As the title indicates, what should have been a simple 45 minute job turned into a five hour ordeal. This is a lesson as why we use Torque meters.

My 1.8T which lives in France needed an oil change (I am here 1/4 of the year). With the economy being in the dumps, I decided it was better for me to change my own oil instead of paying out the nose to the local mechanic who has serviced the car for the past 10 years.

I jacked up the car, and removed the underbelly pan, OK no worries. The drainplug looked fine, and was completely intact. So, I put on my 17mm wrench, and no go. OK, lets try the 6pt socket with a longer handled ratchet...still no go. Hmm, what is the torque supposed to be? Bently says 40nm (30ft-lb)...that is not too much. OK, how about tap on the wrench with a hammer...no go. Bigger hammer, no go. Vice Grips, still stuck. Notched with a cold chisel, and BFH...still stuck. Get out the big guns with the side grinder and cut off 1/4 of the flange...and then hit it again with the cold chisel. Finally it breaks free. Completely bunged up the drainplug, but it is out and the pan itself is 100% fine. 1:30 spent getting that POS out.

OK, now time to remove the oil filter. Simple enough, yes? Get out the metal strap wrench...hmm, not budging. Am I turning it in the right direction? Yes. Tighten it down and try again. Snap goes the wrench, and dent goes the filter. OK, I will try a big rubber strap wrench, still not a chance in hell. Out comes the Screwdriver and hammer. Bang it through both sides and try and twist her out. Feels like it is going to bend the screwdriver. Get the 18" long cold chisel, and drive it through. All my weight, and finally it slowly breaks free. So much for turn until contacting, then hand tighten. 30 minutes.

Essentially the mechanic tightened both the oil filter and drain plugs well beyond factory specs. Needless to say, I now had to get a new plug and crush gasket (and will not be going back to that garage).

Drive to the local auto parts store Feu Vert. They have a listing for all A4 plugs, but they are obviously not the right size, as theirs are about 10mm in dia, and mine is a giant 26mm plug. OK, see if the dealer has them...drive there, but since it is Saturday, the parts department is not open. Drive to another parts store, NorAuto, and voila, they have the part, a new set of washers and new 1/4 turn fasteners which I needed for my bellypan. 2:00 hours burned on the road.

Get back, clean everything up, oil up the filter gasket, torque down the plug to factory spec (using my torque meter!), fill her and she is done. 30 minutes.

Word to the wise, service your own vehicle and use the proper tools and torque settings, or if you use a mechanic be sure that they indeed know what a torque wrench is for and what the Bentley Manual is and how to use them both.

The pictures tell a thousand words...certainly reflecting some of the four-letter ones emitted from under the car earlier today.

Cheers,

Steve

 

What a horror story. At least the bastard had the decency to put the plug back in (albeit too tight). I had a buddy get his car serviced at a hour lube job place.....suffice it to say, they did not tighten the plug at all, the plug was lost and all the oil drained........not cool.

 

Yowza. After seeing first hand what WalMart torques drainplugs to, I never risk someone else doing it.

 

Sorry to hear you had to go through all that man. I had a similar experience with a mechanic when i had my car inspected last year. In VA (and I'm sure other states as well), it's required that the mechanic remove the right front and left rear wheels to inspect the brakes, suspension, etc. and so forth. The guy apparently didn't deem it necessary to use a torque wrench, or at the very least a torque bar on his impact gun, OR anti-seize, because the lug bolts on those two wheels were so tight i had to hit them with PB Blaster and use a 4 ft. cheater bar on the end of my big *** lug wrench to get them off. Really pissed me off

 

Are you serious!?!?!? They remove the damn wheels to inspect the brakes and suspension??? We have dramatically relaxed standards here in Jersey then. That's b-a-n-a-n-a-s

 

Yeah man, between that and the emissions inspection you can't get away with anything around here. Not that I'd need one, but you can't have a test pipe around here either because they use sniffers to test your emissions. Also one of the reasons I'm hesitant to put coil overs on

 

You should be just fine with your emissions if done right. Make sure the place you go only has a single set of rollers so they can only do a idle reading, but I think thats only for cars older than '96. The place I go just plugs into your OBD2 port checks for codes and thats it. All your emissions stuff needs to be in a "passed" or "ready" state or at least 7 of 8. It took me a few tries to get my stuff to pass with the test pipe but I got it working with an ebay O2 spacer

 

OMG plase read thishttp://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...n-pics!!/page3
I had the same problem!! This should ease your pain

 

What if you use wheel locks and don't give them the key? I doubt they'd bother if you did that.

 

Exactly the reason I don't let a single other person touch my car for oil changes but me. I worked at a Valvoline Instant Oil Change for over a year, and I had to (with my, at the time, limited automotive knowledge) inform my boss and coworkers that torquing oil drain plugs and filters to "as tight as you can get 'em" isn't the way to go. It's unbelievable. Thank goodness there's an auto shop where we can rent tools and stalls here on base so I can do my own changes. Glad to see your day didn't end in total disaster, CycloSteve.