Very thin coat of oil at bottom of oil filter (no drip)?

Do you see a path that the oil took to reach the bottom of the oil filter? If not,

1) Wipe the entire filter canister again. Also, do you see any oil on other adjacent parts of the engine? If so, wipe those as well.

2) How tight is the oil filter? I usually tighten the oil filter 1/2 turn after the filter gasket contacts the machined surface.

3) Keep old clothing around, and wear that when working on autos.

4) Considering that you are a beginner, you are doing quite well, and don't worry. It takes lots of nerve to select Prius as the first car to learn on.

 

It sounds to me like you have had a good teacher.
Many folks do not remember to fill the filter before installing it.
I've been here 1.5 yrs and Patrick always seems to be on target.
Pure One is a very good filter and the price is good on Amazon (in pairs.)
I installed a Fumato valve on mine and it makes the change almost clean...you still have to mess with the filter. I change it last and wrap an old rag around it to catch what spills. :rockon:

 

Always wear old clothes when changing a vehicles oil. New clothes under old clothes doesn't cut it. Also wear rubber gloves.

Always place a large piece of cardboard under your oil drain pan, to catch any spills.

Unscrew the oil filter a little to let some of the oil in it drain down the oil filter and into the drain pan. When oil stops flowing, then finish unscrewing it and keep it level down to the drain pan.

Fill new oil filter halfway with oil. Hand tighten 3/4 of a turn after the gasket seal touches the metal.

If a new oil filter is leaking oil, remove it completely. Wipe it and the area on the engine clean. Reinstall the filter. If it still leaks, replace with another new oil filter.

 

No. Most of the oil is in the crankcase.

The spec is to rotate the oil filter 3/4 turn after the gasket contacts the machined surface; however I think that makes the filter unnecessarily difficult to remove 5K miles later.

 

I once had the funnel jump out the valvecover while trying to refill from a 20 litre pail. I used to get my heavy duty motor oil in 20 litre pails to save a buck a litre.

It made such a gawd-awful mess I never ever tried using pails again

 

In addition to the old clothes always buy surgical gloves at the auto parts store. I like "Diamond Grip" Micxroflex available at AutoZone.
There very tough.
I use Extra large as there easier to get on and off.
Anytime your hands are going to get greasy around the house use them.

When you change the oil take your tiime. I use the rubber interlocking mats available from Home D to lie on. 2 layers thick. You can lay on them for a long time quite comfortably.

Take the filter off and wipe everything off real good and just check it out. Take a good look at everything under there. Take your time. You don't get under there much. Look for road damage. Broken bolts. Rusted area's. Exhaust pipe damage. Bring a good flashlight under there with you. Look very closely at every hose under there for seepage. There's a lot of them. Look at every clamp. Look for leaks at the engine oil pan. And around the cvt assy.

Doing that I noticed the old oil filter leaves behind a nice film of rubber on the engine sealing flange. I tried wiping and wiping but would not come off. I used some acetone and it cleaned right off. I use "shop rags" from Home Depot. There tough paper towels & come in a box and are much stronger than paper towels. They don't leave bits of the towel when your scrubbing with it. I use them for wiping that oil filter area off. Clean all the oil off the entire area.

I use only the factory oil filter. Its only $4.00. I know its the right filter. Many many cars only like the factory oil filter. Oil bypass valve. Plus if there is ever a major internal engine failure (highly doubtful...but) and the car gets towed into the dealer and then the dealer can come back and say you used a crap oil filter and it failed starving the motor of oil.
I would hate to have that conversation with those people.
That would be hard to defend. And in this economy I can see the dealer trying to get away with that. IMHO no other oil filter will perform better than the factory oil filter. Flame away.

And lastly since its a vertical install filter just put a little oil in it. About half full. You can put it in empty it won't hurt anything. Make sure you put a little oil on the filter's sealing rubber gasket. Gently screw it on till its tight than I use the 1/2 turn more like Patrick.

And lastly since your new to this buy a Chiltons at the auto store for $15. Read it cover to cover. Lots of good basic info in there.

 

[QUOTE=edthefox5

I use only the factory oil filter. Its only $4.00. I know its the right filter. Many many cars only like the factory oil filter. Oil bypass valve. Plus if there is ever a major internal engine failure (highly doubtful...but) and the car gets towed into the dealer and then the dealer can come back and say you used a crap oil filter and it failed starving the motor of oil.
I would hate to have that conversation with those people.


COMMENT: You are so right! I never thought I'd suffer an oil filter failure until it happened in pre-dawn darkness in a '99 Miata. The filter failed, all oil was lost, and the motor seized about 1 1/2 miles from home. Because I used a factory filter, Mazda completely covered a $6k+ repair job.

QUESTION: With Prius, what are folks' processes for getting oil to acceptable temp for oil change? I run ours 20 miles on the freeway.

 

I just want to stress Ed's last point. It is most important to smear some old oil on the rubber gasket that is on the new filter. Why old oil? tradition maybe. But old oil clings better than new oil. If the filter is put in without that added oil smear to the gasket filter it can vibrate loose and a engine can be lost. This has happened! Not unususal. and follow Pat and Ed's tightening procedure. The nice thing about hand tight is: you should be able to loosen it ( by hand ) Glad you found the drip.

 

My procedure is to drain the engine oil when it is cold, without first starting the engine. This is because the oil already drained down into the crankcase from the day before when the car was driven and the engine was hot.

Well, I personally would use new oil. However the Toyota oil filter gasket is prelubed with something like Vaseline or the equivalent in viscosity, so there's no need to further lubricate the gasket. I fill the oil filter around 50% with new oil before installing it, so that the engine doesn't make funny noises upon first startup.

 

Try once more to tighten the oil filter as much as you can by hand (don't loosen the oil filter.) If the oil filter doesn't move, and since you only have one drop of oil after 3 weeks, then don't worry about it.

Maybe there is a slight flaw in the oil filter base, which allows a tiny leak past the gasket.

Or, maybe the fluid is not engine oil since you say the color is lighter than the oil off the dipstick.

 

It does not appear to be a real problem. Just keep an eye on the filter to monitor the situation. You're obviously not losing enough oil to worry about and during your next change you can once again "study" the situation. If it's oil it is coming from above and thus from the filter seal or from the top of the engine...valve covers, filler cap, or from a previous spill working its way down.
Shucks some vehicles really drip all the time. Just look at the driveways at fast food restaurants.
Thankfully,your droplet's origin is more of a curiosity than a concern.

 

Well by my calculations, at a rate of one drop a week it would take approx 300 years to lose one quart. So not really too much to worry about there.

Seriously though, I think that you probably just got a very small amount of oil trapped between the outer edge of the O-ring and the flange on the edge of the filter body. Even an eighth of a teaspoon full is enough to form about 12 drops of that size, and such a small amount of oil might creep down extremely slowly as you are experiencing.