The Oil Change

Saturday morning I woke up between 7-9am. A little ticked about not being able to go for a run and plus not feeling well. I am running a bit late already as well. Need to change the oil in our car, and then get going to VA.

I just don’t feel like driving. But might as well, get started.

So, I change the oil. Take the filter out, oil drips. After a while, put a new filter in and fill it up with new Castrol Synthetic 5W-30 and we are good. A little surprised to see not enough oil dripped on the pan. Hmmm, maybe the car read the oil level wrong.

Wake Tina up, and convince her to go with me. Talk to family members in VA and make the arrangement. Approaching 11am, we need to head out. I have this bad feeling about something wrong, something about to go wrong. Regardless, we start off. Drove about 4 miles when I see some serious smoke coming out from the tail pipe and the car jerks once and starts to slow down. Something is wrong, big time. Turn signal on, and pull into a small road. Check the filter, oil level and stupidly oblivious to the super high oil level. Put some more oil and try going few inches. Nope, the car doesn’t like it.

Pull into a local shop parking lot, keep head cool to figure out what’s next. Wife & kid with me, and their wellbeing and safely is most important. Call the insurance first and ask for a tow since that will take time. Ask wife to call one of our friend for a ride home and then call family members to let them know about our misery. And then call insurance back for a possible rental car expecting the worse. Progressive declines rental coverage based on break-down issue. Oh well, worth a try. Good friend shows up to pick up wife and kid and drop them home. And actually his showing up was the best thing. Till then I couldn’t figure out where to go. He suggested, I take it to the Toyota dealer. Hmm, interesting.

It has been almost 3 hours since I called for the tow and as I am waiting I jack the car up to figure out the problem. As soon as I went under the car I realized my mistake. I never took the cap off after taking the old filter off to let all the old oil out. The biggest giveaway should have been when I didn’t see any oil in the pan. Now, the car starts up just fine and drive ok as long as the engine is cold. Only when it hits up, all that extra oil tries to expand and get out. Ouch. Well, better suck it up and wait for the tow and hope for the best.

Tow drops me and the car off at the Toyota of NorthCharlotte. Ask them for an oil change, explaining my stupidity. After another hour they come back and it’s all done. Take it on the freeway for few miles to make sure things were really OK.

Lesson: when in doubt, check it out!