Hello Unkle Krusty,
This has to be the BIGGEST mystery of all time, 'The case of the missing oil' or is it, 'The crank case of missing oil?. James said at the beginning of this exciting saga, he knew about bikes and stuff, "He knew it had two tires and an engine mounted on a frame. I think that is the extent of his so called knowledge. I know if 'I was fool enough to lose an engine due to flat out stupidity and negligence, I would not be telling anyone about it.'
His story though is so full of BS, missing information and a lot of it makes no sense at all. How does he buy a bike on midnight of May29 and yet bring it to the shop on the same date? He can't. He had to have bought it May 28 at midnight to be able to bring it to the shop on the 29th. Not a big thing but it shows he could not figure out something as simple as that. The shop told him "We rode it around the parking lot and it ran fine' or similar words. I don't believe the shop told him, "No bike shop in the world ever checks a bikes fluids." Logically I can not say ,"The shop did not say that, I was not there." But it is too unreasonable to think they would not check it,People DO make mistakes, Hell I did, changing oil in wide Glide, took'er out for a ride around the block to warm her up as oil flows easier, came back an drained her. I did however forget to put the drain plug back in ! Then I moved the basin over to where I put new oil in so if I spilled any, it would not go on drive way, Then I notice this puddle, AW BALLS I forgot to put the drain plug back in. So I lost a qt. of oil and had to go an get another. BUT when all was done, the bike had a new filter and nice clean oil and the right amount of oil as shown on the dipstick. Then I made note of date and mileage and put in Maintenance log.
The shop, as I understand it was to 'Just inspect the bike but do no actual repairs' , Seems weird to me. I would have had an oil & filter change, service air cleaner, check plugs etc. and even if the shop WAS to have done an oil change, drained it and forgot to put in oil, which could happen, due to too much going on in the shop, not well organized, and even if they charged for the oil and did not put it in, I really don't think they meant to 'cheat him' an honest mistake. you know, everyone thought he did it, anyone could have done it but in the end, nobody did it. . . Still though, If he checked the oil before he left the shop, he would have known he needed oil, they would have had it, oil would have been added and Jamie boy would be on his merry way.
All the other BS about finding they rode the bike around town for two miles, does it really matter? I never got the whole story about the gasket, could the oil have been blown out through said gasket? I say it is very possible. If James HAD work done and they forgot the oil, I'd say he had good chance of things being made right, and as others have said, the shops insurance would have paid for the replace/ and installation of the new engine but the shop did no work, but such was NOT the case. I am sorry that James has this problem but I think that, he is plum out of luck and that best he can do is to learn from his mistake of not checking the oil, I don't know why he did not hear the engine knocking though.
