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My Jeep Compass petrol MT at 5000 kms: 2nd service experience

28th June 2023, 08:03 by Deepankar Sadekar

I started downloading the Jeep user manual but by then they had already filled the oil. I took photos of the act as well as the oil can.

BHPian argchoff recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

So today i completed the 2nd free service at 1 year interval at Pune. The car, a 1.4 petrol manual had completed 5574km. Here's my service experience below:

The car was taken in the bay sharp at 0930hrs as per appointment and paper formalities completed. As the car had only done 5000 kms, the service advisor didn't recommend wheel balancing and alignment. Also their balancing and alignment machine was broken.

Now the staff i must say were really cooperative and polite and were explaining stuff that I asked questions for. At this point the service advisor recommended for 2 years extended warranty for Rs. 35K to which I agreed. The service also included 2 software updates one for the infotainment system and one for the ECM. All was going well till it was time for the oil change.

I saw that the technician along with the service advisor was about to put Mopar SAE 0W20 diesel engine oil to which I immediately told them to stop and check with their system the correct grade and type of oil since this was a petrol car. They both confidently replied that 'don't worry sir, all bs6 petrol cars we have been putting the same oil diesel or petrol doesn't matter'.

I started downloading the Jeep user manual but by then they had already filled the oil. I took photos of the act as well as the oil can and advised the service person that i will be sending this oil change matter along with the photos of the oil and the user manual showing that the manufacturer recommended oil for the 1.4 multiair is 'SAE 0W30 for gasoline engine' to Mopar and FCA. I told them that i need a signed letter from that substituting a low viscosity oil meant for diesel engine is acceptable instead of the OEM recommendation for higher viscosity gasoline engine oil.

At this point the service personnel told me not to send any email and talk to the general manager and then disappeared in the GMs office. Their spare parts section actually had the SAE 0W30 in stock. After about half an hour i was called to the GM's office and here they all accepted that it was a mistake on their part and agreed to drain the oil and fill it up with the correct recommended oil.

Now here's another strange observation. When he was opening the oil cans i noticed that the front sticker showed it is a gasoline oil but back sticker said it is a diesel oil but same grade. Check attached GIF. So i really don't know what these guys are up to and where they get their material from. My only worry is that there might have been some damage to the engine because before replacing the wrong oil the car was run idle for the software patches update for nearly two hours. When he drained the wrong oil it came out almost black as opposed to pale yellow when it was poured.

Next horror came when the car went for washing. They pressure washed the car with the tail gate open till i told them to stop. By then water had gone inside the boot space. Next they washed the floor mats which were of fabric and were about to put them back in the car in a wet dripping state. Another strange practice i saw was pressure washing inside an open bonnet all over the engine, battery and engine bay which I found ridiculous.

The servicing finished at 5pm, bill came to just about 7K. Initially they had quoted 9.5K, so I'm guessing this was a 'pacifying the customer' act due to the engine oil issue.

All this made me think for a while that if I had accepted the first oil change and if something were to go wrong with the engine would they have refused repair under warranty citing wrong engine oil used by customer? Or is this some kind of scam?

I appreciate that they at least owned up to their mistake but that was only after i escalated the matter.

I can't even imagine ever of dropping off the car here for servicing and staying home. One will never know what would happen to the car in the owner's absence. And they plainly told me that they have been putting this SAE 0W20 diesel engine oil in all the bs6 petrol cars lately.