http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/lo...hservices.html

ould This Damage Your Car?
Undercover investigation examines services at some big name repair shops

By Joel Grover and Matt Goldberg

Updated 11:40 AM PST, Wed, Nov 12, 2008
Related Topics: Los Angeles | Jiffy Lube International Inc.

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Could This Damage Your Car?
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Inside a Jiffy Lube on Pico and San Vicente in Los Angeles, a service technician tries to sell an undercover NBC Los Angeles employee an "engine flush" or engine cleaning.

"Engine cleaning every two years, 30,000 miles is required for the vehicle," the technician says.

But NBC Los Angeles has heard from customers across the country, who say their engines broke down after having an engine flush.

At the Jiffy Lube we went to on Pico, the technician says the engine flush will prolong the life of the engine on our Honda Accord test car.

An engine flush is where they pour a chemical solvent into your engine, supposedly to flush out old sludge.

When our undercover person asks, "is that something that Honda recommends?" Than technician says, "It requires it every two years, every 30,000 miles."

That's not true. Our car's maintenance schedule says nothing about an engine flush.

"After engine flushes, there's a pretty high incidence of some damage to the interior of the engine," Chris Martin of Honda tells NBC Los Angeles.

That's why Honda issued a memo to mechanics advising them not to perform engine flushes. Other major car-makers, including Ford, General Motors, and Nissan have all issued similar advisories against the service.

Why? Over time, gummy deposits can build up inside your engine. The chemicals used for engine flush, are supposed to break up those deposits. But car-makers say, pieces of that broken up sediment can clog up other parts of the engine and ruin it.

The car ran perfectly before I took it in that day," says Pat Marriott. He took his Nissan Sentra to a Jiffy Lube in Kansas City. "They sold me, really sold me hard on an engine flush," Marriott tells NBC Los Angeles.

He says three days later, on the highway his car broke down and he had to replace his engine for $5000.

That's because Nissan and other car-makers say damage resulting from engine flushes won't be covered by your warranty.

At other Jiffy Lube's, like one on Overland in West Los Angeles, they offered us other services like a fuel injection cleaning. That's where they put a chemical cleaner into your fuel injectors.

When the NBC Los Angeles undercover person asked the technician, "does Honda recommend that?" He said, "It's every 15,000 miles or every year, recommended."

That's also not true. Honda and other big car-makers say fuel injection cleaning is an improper repair procedure.

"Using the cleaner, using a fuel injection cleaning system can cause harm to other injectors," Martin tells NBC Los Angeles.

Jiffy Lube isn't the only major chain recommending services car-makers say could be harmful. It happened to us at EZ Lube.

When our undercover person asked a technician at one of their locations in Silverlake, "Does Honda recommend an engine flush?" He replied, "They recommend... everything I'm telling you. We go by whatever the manufacturer recommends."

Our undercover person asks him for proof, since EZ Lube's computer lists all manufacturer recommendations, but there's no engine flush listed. The undercover employee asks him, "How come they're not on the computer?" The technician replied, "I don't know."

Across town at an EZ Lube near Santa Monica, technicians push a $99 transmission service using a high tech flushing machine.

Our undercover employee asks the technician, "does Honda recommend that it be done with a machine like that?" The technician responds, "Correct. That's the only way you can do it."

But Honda's memo to mechanics clearly says "do not use transmission flushing machines" because of the risks to the car.

All told four out of five Jiffy Lube's, and five out of five EZ Lube's pushed services car-makers don't recommend, but technicians told us the opposite.

We went back to the manager at that Silverlake EZ Lube.

"You said Honda recommends an engine flush. That's not true. Why did you say that?" NBC Los Angeles Investigative Reporter Joel Grover asked.

"I don't know," he replied.

As for those technicians at Jiffy Lube who didn't tell us the truth, they wouldn't talk to us on camera and neither would their bosses.

Executives at Jiffy Lube and EZ Lube declined our offer to watch our undercover tape, and do interviews.

But in separate statements, both companies said it was unacceptable for their employees to misrepresent certain services as manufacturer recommendations, when they're not.

EZ Lube says some of the employees we caught doing this will be terminated.

Jiffy Lube says they're taking steps to minimize the chance of it occurring again and they want to hear from any unhappy customers.

Jiffy Lube can be reached by phone at 800-344-6933.

EZ Lube can be reached by phone at 800-559-5823 or email

info@ezlube.com.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/lo...tatements.html

 

Those loose particles inside the engine will clogged up the oil pump pick up screen and it will starve the top part of the engine.

 

Figures... these places get investigated all the time for stupid stuff...

 

this is not the first time I read about this happening at jiffy lube. check out videos at youtube. there are some about jiffylube case there..

 

so is this "engine flush" stuff like seafoam? I've used seafoam plenty of times and my car is still top notch.

 

yup...

we definitely do not recommend it where I work, however, this is definitely one of those things where the media blows it all out of proportion...

engine flushing - great idea if it doesn't do harm to the engine, or your engine has always been particularly clean... the reality of it is that the general consumer waits too long between oil changes, uses whatever the cheapest oil is available, and drives their car hard - given these circumstances, flushing an engine with some mileage on it is not that great of idea... vehicle manufacturers cover their *** and just say no across the board...

some other info regarding that little post - flushing a honda trans - it CAN be done with a flush machine, it CANNOT be done with a power flush machine - there are differences - one uses the fluid pump inside the trans, one uses an external pump in the machine - simply a matter of semantics, and many technicians may not even know the difference if they have never used both (we have the one that uses the fluid pump inside the trans on all vehicles)

As far as the fuel injection service, well, I'll leave that up to each individual, it is a suggested service at 15k intervals by some aftermarket groups (SAE) and not necessarily the dealer, but, I guarantee you'll find a fuel injection service offered at most, if not all, dealerships... I dislike Jiffy Lube, but I do like their response offered http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/lo...tatements.html

 

They have been doing so many investigations at Jiffy lube and EZ-lube type places here in the LA/OC area for many years. What is funny is that they never ever clean up their act and always seem to get their hand caught in the cookie jar by nbc.

 

Damn, they need to either shut Jiffy Lube or give it a big fine for fraud.

That's like 4-5 times they investigated Jiffy Lube for improper services, or not perform services that Jiffy charged customer.

 

I agree with this guy. The manufacturer isn't going to recommend a fuel injector cleaner when they can make 10x more money by pulling the fuel injectors and cleaning them.

These kind of services are the bread and butter for dealers, they may be loosing money selling cars but making a ton back off of selling parts and/or service.

A funny thing happened to me once while I was at the local Audi Parts dept at the Audi dealer. I was in picking up a new lower control arm for with wifes A6, and the parts counter guy made a joke about how when people come in to have the control arms replaced by the service dept. that was how his techs make their house payments.

 

well i flushed both of my cars with stuff i bought myself and never had a problem.you add to engine let it run for 5 minutes or so without moving the car then drain and replace filter and add fresh oil .with my sc, after i did it,when it was time to change the oil again i flushed it again.because- for safe measure since it had over 100k when i purchased it.i had it for a yr now and had no problems.i planned on doing a flush once a yr but i'll have to look into this some more

 

In no way do I support fraudulently selling maintenance services that are unnecessary, however, there is a lot to be said about doing more maintenance than the car manufacturer recommends...

lets start at the top of the list:

coolant - there are all kinds and colors of long life coolants out there... instead of the old recommendation of every 30,000 mile coolant flush, these new coolants can last up to 150,000 miles... the reality of it is that these coolants may not protect that long... for instance dex cool (gm's coolant) is horrible... I have seen it turn to sludge as low as 45,000 miles and less than 3 years old... does this mean that it should be flushed prior to that, not necessarily, but it might not be a bad idea... if you think the Toyota coolant is awesome, well, it is probably the best of the bunch, however, I have seen galvanic corrosion inside a water pump off a newish Toyota with only 60,000 miles on it - evidence of corrosion shows that the coolants corrosion inhibitors had broken down...

transmission fluid - here again we find transmission fluids that are designed to never need replacement... to say that the wear inhibitors and friction modifiers never ever break down is ridiculous... by ensuring that the friction modifiers are replenished as needed, you can help lower the possibility of future transmission failure, but at what point, who knows...

fuel injection service - most places, ours included, include a throttle body cleaning and vacuum line / carbon cleaner that is added to the manifold that helps clean intake tracts and intake valves... to say that these never ever could benefit from being cleaned is ridiculous as well... again, at what interval, who knows... at what point is it a requirement? one quick example - 1997 Nissan Maxima, 3.0 V6, customer brought it in with complaints of idle falling off rapidly when coming to a stop and intermittently dying when coming to a stop - no check engine light, no history codes, I suggested a fuel injection service (fuel injectors, throttle body cleaning, intake manifold de carbon) with no guarantees except that if it didn't work, I'd apply the FI charge towards diagnostic (not just a code pull). After our test drive, it appeared to have solved the issue. After three weeks, he brought in his wifes and sons cars both to have the service done just as a preventive maintenance. If the car manufacturers call it an improper repair, then what is a proper repair - replace throttle body, intake mani and injectors????

I could go on and on about vehicle manufacturers and their ****ty recommendations and shoddy vehicle design, but this is just a couple examples...

 

Don't go to Denny's car wash for these type of services either, you'll regret it... like I am. Took it in just for an oil change almost two weeks ago and the sales guy talked me into doing a power steering flush and transmission service. I always said I would do it myself but never got around to doing it so I said might as well. As soon as I got to work a strange noise was coming from power steering pump. They redid the power steering service and although the noise was gone I'm still paranoid from it.

Now my transmission shifts hard into gear on cold starts!

 

like SeaFoam or the like...?

 

Exactly like seafoam or an air induction cleaner.

 

All this "excess" maintenance is just asking for trouble.