How to fill up your car with oil……
I had a fun experience last week. I decided to top up the car’s oil as I hadn’t done it for a while (maybe ever) and it has been playing up a bit recently. This I did and then set off for work. About 5 mns away from work the engine suddenly revved like there was no tomorrow and clouds of smoke poured out of the exhaust. The cars that previously had been in my rear view mirror had now disappeared into a vast smog. Oh dear. I pulled over to the kerb and pretended I was looking for something on the floor of the car so that any parents that happened to be negotiating the fog didn’t realise it was Mr Rutter causing the hazard…..
Anyway – I ended up calling the AA. After about an hour of sitting in the car Mr AA arrived. I told him what had happened and he chuckled pointing out that when I fill up the car with oil that doesn’t mean empty the whole container of oil in. Well nobody told me……..it just kept going in so I thought why not? Apparantly I had filled it so high that the oil was getting into the fuel mixture and burning. The real danger with this is that you have no control over the combustion as you do when it is your normal fuel being burnt. He said that what often happens is that the engine keeps racing even after you turn the ignition off and eventually goes bang (his highly descriptive words). He said I was very lucky that this didn’t happen (incidently if it does happen he told me that the only thing you can do is stall the car). He ended up draining about 5 litres of oil from the car by the roadside – and then he took great pleasure in teaching me how to put oil in the car correctly whilst speaking very slowly and using simple terms.
Anyway 2 and a half hours after the incident I was on my way again. An experience to learn from I think 