Lets say you parked your Mazda3 on an incline.The nose of the car is lower than the tail. You check the oil. Does it read:

1) Incorrectly high (reading on dipstick is higher than true)

2) Incorrectly low (reading on dipstick is lower than true)

3) Reading is true


And if the reading is incorrect, is it SUBSTANTIALLY incorrect?

 

ummm park on a flat surface and check it then?

if i had to guess the oil in the engine would theoretically be "tilting forward" so id have to say you would have a reading that states too much oil

please correct me if im wrong!

 

Agreed. It will read high. To what degree I don't know. Could be significant, depending of course how much nose-down it is.

 

One, yes of course, to get an accurate reading, check when on level ground.

I don't know the answer, that's the reason I asked. If your saying it will read higher if the nose is lower, the inference is the dipstick is toward the front of the oil pan - could be true.

 

Why does it matter, since you'd park on a flat surface when you wanted an accurate reading?

 

Life isn't alwaysideal... example: Your in the middle of ahighway trip, you stop for lunch, your parked on a moderate slope, and you want to check the oil before you get going. As we know,with the M3, the oil readingis generallycompletely inaccurate unless enginehas to have been shut off for a good1/2 houror more (certainly that is my experience with my M3, and according to previous threads, most othershave found thisalso - apparently, it takes a length of time for the oil to settle back down into the pan). Wouldn't it be good to have tucked into the back of your brain what affect being parked on a slope has on the accuracy of the reading?

 

urbanman you have toooooo much time on your hands.....

 

M3v2, sporadically, I do have too much time, but unlike some, I have NOT posted thousands of messages in the last year. Or maybe I just like my M3 TOO much - and love of a car is all about fluids, and to a lesser degree, filtration.

 

If you want accurate answer to your question for your specific vehicle, why wouldn’t you just run a test yourself...
park your car on a flat surface read dipstick
park car on an incline read dipstick
park car on a decline read dipstick

How in depth and accurate you would like your answer to be is up to you.
Eg get a tool you can place on the surface that will measure the degree of angle
test test test record and so on calculate degree of change Till your happy you could stop any where place your tool read your dipstick and know exactly how much oil is in your engine as if the dipstick reading was taken on a level surface.

my thought to any answer to this question given by anyone else would just be a guess or at best an educated guess...

 

This is a stupid beginning question to to start with..... let alone dust it off and resurrect it again...and have the same interesting responses! Why would any one deliberately check the engine oil any other way but correctly?

You don't have to test only know about the property of motor oil , how surface tension of motor oil can effect a reading and that the dip stick markings were marked to read correctly only when checking the oil quantity on a level surface. That said how are you going to read the indicator mark on a dip stilt when the fluid you are measure is showing at an angle. LOL I am sure at 15-25 degree or more a full sump would finally be off the marks on the dip stick? Btw it is also interesting that on almost every forum DIY panic if they dont reach the full mark on the dip stick when changing their oil or checking it? . The low and high marks on a dip stick are within the engines operating oil volume value for the engine. If you are not consuming oil you could run constantly with no harm to the engine closer to the low side of the dip stick. The only time this would not be advised is if you were planning to in a daily driven vehicle like a car small truck or SUV run the engine at or close to RED line for a long extended period of time or possible going up a 30+ degree grade hill on a hot day for more then say est. 20 minutes. But if you did get a oil pressure or volume the oil light would activate anyway if not the check engine light from other problems do a high load drive like described.



Reading a dip stick on an angle would require you to have a chart or carry a pitch angle calculator with you !
STUPID THREAD ROLMAO