Longevity

Hi all, I’m new to this forum and so glad I came across this since I have a Tundra, which has been mostly good to me. However, there was this one time a couple of months ago when I drove the truck with low oil for a few days (had a lower oil pan leak which I didn’t notice at first until I started smelling burning oil and after checking the dipstick which was reading on the low side). I ran the truck 3 days with low oil but it was only for 14 miles since I had to work and my schedule was tight. I finally bought some oil that 3rd day. I never heard any noises or had an issue with the oil pressure (it was still reading normal and fluctuating with acceleration). I took it to the dealer the day after and they had to reseal the oil pan and apply that FIPG stuff. No more oil leaks since then. The service technician told me that it was low but not enough to cause any serious damage (I hope this is true)

Now that I have over 230K miles on my truck I worry about the engine life since I ran it low on oil that time. I always wonder if my engine will suffer effects in the long run. Every day I just think about what could have happened to my engine if I didn’t notice this oil leak sooner. What is you guys opinion on this?

 

How many quarts low? My work van will usually get 4qts low before I add or check level.

 

I had to add 2 quarts for it to read at the full mark.

 

You should be fine

 

Yeah, you're fine. Welcome from LA (Lower Alabama)!

 

You're fine. Welcome to the first day of your next 230,000 miles. Turn up the Zeppelin and hit the open road.

 

Which album?

 

Your truck still maintained normal oil pressure and no warning lights came on, so you should be good. Everything that needed lube was still getting it. So, as others mentioned, there should not be any significant additional wear from running it low for that short of a time.

And welcome to the forum!

 

+1 the oil level is just to make sure that the oil pump is able to maintain pressure between oil changes, as oil sloshes around, as the engine burns it when it gets older (or not older... I've had German automakers tell friends with cars under 10k miles that it's not a warranty issue until it burns more than 1 qt per 1000 miles). If you never had a loss of oil pressure, don't give it a second thought.

 

230k miles and your worried. C'mon man. It's a Toyota. Daam Toyota engineers probably run the engine 50x on low oil to see what the engine would do. And fixed the issue. I think you'll do just fine. It'll not at all shock us that you're at 350k and come back and say it was just you over thinking it.

 

II, IV or Houses of the Holy!

 

Nice user name