I know bad stuff happens if a car is driven without enough oil, but what happens if it has too much oil?
IANA mechanic, but if I call correctly, this is what destroyed the engine in my parents’ car. We were going cross-country for my brother’s wedding. The car had lots of problems; by the time we got there, the engine was about destroyed. On our way back, it gave out. The mechanic showed us the metal shavings from the engine block floating in the oil. He said it was from too much oil. It cost them about $3,000 to fix.
And a happy time was NOT had by all…
Hopefully some more knowledgeable Dopers will stop by, but be careful if your car is like this now.
If the oil level is high enough, the crankshaft can whip the oil into a froth, which makes it difficult for the pump to distribute oil through the engine block.
In a typical auto engine, too much oil in the pan can result in it being in contact with the spinning crankshaft. If that happens, the oil can become foamy and, ultimately, become unpumpable by the oil pump. Also, I can’t imagine the extra drag on the crank does anything good.
Couldn’t you blow some seals as well?
Man I need to get my mind out of the gutter I read that as blow (as in blowjob) some seals (as in the animal). I hope I wasn’t the only one
No, you were the only one, you deve.
:hangs head in shame:
whats a deve?
A deviant. The sort of person who thinks about fellating pinnipeds.
Geez, you people sicken and amuse me.
IS it better for a car to have a little too much oil or a little too little oil?
IANAM, but a little more shouldn’t hurt.
Wouldn’t you also see stuff happening like oil saturating the air filter? This would be on older cars with “O”-shaped air filters mounted on the top of the engine block.
Seems pretty easy to remedy if you’ve found the problem in time. Pull the drain plug and let some of it drain out into a pan, or siphon some out through the dipstick hole.
It depends on how much too much oil is added and how long it stays there.
One quart over probably won’t do any damage. (depends on the engine)
Double fill that sucker, and it will smoke like hell from the excess going through the crankcase vent system. (ask me how I know this)
Fill it to the top, and it is offical you are dumber than a bag of hair.
I also thought of this interpretation as well, mainly because a friend told me this joke years ago and it reminds me of Gary Larson’s Far Side comics.
[hijack]
A penguin was driving through Arizona on a hot, summer Sunday when he noticed his oil light was on. He got out of the car and, sure enough, it was leaking oil all over the road.
The penguin drove around the corner to a service station and asked the mechanic to take a look at it. The mechanic said he had a few others to look at first but if he came back in an hour he could tell the penguin what was wrong with his car. The penguin agreed and went for a walk.
He found an ice-cream shop and thought a big bowl of vanilla ice cream would really hit the spot, since he was a penguin and it was Arizona in the summer, after all. He sat down at the counter and started in on his ice cream. Of course he had no hands so it was rather messy. By the time he was done he had ice cream all over his flippers, and his mouth was a total mess.
He walked back to the service station and said to the mechanic, “Did you find out what is wrong with my car?”
The mechanic replied, “It looks like you’ve blown a seal.”
“No no,” said the penguin. “It’s just ice cream.”
From
From this site
Yes this can happen, and it happens all the time on my motorcycle. I put in about what it says I need, then after I start the engine I’m guessing that some oil is pooled and it throws oil into the air filter. It can get quite messy in there. You’d think I would have learned after all the times I’ve done an oil change.
:: growing faint. Paroxisms of laughter…blown seals… GUFFAW::
You gotta give the reference for the folks too lazy to follow the link:
“I was driving in downtown Atlantis. My Barracudda was in the shop, so I was in a rented Stingray – and it was overheating. So I pulled into a Shell station. They said I’d blown a seal. I said, ‘Fix the damn thing, and leave my private life out of it.’”
So how much is too much, as shown by the dipstick? 10 percent over the fill line? 50 percent?
And how much is too low, for that matter?