Blown Engine

umm, so you took your car to get oil changed at dealership... then the drain plug falls out, you blow up engine and why are you talking to YOUR insurance company?

have you brought this up with the dealer in question? a poorly tightened plug could easily take 1800 miles to fall out and until it did, it would leak very slowly...have you noticed any leaks?? what is the time frame for this 1800 miles?

i think there is a clause that its your responsibility to check the oil on a periodic basis so not sure how that would work

 

Well, that sucks. Maybe under a lot of legal pressure, the dealership that serviced your Prius may have to cough up. We've had reports of slow leaks caused by loose oil filters, not sure about drain plugs

In theory, yeah it could take that long for the plug to work loose

Does your parking have security cameras? Another possibility is that you have an enemy, and they did this on purpose. Very rare, but it does happen

 

Isn't there a low oil pressure warning in the warning light group? If this never came on until catastrophic failure I would think Toyota had some responsibility.

 

I don't have any good advice, and only really want to wish OP a good outcome. This story sounds like a 1/million fluke.

 

that issue has been around FOREVER with all cars and you will get no where trying to blame Toyota for insufficient warning systems.

ya not having noticed any oil leaks might not be all that much of a red flag... in a regular car when the oil is black, that would be noticed pretty easily...

the oil in my Pri however, is nearly clear (which makes it difficult to check the level. i normally recheck about 4 times and kinda use all 4 dips to figure about where the level is) which i would think would be easily overlooked.

i also would not put sabotage out of the equation either

 

Immediately after a change is a very important time to check for underfills, overfills, caps left off, tools left on the engine, air filter housing not correctly assembled, tech locked the door key in the car and handed only the ignition key to the front desk, ... I'd probably be terrified to know what errors went undiscovered.

If you don't know how much oil you started with, you can't know how fast it might be dropping.

 

I agree. It would be very difficult to wreck the engine before the warning light came on if the plug dropped out. The electrical diagram shows an oil pressure switch...one wonders if it was working.

I had an old beater AMC when I was a kid. The new fellow who was grading our gravel roads screwed them up pretty badly cutting away a good hard pack in a few sections. Result was that I came up over a rise and dip that I had driven a hundred times before...only to realize that I was about to high center because the tracks had sunk away on either side. WHAM! went the oil pan into the newly exposed bedrock center. Glanced at the gauges, all was okay, but I saw a wisp of oil smoke, caught a whiff, saw a thin dashed line of oil trailing the car in the mirror, confirming my fear. Since I was less than a mile from home, I watched my gauges, listened carefully and made it to the drive...shutting it down just as the idiot light flashed on. Fixed the gouge in the oil pan, refilled, and it ran the same as before (which was not very well...about 8 mpg in that old V8.)

To the OP, other than sabotage this would appear to be the original servicing dealer's screw up. They should be going in at least half on parts and the labor should be free. Personally, I would consider picketing them if it happened to me and they were unwilling to help out. Driving away their potential customers would be a fair trade and probably cost them a lot more than what they are saving.

On the other hand you really should check your oil level after a change. I tend to check for any indication of leaks on the garage floor for a few days immediately following a change. I can't swear that I habitually check for the plug to be in place...but I've only let someone else change my oil a handful of times total in all the vehicles I've owned.

 

The first shop tech probably screwed the plug in by hand some then got distracted and forgot to tighten it. It just took this long to work itself off. Vandalism if you can prove it would be something the insurance may understand. That is very unlikely as someone would have to know the car and bother to catch the oil. You're lucky you got this far with a claim on a mechanical failure, most of us have coll. and comp., it isn't a car warranty.

 

Wow,

Hard to believe that the oil check light didn't come on. The low pressure warning should have saved it before any significant damage was done.

I once drove a truck-Toyota pickup-that suddenly lost most of its oil. It made a distinct metal to metal squealing-for obvious reasons. The Prius with the ICE going on and off-might be a bit different. I had changed the oil and oil filter myself, and hadn't noticed the the O-Ring from the original filter hadn't come off with the filter.I had 2 filter O-Rings, and oil suddenly started gushing out. I had about 1 quart left-1994 Toyota 4 cyl truck- when I got it stopped.

The only way this could happen was if the guy just didn't tighten the drain plug enough- it probably requires maybe 30 LB-FT is my guess-that is a pretty good turn of a hand tool.They probably use air tools the do the final tightening.He must have hand tightened it, and gotten distracted -just as another poster said.

The 1800 miles before losing the plug is a bit of a curve ball, but plausible. The Toyota dealer that did the oil change should be on the hook. If it had taken 500 miles-they would be saying the same" it can't be us because it took so many miles to fall out". Why else would it come out??

Simple- they only come off because they weren't torqued properly-that is it! (Ignoring sabotage of course)

Charlie

 

There has been speculation that the oil light is useless.

http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...ooting/63997-engine-failure-2.html#post885973

http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-prius-technical-discussion/25846-prius-oil-system.html

 

I beg to differ,,,,If I take my car to a "professional" to have service work done,, I should expect and get professional service. Just as after I go and have a medical procedure,, I shouldn't have to check for sponges left in my gut!

If I have to pay these guys top $$ I expect to get top service,, and sadly that is the exception rather than the rule. Any/every good shop has insurance for just these events,, and they will after a bit of persuasion do the right thing. (This doesn't mean we should try to blame them for everything!) The crappy shops will not stand behind their work.


My last (and LAST!) encounter with dealer service was a over priced waste of time. $~300 for 30k service that was nothing but a LOF! Even at that,, they didn't bother to reset the "service required" light. When you take your car to the dealer for LOF,, you may not get a "technician" at all,, but rather the car wash highschool guy doing oil changes.

Icarus

 

I disagree. Usually it's the kid who last week was scrubbing urinals in the s***house

 

Face it, the work experience kid did your oil change. It was most likely a Friday and after watching the work experience kid all week the tech mistakenly thought he could leave the kid to drain the oil. The kid screwed the plug in finger tight and as he was going to tighten the plug the chuck truck arrived with lunch. Being a growing teen he dropped everything to go grab a hot-dog, pie and coke, and tightening your sump plug was just forgotten about.

1678 miles later the sump plug bounced along the highway under your Prius, and a spray of clean clear engine oil, sensing it's opportunity to escape a life of keeping metal parts apart dropped onto the road, only to find a life of getting run over by 18 wheelers was no picnic.
Soon after this the metal parts of your engine which were sad that they were being kept apart from one another, feeling the forces of attraction, those forces which drive dissimilar metals toward each other were now able to overcome those forces which were keeping them apart, the engine oil now being AWOL from duty. After a short while of rubbing against one another those dissimilar metals got to know each other so well they decided that they should get married, because this intimate rubbing should only happen in a life long relationship. So a very quick ceremony ensued with bad music and kissing of those dissimilar metals, then like many marriages, the rubbing against one another stopped dead.

I'd be having serious words with the dealerships service tech, also check for oil spray under the car and on the back of the car from the spoiler down.

 

Thus, I prefer to remain happily single

But seriously, sucks about the motor

 

But did you like the way I described the likely chain of events?
Line 2, something else that stops after mariage within the engine, along with squeeze bang and blow.

 

Like most modern cars all they have is the "TOO LATE LIGHT" for oil pressure. Which means if the light comes on IT'S TOO LATE! I check the oil at least once a week for both color and amount. If the oil plug was loose it was probably leaking slowly only while the car was running.

 

any oil at all in your driveway? how much?

 

I'm in the Bay Area too. I've had problems with oil changes at Piercey Toyota in San Jose/Milpitas and the Sunnyvale Toyota Dealership. Care to mention the name of your dealership? or at least the city it is located in? Thanks