81DAWG

I too am about to do my first oil chnge after reaching my break in mileage of 1200 miles. I use Mobil 1 Extended Performance in both of my other vehicles and will do so in the Z. A past experience with Mobil 1 convinced me that you can't go wrong with this oil. I am embarressed about what I did, but I'll share my experience.

I have a 2004 Ford F150 FX4 truck. I put alot of miles on this truck and have used Mobil 1 in it since the first oil change. I change the oil every 3000-5000 miles depending how much towing I have been doing. At about 180K miles I changed the oil as normal prior to going down to my hunting camp on a Friday afternoon. I hooked up my trailer to haul the ATV and went on my way. About 4 miles after leaving the house, I noticed in my rear view mirror there was smoke coming from under my truck. Since I hasn't far from home, I decided to turn around and go back home and check it out. I kept checking the oil pressure guage and it read normal, so i continued on. When I approached my driveway, what I saw gave me a sick feeling...there was a trail of oil from the driveway out into the street. I parked the truck and quickly crawled underneath. The underside of the truck from the engine back was covered in oil. The exhaust was smoking. I determined the oil was coming from the oil filter. I removed the filter, and as many of you have probably already guessed, there was no rubber gasket on the filter. I know it was on the filter when I started the oil change because I coated it with fresh oil prior to installation. Upon further inspection I found the missing gasket on laying in my oil drain pan. I must have placed the filter, gasket side down, on the drain pan, when I layed down prior to installing it on the truck. when I checked the oil in the truck, I had only about a quart left in the truck. This truck holds 7 quarts of oil. So, basically I had driven the truck about 10 miles with very little oil. I figured I ruined the engine or at the very least significantly shortened it's life. like I said, this happened when I had about 180K miles on the truck. I now have 224K miles on it without any decreased performance. I had the oil pressure guage checked and the dealer said it was OK. I still don't know I did not get a low pressure indication.

I am 54 years old and have been doing my own oil changes since I was 16 years old; I have never once paid for an oil change. I guess I used to be on "cruise control" doing oil changes because they are so routine for me. Not anymore. This experience taught me to always check to make sure the gasket is in place before I install the filter. I am sure there are other quality oils that are just as good as Mobil 1, but I will never use anything but Mobil 1 Extended.