Eek! A Leek! (leak, actually)

I can't help, so hopefull some one will chime in with some info. I have not know of anyone with this problem, and I read a lot here. Hopefully some one can help.

 

your car leaked(?) 4 qts but there were no droplets until you refilled it? that's very strange.

 

First things first, where is the leak coming from? Sometimes impossible to tell, other times it is obvious with a trail of goo leading up to this exact spot.

I would check the tightness of the oil filter and oil drain screw. For 4 quarts to leak out (which is actually over max fill so you are overfull now unless every drop was gone, then your engine would NOT be "ok") the leak has to be pretty low.

Initial gut guess, the person who tightened your drain plug did not use a new copper washer and/or did not tighten all the way.

 

Seeing as the total oil capacity is like 4.3 quarts, I doubt your engine is "fine". What made you decide to check the oil level, did the oil light come on? I hope it didn't run long with the oil level that low!

 

Try pouring half a quart of *anything* out on your driveway. There's no way that he leaked any substantial quantity past the drain plug without leaving a huge pool.
If you truly leaked that much out I'd expect to find oil spots on the rear bumper and the underside of the car dripping with the stuff.

Good luck with your investigation!

 

U got something major going on to be 4 quarts low.

 

Do you think they saw a little oil leak and went oh! no, I wonder how low it is and checked and thought it was low. The oil is so clear it is hard to tell how low it really is. Maybe they thought it was low and added oil and in reality it is now over filled ? I think it might be easy to do! Just a thought. When I got mine I was on the way home all freeway driving. Checked oil on sunny day and it is darn near impossible to read. I thought it was right at the tip of dip stick, let it sit in the shade for 15 minutes and re-checked and could now see just a little bit it was right at full, just really hard to see.

 

In this particular engine running for a while with very low oil tends to damage the oil rings on the pistons.
You must now check the oil at every fill up because it will usually start burning oil because of this.
Not a terrible thing unless you run it real low again. And then well...that's another post.

 

I have a 2005 Prius I bought from my dad when it had 30,000 miles.
I now have 183,000 miles on it. I changed the oil every 3,000 miles and have had no major problems. I do most of the oil and filter changes myself.
BUT this last time at about 181000 miles I went to a dealer to change all the fluids in the car. 2,000 miles later I got the low oil pressure light and checked and no oil on the dip stick.
I drained the oil and took off the filter and there was approximately 1 quart of oil in the engine.
It was very black. I put new oil and filter on my own. Ran it a little ( about 1 hr) and the oil still looked dirty so I got some good oil for high mileage cars and changed the oil. After this all the black stuff washed out and the oil looked clear. I've never had this happen before and there was no sign of any loss of oil before, It just happened suddenly that I lost 3 quarts. I'm wondering If the dealership screwed up and didn't add enough oil. The oil level is good now and I'll watch it closely for the next 3000 miles to see if I lose any oil. My oil changes seemed to work and hopefully my engine didn't get damaged. It's just a shame the prius doesn't have a low oil level indicator that would alert you if level was below 2-2.5 quarts.

 

P.S I checked the drain plug and filter. Both seemed to be snug and tight and there were no leaks that were noticed.
But maybe the oil drained while driving. I'll find out more as I keep a close eye on it.

 

Wow! good luck. Yes! an alert would be nice. Dealer!?

 

i have my doubts about your dealer.
very black oil after 2,000 miles with 1 quart left? something's DEF up!