What happens on a Boxer engine when there's too much Oil?
 

(I'm a boxer noobie and there's a lot I don't understand about this motor so please bear with me.)

After my FR-S had a Cam Gear replaced to deal with the CEL triggered by a P0016 DTC on the dipstick I noticed I'm about half a quart over the "full" mark. What sorts of things can I expect when there's too much oil in this type of engine?

Drain some out so you dont have to find out :happy0180:

Let's just say there's a reason im asking... :(

http://i1209.photobucket.com/albums/...mento/Oil2.jpg

http://i1209.photobucket.com/albums/...mento/Oil1.jpg

I actually havent seen the back of my car in sunlight until this morning. I picked her up from the dealer on Sat afternoon when she was squeeky clean and overfilled.

Wow that's awful, i would have them come pick it up on a flatbed tow truck and fix it.

Id definately call them and say, "hey, my car is covered in oil, yall need to fix this because it wasn't like this when i brought it in." Or something to that effect lol. That just looks horrible. Whats it look like underneath the car??

Yeah you may have overflow oil in your cylinders. I see the bumper is spotty is that oily substance?

So here's the funny part. I drove it over to the dealer and they said that the oil levels were fine even tho they were well above the top dot on the dip stick. Then I drove the car to a Subaru Dealer and a mechanic there said the same thing.

Just to get the inevitable question out of the way:

> I properly broke-in the engine
> I'm not normally seeing smoke while I'm driving.

I thought I caught the site of smoke while I was driving home from the dealer. I was up in the rev range playing with a 335 at the time. It was chilly out and thought that was steam

We put it on a lift in the morning and it was as clean as a whistle.

It's more dusty then anything. A huge portion of Lake Shore Drive (10miles) has been recently repaved with asphalt and I drive on it twice a day at least. Is it that and I'm overacting?

Check your air filter ;)
You might find that the access oil has good all the way down there if it looks the bad on the back
Also your cat will be affected

Good advice

(I am worried about the Cats as well but if they failed prematurely because of this i think they would be under the emissions warrantee)

Cat warranty is 8 years iirc.

Overfilling Oil can result in oil foaming up in the head and this can cause oil starvation issues...


Here's a quote from the Forester forums:

Haha yeah that could do it and could be unrelated to the oil level. You said you noticed the oil level when you picked up your car, right? If they put in new oil and filter, they would have allowed for the filter to soak up some oil, hence filling past the "full" mark. Have you checked the level again after driving it for a while?

My car came from the factory over filled (between 1/4-1/2 quart) and I never had any issues because of it. Others have reported the same. That said, your bumper does look pretty ugly...are the insides of your exhaust tips greasy with oil residue?

I noticed this a couple of days after the car was picked up (yesterday)

Later today I will take a pic of the current level.

That much shouldn't really make much of a difference as long as you don't beat on it nonstop. But if your worried just jack it up and drain a little bit

To be honest, from my experience with the EJ engine series they are very tolerant to being over-filled. In the turbo WRX/STi you might get some blow by, but never really any engine issues.

The FA20 I really cant say, I guess time will tell.

Generally, the oil being a little bit low is better than being too high. The quote from the Forester forum covers this, but the crank can aerate the oil which means you have air where oil should be and that can cause an issue. Aerated oil will not have as much pressure and you can run dry in some spots.
To be safe I would have the dealership drain some oil and tell them that there is a high mark on the dipstick for a reason if they contest it. Also make them note that the oil was high for their records in case there are any warranty issues in the future.

-Zach

Update!
 

Yeah there was WAY too much oil in there. I didn't want to go back to a dealership and have them make the same mistake so I bought one of these...

http://media.ed.edmunds-media.com/no...to_100_600.jpg

... and pulled out over a quart of oil until the dipstick read in-between the dots!

So now a few follow up questions:

I'm pretty sure the smoke I saw last week from the motor was probably oil blow by. Should I consider the oil in the engine "good" or has it been aerated and should be changed?

Is there any other follow up I need to consider?

What did the tailpipes look like?
That almost looks like fresh oil from road construction...
I can't see how a 1/2 quart would do that. Mine came with that much overfilled and I extracted it when I got home.
Car already had 50 miles on it and the tailpipes are clean....

The back of the car was oily but the tail pipes actually were dirty and rusty? :iono:

Now that I have all of that excess oil out of the car I'm going put a few hard rev happy miles into the car and see of anything funny comes out of the tail pipe...

Hopefully it's all good for Sunday :)

I did check the air filter and it looked pretty clean. I replaced it just in case.

Indeed. I just posted in the other thread about that. I think we're good to go... :)

You don't need to worry about changing the oil because it will settle and the air will come out on it's own.

Just keep an eye on the level and when you check it, do it about 2 mins after you shut the engine off to get an accurate reading. It can take some time for it to all drain back into the pan after it is shut off.

-Zach

I'd keep an eye on your dipstick and watch for any abnormal oil consumption. if you are burning oil - ask for a new engine

Hey @@Art_Mighty, what was your outcome?

That's funny the Subaru dealer said half quart over is ok consider we just lgt this TechTip. Overfilling your oil is a bad thing, half quart over is worse than half quart under.

There's absolutely no reason or excuse why they can't fill your oil to the proper level.

ETA: just realized this thread is 2 years old. Guess they should know better now.

When I was installing my custom 7.6 quart oil pan we wernt exactly sure how much it took and I was filling while it was not level on jackstands. I ended up being about .6quarts over. Then I ran it pretty hard and about .25qrts of it ended up in my catch can. No issues here and my bumper looks normal.

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