Oil dipstick location gripes

the worst auto-trans dipstick goes to Honda, nineties Civics. You could grind it up in the meshing internal gears. Yeah!
Worst engine oil dipstick, early nineties Infiniti G20, hidden behind/below the A/C hose near cam cover. Need a flashlight to re-seat it. : l
 
Ford Super Dutys are bad. I've had guys put engine oil in the transmission and vice-versa.

Any air cooled OPE are bad.
 
Ford Super Dutys are bad. I've had guys put engine oil in the transmission and vice-versa.

Any air cooled OPE are bad.


You must have had clueless high school age kids doing that kind of work. Nothing wrong on the Super Duty trucks for those that can actually read.
 
Always check it before a cold start @92saturnsl2 . That's what I had to do with my VQ.
I would do that, but the car is parked on the driveway which is at a decent incline. So I'm usually checking during fill-ups where the ground is flat and that's where it will drive you crazy, after it's been running.

Oh well, if that's the biggest issue I have to complain about a car, I've got it pretty good I guess.
 
My driveway is on an incline also, but you have a good idea where it should be at after you do it a couple of times. Mine used no oil between changes, but I would check it often. I think I added .5L once during an extended oil change interval, above 5k Kms :ROFLMAO:
 
I drove and painfully kept a Nissan Murano, '03 VQ35DE with CVT on the road for 15 years until traded off.

Numerous valve bank position sensors later, and finally a situation where P0420 codes would appear, disappear, reappear...wax on and off without reason... was traded. The CVT was solid on it, but I didn't believe the manual or the "lock" on the tranny dipstick. She got dumps and refills every 30k on that CVT and was at the 200kMile mark when sold with original gearbox.

The most...

...salient...

...frustrating...

...OMG, put my privates in a vice moment...

That crank case oil dipstick was tough as bawlZ to sort out. As I've read in the past and in tech service manuals from Nissan themselves? The oil galleries as they drain also used the dipstick tube as a return path. So while engine was hot, but settled for 15 minutes was the time to check levels. But you had to dip, wipe, dipe, wipe, ad nauseum until you got a clear reading. It was double frustrating after a clean oil change.
 
One of my vehicles has the stick behind the power steering reservoir which results
I find a lot of dipsticks are almost impossible to read, I take the end of the dipstick and roll it around on a paper towel and then I can get a clear Idea how much oil is actually on the dipstick, My dad's 2002 bravada had a horrible yellow plastic piece on the end and of course with age it discolored and had varnish deposits on it and he thought it had oil in it one time and turns out it was actually almost 3qts low it just looked like oil on the dipstick.
Me too. With clean oil it can be hard if the light isn't just perfect.
 
Back
Top