How to Check Your Oil Level & Read Your Dipstick

hello in today's video i'll be covering how to check your engine oil and how to properly read a dipstick i know many of you who may have already watched my oil change videos may already know how but i'll be doing a more in-depth video on this very important step including how to locate the dipstick on a variety of cars many different oil result examples and also a few dipsticks that may look different and in turn be confusing so first thing you'll want to do is have the engine off and parked the longer it's been setting the better this will give the engine oil enough time to drip back down into the engine's oil pan and give you a more accurate result because as the engine is running oil is being pumped through the oil pump which pumps it throughout the internals so they're properly lubricated and avoid premature wear so when you shut the car off all this oil begins to drip back down into your oil pan so waiting anywhere from 10 minutes or more i'd say is a good time to wait now that we've waited on the sap for a while we'll want to find the dipstick normally this dipstick will be located near your engine's oil fill cap and the dipstick will have a brightly colored handle like these for example have yellow or orange which make them easier to find while this black one with the white writing might not be as easy to locate but once you do the process of checking the oil will be pretty much the same in case you do wonder what kind of oil should you use if your car is actually low after checking your oil many oil caps will have it printed on the cap itself as this one does showing a 5w30 oil the brand of oil isn't as important as the viscosity is if it's though it's better to have oil up to the proper level than to leave it low and avoid adding it because of a preferred brand if you look closely many engine oil dipsticks will have it printed on the handle itself so if you ever feel unsure if you're checking the proper dipstick you may also want to look for this before you do remove the dipstick you'll want to make sure to have a clean rag or a towel handy as you will be using this to wipe off the dipstick the reason for this being if you notice the dipstick is covered in oil and that is from all the oil that's been splashing around as the engine was running so now that it's been off and sitting we wipe off the soil so we can get a proper oil level reading but before we do that let's take a look at what we're gonna be looking for here's what our dipstick will look like the dipstick has two dots on it as most will do the higher one to indicate the full mark and the lower one to indicate our low mark with the spacing between them to indicate an okay amount but there's also a secret to these marks the space between the low and the full mark is approximately one quart of oil so you can use this as a measuring device to tell you how low you may be anything at or below this low mark in the case you should add oil anywhere here in the middle is considered okay but i would prefer to have the oil that will sit closer to the full mark as cars do burn oil or can lose oil in a few ways even more so in higher mileage vehicles so it always makes me feel safer to have that extra buffer of oil in case the owner never checks the oil so now let's go ahead and reinsert the dipstick making sure that it bottoms out so you get an accurate reading this piece here butts up against the top of the tube but if you do notice that your dipstick is hard to remove or insert adding a little oil to this section with the o-ring will help make it easier removing the dipstick the second time we got our engine's oil level which if we use the low end the full mark as a measurement it tells me that it lost about one quarter of a quart of oil in those two thousand miles which is not that bad with this reading i would not add any oil because it's closer to the full mark than it is to the low mark now if it were anywhere down here or below the low mark i would add oil now if we notice the color of the oil it's kind of a mixture between dirty and clean which is just about right for an oil that's about 2 000 miles so i wouldn't change the oil yet since it's a golden brown color but once it has a darker brown or black color it's definitely time for an oil change and here's a different example of a dipstick this one has a line to indicate the low mark and a line to indicate a full mark with the crosshatch section in the middle to indicate an okay level which is pretty similar now on this honda accord it's got a plastic section where you read the oil level with two lines cut out the lower line has a low and the higher line to indicate full and the section in the middle has an okay level and finally the dipstick to the cadillac ats you got three dots and a cross hatched area this one may look trickier but it's essentially the same thing the crosstalk portion indicating an okay level while every dot being a quarter of a quart so the middle dot means it's half a quart from full the lower dot indicating is three quarter of a quart from full and the upper dot one quarter of a quart from full here i brought up a few examples of what you may come across this first one we got an example of an oil level that barely shows up at the tip you can tell that the oil is really dirty and old so yes it needs about a quart of oil and also needs a no no change so you may as well do an oil change at this point and avoid spending money on the quarter oil this next example has really dirty oil although it is up to the full mark this one is definitely due for an oil change at this point if you're familiar with older oil newer oil does get darker much faster than oil from the past and that is because newer oils are meant to trap these deposits and contaminants that the filter does not remove instead of letting them accumulate inside your engine but the longer you leave dirty oil like this in your engine the more it'll affect any future oil changes essentially this oil begins to contaminate any future oil changes so always try and change it before it gets this bad here we got clean brand new oil on the dipstick the problem with new oil is it can make reading the oil level pretty difficult from this angle it's not so bad but sometimes i gotta rotate the dipstick to get a view from the side it'll look like a bubble where the oil level sits but anyways this oil level is about three quarters of a quart low so i would at least add about half a quart for this one we are actually overfilled about half a quart anything over half a quart i would definitely remove some oil because adding too much oil can also be problematic depending on how much it's overfilled the more it is the worse it can get it can affect crankcase pressure cause oil leaks to worsen misfires oil pressure problems and more so what would i do in this case probably remove a little and this is where i would prefer to have my oil level land although some prefer just below either one is fine well anyways i hope you enjoyed this video and or found it informative if so please click that thumbs up button to support my video and my channel and please subscribe if you haven't done so

Channel: Backyard Chevy

Views: 268,564

Keywords: how to check your oil level, how to read your dipstick, how to check your engine oil level, engine oil, oil dipstick, what do marks on the dipstick mean, how to know when i need to add engine oil, what oil should i add on my car, engine oil dipstick, oil change, do i need an oil change, oil level, engine oil level

Id: Ozg9pKUpAvU

Length: 6min 34sec (394 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 23 2021