Best advice yet! Thanks!!
empty sump start - Biggest blunder EVER…..
- Thread starter Urshurak776
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I think it got a 20-30 seconds of run time--wasn't paying attention, was mostly flipping out at the time.
Happened only a week or two ago, so hard to say. Thing is, this is the engine that is busy destroying the camshaft, so finding metal shavings in the oil filter is almost expected--it's cut way back with a change to 5W30 and trying to change a bit more often, but technically the engine is busy eating itself already.
But I'm not really concerned. As pointed out, there's residual oil in the galleries, there is anti-wear additives, and there is the fact that it wasn't under load.
But I wasn't impressed with myself either...
I've did this a couple changes ago, did everything but put the new oil in the Focus.
Got in and started it, and watched for the oil pressure light to go off, and waited some more, hmmm, that's odd.... doh!
It probably was 10-15 seconds before my brain kicked in again, and turned the engine off... Oh well, I don't think it matters too much doing this once or twice in an engines lifetime.
Got in and started it, and watched for the oil pressure light to go off, and waited some more, hmmm, that's odd.... doh!
It probably was 10-15 seconds before my brain kicked in again, and turned the engine off... Oh well, I don't think it matters too much doing this once or twice in an engines lifetime.
I would be curious to know how often it happens in the auto repair world and how many times it can happen over the life of a high mileage vehicle. You're absolutely ok. Oil pressure almost needs that much time to build in old Mercedes diesels with the giant oil filter and there's no way to prefill it, and no need for it. Their bearings are still in good shape most of the time after 500,000+ miles and 3k oil changes.
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15 seconds won't kill or significantly damage any healthy engine. Clear codes drive on. Its not "that" much more than starting after an oil change with a dry filter installed. Engines have way, way more residual oil than anyone thinks.
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Wow, lucky nobody was hurt.Back when I was 18, in 1997, and didn’t know anything about cars and hadn’t started changing my own oil (but did, however, believe in the superiority of Mobil 1), I would usually take my car, a 1987 Nissan Maxima 5-speed, to a local quickie lube place for oil changes.
As I mentioned, I’d often go buy Mobil 1 oil and take it to them to have them put in it, and many times, I’d also buy a bottle of Prolong or Slick 50 for them to pour in as well.
(Hey, gimme a break, I was 18 and if you were around back then, you remember the Slick 50 and Prolong ads where they showed an engine running with no oil, having supposedly been treated with the additive… I was taken in by the advertising at the time and believed in it.)
Anyway, once, when I left the Valvoline Instant Oil Change to make the 8-minute drive to the parents’ house, I noticed a pretty bad knocking from the engine. I didn’t put 2 and 2 together and neither did my dad, who told me to drive it to Firestone. Well, I did, and my dad followed me in his car and picked me up.
A short while later the phone rang and they said, “Mr. Pifer, that car didn’t have any oil in the engine and the oil drain plug was missing, but we replaced the drain plug and put oil in it, and it started up and quit knocking.”
I went and picked the car up and drove it for thousands and thousands more miles until I wrecked it and then sold it in wrecked condition to a dude for like $1200. I was happy, considering I only gave $5500 for it a few years before (I bought it from a schoolteacher and it only had about 50,000 miles).
Moral of the story is that engines can take a lot of abuse, including running for several miles with essentially no oil. Well, at least, that one could
And, no, I never went back to that VIOC to ask for any compensation.
Another funny story. About 2 months ago my sister had a 4 wheel brake job done at that same Firestone (Germantown, TN). 4 days later she was driving down a boulevard at about 40 mph when suddenly the rear driver’s side wheel detached, rolled across the median into oncoming traffic, which had to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting it.
I told her to take it to the Ford dealership and have them send the bill to Firestone. The bill was over $5000. View attachment 277217View attachment 277218View attachment 277219
About the no oil in the engine, obviously the Slick 50 proved it works
SammyChevelleTypeS3
$50 site donor 2023
STUFF Happens ..... You should be ok. Your car did exactly what it is set up to do. It caught the "no oil / low oil press" and threw the code.
You were very lucky with the rain and things you were doing when it started that you realized "NO OIL!" and you shut it down ASAP.
Thank you everyone for your responses. I love this group.
So, driven about 160 miles since my blunder Saturday morning. All seems well. Again, appreciate everyone!
I remember ads in the 90s for a product called “Motor Up”. They’d show a running engine with oil pan removed, with a water hose directed onto the crankshaft!
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