Bisbee Honda of Danville

Bisbee Honda of Danville

Sales 833-283-1846 | Service 833-283-2780 | 4050 Riverside Drive, Danville, VA 24541

Ask a Technician: How Do I Check My Oil and How Do I Know it's Time for an Oil Change?

Checking your car's oil level is becoming more and more of a lost art these days as cars become more durable and engines are able to run further than ever on a given amount of oil. But running the oil low in any car is bad, and even though most cars have low oil lights on the dashboard, they usually only come on when the oil level is extremely low.

Checking the level of oil in your car is still an easy process, though, with these tips from Bisbee Honda of Danville.

First, it’s important that your car be parked on a level surface, and that you wait for at least ten minutes after shutting the engine down. The oil circulates through the engine, so if you check the oil immediately after you stop, say at a gas station, a certain amount of oil will still be in the upper workings of the engine.

Open the hood and look into the engine compartment. There will be a long tube with a plastic handle on it that comes out from the top or side of the engine. Car makers these days make sure that the dipstick is noticeable by giving the handle a bright color, usually red or yellow. The process to check the oil level is actually very simple--pull the dipstick out and wipe any oil that’s on the stick off with a clean cloth. Then push the dipstick back into its little pipe as far as it will go. Pull the stick out again and check where the oil has stuck to the stick. The stick has two marks: the lower mark shows the minimum level, while the upper is the maximum level, to ensure that you don’t put too much oil in.

How do you know when your oil needs changing? Don’t go by how the oil looks. New oil is a clear yellow color while older oil is black, but that doesn’t mean it has to be changed. One of the functions of oil is to flush your engine clean of gunk, which ends up in the oil, a bit like dirty bath water. It still works perfectly well as oil though, as the oil passes through a filter that cleans out any large objects in the oil.

The best way to decide when to change your oil is find out the oil change intervals on your car, either by reading the service book or asking our dealership.

Also, many modern day cars have automatic mileage countdowns to service time, so you know when it’s time to take the car back for a service. Some cars even have systems that actually calculate how hard the engine has been working and tell the driver through a display on the dashboard that a service is required.

Many people say change the oil every, say, 3,000 miles, but that can vary wildly based on how you drive your car, how old your car is, etc. While changing the oil frequently is not going to hurt the engine, you may well end up spending lots of money that you didn't need to. Check with our dealership, and we can help set up a maintenance schedule that makes sense for your type of vehicle.