Oil drained after oil change :(

Hello amigos, I did my oil change earlier on my 2012 tx pro, and yes I drained the oil, I ended up putting a little over 5 quarts and the dipstick read about half way after letting it warm up. while I was cleaning up my junk I let it idle for about ten minutes and everything was fine. I was driving about ten miles into town and the oil light came on, I was in a one lane construction zone so I drove a couple miles to chevron. my taco had lost most oil and was all over the engine, tires and side of the truck. I refilled the oil and went to a car wash half a mile down the road, by the time I was done I drove to Wal-Mart, well, to get more oil. finally I put some in just to safely make it to my girlfriend's house a couple miles down the road, which it didn't make it. I was just wondering if the drain plug gasket could cause it to drain that much, that fast. or if you have any ideas on what it could be. I left my poor baby at some parking lot until the morning when stores are open, I live in a small town with no Toyota dealership so what size gasket should I buy? thanks in advance, I couldn't find anything by searching and I'm pretty effin paranoid right now.

 

I had a Toyota celica. I changed the oil one day and didn't realize the oil filter gasket from the old filter had "stuck" onto the flange ( or whatever it is called) anyhow I put the new filter on started it up within a little bit saw where most of the oil drained out because of the double seal. I doubt if leaving the washer off the oil plug would cause much more than a drip but I am by no means a mechanic.

 

Did the drain bolt come out?

 

That would make sense, I think I caught it in, I haven't heard any knocking, the smoke I saw was still the oil sitting on the hot engine, I will definitely replace the filter and start from scratch, thank you for your reply!

 

The drain bolt is still in there, it was to dark to try again and see if I can spot where the leak is

 

^^^^this would be my guess. Especially if oil was sprayed all over your engine. That's right where the oil filter is located.

 

You try to do good and something like this happens.
Loose filter, or missing fill cap. Only things I can think of. Probably would've noticed a missing fill cap by now.

 

obviously, no more driving or engine starting until you fix it...

 

No need to buy a new filter. Just loosen off to check for possible old gasket then hand tightened, then check if you put the oil filter cap back on. Those are the only 2 possibilities since it's spewing from the top of the engine.

 

Had this very issue with a past car.

 

Do the double gasket once and you will learn to check the old filter to make sure it still has a gasket on it.

 

When the oil light is on, you're under the shutoff pressure for the pressue switch (it's located near the oil filter housing). If you drove that truck for any distance at under 4PSI of oil pressure (which you just admitted to), that engine is toast.

Oh, it may sound OK and run OK for a while, but you've just managed to take years off the life of every main, rod and cam bearing in the motor. If it was *my* truck, I'd get oil in it, get it someplace where I could work on it, and do a few things.


First, I'd get a good oil pressure gauge, remove the oil pressure sender, install the gauge, and check the hot idle, cold idle and 3000 rpm oil pressures. See if you're anywhere near close to factory spec. They give you a big range in the manual, but at least see if you're close to the bottom end of the range. Next, I would pull the plugs and inspect each bore for scoring (you'll have to manually rotate the engine to get each piston at BDC for a good look.) Then I would pull the valve covers, timing cover and timing chain, pull the cams and mic them and plastigauge the bearings. If there's any excessive wear on the cam bearings, plan on a complete teardown and rebuild. If the bores are scored or badly scuffed, throw the block away - you can't bore these blocks - they're aluminum with cast iron (paper thin) sleeves. Or, you could try to find a decent motor out of a wrecking yard. Personally, I'd rather spend the time and $$ to rebuild my known junk than guess about someone else's possibly broken junk.


BTW, I'm surprised you had enough oil pressure for the VVT-i system to function. It's possible you may be the luckiest stiff in the world, but the "oil light" is basically the "pull over and buy a new engine light" on these trucks.


I'm guessing your nearest dealer is probably going to be Reno, if you need parts. The drain pan gasket isn't going to cause you to dump all your oil, though. It's either an issue with the filter, or something in that general area of the engine.

 

Or he could just put oil in it and drive it for another 150K miles with no issues. No need to speculate a worse case scenario for something that's probably a non-issue.

 

Thank you guys for your replies, I'll be going back to the truck in a while to see if it's just the filter . There is no putting " enough oil" to make it home anymore, I live ten miles out of town and I can't even make it 2 miles. I'll keep you guys posted, again thank you for the replies, I really appreciate it!

 

Exactly. No need to fuck around.

If the engine is damaged, you'll hear it. Now or very soon.

If a Honda can run for thousands of miles with 500ml of oil, your Toyota can run low for a few minutes.

Find your leak, fix your leak, put oil in it, verify its not leaking and drive that bitch.

 

It's very, very likely the filter. If the drain plug loosened or was leaking, you wouldn't have ended up with oil high up on the engine. Either your filter backed off or the old filter gasket got stuck preventing a proper seal with the new filter. Do you put a little oil on the filter gasket when you install it?

 

Yes sir I did

 

^^That