Help needed: missing oil filter and dead 2009 Toyota Matrix

Maintenance/Repairs
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21

@mgwcny
Exactly where on your husband’s trip to the daycare did the warning lights come on? Was it before or after he reached the daycare location? I think you stated that part of the trip is at 50 mph, the remainder 35 mph (perhaps with occasional stops?). If it died after the daycare, then what were the driving and road conditions there? Did he leave the engine running while taking your child inside perhaps? I presume that you’ve examined the area at the daycare site, but it’s possible that if the filter came off right there, a maintenance person may have picked up and discarded the filter. There may be some clues based upon high speed vs stop and go and what affect that would have on oil being deposited on the underside of the car. Was there any place on the route with a severe bump, maybe a parking lot speed bump, which he might have hit hard enough to finally knock off the loose filter?

I’m inclined to agree with most of what @TwinTurbo wrote, especially that it’s going to be hard to assign blame to the shop which did the oil change simply based on the long time since that oil change occurred. If you can’t find signs of a gallon of oil that poured out somewhere in one spot, and if there’s very little oil on the underside of the car, one really has to wonder where all that oil went.

It seems likely that the filter, and then the oil, disappeared on that one last trip. But if the filter had been loose the night before, you would see oil, even if only drops, on your garage floor. Since you don’t have that sign, that makes me think the damaged threads from overtightening filter caused it to drop off abruptly that morning, and oil residue ought to be visible just before where the engine seized. That should narrow your search, though I’m sure you already understand that and have searched the area. And how fast was the car moving at that point? If 50 mph, I would think the undercarriage would tell the tale. To get a sense of what happens to a liquid in a 50mph wind, drive at that speed with some kind of liquid in a container (liquid soap for example) which you can squeeze to expel the liquid. Open the window, squirt the liquid, and watch where it goes. The air currents under the car are different, but the principle is the same.

Either way, you need an engine, and a donor vehicle or one being parted out makes more sense I think than a brand new engine or a junkyard engine which is not running.

22

I think I know what happen to the filter. It was sill on the car when it was towed. Most likely on on the subframe. If its not sill there covered in oil and hard to see. Then it fell off the tow truck.

23

I don’t think this happened all at once. This oil filter had probably been leaking for some time, that is why you won’t find a big puddle of oil anywhere. If you see any oil drops on your garage floor, it had a slow leak.

You can loose the majority of your oil and not show any symptoms. The oil could have been lost over a period of hundreds or even thousands of miles. As long as there is enough oil in the pan to cover the pickup tube, the pump will suck up the oil and you will have oil pressure. As long as you have oil pressure, you will not have an oil light. You could be down to your last half quart in the oil pump and still no light and the engine will still run good.

I can also see someone driving for a while with an oil light on and not notice it, especially during daylight. Manufacturers should add the oil pressure to the chime that rings when you leave your lights on or open the door with the keys in the ignition. Coolant temperature should be included as well, but thats a subject for another soapbox.

If anyone remembers, Castrol ran an advertisement where they ran an engine that they had drained their Syntec oil out of for several miles in the Mojave desert. I don’t remember all the details but it went for several miles.

The oil filter could have fallen off on the tow truck or even at the dealership when it was moved into the bay for inspection. Who would notice and when someone picked up the filter off the lot, they might not make a connection to your car, just one of many things that get swept up every day.

I don’t think you are going to be able to prove that anyone else is at fault.

Unless someone can find a good used engine from another Matrix, a Vibe or a Corolla and will guarantee it for at least a year, I think your best economic choice would be to replace the engine with a quality remanufactured engine that comes with a good warranty, or a new crate engine from Toyota. Sometimes the crate engines are reasonably priced. BTW, it might be cheaper to get a crate engine from General Motors than for Toyota.

24

the oil filter rests along side with Hoffa. find the man, find your oil filter.

25

I can understand all sides in this mess. My feeling is the oi filter was not tightened properly as the underlying cause, or as a possibility mentioned earlier an extra gasket was somehow involved. Another scenario would be the oil filter manufacturer, the threads and oil filter blew out because of inferior machining or faulty quality control. Can you find the brand of oil filter and see if other cases have been reported?

26

@keith: In initial post, OP says no oil on garage floor, which suggests the filter was tight up until it left the garage that fateful day.

After 4000 miles during which nobody checked the oil, I’m thinking the oil level was severely low before the filter ejected.

27

Re the trip to daycare–he had not made it there yet, he was about halfway there. From our home it’s about a half mile out of the neighborhood, less than half mile on a regular two lane road, then about 4 miles on the road the car broke down on which is a two lane, but country, no marked lane, no shoulder, etc. It is 35 mph the mile or so before where the car stopped, and I know he doesn’t speed through there as it’s a common spot for speed traps. That same road is 55 mph before that. We did drive over the rest of his route to daycare b.c he had driven it the day before, looking for oil spots and none were evident. It did occur to me that if oil were low as WesternRoadTripper suggested, there would not be much oil to lose–no way to know.

I know the mechanic talked to the driver of our tow truck, who said there was no oil on the flatbed. I assume if a filter had been laying there he would have noticed or said something. The Toyota service rep told me there was oil up under the fender wells (think this is the correct terminology?) and said he didn’t know how it got there.

Again, no evidence of an oil leak in our driveway, my workplace, or the garage it was parked in up to and including the morning that this happened.

I don’t know the type of oil filter–I did ask the mechanic and he was evasive–I think b.c he didn’t want me to go buy one and say I found it by the side of the road.

We’re going to go see the car ourselves and take photos and meet with the service rep on Thursday. But he said the Toyota stance at this point is that b.c we had an after market filter on the car, the warranty is voided. I am not sure if this applies to the rest of the warranty on the car, as we were supposed to have bumper to bumper til 100K miles? I need to call Toyota warranty I suppose. Obviously if I had known getting the oil changed outside a Toyota dealer would nullify the warranty I wouldn’t have done it. The reason I did is that the mechanic is walking distance from my work and as I said previously, had worked on my other Corolla for several years. Nearest Toyota dealer is over an hour from my work.

I must say I have no idea whatsoever how to just ‘get’ another engine from another matrix etc, we will have to see what Toyota says, we are not diy car people (should be apparent by now). I have no idea who to use in this area as an alternate mechanic, at this point I don’t really trust anyone!

Again, thanks much for ideas and comments!

28

I do not think this is anything that regular oil check would have solved. The oil filter blew off, .period end. Not Toyota’s responsibility, possibly oil change guy, possibly filter manufacturer. No other possibilities exist.

29

Having an aftermarket oil filter does not void your warranty. Having an aftermarket oil filter that failed and caused damage voids your warranty.

You have no evidence of a failed oil filter, only a missing filter. I would call it “mischief” and call your insurance company.

BTW I have witnessed vehicles that were drived 2-3 miles without oil, you should be looking closer to home for the oil spill.

30

Nevada is correct but one thing you must do is get over the notion that warranty should cover any of this problem.
Warranty is for the repair of any factory defect in materials or workmanship. The fact that some guy down the road used some non-Toyota oil filter and apparently created a problem doing so is not a warrantable issue.

The same thing would apply if your mechanic changed the spark plugs and one blew out later because he had overtightened it and stripped the threads. This would not be a warrantable repair.

Keep it polite and there’s at least a glimmer of hope that Toyota might step in with a Good Will warranty repair. They are under zero obligation to do so and I certainly wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for one but the possibility is there.
This could mean a new engine at half price or something like that and it’s certainly worth a shot and a prayer.

31

Oh hell. Let’s just blame it on Obama. It’s easy and it seems to work for everything else.

32

I have seen a filter blow off in traffic and inspected it and found that the threaded base plate was so thin that there were less than 3 threads and they were sheared. The filter was a house brand for an oil change chain in the region. This happened withing 100 yards of me as I watched from the front of my shop. I sold the driver a new filter and several quarts of oil which he installed, he had stopped immediately. The engine started and ran with no indication of damage and drove away. That incident reinforced my paranoia of poor quality filters.

33

The Toyota rep saying that it was not warrantable because you used an aftermarket filter made a stupid statement. They would not have honored the warrantee even if you had a Toyota filter installed by a toyota dealer.

34

Spin-on self contained filters mount on a threaded pipe about an inch long. It takes several turns before the gasket even touches the base plate and begins to seal…If the filter somehow came lose the base plate seal is broken and high-pressure, high flow rate oil would QUICKLY empty the crankcase with the body of the filter still threaded to the mounting pipe…The lose filter would still be there… If the filter was GONE then it blew off the mounting pipe because it was not the correct filter for the car (there are fifty filters in common use and over a hundred total) or it was defective. How much oil you found on the road would depend on your speed when it came lose…At anything over 35 or 40, the oil would be spread out over a considerable distance and would quickly be absorbed by the road surface and traffic…Finding the filter is not as easy as it sounds…I have lost hubcaps and watched them sail off the road in my rear-view mirror but I have NEVER found any of them…They just disappear in the woods… Since this whole episode is a million to one long-shot, another long-shot is the filter fell off and away while your car was being towed, making it impossible to find…Also, when an engine loses oil pressure and the red lights come on, the engine does not seize up instantly…The distance a car can travel with no oil pressure is about 7 miles, more or less, before the engine just quits…so as you can see, you have a lot of road to search looking for that filter…

Other than yourself, there are two POSSIBLE paths to investigate for repair payment. If you have comprehensive insurance on the car, that might cover it. Also, your Homeowners policy might have some coverage, but that’s a real long-shot, but worth a phone-call…

35

Hi car talk community, here’s an update if anyone is still reading!

Keith is correct, I talked to the Warranty folks the other night and they explained that, if we had it done at a dealership it would not have been covered under warranty either, but the dealership would have taken responsibility for it.

Still no oil filter found. After the inspection by the Toyota regional mgr they said there is oil spray under the car going back from the filter, indicating it sprayed out as the car was driving so however it happened, the oil filter came out on that 5 mile drive somewhere, but nothing else really that would help us. We’ll be making another search for the filter on Saturday, but I’m not too hopeful.

The repair estimate is $5178 to put in a new short block. I am going to call our regular homeowner’s/car insurance tomorrow to find out if there’s any chance they would cover it. A salesperson at the dealership is going to let us know the trade in on the car if we decide not to keep it. We put a decent amount down to keep our payments low, so financing the repair by rolling it into our financing or taking out a 401K loan are our only options and I’m not sure if we can swing that financially with some other home repair costs we’ve had and a new baby. We may have to buy a less expensive used car that is not AWD and gets better gas mileage and try to just pay it off earlier than we would have the Matrix (btw I’d give almost anything to have my old Corolla back now!! it would have gone another 100K miles and was a wonderful car!). We have to get the repair and engine through Toyota (learned that lesson) to have it covered under our existing 100K warranty. If we do pay to repair the Matrix, we’ll file in small claims against the mechanic and even though it would be a toss up or small chance we’d have it ruled in our favor b.c we don’t have the filter, it seems to be the only chance we have to even possibly recoup any of the cost. It’s a minimal time and financial investment for us to try it, as opposed to actual litigation. I’ll be weighing all the options and we’ll make a decision next week, we both work full time and can’t be without a second car, and we both just want to move on. Overall I think we’ve kept a good attitude about being stuck in a bad situation! Thanks so much for everyone’s input and help, I certainly understand a lot more about engine, oil filters, and warranties than I did before this happened!!

36

I would not give up on the guy who last changed the oil. I would also talk to a lawyer at this point. Its not normal to have a oil filter come off. A low mile motor should be able to be found and install for less than a new short block.

37

Some things you also need to consider in regards to this new short block. Since the engine seized and was run seriously out of engine oil other things could be damaged and need to be factored in.
A short block means an engine with no cylinder head and a long block is one in which a new head is in place.

Without knowing how this short block will arrive in the crate, a new timing chain kit should be part of this new engine. The existing cylinder head should be inspected very closely because lack of oil can damage camshafts, cam followers, and so on.

In a nutshell, installing an oil deprived timing chain set or damaged head from your old engine could very easily lead to some major problems either right off the bat or at some point after the vehicle has been handed back to you.

If the car has an automatic transmission then the front pump seal in the transmission should be replaced while the engine is out. If this is not done and the seal leaks a day later this means the engine or transmission has to come back out again; all for a 10 or 15 dollar seal.

Hope some of this helps and good luck. The intent is to try and make sure that you don’t spend over 5 grand and end up with a big headache shortly afterwards.
Oldbodyman also has a good point about possibly finding a low miles engine and going that route.

38

What is the model number of the engine? It’s on a tag under the hood…2AZFE ?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-REMAN-TOYOTA-2-4-LITER-2AZFE-2-4-LITER-ENGINE-2006-2010-/290774165937?hash=item43b37da9b1&item=290774165937&pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&vxp=mtr

This might be a better choice than the dealers short block, even if you lost the extended warranty…

39

Around 8 years ago, my son got a call from his then girl-friend. Her oil light had come on, on her 1998 high mileage Camry. He drove to where she was, and the filter was laying down inside the engine compartment. He put the filter back on and added oil. She started off again, and a block later that filter blew off again. He went to Wal-mart and bought a new filter, put it on, added oil, and no more problems,

He suggested she send the bad filter to the manufacturer, but she probably did not bother.

IMO, it is very rare, but a filter can cause this blow-off.

I wrote about this incident in the past when It was appropriate to the topic, and one of our resident know-it-alls accused me of making it up. I did not make it up. It happened, therefore it can happen, period, end of debate.

40

I think that the OP might want to go back to the shop that did the oil change and try to find out what make oil filter was installed on the vehicle. In fact, the repair order for the oil change should state the model number of the oil filter from which the manufacturer can be ascertained. Knowing this information, the owner could make certain that the correct oil filter was installed on the vehicle.
Also, even though there are charts that show which oil filters interchange among manufacturers, sometimes using a different brand can lead to problems. I had an MTD yard tractor with the hydrostatic drive some years back when I lived in the country. The manual called for a Fram oi filter for the hydrostatic drive. When I went to Quality Farm and Fleet where I bought the yard tractor to pick up a filter, the Fram model I needed wasn’t on the shelf so I substituted the Qualitiy Farm and Fleet house brand that the chart said would interchange. After changing the transmission fluid in the hydrostatic drive and while mowing, suddenly the yard tractor wouldn’t move. It turned out that the house brand filter was slightly longer than the Fram filter and when I raised the deck which was hydraulically operated from the hydrostatic transaxle, the support levers punched a hole in the oil filter. The house brand was slightly longer than the Fram.