Oil Leak (opinions welcome please)

Hey Ladies and Gents,

First off i took my truck in for it's 35k mileage maint. Get a phone call from my frantic Service Consultant and he told me when they drained my oil it was a quart low and that there was severe leaking from the timing cover . I went over to the dealership and checked it out and sure enough the bottom of my truck has a slight cover of oil all over it.

I flip my freaking lid, i never noticed any oil leaking underneath the truck, nor did the oil light ever come on. Need less to say I was livid. The truck is not even 2 years old and it was leaking oil from the timing cover like that and I was a quart low. Well luckily I was traveling to Texas the next few days and they fixed it under warranty, but now I am worried about how long i was driving a quart low and if it did any internal damage.

Do you think I should be worried at all? Any suggestions and check your timing cover to make sure it's not leaking.

By the way this is on a 2008 Double Cab Pre-Runner 4.0L

Matt

 

i'm willing to bet there are thousands of cars driving around a quart low. you should be fine. most people are not fanatics like us. they are oblivious to their oil levels.

 

First, the oil light has nothing to do with oil quantity/level, it only detects and warns about pressure. Check your oil frequently to keep track of usage and loss.

Second, if the oil was low enough to be a serious problem in daily driving, it would have been when it was low enough to suck air into the oil pickup...which would have briefly dropped pressure...which would have illuminated the oil lamp. If you didn't see it flickering during a turn or change in speed, then it probably never sucked air.

 

Why did you flip at the people that diagnosed a problem YOU didn't notice and could have caused serious damage to your engine? They saved your ass, they didn't cause the problem, and then they fixed it for you.

 

Yea, why flip out over this? Sounds like they were legit concerned and wanted to get it taken care of asap.

Plus, a quart low isn't a big deal... The fact it's leaking sucks, the fact they caught it under warranty and didn't hide it is good. Also +1 on the oil light stuff above, if it comes on.. the damage is already done.

 

well when i say flip i didnt literally flip, in my head i was flipping out going crazy. i was extremely nice to Aaron (my service guy) and they took care of it, but it was more of a shock to me that it was leaking. They fixed it, i thanked them for in they even brought it home to my house because of the snow and I was stuck at Philly airport.

Matt

 

Yeah man....Some things are worth getting "Livid" over. This isn't one of them. 1 qt low isn't going to end the world and slow leaks will sometimes go undetected. If you didn't see any lights than you probably didn't do any damage and now the problem is fixed (under warranty I'm guessing).

So no harm-no foul.

 

If I got that call from them I'd say
" cool, call me back when you guys fix it."

 

well it's fixed and i am happy with the service it was just a total shock to me plus i was supposed to drive out to texas but i just used a different vehicle so it was all just heat of the moment i was supposed to leave in 24 hours blah blah stuff. i was nice to them but behind the scenes i let the Italian ignorance come out in me.

 

It can be a shock when our piece of mind is interrupted