Technology

No, see, they just relocated the dipstick. You can locate it just behind the steering wheel, right above the driver's seat.

I've had a car with where the oil pressure sensor failed; combine that with an oil leak, and you quickly have a major problem. So, what happens when the sensor telling you the oil level fails? A dipstick is extremely unlikely to ever fail to work correctly, so...?

reinventing the wheel in the DUMBEST way possible at best.

planned obsolescence when the sensors or the head gasket inevitably fail at worst.

My wife has a 2016 Honda Odyssey, and having grown up working on cars because my dad was a mechanic, I was shocked to learn that there is no transmission fluid dip stick. It's considered a closed system and never needs to have the fluid changed, allegedly.

This reads like more AI slop. I miss when Jalopnik had real articles.

New cars absolutely do have dipsticks; they're the ones designing them.

Notwithstanding the potential for software bugs or other issues inherent with monitoring oil levels only digitally, monitoring just the oil level is not the sole purpose of the dipstick. Being able to physically see a sample of the engine oil is a vital diagnostic tool and can alert an owner or mechanic to a head gasket problem or other oil contamination issue, or if something is grinding metal shavings into the oil, etc.

For what it's worth I have yet to actually physically see a new vehicle without an oil dipstick. I guess they're out there, but so far I've been lucky. But I have already had quite a few automatic transmission equipped cars without a transmission dipstick cross my path, and that's already enough of a pain in the ass. If you're lucky there's a side plug in the transmission case you can use to check the fluid condition and level (after crawling under the vehicle...) but in a lot of cases there isn't even that -- your only recourse is to drop the transmission pan off entirely, which causes you to lose all the fluid in the process. And you'll probably also have to replace the gasket while you're at it. Needless to say, this is an incredibly moronic design decision.

This proactive approach helps to avert potential engine damage

Ah yes, the old "you're too stupid to do anything by yourself, so we kindly prevent you from trying"

The article is really lazy about citing its sources.

many cars don't come with dipsticks anymore. Some sources say

Are these some sources in the room with us?

it's because automakers don't trust us to use them, so why make them? (That's kind of along the lines of rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it, right?) Or maybe it's some kind of conspiracy to keep drivers coming in for oil changes more often.

This is like an eighth grader padding out a book report.

But in actuality, it's because a lot of things are going digital.

Tl;dr: Here's a higher quality source: Why the Reliable Dipstick is Sliding into Obsolescence

Why the clickbait? Just put why in the title or post description

My wife’s electric car doesn’t have a dipstick.

I don't like it because:

• I want to look at the oil and smell it, not just check the level.
• I don't know the failure modes for the sensor, so I can't trust that the absence of a complaint from it means the oil level is correct.

Back when I worked at a BMW store we had to, after changing the oil, start up the vehicle and get it up to temperature before it would give us a reading. Several times the vehicle caught on fire for some reason during this process. So fucking stupid.

The real reason is that owners would not reseat the dipstick properly, which would cause a vacuum leak and a lean fuel mixture that would trigger the CEL.

But you can't expect Jalopnik writers to know basic facts like this.

Because manufacturers are scummy, that's why.