Hey all... I have a 2012 Prius V that I think has developed a leak from the timing chain tensioner. It's not a major leak by any stretch, but it's enough that it will use about half a quart between the usual scheduled oil changes. It's a cheap part, but I'm concerned that it might not be possible to re-seat the tensioner once removed without having the timing chain cover off. Has anyone else done this before without opening the engine up?
The tensioner is spring loaded. It will extend fully when opened. If you really want to seal the leak, pull the valve cover, align the top timing marks. Then you can remove the tensioner, close it back up and lock it, replace the gasket, and reinstall it. To unlock it, you would push the exhaust side guide toward the firewall of the car and let it go. The spring will push it back out. Oil pressure will do the rest. In my Prius service history, the previous owner had that issue. He was quoted $570 to repair it. He declined that repair.
Here is a thread on changing the chain tensioner gasket without removing the timing chain cover and all the associated steps. See p3. Timing Chain Tensioner "O" Ring Under Warranty? | Page 3 | PriusChat
Most people ignore it unless they have ocd. How do you determine if all of the disappearing oil is from one problem?
How many miles on the car? Have you seen the leakage for yourself, oil/dirt down the right side of the engine? Is the engine underpanel all oily, and/or the ground where you park? Just speculating, I'm thinking may have some minor leakage from the timing chain cover (or not?), but the oil loss is mostly due to the engine burning oil. So is that 1/2 quart in 10K miles (the miles criteria for oil change in the US)? That is pretty trivial amount, pretty much normal for higher mileage vehicle.
I need help too! I just replace head gasket and timing chain for 2012 Prius V. My friends and I was working on it and we took off the big battery. Now we put it all together and it’s not running right. Won’t go past 10 mpg and weird clicking noise. Please help?
Does the timing pump So figures out that the timing was off. But the car is still stalling randomly, even at high speeds. Does the chain that goes on the oil pump matter How it goes on? When it does stall it throws the Christmas tree light (red car with exclamation) and give crank shaft sensor. I just clear it and it goes again.
The back side of the engine is a little wet/dirty, and there's a fine film of dirt deposited around the engine bay. It's not a huge leak by any stretch, just trying to figure out if it's a trivial thing to change out or more problematic. I'm sure some is being consumed by the engine but it's clear that there's a wet/grimy spot coming from the timing chain tensioner cover. Car has 128k miles on it.
Have over 250,000 on mine and doesn't leak a drop.... but I have heard of this problem. Have you tried high mileage Mobile 1 ?
I haven't. But I have used regular Mobil 1 pretty much exclusively since we've owned the car (new to us at ~30k miles).
If your 'scheduled oil changes' are 10,000 miles then I think that you will find that 0.5 quarts are not leaving via the timing chain tensioner cover leak.....and I think I can prove it. According to the Googles.....there are 18927.1 drops of oil in a US liquid quart, which means that we're talking about 9463.55 drops in a half quart. Depending on the duty cycle of your car (statistically, you're probably somewhere around 160,000 miles) you probably park your car in the same place from time to time. This SHOULD result in something that scientists call an.........oil stain which may or may not have led you to discover the oil weep that you are attempting to fix....but since you're doing this repair yourself, then we're just talking about a little time and a few bucks worth of parts instead of the many hundreds of dollars that Toyota usually doinks their customers for. ALL good! Just don't find it to be too disappointing if your car still uses 0.5 quarts of oil between oil changes after you're done.
Concur. My last two Priuses(*) are still in service with more than 200,000 miles on the clock, and all of the oil changes for both of them were done every 5,000 miles. (*) Company cars. I haven’t owned a Toyota since the late 80’s and every time I’ve tried to buy one since then I have been successfully repelled by their dealerships and a company that puts the customer last. MOH. Great cars, tho. Mostly.
