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I hope you change oil in your car once every 10,000 miles or maximum 15,000 miles. But if
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you do this in a dealership or in a repair shop, not on your own, you're never sure if this oil
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was actually changed. So it's really common for modern repair shops and dealerships to report
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that the oil was changed but to actually not change the oil. Why this happens? This
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happens because dealership mechanics want to earn money. There are two levels where it can happen:
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the level of mechanic. So the dealership is okay; they don't know about this, but mechanics actually
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steal your oil and sell this oil then. And just don't change the oil and the filter in your car.
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And there is a repair shop level, so this is like repair shop wants to earn more money. And they
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just take your money and don't change the oil, so they basically don't do anything with your car.
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It just hangs on lift for an hour or two, and then you take it thinking that the oil is fresh and it
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can go another 10,000 miles. So the question is, how can you check this? Unfortunately,
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there is almost no way you can check it looking just at the oil cap. Because you can't see if this
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oil cap was opened or not. And you can't see any signs that the service was actually done. So what
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you can do in this case? You can take the dipstick out of the engine and check the condition of your
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oil. Here you can see that the oil is quite black, yeah, it's not that fresh. And if I had this oil
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changed right now, I would say that the mechanic didn't change this oil. So if you see the black
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and like old looking oil on the dipstick right after the oil change, it's like 100% that this oil
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wasn't changed at all. Also, you may look at the oil filter because every time the oil is changed,
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the filter is changed. The oil filter in a car that has done like 10,000 miles will be all dusty
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and not so clean. But the fresh oil filter, of course, will be clean like from the shop because
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it's from the shop. Now, there is one thing you can do before you go to the oil change shop:
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take this dipstick out of your car and take a picture of this dipstick. You will see the
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color of the oil, and you will see the level of the oil. So when you take your car from this
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dealership or shop, take the dipstick out and compare what you see with the picture you took
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before. If you see that the oil is lighter, the oil is fresher, and the level is different, yeah,
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you can be sure that something was done with this oil. But if the picture is absolutely identical,
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you can say for sure that the oil wasn't changed at all and no one actually tried to maintain
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your car. And another thing you can try is to tell your mechanic that you want to be present
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during the oil change. They hate it, actually, they don't like it, but in modern dealerships,
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in modern repair shops, they allow car owners to be present during the repairs. And if you are
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present, there is no chance that the mechanic will install the old filter or will not do anything at
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all. Of course, there are some extreme ways like I know the person who uses seals, very thin and
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unvisible seals, on the oil caps and other caps in the cars and when this person takes his car
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from the dealership, he checks all these seals. I really believe it's too extreme but if you like
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this idea you may also try it. And now if you have doubts that the oil was changed, the best thing is
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to go to another repair shop to find a really good mechanic, independent mechanic, who can check if
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the oil is fresh if the filter is fresh if the oil cap was touched at all and a good mechanic
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will tell you like in 5 minutes if the oil in car was changed or not. And with this information you
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can then go to your oil change shop your repair shop or dealership and to say that you have a
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professional opinion that the oil wasn't changed and I think they will do the job as they should.
