Originally Posted by Minok

How can 'stopping at 2 quarts' be the right thing. If the oil level was fine, and the sensor failed and shows its low (without an oil sensor failure fault code)... then adding 1/2 a quart or 1 quart could have put the level over the top.

When the electronic sensor fails, you have no idea that it has failed in most cases, unless you know you had a good and full oil level when you parked the car and you start it to find the oil level way low but there isn't a big puddle of oil under the car. Otherwise, how would you know its a bad sensor?

A mechanical dipstick that at least shows when the oil level is near full or not would be handy... so that way you can physically verify what the electronic sensor is saying when it indicates the oil level is way low.

Originally Posted by Edgy01

I would think that everyone would know their engines well enough to know roughly where their oil sits at any given time. For example, if your car takes little to no oil, then when you get a failure of the oil level sensor you will know immediately that it failed--and not when you are down 2 quarts. For example, my engine likes to use a quart every 1000 miles, I would immediately suspect something was wrong with the sensor if it told me that it was using either significantly more or less than that amount (barring any oil leak beneath the engine). In the back of everyone's mind, they should know roughly where their oil level is.

Originally Posted by Edgy01

Routinely when the bottom bar is flashing it will take a full quart to get it back to a normal reporting position.