Rod knocking after pulling trailer up steep hill

How do you know he isn’t in Canada where colour is the more common spelling?
As it is in the U.K and Australia.

Point is, Not everyone on TW is from the U.S.A.
Metric is just as right as the Inch system. As is “colour”.

 

I'm don't know much about much, but doesn't that much build up mean something has been wrong with this engine for a long time?

 

That my thinking as well.
And we don’t know enough yet to identify the cause.
OP doesn’t know the OCI, but he does know he had a low oil pressure light just before the knock.
Was the low pressure due to OCI or a failing pump? We don’t know.
That’s why I’d like to see the state of the oil pickup screen and the oil filter.

 

calm down, it was a joke. i know how it is spelled in some countries.

 

I'm wondering if the oil pump pickup screen / tube got so plugged up with sludge, which resulted in the low oil pressure warning being lit.

 

It could be a legit problem. I'm very curious as to what's going on. The trailering incident was probably the straw that broke the camel's back and had nothing to do with the problem that was building up for years...?

 

Commercial vehicles I work on, the oil goes in with a golden hue and then after the first start up it is nice and black. These are fleet engines that are maintained in-house and oil and filter is dropped every 6,000kms with fresh dynolube. Still nice and black.

 

I don’t feel that way.
I think OP cares less than some of the people on here do.
The fact is the engine is “broke”. And it’s not in warranty.
As of now, I have a lot of respect for OP.
He’s trying to fix a problem. And that’s more than most will do.
Most will come here and complain how it’s somehow Toyotas fault.

I haven’t seen OP once say it was a Toyota problem.
And I also haven’t seen him get offended when some say it was long OCI.
He’s actually been pretty cool. He seems to have been pretty honest so far.
Stating he really doesn’t know the OCI, but did it when Toyota said too.

Whether we find out what caused the problem or not.
I bet OP gets the engine together. And it will make for a good thread none the less.

 

Was 10K the normal OCI or the severe service OCI? My2015 has a severe service OCI of 5000miles/8000Km's and for every car i have owned in the last 50 years I followed the severe OCI.

That would be a 2X increase over my second gen so I am guessing thats the "normal" oci and not the severe OCI. With the short trips and towing it should have definitely be running the severe OCI.

 

I paid for oil change with my free service at 5k and 15k. At the 5k the service guy said “you sure? Not till 10k?” I said just do it. He whispered “I would too”.

 

I wouldn't use a flush here. I would recommend HPL's engine cleaner. It's basically high ester and will gradually loosen and dissolve everything. I would change the filter maybe 3/4 times during that oil change interval since you have alot of filth in the engine and would hate for some of that to plug the filter, start bypassing and shred things again

This is the right product to clean things out for you. Lots of info on the BITOG. Forums https://www.advlubrication.com/collections/automotive-lubricants/products/engine-cleaner

 

I think people are too worried about oil type and change intervals. Oil does degrade over time, but it doesn't become sandpaper. I have in the past been very lazy about oil changes, maybe changing the oil on average 25k miles on my 2001 Subaru. I never really kept track. It lasted 15 years in my possession and never died. I also had a buddy that used to mix 10w30 into the gas of his 2-stroke dirt bike and it seemed to work ok, albeit I wouldn't recommend it. YMMV.

My advice: Worry more about the relationship with your significant other than your engine oil.

Dont worry be happy!

 

The Car Care Nut did a video discussing why he recommends doing 5k oil changes. This "well maintained" Camry had to have a rebuild at 180k miles. This video caused me to go 5k miles on oil changes on all of our vehicles. I do an oil change every 5k in between the dealer services.

https://youtu.be/TJhFAwFv-O0?si=FvkhRX7CH_up8wnj

 

It won’t be long before someone suggests the short drives are responsible. I lived 10 minutes away from work and my 2 previous daily driver Toyota’s were over 160,000 miles when I sold them (and not burning a drop of oil I might add. But the Camry had a leaking valve cover). As long the temp needle comes up to operating temp for a few minutes, short drives are harmless.

 

A friend purchased a 1978 ish BMW 735I.. Started using mobil 1 Synthetic.... After a couple of month noticed valve cover was leaking.
helped him pull the valve cover. The engine must have had a fair volume of sludge because the mobil 1 had done a good job of cleaning such that the rear drain back hole on the cylinder head was now totally clogged. Used a .22 caliber bronze rifle cleaning brush and rod to unplug the hole...

If the engine is really badly sludge'd you may make things worse by using anything that tries to clean it out. It can block the oil pickup and possibly other passages etc.

 

That's only the coolant getting up to temp. Its takes longer for the oil to reach its normal 200+ temp to boil off the water. Short drives combined with long OCI's are never a good idea and all the service manuals recommend the severe service OCI.
Short drives with shortened OCI's are the ticket.

My drive to work at one time was only 2.5 miles. After only 1 year the exhaust system on my late chrysler mini van failed. It was before everyone went to stainless systems. It never got hot enough to boil of the water. And that was almost exactly a 10 minute job. Of course living in Toronto Canada some of those were in the winter and never got hot enough in a slow speed 2.5 mile drive

In this particular case no one is saying it was short drives that caused it. Could be or maybe in combination with other things or not at all just that it can.

 

interesting. when i bought my problem subaru the OCI's were 7500 (first year production) until they started having reports of oil burning then they changed it to 5k, im guessing to reduce the complaints of people getting low oil warning lights.

 

engine replacements are basic maintenance on subarus so thats not too surprising.

 

Off topic here. Not Bob Marley (who I was fortunate enough to see in concert). Bob said "don't worry about a thing, cause every little thing gonna be alright". Bobby McFerrin was the don't worry be happy guy.

 

LMFTFY