Wreck Me Otter

...

Randall G.

Hi Kim,

Suppose you haven't even had the car long enough to read the owner's manual . When you do, you'll find that it says this (page 63 of my manual):

If the oil gauge reads at a maximum when the ignition is switched (engine not running), there is a fault in the gauge or the oil level sensor.

Does your gauge read at max. when the engine is not running?

Good luck!

Randall G.

Hi Kim,

I think I made have read your post wrong ... do you mean the needle is barely out of the red--about 4:00 position--or in the red high--about 1:00 position?

If you're in the red on the low end, that's fairly normal. Most importantly, does the reading drop when you rev the engine, and go up when engine speed drops? BTW, you may need to warm the engine up a little bit to get the reading high enough for it to respond to engine speed.

If you're reading in the red on the low-end, try adding just 0.5 quart and see if the needle moves up and out of the red. The gauge reading only represents about 1.5 qt., so if you're a little bit low, it won't come out of the red.

Also, the reading usually won't come out of the red until the engine is warm, unless you are filled on the high side.

BTW, just good natured needling about the manual ... wouldn't expect someone to memorize it in a weekend, and the blurb on the gauge fault is pretty obscure.

Good luck!

Robert Henriksen

Kim, Randall's right - trust the dipstick, not the gauge. Don't overfill the tank, but you can add a bit to get it to the top of the dipstick range, and *when* you've driven the car about 10-15 minutes, park it on a level surface, and let it idle for a couple of minutes, then take a reading at both the dipstick & the gauge.

Edward

Kim,

I've found that the guage reads accurately, at least on my car, when the car is "good and hot," and not just merely "warmed up." What is "good and hot?" You'll notice that as the car warms, the oil temp rises to about 8 o'clock then drops below it; this is the thermostat opening to allow oil into the oil cooler, thus the temp drops. At this point, though "hot" enough to drive it hard, I find that my oil level gauge still will read low (top of red) at idle. But after some spirited driving and the oil temp climbs back to 8 o'clock or just a bit above, at the next stoplight, voila! The oil level gauge reads correctly. When I first got my car, I had the exact same concern as you. Others assured me that as long as the dipstick reads good (>50% at idle, HOT), don't worry about the gauge. It was only after living with the car for a while that I learned its idiosyncracies. One caveat: when you have to add oil, the gauge doesn't seem to read in a linear fashion. On mine, it seems that once the gauge reads 50%, it takes less oil to raise the level than it did to get it up to 50%. Preceed with care

Edward

Randall G.

I'll also add that on all three 911s I've owned, the gauge has worked properly and corresponded with the dipstick nicely. It's usually a matter of adding oil in small increments until you get a nice, roughly horizontal reading. A little higher--even near the 1:00 position with the engine hot--is all right, too, if the dipstick reading is okay.

To pull this thread even further, some people prefer to keep their oil in the lower end of band. Two reasons for this ... to prevent an oil puking incident, and there's some (not unfounded) belief it reduces oil consumption.

What I personally am not comfortable with is a constant gauge reading in the red.

Randall G.

My experience has been that the gauge won't respond as it should when the reading is this low. Again, on page 63 of the manual:

If the oil indicator begins to drop as engine speed increases when the car is stationary (engine at normal operating temperature), this indicates that the gauge is functioning properly.

I think you'll be fine with just a little more oil in the tank. FWIW, I've had to add oil shortly after an oil change at least once, because I wasn't comfortable with the gauge reading constantly in the red.

SeanD

Oh man you are going through all the same stuff we have! (993 owners) 2 days after purchasing my 993 I saw the same thing but had apparently slipped off the clutch or something, stalled the car and THEN noticed that the oil level was in the red. Totally unrelated, but I didn't know!

The gauge is bogus. Very inaccurate. Check the mile long dipstick on on the right side of the engine bay and that will give you the correct reading. I just generally ignore the variable feature of the oil level gauge.

Next you are going to post about:

1. A strange squeeking noice coming from somewhere (will be the windsheild)
2. A noise when you engage the clutch and a sticky clutch pedal, or a pedal that won't fully return (will be the slave cylinder)
3. Squeeky brakes (will have to wash out the calipers/pads with high-pressure water to remove build-up)
4. A noisy rear wing motor. (will be a bad wing transmission.)

5. A WHOLE BUNCH OF MOD QUESTIONS!

.. uh .. at least this is what I have done so far!

Sean

os993

My 95 993's oil gauge is VERY accurate, based on two years of ownership and very detailed observation of the dipstick vs. the oil gauge.

Silver Bullet, as others have already mentioned if the dipstick is reading ok, then you might have to just add 1/2 quart of oil to get the gauge to read above the red. Most importantly, make sure you've driven the car (after your commute) to check and fill the oil. I'm guessing the dealership filled the proper amount of oil, but stayed on the conservative low side, versus being too high - not a bad move at all.

Don't worry about freaking out! Trust me, we've all been there, done that. Cheers, good luck, and stay tuned to Rennlist - this site is worth more than gold!!!

Francesco

Guys
after reading your posts (a subject that I thought I knew pretty well), I have a question for you guys.
I normally go by my dashboard guage and aim for 3 o'clock or slightly higher than horizontal(Flat surface, thouroughly warmed up). This normally gives me a dipstick reading of about a half to 1cm higher than the top of the twisted section of the dipstick.
Am I overfilling, due to an innacurate dash guage?

GratefulJED

Francesco:
I believe the reading should be between the twisted section ends. Robin or Viken where are you? I know there is a more detailed answer, although the Porsche engineers should be pleased in a twisted way that we have all NSOP in the first few hours of ownership of our wonderful cars!!

os993

You want to be within the twisties! Lower than the twisties, you're too low, higher than the twisties, you're too high!

If you are 1cm over the twisties, I would say you are slightly overfilled. I would leave it be, and wait until the level drops to the middle of the dipstick, then visually see where your gauge is - this should be your future reference point.

bet

Since adding oil is being discussed...Is there a problem with mixing oils (Mobil 1 specifically) with different viscosities? I ask this because I need to add about ½ quart, however, I don’t know the viscosity rating of the oil used by the PO. I plan on changing the oil next month but I would like to top things off prior to then. I was just going to use viscosity rating suggested in the owners manual.

amfp

bet
No problem in mixing viscosities providing same Mobil 1 brand is used. A Mobil 1 oil engineer once told me mixing for their 0-40 with 15 x 50 is fine. Even a 50-50 ratio. Of course when you change over viscosities you still have ~ two quarts in the pipes/engine parts that never drain.
Somewhat off topic of this post, read that some Formula 1 cars run 0-30 Mobil 1, so suspect as time goes on it even lighter oils will be used in passenger cars.

Randall G.

Hi Francisco,

You may be mistaking a smear mark for a true oil level ... seems to be fairly common. It has actually led some p-car owners to drive around a quart or more low! (Incidentally, in these cases, the oil level gauge reading in the red was disregarded, and considered inaccurate.)

You want to find the spot where oil is "full" on both sides of the stick, not just oil smeared on one side as the stick is removed.

Best of luck!