I had a service carried out on my car yesterday , which included an oil change .
Today I was checking the oil level , and noticed that the colour of the oil on the dipstick was black .
Shouldn't the colour , on the dipstick so soon after an oil , change, be a light colour and trasparent ?
Should I go accusing the garage of not changing the oil , or is the colour observed , normal after an oil change ?
BertiWooster Thurs 25/09/08 20:56
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IF diesel then this is normal will change to black in minutes IF Petrol should show transparent for a while after. Hope this helps.
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Take a look at the oil filter, the body should be fairly clean, if it has a light covering of dirt all over, this would suggest it has not been changed.
My advice would be to get the car back to the garage ASAP and see what they say – they might admit that it looks like it was not changed and change it and the filter.
My old early 80s vintage Ford used to turn oil black pretty quickly, this would not be helped if all the old oil had not been allowed to fully drain (or not flushed) through. My late 90s Ford’s oil looks like new at 5,000 miles – I guess that’s why they have extended the oil change interval on modern cars – less of the oil gets to where it shouldn’t, due to improved engine design/manufacturing tolerances.
If the garage claim it has been changed and won’t budge, it would be a hard one to prove in you favour. I would just take it to one of the ‘National’ oil change centres, who will do you an oil & filter change for £25, and don’t use the garage again.
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If your car's petrol then the oil should look a light golden brown for several weeks. If it's a diesel then the oil will look black in a very short space of time. It should be mentioned that most oil changes involve sucking the oil out of the sump via the dip-stick hole.
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Most garages do not change all the oil properly!
If the oil is sucked out instead of draining via the sump plug it can leave a lot of old oil in the engine.
They do not let the oil drain completely, When I change mine I let it drip out for as long as it takes me to service the rest of the car usually about one and a half hours
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Unfontunately a lot of mechanics are on time saved bonus so draining oil will last about 10 mins so some dirty oil will be left in the sump to contaminate the new oil, how many miles has your car covered as a high mileage engine will dirty the oil quicker than a low milge engine and some engines are better than others and the oil will stay cleaner for longer as already said diesels will go black almost straight away
hope this helps
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Teddio and Toureman...you are having me on aren't you? If not, when did they start doing this? I'm used to doing my own oil change...good fun when I'm dropping 25 litres out of the truck and got to swap receptacles half way through! My van though normally goes to Ford as I get free servicing, but I've always wondered how much they really do. So how long does it take to suck the oil out? I'm stunned!!
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A "Pela" oil extractor is used on many boats because they don't have sump plugs. A fine flexible metal tube is pushed into the bottom of the car sump after taking out the dip stick. If the oil is warm it takes a few minutes to suck out 5 litres. Garages have been using these for years.
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Well I never! You learn something every day!
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The oil change via the dipstick has been around for dozens of years, I find it strange that someone was unaware.
Not only was this done in garages but I reember seeing it available at filling stations where you did it yourself.
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Question Author
thanks folks
The oil filter looks new and the 'shoulder' of the spark plugs where it sits at the top of the hole ( if you follow me ) isn't oily / dirty .
On the balance of probabilities therefore it looks like the oil and plugs were changed .
I didn't realize that all the old oil isn't taken out when an oil change is carried out .
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Just to add, if you requested the garage to flush the system out that would have left your oil clear, within your engine you start from the sump, oil pump which pumps the oil up to the rockers via tubes ( Oil Ways ) so you can see if the system was not totaly flushed there would be a certain amount of old oil within the system.
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