Answers to your car questions

QUESTION

Hi Dennis,

I have a question about the shelf life of oil. I have a 1994 Toyota Celica GTS that I bought new 28 years ago. It has 524,000 kilometres on it. I religiously maintained it and it runs perfectly other than a few signs of wear and tear from its age. I do my own oil changes with Castrol GTX 10W30. This product comes in 5-liter jugs and the car only uses 4 litres per change. I save the extra litre and when I accumulate 4 litres, I do a “free” oil change. I used to drive 50,000 kms per year. I worked in Montreal and Toronto and lived in Ottawa, so the oil never sat that long and I never gave it much thought. Now that I am retired, the car does not see that kind of mileage. So the spare oil sits in the garage until I have enough. How long is this oil good for? That jug has oil in it from late 2019 to this past February. Is it safe to use? Thanks, appreciate the help.

Paul from Ancaster

ANSWER

If the remaining oil is kept in a sealed jug then the oil is perfectly usable for up to five or six years.

QUESTION

About two months ago, I had damaged the hood of my car with my garage door. I had the body shop do the repairs at my insurance company’s preferred shop. When the job was first done, the paint did not match the rest of the car and although it was close, you could see the difference in the sunlight. The paint job was also not very smooth. I took it back after one week and they tried to buff out the hood to see if they could get rid of the imperfection in the paint. That did not help so the last time that I took the car in for them to see, I had them look at a small scratch in the left rear of the vehicle and also a scratch on the rear bumper. They, at that time, told me that they would redo the hood but if I wanted, they would fix the scratches and leave the hood as it was. I foolishly agreed to do that because they told me that the cost to repaint the hood is about the same as the cost to fix the scratches. They had the scratches fixed and I was on my way in about one hour. They told me that they would need the car overnight to repaint the hood, so in my way of thinking, they tricked me into accepting the faulty hood repair for a much lesser cost of removing the two scratches.

I was sitting on the porch the other day looking at the poor paint job on the hood and decided that I would not accept the inferior paintwork and went back to the body shop to complain. They told me that they would repaint the hood for two hundred dollars and I told them to go pound salt. I went to another body shop and they repainted my hood properly and they only charged me one hundred and ninety dollars. I would like your help in getting the one hundred and ninety dollars back for the poor paintwork on my hood from the first garage. Can you help me please?

Albert from Brantford

ANSWER

I first spoke to the body shop that had repainted your car’s hood and ironically, you are not happy with the outcome with the paint job from that body shop. They told me that the paint job done by the first

body shop was not that bad but the colour was slightly off. They also told me that your eleven-year-old paint was hard to properly match but they tried to do their best.

In speaking to the first body shop that painted your hood, they told me that you had made an agreement with them that the two scratch repairs would be done instead of repainting the hood and you both verbally agreed. The problem that the first body shop has is that they did agree verbally that the painting of the hood was not correct so they offered you an alternative. They would fix the two scratches instead of redoing the hood properly, which indicated that they knew the hood repair was not right. Nothing was in writing and that is a problem for the body shop. They want this thing settled so they asked me what I would recommend. I recommended that they give you an invoice for one hundred dollars for the repair of the two scratches and that they would then reimburse you ninety dollars for the repainting of the hood by the second body shop. They have agreed to that. That is the best that I can do for you.