My sister came over Friday so I could check her oil. I have to check every 1,000 miles or so because it has a long history of burning and a little leaking (Honda K24). She can barely be bothered to even bring it to me for 5 minutes, much less check it herself. She pulls it into my garage and proceeds to tell me how she started her car on her lunch and noticed her oil light was flashing, and thought nothing of it because she was coming over later that day anyway
(oh boy, I'm worried). She then proceeded to drive to two different places, then returned to work and ran the car until her lunch break was over (now I'm cringing). When she left, she said the light didn't return. She drove about 20 miles to my house (now I'm just scared). So I immediately raise the hood and check the level. Bone dry. So I added a quart of oil for insurance, set my ramps up, started it and quickly drove it up and shut it off. I proceed to crawl under, and there's oil everywhere. There was previously a tiny leak coming from between the motor and trans (main?), but nothing remotely close to this. The entire underside was soaked in fresh oil. The passenger control arm was soaked completely. The inner sidewall of the RF tire was soaked too. Long story short, it appears to have come from the oil filter. It started there and flowed every direction gravity/wind could pull it. It even appeared to defy gravity a bit by spattering/spraying upward, but it definitely wasn't leaking from above.
So I instantly started blaming myself. Did I double gasket it? Did I not tighten it enough? Well, instead of just changing the filter, she opted to do a full change. So I was able to find out. No, and no. Perfectly tight (aka not gorilla lube-tech tight), and one gasket. So that's out. And I know what's going to be asked, so what "perfectly tight" means is spinning it on until it touches and stops, then usually one full turn which is about as tight as I can turn it without really straining. Sometimes it'll only go 7/8 or 3/4 of a turn, but never less than 3/4. Surprisingly, I actually had to get out the band wrench to get it off, so yes, it was plenty tight. There was no damage on the outside of the filter, and once removed, nothing obvious inside either. Gasket did not look pinched/warped/bloated. Just nothing. Looked like new.
Surprisingly, roughly 3 quarts drained out of the sump (so it retained 2 out of 4.5, plus the quart I added). That was a sigh of relief. Looked like 1500 mile oil should in a HM engine, no metal flakes.
As for the details, it's an 07 Accord 2.4, 214K. Oil filter was installed 9/17 and had about 1,500 miles on it. Oil was Mobil Super HM 5W-20. With that mileage, of course it sees plenty of highway driving (>80%), but it does get idled frequently too. Unfortunately, it's also at the mercy of a lead-foot owner. Temperature this last week has been fairly nice, roughly 60-80°, with the exception of record cold on Thursday and Friday mornings (35 & 32°). But by the time her lunch came around it was in the 60s.
What could have gone wrong? I understand literally anything man-made can fail, but I have a hard time believing a WIX would. And if it looks perfectly fine, how did it fail? My theories: the gasket itself somehow leaked (highly doubt it), the bypass valve somehow failed and allowed too much pressure (maybe), or [wildcard] the oil pump went ballistic and forced too much pressure through it (maybe...?). I really don't know. I'm really weirded out at the problem disappearing on her drive home.
I'm at a loss, but I am definitely cracking this filter open for answers, and will keep this thread updated. What do the BITOG gods have to say? Pics below. My S9 camera makes the underside of the car look WAY cleaner than it actually was...
So I instantly started blaming myself. Did I double gasket it? Did I not tighten it enough? Well, instead of just changing the filter, she opted to do a full change. So I was able to find out. No, and no. Perfectly tight (aka not gorilla lube-tech tight), and one gasket. So that's out. And I know what's going to be asked, so what "perfectly tight" means is spinning it on until it touches and stops, then usually one full turn which is about as tight as I can turn it without really straining. Sometimes it'll only go 7/8 or 3/4 of a turn, but never less than 3/4. Surprisingly, I actually had to get out the band wrench to get it off, so yes, it was plenty tight. There was no damage on the outside of the filter, and once removed, nothing obvious inside either. Gasket did not look pinched/warped/bloated. Just nothing. Looked like new.
Surprisingly, roughly 3 quarts drained out of the sump (so it retained 2 out of 4.5, plus the quart I added). That was a sigh of relief. Looked like 1500 mile oil should in a HM engine, no metal flakes.
As for the details, it's an 07 Accord 2.4, 214K. Oil filter was installed 9/17 and had about 1,500 miles on it. Oil was Mobil Super HM 5W-20. With that mileage, of course it sees plenty of highway driving (>80%), but it does get idled frequently too. Unfortunately, it's also at the mercy of a lead-foot owner. Temperature this last week has been fairly nice, roughly 60-80°, with the exception of record cold on Thursday and Friday mornings (35 & 32°). But by the time her lunch came around it was in the 60s.
What could have gone wrong? I understand literally anything man-made can fail, but I have a hard time believing a WIX would. And if it looks perfectly fine, how did it fail? My theories: the gasket itself somehow leaked (highly doubt it), the bypass valve somehow failed and allowed too much pressure (maybe), or [wildcard] the oil pump went ballistic and forced too much pressure through it (maybe...?). I really don't know. I'm really weirded out at the problem disappearing on her drive home.
I'm at a loss, but I am definitely cracking this filter open for answers, and will keep this thread updated. What do the BITOG gods have to say? Pics below. My S9 camera makes the underside of the car look WAY cleaner than it actually was...