Suzuki Servicing neglected-Owner Misses out on Servicing causes a Bigger Problem
No Suzuki Servicing could end up costing you a fortune?
This is not just one of my rants about car servicing but I think that it is important to give a few sad cases of what can happen, when the car owner neglects to have their Suzuki Servicing.
carried out at regular intervals.
We all should be having our Engine Oil checked at regular intervals, if your car’s engine is in good condition and operating correctly, then you should not have to use any oil to top up the engine. In my opinion there are a few variations to this theory and one of them is if you are traveling long distances at high speed. Then it would be possible that your car may need to have an oil check when you arrive at your destination.
Modern cars will have an Oil Level Warning Light but older cars may not, so it is best to check the level just to be on the safe side. In fact I had an experience myself on a recent trip to France. I drove my two year old Peugeot Partner van 700 miles to a Rufec in the Charente area of South West France. The following morning I went to the local supermarket for some odds and ends, when my oil level warning light came on, much to my horror.
I know that my staff had serviced the van before my journey
and I too checked the level before I set off on my journey. I stopped the van and turned off the engine so that the oil level is allowed to settle down, to get a correct oil level reading. Some dip-sticks are impossible to see, but mine was just below the minimum mark on the dip-stick. I was still in the supermarket car park and so I bought a two litre can of 10w-40 diesel oil (this is what the van used).
As I topped the engine up I kept checking the level, but found that the engine did not need much oil at all. I think some of the oil sensors are very sensitive, but your engine oil level is
very important, just as the young guy with the Suzuki Swift was about to find out. Another important piece of advice is, when you are topping the engine oil up again, then put the oil in a small amount at a time, it is just as important not to Overfill the engine with too much oil, this could cause too much pressure building up in the engine, causing all sorts of expensive repair work.
The Suzuki did not have any servicing for two years at least.
The only warning that he had, was when the car engine started to make very loud noises. Unfortunately, this was on the M62 motorway. Doing 70mph in the third lane. This was followed by a cloud of black smoke. Frighteningly, followed by a complete loss of power. Luckily, the guy managed to manoeuvre the Suzuki across the carriageway and onto the hard shoulder.
He suspected the worse and called for recovery from a roadside assistance phone box on the motorway. The guy was either lucky or a very skillful driver! As I am convinced that this sudden loss of power is the cause of many motorway accidents.
The recovery truck brought the car into our garage in Halifax, Yorkshire . Urgently, we started the postmortem on the lifeless Suzuki. We checked on the history of the car on our computer system. Finding out that although the car had a few MOT tests over the past few years. We did not have any record of Servicing a Car. We asked the guy if he took the car to any other garage for his Suzuki Servicing. Frighteningly, he told us that we were the only place that the car had come to?.
The previous owner also brought the car into us
So, to be looked after it was at the Suzuki Dealers. Indeed the last service had been three years ago. The car was a Suzuki Swift 1.6 petrol 2007 model and looked in good condition! Apart from the engine.
It became obvious to Ryan Linton that the engine was completely gone. So, caused by a lack of engine oil starving the Big End Bearings due to lack of Servicing. That is to say also damaging the crank and much more.
The owner of the car was a 26 year old man. Consequently, who led a busy life and did not have time for his car. Hence a thing that is most common these days. As for the car we found that it would be more economical to fit a re-conditioned engine. With the whole job costing around £2500 to the customer.
The lesson to be learned is to have your servicing carried out at some sort of regular intervals. Finally, this guy is not the first and will not be the last. But look at the price that he had to pay in the end?.