98Boxster

I recently got an oil change on my 2008 Boxster. Now it has had smoke on start up every now and then as the flat 6's are known to do, but since my recent oil change, it does it a lot more. I'm afraid they overfilled the oil. I don't think there's really a way of checking, the lights on the dash show all of them lit up. Is this indicative of an overfill or is this maybe just a coincidence?

r553

Yes once all the oil level indicators are lit you can't know how far overfilled it is. You can have the shop remove the oil filter canister to get some of the oil out until your display shows one empty segment from the top. Pulling the drain plug is a little sketchy as you can lose the whole fill. Get this taken car of because the MAF doesn't like oil. Good luck and you might want to find another shop or DIY.

Macster

If the bar/segment above the max bar is lit this is a sign the oil level is too high.

You can't know from this how too high the oil level is. The system is not intended to report the amount of oil over the reguired/proper amount is present only that there is too much oil.

If the oil level is too high you'll have to have some oil removed. I'm not sure I'd take the car back to where you had the oil changed.

Ideally the best way to handle this is to have the oil drained and then have a shop add in the correct amount of oil to then use this to know the oil level measuring system is working properly and of course to ensure that that correct amount of oil is present.

If you just remove some oil until the level is no longer too high you are assuming the oil level measuring system is functioning correctly and the engine truely has the correct amount of oil in it. It probably is functioning correctly but there's a lot riding on it. Using the oil level measuring system to actually determine how much oil to put into the engine is doing things bass ackwards.

98Boxster

Thanks guys. I'll let them know about what's been going on and see if we can't drain a bit out.