Tried to replace the oil pan on my 2007 camry today, only to find that one of the bolts is hidden under a wide steel beam and is completely inaccessible (the upper bolt in the picture below).
I do have the factory repair manual but the only place I was able to find oil pan removal procedure was as a part of oil pump removal and that procedure listed the following steps:
1. REMOVE HOOD
2. RAISE VEHICLE
3. REMOVE ENGINE UNDER COVERS
4. DRAIN ENGINE OIL (See page LU–7)
5. REMOVE FRONT EXHAUST PIPE
(See step 25 on page EM–110 )
6. REMOVE SUSPENSION LOWER CROSSMEMBER
7. REMOVE ENGINE MOUNTING CENTER MEMBER
8. REMOVE STIFFENER PLATE
9. REMOVE OIL PAN
Thinking that all these steps were listed because of other actions that had to be performed to remove the oil pump and seeing on
how easy it was to remove the oil pan on Gen4 Camry I decided to give it a try but was not able to access this one bolt either from below (the angle was impossible) or from the side (not enough vertical space between the top of the beam and the bolt to insert the wrench with a socket).
Anyway, my question is if anyone here managed to remove/replace the oil pan on Gen6 Camry and if so did it include all the steps listed above or is it somehow possible to remove the oil pan without removing the "SUSPENSION LOWER CROSSMEMBER" and "ENGINE MOUNTING CENTER MEMBER" that judging by the repair manual pictures are these wide steel beams?
On a different note, and assuming that all the above steps must be performed to remove the oil pan, I would like to hear opinions of why Toyota engineers made such a simple task as oil pan removal so difficult?
Considering that leaking oil (due to stripped threads, as in my case, mechanical damage, gasket leaks etc.) must be one of the top reasons for taking cars to dealerships and a difference between one hour job (I'm sure I could have replaced that oil pan in under one hour myself if I didn't have to remove all these other parts so I do not see how a dealership could possibly estimate more than an hour) and a three hour job is at least $200 in labor costs, I am inclined to think that this was done on purpose in order to put more money into dealership pockets. After all with millions of vehicles out there there must be tens of thousands of oil pan removals each year which translates into milions of dollars for dealerships.
I do realize that this is basically a consiparcy theory but it is known for a fact that corporations do this kind of a thing in order to make more money but that would make Toyota evil...
If, on the other hand, Toyota engineers thought that this was a good and acceptable design (I've seen dozens of videos on YouTube of oil pans on other vehicles being removed very easily so apparently other engineers do not agree) than it is a simple case of incompetence which makes Toyota incompetent in my eyes (along with the simple fact that the drain plug on my other vehicle which is much cheaper and which is not a Toyota is of much better quality and makes it much harder to strip the threads).
Either way, this little 'episode' has definitely placed a big stain on my image of Toyota which will ceratinly result in more hesitation when purchasing my next vehicle if it is a Toyota...
Gen6 Camry - Removing Oil Pan
Linear Mode
