drained oil filter, not main oil tank

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by Pups, May 28, 2025 at 2:22 PM.

  1. Pups

    Pups New Member

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    First, I changed my oil 20k miles ago and idiotically only drained the oil from the filter compartment (based on the amount of oil that came out, I thought my car was burning too much oil). Replaced filter, added new oil, about 4qts

    yesterday at the 10k interval, again I did the same thing :( changed filter, noticed very little oil from the filter compartment...dipstick was all over the place and I must have been having a covid brain fog fart because I thought maybe because the engine bay is hot so it wasn't sitting right. added another 4 qts of oil.

    drove today to take my dog to the vet for a surgery and on the way back, I noticed white smoke. I thought to myself, can't be my car I take good care of it and change oil every 10k miles. Then while exiting the freeway on the offramp, I saw more smoke. and I thought I must have drove over some dirt and stirred it up.

    and then when accelerating from a stop light, I saw White smoke and I said, crap it's my car and something isn't right. Came home, looked online and it said White smoke can indicate overfilling your oil. Then I had a flash back that 20k miles ago, I drained the oil from the filter compartment. and then after 10k miles (yesterday) I did the same thing. So my oil reservoir must be FULL. I let the car cool down, looked at the dipstick and noticed the oil level was 3-4 times higher than the full indicator...

    so... now I went and bought some more 0w-20 and plan to flush out the oil completely. and then put new oil.

    I have a few questions
    1. should I replace the filter even though I replaced it yesterday and only drove maybe 20 miles?
    2. should I put seafood or liqui moly to clean out the engine?
    3. should I do the next replacement at 5k miles instead of 10k just to flush out any buildup from the past 2 oil changes?

    I'm not dumb, I really, really, really blanked out on the oil change.
     
    #1 Pups, May 28, 2025 at 2:22 PM
  2. Brian1954

    Brian1954 Senior Member

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    1. I would reuse the filter, but you need to unscrew the filter to drain the old oil.
    2. I can not give you my opinion since you did not say how many miles are on the car.
    3. General opinion on this forum is to do 5k mile oil changes every time rather than 10k recommend by Toyota.

    You should check your oil level after changing the oil and every other fill-up of the gas tank.
     
    #2 Brian1954, May 28, 2025 at 6:34 PM
  3. Pups

    Pups New Member

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    Hi Brian, thanks for your response. I had to pick my dog from the vet and didn't see your message, so I drained the oil from the tank but not the filter... I'll do a 5k service next.

    I did edit my comment to add that it's a 2011 Prius with 130k miles, but looks like my post was under admin review and the change didn't save.

    And LoL, I didn't mean to put "seafood" in my engine, I meant Seafoam.. although I did have seafood for lunch today so I'm not sure if it autocorrected, or if I actually typed that because I was hungry.
     
    #3 Pups, May 28, 2025 at 9:16 PM
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  4. Grit

    Grit Senior Member

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    So are you going to flush out the oil by removing the oil filter?
     
    #4 Grit, May 28, 2025 at 11:09 PM
  5. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Can you clarify: you only drained oil by removing the oil filter, you didn’t remove the oil pan drain plug, for two oil changes now? If so you likely have close to triple the spec'd quantity of oil in your engine. Have a look at the attachment:
     

    Attached Files:

    #5 Mendel Leisk, May 29, 2025 at 10:35 AM
    Last edited: May 29, 2025 at 12:36 PM
  6. Danno5060

    Danno5060 Active Member

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    I'm not sure of your intervals - 20k, or 10k. It also sounds like your only partially changing your oil - with just emptying the filter, or oil pan, but it sounds like you've not done the complete job either time.

    If that's the case, definitely drain the oil pan and change the filter, and put some quality stuff in there - as well as getting it on a 5K interval. At least that's my opinion and what I do for my cars.
     
    #6 Danno5060, May 29, 2025 at 12:01 PM
  7. BiomedO1

    BiomedO1 Senior Member

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    Sorry; you seem to be "all over the place".
    Please clarify your procedures and what your actually doing to the car. All this personnel stuff is confusing the matter at hand.
    FWIW; white smoke out the exhaust has nothing to do with oil level - your burning coolant and you should have a noticeable misfire. Since you didn't mention that; or check coolant levels - you should probably take the car to a professional to get it diagnosed properly.

    YMMV...
     
    #7 BiomedO1, May 29, 2025 at 12:12 PM
  8. rjparker

    rjparker Tu Humilde Sirviente

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    This story is hard to believe especially if it was repeated several times.

    Do you now know where the oil drain bolt is on the bottom of the engine?

    You changed your oil filter a couple of times in a row without draining the oil pan, each time adding 4 quarts of oil. Since most of the oil is lower than the filter, you probably drained no more than one quart each time.

    You ended up with 8-12 quarts of oil in the engine for a period of 10k or more miles.

    Most likely the oil was flowing through the pcv valve into the intake and burning causing the white smoke. If you are lucky.

    I would be surprised if you have not blown some seals such as the form a gasket on the timing chain cover which might then dump oil on the hot engine and catalytic converter. Hopefully not.

    @Grit This has to be a new one for the files
     

    Attached Files:

    #8 rjparker, May 29, 2025 at 12:55 PM
    Last edited: May 29, 2025 at 1:19 PM
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