Oil Level too high?

Changed the oil and when it is cold, the electronic level meter is 1 space below full and dipstick reads a little below full When the engine is hot, the electronic meter shows all bars and dipstick shows full Did I overfill it? I don't want to have an AOS problem I know the owners manual says check when warmed up Also what is "normal" on the oil pressure gauge?

I think you are fine. Oil pressure should peg at 5 at cold start at idle. After warmed up, it's 3bar or above whenever rev > 2k rpm (from my memory). Fully warmed up idling, it should read 1.5bar or more.

I know at least in my car ('99 C4) the electronic "oil level gauge" seems fairly sensitive and is very dependent on the level of the ground on which the car sits. My understanding is that as long as it reads between the lowest and highest bars you're ok - of course you need to check the dipstick as well. I believe the difference between the full and the "down" mark is 1 qt. ...

The owners manual claims its 1.6 qt I think.

^Right you are^ my bad!

Checking the oil is tricky business, though it shouldn't be, ..............because Porsche. So I find that stone cold my oil is about half dipstick/half e-guage. Once warmed up and allowed to drain back 10-15 minutes it is one tick below full. The owner's manual says to check warm and not to be over or under filled. So the question is what was meant by the engineers to be warm? How long of a drain back period? They say after filling up, but that is not enough time as the gas tank is so small. Unless they meant for it to be a short drain back and read at that time, at which it would be overfilled when warm with a healthy drain back period. My circlular speak is over. Basically I check it in the morning stone cold and it is usually halfway, after a healthy drain back period it is one tick below the max line. Oh and to answer the oil pressure question, I have seen from 1 to 1.5 (fully warm, 30 minutes of driving and in stop and go traffic) with a new oil pressure sensor, but I am not sure if it is completely correct as this one gets erratic at times between 3 and 4 bar and will bounce wildly.

My 2 cents: I put 9 quarts in (oil & filter change with engine cold of course) and have never bothered checking. Ignorance is bliss I guess

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If you are checking the oil with the car on level ground and the hot oil level is at but not above the max. line on the dash oil level display or the dipstick then you didn't add too much oil. The level is where it should be. If you are checking the car on level ground and the hot oil level is above the max line on the display or the dipstick then you added too much oil. Since the system is not intended to measure how overfull the engine is with oil ideally you should remove enough oil to bring the level down. As I have covered many times the *proper* oil change procedure is to warm up the engine to whatever temperature is called for, drain the oil a specific amount of time, then add a specific amount of oil to the engine, then confirm the digital oil level system reports the correct level. The temperature the engine should be, the oil drain time, the amount of oil to add to the engine, all are called out in the factory reference manual, and these values may not agree with their counterparts in the owners manual. The car's digital oil level system or even dipstick is not used to measure the amount of oil in the engine. The dealer's oil dispensing nozzle measures the amount of oil added to the engine and the digital oil level system reading is then taken to ensure it agrees with a known and correct quantity of oil in the engine. This confirms the digital oil level system is working right so the owner/driver can use it to check the oil level occasionally.

Well I did follow the "proper" procedure and warmed up the engine before draining the oil, made sure is was level for the bloodletting and let it drip for a long time. I did check the level carefully when refilling it. I checked it again cold and now the level meter shows halfway between the marks as does the dipstick. When warmed up, they both show full with the meter 1 mark above full. I am considering dropping the filter and draining a little oil so when hot it is not above full on the meter as far as oil pressure, it shows 5 when cold and drops maybe to 3 when hot and goes up to 5 again when driving,. Before i changed the oil, I think it was slightly lower. Its not something I was looking at a lot as i don't have the oil pressure gauge in my DD 986 and was not used to looking at it As I have a 986 with a M96 engine and am aware of potential AOS problems with overfill

I think you're worrying way too much. From your oil readings, I don't think you will have any problems in terms of oil level. It doesn't sound like over filling to me at all. BTW, oil level does not affect oil pressure unless in under filled scenario so your oil reading is not indicating you're overfilling if that's what you are thinking.

How much oil did you add? Porsche rec 9.25 quarts. I just let it drain for 20 min, put that much is and cold I am 1 bar below full. Has not changed in 4000 miles. Going to change the oil this weekend and measure it and see how much I get back

Personally I think a bigger deal is being made out of 1.6 qts. Some initially think the oil gauge represents the entire oil capacity and in that context maybe more valid for concern. However, many engines have run fine being a quart or so down on oil between oil changes. Even in the Porsche manual IIRC mentions that being a qt down can be normal. Slightly more or less oil never hurt engines in the past. Of course with the 996 crowd, you never know what kind of hysteria will become of this. my $.02

"Even in the Porsche manual IIRC mentions that being a qt down can be normal." This might be where I got the idea that the low and high marks on the dipstick represented a difference of 1 qt. ... not sure though... The electronic meter in my car reads between Full and 3 bars down depending on where I'm parked in my driveway. In my "regular" spot it reads 1 bar down and just a little below "full" on the dipstick. FWIW these are the exact readings I got when I picked the car up in Illinois on Oct 19th. almost 2000 mi. ago. It's a little under 4000 mi. since the last oil change, so as soon as the new filter gets here, I'm going to change it out.

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Well, not to be difficult but you didn't do the change right. You do not just warm up the engine you warm it up to or above a minimum temperature. I believe the engine should be to at least 70C, although this is for my Turbo. The 996 NA may have a different temperature call out. You do not let oil drip a long time. You let it drip 20 minutes. (I think this is the factory drain time for your car's engine.) Last but not least you do not use the digital oil level system to measure the amount of oil you put in the engine you use how much oil you put in the engine -- how much is either measured by if you are a tech the dispensing nozzle/gun in the bay or by some graduated pitcher -- to then confirm the digital oil level reading is correct. The "one mark above full" does not mean the engine has in volume too much oil of whatever the other marks represent in terms of volume. The oil level sensor/system is not intended to measure how much too much oil has been added to the engine only that the level is too high. Thus the oil level could be around a fraction of a quart too full of or gallons (well quarts at any rate) too full. The oil pressure reading is about what I would expect. 5 bar when cold even at idle is ballpark-ish and 3 bar when warm is also ballpark-ish. Actually 3 bar in fact seems a mite high but it takes some time for the oil to get fully up to temperature and until it does it will of course be thicker and as a result oil pressure reading will be elevated. Also, the oil pressure sensor/gage is not the most precise instrument so the actual oil pressure might be between 2 bar and 4 bar which is more in line what I have seen with my own car and what I have read others have seen. I'd not lose any sleep over the oil pressure. As long as at hot idle the low oil pressure light is not coming on and the engine doesn't seize at high RPMs the engine's oil pressure is just fine. For the engine overfilled with oil since you have lost the opportunity to actually confirm the digital oil level system is working all you can do is assume it is and remove some oil to address the overfilling. Typically this is done by unscrewing the oil filter housing and dump out the oil then carefully screwing in the oil filter housing with the hope the oil level wasn't that much above the max line. I have to say I really do like this as I do not like removing and then installing the filter element again. Its first installation the filter element requires some force to install but subsequently does not. While this might be an inordinate amount of paranoia on my part I'm always concerned the filter element might develop a leak under pressure and allow unfiltered oil through to the engine's clean oil system side. But I doubt you would be in the mood to go through another full oil change and this time capture the oil in a clean drain pan and then replace the filter element and reuse the "old" oil and this time do so by putting it into a graduated pitcher and then removing any oil to bring the level down to what it should be or adding any oil -- if necessary -- to bring the amount of oil up to what it should be then pouring this oil into the engine and then confirming the digital oil level reading is what it should be. No more. No less.

I'm probably over thinking it..... It's just the cold vs hot levels are much wider than in my Boxster S

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Totally BTW, you realize that the temp diff alone (room vs fully warmed) contributes to ~0.4L volume difference?

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That is what I noticed and on my 3.2l Boxster, it is about 1/2 that.

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Not that I didn't believe you, but I had to do the calculation myself. From 0 to 100 Celsius you gain almost 2/3 of a quart. Wow.

Yeah, I assumed 70F to 180F on 9L of oil with coeff of expansion 0.00039/F Definitely can be detected at the dipstick. The other equally important factor is the temp of oil at engine shut down. The higher then temp, the more the oil will drain back. The lower the temp, the more oil will cling on to the moving parts of the engine.