Oil from Front Lugs

[UFourRunner]

This morning, as I was getting ready to bring the 4Runner to my father for its 7500 mile maintenance, when I was about to get in to drive off, I happened to look at the LF tire. On it, I saw what looked and felt like oil, starting from the lug nut and trailing down to the bottom of the tire. It was not a steady drip, as overnight it crawled its way from the central hub to half way down the tire.

So instead of taking it to good old dad for service, I went to the Toyota stealership for them to do maint. and look at the oil. All they did was wipe away the oil and tell me that there is nowhere near the hub that would be leaking oil, and so they did nothing to correct whatever might be wrong. Im not very satisfied with that response, so I was wondering if anyone here has had that issue or have a clue what might actually be wrong.

 

[greasefingers]

Why didn

 

[UFourRunner]

At the time I had no way to remove the hub, and decided Id leave that work to the "experts." I find it highly unlikely it came from an external source since there was nothing around it, and the lugs were coated in the oil, which pooled into their housing on the rim where it then ran down to the tire. Was just wondering if there was anything around the hub where it could have come from.

 

[jcmf]

Weird. I just got my 4Runner within the last two weeks. I tried a lot of methods to remove the same thing (oil like substance)from my passenger front wheel. I thought it was a glue of some sort that might have coated the wheels either from shipment, or initial mounting.
Guess I need to take another look and maybe try the stealership as well.

 

[Derek]

Was it black and dried onto the wheel itself? My '04 had what looked like a black liquid that appeared to have came from the lugs and ran down the wheel towards the tire. The dealership could not get it off so they replaced the entire wheel.

...My '05 had the same thing on it, but I decided to try to get it off myself, and was able to by using a spray on wheel cleaner, which I just sprayed onto a cloth and scrubbed the black stuff until it was gone. Still not sure what that stuff is though.

 

[KMX3060]

Was it black and dried onto the wheel itself? My '04 had what looked like a black liquid that appeared to have came from the lugs and ran down the wheel towards the tire. The dealership could not get it off so they replaced the entire wheel.

...My '05 had the same thing on it, but I decided to try to get it off myself, and was able to by using a spray on wheel cleaner, which I just sprayed onto a cloth and scrubbed the black stuff until it was gone. Still not sure what that stuff is though.

I had some streaks on my wheel and also the paint was strting to bubble on the spokes on the leading edge.

The dealer replaced the wheel once and then it happened again. I looked at and smelled the stuff and it was brake fluid. Sure enough the brake fluid level was down. The dealer fixed the caliper leak and replaced the wheel again. Now all is good.

 

[a3fnqpjw]

i had the same problem on mine. The dealer replaced them not knowing why? hrm!

 

[NoSpeedLmt]

This sounds kind of serious. I also had this problem, didn't think about it too much, just took some Isopropyl alcohol pads and it came right off.

 

[Derek]

My only guess is that it is something that happens during assembly because after it is cleaned, or the wheel replaced, it never returns, so I wouldn't worry about it too much, unless it happens again.