Dear Tom and Ray: I went to one of those 10-minute- oil-change places, and I got out of my vehicle to watch the employee work on my car. He began pumping oil into my engine from one of the overhead hoses, and while he pumped the oil, he started talking with his buddy who was servicing the next car over. He wasn’t paying any attention to what he was doing, and he didn’t realize that the oil hose had slipped out of the hole. He was holding the trigger and spraying oil all over my engine. When he realized his mistake several seconds later, he repositioned the hose back in the hole and continued pumping oil. Once it was full, he tightened the cap and tried to spray off the oil with water and wipe some oil off with a rag. I was amazed and didn’t know what to say. He got oil all over the valve cover, on the wiring, on the spark-plug wires, on the windshield and on all sorts of things that I’m sure I don’t know about yet. My question: Is it possible that I will experience problems in the future as the oil seeps into just about everything? Will an engine detail be enough? — Alex
Ray: Actually, this happens a lot. And while there’s no danger of engine parts being ruined by being covered in oil, there is a slight fire danger. If oil were to pool on the hot exhaust manifold, it could ignite.
Tom: That’s why, when my brother squirts oil all over someone’s engine, he always cleans it off with a solvent.
Ray: Right. It’s a pain, but if we don’t clean it up, the oil will burn off and will smoke and smell bad, and we’ll probably lose a customer.
Tom: You mean ANOTHER customer!
Ray: Right. So we clean it off with a solvent rather than water, because a solvent will actually WORK. Then we’ll run the engine to burn off anything we missed while my brother stands by with twigs and marshmallows, just in case.
Tom: So, having your engine steam-cleaned would be more than adequate, Alex. And you should ask those guys to pay for it.
Ray: And next time, sit in the waiting room and read a People magazine like you’re supposed to, so you won’t have to see stuff like this.
Dear Tom and Ray: My boyfriend recently diagnosed a problem with the instrument cluster in my 1999 Grand Prix. He was able to pick up a replacement at the salvage yard and install it himself, saving a couple hundred dollars from the dealer quote. But the car the replacement was taken from had fewer miles on it than mine, and I’m worried about what will happen when I go to trade this one in. Do I keep my mouth shut, like he says, and hope that nobody will notice? Or, if I tell the dealer, will the mileage police haul my trusting rear end off to jail? Help me! — Libby
Tom: Actually, this is not a dilemma at all, Libby. We can tell that you’re an honest person at heart (unlike your sleazeball boyfriend!), so you simply have to follow the rules set out by the state you live in.
Ray: They’re different in every state, but the common element is disclosure.
Tom: You are required simply to inform any future owner of the car that the mileage reading on the odometer is not the actual mileage of the car. So check with your state DMV and do whatever is required to disclose the new odometer reading, and then you can stop worrying about it forever, Libby.
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