Basic Car Maintenance: Checking your Oil

Alright kiddies, let's get this first blog post on the road

Motor vehicles are fickle beasts. Contrary to what your auto dealership may have told you, they do not operate exclusively on happy thoughts and unicorn farts. (We'll pause here for a moment to let all the Prius owners recover from the this sudden shock. Go ahead. we've got time.)

Done? Good. Go ahead and clean up the shattered bits of your innocence and let's move on.

In point of fact, most vehicles operate smoothly because of a variety of different fluids that get poured into them at one point or another (sort of like your Uncle Larry on a Friday night).

These fluids include gasoline (a magic liquid that transforms your car from the world's stupidest paperweight into a viable mode of transportation), transmission fluid, engine coolant and oil. Now chances are that you've had to refill your car's supply of gasoline at some point (Likely after you realizing that an empty gas tank typically leads to a brisk walk down main street with your thumb in the air). But what you may not have realized is that your vehicle's oil stores also need to be checked regularly and topped off occasionally to ensure continued operation.

Oil is important to your vehicle because it lubricates most of the moving parts in your engine. This, in turn, keeps said parts from grinding against one another like two extras in a hip-hop video and eventually causing irreparable damage to your vehicle's engine. Before doing anything else, make sure you have a cloth rag or some paper towels nearby, as well as a couple quarts of motor oil. Most vehicles take 10W-30 or 10W-40 grade oil. If you're not sure which is which, check with the clerk at your local auto part's store, and he'll be able to tell you.

Now that we've got our equipment nearby, the first step to checking the oil is to open up the hood of your vehicle and locate the dipstick.

No, that's wrong. (Although I like the way you think.) You're looking for something that looks similar to this:

You will also note that there is a second dipstick just above the oil dipstick. This one is used for checking the level of your vehicle's transmission fluid. For now, though, we won't bother with it as you need to check transmission fluid far less often than oil, and many older cars don't even have the second dipstick. If you're not sure which dipstick is which, don't worry, it's actually quite simple. Reach in and pull the dipstick out, then check the color of the fluid near the bottom. If the fluid is brownish in color, you've got the oil dipstick. If the fluid is pinkish or red, you've pulled the transmission dipstick. Or possibly developed a nosebleed.


Now that your dipstick is out (I pause here to wait for the juvenile sniggers to die down), wipe it clean with your rag or paper towel (Seriously, stop with the sniggering. Grade school was years ago) and put it back into the pipe you drew it out of. Pull it out one more time, then examine the end of the dipstick where the oil has made a mark. If the oil comes up between the two indicator marks--they will look similar to the image below--then you've got enough oil in your car. If the marks fall BELOW the lower mark, you're going to need to add oil to your car to prevent the condition known as "myengineblewupitis"

Oil is added to your vehicle by removing the oil cap on your valve covers. and pouring in the ol' black gold. And with that one sentence, I've managed to convince most of you that I do, indeed, speak Martian. The oil cap looks typically looks like some variance of this:

"What does '710' mean?"

Twist/pull this cap off and you'll have a nice open hole to pour your motor oil into. A funnel can make this process easier, but is not necessarily required if you have good aim. Make sure you re-check your oil level after the first quart or so to determine if you ought to add more.