My husband & I had a 1989 Toyota Corolla that was purchased from a dealer with only 70K miles on it. Because this was our commuter car that we drive from Palmdale to Hollywood we were diligent about changing the oil every 3000 miles.
Since Wal Mart was just up the street from us we decided to take the car there. The first oil change was fine. No problems. It wasn't until the second oil change...
We didn't think anything of the guy not topping off the fluids like we paid them to do. We just requested that they do it. We never thought to check the oil too!
So there we were driving our car 70 miles each way 4 days a week (560 miles per week). Then at 1am on a Sunday morning, as my husband was getting off the freeway, he came to a stop sign and the car stalled.
My husband tried to get it started but it refused. We had the car towed home and checked it out the next morning. We checked the gas level, the starter, the battery.
Then we decided to check the oil. The dip stick was bone dry! Now we keep our car parked in our garage and if there had been any type of leak, we would have noticed it. There was nothing.
Our mechanic told us that the engine froze because there was NO oil in the car! We drove that car 3025 miles with NO oil.
The engine would have to be re-built. We were making payments on this car to re-establish our credit and could not afford another $1200 to repair the engine. There was nothing we could do since Wal Mart refused to take responsibility. There was no burden of proof.
We ended up having to give the car back as a voluntary reposession, ruining our credit even further. Not only were we out a car, we have another negative on our credit report and there was nothing we could do about it other than tell people to NEVER take their car to Wal Mart for maintanance.
A lesson learned... The hard way.
Rochelle
Palmdale, California
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