Billman250

I had a customer come in today with bad TCT noise and a bunch of other things.

He had been babying the car since the noise started. good thing....

When I drained the oil, very little came out. I had to know, so I let it drip for quite a while, then I set up the container to drain into the Mobil1 5 quart container so I can measure it.

He had an honest 1.35 quarts remaining in the oil pan. If he would have VTECed the engine, or cornered the car agressively at all, he would have instantly spun a bearing or worse.

He also swore up and down that the oil level was full 1000 miles ago (he now knows to check both sides)

The dipstick appeared to show about 2mm of oil on it, both sides, but this was simply oil that had been scraped up by the stick from the edges.

Please dont experiment, or think its safe to let your engine go even one quart low. I recommend top of the top diamond, when cold and level in the morning before starting, no more.

Boss-S2K

Any damage to the car from the lack of oil? Anything you could tell straight away I mean.

s2kreeper

Will add more oil to my car asap tomorrow morning (I filled to middle last change). Your recommendations are always welcome.

Chris_Lum

that's nuts. Good info

zeroptzero

Not double-dipping the dipstick is another way of mis-reading the oil level, this is in addition to the issue with different readings on different sides of the dipstick. You can pull out the dipstick and have it reading very high, but if you clean it and insert again the reading can be drastically lower.

Billman250

Sorry meant to add, did an oil change, and took the car for a healty neck wringing. It appears at this time she is 100% fine. I specifically listened for the dry knock on start-up and all is good.

he drove 1hr to me, and is back home by now. We drove it together for 10 minutes with lots of 9k.

DocS2000

Billman - that is incredible. 75%+ oil absent and no damage? How much is in circulation at any given time? The pump wasn't sucking air? I have seen other vehicles oil starved with proportionately more oil in the pan.

Thanks for the post,
Doc

FurY

Scary! I actually just topped mine off last night

Kyushin

Another reason I always check my oil levels at every fill up, cheap and necessary insurance.

Billman, what is the dry knock you speak of? That funny noise the car makes on start up on a very cold day? The engine just sounds different in that scenario to me

rob-2

That's really impressive, well built car and lucky driver.