Oil Pan

[morsini]

At my last oil change the mechanic pointed out a small dent on the bottom of my oil pan (well, I think it was small but they thought large). It's about 2'' long and about 1/2'' deep. They recommend replacing the oil pan which will be costly ($450-$500) and I'm not sure what to do. Is this a necessary replacement? Given this much labor, I'm not going to attempt it myself!

Thanks.

2000 Corolla w/ 85,000 miles.

[Crowbar911]

My oil pan looks like the dark side of the moon, but its all small dents, what you describge sounds pretty big.


As in replacing the pan, You need to drain the oil, unbolt the pan, and then insert a new pan and gasket, and rebolting it back up with the correct torque specs.

It really helps if you have 2 people with this.


Funny story about my oil pan:

When I dented my gas tank doing my sway bars, my buddy says "It looks better than your oil pan"


... you had to be there moment... lol

[randini667]

If it's not broken*, don't fix it.

*Assuming you're not leaking significant amounts of oil.

I rebuilt my block a month back and inspected my pan and cleaned it up good before putting it back on. There's room for bents and dings, even like you describe. Pan was made pretty solid. Like I said above, if it were me, I wouldn't change the pan if it didn't leak.

It took me 15 minutes to remove the pan and probably 45 minutes to put it back on (cleaning, putting gasket ****). I can't believe they get $500 for that job. Oil pan is $65 on www.Rockauto.com. Gasket is another ~6 dollars.

[Bitter]

i've seen oil pans with worse dents. if its not leaking then i wouldnt be too concerned about it unless you're just that anal.

[Bingo]

Start looking for another mechanic. It is not leaking don't mess with it. If it is, do the job yourself. It is esay and cheap.

[morsini]

Thank you all.
No, no off-roading. I was lazy and didn't want to take a detour in our parking garage - big mistake. Bottomed out, lost my hubcap....
It looks like a small dent, no leaking at all, I'm just not that worried. Just wanted to make sure.

Here's the thing with my mechanic - he won't lie to me. He'll just exaggerate problems that he sees just to see if I bite.