Oil Woes - Jiffy Lube

[Mazda3black]

I was stuck for time and used Jiffy Lube to change my oil. I did not pay extra for Quaker State as its not worth paying anything for and would not pay an extra 30 to upgrade to stock Valvoline (crooks). I have since found out that their base oil is RECYCLED oil called NuTec and I can't find anything on the internet about it which should make everyone afraid who goes there.

Anyway, I am going to dump the crud myself and am wondering if I should bother changing the filter also

comments?

thanks

[silverstarmazda]

change everything, sometimes they dont even change the filter.... this might also be a good time to use seafoam while you have the oil in it. itll at lease be somewhat usefull as a "flush". not saying that the nutec oil thats in it is crap, i rather have nicer things in the engine

[Mazda3black]

thanks, i will take you advice and may as well do a full change-out. I am just a little pissed that the kids was not so forth coming on the oil information until they dumped my oil and made feel cornered. I perhaps should have paid the extortion fee money for the Valvoline and learned my lesson.

[Mazda3black]

oh, best part...I assume they changed the oil as they scammed me an extra 2 bucks for a oil filter gasket.

[Mazda3black]

correction, I assume they changed the "oil filter".....as they charged me 2 dollars for an oil filter gasket.

[silverstarmazda]

look up oil change scams on youtube. you would be surprised how much vids you can find on things like this. you never kno, it might of been an alright job. but lots of us here use mazda oem filters cause theyre pretty good quality. oil is up to you depending on what you want in your engine. i personally use castrol edge syn

[Marta]

I've personally seen what happens to vehicles that go to Jiffy lube and other fast/sketch oil change places. Do yourself and your car a favour and stay away, stay faaaar farrrrrr away.
I would reccomend u dump the oil and replace the filter

[Wes08M3]

correction, I assume they changed the "oil filter".....as they charged me 2 dollars for an oil filter gasket.

Lol "oil filter gasket" as if it's not included with the filter. Sounds like a sketchy place.

[silverstarmazda]

pictures pictures!! lol

[TheMAN]

if the dipstick looks clear, then the recycled oil is fine... lots of people have used valvoline's "nexgen" recycled oils, as well as G-Oil which is made from beef tallow... some even used safety-kleen's ecopower recycled oil... all with no problems whatsoever in their used oil analyses... the nexgen is 50% recycled oil, whereas ecopower is mostly recycled oil... there is NOTHING wrong with using recycled oil, just treat them like conventional oil and change them at those intervals, and it's fine... all the dirt and crap gets filtered out, then new additives get added again and it comes out like new... oil does not go bad, only the additives does... and the contaminants is what makes it really "bad"

just because there's no data on the nutec, doesn't mean it's bad... run it for 5000km, then get an analysis done on the oil... only numbers speaks for whether that oil is good or bad... if this oil was really bad, you'll see cars broken down all over the road using this stuff... jiffy lube and nutec will get sued

[silverstarmazda]

nothing wrong with running this stuff, but running it long term might not be as good as using the other well known oils

[Marta]

my main advice to stay away is based more so on the horror stories of what DOESNT GET done to the vehicles at these lube places rather than what they put in them.
Ie: no drain plug, loose wheel nuts, them not knowing which oil to use, not knowing basic things about the vehicles they are servicing, not putting oil in... plus, alot of these are cash josb (save on taxes) so good luck suing them with no paper record, and good luck with your warranty if your car has no oil cause you cheaped out on your oil change.

True story.

[Mazda3black]

CT has Mobil 1 Synth on sale for about 32. Any thoughts on that as a pick?

[silverstarmazda]

not a bad oil. pretty good actually. just be sure to get the corect oil weight

[Dave_The_BMXER]

When I bought my car it had a warranty on it that didn't allow me to change my own oil and the dealer was a bitch about my cars height so I did it at Mr Lube (warranty approved!) and it's been fine.

*shrug*

[Mazda3black]

I just checked the oil color and it looks to be the right color so I will leave it in for a short period. But, when I had the hood up I saw that a plastic clip on the battery case is freshly broken off. It is very white at the fracture point and will eventually weather back to black). I am sad that my very expensive car had been handled poorly but not surprised.

I can mod something up to keep it from flapping in the wind and take it as lesson learned.

I already complained to Jiffy Corporate about the 1.99 charge for an oil filter gasket and have heard nothing. On that, I can assume that trying to get my battery box replaced will be more grief than its worth. Luckily I tend on driving my Mazda until the end so the damage and presence of a cheesy bungee cord holding my battery case together will not be an issue.

[Mazda3black]

just a link to the broken clip. It was hard to get a good shot showing it clearly.

http://s1156.photobucket.com/albums/p576/mazda3blue/?action=view&current=IMG_0371.jpg

[Mazda3black]

I am off on vacation for two weeks and am trying not to waste any more time grieving my error, but am more pi$## off than ever. That Clip was far from brittle and quite strong. It seems that it would take more than being careless to break it off.... bunch of a-holes. Perhaps it would have been fine If I paid for their 42 dollar air filter even though mine was not that bad.

If anyone does go there I suggest telling them to leave your sh## alone and change the oil. Even better, take pictures of all you plastic clips and check them before you leave the bay.

[Wes08M3]

Don't be too upset, you really don't need that cover for the battery. It's almost entirely useless, I'd just take it off and leave it that way. You won't notice any problems without it being on there.

[highlineMotors]

Speaking of Jiffy Lube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiCAJ8ULnaI

[Mazda3black]

haha,,thanks, I am better now. Been a busy day getting ready for the big drive. I do find the air-ducting system to the battery somewhat neat although I don't really know what its purpose is other than maybe to cool it maybe. I will throw it at google and see what comes up.

[TheMAN]

I just checked the oil color and it looks to be the right color so I will leave it in for a short period. But, when I had the hood up I saw that a plastic clip on the battery case is freshly broken off. It is very white at the fracture point and will eventually weather back to black). I am sad that my very expensive car had been handled poorly but not surprised.

I can mod something up to keep it from flapping in the wind and take it as lesson learned.

I already complained to Jiffy Corporate about the 1.99 charge for an oil filter gasket and have heard nothing. On that, I can assume that trying to get my battery box replaced will be more grief than its worth. Luckily I tend on driving my Mazda until the end so the damage and presence of a cheesy bungee cord holding my battery case together will not be an issue.

they probably tried to inspect your battery, and in their haste, they broke the clip off while trying to take off the battery cover... not the first time I heard of it from any shop... these things get brittle over time and I'm always slow and careful taking off mine
you should get them to replace your battery box... make them agree that it was their fault, then get it replaced at the dealer having it billed to them

[TheMAN]

Don't be too upset, you really don't need that cover for the battery. It's almost entirely useless, I'd just take it off and leave it that way. You won't notice any problems without it being on there.

it's not useless man... you WANT the battery box and cover on all the 1st gens because there's a cooling duct to it, which helps dry out any fluid leakage, expels gases from the battery quickly, and most importantly, COOLS IT
heat kills batteries, and mazda did this to get more life out of batteries

[Marta]

they probably tried to inspect your battery, and in their haste, they broke the clip off while trying to take off the battery cover... not the first time I heard of it from any shop... these things get brittle over time and I'm always slow and careful taking off mine
you should get them to replace your battery box... make them agree that it was their fault, then get it replaced at the dealer having it billed to them

+1. Yup, most oil change places will do a quick battery check. Obviously, the business motivation is there. Shit happens, I agree but they should be responsible for the shit that happens. Stuff at shops goes wrong often (human error, crappy/old parts), but the shop responsible for the problem should pay to fix it.

[krimsalt]

Last time I went into one of those quick oil change places was in my old POS Mazda 323... While they didn't tell me the price until after the change was done, the kids in the pit kept playing around with my shfter lnkages.. I saw my shifter randomly jumping between 3 and 4th gear while lobbing side to side in neutral... Seriously pissed me off

[Wes08M3]

it's not useless man... you WANT the battery box and cover on all the 1st gens because there's a cooling duct to it, which helps dry out any fluid leakage, expels gases from the battery quickly, and most importantly, COOLS IT
heat kills batteries, and mazda did this to get more life out of batteries

It's not completely useless but not integral to the function of the vehicle. Most cars do not use a system like that, even the gen 2 MZ3 does not have the cooling duct anymore. If it was that helpful and/or necessary I'm sure Mazda wouldn't have ditched it.

He can still leave the duct there without the cover on it if he really wanted to. Besides, with the cover off the battery will be cooled somewhat. :P

I'm just saying, it's not the end of the world to not have the battery cover. Try and get them to pay to replace it (if they broke it they really should, it's only fair) but if they won't replace it, it's not a big enough deal to start knocking some heads.

[TheMAN]

the genpu does, in some countries... not here though
they kept it for the hot climate countries because it's really necessary there... for here, they did it to cut costs, not because it was useless