First DIY oil change - did I just make a HUGE mistake?

Congratulations on doing your first oil change.

Is your worry that the magnet will unstick itself? And then what?

Unless the magnet you chose was extremely weak, I would stop worrying.

 

Wait, you stuck a magnet INSIDE the oil drain hole? I've never heard of that! How did you find one small enough?

No, it will be fine...just get it out of there when you do the next oil change! (Every 6-months, 5,000 miles!)

And great job learning to do it yourself....pretty soon, we'll be walking you through how to do a transmission drain and fill which isn't much harder, actually....getting the fluid into the fill hole is usually the hardest part but we have tricks.

 

You probably will not get it out of there just thru drain . It will stick to the pan everywhere if it gets off bottom of plug it'll just be stuck to pan . Won't hurt a thing .at not get it out with out pulling pan . Auto trans have them stuck to pan bottoms all time for 60 years .

 

No worries at all. The oil pan plug is steel. The lower oil pan is steel. A flat round low profile magnet is very unlikely to come loose from the plug, but if it does, it will stick to the oil pan, which is waaaayyyyyy lower than any rotating parts in the engine. The upper portion of the pan is cast aluminum. The magnet won't go there. Next time you change the oil, if you're feeling spry, clean the plug really well and epoxy or JB Weld the magnet to the plug.

 

Just playing devils advocate here. You know the dealership is suppose to be doing a multi-point inspection when they're in there - NOT just an oil change. You should also look into what else needs to be done while the car is up on the 'rack'. Your car's maintenance manual is a good place to start. IMHO; Catching things before they break is a lot cheaper than dealing with the aftermath.

Just my 2-cents.....

 

You should be fine, that magnet will very likely be right where you left it. That's on the end of the drain bolt? If it did somehow dislodge, it won't get far.

Here's the oil change instruction from Gen 2 Repair Manual:

 

Good luck with that! I do not even trust my local dealer to do a proper inspection after they lied on my forst 2017 Prius inspection & tire rotation. the values they hand wrote for tire pressures were less than the required pressure. They did not change the tire pressures at all. They also were supposed to inspect the 12V battery under the hood but did not because "Prius is different". At that time the Prius 12V battery had been under the hood for over a year!

 

Honda is one company whose owners manuals have always included oil and transmission fluid change instruction. Toyota doesn’t, keeps it behind a paywall. Ditto for other things, wiper replacement for instance.

anyway, I’ll pm you a link.

 

All generations can be found in the ways described here:

Toyota Service Information and Where To Find It | PriusChat

The page describes both direct access via Toyota, for money, as well as other avenues that can be free depending on your situation.

 

And then you have Tesla who doesn't share much repair information for that extra-complicated cooling system and traction engines with anybody. (They've been sued many times.)