Having a car is vital, we generally need it to get to our job and for most of our daily trips. This vital part of our annual budget commonly causes us complications, being conscious of oil leaking on your car is one of them… Indeed, an oil leak is not often harmless and can quickly lead to the breakage of your engine if you don’t notice it. If you are conscious of oil leaking on your Toyota 4Runner, you have come to the right page, we will first assist you to uncover the origin of the oil leak and, additionally, we will help you to repair it, whenever possible.

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Identifying the origin of the oil leaking on your Toyota 4Runner

If you find fluid leaking from under your Toyota 4Runner, the first right move is to check all of your levels (power steering, engine oil, brake fluid, coolant) to discover if any of them can promptly be identified as the origin of the leak. To limit the risks, it is really required to check your levels every 2 weeks to avoid any risk of engine breakage.
In our case we will only be focused on case you notice oil leaking from your Toyota 4Runner, as far as engine oil is concerned, the liquid will be quite viscous and in shades of brown to black and if it is gearbox oil, it will be rather in amber tones and will have a strong unpleasant smell.
It’s not constantly easy to uncover the origin of the oil that leaks on a Toyota 4Runner because of the accessibility of the engine block, however here are the steps to follow to uncover the source of the oil:

  • Uncover the point where the oil falls, the region from which it spills onto the floor…
  • Track down the route of the dripping oil to its source, if the blot is too big, don’t be reluctant to clean the engine block and drive to have the ability to discover it easier.
  • That may help you, here is a list of the parts that mostly cause oil to leak from a car: the drain plug and its seal; one of your crankcase gaskets; the oil pressure switch; the oil filter; the transmission drain plug; the transmission sealing rings.

When possible, repair the part that generated the oil to leak on your Toyota 4Runner.

Now that you’ve discovered the origin of the oil leaking, it’s time to get down to business. Of course, for a while, you’ll be able to add more oil to top up the level, depending on its severity, but bear in mind that this is not a durable solution and that the leak could become worse at every time. We are going to demonstrate you the repairs that we think you can carry out on your own with some knowledge, tools and depending to the accessibility that you are going to have on your engine. In any case, you should know that after repairing an oil leak on a Toyota 4Runner, you will have to swap your engine or gearbox oil.

Oil leakage from the drain plug and its seal on Toyota 4Runner

In this scenario, the process is quite simple, you just have to lift your Toyota 4Runner, whenever possible perfectly horizontal, remove your drain plug, drain your engine oil, swap your drain gasket, tighten the plug to the appropriate torque and check the hot engine to make sure the leak has been fixed.

Oil leaking over from the oil filter of my Toyota 4Runner

In case that your oil leak comes from your oil filter, you will just need to replace it. To accomplish this, take a filter wrench, remove the old filter, being certain that the gasket does not stick to the engine, set the new filter and tighten it moderately. Same check, hot check if oil is leaking from your Toyota 4Runner.

Oil leaking from the pressure switch of my Toyota 4Runner

To finish , if it is your pressure switch that is the trigger of your leak on your Toyota 4Runner, you can, according to its ease of access, reach it and swap it quickly. To make this happen, place a drain tray under the part, disconnect the electrical wire, remove the part, quickly reposition the replacement pressure switch, clean the whole thing and do a hot test to validate that you no longer have any oil leaking from your Toyota 4Runner.

For any other type of leak, we advise you to go to your auto technician because the repair necessitates too much expertise and tools to be done serenely alone.

If you want more guides on the Toyota 4Runner, go to our Toyota 4Runner category.