Had A Bad Oil Change Experience Today.

[SubieRubyRoo]

I think Lawn is probably more right than we want to admit to ourselves. My local AZ just has a cart sitting right inside the door, that is NOT clearly marked USED OIL ONLY, and so I try to make it a habit to hang on to extra milk jugs and windshield washer gallons, and try to put my used oil into those whenever possible. Nobody's going to walk past a cart full of milk jugs and inadvertently pay for used oil...

Nice save story, OP... this is one reason why you see many on here clear out a shelf when their favorite oil goes on sale/clearance. I've got 18 OCIs worth of oil and filters on the shelf, and even now if I find a good Pennzoil sale I will buy more. Buy a couple, practice FIFO to keep stock fresh, and buy more before you open your last jug

 

[ammolab]

If I recycle oil in the original jug...I write "USED OIL" on The lid with a sharpie. Makes a mistake a little bit more difficult for the retailer.

 

[RooflessVW]

I've never had a store take my used oil in a container. They all guide you to the back and let you dump it.

 

[plf]

Wish I had neighbors like you.

 

[Koz1]

You neighbor is Awesome!!!

 

[Eddie]

Stores should use and have cameras at the auto section (filter changers) and at the exchange counter. (See who returns oil). Just the cameras maybe a deterrent. I see my favorite filter, Ultra, now has a sealed box. Ed

 

[Linctex]

Originally Posted By: NYEngineer

I went to Autozone....The foil seal is broken and the jug is full of dirty oil.


This is the only part I took from your story. It happens a LOT.

 

[NYEngineer]

My takeaway is that there a LOT of dirtbags out there. My neighbor is not one of them.

 

[i_hate_autofraud]

Originally Posted By: TheLawnRanger
I always take my used oil to the store in the new oil's containers. I have been told to just leave the jugs by the back door. I wonder how often old jugs get put back on the shelf by someone on the next shift by mistake.


I guess we should all mark those jugs "dirty oil" with heavy markers several times to stop store
creeps from putting it back on the shelf!!!

 

[eljefino]

Originally Posted By: hatt
OP needs to stock some oil. That's simply unacceptable.


Yeah it's not an ice cream cone, you can get it today and use it tomorrow!

I stopped to help an elderly couple in a Lincoln Continental (the junky taurus ones) and they said the oil light was on. Asked if they needed anything and they said, nope!

Ok, I guess they'd rather call a tow truck, and blame Lincoln when (normal?) consumption goes unchecked.

 

[4WD]

That’s a great ending to a tough situation - I mean that - but let’s get to the solution:
To be a member you must have huge shelves of various jugs & bottles, must be a rainbow of colors … and even with that huge stash you must find yourself drifting aimlessly in the Walmart clearance aisle looking for more … as you patiently wait for AZ year end deals …

 

[oldhp]

And I thought you left the drain plug out...................Awesome new neighbor though.

 

[NYEngineer]

I usually do have enough stuff in stock to do at least three oil changes on my truck and one or two more for my wife's car. We moved to a new house six months ago and until I build a new garage, I have very little space. I guess for now I can just build lots of shelves on one wall of the little one car garage that's attached to the house. This probably wouldn't have happened in my last setup.

 

[dlundblad]

It's okay.

I overfilled an engine by a quart yesterday. I'm normally very good about remembering capacities, oil filter part numbers and drain plug sizes, but the capacity on this one escaped me. Oh well..

 

[JeffKeryk]

Ha! Once at Wally-World I grabbed a Honda Mobil-1 Oil filter, M110 or something like tht.
The box was overstuffed.
Upon opening it, there was an orange-can-of-death stuffed inside.
Someone got a $10 filter for $3.50.
I alerted the staff...

Here's the kicker:
2 weeks later it was still there.

 

[PeterPolyol]

Wow, SO glad I don't ever bother with Mobil 1! The marketing is so strong it seems to attract the worst characters to it, with their inflated sense of product value. Not going to find a molested SuperTech bottle , just saying

 

[littleant]

Great neighbor. I put the old oil back in the jug and bring it a local repair shop that heats with it. If I have vehicle problems in the winter they will let me use the nice warm shop to make repairs. Fair trade. Great folks.

 

[George7941]

I picked up a Moen pullout Kitchen Faucet from Lowes and it had the heat sealed plastic strapping on the outside of the box, so I assumed it was unmolested. Wrong! Someone had put a used spray head in the box and took the new one. The spray head was carefully wrapped up in the original packaging, so it needed a careful inspection to find out that a substitution had been made. A couple of mounting nuts were also missing.

Some creep had returned the faucet back to Lowes and the staff did not inspect the contents of the box properly, restrapped the box and put it back on the shelf.

 

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted By: SlipperyPete
Originally Posted By: TheLawnRanger
I always take my used oil to the store in the new oil's containers. I have been told to just leave the jugs by the back door. I wonder how often old jugs get put back on the shelf by someone on the next shift by mistake.


I think that is exactly what happens at Walmart. People don't find anyone at the auto counter and just leave the jug.


I ALWAYS mark my used oil containers as "USED MOTOR OIL" in big indelible Sharpie, most of the time, I will even put the specific brand/weight on it as well, regardless of where I am recycling them.

 

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted By: AirgunSavant
The trick would be to make oil and oil filters non returnable - refundable - period!
Who needs to return oil anyway?


I returned a quart of the gold bottle Edge EP to Sino Mart just the other day, and NO the service counter employee did NOT check to see that it had an unbroken ring seal.

I returned it because Castrol does not seem capable of producing an EP oil with D1G2 meeting specs (like many others can!), which is what I wanted, but did not look at the label carefully enough.