***half quart over on oil***

[audi_guy]

I used to own a 90 Honda Accord with the 2.2L 4 cyl. Bought it new and it was serviced by the local Honda dealer. I always provided my own M1 oil. Sometime in 1990-91 I was driving 200+ miles a day no traffic expressway miles. The car at the time had less than 25K miles. Anyway a couple weeks (1000 miles or so) after having had the car serviced I checked the oil. The oil level was way above the max mark. I started draining oil and my 6qt+ oil catch pan started to overflow! I filled more than 2 gal jugs with drained oil – don't recall the exact amount.

Danged if the Honda tech didn't put in my oil along with their oil. There was over 8 qts of oil in the engine and I had driven over a 1000 miles at expressway speed for hours and hours.

I had the car for 10 years and put 210K trouble free miles on that engine. At about 190K miles I had the compression and oil pressured checked. It was at factory spec for a new engine. So I had dodged a bullet with that oil overfill!

 

[Missouri Tim]

Racer1 asked: tim, how do you determine if it is overfull or not?

By looking at the stick - vehicle is standing on the garage floor (level) and cool. I was taught that as long as it's between the "fill" and "full" lines on the stick it's good. When it gets down to the fill line, add some. In pro-active mode add some when it gets _near_ the fill line. More than full is a bad thing. In the bad old days, a full quart would take you from "fill" to "full." Modern engines aren't necessarily so.

None of my vehicles use oil currently, so checking it is simply proactive preventive maintenance. I almost never have to top off between fills.

 

[JohnnyG]

BUT, in all of the examples given, how many have read the owners manual to SEE if the engine oil level should be checked HOT or COLD? Once again, in some engines it can make a difference.

 

[pallen]

// I only use the dipstick as a guide to oil loss/
// usage, not as a bible to tell me exactly how
// much oil my engine needs. My truck takes 6 qts
// of oil with a filter change. So that's what I
// dump in, six quarts.

What if you didnt drain all your oil out - like if your car is on a slight incline? I agree in general that you should follow the manufacturer's capacity, but the way I determine how much oil is in the engine is by the stick. The same manufacturer that specified the capacity built the dipstick. They should be very close.

 

[-Clayton-]

Just so it's close either way on the stick on a flat surface Hot or Cold It will be fine . I personally like the extra half quart in the sump.

 

[V1]

I'm sure there is a healthy margin of error on either side of the "FULL" line. How much? Well, that's something I'd like to know just like everyone else here.

Most of our cars are "LOW" on oil when the level is more than a quart below "FULL." Who is to say that exactly 1 quart "LOW" constitutes as a critical number on all cars though? Or that "FULL" is the absolute maximum amount? In general, they are just guidelines I know, but interesting questions nonetheless.

Unless the engineer of your car is you neighbor, I think the only way to really find out is to trust your manual, or trial by error...

 

[Missouri Tim]

I don't know guys, my grandad always said to be careful not to over-fill: "maybe you can get away with that in the flats, but you'll only do it once in the high country." I'm still careful not to overfill 'em even though I'm living in the "flats" now. (This is the same grandad who thought multi-vis oils were a gimmick. He did have a lot of mileage, though.) His explanation was that the crank slaps the oil and causes it to foam. Can't pump foam so you wind up with a low or no lubrication situation.

The sticks on both my "American made" cars read "DO NOT OVERFILL." If I get too much in there I'm seen underneath with a wrench dropping the overage into a pan.

I wouldn't expect an engine to explode instantly with too much oil or anything, but it can't be good. That's my two cents, whether it makes any sense at all, well, that's another thing.

 

[Blue_Goose]

I just changed my oil and probably put a little too much in....calls for 3.9 but I'm using an oversize filter(14477 vs 14476) and I also added 4 oz of LC 20 and 4 more ounces of VSOT.

On a Matrix dipstick there are 2 dots..before I added the VSOT it was just hair above the top dot...now it is a probably inbetween 1/8 and 1/4 of an inch above it...

Think any problems from this? I'm going to be adding probably 3 or 4 oz of LC 20 over life of this OIC...any harm there as this will probably raise it a bit more

Funny thing is that 06 Matrix is calling for 4.2 in the sump now with no spec changes that I can see

Goose

 

[Volvohead]

An engine's design capacity is sometimes a half quart (or more) above the stick capacity. There are of course exceptions, but all manufacturers factor in some reasonable operator overfilling margin with engines. A few ounces over "full" on the stick should rarely cause concern. Design capacities are often listed in the shop manuals. Once past the design capacity, you do run the risk of a milkshake.

 

[Timothy Ferguson]

Thats a good question. I have been thinking the same thing. Has anyone done this in there Ranger. I have a 2000 Ranger Flex Fuel and it calls for 4.5qts of oil with an oil filter change. Has anyone in put 5qts in their Ranger? What was the result if any? Also, I have just moved in to a new house that the drive way is on an incline. Not a bad one but its there. Changing the oil on an incline would work out great because the oil drain pan drains towards the rear. It sure would help get more oil out. But what happens to the readings when I refill it? Would it harm anything?

 

[N Heat]

I always add half a quart extra in my Toyota P/U. It doesn't take that long to leak out anyway.

 

[GMorg]

I have often thought that instead of long OCIs an alternative method to get you money's worth from oil would be to use less per oil change. I first began to try this strategy in my second car ('75 rabbit), I used castrol 20W-50 (paper cans) and CD-2 and kept the oil level so that just the tip of the dipstick was wet (about 3 quarts on a 4.5 quart system). After 289,000 pizza-delivery miles, I finally parked the car in the "back 40" and let the cattle use it as a scratching post. It made a convenient farm storage building that we could start-up, move, and just leave it 'wherever' until needed again. Finally, field mice chewed through the gas line. Since we were having trouble keeping air in the tires, we just left it in the shade of big cedar tree. Two transmissions, two sets of front wheel bearings, only one engine - no rebuilds.