ago some fool at the local Walmart Lube blew the co-managers car up when she took it in for a oil change.

Forgot to put the drain plug back on.

So all the new oil he put in drained out the bottom.

Barely made it out of the garage when the thing locked up.
---

VoightKent posted...

hmm, what's precisely the danger of the engine being coated with oil?

There's no danger to the car as far as I'm aware unless something catches fire.

The person... that's another story entirely. The oil will burn from the engine heat and I can't imagine that shit is healthy to breathe in. A tech once spilled a few drops by accident and warned me about it, and I'm like whatever.

I drove straight home and when I got there I had to leave the garage open because it smelled that bad.

IF the guy in question parked outside he might not have noticed it for a while.
---

Can't the oil catch on fire if the engine gets too hot?
---

VoightKent posted...

hmm, what's precisely the danger of the engine being coated with oil?

And how exactly does the customer prove that your employee is responsible?

The engine being coated with oil isn't the problem, it's that the engine is belching its own supply of internal lubrication into the engine bay. Without oil, an engine will start gnawing away at itself from the inside out and eventually either seize up or blow up in a fantastically catastrophic manner.

Also, we inferred that the technician had left the oil cap off because he probably was the last person to touch it. Sure, we could imagine that the customer did it himself in some sort of weird kamikaze scam, or that the customer had gone to some other shop like Jimmy Joe's Garage, and maybe they fucked it up. My personal interaction with the customer led me to believe that he genuinely didn't know the first thing about cars, so he wouldn't have been able to connect the dots without our help.

CableZL posted...

Can't the oil catch on fire if the engine gets too hot?

Yeah, it can. Semi-synthetic oil doesn't really like to burn as readily as "dino" oil though. Mostly it just makes a really awful smell.

CableZL posted...

Can't the oil catch on fire if the engine gets too hot?

motor oil flash point is below 500*
something like your exhaust manifold could get up to like 1000* at parts, with most of it over like 700*.

so yes, it could catch on fire.
---

MC_BatCommander posted...

Yikes, that's a pretty serious error to make lol.

Would this require a replacement of the engine?

No. And if oil was lost, still no depending on how much. But if this happens you should still milk everything you can out of who made the mistake because it has the potential to be catastrophic and theres often no way of knowing just how much damage was caused.
---

I keep expecting to read:

As many of you know, I'm an avid Amiibo collector...

---

Ctrl+F "blood was everywhere"

0 results found.

Fail.
---

Happened to me once. I smelled it immediately the same day and took it in the next day and they replaced the oil cap. -_-
---

I've had so many people tell me places forgot to put oil in or put the cap back on. Always pop your hood afterwards.
---

How do you know the technician forgot to put it on?
---