fish929

Last Wednesday I took my 2003 Tahoe Z71, with 113,000 miles, to the local chain oil change place for an oil change; full synthetic as always. I picked the car up after work and drove about five miles to the grocery store. When I came back out and cranked her up, the "Oil Pressure Low" warning came on so I turned her off (engine sounded fine). I had the car towed back to the shop and now they're telling me that the engine is trashed and I need a new one. When I came back to the shop later that day to check on it, the engine sounded horrible, which makes me think they ran it a good bit while working on it. The guys at the shop have told me that it could be a possible oil pump failure but that they didn't do anything to it and its not their problem.

I had it towed over to the local Chevy dealer and am awaiting their verdict, but do y'all have any idea what the oil change guys could have done to it? They are essentially stonewalling me and saying its not their problem, but all I know is that it was working perfectly fine when I dropped it off and now I'm looking at a $3-$4K bill for a new engine.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

fish929

Also, I forgot to mention, when the tow truck came and picked it up the guy checked the oil and he said the level looked fine.

73shark

Welcome to the forum.

Assuming that there wasn't a massive oil leak and the gauge saying "low pressure" was accurate, I'd want to see the oil pump. Also have the oil analyzed.

When front wheel drive started to become mainstream, there were horror stories of these quick lube places confusing the tranny and crankcase fill tubes and putting the wrong stuff in each one.

I'd ask the shop why they ran the engine w/ low pressure 'til it self-destructed.

Not sure why folks continue to patronize these type of places. Horror stories abound re: their screw-ups. One of the main ones is not putting any oil in.

96 hoe'

Ouch,Good luck I'd wanna see the oil pump also. I really can't believe that synthetic oil let you down. I've always used mobile1 and its never let me down even if I did go bit further than the recommended oil change mileage

in2pro

Most of the stories I have heard and have experienced myself is poor workman ship or plain laziness...
some years back I quit going to Iffiy lube because I paid for oil and lube and when I checked the zerk fittings they were still cruddy with dirt and old grease, they never even lubed the truck but sure charged me for it....

As for your situation it is entirely possible the oil pump did fail thru no fault of theres however I do also question why they would continue to run the engine...
there had to be some knocking and clicking signalling that oil was not moving...

You should file a BBB claim just to get them on the radar

73shark

Which recommended mileage? Conventional or synthetic?

fish929

I just find it an incredible coincidence that everything was working fine until they messed with it. The "Oil Pressure Low" light went off literally five minutes after I left the shop. They have essentially said, prove that it was something we did. Is there anything they could have done that would have caused this problem? AKA, accidentally disconnected something?

96 hoe'

synthetic,they say 5,000 miles but i try to change it at 3,500 sometimes I was lazy on my sonoma since it had a leak I'd just pour another quart in

73shark

Mobil 1 is good for 12K-15K. I use the OLM which usually gets me about 8,500 mi. Lot of city driving.

If you're changing a 3,500, it's sort of a waste but to each his own.

in2pro

My OLMS was at 10% and and I just had mine changed and had 8200 with Mobile-1. I suspect the oil condition had little to do with the failure.. it was the continued running without oil that doomed the engine...I hope you have filed with the BBB, its asinine that they would run it trying to troubleshoot it....