“This engine’s done…”
A customer with a Ford Escape left their SUV at the shop Trent works at the night before. The driver heard a strange noise…and now it’s not starting. Oddly, it was just at Jiffy Lube for a regularly scheduled maintenance item.
This Ford Escape’s 40,000-mile engine is seized: “Bye-bye!”
Trent and his team take turns narrating the scene. The 2018 Escape, which only has 40,000 miles, sits on an overhead lift. Two members try to turn the crankshaft with a breaker bar…to no avail. The engine’s plum seized up.
Jiffy Lube for the loss
The customer just got an oil change at Jiffy Lube. Shockingly, Trent’s coworkers found the oil filter wedged up behind the front bumper cover…completely detached from the engine.
“There’s oil everywhere,” Trent shows his viewers. He points to where the lube tech should have installed the filter on the underside of the block.
Whatever string of events occurred, it seems at a minimum the Jiffy Lube tech didn’t properly install the oil filter. As oil spewed out of the block, the Ford Escape driver must not have noticed. “And the engine’s no good,” Trent laments.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a rare event at “quick lube” facilities
Jiffy Lube is no stranger to customer claims that an employee ruined their engine.
I worked at a shop here in the Midwest for many years and saw several of these dead engines in person. Lube techs can “easily” make one of the following mistakes:
- Failure to properly tighten the oil drain plug
- Improper oil filter installation (including double-gasketing the filter)
- Under- or over-filling the engine oil
- Cross-threading the oil drain plug upon reinstalling
- Overtightening the oil drain plug (causing threads to strip out)
These issues can lead to low oil operation, oil leaks, and drain pan damage…all of which cause internal engine failure. And the customer might not understand the service facility’s responsibility in making it right.
If you think Jiffy Lube did something wrong to your vehicle during an oil change, like this Ford Escape customer, the company has a customer feedback page. Try to contact corporate if the store seems uninterested in your claim. You can also involve your attorney.
