I went to get my oil changed at a Mobil 1 Lube Center and the guy grabs the hose for Automatic Transmission Fluid and fills my engine with ATF instead of OIL.

Luckily I caught what he had done before I crank up the engine. He says ATF is almost the same as 5W20 oil and he proceeds to drain the ATF out and replace my Oil filter... then puts in OIL this time. I called my dealership and the guy said to drain the ATF, change filter... fill with oil, run the engine briefly... drain the oil/change filer and refill with oil... then it should be fine.

After a brief dispute on whether he would do the drain/fill.. run... drain/refill, he finally agreed to do it.

So... I hope nobody here will tell me it will ruin my engine. Its a 2001 F150 4.6L with 156,000 miles.

Moral of the story.... if you use a "lube center"... watch those idiots and make sure they dont screw up.

My sister in law just had a guy put the wrong oil filter on... oil drains out and her engine siezes up about 2 miles from the lube center... now they are having to sue the lube center because the lube center will only agree to find a junkyard engine to replace it with... not a rebuilt/new engine.

 

i dont want to rub salt in the wound but thats why i do my own oil....

 

Yep, watch 'em.

They may just "cross fred a strew!"

 

I live in an apartment so its kind of a pain to store the oil/oil pan etc...... plus my apartment complex is kind of strict about not allowing anyone to work on their vehicles in the parking lot. Otherwise I would definitely do my own.

 

You may or may not believe this but my father used to put in some ATF in his engine when he changed his oil. I asked him about this once and he told me that it loosens sticking lifters or something. He done this for years. Good luck.

 

Absolutely correct. The ATF will act as a flushing oil.
Seeing as you caught it straight away, it won't be a problem.
Look on it as a free flush

BTW, ATF is nothing like 5/20W.

 

Years ago, my father had his oil changed at one of those one-stop-idiot-lube stores. When he got back home I noticed oil leaking onto the driveway. Opened up the hood & those morons forgot to put the filler cap back on the valve cover! Luckily it was only a mile away from the house. I called the place right away & raised hell. Had to go out & buy a new filler cap, added oil, and then drove it back to the shop. I made them steam clean the entire engine, change the oil & filter again, pay for the new filler cap, and pay for a car wash & wax. When I was leaving they gave me some coupons for free oil changes, I took them, tore them up, and threw them on the ground as I was walking out of the shop! Sold the car years ago, so not sure how much damage it actually did.

 

I also have herad off useing A/T fluid to free sticking lifters. on my 2002 f-150, I took the truck in for a oil change at A FORD dealer....went back to pick up my truck and the only saving grace was the service tech parked the truck on a slight incline, wing nut did not tighten the drain plug....oil's spewing out of the truck and the service adviser's telling me it's just spillage from the old oil...ya right.....
I can understand it's get's busy but to not double check your work is a poor excuse, we all can make mistake's but I get p off when thiers no acknowledgement of the first mistake.

 

I also had a friend lose his motor after having his oil changed at a Jiffy Lube. They forgot to tighten the oil drain plug. He did it close to where we worked, and lived a half an hour away but didn't make it

 

I wonder if them lube techs do it on purpose. For the hell of it.
I use to change oil at a shop, always would get tips. $1 here and there.

 

are you serious....maybe there stoned or whatever but to do it just for the hell of it?....lawsuits...loss of job...creadibility...seems like a lot to waste on "revenge"...zap!

 

Your engine should be fine. If there was a concern, it would be that your engine has some miles on it and the ATF is very high detergent. Even a brief run with the ATF could free up a lot of sediment and varnish in an engine with that many miles. It might not hurt to change the filter again in a week or so. When you take the filter off drain it into a clean container and check lead and copper colored deposits. It's not unusual to find some of these deposits in an older engine, but if there is a lot, change the oil and filter again right away. You don't want this stuff circulating around inside your engine. Contrary to popular belief, this can be the downside to the so called crankcase flush, whether done on purpose or accidently. Good luck.

 

I got an F-150 for my wife - good trade!!!



what could be better? ...zap!

 

A guy I work with told me about using transmission fluid to find exhaust leaks. With the engine running, pull the hose off the brake booster, stick it in a quart of transmission fluid and look for the smoke. Shows up cracked exhaust manifolds, leaking connectors, etc, real good.