Dealership put too much oil in car.

Middy

My car is a Hyundai i20 and is petrol. I drive about 4k a year. I had a service done on my car in Nov/Dec.

My dad did a car check of washer level, tyre pressure etc. He found that I had too much oil. I have never topped up the oil. It was checked the last time the car was serviced.

The only problem I had was just before Christmas, the car battery died and needed charging up - probably due to the cold weather.

What problems does having too much oil in a modern car have? If its a problem, can I take it to the dealership and ask them to drain the excess oil for me?

mchale

Depend's how much its overfilled, and really you should be checking oil & water weekly.

DoubleTop_2

normally, too much oil will put pressure extra pressure on seals in the engine. Thinking logically, overfill means more pressure, more pressure means a potential seal blow. What temperature was the engine when you had the oil checked, the expansion is significant.

DT.

TiTheRev

An overfilled engine will find it's way into the cat and chug out of the exhaust as blue smoke, potentially damaging the lambda's and cat itself. If you've not seen any blue smoke then it's hopefully not TOO full. As explained above though, a warm engine will be slightly higher than at cold.

vaio

As others have said it depends “how” overfilled. You can pretty much ignore the thermal expansion.

5 litres of oil going from 10 to 55 degrees would expand to 5.15 litres which is “just” noticeable if you are using something as accurate as a dipstick to measure it. The level would change by about 3mm

mchale

TiTheRev wrote: »

a warm engine will be slightly higher than at cold.

Other way round, you should always check a cars oil level after its been stood overnight & before you start it, thats when you get a accurate reading.

TiTheRev

mchale wrote: »

Other way round, you should always check a cars oil level after its been stood overnight & before you start it, thats when you get a accurate reading.

The oil will slightly expand on a warm engine, but a car left to stand and cool will not differ much as most of the oil around the engine will drain back to the sump overnight.

mchale

TiTheRev wrote: »

The oil will slightly expand on a warm engine, but a car left to stand and cool will not differ much as most of the oil around the engine will drain back to the sump overnight.

Therefore level on dipstick will be higher on a cold engine, check it yourself

TiTheRev

mchale wrote: »

Therefore level on dipstick will be higher on a cold engine, check it yourself

I was agreeing with you

johnnyroper

DoubleTop wrote: »

normally, too much oil will put pressure extra pressure on seals in the engine. Thinking logically, overfill means more pressure, more pressure means a potential seal blow. What temperature was the engine when you had the oil checked, the expansion is significant.

DT.

Overfill will not mean more pressure the oil pump can only provide the pressure it is made to do no matter how much oil in it.

The main problem with Overfill (depends by how much) is it will get in to breather system more than normal causing problems with cats and o2 sensors,if it has massive amounts of extra oil then it can cause the engine to hydraulic due to oil behind pistons.
Had this on a train once where it had 25litres too much in.

Hammyman

Middy wrote: »

My dad did a car check of washer level, tyre pressure etc. He found that I had too much oil. I have never topped up the oil. It was checked the last time the car was serviced.

You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. If it gets an oil leak, how will you know before the oil warning light comes on by which time its usually too late? What about checking the water and the washer fluid, bother with that?