Fumoto -- Disaster Averted -- Barely

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Well, I had been considering trying the Fumoto for a number of years, and decided to try them out. In my usual manner, I went overboard, ordering one for each of the three cars in our stable (my 04 Prius, wife's 07 Avalon, son's 87 Cadillac). The Cad came up first, and the one for it is happily installed and doing just fine after about a month.

Not so for mine. This weekend, I installed the one for the Prius, and filled her up with fresh green and LC. I had looked the valve over very carefully, and even tested the "action" several times and all seemed fine.

Appearances can be deceiving.

The next morning, I was in a hurry to leave and backed out of the garage without paying much attention. Thankfully and ironically, my wife (who generally pays as much attention to cars as Liberace did to pretty women...) calls out to me, "hey, what's that stuff under your car?"

Oil! Lots of it!! Over ~15 hours, the car had bled out roughly 3/4 of a quart of oil -- what a mess!!!

At that point, after almost dropping on in my shorts, I aborted the trip, and put the car up on the ramps. Upon very close inspection, the valve was leaking from the drain opening, despite the lever being fully and properly seated in the "closed" position. I checked very closely, with flashlight and reading glasses on, and it was not leaking from around the washer, it was 100% clearly from the opening.

Well, at that point, I got the drain pan, removed the Fumoto, and reinstalled the traditional plug.

Sadly, my confidence in the product is shattered. I've seem many positive comments on this product, but no reports of problems. Anyone else out there have a problem with this product (or perhaps SureDrain)?
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EKPolk, I've seen similarly designed quick drain valves leak on other equipment, though it's been some time ago. Consequently, I decided against installing such valves on our vehicles years ago when Fumoto and SureDrain became available for cars. It's a pain to wrench the oil drain plug off and back on every time, but it beats worrying about a quick drain valve failure.
 
When you put the factory 14mm drain plug back in with a fresh gasket you never have to worry if it is going to fail or leak-ever. Thats worth more to me than the perceived ease of a valve. I guess a valve would be helpful if you did sample testing alot but how hard is it to remove a 14mm plug(especially on a Prius). Alot of people use the Fumoto without any problems but I have seen several Fram valves that would have a drip on them when they came in for service.
 
Alas, no photos. At the moment, I'm about to reopen my law practice (after four years recalled back to active duty in the Marines), my parents are about to visit, my son is about to grad from HS, I had 15 bales of pine straw to spread around the house and garden, I had to strip paint from the front porch and back door, and about a dozen lesser things to get done yesterday. You get the idea. Taking photos of the drain plug, vice just swapping it, wasn't going to cut it, especially with my wife already out there sweating too. You had to be there.

The puddle was distorted, as there's already a liberal pile of Quick Dry on the garage floor. The 87 Cadillac occupies that space during the week when I'm gone, and it leaks a fair amount. The puddle stretched from the R front tire, to the left well into the Quick Dry, and was probably a good 18 inches front to rear, maybe a tad more.
 
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Consequently, I decided against installing such valves on our vehicles years ago when Fumoto and SureDrain became available for cars.



Well, the Sure Drain is pretty fail safe. Even if the simple spring operated valve failed, there is a sealed dust cover to prevent a major problem. However, since they are no longer in production, they are not really an option anymore. I got 1.5 years of completely trouble free use out of mine, until I lost the fitting to open it. I had no option but to go back to a factory style drain plug. I do not have a real problem with that, except that a few years ago a careless "lube tech" decided my drain plug needed to be torqued down to 100 ft. lbs. and damaged the threads in the pan. The threads have since been chased, but to avoid having to replace the oil pan, I always torque the drain plug to factory spec to keep the weakened threads from being damaged more.
 
I've never had any trouble with the Fram Suredrains on my cars either. Even though they aren't in production, there are tons of them on ebay. I just bought one for a friend's car ($3.95).
 
Curious if the manufacturer would have paid for a new engine if the leak hadn't been noticed and you continued driving until the oil was really low or gone and your engine screamed in agony, gasping in pain, then dying right there in front of you (behind if driving a rear engine vehicle).
 
and the ole' dummy here continues to use the factory plugs on everything. Never had a problem with one of them and find them to be a "no hassle" issue as well.
 
BTW, long ago, I had a Civic (an 88, owned from 88-98) on which the repetitive cycling of the plug, and surely an over-torque or two, caused the pan threads to fatigue and crack. Fortunately, I caught this problem well before it became a catastrophy. It was one of the reasons I decided to try the valve.

My intent here, of course, is not to trash the Fumoto product. For those that got good ones, great. I'd be careful to check installed valves carefully and frequently for problems.
 
A lot depends on whether your valve was defective from the factory or there is an inherent design flaw that could affect any Fumoto at any time. If it is a factory defect, then I'd be confident that a valve which has been put into use and does not leak, is going to be good for the long run. Let us know what the Fumoto folks have to say about it (as I assume you will be contacting them soon about this).
 
Sorry to hear that. Honestly ekpolk, I think you just have a faulty one. I had one on my Toyota for at least 60k miles. Never a problem. They are made really well and have OEM approval from several manufactueres. I have one on the Accord now. No problems.
 
I still have mine in the packaging for the last two years now only because im still debating to install it or not. At least you saved your engine.
 
No quick valves here either. Drainplugs are too easy to use. Suredrain/Fumoto/... just add another point of failure. My vehicles come with too many OEM equipped point of failures already.

Gotta run. Time to make a trip to the mall and open up every Fumoto I find in the parking lot
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Sorry to hear that. Honestly ekpolk, I think you just have a faulty one. I had one on my Toyota for at least 60k miles. Never a problem. They are made really well and have OEM approval from several manufactueres. I have one on the Accord now. No problems.




I agree. The machining of the metal and the assembly quality look great, and from all the reports I've heard from others, I very much doubt that my experience is a result of an inherent flaw. That said, we're all human and subject to our emotions, one of which would be fear. Once something like this happens, even though I rationally assume that Fumoto's defect rate is very low, I'm not going to be able to reinstall with any degree of comfort. Oh well. . . Again, I'm not trying to trash Fumoto or its product, I'm just encouraging users to be cautious, as they should with any product that has a potential for spectacular failure.
 
Imagine if that happened while crossing the Arizona desert or something! No thanks. How hard is it to remove a drain plug? I can get my hand out of the oil stream quick enough to only get a slight splash of oil on my hand. No biggy. That's what this is made for:
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Well, maybe the oil drain plug could fail. This is the first Fumoto we heard about with a defect. This is not a failure, but a defect, so if you have a working valve, I would assume it is not likely to fail. You probably have a higher chance of blowing a radiator hose in the desert than the valve failing. I am sold on valves for several reasons:

Never strip a plug again.
Never drop plug in pan of hot oil.
I have firmly tightened plugs and at change time found them relatively loose.
Easy to drain off an overfill or grab a sample.
No wrench needed.
 
I've been using one on Hyundais for quite awhile, EK. Elantra/AccentGT, Fumoto F106. Only trouble I ever had with mine was the lever came loose from the valve itself, but it never leaked. I went ahead and changed the oil, putting the old drain plug back in, figuring I'd send it back. Sent them an email, they asked NO questions, sent me one second day(they said), but it arrived before noon next day. They didn't want the old one back to see, either. The new one's been in service for nearly a year and a half with no troubles. I do extended drains, but this thing is SUCH a pain to get under, the Fumoto makes it much nicer..

Email em, let us know how they treat you. The service they extended to mine was superlative.
 
To have a leak that bad and right after installation, I'd suspect an assembly error at the factory. Certainly something Fumoto's QC department should have caught. It would be interesting to examine the faulty valve to determine exactly where and why the leak occurred.

Over the last 10 years I've used a half dozen Fumotos on various vehicles, traveling several hundred thousand miles, and I've never noticed as much as a single drop of oil leaking from one.
I consider them to be super reliable.....
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