Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives A dealer's shop I'd never recommend

This summer I bought a used Ram/Cummins from Mountain Home Auto Ranch in Mtn. Home, Id. It came serviced & with new tires.
This weekend it came time to do the 1st oil change since I bought it. Holy crap! The filter was put on with an air wrench! The filter is high on the right side of the block behind & under a bunch of stuff. It's only accessible from the bottom. A wrench that grabbed the bottom wouldn't budge it and there was no way to get a strap wrench on it. I ended up removing the tire and pulling out the fender liner & then needed a heavy duty pipe strap wrench to budge it. It must have been cranked on 2+ full turns instead of the required 3/4 turn.
I mentioned removing the tire - my electric impact drill wouldn't touch the the lug nuts. My torque wrench tops out at 150 lb and it wouldn't budge them either. I used a 2' breaker bar and had to jump on it to loosen them. If I'd had a flat on the road, there's no possible way I could remove them. Tomorrow I'll have to break the other 3 wheels loose and torque them properly.

I guess that's what happens when a shop hires a high school kid for service work and turns him loose without supervision. I sure wouldn't take anything serious to them. I wonder how high they'd torque head bolts?

Use a little neversqueeze on the lug threads.

Have you considered taking it back to the shop, asking them to "verify" the work, and to re-do it to a more resonable level of cranked-down-edness?

I generally avoid complaining, but you can do it in a way here that's not just "bitchin" for bitchin's sake, and let them know what their guys are doing. It might avoid that flat tire on the road scenario for somebody else if they address it at the source (their workers).

The shop is 90 miles away so I'm not taking it back just for that. I do plan to let the service mgr know about it, though. The oil filter problem would have got very serious if the can had torn apart before the threads released.

Once in a while if I'm in a hurry I'll have the oil on one of my rigs changed in town. Without fail, when I got change it the next time, I have to fight to get the filter off, often to the tune of driving a large screwdriver through the filters, or using large channel locks and crushing the filter before getting it to turn. When I follow myself up on oil changes, I rarely need a wrench to get the filter off.

I just went to change the oil in my new (old) daily commuter yesterday. About the stupidest spot for an oil filter, you can barely reach down with your left hand to get a partial grip on it.

Wouldn't budge, my filter remover do-hickie that has jaws of steel can't get in there (there's a mount on one side). From the bottom you can see it, but again you can't get any leverage and while I was tempted to stick a screw driver through it and try and turn it, I was afraid that still wouldn't get it as I still wouldn't have any leverage.

Next time I'm in town I'll have to look at one of those end cap filter removers.

tq spec on the lugs is 165 so they are tight, but not that damn tight!. I would be looking for new lugs from them. If the truck has aftermarket rims on it, make sure they took the retainig clips off around the lugs used to hold the brake disc on during assembly, it doesnt allow them to be tightend all the way and will snap the stud. its a well known issue.

cal74; I wasted my money on one of the plastic ones - then had to find one made of metal.

Years ago, when Ford was selling Mazda pickups under the Ford name, I was looking for a minitruck. I took one look at that Ford and said no way. The oil filter was right on top of the axle where there was no way to get at it at all. I can't believe that an engineer would design something that stupid.

Likewise, a friend had a Ford Aerostar with a V6, made in the 80's if I remember right. He bought it new and sold it with 150k...still wearing one of the original spark plugs in last hole. The Ford shop said that the only way to change that plug was to pull the engine. There was no tool made that could reach it.

Yeah, second this, I torque mine to 150# and carry a cheater bar in the truck in case I need to change a tire.

As for the filter, I remove the turbo elbow and get after it with gray Atlas gloves. Your's was way too tight. 3/4 turn after contact and check for leaks is good enough.

The dealerships are getting worse and worse for sevice, the quick lubes aren't any better.

Order filters and stuff from Geno's garage, its everything Dodge/Cummins and good prices and deals.

I read that the specs on this call for the lugs to be torqued to 135 NM. I suspect that some mechanics don't know that a newton-meter is NOT the same as a ft-lb. It converts to about 100 ft-lb

Just wait until you change the fuel filter.....

When you do, use this:

http://www.cumminsforum.com/forum/6-7l-tech-articles/177185-6-7l-fuel-filter-change-how.html

I haven't done it yet myself, but from what I've read the fuel filter only takes about 20 min if you remove the fender liner to get at it.

Bad info on the fuel filter, no need to remove the fender liner...

Dodge factory service manual wants 135 FOOT/POUNDS for 8 lug wheels, 2500 and 3500 models, single rear wheel.

I stand corrected..

Good info on dieseltruckresource.com if you have one of these trucks.....

Read threads on fuel filter r/r or you will have trouble getting it running.

What year Ram?

Can't remember for sure, but I thought you had an 06? My 06 and previous 04 are way less than 10 minutes on a fuel filter, and don't require any fooling with fenders.

Drain fuel, unscrew, pop out old filter/oring, pop in replacements, screw back on, don't gorilla-[bleep] it when tightening. Turn key on and let lift pump run for 30 seconds. Fire up and go. I usually swap it while the oil is draining during an oil change.

Mine's an 08 with the 6.7. In 06 and 04 you had the 5.9.

Mines a 2001.5!

Guess I should have asked what year your's was before I started spoutin off!!