Unfortunate that the title of the thread leads one to believe the Epica is a bad car, which is far from the case, maybe the title could be altered to Car Dealer's Oil Not Up To Grade or summat?

The problem with oil is that people don't often read the handbook properly, there will be a standard recommendation for a car, say 5W30, and that becomes the gospel somehow.

Examine what's said in the handbook however and there's often a scale of viscosity allowed for differing ambient temperatures.

The API and ACEA grades are more important though and the car should have a grade approved by the maker, most good quality oils will have major car makers recommendations listed for their particular oil.

If the dealers who have serviced the OP's car have used some inferior (read cheap semi bought by the thousand gallon) oil that doesn't meet the cars requirements that's totally unacceptable, and the OP has rightly gorn elsewhere.

Whether the 5/7 year warraty dealerships will put any special oil that his next car needs and not just pump it out of the bulk tank is another question altogether.

The question of oil used is one i ask before my car goes in for a service, not up to par or fobbed off, go elsewhere, they charge a lot of money for their oil, circa £70+ for 7.5 litres last time they charged me.

EDIT, as for the rest of the poor PDI, no excuses offered or possible for the dealer(s), you can only vote with your feet.

Edited by gordonbennet on 12/09/2011 at 11:46

ORB, you must be one of a very select few who check what grade of oil has been put in at a service. Sounds as if we should all do that - even then we can only go by what it says on the invoice (unless you can tell by smell!).

Yes, check everything now, but in the most recent case read the acea grade on the bottle of leftover. (oil changed again immediately!) (chevrolet said that warranty would not be valid unless correct grade/acea numbers used - 5w40 acea C3) (ok for me but how many others are missing this?)