For any car in general, what kind of damage are we looking at here?

Let's just say a family member had their oil changed and the person who did it forgot to put the filler cap back on (no this isn't me trying to disguise myself, I have a checklist to prevent that) and drove around for a week allowing oil to shoot out of the filler cap and cover everything under the hood with oil. They heard funny noises under the hood and told us to take a look thinking it was something steering related, it was the valvetrain.

It was "cleaned" under the hood with degreasers but oil got all over everything on one side. This includes some portion of the radiator, dripped down on to the CV boot, the rubber hoses, the belts and pulleys. We're going to clean it again but I'm worried about the lifetime of the rubber parts once they've had oil on them for a week. What can we do here? I plan on spraying degreaser at everything non-electrical, scrubbing it with a brush then hosing it down. For the belt parts we want to take a cloth, put it in soap water or alcohol, turn the car on and "hold" the belt as it spins so it cleans itself, same with the pulleys. Maybe brake cleaner instead.

What can go wrong here? We're worried about the oil having permanently damaged the rubber parts either swelling the CV boot, making the belt brittle and the hoses too. I haven't even checked the caliper. The whole bottom portion is soaked so I have a feeling it may have even hit the rotor somehow. Really wish this didn't happen but it did and now we have to clean it.

Anyone have recommendations on how to proceed? We'd like to not damage this any further, worried the alcohol, brake cleaner or degreaser might damage rubber and I'm not entirely sure what kind of rubber they use. For the belts I can tell EPDM on feel but I think this is the pre-EPDM old style rubber belts.

 

Most all parts on cars are oil resistant. Oil gets in most places eventually. I would clean and monitor.

good luck

 

I'm with Texas there is unlikely to be any long term effects other than an oil smell for a while. I think any cleaner is far more likely to dry out rubber parts than the oil itself.

I'd just wipe with a rag what you can and call it a day.

 

Counterpoint...

I think they're correct about the engine compartment. It's a mess and will be a PITA to clean.

But the real thing is probably running for awhile without sufficient oil in the crankcase. If it was a whole week, there was probably enough time to lose a fair bit of your oil inventory.

I would not bother with the belts. Just replace those. Other rubber parts would probably be best cleaned with something like dish detergent (not dishWASHER). Organic solvents would likely do more damage to the rubber which should ALREADY be oil-resistant.

 

Thanks for the replies guys.



We checked the oil, that's the first thing we did when we noticed because the engine getting dirty is one thing, who cares about that if the engine is dry! But thankfully the oil was half-way down the dipstick from the max mark so not that much oil was lost which was amazing given how much is covering everything.

The reason I'm concerned with cleaning the oil off the belts is I read that the pulleys operate with a very precise amount of pull from the belts and if the belts were slipping not only could the belt overheat and prematurely fail but the pulleys could also be damaged or the accessories driven by the belts may be weak and maybe the alternator wouldn't charge the battery. Sounds like a big headache.

We just had the belts changed so we're trying to avoid that route.

 

I've always sprayed under the hood of both my Accords at the carwash. I try not to spray directly at electrical parts, but I don't cover anything. I will wash the outside, while the engine cools, then pop the hood and go to town on it. I don't even get dirty when I work under the hood. I'd spray the soap on it, then rinse it off.