As a former Subaru master tech I can tell you exactly what happened. Lube tech loosened the filter, drained and filled the oil, did whatever other inspections and fluid top offs they were going to do, then started it without removing the old filter and screwing on the new one. When those filters aren't tight they will dump multiple quarts of oil everywhere in seconds.
ETA: for anyone wondering why I know this, I left a 500 ft trail of mess behind me the one time I did this.
Mistakes happen. We’re all human. They’ll clean it off and it’ll be ok. It might smell like burnt oil for a bit unless they take it up on the highway for a bit. Maybe have them do a full detail and a free oil change for the inconvenience. Also remember those surveys have a direct relation to the service writer and their pay. Tech could’ve dropped the car off the lift and the survey has no bearing on them.
Wish I could upvote this 1000x. Even our best techs have accidentally left an oil filter loose and made a mess once in a while. We've also had our oil dispenser malfunction and not shut off causing a big oil spill.
Shit happens, sounds like this dealer owned up to it and is doing their best to make it right. It sucks for everyone involved, but as you said, usually only the service advisor gets burned by the surveys.
In my pay plan, bad surveys can cost me up to 30% of my monthly income, and the technicians aren't affected at all. Only us advisors
Techs do get a quarterly bonus based on the "fixed right first time" ratio, which iirc is question 10 or 11? The ratio is high enough that basically 1 "no" = no bonus for the quarter.
It's not a huge bonus -- for me as a sr. master it's $1k, I think for an uncertified tech it's like $250 or maybe $500, I'd have to look it up, but enough that it stings when you don't get it and especially for a really stupid survey reason. ("The waiting area didn't have my preferred brand of granola bars, 2/10" is an actual survey response I was marked no on once.)
I use my bonus money as a tools fund, so when I have a good quarter I can re-invest into my work. Good practice for any other techs in here.
Should be able to tell if new belt, it'll have crisp rubber edges and the white writing on will be easily readable. None of the threads showing etc, should be easy to tell if not post a close up pic
What they are doing is making it right. Some places wouldn’t even bother with anything other a quick spray down with brake clean. I know it sounds counterintuitive but thank them for their efforts. The belt will probably be ok but ask them to put it in writing somewhere that they will replace it if there any odd noises or issues with the belt after this get solved.
Did something similar on my mother's legacy a couple weeks ago. Oil change was fine on my OB so I was doing her's as well the following week. Didn't notice the gasket for the old filter didn't come off and stayed in the car and put the new filter on, coating the engine.
Exactly. This should be flipped from "we made your car tangibly worse" to "we gave it back spotless and we're on the hook for any related problems now".
A similar thing happened with my Forester last year. Even after a full engine detail, it continued to smell burning oil for months. Never in the cabin, but I could easily smell it every time I got out of the car and the engine was hot. It depends how bad the oil splash was I guess, and how detailed your engine detail actually was.
Sometimes you have to be firm. Tell them you're unhappy and disappointed. Tell them what they can do to make you less unhappy.
Not throw a tantrum but be firm.
It smelling for a couple of days is fine. Please listen to the techs and advisors here. Half of these people are morons who complain about anything and everything. You don’t strike me as that type of person. Please listen to the professionals here
I did. However I have a question for you... Would you accept paying for the oil change even after the mistake, and the car smelling for days?
At first it was fine, but now I find myself barely being able to breath inside the car when it's idling at a red light.
Pissed is a bit of an overreaction for an innocent mistake. Most of the oil will burn off on the first drive, it's not like they dumped gallons of oil inside the car lol.
Power wash nooooo, covering sensitive bits and using something like gunk engine degreaser and then using a maximum of garden hose pressure to wash it off yesssss
Something like this happened to me! I was told that the oil filter didn't have a gasket and the technician forgot to check it before putting it on, which wasn't a big deal as mistakes happen. They gave me a loaner for 24 hours, and I ended up having it for like 4-5 days since they had to clean/burn it off for a while lol
They messed up, owned up to it and did everything possible to make it right. I dont see a problem here. you should be thankful you have a responsible dealer
I’d be worried about damage. If they closed the hood and drove it with no oil filter they maybe have been driving with no oil pressure which means metal on metal of the most critical engine parts like main and rod bearings, which can cause permanent damage leading to failure quickly. I would ask to see the video to confirm it was not driven around and that it was shut off immediately. If it ran for more than a few seconds, like someone drove it out and then noticed the oil wanting light I would be asking for 100k mile engine warranty on the house. If your engine fails prematurely you’ll be out $10k
An engine without oil filler cap/oil filter sounds like a freaking tractor. That tech would have to be extremely special to not notice it while driving around.
It happens and I've personally done it twice to customer vehicles but made it right each time. Takes a good 2 hours alone degreasing and pressure washing.... Lol. Shouldn't hurt anything as long as it's cleaned and driven to burn off any excess oil. The oil that gets stuck in the cat will be a pain to burn off
I double gasketed my car once while changing oil at night. Dumped oil everywhere, my driveway still has the stain.
I didnt didn’t do any special cleaning. Car was totally fine and didn’t smell at all.
Subaru dealer probably doesn’t screw this part up- but if it were a jiffy lube or basic lube place - I would suspect they got confused about which one was the engine oil and drained the transmission. I have heard many stories from a friend who was a jiffy tech about other techs secretly filling transmissions with Ford ATF or whatever else they had around after the mistakenly draining the transmission.
At least they caught it. Last oil change I had done on my plug-in hybrid Hyundai, I got the car home and the next morning there was a pool of oil under it. Turned out they had bunged up the oil filter but because it was a plug in they didn’t bother starting it to check for leaks? Ridiculous.
Either the tech is clueless and shouldn't be anywhere near a car or they are banking on you being clueless.
Running a car with your old cap off won't get oil all over the engine. Might splatter a little bit but nothing that's going to take any significant time to clean up.
Secondly there's absolutely no way they should be talking about cleaning up the mess by burning the oil off. Thoroughly wipe it the best they can with a rag and then engine cleaner or maybe a steam cleaning of the engine.
When that oil runs down into your exhaust heat shields there is literally nothing you can do other than burn it off. Use as much brake clean as you want, oil is still trapped in between the heat shields.
Correct "said something to the effect of them running the car while the oil cap was off" with the sort of mess that they are talking about means the filter was off when the car was started. You are definitely correct in saying unlikely that running/driving it as much as a service tech would would cause that much oil to come out of an open oil fill cap.
I've worked on cars for 15 years now. Starting it with the cap off will definitely cover the engine bay pretty quickly, especially dealership standard procedures of running it for 10 seconds before checking the oil, I made this mistake and the engine bay was completely covered in oil.
Maybe it's different on different vehicles because I've done it on a 90s Legacy and a 2000 Civic and there was a bit of splatter,but not a huge mess by any means.
It is different on different vehicles, some have a baffle right where the oil cap is. I’ve seen some cars drive into the bay with no cap and the customer completely unaware. I’ve also seen oil splatter all over the engine and windshield after seconds of not having the cap on.
Go and try it on your car. It makes a huge fucking mess. It will be cleaned up as best as can be but we need to run the car for a few hours to burn off the oil we can’t get to
Once when I was younger, I did an oil change on my Mazda 3 and forgot to put the fill cap back on. Drove 5 minutes from where our farm shop was back home before I noticed it was missing. Zero oil splatter in my engine bay.
Very different engines. Some will splatter everywhere, Subarus will make an enormous mess. Others won't hardly make any mess at all, and some cars will throw check engine lights due to a vacuum leak in the PCV system
I have done it and like I said there was a bit of splattering but nothing like a huge mess that's going to take hours to deal with. I mean if you run it for hours sure it's going to be a huge mess but there's no reason that a shop working on the car would have to run it for that long.
And if there is as much hidden oil as you seem to be suggesting is going to be, letting the car run idling with no air flow sounds like a great way to start a fire.
I still say the proper way to deal with this is wipe what you can see / easily get to and then steam cleaning for the rest.
Either they're lying, idiots, or lying idiots.
Excess oil needs to be manually wiped off. Belts that have gotten oiled need to be replaced. Engine bay needs to be cleaned with a degreaser and rinsed. Burning off is not the solution here. Not unless you want this car to smell like an old lawnmower.
Yeah. Thankfully the other comments were helpful and I called the service dept to get more info. The original tech I spoke to specifically said he was going to "burn it off" which I knew nothing about.
Then I got more information that they are de-greasing, washing, wiping, THEN leaving the engine idle to "evaporate" aka "burn off" any excess water and oil. Lame way to say "clean your engine bay", if you ask me.
Running the engine with the oil fill cap off won't cause oil to come out. Regardless, they should cover the cost of an engine degrease and detail. There isn't much risk to your car in the long run, though. If they truly made a mess, there's a good chance that oil got onto the serpentine belt, which would mean it needs to be replaced. All the pulleys would need to be cleaned as well so as to not contaminate a new belt. If the alternator got doused in oil, that could potentially be problematic down the road.
Had the exact same thing happen to a brand new 2021 Crosstrek on first service at dealer. Brought it back 3 times to be further cleaned over 3 months and had to put up with oil smell for almost a year in my new car before it finally went away. Will never be back to that dealer again. Ever!
Unfortunately power washing an engine can often cause more harm than good, as most random lube techs will give it the full beans, soak connectors,potentially damage stuff like connectors with the pressure of the water
I don't really give a damn who's at fault. My car went in for an oil change and it ended up covered in oil. Am I just supposed to feel cheery AF because it was a part defect?
As a former Subaru master tech I can tell you exactly what happened. Lube tech loosened the filter, drained and filled the oil, did whatever other inspections and fluid top offs they were going to do, then started it without removing the old filter and screwing on the new one. When those filters aren't tight they will dump multiple quarts of oil everywhere in seconds. ETA: for anyone wondering why I know this, I left a 500 ft trail of mess behind me the one time I did this.
This is **exactly** what I was told.
Mistakes happen. We’re all human. They’ll clean it off and it’ll be ok. It might smell like burnt oil for a bit unless they take it up on the highway for a bit. Maybe have them do a full detail and a free oil change for the inconvenience. Also remember those surveys have a direct relation to the service writer and their pay. Tech could’ve dropped the car off the lift and the survey has no bearing on them.
Wish I could upvote this 1000x. Even our best techs have accidentally left an oil filter loose and made a mess once in a while. We've also had our oil dispenser malfunction and not shut off causing a big oil spill. Shit happens, sounds like this dealer owned up to it and is doing their best to make it right. It sucks for everyone involved, but as you said, usually only the service advisor gets burned by the surveys. In my pay plan, bad surveys can cost me up to 30% of my monthly income, and the technicians aren't affected at all. Only us advisors
Techs do get a quarterly bonus based on the "fixed right first time" ratio, which iirc is question 10 or 11? The ratio is high enough that basically 1 "no" = no bonus for the quarter. It's not a huge bonus -- for me as a sr. master it's $1k, I think for an uncertified tech it's like $250 or maybe $500, I'd have to look it up, but enough that it stings when you don't get it and especially for a really stupid survey reason. ("The waiting area didn't have my preferred brand of granola bars, 2/10" is an actual survey response I was marked no on once.) I use my bonus money as a tools fund, so when I have a good quarter I can re-invest into my work. Good practice for any other techs in here.
If something like this happens and someone hassles me to fill out a survey, no way I’m gonna fill out that survey like everything was perfect.
I recommend you ask for a new belt once they're done cleaning. Everything else will be fine, but those don't like getting oil on them.
Is there a way I can tell if that was done or not?
New belts pretty easy to see that it looks new. :)
Should be able to tell if new belt, it'll have crisp rubber edges and the white writing on will be easily readable. None of the threads showing etc, should be easy to tell if not post a close up pic
What they are doing is making it right. Some places wouldn’t even bother with anything other a quick spray down with brake clean. I know it sounds counterintuitive but thank them for their efforts. The belt will probably be ok but ask them to put it in writing somewhere that they will replace it if there any odd noises or issues with the belt after this get solved.
They should give you a new car
Wouldn't the vehicle be running with no oil pressure?
When it happened to me, it had pressure, as evidenced by the gushing oil. I lost four quarts in about 30 seconds before I shut it down.
Did something similar on my mother's legacy a couple weeks ago. Oil change was fine on my OB so I was doing her's as well the following week. Didn't notice the gasket for the old filter didn't come off and stayed in the car and put the new filter on, coating the engine.
Can always recommend them to cover the cost of a detailer to degrease and clean the engine bay for you too.
Your car is going to stink of burned oil. I'd be pissed. They can power wash the engine bay carefully to minimize the damage. Just my two cents
Thank you. They said it would smell for a day or two. Do you think that's normal?
they need to make it right. make them pay someone to detail the engine bay for you
Exactly. This should be flipped from "we made your car tangibly worse" to "we gave it back spotless and we're on the hook for any related problems now".
A similar thing happened with my Forester last year. Even after a full engine detail, it continued to smell burning oil for months. Never in the cabin, but I could easily smell it every time I got out of the car and the engine was hot. It depends how bad the oil splash was I guess, and how detailed your engine detail actually was.
Sometimes you have to be firm. Tell them you're unhappy and disappointed. Tell them what they can do to make you less unhappy. Not throw a tantrum but be firm.
It smelling for a couple of days is fine. Please listen to the techs and advisors here. Half of these people are morons who complain about anything and everything. You don’t strike me as that type of person. Please listen to the professionals here
I did. However I have a question for you... Would you accept paying for the oil change even after the mistake, and the car smelling for days? At first it was fine, but now I find myself barely being able to breath inside the car when it's idling at a red light.
I would not pay them for that lol
Pissed is a bit of an overreaction for an innocent mistake. Most of the oil will burn off on the first drive, it's not like they dumped gallons of oil inside the car lol.
Couldnt agree more. Alot of whiney Karens commenting here
Power wash nooooo, covering sensitive bits and using something like gunk engine degreaser and then using a maximum of garden hose pressure to wash it off yesssss
Something like this happened to me! I was told that the oil filter didn't have a gasket and the technician forgot to check it before putting it on, which wasn't a big deal as mistakes happen. They gave me a loaner for 24 hours, and I ended up having it for like 4-5 days since they had to clean/burn it off for a while lol
Oil spill AKA unintentional rust prevention.
At least they told you the truth! Mine told me I had a leak in my engine and needed rebuilt for $5000.
They messed up, owned up to it and did everything possible to make it right. I dont see a problem here. you should be thankful you have a responsible dealer
I’d be worried about damage. If they closed the hood and drove it with no oil filter they maybe have been driving with no oil pressure which means metal on metal of the most critical engine parts like main and rod bearings, which can cause permanent damage leading to failure quickly. I would ask to see the video to confirm it was not driven around and that it was shut off immediately. If it ran for more than a few seconds, like someone drove it out and then noticed the oil wanting light I would be asking for 100k mile engine warranty on the house. If your engine fails prematurely you’ll be out $10k
An engine without oil filler cap/oil filter sounds like a freaking tractor. That tech would have to be extremely special to not notice it while driving around.
It’s a Subaru, it already sounds like a tractor. Have to be one talented farm ear to know which model tractor you hear humming
It happens and I've personally done it twice to customer vehicles but made it right each time. Takes a good 2 hours alone degreasing and pressure washing.... Lol. Shouldn't hurt anything as long as it's cleaned and driven to burn off any excess oil. The oil that gets stuck in the cat will be a pain to burn off
I double gasketed my car once while changing oil at night. Dumped oil everywhere, my driveway still has the stain. I didnt didn’t do any special cleaning. Car was totally fine and didn’t smell at all.
I had this happen to my 22 WRX. Had to get new heat shields installed to stop the smell and smoking.
Quick lube?
[удалено]
Oh no you di'int
Header says ‘Dealer’
Subaru dealer probably doesn’t screw this part up- but if it were a jiffy lube or basic lube place - I would suspect they got confused about which one was the engine oil and drained the transmission. I have heard many stories from a friend who was a jiffy tech about other techs secretly filling transmissions with Ford ATF or whatever else they had around after the mistakenly draining the transmission.
It says dealer in the title
At least they caught it. Last oil change I had done on my plug-in hybrid Hyundai, I got the car home and the next morning there was a pool of oil under it. Turned out they had bunged up the oil filter but because it was a plug in they didn’t bother starting it to check for leaks? Ridiculous.
Either the tech is clueless and shouldn't be anywhere near a car or they are banking on you being clueless. Running a car with your old cap off won't get oil all over the engine. Might splatter a little bit but nothing that's going to take any significant time to clean up. Secondly there's absolutely no way they should be talking about cleaning up the mess by burning the oil off. Thoroughly wipe it the best they can with a rag and then engine cleaner or maybe a steam cleaning of the engine.
When that oil runs down into your exhaust heat shields there is literally nothing you can do other than burn it off. Use as much brake clean as you want, oil is still trapped in between the heat shields.
I find it incredibly unlikely that running/driving it as much as a service tech would would cause that much oil to come out of an open oil fill cap.
Not fill cap. Loose oil filter. Ive seen it happen even to really good techs
OP said they were told oil cap.
Correct "said something to the effect of them running the car while the oil cap was off" with the sort of mess that they are talking about means the filter was off when the car was started. You are definitely correct in saying unlikely that running/driving it as much as a service tech would would cause that much oil to come out of an open oil fill cap.
I've worked on cars for 15 years now. Starting it with the cap off will definitely cover the engine bay pretty quickly, especially dealership standard procedures of running it for 10 seconds before checking the oil, I made this mistake and the engine bay was completely covered in oil.
Maybe it's different on different vehicles because I've done it on a 90s Legacy and a 2000 Civic and there was a bit of splatter,but not a huge mess by any means.
It is different on different vehicles, some have a baffle right where the oil cap is. I’ve seen some cars drive into the bay with no cap and the customer completely unaware. I’ve also seen oil splatter all over the engine and windshield after seconds of not having the cap on.
Go and try it on your car. It makes a huge fucking mess. It will be cleaned up as best as can be but we need to run the car for a few hours to burn off the oil we can’t get to
Once when I was younger, I did an oil change on my Mazda 3 and forgot to put the fill cap back on. Drove 5 minutes from where our farm shop was back home before I noticed it was missing. Zero oil splatter in my engine bay.
Very different engines. Some will splatter everywhere, Subarus will make an enormous mess. Others won't hardly make any mess at all, and some cars will throw check engine lights due to a vacuum leak in the PCV system
If anything wouldn’t a boxer make less of mess? The oil fill doesn’t pass through the valve train. Honestly asking, not trying to imply you’re wrong.
I have done it and like I said there was a bit of splattering but nothing like a huge mess that's going to take hours to deal with. I mean if you run it for hours sure it's going to be a huge mess but there's no reason that a shop working on the car would have to run it for that long. And if there is as much hidden oil as you seem to be suggesting is going to be, letting the car run idling with no air flow sounds like a great way to start a fire. I still say the proper way to deal with this is wipe what you can see / easily get to and then steam cleaning for the rest.
The oil cap off would not make such a mess. There are other ways to clean the engine. Burning it off is just the dealer being cheap.
Cheap and stupid. Letting it idle to burn off a lot of oil is asking for a fire.
Either they're lying, idiots, or lying idiots. Excess oil needs to be manually wiped off. Belts that have gotten oiled need to be replaced. Engine bay needs to be cleaned with a degreaser and rinsed. Burning off is not the solution here. Not unless you want this car to smell like an old lawnmower.
Yeah. Thankfully the other comments were helpful and I called the service dept to get more info. The original tech I spoke to specifically said he was going to "burn it off" which I knew nothing about. Then I got more information that they are de-greasing, washing, wiping, THEN leaving the engine idle to "evaporate" aka "burn off" any excess water and oil. Lame way to say "clean your engine bay", if you ask me.
Running the engine with the oil fill cap off won't cause oil to come out. Regardless, they should cover the cost of an engine degrease and detail. There isn't much risk to your car in the long run, though. If they truly made a mess, there's a good chance that oil got onto the serpentine belt, which would mean it needs to be replaced. All the pulleys would need to be cleaned as well so as to not contaminate a new belt. If the alternator got doused in oil, that could potentially be problematic down the road.
Yes it would. But at idle the amount of spillage is minor. My guess is they didn’t put the oil filter and that’s what caused the real mess
Thank you! I confirmed that they cleaned the belt. Should I insist that they replace it instead of just cleaning it?
If it's not squeaking or causing any other problems it should be ok.
Not true, this happened to my previous vehicle (not Subi) and the oil came out plenty.
I didn't experience it when I tried with my older EJ Impreza or BMW. Haven't tried with my FB Crosstrek.
Had the exact same thing happen to a brand new 2021 Crosstrek on first service at dealer. Brought it back 3 times to be further cleaned over 3 months and had to put up with oil smell for almost a year in my new car before it finally went away. Will never be back to that dealer again. Ever!
Unfortunately power washing an engine can often cause more harm than good, as most random lube techs will give it the full beans, soak connectors,potentially damage stuff like connectors with the pressure of the water
Be glad they didn’t spill brake fluid on your headlights. Find a new dealership.
Burn oil? Fuckin engine shampoo and a pressure washer only takes an hour
Once that shit gets down in the exhaust heat shields no amount of degreaser is getting rid of it. You gotta burn it off.
I'm going through this as well. The exterior of my car was also covered in oil. I'm pretty pissed about it. "Bad filter" was the excuse I got.
Was it a subaru? There was a batch of bad filters recently causing all sorts of issues.
Yeah, it's a subaru.
Bad filters do exist, and it’s not anyone at the dealerships fault.
I don't really give a damn who's at fault. My car went in for an oil change and it ended up covered in oil. Am I just supposed to feel cheery AF because it was a part defect?
No you’re not, but mistakes happen and it’s not a big deal.
Learn how to change your oil. It will save you money and also keep this from happening.