Have I been scammed by my garage?

Dodgysailor

Hi all I went to my local garage for an oil change and when I went home (I live like 1/2 mile from the garage I was suspicious as the oils dipstick still looked black so I decided to check the oil filter and it came up as per the pictures. I am not an expert mechanic so before I go to make a complaint I would like reassurance from any experts  that this does not look right after an oil change.

Bigwheels1111

You have a diesel car am I right.
I stood next to my mechanic while he changed my oil and filter.
On a 5008 diesel.
With the filter off and sump plug out I poured in a little clean oil to wash as much old oil out of the sump.
New washer fitted and plug put back in, filter replaced.
Poured in 4.25l of new oil myself.
Started the car a ran it for 3 minutes.
Waited 5 minutes and checked the oil.
The level was good and the Oil was black already.
Hard to say if you were done over or not.

You have the skills to do a change yourself by the look of it.
I would go diy and know for sure.

I get filters from autovaux, genuine filters cheaper than aftermarket brands.
Oil from eBay, Mannol brand. 20L 0w-30 fully synthetic is £60.
Good quality oil.

https://sct-online.sct-germany.de/SCTOilfinder/index.php?LE=EN&SPL=Mannol#Menu2

Goudy

It's a diesel right?

The second you start a diesel the oil will go black.
Some soot will naturally pass the piston rings and find it's way into the oil.
This turns the lovely new golden oil instantly black. 

Drive it half a mile and it will almost impossible to tell the oil was replaced.

But from the oil on the trip of you ring finger in the first image, you can just make out a golden hue with just a small amount of soot suspended in it. It's not totally saturated with soot, there's still some clean oil there.

The image of the oil filter looks like the soot hasn't yet completely dyed the filter material total black yet either.
It's just started to impregnate the material and the fibres haven't completely matted with soot either.

To me it look very normal and I would say the oil and filter have been changed quite recently.

Dodgysailor

Yes it is a `1.5 diesel

Goudy

There's no need to complain. That all looks like it's been changed recently.

If you do some searches of "dirty oil filters diesel" you will get an idea what they look like when they are old.
The ribs on the outside start bend of twist or they deform, gaps between the ribs get unevenly spaced with use.

Yours are very straight still.

They also tend to stain with soot and start looking very matt rather than shiny and fluffy.

As mentioned, the oil will go black pretty much the instant you start the engine but it will still feel quite silky and new between your fingers and when you inspect a blob in say a white piece of paper, you will see the oil isn't totally black yet, there's just some soot suspended in the oil.

Old diesel engine oil will be saturated to the oil you won't be able to see the soot particles. 

Soot will soon saturate to a point where you can't tell, often in just a few miles.
By the looks of it it's not got to that point yet.

Mildly_Miffed

An oil change removes a lot of the old oil, but nowhere near all. Old diesel oil is FILTHY, and new will look like it pretty much instantly.

"But it's only half a mile"... That's still a lot of sooty explosions!
Half a mile at an average of 20mph is a minute and a half. Let's say an average of 1500rpm, so 2250 engine revolutions, 4500 combustion events. Add on five minutes of idling at the garage at 700rpm, and that's another 3500 revolutions, 7000 combustion events - 11500 combustion events total.

If you trust the garage that little, either DIY the oil change next time, or take the car somewhere else.

Arunmor

A funny story we have a DAF45 lorry and after major engine work new sump etc I couldn't even see the oil level on the dipstick and as a result over filled it.  My moan to my mechanic was its a diesel it should never be that clear.  

Goudy

Mildly_Miffed said:

If you trust the garage that little, either DIY the oil change next time, or take the car somewhere else.

Yes, do it yourself.
Then drive it half a mile and check the colour of the oil.

It will be the same colour yours is now, that's a certainty.

Diesel soot is anywhere between 0.03 and 0.5 microns in size, give or take. Though most of it will be between 0.1 and 0.2 microns.

Your average oil filter will be around 98% effective at screening out particles of 40 microns and totally and utterly useless at filtering out anything below 10 microns.

That means all the soot inside the engine gets suspended in the engine oil, it has no where else to go.

As explained, an engine will have 10's of thousands of combustion events in a pretty short space of time.
Diesels don't mix their fuel and air as thoroughly as a petrol engine so it tends to leave more clumps or pockets of fuel that hasn't completely burned to ash, this incomplete combustion is soot.

Most of this soot passes out the exhaust but some passes the piston rings.
Diesels are compression ignition engines, they squeeze the air until it's mad hot, then inject a fine spray of fuel into screaming hot air.
Due to the heat and compression the fuel goes bang.

Some of this bang finds it's way past the piston rings, particularly when the engine is cold and the piston and rings haven't yet expanded in the bores, so ends up floating in the oil which the filter can't screen out.
Hence the instant black oil.

born_again

Hi all I went to my local garage for an oil change

Did you ask for  the filter to be changed as well?