2010 Oil Leak at 73000 miles

Hey all, I have a 2010 2.7 with 73000 miles and have noticed an oil leak under the truck since the outside temps dropped. The oil is dripping from the passenger side of the frame crossmember that goes under where the engine and trans meet up. That seems to be the general area where the oil filter is located. Could the filter have loosened due to freezing temps? Also I pulled the dipstick and the oil level is about an inch above the max fill dot when cold. Could that have something to do with it? Oil was changed by ford dealer where I bought the truck at 70000 miles and the filter is a Mastercraft.

 

Good Lord, yes definitely over filled can cause an over pressure in the crankcase forcing oil out the seals. I would definitely drain some oil, an INCH above the level they could have possibly got the wrong capacity last time you had your oil changed and put the 5.5 quarts of the V6 in your poor little 4-cylinder.

Lowering the oil level will also help reduce aeration in your crankcase and potentially lower wear on the oil pump from bubbles getting sucked up into it and the crank journals, as well as engine temperatures. Air in your oil is never a good thing.

at 70k on a 11-year-old truck it's probably a good bet you may need to change your PCV valve as well, if it's not venting that could also cause an over pressure and lead to oil being forced out the seals.



I highly doubt your oil filter has come loose, that almost never happens if anything oil filters are almost always over tightened.

Again at 70k and 11 years it's possible your valve cover or even your rear main seal is leaking.

But try the cheap fixes first, put a hand on your oil filter, it should be snug but not tight, realistically though if it was loose at all it would be spraying oil everywhere. Get your oil level to where it is supposed to be, when it comes to oil capacity less is more believe it or not, obviously you don't want it to be too low but a little low is better than a little over. And change out your PCV valve in your valve cover.

 

Thanks for the info, much appreciated! Do you think the dealer caused any permanent damage by overfilling the crankcase and me running it for 3k miles like that?

Since I have to pull the drain plug anyways, I think i’m going to do a full syn oil change myself with the right amount of oil and replace the pcv and filter with a toyota or wix. I’ll report back with what I find. Hopefully no major repairs needed!

 

Wix is the better filter IMHO, but OE Toyota is great too.

And not to start up the old can of worms that is oil debates, but personally I prefer AMSOIL, or mobile one. Royal purple is pretty good stuff too.

I like to run one viscosity spec higher (10w-40) than the manual calls for and then replace about a quart of oil with Marvel Mystery Oil wich adds more detergents and protectives as well as thins the oil back down to about 5w-30. Has done great things for me and my engine with 250k, least I believe so.

Also consider a Fumitomo valve for the drain plug.


And be careful you don't accidentally confuse the engine oil drain plug and the transmission oil drain plug!!!

A little harder to do with the manual transmissions, but at least once a year I see somebody has made this mistake on the automatics posts up a thread about it.

I wouldn't put one on my 2010 V6 as I off road and it can be a vulnerable spot, less so with the skids but still.

If you don't offroad though it makes oil changes a lot simpler and easier possibly cleaner.

Good luck and it's not your rear main.

 

Lol i’ve got the 5mt and did a drain / fill in the fall, luckily those plugs are pretty far from the engine so hard to mess up.

Good call on the Fumoto, i’ll probably toss one on while i’m under there. Was thinking about using Pennzoil full synthetic, got a good review from Project Farm on Youtube. Gotta be better than whatever swill the Ford dealer tossed in there.

I really hope there aren’t any seal issues, I paid more for a low mileage truck hoping to avoid those issues!

 

I took a look under the engine this morning and everything looks dry except for the area right under the oil filter and the crossmember is covered in oil. Oil is clearly dripping off of the bottom of the filter in the pic. I’m guessing oil is leaking from the filter and landing on the crossmember when i’m on the highway? Hoping i can just tighten the filter and remove some oil for now until its warm enough to do a driveway oil change.

 

Not totally impossible to be leftover mess from the last oil change.

While getting the crankcase level corrected is a great idea, I'd clean up that area with a degreaser and hose, then keep an eye on it.

 

Fun fact. The 2.7 takes more oil than the V6. 6.1 qts with a filter.

 

See if you can tighten that filter a bit by hand. A piece of sandpaper works great to give some extra grip.

You sure the oil level is an inch high? Check it a few times to be sure. If it is that high, I'd try to drain a bit.

The truck will be fine. Don't freeze your ass off though lol

 

Same thing happened to me this winter...around thanksgiving when the temps finally got below 30 i started smelling that burnt oil smell you get when oil touches hot metal. Checked under the truck the next day and sure enough the oil filter had an oil drip on it and the crossmember and skidplate were covered in oil. Also checked the dipstick and it was almost a 1/2 quart low. Oil filter was very loose, I got another half turn out of it. I think it was a combo of the freezing temps (rubber seals shrink) and some rough driving that it worked loose enough for some oil to squeeze out at higher RPMs, but hey I'm no expert. I haven't seen any more drips since then, fingers crossed, I'm about due for an oil change anyways.

 

I'd clean the area, change that filter, drain to proper level, and run it. Chase the leak, not everything else. One problem at a time.

 

Wow that's impressive, wondering if that 6 got misread as an 8 something.

 

So last night I drained some of the oil to get it down to the max fill level when warm, tightened the oil filter a bit, and cleaned up all the existing oil drips and ran the engine for awhile. This morning I took a look and there is fresh oil running down the side of the filter that is facing the block. Could it be a seal further up from the filter? I tried looking in that area last night and didn’t see any obvious leakage.

I find it odd that I didn't start getting oil spots on my driveway until it started getting cold out, this summer it was fine. Maybe it’s worth trying a new filter?

 

Sometimes the seal from the old oil filter gets stuck on there and then you have two seals which can cause problems, same can happen with the crush washers on the drain plug. I pulled three off of drain plug once, and they were near impossible to remove too.

 

Geez, why would someone just keep adding washers? Quick lube place just trying to get it done quickly?

So I dropped the Motorcraft (Motorcrap?) filter and everything above it was dry. No extra o-ring stuck to the mount. Cleaned everything up and put on a Wix filter. Hopefully problem solved.

After dealing with this and ending up with an oil stained driveway, i’m going to do my own oil changes from now on... do it right the first time so I don't have to deal with stupid issues like this in the future!

 

Yup dealership lube techs sometimes they stick too the oil pan or head of the bolt and you can’t even see there’s already one on there. It is beyond me how they made it all the way to three though..

 

At least now when you have an oil stain in your driveway, it's your own doing!

 

Time for a new filter. Clean the area very well. Wipe some fresh oil on the filter seal and tighten with one hand.

The cold weather caused the rubber seal to become hard and shrink. The seal was probably dirty and/or lacked a smear of oil and the cold weather made it worse.

New filter should fix it for ya.

 

I did notice that the rubber seal was hard when I took the filter off. Day 2 with the new filter and no leaks! Thanks for all the help.

 

Called it!