It gets better! My owners manual says to check the oil HOT! And the GM engineers tell me it means exactly that. My car is a 1999 Cadillac STS with the Northstar engine. The owners manual states the capacity to be 7.5 quarts of 10W-30 with a new filter. The Northstar engineer also tells me that the engine will run fine with 5 quarts of oil and the extra capacity is there to allow for oil movement away from the sump at up to 1G lateral acceleration! (The Germans arn't the only ones thinking!) SOOOooo, I change my oil, and put in EXACTLY 7 quarts with a new filter(it's not very big). I start the engine and run it for a short time to force the air out of the oil gallerys and filter. Shut the sucker down (it's not hot yet, or even warm), let the oil drain down for about 2-3 minutes, and check the stick. It's at the ADD mark! The other 1/2 quart would have brought it up one notch (hash mark) on the stick, which would be at least 4 marks down from "FULL"! SOOooo, if I filled it to the "FULL" mark, (cold) it would have about 8.6 quarts in it! Now this is all well and good. I promptly got out a file and made a new "Full" mark on the stick, since I always check it cold. But here's the real problem. If the engine is run at the factory full mark, even when checked hot, the PCV valve siphons off the excess oil very quickly, making the oil usage go up drastically! Especially when using the thinner synthetics. If I keep the oil level at the "ADD" mark, or just slightly higher, oil consumption is reduced noticeably! So you can't make generalizations about ALL GM engines. And you must follow your owners manual EXACTLY to get the correct oil fill level.