Engine Replacement FAQs

This is really premature talk of engine replacement. Nothing is wrong with your car, oil burning is quite normal. Adding a quart every 3000 miles is nothing but a $5 expense.

SM-N900P ?

 

I agree and would say you should just drive the car for a while and see if any symptoms associated with the engine appear. If not, it seems a waste to drain out new engine oil just to remove the oil drain pan now. If there are no leaks associated with the oil drain pan, what is the rush to remove it?

Instead, drive 5K miles, drain the engine oil at that point, and if you still see substantial metallic content then remove the oil drain pan if you feel a burning need to do so.

I don't believe that anyone has posted on a DIY replacement of the engine. There are some who have had to replace the transaxle and posted about that. In general terms, you would have to remove the radiator, inverter, exhaust system, and front suspension crossmember under the engine, then remove the engine/transaxle as one large part from the bottom of the car. So you would need to raise up the car sufficiently so that the engine/transaxle can be pulled out after it is lowered down.

If the lack of a drain plug gasket bothers you, then remove the drain plug, quickly insert a gasket, and replace the drain plug. Not very much oil hopefully will leak out during this process. Or better yet, have a beer or three and don't worry about it (since there are no leaks) until 5K miles from now when you do the next engine oil change.

Factory repair manual info can be obtained at techinfo.toyota.com

 

By the way, the correct engine drain plug gasket is a kind of composite sandwich, it is not pure aluminum or copper. When you look at a side view of the gasket, there is what appears to be an aluminum center, with dark coating on both sides. Similar to a US quarter which has a copper core with nickel on the visible faces.

If the lack of that gasket bugs you, then remove the drain plug, quickly insert the gasket, then reinstall the drain plug. Not much oil will come out of the drain hole during that process if you are quick. Tightening torque is 28 ft.-lb.

I also noted that you cut open and inspected the old engine oil filter and found no metal content within. That is a very good sign, further reason not to bother with removing the sheet steel oil drain pan for inspection.

The 'non-magnetic metal" that you earlier noticed implies bearing wear. This would not come from the drain plug threads or the drain pan hole, since both are steel and therefore are magnetic. However if the engine is running quiet now, then any existing bearing wear would not be terrible.

To provide you a comparison data point, my 2004 with 171K miles is burning engine oil at the rate of 1 quart per 5K miles. I would say that your engine oil consumption is "normal" especially given the odometer reading of 157K miles.

 

Bill,
Could you please elaborate on this part?

 

That would imply that aluminum bits were in the oil. Not sure why that would be the case unless the cylinder walls are wearing out...

 

I see small aluminum particles in used oil but not oil filter. I believe they are from aftermarket aluminum drain plug washer (I use aftermarket magnetic drain plug).