Timing cover oil leak

The distributor enjoys a certain product price from the manufacturer, and determines the price that the dealers pay the distributor. The distributor establishes the MSRP within a country which is supposed to provide a ceiling on the overall market price - except that, for example, US dealers get around that with their documentary fees, adding dealer-installed equipment at a high markup, etc.

Even if the distributor is owned by the manufacturer which is the case with TMS USA, I would expect the distributor management establishes the warranty provisions and enforces them, because the warranty offerings differ from country to country, and it makes sense to decentralize the warranty decision making rather than having control centralized in Japan. So if the decision making is decentralized, the financial impact of those decisions should be borne by the decision maker to improve the quality of the decisions.

TMS USA is a subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan. Servco-Pacific is an independent entity.
Servco

 

Your service adviser should have offered repair via Toyota Warranty in the first place. They have all the warranty/vehicle information when you check in your vehicle for service.

 

Same problem i had

Timing Chain Tensioner "O" Ring Under Warranty? | PriusChat

Check it out with receipt and work done under warranty

 

Timing Chain Tensioner "O" Ring Under Warranty? | PriusChat

 

Wow, that sounds like a lot of work. All for a broken FIPG, and I don't even know what FIPG is. I think the G stands for Goop.

 

Form in place gasket

 

I could post some Repair Manual diagrams, how/where to caulk, torque specs and sequence. Way involved. And this is down the side of the engine, in very close quarters.

 

Flakey memory at work: I did post already, back a few pages, here:

Timing cover oil leak | Page 2 | PriusChat

 

So I called up Toyota today regarding this to inquire. Apparently they have never heard of this happening.

They took my information and let me know they'd be in contact if a service bulletin came out.

I wonder whether we should push this as a actual issue.

 

I was just quoted $2300 to have this fixed. Yikes! Whatever. It's a 2010 and has 146,000 miles. I'll just check oil often and drive it til it dies.

 

Just made my last payment in August, so 5 yrs of ownership, 76k....dealer just told me I have this leak, $2000 repair. Got to be f-ing kidding me.

 

Take off the front/right wheel, pry off the three accessable fasteners on the plastic cover at inside of wheel well, flex back the cover and see for your self how bad it is. Maybe wipe it clean, leave the plastic fasteners off, drive it for a few days, and check again.

Some have got it done for $1700, posted here.

It's really debatable how necessary it is, to jump on this, if it's a minor leak. It is not an easy job. According to the Repair Manual, there is a lot of painstaking form-in-place gasket work, and about a cadgilion bolts. All down the side of the engine, very tight quarters.

It's somewhat akin to open-heart surgery, for a minor heart murmur.

Just happened to take a look at ours, a few days back while installing snow tires:

 

Mendel, thanks....id say yours doesnt look bad?
Hard to tell on mine just looking down, but, theres a lot of caked on/dry oily dirt, like its been seeping for a bit, but ill take wheel off and look.

 

Clean it off with brake cleaner, dry it good. Then put a bead of silicon on it. That can stop most minor leaks for a while.

 

As a submariner, I have some passing familiarity with 'leaks' and most of the time these timing chain cover issues do not rise to this level.
If you see a puddle of oil beneath your car in the morning....then it's a leak.
If you see a few drips...same thing.
If however, you see an oil stain near your timing chain cover (a seemingly common problem with early G3s) then you have an oil 'weep' which at worst is only slightly more serious a problem as 'oil wicking' on the scale of engine sealant problems, and slightly less so as an 'ooze.'
If you go to any new boat dealer's show-room, they have a handy guide that they give to mechanics who are salivating over the newest bass boats - or - if you live in coastal areas, inshore offshore tuna boats.
This might explain the age-old mystery for Priuses being more expensive in coastal areas.

Because GOD's sense of humor is often deliciously ironic, automotive mechanics often get ripped off by new boat dealers, and THEIR mechanics.

So....
The timing chain cover gasket keeps oil in and dirt out but, conveniently, the deformation in these gaskets (presumably) merely allow oil to wick past the gasket with the regular expansions and contractions that occur with thees engines.
Over time......wicking gives way to weeping, then seeping, then oozing, and finally leaking.

It's all very technical....but here's the thing.
Dirt is still staying out of the engine, and you're not losing any measurable amount of oil.
That's it.
THAT's the dirty little secret!!
This is exactly like a skin abnormality that someday might turn into a more serious melanoma....only UNLIKE the aforementioned cancer, there will be very clear signs that this condition is advancing to a more serious stage well in advance of the point where major surgery is required.
A timing chain cover gasket IS major surgery!

Even if you have insurance, infections occur.
Wrong limbs get amputated.
Prescriptions get miss-prescribed.
Scratches can occur.
Greasy butt-prints on seats.
Discarded boat magazines in your cargo bay.

All manner of mayhem - and remember....if the dealership is having this procedure performed under warranty (the automotive equivalent of Medicare) then the "ace" mechanic isn't going to be doing the work.
This is because the dealership only gets a set price to DO THE WORK - or...not.

This means that instead of doinking some hapless customer for $2,000 for a job that requires very little material, the manufacturer will only pay the dealer a few hours of time to perform this surgery.
In other words.....
Some Prius doctor......probably the one who is on the manager's naughty list, is going to get volunTOLD to do the work!
Probably the best thing that could happen would be for the stealership to shank the manufacturer for the cost of the repair and then....clean the area and put a dab of sealant at the site of the "leak.".
After all....this should have probably been a recall issue long ago.


Me?
I'd monitor the gasket and if wicking gives way to weeping, I'd probably clean with brake fluid and apply a silicone band-aid as excellently recommended above!

Open-heart surgery?
HAIL NO!!

YMMV.

 

Have a read through the attached, an excerpt from the Repair Manual, on Timing Chain Cover install. The complexity is mind-boggling, I'm not sure how they have a hope-in-hell without pulling the engine.

 

LOL....

Bwaahaaa.
A few more years and I'll have the entire pdf!

 

Just reading, first you're to apply packing seal to the (6) split line locations, and then an absurdly complex application of packing seal bead around the perimeter of the cover (3 different bead diameters spec'd, at various locations, virtually incomprehensible, and I'm a draftsman, lol), and then, all within 3 minutes mind you, get the cover back in place, and then within a further 12 minutes (15 minutes is the limit from commencement of packing seal application): install and torque 25 bolts, in a specific sequence, with 3 different torque values, and some of them capturing the engine mount and the oil filter bracket.

I seriously wonder if they have some sort of computerized robotic applicater at the factory.