Nothing quite like a good ol sight glass.
Audi Q5 doesn't have a dipstick...
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mercedes was the first to do the dipstick delete cap with the 2001 C32 AMG. they also deleted the oil pressure sensor because the engine was so reliable it didn’t need one
unfortunately they still have permanent dipsticks on a few engines
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Not a sight glass.
A gauge.
Far more sophisticated. A float drives a small gear that moves a pointer. the pointer shows the level.
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Mercedes finally caught up to Packard 70 years later…
back then you would need an assistant to open the hood and check it for you, not good
post-war rolls royce solved that problem
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I rented a car about 15 years ago. There was a woman there looking under the hood of her rental. When I asked her what was wrong she said on a previous rental she was driving up to Yosemite and the engine seized due to lack of oil. Now she always checks, she said. Nothing like being on vacation and having to deal with a seized engine.
Depends, enterprise has an internal system that tracks oil changes and tire rotations and doesn’t allow a car to be rented until the rep checks that the service has been done. It’s not uncommon for the service lube place to not reset the reminder especially in Toyotas where it’s a pain in balls to reset. Enterprise system I believe just defaults all cars to 5000 mile oci for a LOFR outside of the exotic stuff. The oil changes are required by them to be full synthetic changes.
Source:worked enterprise in college 10+ Years ago and travel quite a bit for work and rent cars through national.
That sounds like a good approach, though I'd suggest they not deal with anyone who doesn't automatically and always reset the service reminder, Toyota or not. Otherwise the customer (ie me) has to deal with a service overdue light every time I start the car. And who wants to drive a car that has "service overdue". Not me.
If you want to experience "hard to reset" you should try "resetting the service lights" on an older BMW (like my 2000 BMW 528i). I needed a jumper wire to connect 2 hard to identify pins (I needed a magnifying glass to read the numbers) for a certain number of seconds, with a different time depending on whether I was resetting after an oil change or a major service.
My DIY service program was much more frequent than recommended by the service monitor because I was driving the car so little. I put on about 110,000 km in 18 years (and only 5,000 km in the last 5 years) and at that final rate I'd have to wait 25 years to do an oil change (every 25,000 km) and 50 years to replace the coolant or brake fluid (every 50,000 km).
PS The case I described didn't involve Enterprise.
Same, I'm getting reimbursed. He even asked how much I'll think it would cost? A good qt. of Syn 0w20 is like $8. Considering the last rental they gave me had 3 bald tires. I wasn't pleased when I found that out in the rainstorm the following day. I informed them,, was polite about it because returning a car with a warning light implicates me as the reason it's on.
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So this^^ I don’t understand...”vacuum purposes”.
The only things I’ve found as to why the elimination of dipsticks in some brands is that the consumer aren’t checking their own oil, so therefore no reason to add a dipstick. Which I also find to be not really true because I can’t see why a company like Audi/BMW/Mercedes would even bother with a study like that.
As for vacuum, I haven’t seen anything on the internet about crankcase vacuum - as far as I knew/know the crankcase isn’t where vacuum is generated anyway, it’s the intake manifold - the crankcase is where excessive pressure is created from blow by past the rings. And the PCV system has to eliminate that pressure/blow by by evacuating the crankcase of those gases. A vacuum is pulled on the crankcase, but the crankcase itself should not have vacuum in it, in fact for this system to work there has to be a vacuum “leak” to evacuate the gases.
So I do think $$money has something to do with manufacturers eliminating the dipstick, they’re not going to tell you that (and I don’t blame them). But these manufacturers will go out of their way to save I penny on a vehicle (way out of their way to save a penny). To think they could save dollars on a dipstick? Bye bye dipstick. And I understand an oil level sensor costs something, but I imagine the sensor and whatever interface they add to their software is penny’s compared to 3 feet of metal with a handle and O-ring on it (and machining of a oil level graphic). IMO
BMW run the crankcase at vacuum, there is a vacuum pump specifically for this reason. Leave the oil cap off, or if there was a dipstick, not fully inserted, and you will get a check engine light, and it will run terrible as you have a huge vacuum leak. When a front or rear main oil seal fail, the first sign is noise like a moaning as air is being pulled INTO the crankcase, they won’t leak oil while running, only after being shut off. Take off the oil cap and the noise will stop.
There is no manifold vacuum because there is no throttle body to allow vacuum to form.
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Oh wow, didn’t know that. No throttle body? Never in my life have seen a car without one. Interesting.
I imagine these things must have some problems when Mileage gets higher and gaskets start to leak?
BMW introduced Valvetronic almost 15 years ago which eliminated the need for a throttle body. They still have one but it is just as a backup in case of Valvetronic system failure.
It’s probably not uncommon for someone to overlook the need and just check the box in the system and say it was done.
Not really, that gets tracked and is a fireable offense, from my hazy recollection we’d just tell the customer to sit tight and delay pickup and run it over to the quick lube place. Extremely unlikely that you’d skip that.
Has to be a hard up customer to wait for that.
You mean practically every customer than, Rental business is about car sales, On a 95+% occupancy rate I think the margin on a consumer rental is about 8-10% everyone runs a similar business model, obviously a scenario like that you dump that car on an insurance renter who likely can reschedule 30-45 minutes or someone with no loyalty status, definitely not on a senior citizen since they actually take the ESQI calls.
The money is made by selling nearly a million cars a year to dealer groups sight unseen. You can’t do that if you’re sloppy with these kind of maintenance items you can’t sell for a premium wholesale rate. It’s why I laugh when I hear people on here pissing and moaning about how their rental car had 2 psi difference in air pressure between tires, yeah the guy with student loans making a measly 45k a year and working 60+ hours a week really cares. One of the many reasons I never took the MA gig out of college, made 22% more working 40 hours a week and didn’t have to wash cars in my dress shoes. Rental business is a schlocky business with very few people making a lot of money. Probably similar to the hospitality biz.
So i think mouse
explained well. On saving, I had X5 35d with both dipstick and electronic measurement sensor! If they wanted to save money on that, they would cap dipstick (it was hidden on the right side, when one open hood and looks toward engine, of the engine toward back. I can see why for some would be hard to access or deal with taking off engine cover) or not install electronic sensor. Current V8 in BMW models also have both.
If it was about saving money, then VAG would have saved even more by also eliminating the dipstick tube like in some BMW engines, but they didn't.
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