Hello all: I have an SW2 2001. one owner 120,00 miles and never a problem. some how it made it less than a mile from home taking my wife to work and powered down. upon being hauled to the shop it seems there is no oil filter present. there is no oil in the car park at home. none under the car where it sits and as stated before less than a mile from home. no warning lights or noise and at least a quart on the stick of very clean oil. $100,000 question. what happenend? no sense can be made of it. is it possible to break it loose and get further use of it??? HELP,HELP,HELP what the hell happenend??

THank's for your consideration , William.

 

No, not possible. Are you even sure where to look for the filter?Maybe the shop doesn't know where to look? Anyway, no way in hell for a filter to be missing and you not to have a trail of oil from where the car started to where it died. It's possible that the catalytic converter is stopped up, but your saying the shop says there's no oil filter has me puzzled. I have no idea where you are, if you've used that shop before or anything else. I sure as hell would get it out of there unless they can physically show you where the filter goes and PROVE it's missing. Here's a short video showing where the S series oil filters are.

 

Ummm I think the oil pressure light would be on if only 1 quart present.
More importantly, I'd think that light would be on if there was NO FIlter -- also known as close to ZERO OIL PRESSURE as the system is no longer sealed.
the light is triggered by oil PRESSURE, not LEVEL.

1) Your car is either burning oil or leaking oil. Does it have a history of oil burning?
2) When was your last oil change? Maye oil was not added back after the filter change.
3) Could be anything from a CKP (crank position sensor) to a broken timing chain to a seized engine. If you did not hear a nasty metal on metal sound from under the hood as the car quit, I doubt the timing chain broke. If the car did not overheat, I doubt the engine seized though it can still happen.
4) Could be alternator is bad, drained battery, no more juice to run the electronics......stop.

I am throwing things out off the top of my head to show you how easy it is to overthink things.
Start simple.

Does the engine rotate, via starter or by hand? The answer directs you down 1 of 2 paths
What is the battery voltage at rest? A huge clue as to whether the charging system is in play or the battery itself.
Can you jump start the car from a good battery?
If yes, does it have spark, fuel, and air? If no fuel and no spark, suspect CKP.

Get the car away from that shop before they start taking things apart and charging you.

 

The car is a 1 owner with 120,000 miles. never had an issue with it either burning or leaking oil. it's strange for sure as it only got a mile or so from the house when it powered down. There was no oil under it where it stopped or at the house. the rear of the car was covered in oil and the crank case was empty. I had the car towed back home without any work being done, no filter or oil added and as it sits it is showing only a qt low...maybe a bit more but anything showing at all was interesting. The wife was driving so I'm not sure what the chain of events were just that it will not turn over and I have not been under it. It's a bit close to the ground. my plan is to see if I can turn it when I can get it off the ground far enough to swing a breaker bar. the whole thing is strange for sure.

 

I took your at least one quart to mean about one quart in the in the crankcase. Now you are saying it is only one quart low. Are you sure it is all oil?

At least check the voltage across the battery for now.

Since we don't have the sequence of events, a whole mess of oil on the back of the car probably means a whole mess of oil on the underside of the car. The wind would have blown it there. So you should be able to trace it back to the source of the leak.

Place it in neutral with the emergency brake on and put a socket on the crank Bolt and see if you can turn the engine by hand. Don't need to be under the car to do that

 

I'd pull the filter off and see if there are two gaskets on it. I'm referring to the rubber gasket that seals the filter to the housing. I have personally seen the results of an old gasket not coming off with the old filter and a new filter being installed. The result is a poor seal that leaks oil out between the two when the engine is running. I had it happen on a 78 Dodge truck I had years ago. Fortunately, I only went about 100 yards down the street when my oil light came on. I followed the trail right back to my driveway. I don't understand why there's no trail from your car. Check the filter and gasket first and we'll try to go from there.