My car recently had an oil change and it has been slightly overfilled i.e about 1/2in over max fill on dipstick.Is this ok
or am I bieng pedantic and also what are the repercussions of overfilling.
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It depends on the car. Generally, an oil overfill can cause catalyst damage due to the excess burning off in too short a time or, in the case of some engines, leaks will occur due to the crankcase pressure pushing the oil past a seal - often the one behind the crank pulley. Other than a mess, the consequence of this is an oiled up timing belt - which is serious.
As an extreme generalisation, if you have an "ordinary" petrol engined car, the overfill you describe is unlikely to cause trouble. If you have a PSA diesel, drain the excess, otherwise you may have an oily belt or, in an extreme case, an engine runaway. This occurs when the engine ingests its own oil via the crankcase breather, and the governor is powerless to limit the speed.
The easiest way to drain a small amount of oil from an engine is to put a receiver under the spin on filter, then loosen it. You may have to re-start the engine after tightening it and repeat a few times.
659.
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1/2in is too much,when I worked for main dealer 2to3mm was enough to get supervisor making the mechanic drain off excess.
am I bieng pedantic
Not IMO,depending on engine it can cause damage to oils seals
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Steve
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Oil leaking past a seal will not damage the seal; in fact they must be fitted with oil or grease on the lips to prevent damage. It's where the oil goes after leaking past the seal you need to worry about.
659.
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sorry,Should have said can make them move not *damage*depending on severity of overfill.still think its too much?
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Steve
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I agree that is definitely too much overfill. Its going to get excessively churned up and the resulting oil mist has to go somewhere, a combination of up the bores (depending on engine wear) and up the breather pipe. Either way it ends up being combusted which is bad for the cat.
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If a garage did it go and get them to suck out the excess via the dip stick tube. Over fill is not good. Regards Peter
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i had a nissan primera 1.6 petrol and someone put in a litre over what it should of had, i drove the car 100 miles wondering why it was smoking when i first started up, when i realised i took it to a garage to level it out, after that no problems in fact i had no problems at all it was just puffing out whitish smoke for the first 3 miles when cold.
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1/2" is definately too much, I would sort this out before driving the car.
Although, I did hear a story once of an old lady who literally 'filled' her engine with oil.
Basically she kept going until the rocker box was full up to the filler neck ! Just like filling the tank with fuel.
Her only comments were "it was very low, I put in more than two of those gallon cans" !
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Thanks for the replies the car is a BMW tds, I will take it back to the garage and get them to take some out to be on the safe side.
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