pinched gasket, oil everywhere

I took my Prius in for a free oil-change & tire-rotation. Last time, they overfilled. The oil was 1/2-inch over the maximum mark. That's frustrating. I was obviously going to check this time. To my surprise, it was perfect, just a little under maximum! Cool.

All but the last 10 minutes of my driving that day was on electricity. So, the engine had it pretty easy. But with the pouring rain coming down, I didn't notice anything... until the next morning.

The garage had slight oil smell. I wanted to double-check the fill level anyway. The oil was at the minimum mark. Huh? I tried again. Same thing. Oh! Oh! Sure enough, I backed out of the garage to discover a large puddle of oil. Grrrrr. Fortunately, I wasn't stranded anywhere and the engine was just fine.

Within about 20 minutes of calling the dealer, they had a mechanic on his hands & knees cleaning up the mess in my garage. We then jumped in the Prius and drove to the dealer. Only needing electricity to drive there made that part really easy.

Needless to say, they were extremely apologetic and very attentive. Gotta like that. I enjoyed getting to chat with the mechanic for awhile too.

Long story short, the gasket (that rubber ring you replace each time) had been pinched. That allowed oil to squirt out. I lost almost all of it in just a matter of minutes.

Be attentive of this when changing oil yourself. Also, be aware that the shop could mess up too. This is a very, very good reason to check the level afterward. Mistakes happen.

 

It was the gasket for the paper filter canister, that rubber O-ring.

Fortunately, there's no way to over-tighten with that new design.

Unfortunately, the O-ring could have issues if you aren't careful... which is what happened on mine.

 

5 months later, I took the Prius in again for an oil change. With the free changes used up, I would normally do it myself. But there was fallout from that incident back in May...

The mess from the oil was bigger than I had thought. It eventually all dripped down and got soaked up by the blotter on the plastic door under the pan. That caused it to sag, exposing a breath-hole to catch spray, which contributed to even more sagging. That reduced ground-clearance and would clearly become an issue in deep snow later. Needless to say, there was an obvious problem they directly caused.

To my pleasure, they replaced the entire plastic section without question or charge. That was a nice follow-up to a situation which could of had a very different outcome.

I sure hope no one else ever has to deal with the same thing. But at least they'll know there are some service departments willing to acknowledge mistakes and do what they can to rectify them.