Problem with oil change

What is the name of your state? Massachusetts

I took my car to one of those "quickie" oil change places. After I left I drove the car to several different places and there were no problems. I stopped to put gas in it before heading off to do some more errands. I tried to get onto the highway and all of the sudden the car had trouble accelerating and when it finally did it felt like it was jerking. I remembered seeing several stories about people getting gas with water in it and having some major problems with the car immediately after. With this in mind, I happened to be very close to the dealer I bought the car from. They looked at it and told me my oil tank had been overfilled and the oil was overflowing into the engine and caused damage to the spark plugs. I allowed them to do the work and then contacted the original shop. They are saying there is absolutely nothing they can do because I didn't bring it back to them. After some research I see that in MA you need to give the original shop a chance to fix it. But I brought the car not thinking it was the oil change. (I didn't realize something like that could even happen) So, do I have any recourse at all? Thank you.

You don't have to take it back to the original shop if you are broken down somewhere else. If they refuse to pay for their mistake take them to small claims court.

I am curious about how they "overfilled" the crankcase and somehow that oil ended up on the spark plugs. Unless you have some really weird car you should have an oil PAN which sits at the bottom of the engine (even a Porsche with oil reserve tank(s) couldn't be overfilled and result in oil on the plugs). Even if you have an IL OHC engine with the fill cap directly above the cam(s) it would take a LOT of oil to fill so far it came out the top. Now, it would come out the top and soak the plugs if the oil CAP was left off. That's a common mistake that would require a good cleanup and then a recheck and probably topping off of the oil to its proper level.

It sounds like they are both feeding you a little expensive bullsugar.

too much oil

I don't know what kind of vehicle you have, but some vehicles ( Nissan trucks come to mind) have a real problem when too much oil is in the engine. From my recollection, the excess oil gathers in the top end of the engine and causes problems with the operation of the OHC which is NOT supposed to be submerged in oil. You might have blown some oil seals, also. The amount in excess of the recommended quantity doesn't have to be much; an extra QUART would be plenty to cause big problems. The specific repairs done by the dealership should make it easy to establish the probable source of the problem. The very small amount of miles driven between the oil change and the breakdown is very telling, also.

If your crankshaft was submerged, it can kick a LOT of oil into the cylinders, which would explain why the spark plugs were fouled.

Wellllll, anytime you over fill an oil pan it allows the crank to throw the oil and turn it to foam. That will certainly cause a pile of problems, but the comment about it getting on the spark plugs makes me think the cap was left off. Even with an overfilled crankcase the oil couldn't get past the piston rings and to the heads/plugs.

Whatever they did it was negligent and it caused your problem. Your dealership will back you up, and all they have to do is say your car could not be driven back to the original shop.