Walmart Still Ignoring Customer Whose Engine Was Ruined In Botched Oil Change

It’s been three weeks since a California woman took her car into Walmart for an oil change, only to have a service tech accidentally put all the new oil in her transmission instead of her engine. And in spite of early indications that Walmart would move quickly to repair the customer’s vehicle, she tells Consumerist that the retailer is doing nothing while her car sits idle in a garage.

For those coming to this story late, Liz says she picked up her Ford SUV from the Walmart auto department and managed to only drive a few yards before the engine began knocking something awful. She immediately turned around and went back to the service bay, where a Walmart staffer fessed up to dumping several quarts of oil into her transmission.

She eventually had her car towed to a local Ford dealership, which reviewed the damage and provided her with an estimate for nearly $3,000.

This began a series of promises from Walmart to look into the matter and maybe provide a rental car for Liz while her vehicle was being repaired.

It wasn’t until after the story appeared on Consumerist — though we were never able to get a response of any sort from Walmart — that the retailer agreed to provide her with a rental car, and that it would pay for the rental so long as her vehicle was repaired “as soon as possible.”

But Liz and her lawyer tell Consumerist that Walmart’s claims folks have been dragging their feet in actually getting the repair initiated.

The last that either of them heard was that an estimate was being obtained for a replacement engine. That was last Friday. Meanwhile, the rental car is due on Monday. So unless this snail-like pace picks up dramatically in the next few hours, it seems likely that Liz will once again have to go through the hassle of chasing the claims people just so she can have a car.

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