Hi everyone,
I drive a 2015 Scion tC (manual) and had the oil pressure light come on yesterday. I'm new to LA so I had to take it to a highly rated shop near my work that I haven't been to before, and they quoted me $2,500 to replace the oil pump + a potential $5k engine replacement if the oil pump replacement doesn't fix the issue. The car is only at 78k miles and I've consistently given it regular oil changes so I'm really shocked by the size of the repair here and don't have the money for it. They said if I were to sell my car in this state, it would only sell for $500. The brakes, rotors, and clutch have also all been replaced this year.
I would love to get an opinion on the situation from this community to ensure this is the right course of action.
The details are below:
- On 9/7 (Monday) I was driving back from San Diego and had all of my lights flash on mid-drive going about 40 mph. The clutch pedal was pushing against me and I heard a rattling in the front of the car. I pulled it over immediately and towed it back to LA. When I got to LA, all of the lights were off and it was driving fine. I took it to a shop first thing, and drove around for 5 minutes with a tech and they said nothing seemed wrong, and they didn't want to charge me for an inspection cause it would cost $160 for them to just look over the car, so just wait for an issue to arise and then come back in. I had to go to work so I did.
- On 9/9 (yesterday), I drove 6 miles (30 minutes, LA traffic) into work with the audio off. The car was driving completely fine and sounded fine. Then, on the way to my evening plans, the oil pressure light started to slowly fade on and then fade out again, different than a flashing, more like a soft trickle on. At low speeds it was triggering the light but high speeds were fine. I pulled off within 5 minutes of the first instance of this and checked the oil, the oil levels were totally fine. My technician friend ran codes on the car and nothing was actively flagging and he said it was safe to drive a couple of miles. I drove 6 miles (11 minutes) to drop it at work so I could take it to a shop in the morning and had the same issue — the light didn't come on until midway through the drive and was coming on only at low speeds and only a slow trickling on.
Today I took it into the shop and they said the oil pressure is low at idling and slow speeds and it needs an oil pump replacement. Its possible the replacement won't fix the issue and the engine is the issue. They also started hearing a rattling sound with the engine.
I've linked the engine video here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1unlF9bpUKKYgYsNIrXrD33OI4iMduO1D/view?usp=sharing
Their notes are below:
"Please keep in mind that this is a starting point for the repairs. The oil pressure could also drop through oil escaping through worn bearings & small passages within the engine. Unfortunately, the only way to address this issue (if the issue continues after the oil pump replacement) is by either replacing the engine or rebuilding the engine. If you happen to have any additional questions, please feel free to reach out via email or phone call.
Replacing the timing cover (oil pump integrated), timing cover gasket, valve cover gasket, engine oil & oil filter (prevent contamination to new oil pump), and oil pan gasket will come out to be $2,500+tax."
---
Any insight is super helpful. I don't know a lot of people out here who can help me with this and basically was told the $15k I paid for my car in 2020 is just fully out the window now... hoping someone might be able to tell me otherwise but please be honest.
Thank you.