Meeting people as a mechanic.

[4king]

I have a civic with 300k miles on it mostly on Firestone brand filters.

Autozone has dropped Timken and now carries moog and national. We have also dropped cardone for power steering pumps and steering racks, same reason as you, I even tell customers not to buy our pumps from cardone.

It depends on the store, every store I've ran goes to number 1 in the scores, but that is not saying much. Again it's hard to run a shop with employees who don't know much. It's a cascade effect if the store manager knows his shit the team knows more, if the manager is a tool and doesn't know anything then you get that from the employees. I love my job and wrench on my cars on the weekends, most mechanics are pretty burnt out on cars but it keeps me going

[LaserSVT]

That reminds me, one of them went to Walmart for tires and to top off the washer reservoir. Walmart said she was due for an oil change and she told them it has Amsoil in it and has another 20k miles left and dont change it. So they didnt. they also didnt tell her they had already drained that $80 worth of oil. Couple days she comes to my shop saying the oil light is on. I check, not a dop on the stick. Raise the car and see my mark has been broken off (I mark the drain plugs on my Amsoil cars), pull the plug and maybe 1/4 quart comes out. Fucking assholes. Car wasnt overheating or making noises or anything and she put over 100 miles on it. I was seriously impressed. We got Walmart to cover the cost of the oil.
You see a lot of snake oil in this buisiness but if i ever buy a new car again i am going to only use Amsoil in it from day one. That stuff is magic in a bottle. Yeah the oil change is over double the cost but you only have to change it 1/4 as often except for changing the filter every 15k. They do have a 25k filter but its only for a lmited number of vehicles so far.

[dsrtuckteezy]

i would love to use amsoil, motul, or something of the like in my motorcycle, but when i can get a wix filter and shell rotella synthetic for 25-30 bucks i cant justify damn near 15 bucks a quart. my bike gets ridden hard, so it never would see 3k plus miles on any oil change, so again, cant justify it.

[JC316]

For oil filters i keep it simple. Anything Ford gets a Motorcraft. Most GMs get an AC Delco and everything else gets a Wix. Wix filters rock. Its all I run on my truck and at 4000 miles my oil is still honey color.

I do have customers that INSIST on Fram filters and I have stopped trying to talk them out of it. I have one customer that only lets me use 20W50 oil in his Dakota. Why I have no idea.

Fuck the AC delco filters. Pretty damn sure that PF52E is the rat bastard that ate two of my LT1 engines. Any of their E branded ones are champion Ecore technology that makes fram look like quality.

[LaserSVT]

I have a civic with 300k miles on it mostly on Firestone brand filters.

Autozone has dropped Timken and now carries moog and national. We have also dropped cardone for power steering pumps and steering racks, same reason as you, I even tell customers not to buy our pumps from cardone.

It depends on the store, every store I've ran goes to number 1 in the scores, but that is not saying much. Again it's hard to run a shop with employees who don't know much. It's a cascade effect if the store manager knows his shit the team knows more, if the manager is a tool and doesn't know anything then you get that from the employees. I love my job and wrench on my cars on the weekends, most mechanics are pretty burnt out on cars but it keeps me going

Ugh, cardone. There is a company i wont buy any steering stuff from. 3 seperate times I have seen a reman cardone steering rack just break in half. Wasnt dropped, installed properly, car sisnt hit anything. Rack just snapped. Plus the seals are shit and they have slop right out of the box! Damn Dodge gear boxes are about the same. They will leak like crazy or not be aligned properly or just not boost. Hate them fuggers.

And Murray radiators! Ugh what garbage. Thats all we used to use when we opened and I would say 20% came back within a year with tanks leaking or a fin that wasnt brazed well.
Last time I used one was on one of my favorite customers SUVs. Put it in and the next day the trans took a dump. The trans did act a little funny before going into reverse so just figured it was its time. We do a transmission in it and the next day the trans dies again. So this time i score a reman one from my friend and as I am on the test drive I lose 4th and then 3rd and then reverse. WTF? Get it back to the shop, get it in the air and I can see the temperature sticker on the side has discolored. How the hell did it overheat? Then it hits me. I pull the lines off the trans cooler in the new radiator and blow through it. Nothing. Pull the radiator out and get my light in there and see the damn cooler never had its lower opening drilled out. Only has a 1mm hole in it. OMGWTFBBQ! Pulled it and got one from Advance and swapped the transmission yet again. Now I am out $2100 in transmissions I have to pay for out of pocket plus refund her for the first transmission (she wouldnt take it as she new her original trans was having issues) and then enter a warranty labor/parts reimbursement from Oreillys. It took 7 months before they cut me a check. A check for $237.
That was 2 years ago. She has been a wonderful customer and friend. I feel bad for bringing this up as something very strange happens with this customer. If out of the blue I wonder how she is doing or if i mention a repair we did on her SUV to someone she ALWAYS shows up the next day with something needing to be done. Every time. Not joking. I would put money on her calling me or coming in tomorrow now that i talked about here. Its the damndest thing. LOL

[4king]

I wouldn't feel comfortable telling a customer they can go 10k miles on an oil change. Literally every BMW and audi holds 9 quarts and they never have 9 quarts after 10k miles

And you are 100% correct on ac Delco filters. When they went to bulk production they started bring pf46e, and they are just regular cheap open element filters.

Cleaned out 3 autozones one weekend buying up all the non E branded ac delco.

But bottom line is any filter will do a good job if the person maintaining the vehicle knows anything about taking care of their stuff

[LaserSVT]

Fuck the AC delco filters. Pretty damn sure that PF52E is the rat bastard that ate two of my LT1 engines. Any of their E branded ones are champion Ecore technology that makes fram look like quality.

All of my LQ customers get WIX. Most of my LS customers have performance mods and will only use Mobil1 or RP filters. I don't think I have worked on an LT1 in years. Older GM cars are 20% Delco because the customer insists that OEM is best, 60% get WIX, 10% get Fram because "Thats what my dad used and says only use them so only use a Fram in my car dagnamit!" and the other 10% just want the cheapest because they don't want to spend $2 more for the WIX.

[LaserSVT]

I wouldn't feel comfortable telling a customer they can go 10k miles on an oil change. Literally every BMW and audi holds 9 quarts and they never have 9 quarts after 10k miles

And you are 100% correct on ac Delco filters. When they went to bulk production they started bring pf46e, and they are just regular cheap open element filters.

Cleaned out 3 autozones one weekend buying up all the non E branded ac delco.

But bottom line is any filter will do a good job if the person maintaining the vehicle knows anything about taking care of their stuff

I am right with you and never told that to the customers. The Amsoil rep did and backed it up with a warranty. From what I have read Amsoil is pretty good with their warranty. If you buy the car new and use Amsoil exclusively with documentation then they will give you a 250,000 mile warranty on your engine should it fail to an oil related issue. Hes been a rep for over 20 years and is a real nice guy. He is into Lincoln Mark VIIIs and thats how i met him. He has a sweet pearl white LSC. Had it since new and has always used their 15k formula version on it. Thing is pushing 230k now and its the only B head modular I have ever heard above 100k miles that never once has made the timing chain rattle in the first second after stating. Car is smooth as silk and knocks down an average of 29.6 MPG. I am a believer but I dont push the product just due to all the human variables and people generally not following directions.

Then again when my buddy got his first Mark VIII it was from his step father that bought it new in 93. Gave the car to him in 2010 with 160k miles on it. Car ran perfectly fine with no noise at startup. As he is handing him the keys he says "Yeah, been a great car. Never once did I have to do an oil change. Just replaced the filter every 10k miles and added a quart." I thought he was kidding. 4 months latter the engine blew. We opened it up and there was sludge like I have never seen before. Was pitch black mud throughout the whole engine. Cam girdles had over 1/2" of sludge on them. I was kinda speechless. Good thing the Benz he bought came with a 5 year service contract or i bet it would never get an oil change too. LOL

[4king]

I'm pretty sure valvoline has the same guarantee. And when have you ever seen an engine failure due to the engine oil, how would anything possibly be covered under that warranty. I mean do they specifically state that they will replace any engine seal leak or spun engine bearing or collapsed lifter. Just seems silly, I've never vested any money on a warranty to help with anything, then again I've never been financially foolish enough to buy a new car

I've just been using Mobil 1 with a Mobil 1 filter, we have them on sale 33.99 with the m1 filter every other month

I think every ford that comes in on average has 180k miles, most Silverado trucks are at 280k, and I've only had one customer beat my 300k mile mark and she was a realtor in a 97 4runner

[dsrtuckteezy]

question for the mechanics. i need to check valve clearances on my civic. are you guys putting a wrench on the crank pully or cam gear to get tdc? ive read both ways

[LaserSVT]

I always use the crank but on a Honda 4 banger that has the plugs removed you can pretty much turn it by hand.

[LaserSVT]

I'm pretty sure valvoline has the same guarantee. And when have you ever seen an engine failure due to the engine oil, how would anything possibly be covered under that warranty. I mean do they specifically state that they will replace any engine seal leak or spun engine bearing or collapsed lifter. Just seems silly, I've never vested any money on a warranty to help with anything, then again I've never been financially foolish enough to buy a new car

I've just been using Mobil 1 with a Mobil 1 filter, we have them on sale 33.99 with the m1 filter every other month

I think every ford that comes in on average has 180k miles, most Silverado trucks are at 280k, and I've only had one customer beat my 300k mile mark and she was a realtor in a 97 4runner

While Mobil 1 is fine now about 4 or 5 years ago there was issues with their 10w30, 5w-30 and 5w-20 oils. I had noticed when pouring them that it just looked thinner. 300 miles latter I lost the motor. Around the same time we did an oil change in my buddies Mark with the same oil and a week latter we lost the motor. A month after that 3 more people in our Mark VIII club mysteriously blew motors all shortly after doing oil changes and all using Mobil1. I havent used it since. I only use it in Euro cars that specify it.
We all switched to Oreillys house brand full synthetic. Its always on sale for $22 for a gallon and a filter. Think my cost is only $18. Been using it in all my Modular customers cars and in my truck for 3 years now. Shop car used to always have timing chain tensioner rattle at cold startup and after the switch its only once in a blue moon. My truck that used to consume 1 quart between changes now only loses maybe 2mm of height off the dipstick when its ready for an oil change. Several Windsor 4.6 F150s we have had come in with what sounds like rod knock but faint have completely shut up after using the Oreillys Synthetic oil. Every time I do an engine swap with a reman or new engine I give the first 5 oil changes for free and thats the oil we use and never had a single warranty repair on them.

Oh and here is a strange one. Buddy has an 09 GMC with the 5.3 and the cylinder deactivation thing. Last year he did a Mobil1 oil change and then moved from Amarillo to Waco and along the way the truck developed a nasty noise. Turns out the deactivated lifters locked up and chewed up the cam and bent some rods. It was cheaper to swap the motor with a new one so we did and used RP break in oil. 50 miles latter I changed it out for the Oreilly synthetic. He put 1000 miles on the truck and I said have the oil changed again since its a new motor (he was back in Amarillo) and he had them use Mobil1. By the time he got back to Waco the engine was faintly making the noise again. I drained the oil and put the oreillys back in and the noise went away. Its been 15000 miles and three oil changes latter and the truck still purrs like a kitten.

Maybe its all coincidence but it just seems to me that Mobil1 isnt what it used to be and that pound for pound and dollar for dollar Oreillys house brand synthetic is top choice in my book.

[4king]

You are correct, the oil pressure dropped 5 psi a few years ago in my camaro, ever since then I run Castrol synthetic.

For my ford fusion I run the m1 oil and filter and it really quieted down the valves.

I've been getting Castrol syntec on clearance $3 a quart for the past year. Somehow the DC just keeps sending us a box here and there

[mustang_revival]

Oh yeah, here was a funny inspection one. Its closing time and me, my techs and a couple friends are just hanging out having some beers and the identical twin to my truck pulls in and gets in line for an inspection. We are all looking at the truck commenting on it and the guy is staring back at all of us like we are crazy or something. Thats when I notice smoke starting to come out from the driver front wheel and point it out so we are all staring at that wheel and I notice a red glow and then POOF! flames start shooting out. Me and Cameron grab an extinguisher and run to the truck while everyone else is running over yelling at him to get himself and his kids out now. He jumps out like we are gonna brawl and then sees the flames. We get the fire out and push the truck to my bay and get it in the air. Caliper locked and melted the brake line. The rotor was still just over 400* after we hit it with a full 20lb ABC extinguisher and the brake fluid was still trying to catch on fire. I quote him out for a new caliper, rotor, bearings, brake hose and pads. Single dad, wife just died, you can tell they are broke as hell. He wants us to just cap off that line. No sir, we dont do that. He aint got the $380 for the overhaul and its their only car. I told him its way too dangerous and he needs to protect his kids. I have to say his kids were just the sweetest things, melted my heart. He had $150 on him. I have a soft spot for situations like that so I told him give me $50 and then I went and picked up all the parts. Noticed the passenger side caliper and line were not in great shape so we just redid the whole setup. I hear the kids grumbling because they hadnt eaten all day and it was almost 8PM. I ordered in some pizza and wings and man did they do some damage! LOL
I wasnt expecting it but that man practically drags people to my shop any time he knows anyone with car problems. The kids granparents stop by all the time with food. The grandmother makes these brisket tacos........ oh man are they killer. Two almost put me in a coma. She uses corn tortillas that are like burrito size and they meat just melts in your mouth. Woman needs to open a restaurant. LOL

awesome

[helosailor]

I've used Mobil 1 in almost every vehicle of mine since the late 90s. Dakota R/T, Jeep Liberty, Mini Cooper S, Toyota Tacoma 4.0, Mustang GT ('06), 06 Audi A4, 2012 Focus...never a single issue with any of them.