I'm here to gather opinions.

One day last week, my father took his Ram Express into a local dealer to have the oil changed. To make a longer story extremely brief and short, it's likely been overfilled. The oil is almost two to three quarters of the way up the dipstick and way past "max". There is obvious blue smoke coming from the exhaust and there is black build-up on the chrome exhaust tips. The dealer has been contacted and said that they find this "hard to believe" although the evidence is concrete.

What would you demand the dealer do?

They re-do the oil change and perform a fuel system cleaning.

At minimum.

Fresh spark plugs would be on my list.

I wonder if the oil changer was called away in the middle of the task, forgot he filled it, and filled it again without checking. What a dipstick.

Edited February 12, 201312 yr by ocnblu

We'll see how the fortune cookie crumbles tomorrow morning. In the meantime, a case file has been opened up with Chrysler's corporate customer service.

Oil CHange, Spark Plugs, Fuel system cleaning, detail to clean up the smoke from the exhuast, verification that the truck is back to proper spec.

Verify that the cat(s) and O2 sensor are undamaged.

Well, this has developed into an even bigger issue.

I can affirm that the dealer overfilled the engine by 2.5 to 3 quarts. The 5.7 liter Hemi is only designed to hold 7, so you can imagine what havoc this wreaked on what is still an infant engine (the truck only has 9k on the clock). The truck still smokes and used almost another quart of oil on the way home from the dealer. Again, making a long story short, the only thing the dealer felt obliged to do was drain the oil, fill it to the proper spec, and send the truck on its way. They didn't feel obliged, it seemed, to check the intake or exhaust manifolds for signs of oil, they didn't bother to check the condition of the rings and seals, and they didn't bother to check the condition of the spark plugs, fuel system, or the cat and o2 sensors. They now feel this is, for some unknown and unholy reason, a warranty issue (if I owned a dealership, I know that really wouldn't sit right with me).

We'll see what happens.

Edited February 13, 201312 yr by black-knight

Oil CHange, Spark Plugs, Fuel system cleaning, detail to clean up the smoke from the exhuast, verification that the truck is back to proper spec.

+1

Back in the early 80's there was a Ford Dealership in Kirkland Washington that was one of the highest warranty claim dealerships around and the stories of blown engines to smoking engines etc. They seems to fix your problem and break 2-3 other things to get you back in for more work. If memory serves me correct the state did an investigation and found many iregularities on how it conducted business and evetually shut down the dealership. Ford reopened it up after selling it to another person and the original owners left for Alaska which 2-3 years later they were shutdown there for the same bad service and bait n switch deals which in washington they also had a bad rep for doing.

Sorry you have had this happen to you. I wonder if the mechanics thought they could get you back to spend more money without you thinking about them screwing you over.

I hope I am wrong, but it seems some dealerships look for loop holes to abuse warranty programs and service.

It's time to start your letter to Chrysler customer customer relations.

I agree with Drew, time to start that letter and document, document, document!

Excellent suggestion guys; I'll try to work up a letter to keep on standby over the weekend.

However, I will note that contacting Chrysler Customer Serivce to follow up on the case file seemed rather fruitless. I explained to them the issue was not resolved and the dealer didn't seem willing to actually help anyone out in this situation and they only referred me back to the dealership.

Make yourself a Twitter account, or perhaps ask the manager of C&G's account to do it on your behalf, and shoot a tweet to @RamTrucks and @Chrysler. Make a shortened link to this thread and quickly tell them the issue.

I've found that you can get surprisingly quick CS this way. It's worth a shot.

Edited February 14, 201312 yr by FAPTurbo

Make yourself a Twitter account, or perhaps ask the manager of C&G's account to do it on your behalf, and shoot a tweet to @RamTrucks and @Chrysler. Make a shortened link to this thread and quickly tell them the issue.

I've found that you can get surprisingly quick CS this way. It's worth a shot.

Already done.