Oil Ran Low, What Worries, If Any, Should I Have

[gator1939]

2010 Camry LE I-4: I had my 25K checkup and oil/filter change on a Tuesday morning. Thursday afternoon my wife arrived from work and said she heard a noise from the engine. I drove around the block to try to diagnose the noise. At approx 20MPH/1000RPM I got sorta of a scrapping noise and saw the oil light flicker once. I check the oil and none on the dipstick. I called the dealer (after service hours), the sales manager told me to come in (not with the car) and he would give me a loaner. Friday morning the service manager and a tech showed up at the house. Tech crawled under the car and found oil around the filter housing/cartridge. They put in 3½ qts to bring it up to full (tech said that 4½ was total amount held) so it was down to 1 qt in the pan. They drove it back to the dealer. I picked it up this morning (Monday). The service manager said that the gasket around the filter cracked and they found a crack in the filter housing. They replaced the filter housing, new filter and oil and checked the drained oil for anything unusual. They ran a dye test looking for leaks and put more dye in with instruction to come back next week for a dye check and oil drain and check. He said the noise I heard was the oil pump sucking an almost dry sump, not an engine noise. He said that if anything is amiss that it will show up well before my 60K drive train warranty runs out. They will monitor the next 5-6 oil changes (dump oil into a separate pan and inspect for anything unusual in the drained oil). All of this is documented in the Toyota nationwide computer system.

Question is, should I be worried about anything inside the engine? Is the engine going to be safe for 150-200K miles? If it goes to 60K ok will I be fairly sure that there is nothing wrong?

gator1939

[acprkit]

The purpose of engine oil is to lubricate the pistons, so they can move against the cylinder wall while maintaining compression. What you heard was the piston scraping against the cylinder.

How long was it making this sound for? Worst case is that there are some rub marks inside of it, which develops anyway over time.

If the engine runs too long without oil, the piston will stick against the wall, and the engine will seize. But since this didn't happen, you are probably fine.

[nitronate33]

my first thought was why the low oil light didn't come on before 1 qt. left. that's what the light is for, to warn you before the level is critical and causes engine damage.

sounds like you may be ok, since it was very short term and you got it sorted out quickly and weren't driving it hard.

check the oil regularly as a precaution, just to make sure the level is staying high.

[gator1939]

Originally Posted by nitronate33

check the oil regularly as a precaution, just to make sure the level is staying high.

I routinely check the oil and coolant once a week but figured I didn't need to check it for one or two days after an oil change.

gator1939

[10altima]

How about asking/demanding from the dealer an extened warranty on the engine from 60K to at least a 100K? This might give you some peace of mind and is probably the right thing for them(Toyota) to do.

[nitronate33]

Originally Posted by gator1939

I routinely check the oil and coolant once a week but figured I didn't need to check it for one or two days after an oil change.

gator1939

ok i missed the part about it draining that far in 2 days. wow that's a lot and yeah i wouldn't check the oil that soon either. did you not notice any oil spots underneath the car where it parks?

[DOHCammer]

Originally Posted by 10altima

How about asking/demanding from the dealer an extened warranty on the engine from 60K to at least a 100K? This might give you some peace of mind and is probably the right thing for them(Toyota) to do.

+1. I would demand this at the very least. It does not take that long to damage the newer engines due to lack of oil. Clearances are very tight and lack of oil will gall pistons and score bearings in a big hurry. Damage may not be readily apparent and may not show up for awhile. We recently changed an older Tundra engine for a customer because of an oil plug "malfunction". It really didn't make any noise at idle and only a very slight rattle at a certain RPM range. A tech tore it apart and couldn't believe all the internal damage for an engine that was that quiet when running.

[gdanaher]

Originally Posted by nitronate33

my first thought was why the low oil light didn't come on before 1 qt. left. that's what the light is for, to warn you before the level is critical and causes engine damage.

sounds like you may be ok, since it was very short term and you got it sorted out quickly and weren't driving it hard.

check the oil regularly as a precaution, just to make sure the level is staying high.

Toyotas do not have a low oil level light. They have a low oil pressure light. As long as the oil pressure does not drop below a specified point, a few pounds, the light is off because oil is flowing. It will wear out more quickly, and get hot a lot faster, but no damage is done in the short term if the oil is just low. As for getting an extended engine warranty out of the dealer, it's a fine idea if they will do it, and if they write it to specify only problems that might result from poor lubrication, they should be willng to do it because there is essentially no risk to them as a result of this incident.

[JohnGD]

Sounds like the tech messed up and didn't use a torque wrench on the plastic cap. That's just poor workmanship.

Yeah, see if the dealer's willing to give you a free 100K warranty extension. Otherwise talk to Toyota corporate and ask for it. One TN member thought about radio and TV consumer helplines to discuss the experience too.

[Brett92]

OP: A very similar thing happened to my wife's 2010 Camry.

One morning on the way to work, her Camry started to make more noise than normal, and eventually the oil light came on. She called me and of course I told her to pull over immediately (she was only about a mile from work). She said that a guy at her work came and checked the oil, and nothing showed on the dipstick. She had just had her oil changed the day before at the dealership (Thank you Toyota Care! ), so I knew it was related to that.

Long story short, Camry was flat-bedded back to dealer, and they gave her a loaner. The dealer checked the issue out and found that the oil filter had been installed over the old filter gasket/ring, which should have been removed. Engine was ran about 2.5 quarts low according to them.

Service manager called me personally and apologized. I expressed to him that I bought my wife a new Camry because I wanted her to have a safe/reliable car, since she has a very long commute to a rural medical clinic, but now I'm worried about the long term reliability of the car. He assured me that the car was fine, and that these engines can be ran low on oil with no damage (which I personally think is BS).

However, he eventually asked me "what can I do to put you at ease?" I said "Extend the engine warranty to 150K miles from 100K(we purchased the extended warranty), and I'll feel better". He promptly agreed. The warranty showed up on the service receipt next time my wife was in the shop.

With that said, OP I think you can get your warranty extended if you nicely, but firmly, ask for it. 100K miles seems more than reasonable to me. Good luck!

BTW, that happened to our Camry about 20K miles ago, and so far no issues.

[workerant]

^ Low oil is not advice able, but no oil is a no no. in short Toyota had a few miss calls on having to give you guys a new car.... or engine at least.

[Mike Gerber]

It seems that your dealer is trying to work with you in good faith on this, but I would still get Toyota corporate involved. I agree with above posters who are saying to get the warranty extended. (Personally I would ask for 150,000 Miles.) I would however, ask Toyota corporate to get involved in extending the warranty. Dealerships do go out of business, especially after a number of years when problems could show up. Give Toyota corporate a call at 1-800-331-4331 and talk to their Customer Experience Center. Make sure you mention that the dealer seems to be willing to work with you, but you would like them to also be involved. At the very least, you will have this incident on record at the coroporate level.

Good luck.

Mike

[arabianobsession]

Originally Posted by JohnGD

Sounds like the tech messed up and didn't use a torque wrench on the plastic cap. That's just poor workmanship.

Yeah, see if the dealer's willing to give you a free 100K warranty extension. Otherwise talk to Toyota corporate and ask for it. One TN member thought about radio and TV consumer helplines to discuss the experience too.

I have yet to meet a tech that torques those caps.

I don't see the point in calling radio/TV stations, it seems the manager is very apologetic and willing to work a solution out. Toyota Corporate is just going to give you the "Talk to your dealer" line.