no engine oil dipstick by design
- Thread starter ragtoplvr
- Start date
Fortunately, I'm old enough to never conform to this. Please pass me my Ensure ? Yeah, right over there on the end table. Thanks 
To check the oil on Grandpa's antique Case tractor from 1945, you have to take a wrench and remove a pipe plug out of the side of the oil pan. If oil doesn't come out of the hole, then add oil to the engine until it starts dribbling out, then reinstall the plug.
So quick and simple.
So quick and simple.
WHAT !!!!!! NO DASHBOARD TELLING YOU TO ADD OIL !!!!!!! Who in their right mind would design that without the " INFOTAINMENT " system telling you to open up that plug in 1945 ??? LOL
Yes my Mazda has one for the transmission but you have to remove the air box to get to it. Isn't that just handy part of the planned obsolesce program of modern car manufacturing!
Couldn't of have written that better myself !!!
For some time now cars have been equipped with dipsticks and electronic low oil monitors, which to me is the best of both worlds. You get an old-school dipstick for old-school drivers, and an automatic warning for the more neglectful among us that the oil level needs attention. It's also handy in case of a serious leak, the low oil warning will occur before the low pressure light, which is much better for the engine obviously.
Getting rid of the dipstick "fixes" nothing, and I can't believe the money saved can be that significant. I can't imagine this being much more than change for the sake of change...and they're running out of ideas.
Getting rid of the dipstick "fixes" nothing, and I can't believe the money saved can be that significant. I can't imagine this being much more than change for the sake of change...and they're running out of ideas.
I like to do the same, but keep in mind that a scanner is usually using the same sensors as the dashboard gauges.
and if that sensor fails?....pinot being, dipsticks dont fail
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- Dec 20, 2024
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They would still fail les often than a modern driver/owner would.
We can abuse that dead horse till we get in the news - the electronic monitoring is not the issue. The issue is that it's complementary to the dipstick, not a replacement, for those times when a level measurement is needed with the engine off.
Measuring the oil level on my car is a scheduled event - I have to snatch it from the kid, so I can go to work with it, which is the only easily available flat spot in my daily geographical routine. Then I have to go downstairs during lunch to measure it after it has settled, because it will show me rorschach spots on the stick otherwise.
I could really use an electronic oil level indicator. It's just that I won't give up my dipstick for it.
Yes but the reason to use the scanner is to get a digital readout of the temp which will alert you to any issues way before the dash gauge which displays exactly the same at such a wide temp range
I mean, I know it's me. I'm a dinosaur that woke up in 2025 after being frozen in a glacier. It takes me longer to reset the oil life on these fancy dashboards, than it does to do the oil change. How in the world is a non-techy guy gonna figure all of this out ? My neighbor is 95 years old and still drives. He drives a 1988 Chevy S-10 Blazer. Just for the hell of it,, I ask him if he will ever buy a new truck. He laughed at me. " I still have a rotary corded phone !!!!!!! What makes you think I can figure out all his new fangled nonsense in a new truck ???? I can afford one. I would love to have a new one before I crap the bed, but the aggravation would kill me !!!!! I'll keep my old Betsy., with a dipstick
Any vehicle from the last several decades has an ECU that is monitoring thousands of data points and is making decisions within milliseconds based on settings and algorithms to control numerous aspects of the engine and its auxiliary systems. And all of this is done seamlessly to the driving experience.
You old school guys don’t like change - I get it. But you’re trusting your vehicle’s sensors and gauges even if you don’t really think you are. Unless you’re just driving down the road wringing your hands worrying this newfangled computing machine is going to fail you at any moment. If so maybe a dipstick isn’t your problem.
You old school guys don’t like change - I get it. But you’re trusting your vehicle’s sensors and gauges even if you don’t really think you are. Unless you’re just driving down the road wringing your hands worrying this newfangled computing machine is going to fail you at any moment. If so maybe a dipstick isn’t your problem.
I’ve got four cars without a dipstick. It’s just not that big a deal.
I check the oil level more frequently on those without a dipstick because it’s just so fast/convenient.
By the way - one of those cars without was built in 1932.
Back then, a quality car had an oil level gauge. Dipsticks were for the cheaply made, mass produced cars. Dipsticks were for “poverty pony” cars.
I read somewhere there are upwards of 40 computers in a car now. My 1989 Regal Gran Sport had just 1 computer in it. If it went bad, and they did, you go to a junkyard and get a used one for $ 30 bucks, with a 30 day warranty.....Now go to the junkyard and try to get 40 computers because you don't know which one is bad. You are 100 % correct. Gen X, the last of the old schooler's. I graduated H.S. in 1985. They had just received a batch of computers that came with floppy discs at the end of the school year. The school said they were going to introduce a Pilot Program for the 1984 Senior Grade to begin learning computers. That's the problem. We're not all dead yet. In the Utility company I worked for in NY, starting in 1986, we all finally got a laptop and cell phone in 2007. Pen and paper until then. A lot of us never had the opportunity to use computers. They weren't needed in " blue collar" work. Only the white collared shirt people had access to them. Big age gap that's still plaguing America. When Gen X is all dead and gone, things will be different.
You’re not a dinosaur - you’re a new kid - looking at cars from the 1960s and up - so, you’re decades newer than the classics, newer than the real old school. 1989? Oh, please. That’s not old school. Not even close.
Time to get on board with the real “old school” - 1930s tech.
With an oil level guage.
This is old school:
Beautiful gauge !!!!!!! LOVE IT !!!!! The " pointer" is very sylish. Made with pride !!!! Made my day....
The " pointer" is very sylish. Made with pride !!!! Made my day....
Thanks! I was teasing, just a bit - you and I are about the same age - same experience.Beautiful gauge !!!!!!! LOVE IT !!!!!
The glass was broken on the gauge - I found a flashlight with an actual glass lens (this was many, many years ago) and replaced the glass cover. The gauge is pretty simple - a float, a lever, a gear, and a pointer. Not much to break.
I had no idea these were in older vehicles. Way cool. Goes to show how much of a non issue it really is.