stupid people vs luxury cars

[friendly_jacek]

http://mbworld.org/forums/gl-class-x164/446315-gl350-32k-miles-blown-motor-warranty-denied.html

Quote:
So my wife buys a 2010 gl350 with 16k miles from our local mb dealer. It's was a certified pre own. All fluid checked or changed so they say. The gl runs great for 16k miles. No problems at all. Then last month while she was driving it,the motor locks up. She calls me and I leave work to check it out. I ask if it had given any error codes . She says yesterday it gave me a "check oil at next fill up notice" but I had half a tank left. My heart sinks and I pull the dipstick. No oil, nothing ,notta, not a single trace. Hoping a sensor had shut the car off, I leave and head to Walmart to get some oil. I add some,but soon realize it's locked up. How could this happen. I ask my wife when she last had the oil changed. My heart sinks again when she said its overdue for one . Holy freaking cow she went 6k over. We have it towed to the dealer who is just as puzzled as us. Were did all the oil go. No smoking, no leaks. How in the [censored] did this thing burn by my guess 10 quarts of oil in 16k miles. The oil in the oil filter was charred and a super thick clumpy mess. We admit that on some part we are at falt but i run a fleet of trucks to 5k-8k miles over all the time (ford diesel) After a month a tech from mbusa turns down the warranty request. The local service manager is on our side but mbusa is not. The replacement cost is around 30k. I don't know what we will do. We work our tails off to be able to afford this car. Yes she should take better care of it and will never let service slip again. I just dont feel we are 100% at fault. Was a mistake made at the dealer when they got it. Did they forget to do an oil change and it went 32k miles without an oil change. Why was this motor burning 10quarts of oil per 16k miles. Why did a sensor not send it to limp mode to prevent a major meltdown. If anyone has ideas of how to move forward please send them to me . We are sick about this . We pay 1000 a month for what is now a totaled gl. Thanks everyone for reading my rant/what not to ever let happen to you.


Here is what some other posters said:

Quote:
Friend of mine was leasing E class and never changed oil during his lease ( 30K miles ) ...nothing happened.
My wife also drives our GL and your story will be a good lesson for me to check the car once in awhile.


Quote:
I would say that 30% of the used cars I have test driven over the past 30years had no oil in the sump, but were billed as "fully serviced."

The first time was a high end BMW that began to show a rapidly increasing temp a mile from the high end dealership. I pulled over, checked coolant then oil and there was no oil, nada, nichts. I had to walk back.


Quote:
I have a similar problem except that it is slightly worse - we were overdue for an oil change but we were at the dealer for service and we asked about the oil. We were told the oil was fine. We then immediately went on a 7 hour plus (each way) trip. On the way home we got the benign "check oil at next refueling", but we never made it to the next refueling to check it. Sludge was found on the oil cap. There were never any signs of problems. Dealer is claiming we failed to maintain and is refusing to address the problem. My manual does not say anything about the warning mentioned in RED. How can I confirm that this should apply to my 2010 GL350? The car is damaged and MB dealer and corporate will not help.


Here is the worst part, the OP found someone else to pay for his stupidity:

Quote:
Ok a little update. Looks like there is a chance it's going to get covered by a third party. Its not a done deal but an additive was added to the oil . This may have caused the problem. If not then the goal of in additive is to extend the life of the oil reducing wear. In this case it may have changed the properties of the oil in a negative way. My dealer on the local level has been top notch.


Mental note to myself: never buy used luxury cars.

 

[OVERKILL]

My lord people are morons!!!!

On a side note, my 1987 Mustang GT, 1989 Lincoln Town Car and my current M5 all have a notice that pops up to tell you to check the oil level when it is ~1L low. That leaves 6+L in the pan of the M5, 4 in the Townie and Mustang.

 

[whip]

This applies with all cars. I know people that have the same attitude with cars they've purchased, and are even worse with leased cars. Of course, they're the first ones to look for someone to blame when it goes wrong.

 

[surfstar]

You can't fix stupid.

A fool and his money...

$1000/month for a mall-crawler? And that was a USED PRICE!!! I'm always amazed that people feel the need to make statements via their vehicles.

 

[Zaedock]

New car ownership should come with a BITOG membership.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

People at QLP mostly never check their oil. They say, "Why would a newer car burn any oil? You don't have to check oil anymore."

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: friendly_jacek
Mental note to myself: never buy used luxury cars.

My take on it is: never buy used cars with no verifiable service history. And that goes for any used car, luxury or econobox.

Sadly, there is a % of luxury car buyers who think that because the car was so expensive to buy, it should run forever without requiring any maintenance. Then there is another % who can barely afford the monthly payment on a luxury car, and have not budgeted for proper maintenance which is pretty expensive if you let the dealer handle it.

I saw another recent case on mbworld the other day. The guy buys a CPO C-class, and proceeds to take it to Jiffy Lube for service. Apparently JL puts on the wrong filter and/or does not install it properly, and some major engine damage ensues. Somehow though, the owner was able to take JL to small claims court and got them to pay for the thousands of dollars in repairs that were needed. While he did not post the exact details of how JL's doing caused the damage, he is partly to blame for taking the car to JL in the first place to save a buck, IMO.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
My lord people are morons!!!!

On a side note, my 1987 Mustang GT, 1989 Lincoln Town Car and my current M5 all have a notice that pops up to tell you to check the oil level when it is ~1L low. That leaves 6+L in the pan of the M5, 4 in the Townie and Mustang.


The Park Avenue had the same thing, and it was pretty sensitive. If the oil was almost at the "Need a quart, Boss" level, and I parked with one side lower than the other, the message would pop up early.

Dunno if the Regal has a similar sensor/warning, but then I check my oil regularly. (In 3.5 months it hasn't burned/lost any.)

 

[friendly_jacek]

Originally Posted By: ARCOgraphite
People at QLP mostly never check their oil. They say, "Why would a newer car burn any oil? You don't have to check oil anymore."


What do you mean?

Quote:
Acronym / Definition
QLP Quebec Liberal Party (Canada)
QLP Quality Leadership Profile (leadership survey for use in the tertiary sector)
QLP Query Language Processor
QLP Quad Leadless Package (packaging services)
QLP Quarter-Life Productions (Vancouver, Canada film company)
QLP Qualifying Licensee Products
QLP Quinte Limestone Panthers (Ontario, Canada)
QLP Quadrilateral Protocol

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
My lord people are morons!!!!

On a side note, my 1987 Mustang GT, 1989 Lincoln Town Car and my current M5 all have a notice that pops up to tell you to check the oil level when it is ~1L low. That leaves 6+L in the pan of the M5, 4 in the Townie and Mustang.


The Park Avenue had the same thing, and it was pretty sensitive. If the oil was almost at the "Need a quart, Boss" level, and I parked with one side lower than the other, the message would pop up early.

Sadly, all these warnings are fairly useless if the owner chooses to ignore them.

With that said, some of these oil level sensors on MB cars are known to be defective. Our C had to have this sensor replaced because it would display that oil level warning message despite the oil being at the correct level.

 

[JustinH]

Someone in my family had a Lincoln Navigator about 10 years back when they were the big thing.

Anyways, they balked at $1200 to replace 4 tires on the car, so they traded the car in.

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete

My take on it is: never buy used cars with no verifiable service history. And that goes for any used car, luxury or econobox.


Yet people look at you funny if you buy a brand new stripper model--"but if you'd just buy used you could get more for your money!" The argument goes every which way.

*

Does sound like a stupid owner story. Which can apply to owners of cheap vehicles too.

I do wonder though why an expensive car would not come with an oil level monitor. I don't understand why cheapo cars don't, much less really expensive ones. Ok it's a failure point but still. I'd rather have that than TPMS, and I do check both at least monthly (more often if I think there is a problem).

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: supton
I do wonder though why an expensive car would not come with an oil level monitor.

A 2010 GL350 does come with it. The owner's wife either chose to ignore it or it malfunctioned, is my guess.

Prudent thing to do would be to physically verify the oil level on the dipstick (this engines does have one) every 1K miles or so, but some people can't be bothered.

 

[Jasper8146]

Very sorry to hear about all your trouble here. Burning through 10 quarts of oil in 16k or even 32k seems very hard to explain. It also seems to me that the sensor for the oil level is apparently useless because in your case it gave a fairly benign warning when it was way too late. This thing about something being added to the oil--what was added and what is the basis/prognosis for this outfit to fix the car? Please give an update when you know more. Also, $30,000 for a new engine seems off the chart. I have heard of BMW engines costing 20k but I've never heard of 30k. If you can't get anyone to cover the cost of new, have you explored a used engine? That would surely cost less than 30k. Best of luck to both you and your wife. I can imagine she is truly sick about ruining her lovely new car and arguably being somewhat at fault in doing so, and I'm sure you're equally if not more sick about it. I will say, however, that there is no reason she would have anticipated this level of negative consequences for going somewhat over the recommended service interval. I mean, it's not like she went 10k or 15k over, just 6k over and that shouldn't have led to catastrophic consequences. One lesson this does teach everyone is that no matter what the brand of car and no matter who is doing the servicing, it definitely pays to personally check things out oneself from time to time. One thing I do now before buying a used car is to check the oil myself. In my case, on my previous vehicle, a VW Tiguan, I didn't do that and it turned out the engine had all sorts of sand and other debris in the oil. When I checked the filler cap, there was a huge amount of sand underneath there. Because I know servicing mistakes do occur, I now make it a habit to personally check the oil every time it comes back from an oil change and I have discovered mistakes more often that I can believe. My oil has frequently been overfilled, which I guess is somewhat less bad than severely underfilling but overfilling does cause problems as well as I have had pan gaskets leak in 2 vehicles that were overfilled. Only one of them was covered by a warranty. As I said, good luck with this and keep us posted.

 

[Blaze]

Well one thing for sure I can tell you it is FACT a brand spanking new NV 4500 five speed trans (from experience) will go 45 miles with zero lube in the transmission. Bought a used Dodge diesel with new transmission and after driving it off the lot that is all the futher it got. The outfit that replaced the transmission never installed the gallon of synthetic lube that CAME with the new trans.

 

[Inspecktor]

Cars do come with an oil level monitor-it,s called a dip stick.

 

[Jasper8146]

What a nightmare for you. Do I even need to ask whether or not they "warrantied" the situation and fixed it for free? I sure hope so. I have heard other stories like this of people forgetting to put oil back in after a change or rebuild or forgetting to put transmission fluid back in and they amaze me each and every time. It seems like that would be the number 1 priority above everything else to make sure fluid got put back in. It simply astounds me how often this apparently happens. Another thing I have always wondered is who really pays for these nincompoop slip-ups? Do the actual mechanics get fired or docked some pay? Would be interesting to really know how these things play out.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
My lord people are morons!!!!

On a side note, my 1987 Mustang GT, 1989 Lincoln Town Car and my current M5 all have a notice that pops up to tell you to check the oil level when it is ~1L low. That leaves 6+L in the pan of the M5, 4 in the Townie and Mustang.


Every GM vehicle in our fleet will flash the OLM indicator when you are a little more than a quart low.

That said, people are all about blaming someone/something else for their own stupidity.

6k past the change interval, warned by the dashboard, yet completely ignored it. As my good friend Ron White says "You just can't fix stupid"!

 

[Jasper8146]

No doubt about it--the tried and true dipstick is the oldest and still most reliable oil level monitor.

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted By: Inspecktor
Cars do come with an oil level monitor-it,s called a dip stick.


Not all cars come with one. My S600 has only the monitor which I call up every time I fill up (old habit). Should I wish to double check the level sensor, I can purchase a "special service tool" which looks remarkably similar to a dipstick, except that it's not calibrated to this engine's sump, so you have to convert the level in MM to the add/fill marks using a look up in the workshop information system.