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Goof dealership did a hack oil change

6K views 34 replies 12 participants last post by  Superjim 
#1 ·
So I recently moved and went to a dealer for an oil change and a few other things. Not looking at my receipt till I got home i realized they did a conventional oil change on me. What kind of harm could this cause? Im afraid to drive my car. I guess ill try to get some kind of refund on Sunday. I think its sad that this car never had a drop of conventional in it and I trusted the dealer to do a proper oil change and they couldnt.
 
#2 ·
Are you saying they used conventional oil as opposed to synthetic? In that case, absolutely NOTHING will happen. Your engine does not require synthetic.

5.0 lsc said:
I think its sad that this car never had a drop of conventional in it
It rolled off of the assembly line with conventional oil in it.

If they filled the crankcase with 7.5 quarts of any brand/type of 5W-30 motor oil, you're good to go. Check your oil level weekly, and change it when the OLM reaches 0%.
 
#4 ·
Yes i understand theyre rated for conventional but it was synthetic from 5k till now(65k)....i was always told your not supposed to switch back to conventional....but either way im glad to hear that i was expecting my valves to start tapping this morning but it ran fine.
 
#6 ·
If you have been pouring synthetic in it, then stick with it, i've also have been told to "never go back to conventional once you go full synthetic" maybe once is allright and it will run ok, but i would swap it back to synthetic ASAP. But really you should mention to your dealer that you use synthetic, they have no problem charging 12$ per quart.
 
#7 ·
Synthetic vs. conventional vs. "blend"........... just what percentage of conventional to synthetic is a "synthetic blend" and do all oil packagers maintain the same percentage ? :lildevil:

If someone really wanted to get laughingly anal over the difference in what's in the oil pan, he could always pump out 1/2 of the current oil (type) and refill with the same amount of the other oil (type) in order not to "shock" the poor engine !!!
 
#8 ·
It has more to do with good marketing and advertising than anything else. It will not harm your engine. Don't waste your money on changing it immediately. You can change between the two as much as you like. Synthetics are superior in extreme conditions of which I highly doubt your DTS will ever approach. Otherwise, they perform almost identically. 5W-30 synthetic has the same viscosity is 5W-30 conventional, otherwise it would have a different rating.

Look at how good the marketing has been for synthetic oil! You are afraid to drive your car with a perfectly good, less expensive substitute!
 
#9 · (Edited by Moderator)
I do not think that you will have any problems whatsoever. That would look terrible if a Cadillac had damage or break down just because it was finicky over oil. If it was a substandard oil, then maybe I could see it. But not with a quality conventional or quality synthetic.

I think that synthetic is over-rated and too expensive and agree wholeheartedly with the opinions on marketing here. I think a lot of people are reaching mileage of 200,000+ or more using conventional oil without any problems.

I wonder how much extra money would be spent on synthetic verses conventional over the lifetime 200,000-300,000 miles one might expect to put on a 2010 Cadillac? Would it be worth the extra cost or would it be best to save the money and let it earn interest. Not sure as I haven't done the math but you might have enough to pay for the remanufactured engine or close to it.

Just a different way to look at it… I don't want to offend those that love synthetic and I'm not looking for a flame war.:burn: :gun2: I am sure there are good points about using both types but in the end it is up to us to decide whether we want to buy designer oil for our Cadillacs. Either way, our neighbors will never know.

I'd like to see opinions from everyone on the subject, no matter which they prefer. It may be enough to make some people change to the other type of oil, depending on the information posted.
 
#13 · (Edited by Moderator)
I don't want to offend those that love synthetic and I'm not looking for a flame war.
Well, I will start off by apologizing as my intention was not to start any flame wars. I thought that was clear in my post but I'm sure somebody could take it differently or read into it a bit more and say that my subconscious mind was playing games and really wanted the opposite.

I don't enjoy flame wars, nor bullying or do I take part in them in any of the 50+ forums I belong to. I just think that sometimes by taking part in an intelligent discussion and being open to someone else's point of view *sometimes* might change someone's point of view on the subject and help make them make a change for the better. Or at the very least, make a change for the better. But I can see that its better off that we don't, just in case someone reads in between the lines or just for the small chance that sensitive Sally doesn't quite feel emotionally strong enough that particular day to now have to choose between 2 products.

I don't think I would ever get too worked up over oil quality but had I grown up in Texas and been born with the last name of Ewing, the alarm bells probably would have been going off the minute I came across my earlier post!

So for the sake of *Friday* and everybody getting along, I’ll just say I'm glad that we won't have Sally second-guessing herself all weekend.

Please accept my apologies if I unknowingly backed up into a battlefield and for sure, it was not my intention. Ya’ll have a great weekend!

Reg
 
#10 ·
I don't feel like walking down to the garage to check the Owner's Manual. But to me it's a question of the wording there. If it says synthetic recommended, then I think you're OK with conventional oil. If it says synthetic required, or "Use synthetic oil....", then it becomes a question of warranty and I wouldn't want to fool with that.....

For some reason I thought there was a change in the OM wording, beginning with the 2008 model, that specifically calls for synthetic oil use.
 
#11 ·
There are enough Oil Wars already in existence in every car model in CF. No need to start another. No need for further opinion, either. If you really want to see oil wars and flaming, get into "oil forums" in www.bobistheoilguy.com . There is enough fact, fiction, fantasy and just plain bad information in that one site to satisfy anyone's quest for "opinion".

Oil and gasoline are like whiskey, women and guns: everyone has their favorite and endless discussion will NOT change a thing.
 
#12 ·
There are enough Oil Wars already in existence in every car model in CF. No need to start another. No need for further opinion, either. If you really want to see oil wars and flaming, get into "oil forums" in www.bobistheoilguy.com . There is enough fact, fiction, fantasy and just plain bad information in that one site to satisfy anyone's quest for "opinion".

Oil and gasoline are like whiskey, women and guns: everyone has their favorite and endless discussion will NOT change a thing.
But Sub.. everybody "KNOWS" that older whiskey, younger women and 1911's are the "BEST"... :cool2: :histeric: :histeric:
 
#14 ·
I like oil wars good clean fun especially when you have a sh#t disturber in the mix and as everyone knows oil has changed in the last 10 years and maybe not for the best. A well informed community/country is a prosperous and free community/country.

We did a oil change on my sons VW one of the auto stores told him he could use a 10w40 and we read in the OM he should use a 5w40 505.01 oil or he is at risk on the highway and serious injury could result never read that in the owners manual before.

Went to all the stores found a 505.00 but no 505.01 in a 5w/40 we did a lot of research and ended up removing the 10w40 and replaced with a Mobil one truck turbo diesel syn. VW says you have to use a 505.01 (has to be on the bottle) because the fuel injectors are run off the cam and the cam lobes are smaller than normal.

I still have no idea what the formula for 505.01 would be.Mike
 
#16 · (Edited)
I have been driving for about 55 years...
In that time I have driven over 2,000,000 miles.
I have always had some type of automobile, be it a car, pickup truck, van, whatever...

Some of them I have put well over 100,000 miles on them... a few of the work vehicles went for 200,000+.

For a number of years I owned a diesel big rig in addition to the regular cars.

I spent several years with a lot of my weekends at the drag strip.
I have owned several dirt track cars at various times.

In that time, I have used just about every kind of oil you can imagine.

Conventional DINO oil, oil that is for diesel trucks only, synthetic oil and on and on and on...

In all that time and all those miles, I have had very, very few problems that could, even remotely, be attributed to the oil not doing it job...
I have always believed that if you change the oil regularly, you won't have many... IF ANY... oil related problems.

55 years later... it is still working that way for me.

As long os it is slick and slippery and getting pumped thru the engine... it is lubricating the moving parts.

That's all "ANY" oil can do...

I guess the debate will have to be... does one do it better than another???
Can one do it well enough to get 400,000 miles out of the engine and can another one do it well enough to get 500,000 miles out of the engine..

I don't know about y'all... but I don't plan on keeping mine long enough to see 400,000 or 500,000 miles out of it.

So far, my 2006 DTS has almost 122,000 on it and uses no oil at all.

It started out on regular DINO oil, but at about the the 3rd oil change, at around 12,000 miles, I switched to Synthetic...
A couple of times since then, it has had DINO oil put in it when it was changed...
Except for a very slight loss of MPG and a very slight loss of "SNAP" to the engine... I can tell no difference between one or the other...

That's my story and I am sticking to it...:cool2: :histeric: :cool2:

Texas Jim
 
#18 ·
Super thanks! Yes i found that chart in my internet search but it was the weekend and napa was not open I think I could have found one of those oils there or they like the some of the other stores could have ordered it for us but my son was leaving for SC sunday night. We came to the conclusion that he could leave the mobil one turbo diesel in the car for the owners manual stated mileage then go to Napa or others and order the brand he prefers that says 505.01 on the bottle and do his next oil filter change then.

I will guess that the 505.01 is a syn. with a dose of ZDDP I would like to see the formula.

Oil war! I see no oil war here what I see for the most part are people with constructive advice trying to help each other.Mike
 
#19 ·
Getting back to the OP (remember him?) I wonder if he told the dealership what kind of oil he wanted or just tossed them the keys and assumed they would use synthetic?

Remember the words of the great philosopher Strother Martin, in Cool Hand Luke: "What we have here is a failure to communicate!"
 
#24 ·
Go up ^^^ into the top black bar and read all of the Cadillac Technical Archive - there's vital info you need to know, as well as an involved article on the OLM (Oil Life Monitor) and how and why.

5.0 lsc, Please be careful when it comes to name-calling and insults: You may earn a vacation from CF. Thanks for the consideration of your fellow members.
 
#28 ·
so just to add my .02 here i'll try and recap a few things and try to bring them together ...

you asked for a synthetic oil and didn't get it ... understandable for you to be upset about that
the good news is that 1) you saved a bit of money and 2) your engine was designed for regular so there's no harm done

and another point about the use of conventional oil in your engine and the oil life monitor:
because your engine was designed for conventional oil the oil life monitor is programmed to calculate the oil life based on that oil
there is no way to change that - if you use a better oil (like mobil1) the oil life monitor will still count down as if you put conventional oil in there

just something to think about
 
#29 ·
That is true about saving money and the oil life monitor being designed for the conventional I agree. I guess the whole experience got me upset because on top of that, I had a valve stem replaced
and it ended up being a rubber one with a black cap, unlike the chrome ones with the nut on it. When I asked him, he claimed all the replacement acdelco valve stems are now rubber. I dont buy that. And to cap it off he didnt have my car ready, and as I stood out there for 10 minutes (late for mother in laws dinner) he ran it through a car wash without telling me. I just paid $300 last year to have all the swirl marks buffed out of my car. I may try another caddy dealer next time. Im a service adviser myself and I'm very particular about my cars.
 
#32 ·


Just to be clear about the change that GM made to the TPMS sensors and valve stems here is a picture

on the right is an old style TPMS sensor (this one has a plastic cap but you get the idea) it is one piece and if the valve stem gets damaged during a tire mount/dismount its pretty expensive to replace

in the middle is the new style TPMS sensor that just about all the GM vehicles use. the valve stem is rubber and is replaceable

on the left is a valve stem replacement

...

as for the caps - this new style valve stem uses a non-standard cap size that is pretty hard to find
 
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