johnanderson

Ive had the my car for a year and have changed the oil out twice. The first time was 1 year ago when I replaced all the fluids on the car and the second time was today. On both occasions I seemed to fill the entire car up using less than 5 quarts of oil. I've read that this car takes something between 5.2-5.5 quarts but I've only been filling about 4 after a full drain (and that includes changing the filter). Here is what I did for the oil change today:

1. Drove 10 miles to a friends house
2. Parked and drained the oil while it was burning hot
3. Waited for 15mins to insure that I got everything out
4. Poured the extra 1 quart of leftover oil I had from last year to flush out the old oil
5. Plug it up and fill 3 quarts
6. Fire the car up for 15 seconds and recheck the oil level
7. Add 1 more quart in and recheck level
8. Drove 10 miles back home and rechecked level
9. Recheck level again after car has cooled down for 4 hours

On steps 8 and 9 I found that the level was only 1 x below the H mark on the dipstick (both sides). So now im wondering 'can there really be an extra quart of bad oil left over?' My car has only had 3000 miles put on it in the year that ive had it and Im using castrol syntec.

jzz30

did you jack one side up? like the passenger side?

johnanderson

I did jack it up to get at the bolt but let it back down to drain.

9kFever

Oil may have still been in the head. I believe it takes a while to drain. Anyone confirm this

SpitfireS

johnanderson Posted on Aug 7 2009, 08:28 AM
How much of that room temp = cold flush oil is coming out the drain hole?
All of it?
Are you sure?

IMO you get most of the old oil out when the car is jacked up on the opposite side of the drain plug and wait for 15 minutes or so.

VegasS2K

i usually drive it around the block and then drain the oil... ive noticed the oil comes out faster and i got a lot more out when the oil was hot..

thomsbrain

Hmm, mine definitely needs 5.1 quarts to fill it back up, even on a cold drain.

johnanderson

I only poured in about a half a quart of old oil so it wasn't that much. I did check the bottom and it looked like the oil draining out was pretty clear. I guess next time I'll have to wait longer before I put more oil in.

orangebarius

it takes 5.8 qts to be at the full line.

rob-2

Check your level after you fill up, while on level ground. 5 gets me half way to the H. I need almost another qt to get to H