My 2006 burned no oil even at the track. My 2007 burned just a little only at the track but not even a quart the whole weekend.....my 2009 burned oil like it was a 2 stroke engine. Porsche even did a oil usage test on it....street use it was around a quart every 800-900 miles....track use of 2 days at the track and track driven mileage was 300 miles that weekend I went through 1 quart.

Porsche said this is with in spec and normal. I traded in the car for a 2012 GTS that didn't burn any oil on the street and very slight use at the track.

 

The manual clearly states to check the oil level when it's all warmed up and you let it rest a few minutes after shutting it off. It's all in there.

 

Exactly the same here. My -06 C4S used no oil at all. The -09 C4S went through a quart every 1,500 to 1,750 miles and the -11 GTS goes the 10,000 miles between oil changes with no need to add a drop. Last oil change it was down one bar from full.

 

Goes to show how little I paid attention to that part of the Manuel. I learned a lesson! Now I'm going to watch it only after getting warmed up.

 

Now that I'm paying a bit more attention to the gauge. There is a big difference from cold and hot readings. Started car last night and cold should me at bottom of oil level for needing oil.

Car is warm or at temp and the reading is two bars higher. That's a big difference between the two. Is anyone else seeing readings that far apart?

 

Well, with our volume of oil, and the thermal expansion of oil, that number is going to be right at about 450-500 ml. So, the 1-2 bar variation you are seeing is normal & expected.

I'll post the actual formula later when I get to my laptop.

 

Not at all familiar with the newer models and the proper procedure for checking the oil level.

How did you check the oil level cold *after* starting the engine?

With my 2002 Boxster if I start the engine cold then shut off the engine it can take an hour -- based on the count down timer -- before the oil level can be checked. Once the engine is started then I can't really check the oil until the engine has gotten up to full operating temperature to the point that after the engine has been shut off and when I go to check the oil level the count down timer starts at 5 seconds.

As an aside, I make it a habit of only checking the oil level if the count down timer starts at 5 seconds.

So the extremely low level of oil might be something related to how you checked the oil.

For my Boxster I can tell you that with the engine dead cold after having sat overnight the level can be down 1 to 2 bars. Whether it is down 1 bar or 2 bars depends upon how cold it gets. Right now where I live the overnight temperature is getting down to between 55F and 60F but some nights doesn't reach its lowest temperature until just around dawn. As a result the cold oil level reading is not down by 2 bars from the hot oil level reading.

For my Boxster there are 6 bars displayed and from the low level to the max level represents 1.6l. That's 0.26l per bar. 0.26l is equal to 0.27qt.

The only time I have encountered an oil level reading that has the oil level down enough to at least look like the oil level is dangerously low is when I have checked the oil level with the car parked on a heavily crowned road with the car much lower on the right side than the left side. However, because I had checked the oil level earlier -- as is my habit -- I knew the oil level was ok and that the low reading was an anomaly caused by the severe out of level condition of the car and I ignored the low reading.

Just a bit of a long winded way to impress upon you the importance of checking the oil level correctly.

If you are able to check the oil level with the engine off then either you check it after the car has sat say overnight since being last run -- and ideally it was run enough to be fully up to temperature before you shut off the engine -- or you wait until the engine is fully up to temperature -- which can depending upon the ambient temperature take some time -- 15 or more minutes of usage -- and then has been shut off long enough for the oil to have returned to the oil sump. I've never bothered to time this but I suspect 5 minutes is plenty of time. (I could I guess immediately after shutting off the engine turn the key back on and note the count down timer's starting value but I just know that a few minutes is all it takes and I have adapted to this. For instance I stop to fill the gas tank and then I check the oil level. Or I stop to run in to a store or office to run an errand and a few minutes later I'm back at the car and I can check the oil level with the count down timer starting its countdown at 5 seconds.)

 

I suspect there is a lot of people driving flat engines with way too much oil. They pay no attention to proper oil level checking procedures and keep adding oil, causing more harm than good.

 

OK, here's the math:


Max expansion starts to happen above the 210-215 mark.

Specific volume of a unit can be expressed as

The change in the units volume when temperature change can be expressed as



dV = V0 β (t1 - t0) (2)

v = 1 / ρ = V / m (1)

where

v = specific volume (m3/kg)

ρ = density (kg/m3)

V = volume of unit (m3)

m = mass of unit (kg)



The density of a fluid when the temperature is changed can be expressed as

where



dV = V1 - V0 = change in volume (m3)

β = volumetric temperature expansion coefficient (m3/m3 oC)

t1 = final temperature (oC)

t0 = initial temperature (oC)



ρ1 = m / V0 (1 + β (t1 - t0))



= ρ0 / (1 + β (t1 - t0)) (3)

where

ρ1 = final density (kg/m3)

ρ0 = initial density (kg/m3)




Volumetric Temperature Coefficients - β - of some common Fluids •water : 0.000214 (1/oC),
•ethyl alcohol : 0.00109 (1/ oC), 0.00061 (1/oF)
•oil : 0.00070 (1/oC), 0.00039 (1/oF)



Hot engine ~220F and room temp ~75F and that's 145F temp difference. The oil volume expansion is then 0.00039 * 145 = 5.6%

5.6% of 9L of oil = 0.5L

 

Which is a little more than one gradation on the oil level gage.

 

Macaster,

You read my statement wrong. I looked at the oil cold and then ran the engine and checked it again. It's hard sometimes to check oil level since it takes 5 minutes to get a reading after running the engine. What I try and do is check oil after stopping and coming back to the car from the store etc. I'm more diligent in checking the oil now and be more aware.

As the mileage has gotten higher I see a bit more usage. Or as I drive less I'm not changing oil as quickly therefore I see the change in the level.

Either way I'm watching more.

 

How do your exhaust pipe tips look like? If the left one is not too black, noting to worry about,

 

Is that 1 L per 800 km or 800 miles?

 

Actually, it might be closer to 1 L per 1000 km, or 1 quart per 600 miles.

 

Pipes look good. The are already ceramic coated black but one can still see soot and they are not that dirty.