Hello Everyone,

My check engine light came on about a week ago and went away after a few days. Everything in my car is running perfectly fine so I didn't pay it too much attention. I did, however, checked my oil level and it seemed pretty low. So today I decided to go buy a couple quarts of oil to fill up my oil a bit. Went out to the car and tried to take off the oil cap and it won't budge. It seem like its been crazy glued on there. Is this normal or is this something the shop intentionally tightened very tight so I could not do it myself. Is there a special technique to get the oil cap off? I know its not supposed to be this difficult to take an oil cap off. I have also read through the whole DIY oil change thread. Thank you.

 

lol i had to use both hands to take my cap off the first time i changed the oil on it. Can't tighten it that much or it'll "freeze" in so to speak.

 

Every time I take my car to the dealership for oil change they always overtighten the oil cap. Frankly it pissed me off to no end.

Brute force and ignorance are your friends. That is the only way to get the oil cap off when its stuck on like that.

 

Based on those comments, it would appear that you don't really take very good care of your car, which is kinda sad.

But that's not really what you were asking, or probably even wanted to hear, so anyway . . . just take a rag and fold it a couple of times and put it over the straight 'bar' on the back of the oil cap, then grasp it with some channel lock pliers (or something similar) and use the extra leverage to loosen the cap. The rag will prevent damage to the cap.

 

drop your purse and twist it off, sally!

but yeah, use a rag or something to get a decent grip on it and twist it off, it might also help to under the 4 bolts holding the engine cover on so its easy to get a grip on it.

 

vqsmile,

Thank you for the advice, but its quite presumptuous of you to say that i don't take good care of my car. I've bought the car and have owned it for about 4K miles. The first thing I did was put brand new Super Sports tires on it and fixed a light issue that came with the car. I wash and wax her often and I try to park as isolated as possible to avoid dings and such, so I do take offense that you would assume I do not take great care of my car.

 

OK, please reread my post and do not misrepresent my words again.

I clearly said "based on those comments, it would appear..."
Obviously, I do not know exactly what your level of maintenance is on the car, which is why I prefaced it as I did. I merely reported an obsevation of an appearance, which is a far cry from stating that you did, or didn't actually do something.

That being said, can you honesly not see it being a plausible and/or reasonable observation; you DID drive on a CEL until it went out, and were possibly a couple quarts low on oil. Not exactly what I'd call "great care" for a car.

SO, should I now be offended with you for misrepresenting me?




BTW, did you ever get the code read to see what it even was? Do you know for certain there is not still something lurking there? Or will you just ignore it . . . AGAIN?

 

I don't see how im misrepresenting you but i'll entertain you by describing my situation a little better. I have never driven a car that burned this much oil before and the last time i've been to a mechanic was about a month and half ago when he checked the level of the oil and said everything was fine. I asked him if he saw anything else that I should be worried about and he said everything looked fine. I, myself, have very little mechanical skills and am not very comfortable with the working on the car myself.

The car drives perfectly fine so the light was not too concerning for me. My situation is that I am leaving the country in a month or so for a while and leaving the car in storage and was going to get all the fluids changed and serviced before I store it.

I took offense because I take a lot of pride in the car and at the end of the day you were presumptuous because I am not too aware of what a cel is. My last car was a MINI S and I sold it before it came out of warranty so I never had to deal with a check engine light. And I would say I am somewhat accurate in assuming it was the oil and I took actions to take care of it. I understand you may have more knowledge on this car than I do and probably a lot more mechanical experience, but the patronizing just didn't sit well.

 

It's really quite simple: you said I actually made the statement that you don't take good care of your car, but the fact is, I didn't.
(Again) I merely reported an observation of an appearance, and I expressly called it so. There is a significant difference.

But what the heck, let me just go ahead and say that I am sorry that I offended you. I thought I'd chosen my words carefully enough, but obviously I did not, so I am sorry. Please accept my apology and have a good evening.

 

My apologizes for misconstruing your post. I've read some posts that you participate in and I respect your opinion. Good day.

 

Vqsmile, is correct....^....this car was purchased 4K miles ago and you didn't check the oil level then? Let's try a little logic and common sense, you buy a used car the very first thing you do is have the oil changed or at the very least check it! Oil warning light coming on means you may only have 2 of the 5 quarts running thru your engine and it may have caused major damage. Nissan recommends changing oil every 3500 miles if you didn't already know!
Gary

 

I can not argue about checking the oil level when I purchased the car. That was just an oversight on my part. But do keep in mind that I had my mechanic check the oil level and other fluids and he said everything was fine, as far as he could tell. And its okay if Nissan recommends 3,500 miles, but I am sure other car companies recommend different mileage interval using synthetic oil. I know my last MINI was recommended 15,000 miles on synthetic, but I understand that has to do with a lot of economics on their part. I am okay with changing my oil from 5,000-7,500 miles on synthetic.

 

I ran synthetic oil in my G and changed it every 3k miles. 4 years in to ownership and I started consuming oil at 1 quart per 500 miles. Now I only put conventional oil in my G. Surprisingly, my oil consumption has dropped to 1 quart per 3k miles since the switch.

 

At 2 quarts a month....you will never have to "change" your oil - just keep refilling it with new.

 

If your car is burning this much oil as you claim, AND your check engine light was on, I would probably have the code read and everything checked out. That is not something you would keep driving on just because the car "seemed to run fine." In fact, I keep a bluetooth OBD reader in the car so my Torque app can tell me what's wrong if the CEL was on.

Therefore, I have to agree with vqsmile. It does appear that you do not take care of your car well. I'm also very limited in my mechanical skills, but I won't ignore a CEL. Advance Auto or AutoZone reads them for free.