I have an 03 I35, and was changing the oil today. Instead of putting in clean oil into the engine, I accidently put in dirty oil (wasnt paying attention and picked up my old oil which I stupidly had put into an empty 5qt Castrol container) I watched the dirty oil go into the engine and paid no attention to it. I had a lot of stuff to do during the day, and I left to run errands in my other car. About 8 hours after I changed the oil, I started the I35 and was backing out the driveway when all of a sudden it was as if my transmission was going out. The car was in reverse but wasnt moving, i got it out of the driveway and around the block when I turned around and put the car back in the garage. It hit me what I had done with the oil and so I figured it was somehow related to that. I tried to drain the oil out of the oil pan but only about 2qts came out, so I put in 2 qts new oil, started the car and figured after it warmed up the rest would come out as well. I let the engine run for about 3 minutes and then I opened up the drain... but NOTHING came out. Now im sitting here trying to figure out what i've done and how to get it fixed. I will call the dealer first thing in the morning, but can anyone tell me what the hell happened???? Oh and heres the kicker.. I was supposed to leave in the morning for a 500 mile drive to chicago

Welcome to NICO. Sorry to hear about your troubles.

Hmmm...

I don't see how bad oil could affect the transmission unless you accidentally drained and/or filled the transmission instead.

Was the bottle of old oil actually full? Is it possible you only put 2 quarts in?Have you tried checking the oil with the dipstick? How does it look?

Did you change the filter at the same time?How long since your previous oil change?

If you just drained your oil and then accidentally put the same oil back in, I don't see why it should cause a problem that drastic and that suddenly. Obviously the car had been running okay with that oil leading up to the change. I guess it all depends on how bad the oil was.

Did the car leak any oil? Any new oil stains in the garage or driveway?

I wouldn't recommend running the engine any more until you figure out what happened. If it's low on oil or something is restricting flow you could do some serious damage.

should have got the extended warranty...

just kidding. thats wierd i have never heard about that happening before you must have put it in the wrong hole or something(my girl says that too). i would drain all the fluids if i were you and replace em just to be safe. thats a nice car and would be a pity if ol faithful gasped its last breath because of a fluid mix up.

I hope I'm wrong but from what you described as your hurried routine, it sounds like you may not have put in enough oil, or worse yet put it in the wrong place. If thats the case, drain the fluids and refill them. Good luck, and FOCUS.

Or quite possibly something other than oil, like a foreign object, was also in the bottle and went in with the dirty oil?

fluid mix ups happen all the time with heavy equipment

Usually diesel in the antifreeze or visa versa

drain all that crap out and do it right. make sure you actually put the oil filter on too and it's the right one. you probably don't need a new filter unless you dropped something in there...and if you did, good luck.