i feel like a 350Z owner...thats sad.

[mlc240z]

a jiffy lube oil/diff oil change??????

for your penance, replace your spindle pins.

that should keep you busy for a while.

[Bubbleguinea]

already did spindel pins when i rebuilt the suspension. each pin took about, ohh 5 minutes.

god loved me that day a whole lot. :-)

as for the FSM, dont own one, built the car without one...i know the correct way to do it, i just felt lazy, and the diffy is allready trashed. bearings are trashed and the thing makes horrible noises, but i still drive it. go figure.

ive replaced the fluid 3 times allready by myself the right way, and each time, the fluid is nice and shiny silver, with a few small chuncks here and there. like i said before, new dif. time.

RTV on drain plug. damnit. you caught me!!! hehehe...nah, copper crush ring.

[SteveJ]

as for the FSM, dont own one, built the car without one

And as I recall from the Zcar.com website, you would tighten bolts as tight as you could get them instead of using the torque specs listed in the FSM.

[jmanz6]

So if your diff is trashed, why did you spend money on new oil???? That is just plain dumb... Plus, did you throw a fit when he did the refill wrong so they didn't charge you? I wouldn't have paid for that... Now your diff IS trash, but I guess you don't care about your care enough to be concerned...

[Bubbleguinea]

i only had to pay $20 for the whole thing, diffy and engine oil. i work at NAPA, and jiffy lube is in the same parking lot, and we both have accounts with each other....

the diffy is trash, but it seems everytime i change the oil, the noises keep getting quiter, and for now, thats what i want....

the only bolts i used a torque wrench on were engine stuf like head bolts and all the suspension. interior bolts and body panels and accessories i dont think need to be torqued...

as for throwing a fit, i stood there when he did it, and said "uhh, thats not how you do it, there is a fill plug up top"

hes like " ohh i cant get to it with this pump, dont worry, this is how we do it all the time"

being that my diff is allready trashed and i doubt 2oz fluid too low will hurt it, i just said "ok whatever"

now what i SHOULD do is go back to jiffy lube with my reciept and blame my trashed diffy on them filling it wrong, and they can pour it out just to see how much oil is in there. then id have a new 3.9! hahahaha evil.

[dogma420]

I was a store manager at a Jiffy Lube back in late 80s....if we couldn't get a check plug out (per normal procedures) that person would've been fired...they will do anything nowadays to make extra money.

That guy who 'does it all the time' only makes like 8 or 9 bucks an hour...you sure you want to trust someone making that much money?

You could easily dump out some of the oil and then trash your diff and get a replacement for free...I had to replace quite a few diffs free of charge because of morons working at the Jiffy Lube where I was manager (also sometimes because the customer set us up)...ESP if it is corporate owned you'll get it replaced every time...you may/may not get denied at a Franchise store....(IMO it is ethically wrong to get it replaced this way by the way) always get in writing things like 'couldn't get check plug out, filled from drain plug 1.5 pints of GL-5'...if they didn't put that on there, you could be in trouble, cause someone like me will be working the day you come back and get the check plug out no problem....(why they couldn't get it out is beyond me, I mean, they are standing under it!)...if they didn't put info like 'it is noisy, customer OK'd oil change on differential, Cust OK on NO WARRANTY on Differential fitness after oil change'.

Believe it or not, on any gearbox or auto tranny after 30k between services we always, always put 'no warranty' because they can easily get trashed by new fluid after 30k...after 50k on an auto tranny I would never change the fluid--if you do, you can easily screw it up.

Anyways, getting your diff oil changed like that is super ignorant man...if your Zed was a girl, she was just raped...

[MikeW]

Believe it or not, on any gearbox or auto tranny after 30k between services we always, always put 'no warranty' because they can easily get trashed by new fluid after 30k...after 50k on an auto tranny I would never change the fluid--if you do, you can easily screw it up.

Are you saying that once you accidentally go past 30k between changes you should never change the fluid again, ever? This doesn't make sense to me ...

[dogma420]

No, the risk of damaging the gearbox/tranny goes way up--on gear oil boxes, the risk is low...on an ATF transmission the risk is very high--ATF is essentially detergent, its main goal is to wash off varnish off of parts and deposit it in the transmission filter. Once the detergent of the oil wears out and no longer washes the parts, the varnish accumulates on parts that have ZERO tolerance for play--it actually replaces metal and eats the metal away. Then you replace the ATF with fresh detergent, it washes off the varnish, and you've just ruined the tranny. Same concept for gear oil boxes, but not as extreme as a hydraulic gear box like a Automatic Transmission.

I would be conservative and say if you've gone over 70K on fluid changes on a 5 speed or a rear diff, you might as well never change the fluid, and just wait till you rebuild it.

I had many many customers come back after an automatic tranny service, where if its been over 30k in between ATF/Filter/pan gasket replacments complaining that their tranny now doesn't work right...then I point to the paragraph at the bottom that they signed saying 'if the tranny dies 2 minutes from here we aren't liable due to high mileage/unknown mileage'.

[dogma420]

<<accidentally go past 30k between changes >>

Come on Mike, there is nothing 'accidental' about going this many miles between changes....at least if you're concerned about your car...ie. my 240Z!

Gear oil should be changed at the very longest interval of 15K, no matter what it is--and don't listen to the supposed 'can last longer'...the fluid might last longer if it was removed and completely filtered, but if not it's filled with contaminants and metal shavings, getting burnt from proximity to the exhaust, etc. This is IMO from experience of changing thousands of gearboxes and trannies.

Coincidentally I loved working at Jiffy Lube, but it was mainly a baby sitting job making no money and I had to move on to something that I could make into a career. I thoroughly enjoyed the job, and believe or not, I learned a lot about cars--I do miss having the keys to the building and being able to drive my cars right into the bays and work on them after hours...heh...that was the best part!

[Bubbleguinea]

dogma, are you serious?

if i drain a bit out, drive it up there complain that it makes horrible noise and clunks, they will buy me a new rearend? it is a corporate store, not franchised...

i know that is morally wrong to do it that way, but a brand new 3.9...and the idiot DID fill it from the drain plug.

please tell me i can do this for real...now ive got to come up with a plan to excute it.

[Victor Laury]

I ALWAYS use an "Oil Change" service place. I hate home oil changes. BUT, (1) I sit on them during the entire service. I watch every plug removed and installed, every zerk fitting greased (2) I bring my own filters and my own fluids (like Redline tranny and Diffy juice) (3) If they give me any of that "Sit in the Waiting room" Crap, I leave.

[dogma420]

I'm just telling you the facts...we probably replaced a tranny every 2 months or so for crap like that...it's factored into their price as far as risk is concerned.

I wouldn't do it though...I would ask to speak to the manager and explain what happened and have him do the service a 2nd time the correct way. I guess you could if you can live with it.

We one time had a dumbass get an oil change, one of our best lowerbay guys worked on it...the drain plug came out while he was going home (I'd say 99% he did it) and burned up his V8 on an old corvette....we rebuilt the motor....