Road Rage

Off-topic but my man Hyde and others have a "need to know".

Car companies sometimes under-spec the amount of oil it takes to refill a transmission or an engine. Why? It has to do with fleet sales. The bean counters at the leasing companies figure long term miantenance costs into the equation to determine TCO (total cost of ownership). By specing a quart under the competition, one car may be more attractive on paper than anoter. This is usually in a car like Taurus vs. a Impala, or a 3.8l Mustang vs. a Celica.

In many cars, overfilling a bit is not a problem at all, but you never know when too much will cause foaming or cavitation of the lube - a foamed oil has very littel lubricant quality.

1999TL

so umm, doesn't the TL, well mine at least, take 4.6? I'm not sure, I never change my own oil. But i always bring in 5 quarts then i get one with some odd change back.

I think i read in another one of your posts that the TL can take 5.0 no problem? So I can just tell the person who changes my oil just put in the whole 5.0 quarts.

Road Rage

That is not quite what I said. Context is off. I said that with the Purolator 24458's slightly higher capacity, my car can take 5 qts. I would not make that blanket recommendation without doing an analysis, such as running the car with 5 qts. for sdeveral minutes at 4000 rpm, then dumping the oil and looking for foaming. You could try that or examine the dipstick for bubbles and make your own determination.

1999TL

Thanks for clearing that up.