2012 Tacoma 4.0L Engine Oil Leak at 500miles

I purchased my new 2012 Toyota Tacoma Dbl Cab 4WD TRD Off Road two weeks ago. Within the first week of ownership and 550 miles on the Odometer, I found the vehicle is leaking engine oil. The engine oil is dripping out of the Transmission Bell Housing.

My Tacoma is presently at the dealership for repair. I visited them today and found the transmission and transfer case along with a whole bunch of other parts have been removed. They found the source of the leak at the rear main crankshaft seal. The rear main seal and plate that the seal is mounted into do not look compromised. And was hoping to find an obvious failure.

The abnormality with this situation is that the engine oil was slightly overfilled and there is a yellow or green substance on the surface to the seal although it wipes off easily (the suspect contamination is not leak detection dye commonly used to locate the source of a leak).

A Toyota Tech Advisor is supposed to come view the concern with the leak, and a sample of the oil is going to be tested in case there is some kind of contamination.

Thankfully I know many of the staff members in the service department and the technician working on my truck. It's nice being able to see the repairs in process and trust the individual working on it.

The dealership is scheduled to have a new rear main crankshaft seal and retainer plate coming in this Friday and hopefully they will be able to get it back together before the new year comes. They also stated they will replace the engine oil and oil filter.

Stay Tuned...

I shall update you all soon on the turn out...

 

Do you know if they put in a new engine or reman engine?

 

Thank-you!

 

Since the dealership replaced the rear main seal and the seal retainer plate, I've had my Tacoma back now for about 10 days and so far after driving a couple hundred of miles the engine oil leak has not returned. So far so good.

 

I wonder, at so few miles, whether the yellow/green substance was assembly lube.

 

The yellow / green substance came on the new rear main seal so it appears it was some type of assembly lube.

 

my pan gasket was leaking, fixed under warranty