Lorax

Ok so here's the story.

About 1000 miles ago I took my car to the toyota dealership to get it changed because I couldnt find my jackstands and I was in a hurry. I used to work at this dealership, and know allot of the tech's so I felt comfortable letting them do it.

Got the oil change done, never thought about it again until a few days ago. My car started to sound like a diesel... LOUD lifter noise. Of course this is a bit alarming to me. It goes away when i restart it, then comes back again by the time i'm home. Check the oil level - not even on the dipstick.

I added oil until it got to the full level so I would know how much was missing and it came out to about 2 1/2 quarts. Yikes! I changed the oil immediately and the lifter noise went away. Im not so sure they even used the bottled oil i told them to put in at this point. They might have just used the 5/20 straight out of the oil gun! I dont know that for sure though.

Heres my question. During that 1000 miles, I have DOGGED the car. A few launches, a few mountain runs with high speed cornering, and ive redlined in 4th a few times.

The car seems to be running perfect now, and no metal shavings when I checked the drainplug. The normal ticking of the engine is only slightly louder than it was before all this happened.

Did I actually come out of this ok?

MM951

your probably good, that has happened to my friend .. once my sister drove her accord with NO oil in it for 1.5 miles


btw what is redline in 4th?

Spidey944

about 140mph stock or so. Higher for his modded car.

Oddjob

2 1/2 qts is pretty low. If the lifters were not getting full lubrication, that is reason for concern. And since you have run the car under high load, there is some potential for oil starvation at the rod bearings.

Why, did he modify his transmission?

theedge

If its chipped it has a higher rev limit...

toddk911

If there was damage to the rod bearings, wouldn't they still make noise even after he added oil though?

Lorax

BTW rod bearings have about 6000 miles on them.

DDP

If there was any damage you would see the material on the drain plug. I'm amazed if there wasn't any material on there, means you're fine.

I'm always glad I've got the oil level sensor on my 87

333pg333

Based on the fact that our cars are susceptible to oil starvation when full, I'd be concerned about some damage but maybe you've been lucky. Hope so.

Lorax

Sounds like I got lucky. Guess I can keep on driving the heck out of her!

Oddjob

Rod and main bearings wont make any obvious noise, even when they are shot - you only hear them knocking once they have spun, and all you can do at that point is shut the car off fast enough before the rod flies through the side of the block.

Mileage on the bearings is irrelevant, 6k or 60k. If the oil was low enough that it sucked air into the pickup during high rpms, it will have scored the bearings.

As with most journal-type bearings, Im fairly certain that the 944 bearing surfaces are plated with non-ferrous soft metal coatings (alum, tin, copper, bronze), so you may not see/find any bearing shavings on the magnet in the drain plug, even if there some damage to the wear surface. Did you check the waste oil for metallic flake? Best if you check the oil drain pan in sunlight, makes metal flakes very easy to see.

If you happen to still have the waste oil, and its not contaminated with other oil, you could send it in for an oil analysis to see if there are extreme amounts of bearing metal in the sample. Im not a proponent of oil analysis (it gives you a lot of numbers, but it doesnt tell you as much as some people think), but this might be a case where it could give you some indication of issues.

How is your oil pressure, hot idle and hot full load, compared to prior? If you still have good/solid oil pressure, its very likely that no significant damage was done. I certainly would not recommend tearing the engine down unless you notice low oil pressures.

If the bearings were momentarily starved, and they have some slight scoring, it may take some life out of them. I would expect that a scored bearing may end up leaving marks on the crank journals over time/mileage, and probably would have a reduced life compared to a normal bearing.

If this is a street car only, I would just drive it. If it sees hard track use, then I would be more concerned.

Good luck.

Lorax

I do still have the old oil... im going to get my gigantor work lights and see what I can see. Wanna know what's awesome? My oil pressure sendeing unit went bad not too long ago. lol. It's been pegged at 5 for a couple weeks now. I have a new one in the garage just been too busy to swap it in. Oops.

Lorax

I just put the oil in a big flat clear containter and tried shining my lights in from all directions, I don't see anything metallic. How long does the oil analysis take? Where can I have that done? It's mixed in with the 2 1/2 quarts i added to it, but other than that its the oil that was put in the car.

BlueRiver86

Check that OP ASAP. Borrow a test gauge maybe?

Lorax

I guess im going to pull the car up on the ramps tomarrow and see if I can just clean off the connections. It might not even be bad.