oil pan gasket?

[mazdaverx7]

i pulled the oil pan off today on my 3VZ to change the rear main seal and oil pan gasket. low and behold, there is no gasket, just sealer. ok, cool, i know a lot of cars just use sealer and no gasket. i bought a gasket for the oil pan, not knowing it was just sealer. would you reccomend returning the gasket and just using sealer like the factory did or use the gasket because it may have an advantage that im not aware of?

[mazdaverx7]

went with the sealer only. figured that if toyota had done it originally, it must be the correct way.

[whip_cracker]

How's that mate? Ya just answered ya own question and saved money! Imagin doin that each time sumfin goes ape?!?

[mazdaverx7]

i was just attempting to get some opinions rather than ask any questions. and when something goes wrong, i fix it, i dont usually ask questions....unless of course, i dont know the answer or cant find the answer i seek.

[marc780]

If there is a gasket available, i would use it and also i'd use permatex or some other gasket sealer on it too. Because i know from bitter experience, this is the right way to seal the oil pan and not have to come back and do this job again anytime soon.

When we put on our oil pan, our top priority is preventing an oil leak so we dont have to go back and fix this @#@$@ shet again. When the factory puts on an oil pan, their top priority is saving every single penny they can while doing it. Think about it, $1 saved per car X 500,000 cars manufactured = easy math, whole lotta money at end of quarter. So if you think back to times when you were working on your car and wondered why the factory did something the way they did, the above statement is usually the answer.

Toyota is much much better at doing all this than most other automakers, they also tend to engineer and make things the right way for reliability and durability over the long run. And thats why we buy them! But i guess even they arent immune from trying to save a few cents from time to time.