hawk77

I had my dealer perform my first oil change at 4,000 miles which was at the beginning of August. The only reason I left them do it is because it was free. Since then I put 5,000 miles on the car and decided to change the oil myself. So I ran the car up on the ramps, pulled the plug on the oil pan, and it started draining....and draining....and draining. The pan I use to collect my used oil has markers on the side which tell you how many quarts are in the pan. By the time it was finished draining the oil was just below the 7 QUART line!!!!

I called the dealer to file a complaint and ask what kind of damage this could have caused to the engine. The service manager kept apologizing and told me it wasn't a big deal, and that it may have done some damage if there was 9 quarts but not 7! He said that if it had too much oil it would have blown out of the valve cover gasket and the oil fill cap. I don't know whether or not to believe him. What does everyone else think, should I be concerned?

In the end they offered me a free oil change and promised to do it right the next time

iamhomin

If you drained an amount of 7qts, then doesn't that mean they put more than 7 in the beginning?

OTT-TSX

I call BS on the dealer. When I worked at a quick lube we were warned about overfilling a car. In fact if we overfilled a car by more than 1/4 of a liter we had to go back and drain some out. Try posting your question here and see what they think

http://theoildrop.server101.com/cgi/ultimatebb.cgi

CGTSX2004

iTrader: (1)

2 quarts more than recommended sounds kinda unusual. I'd take this up as a major complaint with the dealership general manager. The least they could do is do an inspection of your car to make sure that there aren't any problems that resulted from the extra oil being in the engine.

biker

What ever happened to people at least doing the very minimum on their cars - I mean I know Honda's are trouble free but come on - a simple look at the dip stick and it would have been obvious something was wrong.
I would also question the accuracy of your drain pan - if the engine was truly 2 qt overfilled you'd know about it - the extra would be coming out of somewhere.

NightHawk CL9

well i think that they should give you a free inspection....... something similar happened to me......they put enough oil but the tech didn't tigten the drain plug at all so it kept leaking oil. i had it done thursday night and drove it friday, sat and sun when out of town with it (250 miles on it) and finally my dad noticed monday morning after i left to school that there was oil where i parked my car when we came back fro out of town. i went to the dealer that night and they appoligized and they have me a free oil change, and the guy turned red when i told him we stould thank my dad, because then he would have owed me a new engine ($8K just for engine without labor i heard) or they would have given my money back ( it was at like 7K miles). so in conclusion a little common sence and being attentive makes a big difference in life......

CGTSX2004

iTrader: (1)

JTso

iTrader: (2)

Why not perform a verification test with the drain pan by filling it with 7 qts of water and see how high it goes?

hawk77

I had checked the dipstick once during that time and noticed it looked a little high, but I didn't really think anything of it. I think I was more concerned with just making sure the oil level wasn't low.

As for the drain pan, I've been using the same pan for a long time now and I have never seen it filled higher than the 5 quart line. When I emptied the pan, I took 2 empty 1 gallon jugs and filled one to the top and the other 3/4 to the top (which would be 7 quarts).

AkronTSX

if you think about it there really is not too much harm in overfilling oil. At most it will f-up your spark plugs because there is oil seeping in from atop the valves. I actually have done this by mistake in my integra before and all if did misfire and i had to drain the oil and whip off my sparkplugs. Now with that being said, i would still demand an inspection by the acura dealer. However I doubt there would be longterm damage.

biker

2 extra qt on a dip stick would not be a little high - it would be off the scale high. In most cars the low and high limit is around 1qt.

biker

You can blow the seals out of the engine if there's too much oil in it.
Actually if you want to achieve sauceman type milage numbers the trick is to keep the oil level as low as possible - near the low mark - less oil in the way of moving parts - just enough to lubricate.

joerockt

I think I'll just take the factory recomended 4.4 quarts.

Boy, for something so simple, there always seems to be many questions about oil. When to change, how to change, what to change it with and how much. And everyone has their own opinion.

I think if your a at changing oil,

ClutchPerformer

But he said the dealer did this....

7 quarts is amazing. They need to win some kind of award for that. Jeez... If I was you, Hawk, I'd get that dealer to extend the warranty on the engine.

sauceman

I don't do that?!

biker

Things like using 0W-30 and filling only to the low oil mark make fractions of an MPG diff.

joerockt

I was quoting Biker and responding to his post about putting as little oil as possible. Dont think its a good idea...

ClutchPerformer

Oh...

TSX 3Pedal

I'm sure that this wasn't the first TSX that they performed an oil change on, if so, there are a whole lot of TSX's out there with 7 quarts of oil in their pan...