I'm a bonehead!

[BSWIFT]

I've been using a fast lube shop for my company truck since I started my business nearly 6 years ago, mainly for the convenience. I've been going to the same place for about 13 years while working for other companies. The guys new me and I "trusted" them.
Now I put 5000 miles on my truck every 5-6 weeks so if I don't see any evidence of fluid leaks on the driveway, I just have them check the fluids when I change the oil. A couple of years ago as my business got buisier, I started taking the personal truck to them. The last oil change on my 06 F150 was in April. The truck sits in the driveway and usually gets less than 100 miles a week. But with my work truck passing 150K miles, we decided to sell the 06 to the company and take advantage of the lower miles AND the depreciation that the business could benefit from on taxes.
I then started the conversion in late June, by July I was using the truck daily. Now I'm putting the 1000 miles a week on it and the temperature starts hitting tripple digits nearly everyday. About the second week of July, I notice an odd sound from the engine and a brief drop in power, then it runs perfect with no noticable loss of MPG.
So I scheduled it to be serviced with a friend of mine. Even though it was an intermitting problem, he was able to recreate the issue. He's a Ford trained mechanic and was able to access they Ford Tech's website. He entered the symtoms and came back with two "possibilites".
Continued.....

 

[BSWIFT]

Ford said that the problem, although rare, was blockage in oil journals to the camshaft and/or to the timing advance. The fix: $2000.00 worth of labor + parts with NO certainty that it would resolve the issue.
My wife and I decided we needed to part ways with the 06 F150 and save ourselves from a REALY expensive repair. So I have my friend flush and change the oil before we pick it up. He calls me back 20 minutes later and tells me there is NO OIL in the engine! The 5.4L V8 had not made any unusual sounds for over 4000 miles. No evidence of leaks or excessive build up on the exhaust. Tranny fluid was good so we concluded the Fast Lube place didn't put oil in the motor back in April. He added oil and flushing agent, drained it out and replaced the oil with Castrol Syntec, the same oil that I have been using and changed the filter. The sound and hesitation was gone. However, we didn't hesitate to trade the truck off.
So, we checked out an bought a '11 F150 Supercab 4X4 with EcoBoost. 3.5L twin Turbo and this thing has more HP and Torque than the 5.4L Triton. I'm syched up and really hope the engine delivers anywhere close to the 21 MPG highway milage that it is rated.
I really hated to buy a truck but business has to move smoothly with minimal surprises. Now I don't know if the quality of the Syntec oil or the quality of the 5.4L V8 kept the engine from dismantalling itself but I bought anothr Ford and I will continue to use the Syntec oil in all my trucks.
Moral of the story, "Check your oil level regardless of whether you trust the place the does the work!" Bonehead lesson learned the hard way.

 

[DWreck]

Back when I was still living in an apartment I went to the quick change places and was always scared to death that they were going to screw something up so I always checked the oil and looked for leaks. Never had a problem other than finding oil above the full mark from time to time and telling me I needed new brake pads a month after I had changed them. (They squeaked) but have been doing it myself and feel better about it since buying a home. When life gets busy it's easy to not take the time. I would say you got lucky on this one.

 

[FruDaddy]

Did you pick up a few lottery tickets on the way home?

 

[Okiewan]

Nice Swifty! Sucks having payments, but sometimes it's best to bail and get it over with. I've seen good stuff about EcoBoost milage, maybe not quite 21 combined, but close on average. Just try to keep your foot out of it.

That's a really nice truck bro, enjoy it!

ps. If you need any pointers on how to get crappy milage, let me know, I'm an expert. :yeehaw:

 

[BSWIFT]

It will likely be a month before I can switch over to the new truck. I'm doing 7 days a week and 12+ hours per day. I'm getting ready to go back in a couple of hours(1AM). The wife likes the truck so I hope I still get to use it;). It will be easy to drive it to hard, the torque is really good. Truck is real smooth and quiet. Went with Oxford white and grey/black interior. The Sync is really cool but I'll have to study up on it. The tech upgrade is going to be fun. I will we get a few add on goodies to help "make it mine".
I really want to go ride as soon as Satan moves out of OKLAHOMA!

 

[RM_guy]

Another quick lube story...not so much on the lube but...my neighbor gets the oil changed at a local place and gets the tires rotated for free. He's always telling how great a deal it is. Well 3 weeks ago he and his wife were driving south to a wedding in Alabama and they are almost out of PA (3 hours away) and there is a loud clunk. His wife was driving so she gently slowed down out of the passing lane into the median and just as she came to a stop she looked out the side mirror just in time to see the right rear wheel fall off.

They get out and the left side rear wheel is only held on with 3 loose lug nuts. They had to rent a van to finish the trip while the SUV was getting fixed (2 weeks for parts and bodywork--the rear fender and bumper were fubar'd). After their week long trip they had to drive back down to get the SUV after the work was done.

I didn't want to rub it in but I wanted to ask him how great a deal the "free" tire rotation was. Needless to say his wife said NO MORE FREE TIRE ROTATIONS.

 

[2strokerfun]

noticed my hood wasn't closed all the way about an hour after I had Wal Mart change the oil. Raised it to close it and found the reason it wouldn't close was because the oil cap was on top of the radiator. And the power steering cap was just plain gone. Glad they put the oil lid where the hood wouldn't fully close or I wouldn't have discovered it for weeks.

 

[_JOE_]

You can get stuck with a guy with no experience anywhere...walmart, sears, little tire store, dealership or whatever. **** happens. Busy dealerships can run a hundred or more cars through the service department every day. They can employ dozens of techs, many of whom are entry level guys....or, as they're known, lube techs. Sometimes you get stuck with the bad apple who's too busy texting his buddy about what kinda beer they wanted to get that night to concentrate on what he's doing. Not to mention things like corroded wheels that might cause them to come loose even if they were hand torqued. The guys who are sharp and on their game catch the little things might lead to bigger problems.....but they're also not working for 10 bucks an hour at JiffyLube. I work for a service shop and we have several smaller companies who bring their fleets to us. They all know everyone in the building...all 7 of us, lol. They know we're honest and can/will explain and show them anything they're interested in seeing. We keep their trucks moving with very little downtime and suprisingly few tow-ins. They know they could get cheaper oil changes down the street but they also know we're going to fill the oil and look the truck over while it's in. If we do find it needs something we're equipped/trained to properly repair it. I guess what I'm trying to say is if you build a good relationship with a known trustworthy repair shop I'm sure they'll make you a priority for oil/fluid changes and other small jobs. It'll cost a little bit more up front but could save you quite a bit in the long run. I'm glad to hear the triton held together! I can't wait to drive an Ecoboost truck...

 

[BSWIFT]

Joe, I hear you. I'll be taking my vehicles to my friends shop for oil changes now. I've always watched when tires are being rotated and the lug nuts tightened. I even tip the tech when they use a torque wrench on the lug nuts. Usually this surprises the techs. I started doing this after I had a blow out and had to change a tire on the side of the road, bent the four-way wrench into a pretzel before getting the wheel off!
To make this story even more unreal, Saturday afternoon, after a 110 degree day, we got HAIL! Yesterday, the windshield on the new truck had a crack in it. SUCKS! No other damage as of yet but the truck had less than 200 miles on it.

 

[2strokerfun]

Sorry about the windshield. But at least the hail was made of water!!

 

[2-Strokes 4-ever]

Not a real exciting story, but one year when at Gary Bailey's MX School we (me) forgot to put oil back in the gearbox of a KX... it started howling when I remembered what I did (didn't do), put some Bel Ray in it (howling went away), finished the class and rode the bike for another year before checking out the lower-end... no harm done.

 

[pesky nz]

oil residue can be tough stuff on one end of the scale and my over cleaning once cost me on the opposite end. Carefully cleaned PE175 gearbox and reasembled motor filled gearbox and started up, within 10 seconds 1 free spinning gear under no load started to weld itself to shaft. Had to strip down and press off outter gear to find siezed gear and with no available parts had to pollish shaft and hone inside gear for what turned out to be a long term fix.

 

[WaltCMoto]

So I buy a Toro lawnmower from Ace hardware, its a floor model, no owners manual. I take it home and cut the lawn. 30 minutes into it the motor dies, 10 pulls later it starts and I run it anouther 5 minutes. It dies again. I pull until I can pull no more. check the gas, okay, check the oil....what oil? Floor models dont have oil I come to find out. oops.So I go back to the store and they tell me I should have read the owners manual that I did not receive. they gave me a quart of oil and I filled it up. That was 24 years ago, still use it, also cut my inlaws lawn with it for the last 5 years. I wish it would die so I could get a new one!

 

[Rooster]

This is a very sad thread. Hand me your "man" card BSWIFT. You NEVER leave the lube joint before making sure everything they did was done right.

Man Code

Section 4.1, Article 3; Quick Lube Service

Stop the vehicle half way through the door of the shop, blocking any further work by the grease monkeys (this helps the unsuspecting customer to learn the rules). Open the hood and check oil.

 

[DWreck]

Ha that's funny. Just make sure you don't slam your door into the the edge of the shop.

 

[BSWIFT]

This is a very sad thread. Hand me your "man" card BSWIFT. You NEVER leave the lube joint before making sure everything they did was done right.

Man Code

Section 4.1, Article 3; Quick Lube Service

Stop the vehicle half way through the door of the shop, blocking any further work by the grease monkeys (this helps the unsuspecting customer to learn the rules). Open the hood and check oil.

TRUST ME, lesson learned! Since I have to make a payment every month for the next 5 years this lesson won't be forgotten, regardless of how busy I am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(man card retained for now)

 

[BSWIFT]

BTW, with just over a 1k miles on the truck, the overall gas milage is 18.5 mpg, figured by the on board computer/odometer. It will be another week or two before I use the truck everyday for work and will be putting some weight on it as well.
The on board computer is very cool and will give a "history" of your last 10-20 minutes of driving. You can also reset the instantaneous MPG history at anytime, allowing you to check just highway milage, thus far, 21.5 without figuring acceleration. The 6 speed auto is really nice and the TwinTurbo really kicks out the HP. It is really difficult to keep my foot out of the throttle. I will add one thing, if you are interested in a EcoBoost F150 here is a tip. Find the truck you want, make the best deal that you can BEFORE you drive it. Once you drive the truck you will make a bad deal just to get the truck, it really is that good. The Sync and other amenities are nice but take some self training to use. Having the truck learn my cell phone contacts and displaying the call on the dash while muting the radio at the same time is fantastic. A definite plus for my mobile business.

 

[2strokerfun]

read a consumer reports mag last night which compared the F-150 V6 ecoboost to the F-150 5.0 V8. Magazine said the V6 had more midrange torque and felt smoother and pulled loads better than the larger engine. Found they got the same gas mileage overall. Sounds like you got a winner !!