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

Miles vs Hours
What grade oil do you use like 5-30.

Did you PO anyone Did you fire anyone lately. Could it be sabotage. The Plot Thickens.

ChargeIt I went to the link

http://www.turbo1.com/oil

and a basic page came up with the info. I then clicked on the links on that page and the reports came up. The video is very large and take a long time to download. I agree as to what do do. The truck still has 63k miles left of extended warranty. We felt going back to the dealer was the best in the long run. Lone Star Chev has gone thru a number of changes and all the people we have worked with in the past are gone. I am working with a all new group of people.
I will go to the bobistheoilguy.com & see what they come up with. I have a good friend who's job is to figure out why mult-million $ engines fail. I had him look at the oil reports and he had sent them on to some other people in the know. They all came back and said motor bearing are history and oil got cooked for some reason.

Wobble
Our truck stay locked up in shop at night. We have a gas tank at the office so trucks are gassed up on site. The mileage and gas used are logged into our computer system. The total amount of gas bought is also kept up with. If a truck is out of the mpg range, I get an email. Once trucks get 4k miles since last oil change I get email. I get email if anything out of line. In the last few years either I have changed the oil or I have overseen the person doing the oil change. Our trucks are on the road during the day, so we change oil at night, or weekends.

LOTOWONTOPGUN
Never say never. Oil that we use in the new truck was the Quaker State Full Synthetic dexos 5w-30,the type recommended by GM. I was worried that someone had done something to the truck. That was the reason I had gotten two oil samples done.

If no coolant was detected in it I would have to think something went to crap in the oil...nothing else makes sense..

Question was asked how many hrs. Motor has total of 1497.4 hrs
The computer says there is 31% oil life remaining.
43456 miles total

have you downloaded all the codes? and code history, I beleive there was a major overheat situation to do that to the oil

Our office got a phone call from George with Lonestar Chev again today wanting us to agree to pay for a new engine to be installed in the truck. After going to the dealership this afternoon and standing out side Ronnie Calda's office who is the Service Director he asked me to come in his office. The first thing I told him after introducing myself is I was the one who had left him the voice mails that he had not returned. He told me all I need is receipts of oil and filters purchased. Not sure why it took me going there to get this answer. I asked him if they had downloaded the log off the computer and he and another guy in Ronnie's office said the the computer would not have logged any useful information. I know the computers on boat log how much time at each rpm level and other things. I am surprised that truck computers do not log any useful information.

I have emailed him a number of receipts of oil & filter purchased. Also sent a picture showing 15 empty 5 quart oil jugs along with the lift and the oil catch we use to make changing oil easy. I also told them I was so upset with Chev and their dealership I had gone and purchase a new Ford F250 truck the day before.

sadly this does not change a thing. in order to work for you, he needs those receipts for discussion with the GM warranty dept. otherwise, there is absolutely nothing he can do. This guy is your link to GM. if he does not have the tools supplied by you, he just can't work at all!

Good luck again, but help him to help you!

Jefff32., I understand that, but they kept asking for receipts showing we had the oil changed. We kept telling them we do it in house. We would ask the question, "So we can not change our own oil", and the response back was "We need receipts of having the oil changed" I had left VM for the service director to cal me and the only way I had gotten to talk to him was stand outside his office. It was not until yesterday was I told that receipts showing purchase of oil and filters was all that they needed. They were sent an email last night with a pdf of receipts along with a picture of 15 empty 5 Qt oil jugs.

I went back to dealer ship this morning and had a meeting with the service manager, general manager, & shop manager. The service manager told me that they had gone into the motor and removed the valve covers to verify the oil has jelled. I was polite and asked them to humor me and let go and look at the truck since I did not believe that. I said I would apologize if the work had been done. Later in conversation he told me he was incorrect and the truck had not been touched.

After meeting I am hoping we are now making progress.

I did get a call from another Chev dealer who told me to get him the Vin number & to have the van shipped to him and he would get something done. That is one way to get your future business.

update, Dealer is working with Chev to decided to put new motor in or to rebuild existing. They did pull pan. Not a pretty site. Looks like someone made Jello in the oil pan.

Thts interesting... The Dexos oils are all at least semi synthetic and really should not gel.

Wannabe

Interesting situation. I've been changing my own oil in 20 + new vehicles since 1987. I never keep receipts for oil/filters nor do I keep any kind of written maintenance log. I believe that will now change. Thanks for sharing.

Remind,s me of back in the late 70,s quaker state had oil that would turn to jello below freezing .

Update. Picked up van today. Did not charge me 1 penny. Since truck had 43,456 miles on it, I figured I was going to have to pay say $50-$100. + for oil, filter and coolant, but they charged me nothing. I went and thanked the service manager and told him I was surprised that I was paying nothing.

They put a new motor in the truck

I have some pictures showing the oil pan and bottom end of motor. I will be posting later today.

I do not keep a log or receipts for oil filter for my personal vehicles either. That has since this changed.

I bought my first car in '79 and have never paid anyone to change oil. I bought my first new car in '87 and never gave a thought to oil changes in terms of warranty if something goes wrong with the engine. I will definitely document everything from this point on. The only "documentation" I would have is the guys at the local Advanced Auto that let me dump my 3, 5-gallon jugs of used oil every so often.