Man’s Car Won’t Start After Oil Change At Dealership. Then Another Mechanic Checks—And Realizes It Was A Setup: ‘Isn’t Adding Up'

Often, it’s not the big things that deflate your trust in your fellow humans. It’s the small, petty, pre-meditated stuff—the representative that won’t call you back, the subscription that’s impossible to cancel, the new car problem just after the vehicle has been serviced. 

In a TikTok viewed more than 215,000 times, conspiracy hunter and truth seeker @shittystateofmind2 says that a recent oil change left him feeling like he’d been “set up.” 

Something Isn’t Adding Up

Under an on-screen banner that said, “Something isn’t adding up,” the TikTok creator explained that he felt like a recent encounter at the car dealership was poor. 

“Am I trippin’, or has anybody else gone through this [expletive]?” he asked. Then explained, “I take my car to the dealership, right? Just to get a simple oil change.” 

He said all went smoothly at the dealership. But he said that when he went to start his car, the “very next day,” it wouldn’t start. “It is completely dead,” he said. He said he fiddled with the vehicle a bit and figured out that the issue was with his starter. 

So, he said he called his mechanic, one who is not affiliated with the dealership. He said the mechanic agreed to replace his starter for $500. So, he brought the vehicle in, and, according to him, that’s when things get suspicious. 

Did Someone Tamper With His Starter? 

The TikToker said the mechanic called him shortly after starting to work, asking, “Hey, who the hell worked on your car last?" 

The customer said that after he told the mechanic he got service at a dealership, the mechanic told him, “I can’t say for certain, but it looks like somebody unscrewed your starter. And if I can guess, it would probably be the last person who worked on it.” 

‘Dealership Making Problems To Get Paid’

The video ends with just a beat so the vehicle’s owner can stare silently into the camera for a second or two. He’s letting the audience draw their own conclusions. The consensus? That, as one person speculated, the “Dealership [is] making problems to get paid.”

Another user agrees, writing, “This is why I stopped going to the dealership. It just seemed like every time I went they always managed to ‘find’ additional things that needed replacing. The third-party garage I go to now only fixes what I ask to be fixed and if they point out anything else it’s because it’s an obvious problem, they don’t go looking for things.”

But other commenters detect a hole in the story: “I'm not a mechanic. But if the starter was disconnected, how did it start at the dealer?” asked Winter Soldier 05 (@firstsergeant05).

And then GorditoBonito (@roasrtedpig1) offered a plausible explanation: “They might’ve left the nut barely holding on so driving over bumps on the road it would come off causing the cable to come off. Because you’re right there’s no way it should’ve started at the dealer if they had fully disconnected it,” he said. 

Do Dealerships Really Cause Problems Only To ‘Fix’ Them? 

Anecdotal research (Reddit) shows that while it’s highly unlikely that a dealership would tamper with a vehicle to generate work, they might not always do what’s in the best interest of the vehicle. In a “confessional” article on Edmunds, a former dealership service writer admits that often, service sales trumped vehicle care. The writer said he was regularly at odds with his bosses because “They wanted me to sell more, to recommend service that wasn't needed and to overcharge for the work being done.”  

He explains that dealerships can get away with behavior like this because many car owners don’t take the time to consult their vehicle’s owner’s manual. Because specific vehicles need specific care, it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. 

There are also sales techniques and phrases that are deployed that are designed to impart a feeling of urgency or convenience. The example of “getting things done while the customer is already at the dealership” is given because no one likes to spend half a day on a dealer’s lot. Or safety language like, "’There's less than 50 percent of your brake pads left.’ That sounds bad but actually it isn't time to get a brake job until that number is much closer to 15.”   

Then there’s the upsell, where the car is basically fine but the dealership may recommend mileage-based services (often fluid checks and fills). But these are worth checking against a vehicle manual, too. As the author said, “In one case, I looked at the dealer-recommended service and compared it to the owner's manual — it had almost doubled the service frequency from the manual.”

So, while the dealership can offer great service and vehicle knowledge, as an owner, it pays to familiarize yourself with your specific automotive needs. 

Motor1 reached out to @shittystateofmind2 via TikTok direct message and with a comment on his post. We will update this if he replies.