PatternDayTrader

You haven't really explained anything. Instead you are trying to justify poor mechanical service because it benefits you and your operations.

robertbruce

Don't worry about it.

Purple92

I'm a bit late to the party - but two things....

1) I believe the recommendation to add a half a quart of oil when tracking the car is not about the possibility that more oil will be burned in High RPM operation - but rather that sustained high RPM - High G cornering will cause a lot of oil to be sitting in the top of the engine (up on top of the heads) and not be draining back to the sump very quickly. The cars cornering limits were high enough that GM went to the dry sump for just that reason - and I think they are still a little concerned that at some tracks - you can be in a 1 lateral G turn for multiple seconds where you have no oil returning to the sump...

2) As someone who had been a supervisor for well over a decade - you have to realize that the only people who don't make mistakes are people who don't do anything. Mistakes do happen - it's a fact of life, and while training can Help reduce the number of mistakes people make - it won't eliminate them. People have personal lives, and sometimes stuff going on in their personal lives spills over into work. When mistakes get made - you try to do the best you can to fix them and keep the customer happy, but there are limits on what you can do and continue to be profitable. And if you fail to be profitable - you go out of business.

Finally - I would like to say THANK YOU to topper7788 for his perspective. I certainly understand that not everyone agrees with what you said - but some of us do appreciate someone with your experience providing input !!!

topper7788

Thanks, I appreciate it. Tough crowd here.. tougher than I remember..

You may not have wanted to say what you did as holy we know everything when we actually nothing rath may be unleashed on you..

One of the guys who works for me also is on the forum once he figured out it was me had the whole sales department following the thread and let’s say it kept the place laughing all morning...

And of course I received the well deserved “sir, you tell us to stay off the forums and look what you got yourself into.”

Anyway thanks again for the positive comment. I really only post so people can see the other side of the discussion. I forget sometimes some people don’t see any side but their own.

PatternDayTrader

Over here where I'm at we all got a pretty laugh out of it too. Probably not for the same reason though.

PatternDayTrader

A cursory internet search will reveal that sustained high rpm, and high engine load, will result in increased oil consumption in virtually any internal combustion engine.
I was going to post a link because several people have questioned this, but there are just too many. Realistically there could be thousands.

The HACK

kennyjames21

I'm not arguing that me pointing out that this situation is unacceptable will fix the situation, I'm simply arguing that the situation is ridiculous - it's really not that difficult to train someone how to properly change the oil on a dry sump C7.

But hey, I'm willing to help - maybe topper can link to my paragraph and his techs can all read it. I won't charge a penny.

Where are we at now when saying a dealership should be able to properly change oil in one of their own vehicles is compared to fighting windmills like Quixote? Sweet Jesus, lol.

kennyjames21

And you can hunt and make all your own food, make your own clothing, build your own house, etc. But in modern society we specialize and have specialists do most of our stuff for us. And in pretty much every industry that works, so why can't service centers complete a simple oil change? (Not to mention, the new oil for the new vettes isn't even commercially available to the public yet...)

Dave80C3

Have had a few more changes since then with zero Issue. Really do not want to **** the best Dealership for Corvette tech's with in 150 miles off. Corvette techs do not change oil. Like I said one guy got let go, the other got some training.


Which is precisely why the first oil change guy got fired after putting 10 quarts in my car. The work order clearly stated put 9 quarts mobil 1 oil in car, give customer the 10th quart. He still put all ten in the car.

I agree with you, if the oil change guy bothers to read.

The HACK

That's a pretty poor analogy. Do you suppose I drill my own oil and refine my own lubricant too?

Read between the fine lines of that dealership service manager (or whatever his job role is) said. Techs are paid by flat rate hours. That is the same across all make/model/levels of service within the automotive service industry. Say a "simple" oil change is flat rated at 2 units (1 unit is 15 minutes), what is the incentive for a tech to pay close attention to the instruction sheet and carefully measure out 9 qt vs 10 qt from the pump, if they get motor oil in 50 gallon drums? Especially if they can do 3x oil change in 1 hour (thus getting paid for 1.5x the time of work put in)?

Let's take the cooking analogy a little further. I like my wife's cooking, but sometimes I want my meat grilled a certain way. When I fire up the grill, I don't ask her to go shop for the ribeyes. I do that myself. I get the meat, I season it, I fire up and arrange the coals, and I grill myself. That way I get the meat done just the way I want it, using the finest marbled prime cut with just the right amount of pink on the inside. Sure. I go to steak restaurants sometimes and the meat isn't cooked perfectly and I send it back, especially if it's overcooked. But, if you like steak as much as I do, you KNOW every restaurant has a slightly different definition of what "medium" means. And they certainly won't let me bring my own meat.

So I've learned to master the fire and grill the meat myself if I want the perfect steak every time.

But back to the topic at hand. My brand new, 4xx mile as of today, hasn't even gotten past break-in, never had dealership oil changed GS was overfilled by 1/2 qt FROM THE VEHICLE PROCESSING CENTER. Let that sink in. Even GM themselves didn't think overfilling by 1/2 quart is THAT big of a deal (heck the OM states to overfill by 1/2 qt for track events!). I mean, I understand if you gave specific instructions, the tech choose to ignore it, and still overfilled by 1/2 qt that there's cause for concern...But the concern isn't that the car was overfilled by 1/2 qt. The concern is that your dealership's tech choose to ignore your specific instructions.

At that point, arguing on an Intarweb forum or b*tching about the service more than once to the dealership isn't going to solve ANYTHING. It's time to learn to grill your own meat, if you get my drift.

Frankly I'd be more PISSED if they washed my car than overfilling it by 1/2 qt, IMO.

PatternDayTrader

There is none.
The focus is not on doing it right; at best, that is a secondary goal.
Im glad you seem to understand this.
Many do not.

kennyjames21

Mine was overfilled from the factory too, yet you don't see a problem? I guess some are more tolerant of incompetence than others...

And your analogy is crappier than mine - I'm not asking for the perfect oil change, just one that is done correctly. This isn't rocket science or an art - all you have to do is put in the correct amount of oil and then check it with a dipstick (it literally takes less than 10 minutes). If that's too much to ask in your opinion, then your standards are ridiculously low.

kennyjames21

And this pretty much highlights how ridiculous the situation is - you gave them pretty simple instructions and they STILL got it wrong. How is that acceptable to anyone? And apparently there aren't enough people bitching about it or it wouldn't be such a widespread issue - the real problem is how many people simply accept this ridiculous level of incompetence.

I'm glad I seem to have a good dealership with techs that know what they're doing.

PatternDayTrader

I cant speak for HACK but I'm getting the impression he would rather change the way he does things rather than fight against a screwed up system. I don't blame him either.

Lets say your local service manager has a personal problem of getting his hand dirty every time he wipes his backside. His personal solution is to wash his hand. Would you want to shake his hand ? The answer is probably no, because you would prefer to shake hands with people that have learned to do that job right in the first place.
We are all sort of disgusted with the same problem here, as we should be.

The HACK

No, you've hit the nail on the head. If dead ***** accurate filling of the dry sump is a MUST, I'd rather do it myself.

Foosh

We said, sir.

The new car I ordered and which was built on 1/22/18 also came about 1/4 qt overfilled from the factory.

The HACK

Mine's not ridiculously low, I just understand the situation and WHY it's so much better than your average owner.

Think of it this way. IF every single tech takes that 10 minutes to double check the right amount of oil is put into the crank case (or dry sump, in this case) for every single oil change they do, to the 1/2 qt mark, do you know how much money they'd lose personally (tech) and overall (dealership)? Let's take our assumption that each oil change is charged per 2 units of labor (each unit is 15 minutes). An extra 10 minutes spent per oil change means 1/3rd, or 33% less money the tech makes, and in turn, 33% fewer oil change done per tech. That means the dealership will have to hire 33% more tech to cover the same number of oil changes per day, or lose 33% of comps from Corporate if they keep the same techs.

Would YOU operate a business knowing you'd have to lose 33% of your revenue to satisfy only 0.01% of your clients?

I wouldn't.

I see a problem. I have a solution. I drain and fill my own oil. Problem solved. I meet my high level of expectation for a perfect oil change every time by taking the single variable I can't change out of the equation, rather than pound sand and cry foul.

The HACK

One of my bestest car buddies was a 10 year master technician at a high volume BMW dealership. He's since left, long long time ago, due to the BS in dealership service departments to open his now very successful European only shop with a half dozen tech of his own.

And this should really NOT surprise anyone. Really. He told me dealership service department buy wear and tear fluids by the 50 gallon drum full. They don't get the Mobil 1 DEXOS ESP 5W-30 in quarts containers and fill them one bottle at a time. The 50 gallon drums are attached to a mechanical pump that's electronically controlled, you punch in how many quarts you want (in BMWs it's liters) and the pump dispenses it almost instantly, and accurate to the 1/10th of a quart. They don't sit there and pour bottles and bottles of oil down the oil filler cap and wait for it to drain. And same goes for transmission fluid and diff fluid. And I suspect GM's vehicle processing center (I assume the oil is filled at the plant) uses same mechanism to deliver oil to the crank case or sump.

So you tell a tech that 9.5 quart needs to be poured in? They either punch in 9 quart, which is low, or 10 quart, which is 1/2 quart high. A good tech may sit there and read the instructions for an extra 5 minutes so he understands the customer's desires. A tech that wants to meet and exceed his daily quota is probably going to just punch in 10 and forget.

On my BMW, it takes 5.5 liters of 10W-60 motor oil per oil change. And I swear, I've never drained out more than 5 liters from the drain plug. The 10W-60 flows like molasses, and I can let it sit for half a day and it'll continue to dribble out fluid from the drain plug from a warm engine. I've actually captured and measured (since I do UOA on the car every change), from the time it's stopped draining and just dribble, which usually takes about 1 minute, to when it stopped dribbling about 30 minutes later, I can wait and drain out as much as 1/4 liter of additional motor oil if I just let it sit and sit and sit (and let the residual oil drain from the upper chambers and crevices of the head). So if I dump 5.5 liters of 10W-60 in the sump I would almost always overfill by a little. I would dump 5 bottles in, fire it up and let it warm up, check the dipstick, then fill if necessary. That's how *I* do it, but I have time on the weekends to spend with my babies.

When the BMW was under factory service schedules, I had the dealership change the oil when it's free (every 1 year or 15,000 miles), and every time it would come back overfilled by about 1/2 liter. Why? Because they basically crack open the drain plug, let it drain, and once it starts dribbling, close and tighten the drain plug, and use the pump to meter out 5.5 liter of the expensive sh*t (they're $12 per liter WHOLESALE!). They can't afford to let it sit there and wait 1/2 hour for the residual oil to drain out. And frankly, at $12-15 per liter at the time, I doubt they overfill my crank case on purpose.

Now, I suppose a dry sump and wet sump behaves differently. And GM's oil check procedure means you're not sitting and waiting for the oil to drain from the various crevices because on a dry sump, some oil will drain to the oil pan thus giving you a lower than usual reading (where as a wet sump will give you a higher reading as more oil drains into the oil pan). But basically we're asking an entity where time literally really IS money to spend some extra time to accommodate us. Sure, some really great dealers that value customer service above all will likely do it. Maybe a BMW or Porsche dealership with impeccable reputation to uphold.

I wouldn't expect it from a GM dealership for sure. Not when 90%+ of the car leaving the lot is of the econobox variety.

JALLEN4

Simply to facilitate your logical assumptions, flat rate is measured in tenths of an hour thus one tenth equals six minutes. Generally, flat rate pays five tenths, or one-half hour, for the typical oil change. In this time, the tech would go to the car and take it to the work stall. He would then lift the car and drain the system while he goes to the parts department. There he would acquire an oil filter, give them the RO number, and either pick up the oil needed in cans or the the oil pump system is pre-loaded with the proper amount of oil when using bulk oil. He then would return to his stall and complete the job.