How to Check Your Oil

How do you check your oil in your car? Welcome to Mercie J where compassion and craftsmanship come together. I'm Rick Smith.

Now, on some cars, they don't actually provide us with a physical way to check the oil and those are primarily some European vehicles. And those you have to use the onboard diagnostics system on the car to check it.

But on most vehicles, we do have the ability to check it visually. And it's by something that we call a dipstick. Now it seems simple enough. We stick it into a little tube. It goes down into the oil that’s in the pan, we pull it out, we check it. But there's a lot of things that can make us misread the oil level.

So first of all, you're gonna have 2 different, typically, kinds of sticks, you have one like this that has a little indicator and then it has a cable. Then some are gonna be more of like a flat small piece of metal. And depending on how clean the oil is, sometimes it can be really difficult to check the level properly.

So first of all, the oil level always gets checked when the engine is off. And the best way to know… to read that oil level accurately, is to actually have the car sit overnight. Because if you leave it to sit overnight as soon as you pull that stick out, it will be pretty clear on exactly where the level’s at. Whereas the engine It's been running recently, sometimes some of the oil will be stuck on that tube and you can pick it up at different spots on the stick.

So bottom line is if you let the car sit overnight, look in your owner's manual, find out where the stick is on your car, pull it out, check it and then you can wipe it off. Check it again if you wish. And that's gonna be the best way to check it and know where the oil is. You'll typically have a mark area that indicates a safe range.

When it's at the bottom of most cars, that's 1 quart, in between the 2 marks. So most of the time we do like to run it at the high mark because a little bit of extra oil, not overfilled, only to the high mark will help actually keep the oil cool. So, but if you're in the safe range, you're in the safe range and you'll be good.

I've just been informational to you, till next time, safe travels and blessings to you.

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