Loose Oil Filter - BLOWN Engine!

If your filter was not attached properly 4 months ago, you would have seen oil leaking on the driveway far sooner than now. Since you found a "significant" leak the day following your "minor incident", it's not a stretch to assume something happened during that incident.

Regardless, an oil filter is not something ANY dealership is obligated to cover unless they are the shop that installed it. If it was indeed an improperly installed filter, your only recourse is to deal with the shop that did the oil change. But doing so 4 months after being serviced will likely not work out well for you. Too much could have happened between then and now.

 

Call your insurance company. Get an invoice from your dealer stating it was not installed correctly. Hopefully you have a receipt from the previous service.
Best of luck.

 

Several years ago I was driving my Jeep Cherokee home and there was some road construction with a detour. The detour was gravel and old oiled road that had seen better days, and one section had a lot of potholes. Not deep or anything... but when I hit one the Jeep was suddenly making a LOT of racket. I immediately called my insurance company, got towed in, and it turned out that a motor mount broke and this caused the engine to tilt, the fan hitting the shroud and the exhaust tweaked and damaged. $3,000 in estimated repairs.

Since the Jeep was perfectly fine before hitting the pothole I submitted a claim to my insurance company. They weren't happy... and looked for ways to deny the claim, especially since Jeep = stump jumping in an insurance companies mind. But because I'd called them as soon as it happened, which made a timeline where I was going home and on that detour, they eventually conceded the issue. If I'd called a day later they would have surely denied the claim.

So you got towed out of some mud. Was there any mud built up around the part that was leaking oil? Did anyone inspecting your truck notice it? Is there any possibility that the part was damaged in towing? Probably most importantly... were you abusing the truck going off road, or were you just on a muddy maintained road? If you carry comprehensive insurance you might be able to make a claim.

 

Seems to me the damage has been done before truck got to dealership. The only question remain is; why did the dealer knowingly start the truck with zero oil in it?

 

Something tells me we aren’t getting all the information…

 

I assumed this was about a 3rd Gen Tacoma with the cartridge filter in the plastic housing.
But, now I believe its a 2nd Gen Tacoma with a spin oil filter.

Also did the dealer say the filter was loose or missing? If it was missing and you drove it home....

 

OP stated it was a 2019 in the first post.

 

It was in the way and a porter moved it

or

To pull it into the bay

 

hard to believe, Mud and gravel isnt enough to take out the stock skid plate which covers the oil filter.

the oil filter also has a spring loaded lock on the side you have to mess with to spin the filter off for atleast a few revolutions.

 

Need op to update where it was last serviced and why it wasn’t brought back to where it was serviced

 

the shop probably started the engine to move it and then blamed the damage on you. they probably assumed you ran the engine without oil.

 

This is true. OP has given no response to all replies. I'm calling bullshit.

 

This is 21th century, there are cameras everywhere, and NO, you can not just erase the tape.

 

Yeah, that's probably what happened.

 

That fn sucks. Sorry op

 

I can think of a few reasons. Like, OP blew their truck up, towed it to the dealer and is now trying to blame them to get a new engine.

A lot of things don’t make sense. They say they beached their truck the day before, but are trying to blame the initial leak on a shop that changed the oil 4 months ago. Then driving their truck after they found the leak to get it on the tow truck.

 

I'm not defending the dealership or Toyota.
But facts are, the oil filter canister is NOT known for coming loose.
And the dealership didn't change the oil the last time the oil was changed.
A different shop changed the oil. Your next course of action is contacting the shop that did the oil change.

 

This. If the dealer wasn’t doing the maintenance and the truck came in with a loose oil filter housing, it’s not on them to take responsibility.

I’m curious how the housing was loose since it takes what, 18 ft-lb, and tightens up from harmonic vibrations over time? Like you said, unlikely, but not impossible.

 

The shop that changed the oil 4 months ago? If they did something wrong it wouldn’t take 4 months of driving to find out.

 

There's really no need for this thread to progress until we know more information.
We don't how bad the truck was stuck, or if mud and gravel even played a role.
All we know is that the filter housing was loose, and the dealership didn't have hands on it last.