Just did the first oil change on my Prius. The oil drain bolt didn't feel like it was torqued on at 27 ft/lb. It felt less, maybe 20? Putting it back in, it seemed like 27 ft/lb was pretty excessive. I stopped at 22 ft/lb. Are people out there really tightening them that much with a torque wrench or just tightening them until it seems tight (which I would bet is less than 27 ft/lb. Thanks for the help.
I use a torque wrench set to 27 ft-lb to tighten the drain plug. This has been a pretty standard spec for most Toyotas I have owned (dating back to a '91 LS400) and with a new crush washer in place have never had any leaks or any issues or damage at all to the pan. Jeff
You dont want anyone stealing your drain plug. I do 27 ft-lbs and it is no problem. Now the oil filter is another story. I think it has excessive torque rating.
Thanks jjPrius and gliderman. The filter I torqued to 18 ft/lb as spec'ed. The drain bolt is the one that bothered me. It just seemed like I was going to strip it if I tightened it to 27, especially since it didn't seem to be on that tight to begin with.
Torqued mine to 27 ft-lbs using a Horror Freight 3/8" torque wrench, but with a new aluminum/teflon washer of course. No issues and the feel was progressive. OTOH, for the filter, I had left the filter cup wrench on the cap and tightened it as tight as I could by hand. Then, I put my CDI torque wrench @ 216 in-lbs on there, and the torque wrench immediately clicked. Just to check against a possible malfunction, I put my super long handled ratchet on there and it wouldn't move. So, I guess it's possible to tighten the oil filter cartridge well past 18 ft-lbs by hand.
Well you are assuming your wrench is accurate. Maybe it is not, and putting out excessive torque. I have access to an ISO certified calibration lab at work and it shocked me how out of whack these things are out of the box. The click type is the worst, the beam type with a needle tend to do better. Now if my friend in the lab would only get him an NPT to schrader adapter so I can check my tire gauges too...
The CDI 3/8" drive inch-lb torque wrench had a calibration certificate in the box. Not sure about the horror freight one though, lol, that one could be way off.
