03 SR5 oil overfill

utahjeff

New member
My Son accidentally put an extra quart of oil in my 03 4runner ( 285K miles ) and drove it 165 miles after. I will get it drained today. What is the likely hood that this did permanent damage to the engine?

Thank you.
 
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Im not a mechanic but my uneducated guess would be that your ok. The oil might have gotten a bit foamy from being overfilled but I wouldn't think a quart would do much permanent damage since you did catch it before too many miles were put on it.
 
If any damage was done you would most likely know it by now.

Too much oil can cause many issues, worst being hydrolocking the engine, which is when any non-compressible substance gets into the cylinder which will cause many things to break and or bend, other issues would be the oil foaming and causing less lubrication, minor issues would be oil leaks and the fouling of spark plugs and possibly but not likely fuel injectors.

That being said 1 quart overfill in most all cases wouldn't cause any of the above issues to happen IMHO, when auto engineers design engines and the capacities they allow for fluid levels safe guards in either direction to a small degree, in other words in most all cases in normal operating conditions 1 quart low or over on oil in the short term will not do any permanent damage, let it go for a long time and then there could be some damage caused but I would still doubt it would cause any damage.
 
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If it was full enough to damage anything the motor would have sounded like an old diesel. If I overfilled someone else's engine with oil I would drain it and refill it to the correct level, but...

I can neither confirm nor deny, that once upon a time I might have lost count when pulling quarts out of a case and discovered one too many oil caps on the floor of the shop after an oil change.:doh: I can also neither confirm nor deny that I decided to say "screw it" and just drive it until the next oil change. That was my 3rd gen and no harm came to it.:whistle:

You could probably dump and extra gallon of oil in before you were at risk of damage... though I wouldn't recommend it.
 
One of the last things I do, after I change my oil is check dip stick.....it's that little yellow ring on the passenger side of the engine.
 
I'd say you're good. A toyota dealership did my first oil change free on our v8 when we got it. The tech accidentally drained the transmission instead of the oil pan and put in double the oil. Didn't confirm the fill on the dipstick.... We drove it to the lake about 150 miles each way. About 100 miles in to the trip all the lights came on on the dash. Long story short... We got a new transmission for free...That was 100k miles ago...
So ours was overfilled 6 quarts... one quart should be fine!
 
I'd say you're good. A toyota dealership did my first oil change free on our v8 when we got it. The tech accidentally drained the transmission instead of the oil pan and put in double the oil. Didn't confirm the fill on the dipstick.... We drove it to the lake about 150 miles each way. About 100 miles in to the trip all the lights came on on the dash. Long story short... We got a new transmission for free...That was 100k miles ago...
So ours was overfilled 6 quarts... one quart should be fine!

Wow, hopefully they fired the tech after that fiasco.
 
I'd say you're good. A toyota dealership did my first oil change free on our v8 when we got it. The tech accidentally drained the transmission instead of the oil pan and put in double the oil. Didn't confirm the fill on the dipstick.... We drove it to the lake about 150 miles each way. About 100 miles in to the trip all the lights came on on the dash. Long story short... We got a new transmission for free...That was 100k miles ago...
So ours was overfilled 6 quarts... one quart should be fine!

Wow, hopefully they fired the tech after that fiasco.

I think calling the guy a "Tech" is stretching it a whole lot!! :der::shocked:
 
They were let go... as well as the service manager. It wasn't found out what had happened until I went to pick the truck up after they replaced the transmission. I left in a cloud of smoke... looked like a cheech and chong movie. :hippie: They didn't investigate why the transmission failed at 60k miles, they just replaced it. When I drove back... that's when they found out what happened. The service manager accused me of bringing the car in like that at first...... That didn't hold up very well. The manager didn't know that I worked for Lexus and was working with the Toyota district office to get this taken care of. Funny how those things work themselves out when people are jerks. Only thing that was noticeable was when I did the 100k service and changed the plugs, a few of them had cooked oil in and around the threads and the coil packs were crusted on a couple. That was the second time one of my vehicles went to a dealership. The first time was our Lexus for it's first free oil change. It all went well, drove it home 30 miles. My wife leaves for work about 15 minutes before I leave. As I'm walking out I almost fall because I stepped in a huge puddle of oil on the garage floor. The "tech" put the drain plug in finger tight.... My wife didn't notice all the dash lights being on and drove 31 miles to work....That tech did not lose his job, but we were traded out of that car for a new one... :brick:
 

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