Oil leaking after dealer oil change
 

Went to my local Toyota dealership today for a oil change during my break. On my way home from work, started to hear an odd noise in the cabin.

Dropbox - IMG_3837.mov - Simplify your life

Once home, I checked under the hood and noticed oil was leaking.

Dropbox - IMG_3834.mov - Simplify your life

I called the dealership, they had it towed, and will call me in the morning.

A bit background, my runner is a '17 with only 16k miles. I'm not sure the extent of damage this could have on my engine.

For those of you who may have been in this situation, what did your dealership offer you? Any specific tests you requested from the dealership? Again any input is appreciated.

btw...the dealership I went to was Price Toyota located in New Castle , Delaware

It looks like they forgot to put the plug in. Wow

Yep bottom plug is not there, that's what I'd call an Express oil change special there. Man I'm so glad I changed my own oil yesterday, have been for years and these type situations validate that decision over and over again. Hopefully this all works out for you in the end

My guess is they’re going to refill it and if it runs ok, give it back to you. Did it overheat? Shut off on its own at all? Tough spot. If it runs fine now, it might be completely fine and have no internal damage. OTOH, damage might have been done and it would run fine for awhile. If I were in your shoes and the dealer refills it, tests it and gives it back to you (which I think is the most likely scenario) I’d document, document, document that they messed up the oil change resulting in a low oil / no oil condition. Ask them to document in writing what they found when they pulled it in to the bay (no oil drain plug) and whatever tests they performed on the work order. If there was no drain plug, I’d say you didn’t have any oil in there so all. It’s not like it would slowly leak.. it’d dump right out... so they probably never refilled it at all. Horrible if that’s true. Just horrible. I’d ask them to extend the warranty a long time, like 10 years / 150K miles or something. Maybe they will be willing to document, maybe they won’t, maybe they’ll be willing to extend your engine warranty... maybe they won’t, but it can’t hurt to ask. I’d also ask the dealer to pay for oil analysis tests. For the OA tests, I’d drive it 500 miles or so and drop the oil that’s in there and send a sample to Blackstone Labs for an oil analysis. I’d do that myself, or watch the dealer tech take the sample mid stream as they recommend. Then I’d have them refill and put a new filter in and drive it 2,000-3,000 miles and do the same thing again. Then I’d drive it 5,000 miles and send another sample in. If all is fine, I’d relax at that point and have another oil analysis in 20,000 miles or so. Keep the Blackstone reports. The nice thing about Blackstone is they will compare your results to other 4R results if you ask them to and if your analysis is outside the norm, you’ll have that in writing. I’m sure what else you can do. I’d be mad as hell but you’ll have to prove damages, which isn’t easy. OTOH, at least you didn’t have it changed at some hole in the wall corner store. I think Toyota and the dealer are likely to be lots more responsive than the local Valvoline. Good luck.

Something like this happened to someone else in the last few months. Do a search and see if it was similar to your situation. They documented the outcome in detail. Good luck.

The dealer f’d up. Your 4R ran for x miles for x minutes at x mph with no oil.
Damage HAS occurred. It’s just a question of how much. If they just fill it, listen to it then give it back, you’re forever going to be troubled by it. Will you feel OK driving it on a 1000 mile trip in a few weeks? All the advice by @WNY PAT is good. But it puts the responsibility on you to do all that follow up to make sure your ride is still good. You should listen to what the dealer says they did, what they will do, and how they will make you whole again. Maybe they have some advanced testing and analysis tools and techniques to determine the damage.
But they better be replacing parts for you, maybe the whole engine.

OH man that sucks. I did not like that sound in the first video at all.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with what the assembly looks like normally, but I've scavenged a pic from Antman's excellent oil change writeup.

Oil Change 5th Gen: How To- LOTS of PICS!

That plug is missing, and there's actually a check valve on the other side of that, or all the oil would be gone.

Good luck-- keep us posted

Holy crap. Just search this forum for some phrases like “Dealer Loss of oil engine damage”. There are several cases of this happening.

Here’s just one case:
lost all oil, 4runner stalled, damage???

Good luck getting this resolved. Keep us posted.

Hey WNY PAT, no it did not overheat or shut off at all. The issue caught my attention once I began to hear that noise in the cabin when I'd accelerate after complete stop. The oil light only came on once I was home and turned the car briefly off/on. Thanks for the tip on the oil analysis, will definitely do that.

What was the dipstick reading when you arrived home? If you haven't driven it since, video the level on the stick for documentation.
Edit: Just read your post about the oil light. Document the level on the dipstick anyway.

Wow. Inexcusable. I would be beyond pissed...

If it was me, I’d take the oil out of it when they gave it back to me and drive it ‘til the motor locks up. Then have it towed to the dealer and make them put a new engine in it. But that’s just me.

Can't listen to video right now.

If the engine made funny noise, replacement. If the dealer assures you they will monitor and watch, get a lawyer. If you don't like what the dealer says, ask for the manager/owner of the business. Then ask for Regional Toyota rep. Call the Regional rep from the dealership. Any bad noise associated with oil starvation requires replacement, possibly rebuild.

How will this be reported for Carfax purposes? Loss of value to future buyer which means lower value to you.

You need to document everything including but not limited to your videos and photos, all correspondence you have with anyone including names, dates, and times. Contact Toyota NA electronically as well as through physical mail, sent certified mail. Have an analysis done by a qualified third party who can document exactly what the status is of your engine.

no warning light up?