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on a business trip i stopped at a national and had oil+filter changed visco 7000 fully synthetic next day driving up a long hill went to pass a truck and it shuddered something its never done checked oil and its a good inch or slightly more over whe max mark even after car sat this evening on level ground untill stone cold not happy with those gents at national but not wanting to drain all oil out i made myself a pump and took some out its still very black i suspect they failed to drain it all and just fired the 4.5 litres in on top ..... apart form that hill no knowticable difference in drive but I need some advice on what stuff i need to check will change oil and filter again now myself hope being lazy going to them in first place hasnt done any long term damage. No oil sppears to have escaped anywhere in engine bay appart form where they took filter off and let all old oil spill onto coverunder front of car....... anyone know a good oil I could try for the car its 2002 2.0 hdi 110

recon 1-1.5litre overfill driven for 200-250 miles on motorways half of it sitting at 70mph.

ps anyone had any horror stories with national resolved of otherwise intend to call them and guage their reaction first thing monday.


any adivce appreciated guys cheers

That's a hell of a lot of oil to overfill it with!

On the opposite end of the scale, a friend of mine had a service at a local independant garage, and on the way home the car started acting up. It turned out they hadn't refilled the engine oil after draining it. Totally knackered seals on the engine. Whatever work he needed doing, it cost around £500, but the car was never right again and he ended up p/xing it (allthough 5 years later, I'm still seeing the car on the road).

He obviously straight away took the matter up with the garage and they swore blind that they'd filled it. He got trading standards involved, but I think he didn't persue it a lot and nothing came of it. As it goes, I had 2 wheel bearings changed at this garage 2 years earlier. When problems started happening a month later, I took it to another garage and they said that without doubt the wheel bearings hadn't been changed and was probably the originals on the car.

I won't mention the name of the garage here, but it's in Merthyr Tydfil, has an old bike haging on the wall, and I'm sure DaiRees could almost spit on it from his house!! (Go on Dai, try!!)

(FYI Dai, the person in question was Darren with a W plate Silver Astra CD)

Oh yes, I only used that place once, when my Nova very suddenly and misteriously started playing up, (running like a dog, refusing to tick over ect...). I needed the car for work so was desperate, his solution was to adjust the mixture, no asking why it should suddenly go to sh*t, just treat the sympoms.

Anyway I got to the weekend, just, then stripped the carb and discovered a partial blockage in the needle. Cleaned it up and put it all back together and took it to a garage I trust to get the mixture adjusted correctly (which they did for free ) and they couldn't believe how much the other guy had adjusted it. They claimed that had I continued to run it like that it would have caused all sorts of problems. They weren't exactly complimentary about the other garage either. First and last time I went there!

I think that's the first time I started not trusting garages. The second time was when someone short-cutted a job on my mondeo, with the result that had I hit a serious bump it could have cracked the gearbox housing. By the time my trusted mechanic spotted it there was already pitting on the gearbox casing . Never used that garage again either.

I just drained 2.5 litres out of car to get it back on the right level !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thats gona have been sitting pritty high in there had covers off no leaks at all just some spilt from where they changed filter and didnt take cover off and it collected a lil drop am leaving car until its stone cold to recheck level and if needed top up a bit but seems to be fine level wise now anyone know what sort of thins I should be looking out for now car hasnt seemed to smoke not from my view driving it or ideling at all and drives fine am I right in thinking if no bad smoke thatthe cat is prob ok???

I remember getting 2 tyres changed on back of an old escort I had years ago and when i came back saw my car in air wheels turning reving it up got down road goung round roundabout and steering failed ............ from a friend that worked there I found out a year later after he left employment with them car had been DROPPED when not on lift correctly and smashed down hard ............ wishbone on Ns was mangled lol think in furutre I will just service my car myself like normal.

mcafee1984 wrote: think in furutre I will just service my car myself like normal.

There's a lot to be said for that. I'm keeping the book stampd on this car, ut whenever my next car will be, I'll be going back to doing it myself (allthough have found a decent garage in the meantime, courtesy of Dai's advice)

I agree. I service my cars myself and complete & keep a checklist of items that need doing, together with the receipts of all the stuff I bought. Then I complete the service book and sign it myself. I reckon anyone who's got any idea about cars and garages would hold more value in that than a row of dealer stamps. It's obvious that I care about my motor and you can be pretty damn sure that everything on that list has been done. Who knows what the garages actually do? Change the oil / filter and maybe the air filter, then stamp the book and charge you a fortune maybe?

DaiRees wrote:I reckon anyone who's got any idea about cars and garages would hold more value in that than a row of dealer stamps.

Unfortunately, 99.9% of car buyers DO want to see that row of stamps and it can be worth upto £500.00 on your car's value too.

I have to admit, if I were to buy an Audi or a Mercedes I would much rather see a set of main dealer stamps.

Having said this Dai I agree totally with you and that's why we are all on here for roughly the same reasons - enthusiasts.

When I do my oil change I do it virtually all morning. I even 'tip' the car in different directions to get all the (previously very hot) oil out of the sump.

Coming back to the OP here, I would complain to National about this. That hesitation up hill could very well have been a sympton of the very-full sump. I know that sometimes you can blow an oil seal in the engine block (the crank seal) due to over-filling and this can contaminate the clutch.

Try and ask James on here what other problems you could get and why it juddered up the hill too.

i know of one car this happend to at work (not by me)
it was overfilled by about 1 litre and within a week it came back running very poor and lacking power, the distributor seal blew filling the distributor cap with oil, hence the power loss and poor running, it also blew the turbo oil seals (supply and return not the internal ones)
would dread to think what it would do on a HDi, usually it would spit out the dipstick first then the oil cap will start to leak and then most of the oil will be drawn into the intake of the engine through the postive crankcase ventilation, resulting in an heavily over rich mixture causing the loss of power/juddering, is there any sign of blue smoke under acceleration?
if it drives fine now and doesnt smoke you may be lucky, but some oil leaks will most likely appear soon (in a week or two) and the weak spot on the HDi is the cam cover gasket and the crank seal, but i would bet the crank seal will almost certainly leak first as its already under alot of stress