We recently had an experience with Valvoline Instant Oil Change and Valvoline Corporate that has been so bizarre and horrific, that I believe it’s our duty to inform the public so that no one else is subjected to the same fate as us. If you’re in a tight spot financially and are trying to “save money” by going to Valvoline (after all, they claim to be 30-50% cheaper than dealerships on their website), you will want to read about our experience before proceeding. 

How does trying to save $150 turn into $8k+ in damages (and over twice that in lost income and unanticipated expenses)? 

It starts with a lie that Valvoline’s CVT fluid is “equivalent” to Nissan’s OEM NS-3 CVT fluid. I was an auto mechanic before I became physically disabled, so I knew the importance of putting the correct fluid (CVT) and an equivalent fluid to that of OEM into our vehicle. Being as I am disabled, money can be quite tight and the $350 pre-tax that Nissan quoted for transmission fluid service was simply out of reach; but we needed to do the routine maintenance work, as our vehicle was still running flawlessly despite the poor reputation of the maker’s transmissions. Nissan’s CVTransmissions are notoriously sensitive to incorrect fluids and low levels.

We decided to try a Valvoline Instant Oil Change in Salt Lake County, specifically due to the cost difference. As a mechanic, I’ve used Valvoline’s products numerous times before on other vehicles I’ve worked on in the past and hadn’t ever had an issue. They’re a large name and big sponsor in the auto industry, so they seemed reputable enough as a whole. The reviews for this particular Valvoline location were pretty decent overall as well (4.7/5 on Google), and higher than those of other drive-thru auto service shops in the area. But you’ll come to learn that a specific location isn’t exactly pertinent to the story; we are far from being the only ones to have the following experience.

Quick reminder that hindsight is 20/20 and I wasn’t expecting them to mess up our transmission, so I didn’t delve down that rabbit hole until after the issue occurred.

Shortly after arriving and while telling them what we were there for, I specifically asked the Valvoline technician and their manager if their CVT fluid is equivalent to Nissan’s. They assured us both up and down that it is equivalent. Per a lab analysis performed by an independent laboratory that specializes in car fluids, that is a lie. More on that later. 

When the Valvoline technicians started work on our vehicle, they spent nearly 10 minutes reaming on the transmission fluid cap and violently shaking our vehicle before telling us they did not have the correct tool to take the cap off. We were extremely hesitant at this point, but they assured us they’d get the job done. Every technician in the shop came over to our car and had a go at crashing around the engine bay trying to get this cap off. Another 10 minutes pass, and I finally get fed up and tell them how to get it off without the tool. Success. 

Valvoline’s website claims, “our certified technicians can perform this service in about 20 minutes.” We were there for nearly an hour. 

Now for the next failure: “We don’t actually have a dipstick for your car, so we’ll have to use a makeshift one.” That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence— how is it that they don’t have all of the correct tools/materials necessary for the job? Despite our protesting and frustration, the Valvoline employees continued to work on our car; one can’t exactly quit halfway through this kind of service to drive off. So, we let them finish and came back two days later for their “fluid level test.” They still didn’t have the correct tool to get the cap off, and once again used a “makeshift dipstick.” 40 minutes and a bout of motion sickness later, we were told everything looked great and we were good to go.

Fast forward 3 months (less than 4,800 miles), our check engine light pops up and the transmission starts giving out while we’re driving down I-15. We experienced stuttering and erratic shifting, so we took it straight to the Valvoline shop that performed the service. The manager immediately hopped on the phone with the GM after telling us they, “couldn’t do anything,” while one of the Valvoline techs started trying to troubleshoot with a code reader. After getting a code of P0841 (transmission pressure switch/sensor), the technician told us he’d like to check the fluid. Cue them –a third time– not having the correct tool to get the cap off, and more car shaking from reaming on the engine bay. The manager told us that, “the GM told us to refer you to a mechanic. So you need to go to a mechanic.” No mechanic specifically, just, “a mechanic.” The manager also tried to tell us that they don’t guarantee work on any transmissions over 60k miles; which we were NOT told before or any time during our initial service with them three months prior, despite being very transparent about our mileage. Regardless, if our suspicions were true that the service wasn’t performed correctly and the fluid was off, then their little service warranty disclosure doesn’t mean anything. We told the technician to please stop touching our car, and that we’d simply go find a mechanic like they were instructing us to. 

I want to reiterate that this vehicle has been running perfectly prior to this incident, we have meticulously maintained it and have records of every service, our vehicle’s VIN was NOT listed as a part of the CVT recall/class action, and the only issue we have ever experienced was this erratic shifting after our fluid change with Valvoline. We’ve also had the transmission fluid changed before at the recommended intervals, so this is NOT a case of owner neglect. Hell, I only just replaced the stock headlights on this vehicle a couple months ago after one started to dim— it’s been a brilliant, beautifully performing unicorn for us. 

We decided that the only mechanic we’d trust in a situation like this is Nissan’s Service Department, as their mechanics/technicians know these vehicles best. We took our car to the dealership with the quickest opening, and that happened to be the Nissan north of us, not the one nearest us. Our car made it up there okay, but we were told it was a miracle we made it.

After paying for an unanticipated 3 day car rental and a diagnostic fee, we were told by Nissan’s master mechanic that there was another code along with the P0841 that indicated a CVT belt failure, and whatever fluid Valvoline put into our transmission caused the CVT belt to disintegrate, along with the fluid level being left over half a quart too low. The fluid being incompatible as well as being left too low also resulted in the fluid being burnt; something that shouldn’t be possible with fluid that has an average lifespan of over 40,000 miles and didn’t even have 4,800 miles of drive time on it. This all created a massive issue for such a sensitive transmission that’s essentially considered a closed-loop system. To the tune of being told we needed a whole new transmission— an $8,000 repair through Nissan after labor and tax.

I inquired how this could happen over the course of 3 months instead of instantly, and was informed that even a slight incompatibility with the fluid would cause a slow transmission failure, especially coupled with a lower fluid level than specs require. Burnt transmission fluid also causes transmission failure. If it was a non-CVT fluid altogether, the failure would have likely occurred much sooner. In an attempt to troubleshoot, I asked if we could simply replace the belt and the control valve box where the pressure sensor is located and was told that they couldn’t guarantee that replacing the valve box alone would fix the issue (these transmissions cannot be rebuilt, either), and insisted full transmission replacement was really our only option. 

We emailed Valvoline’s Corporate office on Monday, and still had not received any response by Wednesday, not even a confirmation email. So I called their corporate office and started a claim in my partner’s name, since he owns the vehicle. This is where things start to get even more slimy than they already were. Valvoline corporate adamantly told me that if we had let Nissan do any repairs or replacements, it would have voided their claims process; despite the fact that their own Valvoline Instant Oil Change manager & GM explicitly instructed us to go to a mechanic. Corporate claims that the local shop shouldn’t have done that. Well, we didn’t get any repairs or do any replacements, so let’s proceed. 

Valvoline Corporate calls me the next day (Thursday) to say they require a sample of the transmission fluid in our car so they can test it at their lab and determine if Valvoline caused the issue. Sounds super unbiased and fair, right? (lol) Valvoline’s area manager instructed me to bring our car to Valvoline so they could take a sample and send it off. I’m not sure if he thought he could get away with it because I’m femme (sexism becomes a theme), but I told him he was asking me to allow them to commit willful negligence. You see, pulling 6oz of fluid out of a closed-loop system that Valvoline already left low would absolutely cause catastrophic transmission failure. It could cause an accident while driving, or worse. I obviously adamantly declined this. 

Valvoline’s area manager then said he could set up an appointment with the closest Nissan Service Department to us so that Nissan could pull the sample, and he could meet us there. Fine, I don’t have a problem with that. He set up the appointment for a Friday morning, we agreed to meet him, I thought we were getting somewhere. I thought wrong.

When I called Nissan to ask them to be sure to pull a sample for us so that we could send it to an independent lab for our own testing, they happily agreed, but asked me if Valvoline would be paying for the service. I said that’s a great question, because Valvoline didn’t mention anything about covering the cost and I certainly wanted to make sure we were all on the same page. Nissan’s technician informed me that in order to draw a proper sample, they have to drop the pan and pull the sample directly, which makes perfect sense; that’s how we’ve always done it for classic cars and hot rods, too. And, for liability reasons (also very sensible), they cannot simply pull a sample and let us drive off; fluids can’t be mixed and it was already low, so a flush and full fluid change would be necessary. Great! Nissan has ethics and cares about not killing people; that’s precisely why we’re going through Nissan instead of Valvoline for the sample. 

Valvoline’s area manager and corporate office did NOT like that Nissan was doing things properly. The area manager told me he didn’t think it was that involved and that Nissan should be able to draw a sample from a port instead of dropping the pan. I informed him that as a mechanic myself, transmission fluid samples that are headed for lab analysis need to be collected correctly, and that’s from the pan (otherwise, you can’t see any potential metal bits or other contaminants). Regardless, you cannot take without replacing, and you cannot mix fluids. Duh. He didn’t like this answer, and he didn’t know if Valvoline would pay for it. So he decided to “make some calls.” 

I received a call that afternoon from Valvoline corporate with the area manager on the line as well. The two of them informed me that Valvoline would not be paying for anything, that we would have to cover the cost up front, and if their “investigation” (with no timeframe ever given) revealed they were at fault, then they would allegedly reimburse us. I’m really glad I record all of my calls with businesses, because they told me that, “Valvoline receives SO many claims that we can’t possibly pay out on everything.” HA. That’s rich coming from a company valued at $4.92 Billion-with-a-“B”. I simply told them that I am disabled and I don’t know how they expect me to pay for all this when I’m on a fixed income. Their corporate rep snarkily gave me two options (again, while she knew she was being recorded): we could either show up to the appointment and pay for everything and let them “investigate”, or we could, “go ahead and sue.” Well then. They hung up on me without any indication of whether or not they would still be showing the next day, and I never said I wouldn’t be. 

Well, Friday morning rolls around and we took our car into Nissan for the appointment. No sign of Valvoline’s area manager anywhere. Nissan’s wonderful technician who had been helping us coordinate said that Valvoline’s area manager had actually called her two separate times the day before to tell her she didn’t know how to do her job and didn’t know anything about the parts on our vehicle. Apparently he tried to argue that there is no pan on our vehicle (there is), and was being a sexist little jerk the whole time (my words, not hers). 

Shocker, Valvoline never showed up. When we picked up our car and the samples on Saturday morning, every mechanic in the Nissan Service Department was aghast at the color of the fluid that came out of our transmission. The techs at this Nissan dealership highly suspected that the fluid Valvoline used has additives and is acidic compared to Nissan’s NS-3 fluid. This makes two Nissan Service Departments with numerous master mechanics and technicians who all agree that Valvoline caused our transmission’s failure. Thankfully, we got a sample of Nissan’s NS-3 fluid as well so that we could send it to the lab alongside our transmission fluid sample. The $372 bill with Nissan was paid for by us. 

Because I’m also a disability advocate and can smell discrimination from ten miles away, I called Valvoline corporate to check on the status of our claim. I was told (while the rep was aware of being recorded) that, “Valvoline closed the claim, we were never going to approve it anyways, and we will not be reopening it.” WOW! So they closed our claim based on the assumption that my disabled-ass was too broke to afford the appointment with Nissan. Hilariously enough, the car is not in my name and neither was the claim with Valvoline— but they only ever spoke with me and closed it based on an assumption about me.

Safe to say that Valvoline doesn’t actually have a claims process like they claim to have. In fact, countless posts on Reddit highlight how claims with Valvoline corporate drag out for months to years with no resolution, and that appears to be the norm. Valvoline was also charged by the Federal Trade Commission in the late 90s for false claims about engine performance by using their treatments. They have a marked history of lying and being deceitful. 

That lie only continues, as we received the lab results from the independent laboratory. Per the report: “This sample of Valvoline is indeed more acidic than the sample of unused Nissan CVT oil you sent in,” and, “The levels of oil additive elements boron, calcium, and phosphorus are high compared to the Nissan fluid…CVT’s can be very sensitive to the type of oil they run, so we recommend using only the genuine Nissan fluid.” Right from the jump, Valvoline lied to us about the equivalency of their fluid to OEM. It was already quite the claim to be compatible with nearly every auto maker’s OEM fluids (hence my initial questioning), but we now know for a fact that it is a grossly false claim. 

The fact of the matter is that this all could have been avoided had Valvoline simply not lied to us, or even declined service due to not having the correct tools for the job (cap tool & dipstick). Even if the fluid wasn’t the problem, their technicians still performed the service incorrectly by leaving the levels too low in a notoriously sensitive transmission. Perhaps incidents like ours are why the technician who did our service was fired (just what you want to hear the manager tell a tech while you’re back in their shop due to major transmission issues they caused /s). 

Due to Valvoline turning our vehicle into a ticking time bomb, my partner had to halt business operations and has lost a sizable amount of income since August 8th when the transmission gave out, as he owns & operates his own HVAC company and uses the vehicle to get to clients. I’ve had to miss critical medical appointments (I’m in heart failure and have 25+ chronic illnesses), which has severely impacted my health. Every penny we have spent diagnosing, testing, and using for alternate transportation has come out of our bill money, and without a way to keep cash flow going, we’re now in a very sketchy situation. It is estimated that between 41% and 58% of Americans cannot pay for a $1,000 car repair out of pocket, and we personally don’t have the luxury of credit or loans. We certainly can’t afford the $8,000 for a transmission replacement like Nissan says we need to get our car moving again. 

We don’t want anyone else to suffer the same horrible fate as us, so we’re sharing our story far and wide. We will be pursuing as much accountability for this as we can, but going the small claims route inevitably means we will not get full accountability, as the cap for damages is less than what we’ve incurred between loss of use, loss of income, and the transmission replacement. Every attorney we’ve talked to jumps at the chance to take the case, but they all want $300-$500+/hr, and it seems no one in Utah works on contingency outside of personal injury cases (if you do, please feel free to reach out). Valvoline has an abundance of time, money, and skilled attorneys who could drag this process out for years if we went a different route.

Arguably the worst part about all of this is the fact that Valvoline knows they can almost assuredly get away with causing damages to peoples’ vehicles. They bank on customers not being able to afford to fight them— after all, their whole claim is that, “you could save between 30% to 50% versus the dealership.” They know that very few people have the time and energy necessary to fight them, and that you’re probably too busy to follow up on their bs “claims process.” Valvoline locally & corporate were acutely aware that I am disabled and assumed vulnerability from the get-go (we even got a “discount” on our original service because I’m disabled), and used sexism to guide their actions on numerous occasions. Valvoline’s attempt to provide a discount and their brazen claims of saving money over dealerships are worthless if tens of thousands of dollars in damages is the direct result of going to them for services. 

As my partner’s income has been cut off, we do have a fundraiser set up on Ko-Fi (less transaction fees than GoFundMe) to help with our living expenses like rent, transportation, utilities, etc., which can be found here. Any and all help is sincerely appreciated as we navigate these unforeseen challenges. 

If you care about supporting businesses with ethics and safety as top priorities, I would absolutely encourage you to look elsewhere for vehicle maintenance services. Valvoline has told us loud and clear that they don’t care about anything other than money, even when it means they’ll inevitably pay out far more than they would have if they had a fair claims process. And if you’re looking into franchise opportunities, beware that Valvoline Corporate obviously does not support franchise owners and will happily throw them under the bus and into legal hot water, even going so far as to flat-out instruct wronged customers with mountains of proof to go ahead and take legal action. Big yikes. 

My disabilities and living in an apartment complex mean that DIY maintenance is no longer an option. As a former mechanic, I’m livid that asking the right questions did nothing to save us from Valvoline causing unnecessary major damages and being taken advantage of. Valvoline will continue to lie about equivalency and compatibility, so I would follow the lab’s recommendation to use ONLY genuine transmission fluid/oil from your vehicle’s manufacturer.