Proper oil level checking

The owner's manual's counsel is fine.[/QUOTE]

It's good of you to edit my entire response to your question.

As far as the Owners Manual goes, it is fine, but it does not hurt to
excel at anything one undertakes in life.

 

It makes eminent sense though I'm fairly confident that such an
overnight loss of oil would be noticed in the garage by the pudle it
caused. Of course, it might be a different story if the vehicle was
parked outside.

 

In the example I used, the tractor is parked outside in the yard.

 

It was a concise way to point out you do not follow your own
advice. ;-)

 

If you were paying attention I said it was a tractor that I used in the
example, not a small vehicle. It is a legal requirement that commercial
vehicles have a Pre-Trip Inspection and Post-Trip Inspection performed
on them every day. Are you up to speed now, or do you require the
service of a tow truck?

 

Look back to the post where you first responded to my posts. No
tractor, just lousy advice.

 

You're obviously having a blonde moment.

 

september.org:

It's frightening that somebody so ignorant would be working on your car.
I've had more experiences with such individuals than I care to remember.

He's obviously so ignorant, uninquisitive and incurious that he's never
bothered to do any sort of experimentation for himself, or to make any
other attempt at (dis)proving his own theories. That's scary. And
distressingly common. And part of the reason auto mechanics have such a
lousy reputation in general.

 

At least the guy would read forums such as this one ... I find it
invaluable.

 

Hey, I thought this was an Accord group. Does Honda make an Accord
tractor now?

 

What if the manufacturer designed the lines on the dipstick for
readings with the engine warm and shut off for a few minutes? Given
how the owner's manuals speak of checking the level at every fillup,
it makes sense that the dipstick lines would be so designed.

If that was the case, it would be impossible to get the correct level after
an oil change 'cos it goes in cold and straight to the bottom.

 

of course. i'd love to know where people think oil might be hiding so
they have to "wait for it to run down".

 

wha??? like it says in the owner's manual you mean???

indeed.

this is an unbelievably retarded thread. just read the freakin' manual
- something that seems incredibly hard for some people to do. but
because i'm an anal pedant, i'll quote exactly what it says in mine:

"engine oil and filter

checking

check the engine oil a couple of minutes after shutting the engine off,
with the car parked on level ground. remove the dipstick and wipe it
clean. re-insert it all the way down, then pull it out and read the
level. the level should be between the upper and lower marks."

nothing about "waiting for all the oil to run down" [ha ha freakin' ha]
or "thermal expansion" or even "keep it at the top mark".

so, next time you're in the gas station, after you've filled up, take
advantage of the fact that you're on level ground and have been standing
with the engine off for a couple of minutes, and the free wipes, to
check the freakin' oil. even a retard can do it.

 

I suggest you test that method out first. As I said in an earlier post,
after my CRV had been standing for over 15 minutes after only a short run of
the engine, the reading was midway between min and max. Checked cold the
next morning, before running, the level was a shade above max. I don't
care what the handbook says, that is my personal experience and, had I
topped up when getting the first reading, the vehicle would have been
overfilled. Try it yourself and see.

 

1. i have - there's no significant change.

2. honda know more than you. thus if it says "check the engine oil a
couple of minutes after shutting the engine off, with the car parked on
level ground", that /doesn't/ mean "second-guess with a head full of
superstitious bullshit".

read the owner's manual keith. it was written for people just like you.

 

I've been driving for 45 years and have yet to encounter a car with a
dipstick calibrated in that way. It sounds like it might make sense the way
you say it, but think about it a little deeper - To come up with a
dependable "warm & after a few minutes" calibration, you have to be able to
reliably define the temperature of the engine, the weight and condition of
the oil and exactly how long a "few minutes" actually is. The only
reasonable calibration for the dipstick is the level in the pan when fully
drained down.

I was taught (and several different owners manuals actually stated) that the
way you check the oil when you fillup is to do it last, after everything
else is completed, which means the engine has been off for about ten
minutes.

I think the current Nissans have a clearer instruction about checking the
oil "wait at least 10 minutes after shutting down the engine before
checking".

You are partly right, it goes in cold, but hardly straight to the bottom.
It goes in on top of the valve train and has to work its way to the bottom
just like after running the engine. Add to that the fact that you are
supposed to run the engine a little bit after changing the oil to fill the
filter and to check for leaks, you still have to wait for it to drain down
in order to get a good reading.

 

where do you think oil "hides" after you pour it in then? have you ever
seen the drains in a cylinder head? what size are they?

 

Like Jim B emphasized, the owner's manual also covers how to check the
oil after an oil change. My 1993 Civic manual says, in the oil change
section, "Let the engine run for several minutes and check [for
leaks]. Turn off the engine, let it sit for several minutes, then
check the oil level."

 

Unless you are in the car manufacturing business, how would you know
whether dipsticks are calibrated for oil warm and engine having been
run recently for several minutes, or for engine having sat overnight?

The dipstick reading X with the car having run several minutes and
then stopped for several minutes, then reading something different
after sitting all night means nothing. Designers could calibrate for
either. They choose warm, after sitting stopped for a few minutes, for
convenience, e.g. the driver has stopped at a filling station.

Some of you seem to think the specific volume of oil changes a lot
from normal engine operating temperatures to cold start in the
morning. I do not. Most of the volume change one sees from normal
engine operating temperatures to cold engine in the morning is simply
oil dripping down to the pan. Nor do I think there are meaningful
specific volume differences due to temperature for any given weight or
condition (assuming normal oil change frequencies) of oil.

 

Is that a metric or imperial "several"?

a