Low oil pressure...Mixing engine oils?

SONIC710

Hello everyone!

So my little story is, I just bought a 08 Toyota Auris 1.6 vvti SR yesterday.
We checked the service book, all of them was at Toyota except the last one almost 2 years ago and 9000 miles ago (when I think the last owner, this seller bought it).
So it is due to service now which is fine.

I bought the car, drove back home, everything was okay and smooth it was a 2 hours drive. I bought all the stuff, engine oil and filters for a service.
Went back to the car as I realized I did not even check the oil lvl. Checked it and saw it is dark and barely hit the low... I am not even sure if it hits the low. Only a few oil spots were on the dipstick. I asked my friend if he checked the oil he said he did not because the car was on uphill, not on a flat surface and he wanted to do it later after the test drive but he forgot.

Anyway, There is no 'low oil pressure' lights ON but it came on for a 2 secs when I had a harder brake.

I decided not to use the car until we do the oil change.
Also bought a STP engine flush from ECP as I want to clean the engine but I am not sure if it is safe because the low oil lvl.

I was thinking about to top up the oil with a different engine oil (as I dont think the seller knows what kind of oil did they use 2 years ago...)to atleast the minimum lvl, pour the STP and running the engine for 10-15 minutes before the oil change.

Would this be a good idea?
Or What would you do?

Thanks for the answers!

Have a great weekend everyone!

chrisw

I wouldn't bother with an oil flush unless it's a last resort to try and clear an obvious sludgeing problem, which is unlikely despite the recent lack of maintenance.

Fresh good quality oil and filter, job done.

Don't forget to go over the other service items such as air filter as well.

angrycrow

If the oil light only came on under heavy braking it sounds like the oil level got very low.

I would give it a full home service, oil, oil filter, plugs, air filter and pollen filter. Not sure how easy it is to do on these but I would also clean out the breather system. Some of the Toyota vti engines were known for very high oil consumption with dealers claiming up to 1l per 1000 being acceptable usage. Just get in the habit of checking every week until you know the cars habits.

Ectophile

So long as you buy the right grade of oil for your car, mixing different brands is not a problem. the owner's manual should tell you what grade you need.


But if the old oil is looking sludgy, it's worth just sticking in almost any oil as a short-term fix to get it up to at least the minimum level on the dipstick.


Then when you do the service, drain the lot and replace with fresh oil.

facade

Just change the oil & filter and not worry about it.


Quite a few of these get run out of oil a couple of times, like Minis, they fit an engine that uses 1 litre of oil per thousand miles, a 3.5 litre sump, set a 12,000 mile service interval and sell it to someone who never lifts the bonnet between services because "modern cars are so reliable".


Then when the oil light comes on they drive to Halfords (with the light on) to buy oil at £20 a litre to top it up....


Do this enough times and the oil light wont go out, so they disconnect it and sell it quick....

oldagetraveller

"We checked the service book, all of them was at Toyota except the last one almost 2 years ago and 9000 miles ago (when I think the last owner, this seller bought it).
So it is due to service now which is fine."


It is well overdue for a service by almost a year.

Toyota's servicing requirements are that it is carried out at 12 months or 10,000 miles, whichever occus first.
This would have been a concern for me if I were buying the car. Plus it is not known what oil, or if it was Toyota's recommended, and filter was used "almost 2 years ago".

facade

Useful comments before purchase, but as the OP now has the car, and it appears to be running fine, just changong the oil & filter, then keeping an eye on the oil level in future is about all that can be done.


You have no control over what happened to a car before you bought it, so it isn't worth worrying about after.



There is no "magic fluid" that can undo any damage done by lack of servicing, these are fairly good little engines (apart from the oil consumption) it will likely be fine for many years as long as it is kept supplied with clean oil.


I've known a couple of 1 litre Yaris's that did 30 to 40 thousand miles on the original oil with no apparent ill effects.

sevenhills

SONIC710 wrote: »

Anyway, There is no 'low oil pressure' lights ON but it came on for a 2 secs when I had a harder brake.

Braking harder should not affect the oil pressure, maybe you were mistaken?
I like to have clean oil, I just use the cheapest of the correct speck, if its not clean, change it again.

facade

sevenhills wrote: »

Braking harder should not affect the oil pressure, maybe you were mistaken?
I like to have clean oil, I just use the cheapest of the correct speck, if its not clean, change it again.

When the oil is really low, braking moves the oil to the front of the sump, and the pick-up pipe comes out of the oil, leading to low pressure for a short time.
As the engine is off load, and likely running slowly, this short disturbance is unlikely to cause any significant harm, but it is not recommended obviously

SONIC710

I have found ~1.5 liters of Shell 5w30 fully synthetic oil. Marked the container as I wanted to check how much oil I need to reach the minimum lvl on the dipstick...guess what.. I almost needed ALL...:eek: which is scary as F :mad:
Checked the book.. this engine needs 4.2 liters with filter, 3.9 without filter..
As I have searched I found that the difference of Min and Max on the dipstick is ~1 liter.
If I am right This means Max is 4.2 liter
Min level is around 3.2 liter... I put in ~1.3 liter to reach Min so it means the engine had around 1.8-2 liter of oil.... am I right?
If yes, how its the warning light did not came on?
The engine was very smooth and sound nice..

Can't wait change the oil so we gonna see how much oil it had actually..

SONIC710

Btw this car has 66000 miles only...too bad the last owner did not care about it..