The one where they forgot to put the cap on

"Don't take it to those fly by night shops. They use crappy oil, crappy filters, and who knows what they'll forget."

You'll notice a few things in this one. Yes, this is Christina's car, Foxy Vanilla. Yes, that's my my Venture in the background. Yes, this is in a parking garage downtown Milwaukee. Yes, it's on the 10th floor on the parking garage. Yes, that is oil on the ground in front of Foxy Vanilla. Yes, that is oil from Foxy Vanilla's engine.



Closer inspection...


What you can't see is that the hood liner is SOAKED with oil... some spray is evident in other areas.


And the problem... anybody notice the cap missing? I peeked in the hole, and there's a rocker arm almost directly underneath the hole... perfect for spraying oil out the top and into the engine compartment.


Apparently, the car was running fine until just before Milwaukee. The oil light would come on here and there, car still running fine. Pulling into the garage (about 20 degree incline), the car reportedly started shaking pretty bad.

Intuition tells us that eventually the oil got so low in level that the oil pump started not being able to pull it out of the reservoir, thus the oil pressure would occasionally drop down in curves as the oil would slosh to one side of the pan, and thus turning on the oil pressure light occasionally. As she started heading up hill in the garage, there was no hope of the pump getting any oil from the pan... and by some miracle had enough lube in the engine to run it all the way up 10 floors in the parking garage. The oil you see on the ground in the first picture is what eventually dripped out of the hood liner, onto the engine fan, and eventually the ground.

So, knight in shining armor arrives (that's me). On the way to meet her, I picked up a 5 quart bottle of oil, oil filter, adjustable wrench, filter wrench, and bag of shop rags from Wal-mart. As I was crawling under the car, I actually had to lift the car up with my hands for me to fit my head between the ground and the frame. I was inspecting to make sure they managed to get the pan plug and filter on properly and tight enough.

All of a sudden, the car drops and smashes my head. Yup, I pooped my pants. I scream, kicking my legs and trying to get my oily, slippery hands back under the frame to lift it up again. My head happened to be looking out the drivers side. I was screaming for Christina, but she was apparently on the phone... IN THE CAR. I peered out with now blurred vision from smashed temples, and see some vaguely adorable feet dangling out of the side of the car. (Picture a little kid with his legs hanging over the edge of a pier/warf on a lake... real cute, right?) It took about 3 microseconds to figure out what happened. Christina had plopped down into the driver's seat while talking on the phone. As kindly as I could, "GET UP GET UP GET UP GET UP GET UP!" I don't know if you can picture what it was like for me under the car to see those legs dangling out the side... if you do it right, you'll be laughing a lot.

Lesson: use jack stands.

Anyway, as I was fumbling around underneath the car, following the near-death experience above, I was feeling around for the oil filter. All of a sudden the cap for the valve cover plops to the ground. Somehow, it managed to fall onto a frame member and wedged next to a plastic panel for about 70 miles. Thank God He worked that into our favor - good luck finding an auto parts store for a replacement in downtown Milwaukee.

While pouring the new oil into the engine, I kindly said something like this to Christina, "You realize that you're NEVER going to one of these Jiffy-lube type places again, right?" "Yeeeeesss, I know."