Re: New six cylinder engines have no dipstick

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <Pine.A41.4.61b.0505231507061.316054@homer10.u.wash ington.edu>,
Jon Blake <jonb@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> If you run out of gas because of a faulty gauge/warning light, your
> engine will stop, perhaps inconveniently, and you will undoubtedly
> stress your fuel pump. If your oil sensor fails, your engine can fail,
> a much worse situation. Call me old fashion, but I just can't see not
> having a way to physically check oil levels.

How do you check the oil levels in your gearbox and final drive? Failures
of either of these would be an equally catastrophic event. And I'm old
enough to remember these too having dipsticks.

--
*Middle age is when work is a lot less fun - and fun a lot more work.

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

[Jon Blake]

On Tue, 24 May 2005, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

> In article <Pine.A41.4.61b.0505231507061.316054@homer10.u.wash ington.edu>,
> Jon Blake <jonb@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>> If you run out of gas because of a faulty gauge/warning light, your
>> engine will stop, perhaps inconveniently, and you will undoubtedly
>> stress your fuel pump. If your oil sensor fails, your engine can fail,
>> a much worse situation. Call me old fashion, but I just can't see not
>> having a way to physically check oil levels.
>
> How do you check the oil levels in your gearbox and final drive? Failures
> of either of these would be an equally catastrophic event. And I'm old
> enough to remember these too having dipsticks.
Actually, this is easy to do. Simply remove the filler plug and confirm
that fluid is just at lower edge of hole. While I don't do this with the
frequency of cheking my oil, I do check periodically and I support the
petroleum industry by replacing tranny and diff fluids every 50K miles,
not believing that any lubricant is "lifetime." But then I keep cars for a
minimum of 10 years, often more. Usual clutch life in excess of 185K
miles.

- Jon

[Matt O'Toole]

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

> In article
> <Pine.A41.4.61b.0505231507061.316054@homer10.u.wash ington.edu>,
> Jon Blake <jonb@u.washington.edu> wrote:

>> If you run out of gas because of a faulty gauge/warning light, your
>> engine will stop, perhaps inconveniently, and you will undoubtedly
>> stress your fuel pump. If your oil sensor fails, your engine can
>> fail, a much worse situation. Call me old fashion, but I just can't
>> see not having a way to physically check oil levels.
>
> How do you check the oil levels in your gearbox and final drive?
> Failures of either of these would be an equally catastrophic event.
> And I'm old enough to remember these too having dipsticks.

I'm old enough to remember when they leaked.

Matt O.

[news]

they dont get replaced. not the same as engine oil. duhhh

"Dave Plowman (News)" <dave@davenoise.co.uk> wrote in message
news:4d7036ca1adave@davenoise.co.uk...
> In article <Pine.A41.4.61b.0505231507061.316054@homer10.u.wash ington.edu>,
> Jon Blake <jonb@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> > If you run out of gas because of a faulty gauge/warning light, your
> > engine will stop, perhaps inconveniently, and you will undoubtedly
> > stress your fuel pump. If your oil sensor fails, your engine can fail,
> > a much worse situation. Call me old fashion, but I just can't see not
> > having a way to physically check oil levels.
>
> How do you check the oil levels in your gearbox and final drive? Failures
> of either of these would be an equally catastrophic event. And I'm old
> enough to remember these too having dipsticks.
>
> --
> *Middle age is when work is a lot less fun - and fun a lot more work.
>
> Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
> To e-mail, change noise into sound.

[Malt_Hound]

news wrote:
<top posting corrected>
> "Dave Plowman (News)" <dave@davenoise.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:4d7036ca1adave@davenoise.co.uk...
>
>>In article <Pine.A41.4.61b.0505231507061.316054@homer10.u.wash ington.edu>,
>> Jon Blake <jonb@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>If you run out of gas because of a faulty gauge/warning light, your
>>>engine will stop, perhaps inconveniently, and you will undoubtedly
>>>stress your fuel pump. If your oil sensor fails, your engine can fail,
>>>a much worse situation. Call me old fashion, but I just can't see not
>>>having a way to physically check oil levels.
>>
>>How do you check the oil levels in your gearbox and final drive? Failures
>>of either of these would be an equally catastrophic event. And I'm old
>>enough to remember these too having dipsticks.
>>
>>--
>>*Middle age is when work is a lot less fun - and fun a lot more work.
>>
>> Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
>> To e-mail, change noise into sound.
> they dont get replaced. not the same as engine oil. duhhh
>

Uh, yes they do. Every Inspection 2. Duh.

-Fred W

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <3fi8gmF7lvi2U1@individual.net>,
Matt O'Toole <matt@deltanet.com> wrote:
> > How do you check the oil levels in your gearbox and final drive?
> > Failures of either of these would be an equally catastrophic event.
> > And I'm old enough to remember these too having dipsticks.

> I'm old enough to remember when they leaked.

And I'm old enough to remember when the majority of engines burnt oil at
modest mileage and needed a re-bore perhaps twice before the body
disintegrated. These days, most decent engines outlive the bodywork - or
other things which send a car to the scrapyard.

--
*Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

[Matt O'Toole]

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

> In article <3fi8gmF7lvi2U1@individual.net>,

> Matt O'Toole <matt@deltanet.com> wrote:
>>> How do you check the oil levels in your gearbox and final drive?
>>> Failures of either of these would be an equally catastrophic event.
>>> And I'm old enough to remember these too having dipsticks.
>
>> I'm old enough to remember when they leaked.
>
> And I'm old enough to remember when the majority of engines burnt oil
> at modest mileage and needed a re-bore perhaps twice before the body
> disintegrated. These days, most decent engines outlive the bodywork -
> or other things which send a car to the scrapyard.

Absolutely true.

Matt O.

[Todd Zuercher]

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
> In article <Pine.A41.4.61b.0505231507061.316054@homer10.u.wash ington.edu>,
> Jon Blake <jonb@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>
>>If you run out of gas because of a faulty gauge/warning light, your
>>engine will stop, perhaps inconveniently, and you will undoubtedly
>>stress your fuel pump. If your oil sensor fails, your engine can fail,
>>a much worse situation. Call me old fashion, but I just can't see not
>>having a way to physically check oil levels.
>
>
> How do you check the oil levels in your gearbox and final drive? Failures
> of either of these would be an equally catastrophic event. And I'm old
> enough to remember these too having dipsticks.
>

My current daily driver car still has a dipstick in its manual
transaxel. But manual transmitions and differentials don't need
dipsticks because they will not use up (burn) oil without a visible sign
of a leak unlike an engine is capible of doing, but it still isn't hard
to check to see if they are full.