The guy who put the dipstick back in the wrong hole cost me an hour

Had a customer bring in a 2012 Ford Focus saying it was running rough after an oil change. Turns out he shoved the dipstick into the transmission dipstick tube and then added two extra quarts of oil into the engine. Has anyone else seen people mix up those tubes?

3 comments

3 Comments

pat_stone1mo ago

Wait, did he actually shove the dipstick into the trans tube or just pull the wrong one? lol I've seen that exact mess on a Ford Focus before. What I do is wrap a little strip of red electrical tape around the oil dipstick handle and leave the trans one plain. Takes five minutes and saves you from that headache. Grab a different color tape for each one so you're not guessing when the light is bad.

the_leo1mo ago

Watched a buddy do the exact same thing on a Chevy Cruze once. He was so focused on getting the oil change done quick he didn't look close enough at the handles. Ended up draining the transmission fluid by mistake and then poured fresh oil into the transmission dipstick tube. What a mess. What finally worked for us was just painting the oil dipstick handle bright yellow and the trans one a different color like orange so you can tell them apart even in bad light.

blakestone1mo ago

Is there any car model where they actually made this confusion WORSE on purpose? I read somewhere that a few manufacturers started putting the transmission dipstick RIGHT next to the oil one just to mess with DIY guys. @the_leo, the paint idea is smart but I bet some guy at the factory laughed about how many people would mix them up. My cousin actually did the opposite on his Honda Pilot - he drained the oil and filled the transmission with it. Had to get a whole new transmission after that. Never trust color coding from the factory, they just use cheap plastic that all looks gray after a few years anyway.