Recently my 2009
987.2
BS has been giving check oil level warnings. The first time it happened it concerned me because I had just had the oil changed by an indie shop who does great work at 1/3 of dealer cost ($100 oil changes).
I thought perhaps he hadn’t tightened the drain
plug
properly. So I called him and he said to run the oil level diagnostic in the settings which I did. It immediately read the oil level as ‘FULL’ and the warning light went out on the dash.
Since that initial warnings light went off a few weeks ago, hardly a drive goes by where it doesn’t throw a false ‘check oil level’ warning which requires a reset via the diagnostics.
Has anyone had any experience with this type of thing?
I'm going to move this over to the Problems and Complaints section - perhaps it might get some traction there. Things sort of get lost in the general "chat" area (which is for general chat's actually..)
Hang on..
Question - do you have any
Porsche
specific diagnostics tools?
The reason I ask - the oil fill routine on the
Foxwell NT530
will tell you exactly what the
ECU
thinks it's seeing from the oil level sender.. and it would be interesting to see what those values are when the warning is shown, and when it isn't shown. That might provide a path to enlightenment on the problem.
Good point … I will just change it again to make sure.
I prefer to think of the oil gauge range in terms of Min and Max, rather than low and full. Even if the reading you get does not show all the bars (top small bar is not shaded), it could be nearly overfilled and due to a slight inaccuracy in the electronic measurement occasionally trigger the warning. That is why I prefer to fill slightly less than Max. There is still plenty of oil to act as a reserve. My car does not loose (burn or leak) a measurable amount of oil between changes and even after 95K miles I've never had to add oil beyond my regular changes. So I don't feel it necessary to put in the Max amount. I regularly check the reading when returning to my regular garage parking spot. Since we both have
987.2
engines, they must be warmed adequately before the oil level can be measured. For comparison purposes it is important to use a consistent (or a known level) location. So even though my garage floor has a very slight pitch, I can use it for comparison.
What is the consequence of over filling the oil?
I think "overfill" is somewhat overplayed with the
987.2
engines.
The (MA1.20/MA1.21) engines are basically a dry sump engine. The sump is in the engine, but a baffle system keeps the oil from sloshing onto the spinning crankshaft. The problem with overfilling the older engine is that the oil could slosh up on the crankshaft, creating an oil mist in the crankcase and aerating the oil that the oil pump was pulling from. That's not good for bearings. Or the
AOS
.
The issue with the frothing is the oil mist could easily overwhelm the original AOS on the earlier (pre-'09) engines, so the crankcase becomes pressurized which will push oil out past seals, and into the intake of the engine.
These issues are much less likely to happen as long as the oil level in the '09+ engines aren't overfilled to the point that oil is pooling above the baffles to the integrated dry-sump.
I wouldn't be in a panic if the oil level display shows the top-bar on the display as having oil in it. If I started seeing smoke out the exhaust then I'd be concerned. So far I haven't had to add any oil to my engine (or any Porsche engine I've cared for..) between changes, so I guess they're happy with the level as I set it when changing the oil.
