too much oil on factory fill
04-05-2010, 10:47 PM
#31
Don't worry, he might easily get a new job over at the Ford dealership.
04-20-2010, 04:24 AM
#32
Race Director
I agree with most of what you say, Macster. You're overkilling the problem, but what the hell. So is three coats of wax. They're our cars, so enjoy the work if you're going to do it.
Speaking as an engineer however, all that is necessary is adding the correct amount of oil after a procedure. (One amount for an oil change and usually a different amount after a teardown.) You specify the correct amount and then add procedures to make sure the first step was done correctly. Counting the cans is what I was taught too. It's probably a good idea to check the indicator as well, just as you do. Either our electronic gauge or a dipstick, because I've known more than one person to refill with oil and not notice it was coming out the bottom because they forgot to replace the drain plug.
All that is fine, but I think you're overreacting to the service manager's answer when bugged about this. Even supposing he's been taught how that gauge works and why it's that way, which is supposing a lot, people in those positions develop a set of answers to what they consider "the ten most annoying stupid questions." They fiddle around trying different things until they find something that will shut down further questioning. I don't endorse this behavior, it's just human nature. This sounds like one of those answers intended to get the customer off the phone without hard feelings. I can hear him thinking, the first fifty calls he got with this question: "What am I? A goddam computer programmer? How do I know why those little bar segments do what they do?"
They almost certainly are just 'dumping' in X quarts of oil, or possibly X.5 liters. That's their specified procedure. If you ask each mechanic to be an artist and follow your personal technique, you'll end up with mistakes. Sure as anything. Most will be trivial and just require a re-work (a cost managers hate), but once in a while you'll lose an engine from a mistake. Nobody writes shop procedures like that. They will have a specified amount of oil to put in the car, which will be dependent on the procedure they're doing and the model they're working on. They won't improvise. Then they will make confirming checks of the result. That's all. Done and done right.
When I noticed that little over-the-line segment on our car, I made a point of asking the mechanic -- personally -- to check the sump manually to confirm the instrument, since I had no dipstick. We did together. And he confided that it is indeed one of those very frequent questions. He didn't know why it was that way. I did, after we checked everything manually and I thought about it a minute, but I wasn't there to provide tutorials to the staff. I just told him what I said here: "It's one of those things computer guys have to do when using that type of display. Otherwise it would give wrong answers in a worse way. Bet it's a pain in the ***, right?"
That left us on good terms and he and his service manager are more likely to listen to me when I complain about a real problem. Like maybe this occasional graunch when I let out the clutch, which is becoming more frequent.
Gary
Speaking as an engineer however, all that is necessary is adding the correct amount of oil after a procedure. (One amount for an oil change and usually a different amount after a teardown.) You specify the correct amount and then add procedures to make sure the first step was done correctly. Counting the cans is what I was taught too. It's probably a good idea to check the indicator as well, just as you do. Either our electronic gauge or a dipstick, because I've known more than one person to refill with oil and not notice it was coming out the bottom because they forgot to replace the drain plug.
All that is fine, but I think you're overreacting to the service manager's answer when bugged about this. Even supposing he's been taught how that gauge works and why it's that way, which is supposing a lot, people in those positions develop a set of answers to what they consider "the ten most annoying stupid questions." They fiddle around trying different things until they find something that will shut down further questioning. I don't endorse this behavior, it's just human nature. This sounds like one of those answers intended to get the customer off the phone without hard feelings. I can hear him thinking, the first fifty calls he got with this question: "What am I? A goddam computer programmer? How do I know why those little bar segments do what they do?"
They almost certainly are just 'dumping' in X quarts of oil, or possibly X.5 liters. That's their specified procedure. If you ask each mechanic to be an artist and follow your personal technique, you'll end up with mistakes. Sure as anything. Most will be trivial and just require a re-work (a cost managers hate), but once in a while you'll lose an engine from a mistake. Nobody writes shop procedures like that. They will have a specified amount of oil to put in the car, which will be dependent on the procedure they're doing and the model they're working on. They won't improvise. Then they will make confirming checks of the result. That's all. Done and done right.
When I noticed that little over-the-line segment on our car, I made a point of asking the mechanic -- personally -- to check the sump manually to confirm the instrument, since I had no dipstick. We did together. And he confided that it is indeed one of those very frequent questions. He didn't know why it was that way. I did, after we checked everything manually and I thought about it a minute, but I wasn't there to provide tutorials to the staff. I just told him what I said here: "It's one of those things computer guys have to do when using that type of display. Otherwise it would give wrong answers in a worse way. Bet it's a pain in the ***, right?"
That left us on good terms and he and his service manager are more likely to listen to me when I complain about a real problem. Like maybe this occasional graunch when I let out the clutch, which is becoming more frequent.
Gary
It is a short cut designed to save a few minutes of time and if a Porsche dealer was letting its technicians do this I'd consider finding another dealer to service my cars.
Sincerely,
Macster.
04-20-2010, 05:45 AM
#33
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The technique I related I picked up from Porsche techs and they told me this was the way they were trained. I didn't invent it. My info is that dumping in x number units of oil is not the proper technique for a Porsche oil change. It is not the proper technique for any engine in which the proper oil level is important.
It is a short cut designed to save a few minutes of time and if a Porsche dealer was letting its technicians do this I'd consider finding another dealer to service my cars.
It is a short cut designed to save a few minutes of time and if a Porsche dealer was letting its technicians do this I'd consider finding another dealer to service my cars.
Gary
04-20-2010, 04:41 PM
#34
Nordschleife Master
post pics of car, carrara white on sea blue is my dream combo...
about oil, the 997.2 takes less so its easy to do... mine takes exactly 8 after oil change and its perfectly topped up.
about oil, the 997.2 takes less so its easy to do... mine takes exactly 8 after oil change and its perfectly topped up.
04-20-2010, 09:52 PM
#36
Rennlist Member
Thread Starter
so far so good on the car dan, i had oil removed to put it at the right level and driven 500kms. no change in oil level. as a mechanical engineer, i am wondering why some car consume and others do not. this should not be the case on a purely engineering point of view. cars designed with same tolerances and materials should exhibit same reactions when subjected to the same conditions.
In adddition i do not see why DFI will be different with oridinary fuel injected engines in terms of oil consumption, unless the DFI system itself is the one consuming the oil and mixing it with the fuel that is eventually burned in the engine.
In adddition i do not see why DFI will be different with oridinary fuel injected engines in terms of oil consumption, unless the DFI system itself is the one consuming the oil and mixing it with the fuel that is eventually burned in the engine.
04-21-2010, 12:31 AM
#37
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I must admit to some curiosity myself as to why some cars are burners and other like mine and ADias go for thousands of miles without needing even a quart. What I suspect is primary, Rick, are two social phenomena. People whose cars never use oil don't come to Rennlist to ask why. And when we begin a discussion among people who came here for the other excellent reasons, if the thread drifts to oil consumption, we immediately break ourselves into groups: those whose cars don't use enough to be noticeable, and those annoyed about it.
Those two social aspects would cause a phenomenon that actually follows Normal's curve to appear strongly bimodal. In other words, we're looking at a filtered set of data sources in the first place and then we round each data point of a very continuous function down to two bits at most: 11: Terrible oil burning monster; 10: Annoying to add oil every month, but tolerable; 01: Hardly ever add a quart, but I have to watch it; and finally ADias and me, 00: Haven't added a quart in six thousand miles, and don't expect to.
We might see an informative trend if we had original data with good resolution, but it's hopeless with this truncated and anecdotal mishmash.
With all that said, I suspect there may be something at work that is at least slightly bimodal. For example, if I may entice you to discuss something from your shelf of the engineering cabinet, I know that absent hand-honing and other time consuming measures, one of the tolerances of pistons and cylinder bores is ellipticity. That is the difference between the major and minor axes of the elliptical hole that is of course spec'd as circular opening, versus the elliptical cross-section of the also supposedly circular piston. The piston cannot rotate within the cylinder bore of course. So whatever alignment of those axes was created at their independent manufacturing will remain for life, absent those hand assembly measures we take with race engines, and usually only for the most expensive classes, like Formula One and IndyCar.
I have idly wondered whether the pattern of alignment between the respective major axes of those two widgets might occasionally produce a combination that is sensitive to careful running in of the rings. Now some -- but not all -- of those will end up in the hands of people who credit the "drive it like you stole it" school of break-in for engines. Finally, add to those two random distributions the chance location of the tolerance gap at the break in the rings. Line procedures are intended to place the gap in adjacent rings at different points on the circumference, right? Well, at least that used to be so when I was young and the world was more... gappy than now. Given to larger tolerances I mean.
My idle speculation is that when all those phenomena work together, we occasionally get a car broken in rudely, in which the gaps in the rings are not exactly aligned but are closer than usual. Say within twenty degrees of each other and that twenty degrees includes the point at which the major axis of the cylinder bore ellipsis is most different from the piston, which has its minor axis at nearly that same angle.
When that all comes together, we have a piston at its furthest distance from the cylinder wall with all the rings positioned with their gap in that angular section and the parts were not gently lapped in but roughly introduced to each other like thieves. That car will be a true burner. Now suppose the engine is mechanically configured that way, but broken in per the manual, allowing the rings to do their best job possible of dealing with the slightly overlarge cap at that angular segment. That car would burn oil, but not so determinedly.
And so forth down through the progressively less serious alignments, until you have cars that do not noticeably 'burn' oil at all. (We know that all engines and especially those that rely heavily on the oil for cooling consume oil routinely, but I surmise that people don't notice a cupful per five thousand miles.)
I'm just speculating, mind you. And this does not answer the people that always ask why a Porsche would show that pattern while Lexus does not. They have been answered elsewhere, but to repeat it in simple terms, the Lexus does not have an engine fitted to the engine bay like a foot in a sock, and the Lexus does not have weight pared away wherever possible to accommodate five hundred pounds of safety systems and five hundred more of modern niceties like carpet, while keeping the sporting agile nature that earned the company's reputation when a 1.1 litre engine was handling the chores.
Gary
04-21-2010, 12:57 AM
#38
Poseur
Rennlist Member
Rennlist Member
This is my first water-cooled Porsche. I never had oil consumption like this in any air-cooled engine built by Porsche. We did a poll back in 2007:
https://rennlist.com/forums/997-foru...sage-poll.html
I'm convinced it is more a bad tolerance stack and nothing that the owner/driver can do anything about. The poll shows that roughly 13% of the engines (pre-DI engines) are using oil at 1 quart per 1000 miles or worse. I think that if Porsche knew what the problem was they would have corrected it by now. What they did instead was to release a TSB in 2007 to try to down play the consumption.
https://rennlist.com/forums/997-foru...sage-poll.html
I'm convinced it is more a bad tolerance stack and nothing that the owner/driver can do anything about. The poll shows that roughly 13% of the engines (pre-DI engines) are using oil at 1 quart per 1000 miles or worse. I think that if Porsche knew what the problem was they would have corrected it by now. What they did instead was to release a TSB in 2007 to try to down play the consumption.
04-21-2010, 12:58 AM
#39
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If you're in the "above the top line" position on the gauge, is it possible that car movement can trigger the check oil exclamation point light? I've definitely gotten that warning light at times on my new engine (700 miles). It always subsides, i.e., it doesn't go off again immediately. Dealer told me not to be concerned, etc.
04-21-2010, 12:54 PM
#40
Not sure if I mentioned this before but even if you follow instructions in the manual, the oil indicator can mess with your mind. 
It'll say something that freeks you out and then the next day (after worrying about it sufficiently), it gives you a different (and consistent) less mind-bending readout. Happened to me.
It'll say something that freeks you out and then the next day (after worrying about it sufficiently), it gives you a different (and consistent) less mind-bending readout. Happened to me.
04-21-2010, 05:34 PM
#41
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Not sure if I mentioned this before but even if you follow instructions in the manual, the oil indicator can mess with your mind.
It'll say something that freeks you out and then the next day (after worrying about it sufficiently), it gives you a different (and consistent) less mind-bending readout. Happened to me.
It'll say something that freeks you out and then the next day (after worrying about it sufficiently), it gives you a different (and consistent) less mind-bending readout. Happened to me.
It's too bad Porsche no longer trusts its customers to read a dipstick.
04-22-2010, 06:14 PM
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Damn. Tried once and just as I was proofing it, I twitched my track ball somehow and caused my answer to evaporate. My hands aren't what they should be with the aftereffects of anesthesia for surgery yesterday. A mouse wouldn't do that to me even with twitchy hands.
Let's ignore my engineering speculation about something that might cause higher oil consumption in some examples of any model. Let's consider why that is tolerated by Porsche and ignored by PCA.
When we design engines, or even a pointing device, to meet extreme operating requirements, we know that additional demands will be put on the operator/owner and that production line variation will cause the unimportant traits to vary more widely. That is, we are emphasizing certain traits considered extremely important and we must accept that we cannot maximize every criterion in the same design.
If minimal use of consumables is an important result, we can work with that. Yawning perhaps, but there is satisfaction in carrying any design into realms lesser engineers have not reached. If some issue is not important, then we design for the important ones and accept that the unimportant ones may well vary between amazingly good and really annoying when we get to production. The handling of the early Prius cars is an example.
We don't control for anything but 'acceptable' on those traits that are not important to the design. When we have almost a full slate of 'important', or even 'crucial', then we have to give on other traits, like cost and difficulty of operation. The spacecraft I used to design were not intrinsically more complex than a Porsche. They merely had to excel in every single trait... except cost effectiveness and demands put on the operators.
All this is true whether we design for nearly-one-off hand-built projects like the DMSP satellites or the SR-71, for small-volume industry sales, or for the consumer market. You must learn the art of trade-offs, and the engineering teams succeed who best learn how to balance the traits important to the design customer with traits that just get drug along for the ride. The traits that merely dwell in the twilight of "make it acceptable, make it tolerable, to my end users."
Zuffenhausen is first an engineering design and consultancy house. It always has been. Porsche, that is Ferdinand, wanted to build cars with his own name on them. I wasn't around, but I think most engineers share his itch. No matter what we do all day long to pay the bills, we have this goal of an end item that avoids all those compromises we make for customers who consider this important and that important and always want us to worry about traits that lie outside the performance family.
That is true in spades of Zuffenhausen. At least as near as I can judge without having lunch with those guys daily. They do mundane designs for a large portion of the auto industry worldwide. Most without having their name even acknowledged in the fine print. That's okay, I'm sure. You show the design customer how to achieve the end-item traits he considers important, and you get well paid for not being named on the final result. Meanwhile, you make mental notes about places you could get more performance if you didn't have to worry about satisfying mundanes. Then -- if you're lucky, as Porsche was -- you go to the back room and use your experience to create a design that maximizes all the things that you consider important and you let all the lesser traits fall where they may. Acceptable of course, but only in the sense of tolerable to a buyer who wants the excellence you achieved in the real areas of interest. Those buyers are enthusiasts, like you the designer.
During a brief period of the company's history, bean counters had to take over Porsche's branded line to save their freedom to build cars as they pleased. For awhile, mundane issues floated to the top of the requirements stack. I'm sure the enthusiast engineers gritted their teeth, but when the branded products began to flourish again, Porsche went back to their classic style: Build a car for people who see performance as supreme, as we do. Damn the mundane and look for customers willing to accept those compromises, willing to tolerate air dams crushed on driveways, vestigial back seats, and oil consumption that varies all over the map because we design and we control on the assembly line for the really important issues.
Exotics have by definition a small fraction of the automobile market to serve. In fact, not having to serve the rest of that market, the mundanes, is what makes engineers thrilled to work on such projects. The branded cars are what Porsche engineers live to work on, not the non-disclosure work. But even within the branded line, we can see how the bean counters saved the day. (Yes, the Cayenne.)
Within the exotic end of the market, the specific requirements of each design, each 'margue' vary. Ferrari serves one set, Lamborghini another slightly different, and Aston Martin a third set of wishes and dreams and pleasures. Porsche is unique as well. A whole article could be written on the difference between Ferrari engineering and Porsche engineering, but my outline would boil it down to a list of which extreme traits Ferrari emphasize and which Porsche do. Not to belabor the obvious, but let's consider one example. Ferrari always has cared about the soul-tickling sound of its engines. Porsche just puts sound on the list of "make it acceptable" things to check after the important design goals are met.
Bottom line, to be an appropriate owner for an exotic, you first must share the goals of the design team, because they will have no one else in mind except people who do share those goals, and all others will find themselves frustrated and dissatisfied because these are not accommodating cars. None of them is.
Next you must meet one of two criteria: deep pockets or deep reserves of tolerance. With a deep pocket, you can avoid frustration by keeping a garage full of cars for mundane purposes. When you wake feeling too grumpy to put up with a loud exhaust and scraping driveways and adding oil at fuel stops, then grab a Lexus or a Honda or whatever mobile soothing device fits your day. Keep your Porsche or Ferrari for days that suit their idiosyncrasies because they will not bend to your needs. With sufficient tolerance, you don't need a full garage. Just a willingness to scrunch down and slide bags of paper towels over the rear seats when you go shopping, a willingness to slow down for driveways in exchange for never slowing at curves, and an attitude that consumables are bought to be consumed.
If you can't fit one of those categories, then you aren't an appropriate buyer for an enthusiast device of any kind. Neither a pointing device, nor a road-eating curve-swallowing transportation device. If you don't want to keep your twitchy fingers under control, get a mouse. If you don't want to force a smile when pouring in another quart of liquid gold, then get a Chevy.
Gary
Let's ignore my engineering speculation about something that might cause higher oil consumption in some examples of any model. Let's consider why that is tolerated by Porsche and ignored by PCA.
When we design engines, or even a pointing device, to meet extreme operating requirements, we know that additional demands will be put on the operator/owner and that production line variation will cause the unimportant traits to vary more widely. That is, we are emphasizing certain traits considered extremely important and we must accept that we cannot maximize every criterion in the same design.
If minimal use of consumables is an important result, we can work with that. Yawning perhaps, but there is satisfaction in carrying any design into realms lesser engineers have not reached. If some issue is not important, then we design for the important ones and accept that the unimportant ones may well vary between amazingly good and really annoying when we get to production. The handling of the early Prius cars is an example.
We don't control for anything but 'acceptable' on those traits that are not important to the design. When we have almost a full slate of 'important', or even 'crucial', then we have to give on other traits, like cost and difficulty of operation. The spacecraft I used to design were not intrinsically more complex than a Porsche. They merely had to excel in every single trait... except cost effectiveness and demands put on the operators.
All this is true whether we design for nearly-one-off hand-built projects like the DMSP satellites or the SR-71, for small-volume industry sales, or for the consumer market. You must learn the art of trade-offs, and the engineering teams succeed who best learn how to balance the traits important to the design customer with traits that just get drug along for the ride. The traits that merely dwell in the twilight of "make it acceptable, make it tolerable, to my end users."
Zuffenhausen is first an engineering design and consultancy house. It always has been. Porsche, that is Ferdinand, wanted to build cars with his own name on them. I wasn't around, but I think most engineers share his itch. No matter what we do all day long to pay the bills, we have this goal of an end item that avoids all those compromises we make for customers who consider this important and that important and always want us to worry about traits that lie outside the performance family.
That is true in spades of Zuffenhausen. At least as near as I can judge without having lunch with those guys daily. They do mundane designs for a large portion of the auto industry worldwide. Most without having their name even acknowledged in the fine print. That's okay, I'm sure. You show the design customer how to achieve the end-item traits he considers important, and you get well paid for not being named on the final result. Meanwhile, you make mental notes about places you could get more performance if you didn't have to worry about satisfying mundanes. Then -- if you're lucky, as Porsche was -- you go to the back room and use your experience to create a design that maximizes all the things that you consider important and you let all the lesser traits fall where they may. Acceptable of course, but only in the sense of tolerable to a buyer who wants the excellence you achieved in the real areas of interest. Those buyers are enthusiasts, like you the designer.
During a brief period of the company's history, bean counters had to take over Porsche's branded line to save their freedom to build cars as they pleased. For awhile, mundane issues floated to the top of the requirements stack. I'm sure the enthusiast engineers gritted their teeth, but when the branded products began to flourish again, Porsche went back to their classic style: Build a car for people who see performance as supreme, as we do. Damn the mundane and look for customers willing to accept those compromises, willing to tolerate air dams crushed on driveways, vestigial back seats, and oil consumption that varies all over the map because we design and we control on the assembly line for the really important issues.
Exotics have by definition a small fraction of the automobile market to serve. In fact, not having to serve the rest of that market, the mundanes, is what makes engineers thrilled to work on such projects. The branded cars are what Porsche engineers live to work on, not the non-disclosure work. But even within the branded line, we can see how the bean counters saved the day. (Yes, the Cayenne.)
Within the exotic end of the market, the specific requirements of each design, each 'margue' vary. Ferrari serves one set, Lamborghini another slightly different, and Aston Martin a third set of wishes and dreams and pleasures. Porsche is unique as well. A whole article could be written on the difference between Ferrari engineering and Porsche engineering, but my outline would boil it down to a list of which extreme traits Ferrari emphasize and which Porsche do. Not to belabor the obvious, but let's consider one example. Ferrari always has cared about the soul-tickling sound of its engines. Porsche just puts sound on the list of "make it acceptable" things to check after the important design goals are met.
Bottom line, to be an appropriate owner for an exotic, you first must share the goals of the design team, because they will have no one else in mind except people who do share those goals, and all others will find themselves frustrated and dissatisfied because these are not accommodating cars. None of them is.
Next you must meet one of two criteria: deep pockets or deep reserves of tolerance. With a deep pocket, you can avoid frustration by keeping a garage full of cars for mundane purposes. When you wake feeling too grumpy to put up with a loud exhaust and scraping driveways and adding oil at fuel stops, then grab a Lexus or a Honda or whatever mobile soothing device fits your day. Keep your Porsche or Ferrari for days that suit their idiosyncrasies because they will not bend to your needs. With sufficient tolerance, you don't need a full garage. Just a willingness to scrunch down and slide bags of paper towels over the rear seats when you go shopping, a willingness to slow down for driveways in exchange for never slowing at curves, and an attitude that consumables are bought to be consumed.
If you can't fit one of those categories, then you aren't an appropriate buyer for an enthusiast device of any kind. Neither a pointing device, nor a road-eating curve-swallowing transportation device. If you don't want to keep your twitchy fingers under control, get a mouse. If you don't want to force a smile when pouring in another quart of liquid gold, then get a Chevy.
Gary
