Oil leak in car, questions?

[IsaacHayes]

Your engine may be fine. It really depends on the motor. My dad had a 2.5l 4cyl "iron duke" and a 5 cent part in the oil pump failed. He lost oil pressure. He thought the sending unit was bad, and drove it 40 miles. Next morning he fired it up and it clacked. So he knew there was no pressure. Took out the oil pump, put a new pin in it I think, and the motor was fine. 40 miles with no oil pressure!!!!! He put like another 60,000 miles on after that no problem. My motor however, would eat a bearing in an instant if it lost pressure.

But if you don't have any problems and it sounds fine then you are probably ok. Might of taken a few thousand off the life of the motor, but if you didn't beat on it while it was low you're probably ok. I'd just watch it to make sure it doesn't burn/eat oil faster, as that's a sign that the rings/bore is worn from lack of lubrication.

Yeah, I don't trust anyone to work on my car. The one time I decided to let someone do something for me (assemble a strut, spring and mount) they did it wrong so the bearing didn't turn, and after I had it on my car and payed $50 for an alignment, I found out. It bent the struts, strut mounts, and wore my steering rack. Of course the shop changed owners and I didn't get any $$ or fix for it. I did it myself then and fixed it all. Ugh.

Not saying everyone's bad, it's just good to know how it works and double check their work!!! I'm paranoid about somethings and usualy for a good reason, and it's saved me a bunch of times.

 

[Lucero]

BTW : Has everyone seen this TV news report where they hid cameras in several locations of a car and took it to Jiffy Lube in SoCal and then 5 out of 9 shops visited cheated them by not performing work that was charged to the customer?

Lucero

 

[etc]

Yeah, I don't trust anyone to work on my car

Bingo.. I stay away from these quick-lube type places. What happened to you is actually relatively mild. If you hang out at cool places like BobIsTheOilGuy dot com, you will hear far worse stories, like them forgetting to put *any* oil at all, or loosing the screw bolt, or whatever.

I can do a far better job, and for about the same price, I get to use Mobil 1 Synth. oil.

 

[DieselDave]

I drove my Dad's old Suburban back from Texas 2 years ago, 1986 model. About 10 at night out in the boonies on I-10 running 70 about 300 miles from home I looked down to see the oil pressure sitting on 0. I immediately turned off the engine, cussed and coasted to a stop on the shoulder in VERY rural LA. No traffic for you that are thinking that sounds dangerous. I checked the oil and it was full. I restarted it and it still showed 0 but sounded normal. I called my Dad on the cell and asked if he had noticed the pressure going to 0. He said, "Oh yea, I meant to mention that, the sending unit it bad." I cussed again then started it and took off down the road. The pressure came back up to normal a few minutes later.

Two week ago my daughter called me crying. Her car had died and she was worried about re-starting it because the oil pressure was near 0. Get it…the car was not running at the time. At least I have her trained to keep an eye on it.