In the world of customer service, some folks simply can’t appreciate a good deal when they see one.

When one disgruntled car owner insisted on skimping on a small oil charge, he unknowingly drove himself into a costly mistake.

Read on for this tale of malicious compliance.

customer didn’t want to spend $ on oil

This happened about 15+ years ago.

My father owned a successful autobody and we always had tons of customers.

He made every customer feel appreciated and always did extra stuff that he might had seen out of place, etc.

We had one guy who brought his car to us (early 90s Buick if I remember).

We had done something small on it and it was like a single day job or so.

The shop went above and beyond for this customer, as they always did.

Our shop manager at the time noticed his engine was making a slight knocking noise and checked the oil.

It ended up needing 2 quarts to show up on the dipstick.

Anyway, he added the oil and the knocking stopped and engine smoothed out.

They added the oil to the bill, which they only charged $5 total.

However, this particular customer didn’t appreciate their good deed.

The guy was furious about the extra money and, even after we explained to him that his engine was knocking, he demanded we take it off the bill and remove the oil.

We removed it from the bill and just told him to keep the oil.

He still was angry and demanded we remove the oil regardless.

The shop complies, knowing full well this was a terrible idea.

We drive it back into the shop, on a lift, remove the oil and showed him it was removed.

He tells us we are trying to nickel and dime him, etc ,etc.

He didn’t get too far before he came to the same conclusion.

He starts the car back up (engine proceeds to knock).

He pulls out the driveway and gives it more gas than it needs.

He gets half a mile down the road and the engine lets go…

You can’t argue with stubborn.

What did Reddit think?

This commenter muses about the hilarious conversation that must have ensued.

Sometimes it’s just not worth it to roll the dice with a crazy customer.

Some auto shops take a hard line against any unauthorized services.

Some people get strangely sentimental of their equipment.

This man clearly chose his own pride over a sensible solution.

As the customer learned the hard way, ignoring a simple fix usually leads to an even bigger breakdown.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.