another victim of the "too tight oil filter cap"

If you scratch it just in front of the left wheel it will empty the oil all by itself.

 

hahaha!

 

With the price of replacement covers, I'm in the take the whole thing off camp: the plastic is so thin and hard that the hinged flap tends to break off. They mighta revised the spec, following a spat of breakage, not sure.

 

At the dealer when they do your oil change, they only take those 3 clips off. I've never seen any defects on those plastic covers before. I know there is a TSB around this forum but I believe its a manufacture defect.

Well it was a suggestion, it is your own vehicle so do what you must to protect that baby

 

... I broke 1 of them and as I was taking the clips off and only 1 out of now 2 clips stayed in. Solved the problem by using some electrical tape to keep the thing in place. HAHA! Dodgy work already! It's still in place so ... whatever.

 

Yeah, get the right wrench. I did my first Prius oil change last night and had a hell of time getting the over-torqued filter off. I have 5 filter wrenches from over the years and figured one of them would work. Nope. My only hope was a metal strap wrench, which slipped very time. I ended up putting a hole in the middle of an uninflated balloon, wrapping that around the filter for some traction with the strap wrench. That finally worked but not easily.

 

Mendel, I got the revision and it is much better.

 

Apart from the fragility issues, if you pull the panel completely off you get a much better view of the CV and steering boots, u/s oil pan and transaxle, and so on.

 

Which is what I prefer to do. I want to see if there's anything going on under there.

 

I'm a Toyota tech and I use the inexpensive Assenmacher TOY640 wrench with a 24mm socket on a breaker bar or ratchet, depending on how tight it is. It's the same filter housing as almost all new Toyotas, so it sees frequent daily abuse and has yet to strip a housing!

 

That's the same one as I have from MatcoTools lolz... yes, I used to be a Toyota Tech as well, haha...

 

I was another victim of oil filter on too tight. Used practically all the methods/tools described here. The only thing that worked was this:
Private Brand Tools (PBT71110) Toyota/Lexus 4 Cylinder Oil Filter Wrench - Amazon.com

Even with this cap removal tool, i still had to use a long breaker bar to loosen the cap. If you look at the picture, the cap has 3 open slots on each side that fits perfectly over the oil filter cap. The open slots were the key in loosen the cap.

 

Was it a Toyota Dealership that did the deed? Let them know?

 

No, it was an indie shop. Havent been back to the shop so i havent told them yet.

 

Makes me think of pretty much any time we've had bodywork done that involved removing a wheel. You're pretty much guaranteed the next time you remove that wheel there'll be a "Lord mother: who the hell torqued this thing, I think I think this socket is gonna snap" moment, LOL.

 

Hi delta,
What kind of metal is it made out of? I am hoping it is not aluminum or pot metal?

Thanks!

 

I cant tell what metal it is. I am not sure why it matters.....

 

I had to go buy a new 1/2" drive breaker bar and used a 15/16" socket on the 64mm oil filter tool, (not a 65mm ).
And I'm the one that put it on last time. I cussed myself.
I first tried a regular 1/2" drive ratchet and thumping it with a dead blow hammer, but no luck.
With this plastic housing and the rubber O-ring creating the seal, the only thing that works is a slow increase of loosening torque until the housing starts to move.
Hammering/thumping does not work in this application. The thumping is just absorbed by the plastic and rubber.
Also, you can remove the safety clip while doing this work so you don't have to deal with holding it open.

 

^ I've found the safety clip totally ineffectual, doesn't impede the oil filter housing from rotating at all. Doesn't hurt to remove though.

I'd guess the O-ring semi-bonded itself in the cavity. Did you lube it with new oil? How long between changes, the US 10,000 mile interval? Up here it's 8000 km (5000 miles), and I've not found it too hard to start it turning.