I was on my way to school (Pima Community College) one morning and noticed my car had started making a little clunky noise and that my oil light had come on, i got to class, which is less than three miles from my house, and as soon as class was done (i only had one class that morning) i took my car to jiffy lube to see why it was making that sound, though i figured it probably just needed some oil or something... Jiffy lube is about another 2-3miles tops from my school..
So i get there and they joke around about how my car looks because it had been in an accident a few months prior and had some ugly cosmetic damage on the passenger side, (it looked really bad, but i was assured that it was just cosmetic damage by a mechanic friend i had at the time) they said the oil change would be $49.99, being a full time college student, $50 is quite a chunk of change, and since my mechanic friend had moved to another state and i had no clue how to change oil, i was just going to go to the place i had change the oil last time since it was like $10 there, and the only reason i hadn't taken it there this time was because it was a little farther than jiffy lube and the noise had gotten increasingly worse on the drive there, well the manager, Joe, said since i was a first time customer he'd knock the price down to $20.
So i agreed to let them do it, i had remembered that i had two oil things in the trunk and asked if they needed those (i didn't know if they needed to see what oil was put in last time or anything, i really don't know much about cars) the guy said they dont need them but they could use those plus their oil and they'll knock the price down another $2, so i said sure, why not, i didn't need it for anything, so they tell me to go inside, and they'd call me out when it was done.
Awhile later, the guy comes in and tells me to come outside, he tells me that my filter is a bit dirty and if i buy a new one, it'll cut down how much gas it uses or something, and i said that's ok, i don't really need better gas mileage, since it already was great on gas, he said they can have my car vacuumed and cleaned for i think it was $20, i said that was ok too, i didn't need it cleaned...
I asked if the clunky sound was due to the oil and he said yes, he said that it was also because my engine was dirty and they could clean it for i think it was $60, or maybe $80, but i told him i couldn't afford that, paying the $20 for the oil change left me broke already, i asked if it was something serious and he said no, not at all, i was worried because my car never made that noise before and i thought it was broken or something and he said that it's not a big deal.
Then he said if the noise bothered me, actually i think he used the word "annoys" to go over to auto zone and get this little bottle of something called "engine oil treatment" he said that should make the noise stop, he said if the noise doesn't quit after putting that in it than come back and they'd "top off" my oil for no charge, he didn't know how much the stuff cost so i asked if the car would be fine if i waited until my fianc got his paycheck which was a little over a week, he said yeah its no problem and that the noise should be gone by then anyway.
Since he was a manager of a well known mechanic place, and he assured me that everything was alright and that the noise was nothing bad or serious, i trusted him that the noise would stop and nothing was wrong, so i go home (again a VERY short distance) and about 3-4hours later i go to the gym which is about a 10minute drive max, and the noise still hadn't quit, it had actually gotten worse, well i figured that it was because the engine hadn't been on that long so maybe all the oil they put it didn't get wherever it was supposed to go yet or something, on the way home from the gym, a total of maybe 4-5hours after the oil change, the car exploded! It made a huge kaboom and there was so much smoke you couldn't even see anything.
We (my fianc and i) managed to coast the car into a parking lot and i walked back to where it had exploded to see if anything had came out and there were pieces of engine stuff all over the road, and i was shocked to find a smoldering piece of something (again i don't know anything about cars) lying on the sidewalk all the way across a four lane road! There were i think five pieces of some sort of block and a big screw looking thing that was chopped in half, and as i was walking back i noticed that for quite awhile BEFORE the car blew up (where all the pieces were) the oil had been pouring out! It seems kind of odd to me that the oil would be pouring out like that and then the car jut explodes and all the rest of the oil comes out.
Jiffy lube was already closed so we had to leave the car there and walk home that night, i called them the next morning and they said they'd go look at it but they were sure it wasn't their fault. Well i was worried that they might try to make it look like it wasn't their fault some how so my fiance had a family trusted mechanic shop tow the car and keep it at their shop until the jiffy lube people had time to go look at it with them there so they couldn't mess with anything.
It took jiffy lube about two and a half weeks before they went to look at it, and that was after me having to call many times and getting the run around and being lied to about him going to see it when in fact they hadn't... Finally they go look at it and i call Joe (the manager) and he tells me he's handed over my information to his corporate offices, i ask for their phone number and he changes his story and says that he is going to look at it with his district manager right now, (implying right that minute) which meant that he didn't hand it over to corporate, he gives me the district manager (frank) phone number and i call him only to get the voice mail, finally days later he calls back, said its not their fault, and he'll refund the price of the oil change but nothing else.
I asked what could possibly, make a car do that if it wasn't something they did? He said that he doesn't know but it was making noise when it came in and with it making noise like that it was obvious something was very wrong with it, i told him everything Joe had told me about the noise being nothing, i asked frank why he didn't tell me that it was serious, that something was wrong? I asked why would he lie to me and say it was perfectly fine? The only answer he could come up with was "oh, I'll uh have to ask him about that"
Honestly, i don't know if whatever happened was their fault, I'm no mechanic, I've got no clue what happened, but is it not negligence on their part by lying to me and saying there is no problem??? If Mr. District Manager Frank, thinks it was soo obvious that something was wrong because it was making hat noise, wouldn't it be just as obvious to Mr. Manager Joe? Now i have a car with no engine sitting in a lot, and absolutely no money to fix it, please help!
Megan
Tucson, Arizona
U.S.A.
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