Lesson learned: ALWAYS check to make sure the technician has screwed the cap back onto the engine TIGHTLY after getting the oil changed.
I swung by a laundromat to pick up quarters yesterday. On my return to my car (Enid), I passed the front of the Honda and saw what looked like oil running down the bumper, which set off warning bells. So I popped the hood to take a looksy. Oil was splashed all over the top of the hood, and over various car parts and was leaking down the front of my car. What was missing? The cap that’s supposed to keep the oil in place.
I had my oil changed 3 weeks ago, and it appears the ever so brilliant technicians didn’t bother to tighten the cap all the way– silly me for not thinking to check that they completed the job. Vibrations from the engine continued to loosen the cap until it popped off.
Points to the oil change venue for being kind enough to replace the cap free of change AND clean up my car without trying to foist the problem back onto me.
From now on, I check to make the cap is secure before driving off the lot. As Eric Bogosian’s character Travis Dane says in Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (yes, I admit to watching lame Steven Segal movies), “assumption is the mother of all f*ck ups.”
