Moisture in oil

[D189379]

I've got a question about moisture in my oil. I recently took my car out for a couple of good 2 hour highway drives last weekend. I checked my oil and noticed it had dropped to about 1/3 of the way down on the dipstick. Does this mean there was 1/3 of a quart of water in my oil? If so, where did that 1/3 of a quart of oil go? Here's some background.
I have about 6000 kms (2 1/2 months) on this oil (Mobil 1 0W30). I drive about 9 kms to work at about 50-60 km/h. From about late December until the end of January we were in a bit of a cold snap with temps around -20C to -30C. I imagine this is why there is water in there.
I've used Mobil 1 0W30 this past summer and it didn't use a drop of oil so I assume its not a consumption issue.
I plan on doing a used oil analysis for this oil change. What I really need to know is if this oil is done, or does it have some life left in it?

 

[MolaKule]

How soon after the run did the oil level drop?

Check it an hour later and see where it is.

 

[JohnBrowning]

If you do mostly city driveing you get a lot of fuel loading. The vechile burns some oil as all do but the volume is made up by fuel diloution. When you take it out on the HWY you burnt off most of the fuel. The fuel loading also made those already lighter portions of the oil even more volitile by diloution. Hope this made sense!

 

[D189379]

quote:

---

Originally posted by MolaKule:
How soon after the run did the oil level drop?

Check it an hour later and see where it is.

---

I checked it the next day after the car sat overnight.

 

[D189379]

quote:

---

Originally posted by JohnBrowning:
If you do mostly city driveing you get a lot of fuel loading. The vechile burns some oil as all do but the volume is made up by fuel diloution. When you take it out on the HWY you burnt off most of the fuel. The fuel loading also made those already lighter portions of the oil even more volitile by diloution. Hope this made sense!

---

That made perfect sense. I assumed it was moisture because of the cold conditions and the engine not getting a good chance to warm up. Does fuel dillution happen more often when it's cold?

 

[AndyH]

quote:

---

Originally posted by D189379:

quote:

---

Originally posted by JohnBrowning:
If you do mostly city driveing you get a lot of fuel loading. The vechile burns some oil as all do but the volume is made up by fuel diloution. When you take it out on the HWY you burnt off most of the fuel. The fuel loading also made those already lighter portions of the oil even more volitile by diloution. Hope this made sense!

---

That made perfect sense. I assumed it was moisture because of the cold conditions and the engine not getting a good chance to warm up. Does fuel dillution happen more often when it's cold?

---

I'd say yes, due to most (all?) engines running richer in cold weather.