drained oil filter, not main oil tank

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.

 

So are you going to flush out the oil by removing the oil filter?

 

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:

 

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.

 

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...

 

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

 

Some folks should not work on cars.

 

don't you check the dipstick when finished?

 

The confusion on our end started with the above description of sequence of events.

I might have said "all I did for the last three 10k mile oil changes was replace the filter and add 4 quarts of oil. I ended up burning white smoke so I drained it and found 11 quarts in there."

So it sounds like you dodged a bullet assuming no more smoke. Actually it appears you are not even burning oil in the traditional way.

 

Just doing a bit of extrapolation, looks like (very) roughly 2.6 (US) quart overfill:

 

You're using terminology that's a head scratcher. The preponderance of the oil is in the oil pan, aka oil sump. It's got the drain bolt on the underside back corner.

Then there's the oil filter. There's not really any "reservoir" there. When you remove the filter about a cup, at most, spills out.

 

He said he drained 11 quarts.

 

Just going by the dipstick pic, and assuming nothing's been drained and it's a good reading, on level ground: If oil was at dipstick top mark he'd theoretically drain 4.5 US quarts. That dipstick is indicating roughly 2.5 quart overfill, so say 7 quarts drain.

Whatever, it is gross overfill.

 

I think the dipstick is not intended for a 7 qt overfill. Obviously there is more room in the upper oil pan than in the calibrated lower section.

 

Yeah was thinking about that too.

 

"I did not drain the main tank."
There is NO such thing on a Prius, or car.

You've not been very clear on just what you have been doing.

You have a drain plug on the engine oil pan. That's where you drain the engine oil.
Then you have the oil filter housing, where the oil filter is.
They are close to each other underneath the car.
You can remove the oil filter housing and let that drain while you are letting the
engine oil drain.
Then you can replace the filter and "O" ring, and install a new TOYOTA filter, and
reinstall the housing.
Then replace the drain plug seal and reinstall the plug.
Then fill the engine with 4.5qts of synthetic 0W20 oil.
Start the car and let the engine kick on and let it run until it shuts off. Wait a minute then
check the oil level....

You should do this every 5000 miles......