Imagine having a customer bring a car into your workshop to fix an oil leak, and then you suddenly find that there is a whole missing gasket. To make matters worse, imagine realizing that the reason the gasket was missing was because of Jiffy Lube, one of the most prominent auto brands in America.
Well, that is what TikTok creator @wrenchboss_nj has posted on his account, after a customer had brought in a Mini Cooper to his shop, and said that he had suspected an oil leak on the small car. It didn’t take much investigation to determine that it was indeed the case.
But what shocked the mechanic wasn’t the oil leak itself, but why it looked to be leaking. The TikTok user noticed that the gasket appeared to be missing, having taken a closer look at the oil filter housing. That immediately set off some alarm bells.
After some investigation and deduction, @wrenchboss_nj worked out that the car had recently been serviced and therefore had an oil change. The discovery of a Jiffy Lube sticker on the windshield inside the car then allowed him to put two and two together.
This Is What the Mechanic Found Wrong With the Mini Cooper
@wrenchboss_njDoes jiffy lube even train their employees?♬ original sound – wrenchboss_nj
The customer stated that the Mini Cooper had developed an oil leak shortly after being at the Jiffy Lube garage. The mechanic then used oil dye to help find out where it was, although it became very obvious when the car was lifted, and oil dripped directly onto the shop floor beneath the Mini. But the dye did at least help him track down the exact source of the problem.
That is what led to the shock revelation from the mechanic. “There’s no gasket on the [expletive] thing,” @wrenchboss_nj said in his TikTok video. Pointing towards the oil filter housing, it is abundantly clear that the oil gasket was indeed missing. What puzzled him even more, however, was that it looked like the car had a brand new oil filter, so it had clearly recently been through an oil change.
But the gasket was completely missing from the filter, hence the oil in the Mini could just drip freely onto the floor. It was only after checking the windshield sticker inside the car that he realized the Mini Cooper had recently been to Jiffy Lube for a service and oil change. That, added with the new oil filter, led the mechanic to quickly realize it had been serviced at Jiffy Lube, and they had not put a gasket on the car.
Fixing the Oil Leak Suddenly Became a Lot Easier
“Nothing but the best, guys,” @wrenchboss_nj said sarcastically in his video, referencing Jiffy Lube. The silver lining was that all he had to do was install a missing part on the car to get it back on the road again. The mechanic confirmed he replaced the oil filter again, this time with a gasket, and then confirmed that the leak had stopped.
He was then able to simply clean up the oil residue from under the Mini and then return it to the customer. Text overlaid onto the mechanic’s video reading “JIFFY LUBE STRIKES AGAIN” is a clear suggestion of what @wrenchboss_nj thought of the whole saga. He even questioned Jiffy Lube’s employee training and was clearly in shock that the company had forgotten such a crucial part of the oil filter setup.
Gaskets Are an Important Part of an Oil Filter
Someone at Jiffy Lube seemingly didn’t think the gasket was an important part of the oil filter, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The rubber gaskets create a tight seal between the filter and the engine, stopping it from leaking. Without it, we get the leaks we saw from this Mini Cooper. The engine could find itself starved of oil very quickly.
The fact that it was missing entirely from the Mini was a big surprise. It is not unheard of for old gaskets to be left in when new ones are installed, or for there to be damage during installation. But to forget to install it entirely certainly took this mechanic by surprise. Thankfully, after amending the problem, this owner was able to drive their Mini Cooper without any problems.