Carquest Oil Filter Gasket Cut….?

[1 SX]

Bad news for this owner. A few year old Nissan w/ 2.5L engine non turbo. 50-ish K miles.

Customer Complaint: “recently had car serviced but it feels a little different, and this light came on 4 days ago…”

Verified Complaint:
Car indeed does have a check engine light, and does sound different.

Verified engine oil, zero reading on dip stick.. proceed w/ draining the engine oil another bad sign only literal drops of oil came out of the oil pan once the plug removed.
Removing the semi tight oil filter there was oil all over the bottom side of the engine directly from the oil filter area.

Once filter was removed, this was clearly the problem.

Unfortunately this engine is toast


The question, how would this occur? No pre lube of the gasket? Maybe the metal of the oil filter its self cut the gasket, or maybe gasket was off center?
What's your thoughts?

 

[FlyingVan]

Wow, I have never seen this issue before.

How long did this happen after the oil change?

Either manufacturing defect of the gasket or the gasket was not fully seated when the oil filter was installed and the oil filter cut the gasket. I tend to go with the first option though.

 

[Zee09]

I don't know if I'm seeing this clearly on a cellphone but I wonder if the installer cut the plastic baseplate cover off with an exacting knife??

 

[KCJeep]

How does this stuff happen? Do you not notice a puddle of oil under your car? How about the red warning light about low oil?

As for the gasket never seen one like that.

 

[KCJeep]

I don't know if I'm seeing this clearly on a cellphone but I wonder if the installer cut the plastic baseplate cover off with an exacting knife??

It does look cut, not torn. Good observation.

 

[FlyingVan]

How does this stuff happen? Do you not notice a puddle of oil under your car? How about the red warning light about low oil?

As for the gasket never seen one like that.

You would be surprised at the ignorance out there.
A friend lent his car to someone else and one of the coolant hoses busted, it was an older car but good running otherwise. All the coolant was lost and the engine overheated and locked up the engine.
My friend asked, why didn't you stop when you saw the red lights coming on the dash? The response was epic: 'I saw some lights on the dashboard but I thought it needed more gas, so I pressed on the gas more.' I was shaking my head. You can't make this stuff up.

 

[Zee09]

How does this stuff happen? Do you not notice a puddle of oil under your car? How about the red warning light about low oil?

As for the gasket never seen one like that.

Especially if garaged

 

[Sayjac]

Weird indeed. Looks like a P type gasket and makes me wonder if it was overtightened and the metal flange dug/cut (seen) into the sealing gasket, and eventually caused major leak. Or alternately, some rough sharp area on underside of flange holding filter.

I say this because only filter I've ever had leak from sealing gasket, a dealer installed Toyota Thai Denso OEM with P type gasket. It only started to drip though. Thinking not torqued correctly I tried to tighten some, but no improvement. Took it back to dealer and they installed new filter saying something about "recall" on filter. I think that part just bovine excrement. New Toyota Denso filter fixed issue. If over torqued even without cutting gasket, metal on metal can lead to issues, imo.

I'm 'speculating' some installation error involved here.

 

[fantastic]

What's the date on the filter? Sounds almost like oil was never added really. But that cut gasket does look like a potential culprit.

 

[ZeeOSix]

What's the cut(s) look like when the oil is cleaned off the gasket? Looks like a torque stop type gasket design, so it can only be compressed so far. Maybe it wasn't installed properly in the groove at the factory. Another thing to always inspect before installing any filter.