Oil Spilled on Engine

Might I ask your age?

Only saying that because in my day, we were used to engines covered in oil.

It may not be pretty, but, if everything is running fine, I say leave it alone. Things will burn off where they can. Having said that, oil on belts and hoses can cause them to slip or get soft and useless. However, from what you said, sounds as if you have not really spilled on anything such as that.

You said you cleaned it up, I imagine the best you could reach, you should have no worries.

As a "caution." When I was young and stupid, I took my Datsun (an ancestor of a Nissan) to one of those pressure washer car washes once where you pay your quarters (25 cents USA) and wash your car. They had an "engine cleaning" setting, so I opened the hood and did it.

Car would not start, Had to pay a guy with a Caddy $20 to push me down the street to my office, where I parked the car in the lot and over the next several days replaced a number of electronics (this in the day before cars had much electronics).

so, again, I would suggest, if it ain't broke, don't fix.

 

Not very long ago, I use to live just down the street from one of these places. It was actually often nice to live so close. BUT I can tell you this continues to happen all the time.

Going about my business in my neighborhood I would often drive past, see someone with the hood open and a huge cloud of high pressure mist. Then drive past again a hour or so later to see a Tow Truck.

People will swear it's safe and they have done it for years, but from what I've seen? I'd never do that to my engine. All it takes a one high pressure split second of wash to hit the wrong wire or bit of electronics and you are stranded or worse.

 

There have been some Toyota Previa that have burned to the ground from oil leaking out of O rings onto the manifold but that was a mid engine design. I've spilled some oil on the Pri engine and it does slowly burn off. The engine runs fairly cool at times so it should be fine you could always spray some orange engine cleaner on it when the engine is cool if it makes you feel better...

 

Steamcleaning modern engines a bad idea, esp w/ the Prius. So many electrical components and connectors you would have to cover very well, in the hopes that water does not get into the components and connections. You can always manually clean the exterior of the engine with Simple Green (concentrated or full strength) using a brush/rag.

Jack up the front end and wipe off what you can see/feel. Then use a degreaser (ie Simplegreen) and some rags to get rid of the residual oil.

 

That sounds a lot like what I once did bentspace: Oil Change Fail (minor). Advice needed. | PriusChat


In my case I just removed the the little relay box below the wipers (just two 10mm bolts) and cleaned up as much as possible around the top of the igniters (top of the rocker cover). I didn't remove the igniters at the time, but when I eventually changed the spark plugs much later I found that no oil had found it's way down there, so no problems there.

 

you can use brake cleaner or carb cleaner to clean the spilled oil. steam cleaning an engine is ok if you know what your doing, but with all the electronics under a prius hood its a very bad idea. we steam clean benzes all the time with no problems, and of course older carbureted engines all you had to do was bag the carb and distributor. back in the good old days...

 

Fire is very unlikely. only the exhaust manifold gets hot enough for that, and the oil you spilled has mostly run off onto the ground by now.