Checking Your Oil
Every MassCarCare.com station is more than happy to check and change your oil on a regular basis, but if you want to check your oil yourself, here’s the correct way to do it:
- Check the oil when the engine is warm. Oil expands when it's hot and contracts when it's cold; different temperatures will give you different readings.
- Park the car on a level surface and turn off the engine.
- Pull the hood release lever under the dashboard and walk around the front of the car, reach under the hood, find the latch and squeeze it. As you squeeze the latch, open the hood.
- Find the dipstick, a long piece of metal sticking out of the engine with a loop at one end, usually located near the spark plugs. Pull on the loop and draw the dipstick all the way out.
- Wipe the oil off the dipstick with a paper towel or shop rag.
- Replace the clean dipstick, making sure to push it all the way in, then pull it back out and hold it horizontally in front of you.
- Look at the pointy end of the dipstick. If the oil on the dipstick is below the line marked "full," add a small amount of oil (less than a quarter of a quart) with a funnel. Many dipsticks simply have two lines with a cross hatch design in between. The oil level should be halfway between these two lines.
- Add the oil by unscrewing the oil filler cap, which is about 3 inches in diameter and located on the very top of the engine.
- Re-check the oil level with the dipstick after adding oil. Add more if necessary. It's easier to add more oil but fairly difficult to remove oil if you add too much.
- Put the oil filler cap back on and secure it tightly.