CEL P000B code, Dealer says car was running with almost no oil
 

So I had a CEL this past Sunday for the P000B code. Only other light that came on was traction loss, although oddly enough my car didnt actually go into limp mode.

Dropped it off at the dealer this morning since I'm still under the 6yr/6k powertrain warranty. Just got a call from them and apparently the CEL was caused by low oil... In his words, my car had no oil in it.

Last oil change was in October 2017 (3000 miles since then), so yes I'm over the recommended 5 month change interval but wtf?

Pretty positive my car does not have an oil leak anywhere. Its a MY2015 with 18k miles on it, bought new back in January 2015. Never been to a track, no FI or other major powertrain mods.

So whats going on?
1. Dealer is exaggerating (tried to sell me $300 "engine flush")
2. I'm an idiot and these cars really do burn through that much oil in 10 months and 3k miles.
3. I have some kinda leak somewhere?

At least for me, these cars burn oil. I can't even make it to 3k miles without having to top it off. It goes from the full mark on the dipstick when fully warmed up to halfway at about 1.5k miles. I don't track, push the car, or rev it past 4k.

You should check the oil level at least twice a month in my opinion. But from the sound of it, there should be some oil so I'm not sure if he's just being hyperbolic by saying no oil.

Ive never had to add oil or noticed any oil level loss with 6 month 10000 km oil changes.


when did you check oil last.


if car had very low then you would likely have had other more serious issues.

Its probably because I do a lot of city driving and bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highways around here :(

I do need to check oil more often but I rarely have the chance since I always keep my car parked at a garage, and most garages are valet parking (including the main one that my car is kept at).

I think I'll just stick with the dealer recommendation of 5 months/5k miles at least until my powertrain warranty runs out.

seems odd for 86/brz to burn that much oil, mine is daily driven in traffic see a bit of track time , doesn't use any noticeable amounts of oil between changes

I'm with steve on this. I do some occasional autox, city driving and some aggressive street driving on back roads. Have never had an issue with oil loss, and it wasn't even noticeable on my dipstick. I've also been running e85 on and off since 2015 which is particularly hard on oil.

Dare I say Butterballz and pandaspur you both have another underlying oil loss issue. The manual states: "If your vehicle consumes more than 1.0 qt. (1.0 L, 0.9 Imp. qt.) every 600 miles (1000 km), contact your SUBARU dealer." Even at that recommendation I would halve that amount and still say it's bad. I'd have them do compression testing and leak down testing if possible. Having a car losing oil while still under warranty would make me raise hell with the dealer, that's unacceptable. Especially if it's burning it, in which case it's going to cause cat problems down the line if you still run them.

Since I DIY'd the oil change back in October, I decided to wait until I go back to the dealer for my next oil change. If I go back in January and they notice the oil is far too low, then I can tell them to check for an oil issue. If I told them now they'd probably just blame me for my DIY oil change.

@PandaSPUR It's a known issue with the engines. You can just look up cam issues (P000A/B/C etc) on the forums. The final solution will be replacing the cam sprocket. They said the same thing to me about being "low on oil" but I'm pretty sure that was a bullshit excuse because I literally checked before bringing it in.

It's an annoying issue because it comes and goes. They have to "follow procedure" and troubleshoot the issue by going through a list of things first before finally replacing the cam sprocket. I had to badger them endlessly about it until I mentioned lemon lawing the car before they finally decided to just fix it. This issue has been reported numerous times already. If they're giving you a hard time I suggest contacting corporate to speed up the process.

Oh boy... well, i guess I'll find out when that CEL comes back on.

Keep your receipts and proof that they did the most recent oil change, and I'm not condoning this but, from now on get them to do the oil changes so theres a paper trail for the cam sprocket issue

Yes, this is a common annoyance when you bring any TSBs to toyota techs attentions. The policy of most of the dealers is to just go through diagnosing and wasting time before they even consult a TSB issue.

Yep thats my plan now. They said 5 months or 5k miles, so I'll stick with that. Bout two changes per year, $120 per year, not too bad.

My '13 is still under the Toyota Certified Used Car warranty or whatever, and I take it to the dealership for oil changes and maintenance, even though I do the vast majority of my own work on my other cars (all out of warranty). I can't do an oil change for a whole lot less dough (buy 6 quarts of good synthetic oil, a filter, and crushwasher, then drive someplace to recycle the old oil, plus an hour of time) than the dealership charges, the dealership gets to see the car regularly and knows I take good care of it, paper trail is created, I've told them that I bring it to them so that there's never a question in the event of a warranty issue, they take extra good care of the car because they don't WANT a a warranty issue... it's a win win win win win. Not sure why anyone would choose to do their own oil changes on a car still under warranty, especially considering the relatively reasonable price a dealership charges for that service.

Diff/brake/MT oil service.. those are all overpriced, but still not so much so that it offsets the possible gain in ease-of-warranty-claim should the situation arise.
Once the warranty runs out in 2019 or 100K, this car will be taken care of by yours truly (or local excellent independent shop if I get in over my head) like all my others.

As far as losing oil between changes, my level hasn't varied at all, ever, and I'm at about 75K miles now, I think. As other have suggested, SOMETHING is not right with your vehicle. Keep a very close watch on your oil level; check it each time you drive.. only takes a sec.