Greetings!

There are a couple of possibilities as to what happened...

(1) The oil change place could be right; if the oil bypass valve stuck closed, it would cause engine oil pressure to go very high; the resulting high pressure would cause the oil filter to swell up like a balloon and the gasket that seals it to the engine to rupture, resulting in loss of oil. This happens occasionally on certain engine designs; however searcing through a couple repair databases I find no mention of this being a common problem with your particular engine. As i mentioned previously, with this type of failure the oil filter (especially discount brands of aftermarket filters like most quick-lube places use) typically swell up like a balloon before reaching the point where the gasket ruptures. If your filter does not look like this, a stuck oil bypass valve is probably not the result of your engine failure.

(2) If the filter was not installed tightly, or if the gasket was out of position when it was installed, it would eventually loosen up from engine vibration and begin to leak. Normal oil pressure would tend to push the gasket further out of position. A failure of this type would be the responsibility of the quick-lube place, and should be covered by their insurance company.

(3) It is possible that the old oil filter gasket could have stuck to the engine when the old filter was removed, and the quick-lube guy could have installed a new filter and gasket over top of it, resulting in two gaskets being in between the filter and the engine block. This is a lot easier to do than you would think, especially if the guy doing the oil change was not experienced or was not paying attention. The result would be that the gaskets would eventaully begin to leak from the pressure, resulting in oil loss.

I would suggest asking your mechanic what his opinion of the cause of the failure was, and have him document it in writing on a repair invoice or repair estimate; also, have him save the filter and gasket if it has been removed. If he is of the opinion that it was improper installation, the next step would be to call teh quick lube company and request them to turn it in to their insurance company; if they refuse, hiring an attorney to sue for damages is the best option. When served with legal notice, the quick lube company must contact their insurance company to notify them of a pending legal action that could result in a claim; often this results in the insurance company just paying the claim rather than going through the high cost of a long court battle over a few thousand dollars.

I hope this is helpful; if so, an accept would be most appreciated! thanks!