Another Walmart oil overfill, Toyota is hinting at new ICE

A new ICE, that works for me. If they threw in the traction battery Jackpot!
A new ICE has got to cost thousands, thankfully a precedent was set and they will cover you too!
Let us know what happens!

 

toyota has overfilled all 3 of my pri by a half quart at every oil change and it's never been a problem. i've never had 185,000 miles or driven 70 mph though, so maybe that has something to do with it.

 

Could the overfilled oil have foamed due to the high rpms at 70mph and thus blown into odd places on the ICE? Just guessing but I have heard of that happening in the old days-oil foam would appear in the breather cap, and I think seals were often blown out resulting in crankcase leaks.

 

Have you had the inverter recall?

My 2 cents: it's very improbable a 3/8" oil overfill would shut you down.

 

Yeah mostly you'd just end up with oil messing up the throttle body, but there can be more serious results in some cases. With a really bad overfill some engines can get breather passages blocked. So you get like an air locked pocket in the sump that can get pressurised from blowby gases and blow out the main seals.

Also if the oil gets really badly foamed up you can end up pumping mostly air (most of the foam is air). So ironically an oil overfill can actually lead to a kind of oil starvation.

The Prius can be a bit misleading here. The electric motor (MG1) will crank the engine nice and fast, what may seem like a good smooth idle, even when the engine isn't firing properly. Eventually it will work out that the engine isn't delivering power and give up and throw a code.

 

Oil starvation isn't going to immediately "shut you down" like that. Oil starvation would have probably caused severe knocking from connecting rods and probably a cloud of smoke behind you as the piston rings run dry. This has been my personal experience with oil starvation with one of my track cars.

MG1 being able to crank the engine means the engine isn't seized yet.

There must be another issue causing it not to start. Unless your engine was making all sorts of racket before it shut down, it's more likely it's a component supporting the engine that has failed.

How do you check for spark in a prius since we can't really "crank" the engine?

 

Let me clarify that I'm pretty sure that the OP's problem is simply one of the throttle body being fouled by the oil. My comments above were in response to a specific question by the OP of what *other* ways could an oil overfill (hypothetically) cause more severe engine damage.

 

??

You can crank the engine by attempting to start. MG1 will spin the engine. If you have removed an igniter, you can install a plug into the igniter, ground the plug threads, and see if the plug sparks or not.

 

I'd definitely want to make them pin it down to a *specific* problem with the engine before letting them change it out. Wallmart's insurance might challenge it and refuse to pay if they feel the engine was replaced unnecessarily.

BTW. Which dealer is it?

 

If they're applying heart surgery for a hangnail, hopefully it's not "out of the pan and in to the fire".

 

Our 2010 Honda was over filled with oil on a oil change, it smoked on acceleration, they drained some off and it was fine. Our 2013 Dodge Dart had its first oil change done at the Dodge dealer,, they WAY overfilled it, but it did not smoke. Drove it 250 miles that way, got gas, calculated mpg at the pump, and it was getting 13 mpg when usual was 22-25 mpg, (which was still real poor for a 1.4L Turbo engine!). Checked the dip stick at the gas station and had a cow right there when I saw it was like 1" over full on the dip stick! Took it back to the shop, they drained off the excess, hardly even apologized, said "yes, it was just a little over full", and I never went back to that Dealer again! Again, the WAY over full oil, did not seem to effect it, but we had to lemon law it for so many other problems later on anyway! If you ever find an overfull oil condition after someone did an oil change, I would highly recommend taking photo's for proof! Roll the dip stick on some dry paper, or card board as clean oil is so hard to see,, oh, here, like this below. Don't know why it show's the photo, upside down, but you get the picture...

 

The throttle body doesn't foul the mass air flow sensor gets clogged. If you suspect it is oil over fill try this trick to get a quick definite answer: unplug the maf sensor. The computer sees a disconnected maf and runs off assumed values . Now try to start the car. If it starts but runs rough the maf was clogged with oil. Clean the maf with carb cleaner or replace it with a new one.

 

This is a very fishy story. I don't see how overfill killed the engine completely. The dealership is anxious to replace the engine to make $$$$, but what if walmart refuses to pay? What are the ECU codes? I would look for a 2nd opinion. What a mess!

 

OK, I missed the part about the code. I googled that too and came up with this known issue of no start with oil overfill in gen 1: Letter from Toyota on P3190 P3191 and P3101 & code 204 & 205 - Toyota Prius Forum : Prius Online Toyota Forums

All that needed to be done was to clean the intake from the accumulated oil.

But, if the oil ingression happened suddenly at high speed driving, I guess it could have hydro-locked the engine and killed it. You need to talk to the dealer people and ask more questions why new engine is needed and what if they cleaned the intake first.

Looks like we have a huge epidemic of oil overfills. It hasn't happened to my prius, but I had that problem with my RAV4 every time it was serviced by a dealership.

 

Hopefully everyone reading this thread has gotten the importance of checking your dip stick -->Right After an oil change, before you drive away!!! The service shops always have the lowest paid, "grease monkey", doing all the oil changes. Rarely is it even a certified tech doing that job.

 

I would just communicate more directly with the Toyota service department.

It doesn't have to be "negative" or combative, but I'd just be honest.

Tell em, you'd rather NOT change the whole ICE out, for the oil being overfilled, if at all possible.

Ask them to explain in full detail WHY and HOW an oil overfill has resulted in such a short time, into total and irreversible engine failure.

Their working on YOUR vehicle, you have a right to know these things and be the primary person approving whatever work get's done.

 

Are you speaking about during initial warm-up? Didn't think about that.

I guess you could also do test it by force charging.

I was mainly curious how it was performed.