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15 Posts
Greeting gents,
What this means is that it's just about impossible to tell how much above high level the oil is if it happens to be overfilled. In my opinion, the oil dipstick design is faulty because of it. In other words, once the oil goes above high level that is all it reads, regardless of how much extra oil is actually in the oil pan. Before someone says, "hey, you just need to look hard enough and you can tell" I come right back and say, "no you can't because you need a nice consistent and good surface to tell the difference between the actual oil level and that of the oil residue lining the guide pipe that gets transferred onto the oil dipstick as you pull it in and then out". So what it comes down to is that the readable part of the oil dipstick needs to extend beyond the full mark so that we folks can tell and not have to guess or assume where the oil level is if it already shows up to full mark. Am I making sense?
I say all this because in the past 3 years two of my relatives have bought brand new cars (Subaru and Volkswagen) and they both had too much oil according to dipstick (oil level a good 1/4" above max level). I checked their oil after cars been sitting for a good hour off. I know the Colorado manual says check oil after engine been off for 5 minutes, but that still doesn't change the the fact that the oil dipstick has a fault, as I just mentioned.
Conclusion: We cannot tell if there is too much oil in the pan!
The thing is, dealerships and people in general tend to aim for the high mark of the oil dipstick which makes it more likely to get an overfill condition. It be prudent to aim for the 3/4 full mark and it will do no harm as opposed to overfilling...even if just by a tad it could harm engine.
This is a problem for GMC/Honda and whoever else uses this dipstick design because it means their engine reliability will take a turn for the worst even though the engine may be well engineered and manufactured. All because owners and mechanics can't tell when they poured too much oil in...Yikes!
An interesting side note, the Colorado diesel oil dipstick is exactly the same as that of the 2018 Honda Ridgeline. I know this cause my brother just bought one and we compared; must be using same supplier!
Finker
What this means is that it's just about impossible to tell how much above high level the oil is if it happens to be overfilled. In my opinion, the oil dipstick design is faulty because of it. In other words, once the oil goes above high level that is all it reads, regardless of how much extra oil is actually in the oil pan. Before someone says, "hey, you just need to look hard enough and you can tell" I come right back and say, "no you can't because you need a nice consistent and good surface to tell the difference between the actual oil level and that of the oil residue lining the guide pipe that gets transferred onto the oil dipstick as you pull it in and then out". So what it comes down to is that the readable part of the oil dipstick needs to extend beyond the full mark so that we folks can tell and not have to guess or assume where the oil level is if it already shows up to full mark. Am I making sense?
I say all this because in the past 3 years two of my relatives have bought brand new cars (Subaru and Volkswagen) and they both had too much oil according to dipstick (oil level a good 1/4" above max level). I checked their oil after cars been sitting for a good hour off. I know the Colorado manual says check oil after engine been off for 5 minutes, but that still doesn't change the the fact that the oil dipstick has a fault, as I just mentioned.
Conclusion: We cannot tell if there is too much oil in the pan!
The thing is, dealerships and people in general tend to aim for the high mark of the oil dipstick which makes it more likely to get an overfill condition. It be prudent to aim for the 3/4 full mark and it will do no harm as opposed to overfilling...even if just by a tad it could harm engine.
This is a problem for GMC/Honda and whoever else uses this dipstick design because it means their engine reliability will take a turn for the worst even though the engine may be well engineered and manufactured. All because owners and mechanics can't tell when they poured too much oil in...Yikes!
An interesting side note, the Colorado diesel oil dipstick is exactly the same as that of the 2018 Honda Ridgeline. I know this cause my brother just bought one and we compared; must be using same supplier!
Finker
