How much oil do I put in.

[burns]

As long as you never got any warning lights it sounds like you got awayy with it. Running with low oil isn't really going to do any harm unless it gets so low that the oil pickup is above the oil level in the sump and you get no oil pressure. Then you have problems.

 

[snowdog]

I can't believe the number of people, posting in a forum for car enthusiasts who would run their cars so low on oil!

It's called laziness and only fix something when broken, I will probably never change from that.

 

[iaind]

It's called laziness and only fix something when broken, I will probably never change from that.

But for the sake of a minute of your time, you could be creating thousands of pounds of damage

 

[dalin80]

A refurbished engine should have been back to the garage after 500 miles for a oil and filter change anyway.

 

[snowdog]

But for the sake of a minute of your time, you could be creating thousands of pounds of damage

Thousands ? A 2.0 Volvo engine at the local scrappy will not be thousands, one thousand at most.

Secondly, you ''could'', notice the magic word... Losing oil pressure for only a couple of secs usually doesn't do usually do damage if not ignored... 10 years ago we had a car which lost oil pressure on every single corner for weeks, the engine didn't die.

I agree I should have checked my oil level more often, but don't make the problem worse than it seems.

 

[Janesy B]

Surely topping up oil is easier than changing an engine? Why do people have such a slack attitude? I swear people put more effort into maintaining their toaster..

 

[snowdog]

Surely topping up oil is easier than changing an engine? Why do people have such a slack attitude? I swear people put more effort into maintaining their toaster..

Which is exactly what I did.
I had no reason to assume the oil level was low, until I noticed the light for a sec or 3.

 

[iaind]

Wow, only one thousand...

And you dont think a minute of your time is worth that? Even if you checked it once a week, you value your time at a grand an hour!?

 

[snowdog]

You check your oil level once per week ?

 

[Janesy B]

You check your oil level once per week ?

I do. I drive a car with a 12 year old engine, it's still smooth and I want to keep it that way. Takes a minute to check

 

[Scania]

You check your oil level once per week ?

I check my oil every day.

1996 328i or 2010 Scania, it makes no difference.

Oil,Water,Tyres, Lights.

Four simple checks you should do daily, they could save either your life, your cars life or your bank balance.

 

[Relentless81]

LOL at attempting to justify not checking it, it takes less than a minute, I do it at least once a week

 

[iaind]

You check your oil level once per week ?

I said "even if..."

I check mine whenever I wash the car, the bonnet is normally open anyway at some point - which tends to be about every week

 

[Matt82]

i check mine weekly because i will thrash the cars hard and to do that with a clear concience you wanna know the car is tip top

 

[realscot]

As long as you never got any warning lights it sounds like you got awayy with it. Running with low oil isn't really going to do any harm unless it gets so low that the oil pickup is above the oil level in the sump and you get no oil pressure. Then you have problems.

I once dropped the oil in a punto and got more oil out of the filter than I did out of the sump, and the oil light wasn't on! It still runs, but it's a tappety little so and so now. (not mine, a regular customers)

I check the oil level on all cars I MOT, and i estimate 1 in 3 cars need a topup, mabye 1 in 6 is below minimum, and perhaps 1 in 20 will be overfilled to some extent. The worst offenders for low oil are cars less than 5 years old in my experience, as people just don't realise that new cars are mostly now worse than older ones for using oil. The seem to think, but its only 3 years old it can't be using oil yet.