Oil Change

Yes little oil comes out with just a filter change so get that filter replaced.

It helps to have the correct fitting oil wrench to remove the oil filter canister. I suggest you buy the wrench and then go to a Toyota dealer and buy a few replacement canister cartridge's to have on hand so in the future you can go to any independent shop and have the oil changed. There's many members here who can point you to the place to buy the special wrench.

They will be along shortly.

 

First of all, check out YouTube for the video on changing the Gen III Prius Oil/Filter. This educates you on the procedure involved. Second, buy the correct oil filter tool then take it with you to your shop along with the Toyota oil filter kit. You also need the nylon drain plug washers. The drain plug will seep without a fresh washer. A little research would have gone a long way. If your shop was hesitant, you should not have pushed them to do the job when they were not familiar/comfortable working on your car. The Prius is easy to work on, you just need to know the correct procedures.

 

Search Prius wrench...then you will see a few results with gen 3 Prius wrench. This site sure don't make it easy to paste links.

 

The drain bolt will not seep, if you re-use the existing washer. It's good practice to replace it, but as long as you leave the existing washer in there you'll be fine.

To the OP: it's likely the dealership that's the cause of the difficulty in removing the oil filter housing. They've likely been over-tightening it.

FYI, the correct torque is 18 ft/lb. I've been doing my own oil changes since purchase, new, and the only other person to torque the oil filter in my case was the mechanic at the factory. It's never been that difficult to remove.

As you are thinking: if you go to the dealership, bring along that extra liter of oil (I assume you have replacement filter element as well). I believe they should be able to replace the filter with minimum loss of oil, maybe 250 cc at most. And stress that they re-install the filter housing to only 18 foot/pounds (24 newton/meters I believe).

I think you have a strong case that they should do this for free, since they've created this mess due to over-tightening.

I wouldn't be concerned about leaving the filter (and a little of the old oil). But still, if you go to the dealership, get it removed and properly retorqued, it resolves things.

While you're there, maybe they can sell you the "proper" filter socket? Though they may overcharge, it might be best to research and buy elsewhere.

FYI, I use a common filter socket, actually for Honda, but it works fine. It does not extend down onto the Toyota specific stiffeners, just a regular socket. It has 14 internal faces, with inside dimension 64.0 mm. This one is also readily available.