nwagtmustang

I bought a 99 Grand Cherokee with 170k miles on it. The jeep did not smoke when purchased. Took it to a quick lube place. Suggested I do an oil flush. Knowing what I know now never would of done it. First day it smoked really bad. The next couple of days it got a lot better. It only smoked at startup and if I nailed the throttle from idle. I started thinking valve seals. Took it to my mechanic he suggested run it for a week and see if it clears up He also suggested seafoam in the gas tank and in the oil.


Ever since I seafoamed it, it has gotten really bad just at idle it smokes all the time. Before it was just at startup and giving it gas. I pulled the spark plugs. They are dry and does not look like burning oil. I changed the pcv valve and I cleaned the IAC valve. The oil is clean and full.


Im thinking and hoping a couple of things. Im thinking the seafoam in the gas tank is cleaning the carbon and the smoke is getting all the gunk out. Im also thinking the seafoam in the oil is getting what residue is left. If it does not clear up I was going to put in Castrol high mileage oil and see what happens. The smoke was getting better but after doing seafoam it got worse. I did not put seafoam in a vacuum line. Just the fuel tank.


Any ideas or suggestions?




















t

kjc

Give it time. Seafoam makes smoke.

nwagtmustang

So I drained the oil. Put in new oil. It smoked a while but it cleared up. Atleast not nearly as bad as it was. Im guessing there might have been some solution left in the engine doing the flush plus the seafoam just made it worse. I doubt the high mileage oil if it does work woukd of worked its magic yet. Im going to give it a few days and see what happens.

peep

Oil and filter changes, regularly.
Lesson learned, no more snake oil! The snake will bite you.
Quiki lube did their job, they made an upsell, just capitalism 101 applied.
Just stick with basic oil and filter.

nwagtmustang

It is smoking again. I went back to jiffylube and told them it is still smoking and if they can drain it and refill it. The drained it and put in 5.2 quarts plus a quart of lucas oil. The tech at jiffylube said he never recommends oil flushes. 8 was furious when they pit in lucas oil. I never gave them premission. I have been in contact with regional manager. I demanded thry pay for a diagnoatis and all repairs. Tjey asked me to take it to a shop where they have cars repaired. JIFFYLUBE actually has a shoo they use to fix customers cars they screwed up? Actually i think it is owned by jiffylube. I am skeptical. I have filed a complaint with the bbb and i have contactec 2 consumer protection laywers.

muffinman

If you gave Jiffy lube permission to do a oil flush and you put in seafoam yourself I would say you are SOL.Good luck hope you get it worked out.

nwagtmustang

I don't know if I have a case or not. If they recommend a service and the car is damaged due to the service that is performed and it starts smoking during the service then there might be a case. If it started smoking a week later or a month later then yeah no case at all. I did not go in there telling them I want a flush. I just said an oil change. If they recommend a service and a person says ok, well I don't know. I never had a flush done before because I always had low mileage cars and I always had regular oil changes. I always knew my cars were well taken care of. I did not do the seafoam treatment until after the flush was done and the car was smoking before I put in the seafoam.


So here is an update for all of you who are interested. Today I noticed smoke at startup. I noticed some smoke giving it throttle after the light turns green. However it happened less and less today. In fact I went out an hour ago to get gas. I did not see any smoke. I came home put it in park with it running. I let it sit there for a few minutes. I gave it some gas and ran to the back of the car. No smoke. So maybe it was still the seafoam and the old gunk still getting out of the engine. Tomorrow I am taking it to a shop and they are going to do a compression test. I rather feel like a fool and go through all of this and have it turn out to be nothing, than do nothing at all and hope it goes away. If everything checks out then I will apologize to Jiffylube profusely.


For now on I will be doing my own oil changes.

Thexjfiles

Good idea on doing it yourself. You dont want some min. wage high school kid messing with your beloved WJ anyway.

dave1123

I shouldn't dump on Jiffylube, BUT, I worked at Valvoline Instant Oil Change in the Syracuse, NY area partime for 13 years. Jiffylube had a bad reputation for mistakes resulting in loss of customers. Their business got so bad that Valvoline bought all their stores and they cleared out of Syracuse. This was back in the 90's. I worked "the pit" most of the time because most of the claims were because of shody pit work and the boss wanted someone he could trust down there. I never had a claim come back to me in the whole time I worked there.

BTW, we NEVER did an engine flush. I can't say what goes on there now.

nwagtmustang

So I went to the shop jiffylube told me to go to. It turns out jiffylube owns this place. I was skeptical and still am. Anyway they performed a compression test but no leakdown test. The resukts were 105 to 95 in the cylinders except for cylinder number 2. Number 2 had 70psi. So if they did the compression test right I would think the engine would not run at all or run badly. But the engine has lots of power and idles nicely. Maybe they were falsifying thr numbers so they could imply oil was buring from low compression. However they showed me all the spark plugs and they were clean. No oil getting in thru the rings. The shop even said a flush takes away old dried oil which acts as a shield.

I text the district manager asking if he would pay to replace the seals. He called me a liar and denied my claim. I went to jiffylube faceboom webpagr and kept posting his name and number and what he said to me. I text him back asking him to check facebook


He text back saying sorrry for calling me a liar and he said he will go to bat for repairing my car. Do I believe him? No. He asked me to remove facebook poats which I did.

Compstall

I think you should read the first sentence in the beginning of this thread and think about that instead of trying to goat rope some shop into doing an overhaul for you on a vehicle you bought with unknown maintenance history and no warranty expressed or implied. The manager, whoever he is most likely did his very best not to go ape **** on you due to your lack of understanding.

Buildup over time probably did mask a problem.

Cleaning out the engine probably did loosen up all that crap in the motor. You might just have a valve stem seal problem that could be fixed in an afternoon in your driveway. Who knows, open it up and figure it out.

Your words and actions bleed that you don't completely comprehend what's going on. Dive in and learn how to fix your Jeep. You can start by learning how to change your own oil. The money saved can be better allocated to tools and maintenance manuals that last a lifetime. You might screw something up along the way but I guarantee after fixing your screwup or repairing your Jeep you won't forget again. WHY won't you forget? Because it comes out of your pocket. I've found over my years that people start to pay attention when something costs them time or money.

Kingfisher

The resukts were 105 to 95 in the cylinders except for cylinder number 2. Number 2 had 70psi. So if they did the compression test right I would think the engine would not run at all or run badly.



Engine would run very well with 95- 105 lbs. maybe slight miss on 70lb. cylinder

nwagtmustang

Im not trying to goat rope anyone doing anything. They offered a service which looking back on it I never should of done. If this service was never done it would not be smoking like it is. After talking to several shops including one who's owner was a master mechanic for chrysler said to never get a flush done. I do know how to change my own oil. So if you want to act superior and tell me how I should fix the problem on my own thats fine. I dont know how to change valve seals. Nor do I really want to learn. I dont want to take the chance of screwing up my motor to the point it does not work at all. Maybe if I had an old motor sitting in my garage I could experiment with it. Why does Jiffylube own their own repair shop? Because they screw up so many times. I never knew anything about valve seals before this. I never knew an engine flush could wipe old dried gunk which is harmless. If there is no history of the vehicle then jiffylube should not be offering these services. They do more harm than good. I dont understand why you feel the need to act so high and mighty. As far as the first response regarding seafoam the oil has been changed twice since then by me. On my XJ I have changed ball joints, shocks, sway bar bushings and endlinks. I changed the diiferential oil, iac valve, spark plugs, and did the fuel injector upgrade. I never did ball joints before but I did research and took the plunge and did it. So maybe to you thats nothing. Maybe you have the capability to rebuild a motor. Well I dont. I know what I can and cant do. I dont own the right tools to change seals even if I wanted to. The car only started smoking during the flush service and never stopped. If it started smoking a week or a month later then yes I would have no case. I dont have money laying around to try to fix my motor and if I screw up to go get a new one. I would love to put a reman engine in my jeep today. I cant afford it. My car was fine until I took it to jiffylube. I am not asking a shop to do an overhaul. If you said I could do it in an afternoon I am sure a shop could do it in half the time.

Firestorm500

The compression on all your cylinders is lower than usual. The differential between low and high is 35 PSI which is not good. The 70 PSI cylinder is essentially dead.

You apparently have a worn engine with a lot of ring blowby. The flush loosened up the deposits that were helping the rings to seal. I don't think you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the flush caused a problem. I think it revealed a problem that was previously hidden or undiagnosed.

I don't think they owe you an engine. Sorry.

The 4.0 is a tough engine, but it is not immune to wear. You have no idea how the previous owners treated it as far as maintenance, or lack thereof. This is part of the risk in purchasing and owning a high-mileage vehicle.

I would drive it as is until you can afford an engine. Or if it quits smoking, sell it and get something newer.

nwagtmustang

[QUOTE=Firestorm500;2834359]The compression on all your cylinders is lower than usual. The differential between low and high is 35 PSI which is not good. The 70 PSI cylinder is essentially dead.

You apparently have a worn engine with a lot of ring blowby. The flush loosened up the deposits that were helping the rings to seal. I don't think you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the flush caused a problem. I think it revealed a problem that was previously hidden or undiagnosed.

I don't think they owe you an engine. Sorry.

The 4.0 is a tough engine, but it is not immune to wear. You have no idea how the previous owners treated it as far as maintenance, or lack thereof. This is part of the risk in purchasing and owning a high-mileage vehicle.

I would drive it as is until you can afford an engine. Or if it quits smoking, sell it and get something newer.[/QUOTE


Its the 4.7l engine. I never said they owed me an engine. I have an issue with a servixe that was performed. Most likely jiffylube will do nothing. However it never hurts to try. I believe if I never had the service done which was recommended I would not be burning oil. I dont think its getting by the rings because the plugs were clean.