Oil jelled after 4357 miles
 

We have a 2011 Chev Express van with the 4.l Vortec engine. When we went to change the oil at 43457 miles some 4685 miles after last oil change, no oil came out. I stuck a wire up the oil drain hole and it felt like going thru jello. I have a web page http://www.turbo1.com/oil/ that lists the oil changes, batch number of the oil that had gone in it, a video of getting the oil out for a sample to blackstone & the blackstone report.

In showing the reports to people that understand oil reports, say the oil was cooked and that is the reason it jelled.

We took the truck to Lone Star Chev and they are now telling me that we can not change our own oil that GM is wanting recites of the oil being changed. I have a call into a Ronny Calder since I am told he is the one requesting recites.

Has anyone else run into a problem where GM says you can not change your own oil?

I've done all the oil changes except for a few the dealer did on my moms 08 Tahoe since new...i keep a folder of receipts and scans on a USB for backup in case the originals fade.....never had an issue with any dealer bawking about it...
If you have proof to back it up i cant see them denying anything....

I'm a gm dealer.

GM always prefers all maintnance being done at the dealer ship. if not, they always asked the customer to keep receipt with date, product description, to be clear.

within the normal warranty, they will always honor to fix the problem for free. if out of warranty, of course they will not.

If all maintenance was done at the GM dealer, they will sometimes, even out of warranty, cover the expenses and fix the problem, either 100%, or sometimes part of it...

some exceptions apply when they feel there is something fishy...

now for your case, if we want to find reasons why they would not pay, I've seen in the past, people having false receipts made, and another time we had a customer that paid a shop to get an oil change, but they never did it! TWICE ! so he had an engine failure because he ran like 16-17000 miles on same oil, wich also became not only too dirty, but too low, and.... you know the story...

So, I have no precise idea for your case! but if you kept records of maintenance, you should be ok!

Quaker State Warranty: http://www.quakerstatewarranty.com/warranty_products/

you can change your own oil but you would need to have reciepts for oil and filter and suggested oil. however many oil changes they say you should have had by 46000 miles. if they they say it has to be changed every 3000 miles you would need to give them roughly 15 reciepts for oil and filter. if you supply those reciepts and they still deny coverage i would recommend calling customer service and explain the situation. i have had vehicles covered under warranty good will 3 years out of warranty and at a 100000 miles.
the brand that i work for the vehicle go any where from 10000- 20000 miles between oil changes. depended upon the type of driving that customer does. it is called condition based service
have a an 03 tundra with 211000 miles on it and i change the oil every 8000-10000 miles with castrol 5w-30 syntec.

This truck is one of 10 chev company trucks we have. Some of them have over 170k miles on them and going strong. I am old and and have been changing my own oil since I was 16. I have never seen this problem before in any of my boats, motor homes, cars. tractors, or trucks. I have more receipts for the purchase of oil and filters then what we are talking about but the rep. I was talking to was not wanting that. I have not had a conversation with Ronny yet.

SB, after the conversations I have had with Shell, they can say anything they want but they will not back it up. The girl that had called me telling me they were denying my claim said the oil left their factory in good condition and they were not responsible to what happened after it left their hands. I asked for a copy of the oil analysis that they did and she told me it was their property and they would not send it to me. She also told me it was not not their responsibility to help me figure out why the oil jelled. I had been a loyal Quaker state / Shell customer up to now using their products in all of my personal & company engines. I will be a mobile 1 man from now on.

sounds like you might have some antifreeze mixed into the oil..i have seen intake manifold gaskets go bad and when the engine is cold it will seep into the intake valley and in to the oil then the crankshaft whips it up in to a cream looking oil..check the antifreeze level in the radiator and not the puke tank..

Both reports said no water or antifreeze

Wow, don't have an answer but wish you good luck pinpointing the problem. btw, there was nothing at your link.

Might post over to the folks at bobistheoilguy.com forum. They would eat it up and might have a better answer than a boat forum.

Now the delima, do you take it to GM and have them pull the engine apart with the hopes they will warranty it (if it is found to be mechanical)? or do you not trust, due to their incompetence level and have an independent specialist do it, then try to fight GM for the money???
Given the likely high cost of litigation over a crappy little engine (in the big picture), I would probably gamble the GM route. If your dealer is not very sympathetic or knowledgeable, I would shop the repair around. I went to 4 dealers before I found one to rebuild my 3500's Allison, got various stages of run around from the first 3. Fourth was a very large shop with specialized people. They took it right in at noon Wed and it was done Friday.
You sound like you would have some commercial volume business a dealer would like to have.

I have a fleet of chevy express vans with the v6, we keep them until they have between 200 and 225k miles. It is part of our procedure to periodically check the fluids when the vans are back at the office just to make sure the services we pay for are being done.

In the past we believe a certain former driver was getting receipts and not getting the work done. Another issue we came across was where the service facility would only fill oil to the minimum. On another occasion our local dealer only put enough synthetic oil for a 5 cylinder engine when the vehicle was equipped with a V8, thankfully the engine was not hurt before we caught it. We now ask to see dipstick or check ourselves before leaving the facility.


Check out http://www.fleetio.com/ keeps track of all your service records and reminders and also downloads most major fleet fuel cards so that you can monitor fuel mileage and ownership costs. $19 bucks a month to tame all those receipts and service reminders. You can scan the receipts right into the vehicles service record.

we believe this route has closed any option for misuse of the fuel cards or service expenses