Oops! Dang kids!!!

[crazyal]

I had an old Ford 4 door with a 302 and automatic. It leaked tranny fluid but was nothing more than an atv with doors for checking the fields so i really didn't want to bother spending the money to fix it. My neighbor had a 35 gallon drum of old engine oil. That's all I used to top it off. Finally one day the tranny stopped working, figured I finally killed it. Turns out the barrel had water in it and last several times I filled it, usually in the wee hours of the morning before the sun came up, with water. Simply drained it and refilled it with used engine oil and off I went.

Never did kill that tranny. do a quick flush and top it off with the cheapest tranny fluid you can buy and forget about it. If it was a daily driver or a long haul truck, that would be different.

 

[284 International]

At least they told you honestly about it. If you have told them what to use before, and they didn't use that container, or they looked at the jug, read "2 stroke oil" and ignored the label, then that's on them. Have them fix it for you (Drain and replace ATF) on their dime, and put them back to work, on probation, or whatever.

If the containers had no label, and you know that it's 2 stroke oil because you left it there but nobody else could really be certain what it is, then that's on you. Buy it yourself, and make them help YOU do it. It's your mistake, unfortunately.

I use 5 gallon motorcycle racing fuel cans to fuel my tractor. And my motorcycles. I know which container has what in it, and they're in different places. I have 2 adjacent structures, that both have projects and tools in them. One is the garage and the other is the shop, because that's been their names my entire life. Nobody else has any way to distinguish them. I asked my girlfriend to bring a gas can "from the shop" on her way to meet me somewhere, because I needed to get some gasoline, and if there was anything in the jug when she picked it up, to put it into my KTM.

She dutifully picked up the clear container that was beside my KTM, and dumped the contents into the bike, then brought me the (now only mostly empty) container. My bike was full of diesel now, but the fault was all mine. I couldn't be upset. I made the error in not distinguishing for her precisely where and how to look for the can. I made a mistake in not previously warning her that I keep my fuel containers jumbled with different contents, and how to pay attention to what fuel is in what container.

Now I keep my diesel in yellow cans only. Nothing else goes into yellow cans.

My view is just drive the thing. If it leaks that much, you'll be flushing it out anyway. And just run the cheapest bulk stuff from whatever discount retailer you prefer. There's no reason to put expensive synthetic in that thing.

 

[20 20]

Don't fire the kids unless they are idoits that make the same type of mistakes over and over. If anything you may have taught them something without even knowing it. At one time or another we have all made mistakes and more then likely that is how we learned.

I'd just drain refill, maybe even fix the leak{??} and go on about business.

 

[Mace Canute]

:mur:
This morning I was cleaning out the shop before climbing on the ol-tractor and as I am emptying the trash I see 3 old oil cans in there that are for 2 cycle, Now I know that they should not have been any 2 cycle oil need this or last week. I did tell the kids I use for farm hands to check the tranny fluid on the farm truck (1989 chev. 3/4 ton p/u auto transmission)
YEP! they just told me that's what they put in! So what now! Will it hurt! It's got a small leak, about a quart a month, running synthetic in it! What should I do other than fire the neighbor kids!

It's not absolutely clear if the 3 old cans were the original containers for the 2 cycle oil or not. Were containers of automatic transmission fluid easily visible? Did the kids just grab the first containers of oil that they saw? It would be helpful if we knew why they grabbed the wrong oil in the first place. We could give a more meaningful response to your post if we knew that.