Discovered the Yaris dipstick was totally dry yesterday...

[firebird1999us]

The Yaris is way up their in the mileage... I'm almost 360k. I recently had a check engine code show up for the maf (which I'm about to replace). Around the same I came to a hard stop and saw the oil light flicker - something I had never seen before.

Fearing the two lights were connected I plugged up the blue driver and discovered the check engine was only for a p0101 code which appears to be the MAF. I decided to check the oil out and found the dipstick was totally dry. I usually change at 7500 mile intervals with royal purple 5w30. I've never seen the light before though, the car has no leaks, and isn't smoking.

Because I've recently bought a new car to take over for the Yaris given it's high mileage and the amount of driving I do ever day I was planning on an overhaul soon using a family mechanic - like next week so this is somewhat timely.

I added some 5w30 and it took about 1.5+ quarts to register on the dipstick again. The car behaved fine before and afterwards - but I was fairly alarmed.:eek:

I had the misfortune of using a new shop for the last oil change. Do you guys think they under-filled it?? Could I have burned through that much oil without a giant smoke cloud behind the car??

[Leegamer]

I've experienced the same thing on my wife's pontiac vibe, which has the 1zz. It has about 250k miles and burns through about a quart every 2-3k miles but never smokes.

Always runs fine even when it's a little low. Toyota engines are the best.

[firebird1999us]

I've experienced the same thing on my wife's pontiac vibe, which has the 1zz. It has about 250k miles and burns through about a quart every 2-3k miles but never smokes.

Always runs fine even when it's a little low. Toyota engines are the best.

That's good to know someone else has experiecned this... totally freaked me out. I'd like to continue using the yaris for commuting instead of driving the new car to death right out of the gate.

Anyone ever had an engine rebuilt on one of these?

[CrankyOldMan]

My Echo is almost at 500k km (312k mi) and goes through oil pretty regularly. It doesn't smoke either, but I know the compression isn't great. Definitely considering a rebuild as well but don't know of anyone who has experience with the 1NZ. I think that speaks to the longevity of these little tanks.

[tmontague]

That's good to know someone else has experiecned this... totally freaked me out. I'd like to continue using the yaris for commuting instead of driving the new car to death right out of the gate.

Anyone ever had an engine rebuilt on one of these?

How many miles were on the car since the last oil change? When these engine get up there in mileage they tend to lose oil at varying rates. I check my Vibe every few weeks and typically add half a quart (its gets driven a lot)

That said, if this is something you never noticed before then chances are they under filled the oil at the last pil changed, or st the very least, only filled it to the midway point on the dipstick which isn't correct

[firebird1999us]

How many miles were on the car since the last oil change? When these engine get up there in mileage they tend to lose oil at varying rates. I check my Vibe every few weeks and typically add half a quart (its gets driven a lot)

That said, if this is something you never noticed before then chances are they under filled the oil at the last pil changed, or st the very least, only filled it to the midway point on the dipstick which isn't correct

I usually go 7500 and it's right at 7500. I'll certainly check more frequently now though!

[firebird1999us]

And just to be clear the light never stayed on for any duration of time... just flickered for less than a second twice on two separate hard brakes in around the space of an hour.

[tmontague]

Your engine is likely fine and suffered no damage, good thing you are aware of your fash light.

But yes, definitely check your oil level way more often!

[Leegamer]

At that mileage I'd check it every 2-3k or twice a month at least.

[myfirstyota]

Im so bad for this. I check my oil when I drain it from the oil pan...."yep..looks about 3.7L" lol

[IllusionX]

RoyalPurple comes in quart or 4quarts. I doubt the shop could have missed a qt of oil. That would be pure negligence.

Sent from my CLT-L04 using Tapatalk

[tmontague]

RoyalPurple comes in quart or 4quarts. I doubt the shop could have missed a qt of oil. That would be pure negligence.

Sent from my CLT-L04 using Tapatalk

With that mileage since the oil change, I would agree that it is entirely plausible that it was properly filled and just ran down over time. I was thinking it had only been a few thousand miles since the last oil change and it was already that low with no previous issues

[IllusionX]

Perhaps. I think oil consumption is inevitable with this engine. I'm at 181000km and I start to see my rear bumper black sometimes. I did not get 3.7L out of my last oil change, and my engine gets abused with short trips. :(

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[zoidberg444]

When my engine started using oil i'm not 100% sure if i saw it or not but i thought i saw my oil light flicker for a second while going round a corner to fast. In that case i put over a litre of oil in it. I think that was around 60,000 miles. My car is on 170,000 now. Mine is using about 700ml every 1000 miles. I've never seen any smoke out of mine or any others that burn oil.

You still had about 2 litres of oil in the sump so you probably got away with it.

I do find Toyota engines quite puzzling in that despite their oil burning. I've seen ones that had oil burning issues for hundreds of thousands of miles and the original factory cross hatching is still on the inside of the cylinder. New rings and a clean up and they probably have another couple hundred thousand miles in them.

[firebird1999us]

When my engine started using oil i'm not 100% sure if i saw it or not but i thought i saw my oil light flicker for a second while going round a corner to fast. In that case i put over a litre of oil in it. I think that was around 60,000 miles. My car is on 170,000 now. Mine is using about 700ml every 1000 miles. I've never seen any smoke out of mine or any others that burn oil.

You still had about 2 litres of oil in the sump so you probably got away with it.

I do find Toyota engines quite puzzling in that despite their oil burning. I've seen ones that had oil burning issues for hundreds of thousands of miles and the original factory cross hatching is still on the inside of the cylinder. New rings and a clean up and they probably have another couple hundred thousand miles in them.

I switched to 10w30 for now... car runs fine I'll just be more vigilant about it. I've determined I'm going to drive it as far as I can and replace the engine when things go south - which will hopefully be a long ways off!

Speaking of which I've seen engines with reasonable mileage on ebay for fairly cheap... can anyone suggest a reputable place to buy a new engine from when the time comes? I'm just looking to do a direct replacement not a corolla swap or anything.