Originally Posted By: RF Overlord
Originally Posted By: Spyder7
On one of the Toyota sites I visit there was a instance posted of Toyota refusing to take responsibility for an owner's sludged engine. I'd have to dig up the post from that forum to get more specific,
If you can find it, I'd like to read it. My sister and her husband both own Toyotas and I'd like to have them read it as well.
This was the post I had in mind, its not quite how I remembered it (in that I thought the OCIs were longer):
"When the car had 33,654 miles (3,498 miles since the previous oil change) the owner, R. Nayar, took the car to a Toyota dealer complaining "the engine oil light flashes on and off". The dealership found "the vehicle has approximately 1/2 quart of oil inside the engine" and that the "inside of the valve cover is black" and that the "dipstick is also sludged up.""
"So we are dealing with an owner who drove 3,498 miles without checking the engine oil level. The oil level got so low the engine oil light flashed on and off, signaling dangerously low oil pressure. R. Nayar STILL did not
check the oil level and STILL did not stop driving the car as instructed to in the owners manual. Instead, Rahul Nayar continued to drive, including driving the car to a Toyota dealer which found only 1/2 quart of oil in the engine - a catastrophically low amount of oil. With such a tiny amount of oil in the engine the oil was overheated and turned to sludge, just as it would in any car. So by 33,654 miles we are dealing with an engine that suffered severe mechanical wear, such as connecting rod bearing wear and fatigue due to the ultra low oil level and an engine that had sludge, due to the low oil level, that could have blocked or partly blocked critical oil supply passages and holes in the engine.
Now amazingly, this damaged engine still survived almost another 20,000 miles - to 51,888 miles - before a connecting rod bearing finally gave up and the rod tore a hole in the side of the engine block - such holes are a classic symptom
of oil starvation due to a low oil level. Now even when the Toyota dealership informed R. Nayar back at 33,654 miles that the engine was almost empty of oil, he still apparently did not take personal responsibility for regularly checking the oil level and still continued to drive the car despite ominous engine noises. How do we know R. Nayar STILL was not checking the oil level inbetween oil changes? Well he admitted it on the old Corolland forum. Also, he had several oil changes done at a Fix N Go shop after the 33,654 mile oil starvation incident and did not notice that fix n go had wildly overfilled his engine with5 quarts of oil each time when only 3.5 quarts are needed to bring the level to the Full Mark on the engine oil dipstick.
In summary, Rahul Nayar did not check his engine oil level inbetween engine oil changes every 3,500 - 4,500 miles. He made approximately 10 -15 stops for gas during those miles yet failed to ever check the oil level. The owners manual recommends checking the level at EVERY fuel stop. The bottom line is Rahul's engine would not have been destroyed if he had monitored his engine oil level as instructed in the owners manual. Therefore it isn't fair to ask Toyota to cover the $4,500 worth of damage to his engine. Even Rahul's new engine could fail in the same way if he continued to fail to monitor the engine oil level at a reasonable frequency."
-Spyder
