Technology

I thought it was hilarious when I saw that Briggs and Stratton has been selling small engines featuring "no oil changes needed" (or possible). They advertise that it's "oiled for the life of the engine" ... well, by definition, yes, that's like saying "if you light a man on fire he'll be warm for the rest of his life". These companies are so predatory and transparently trying to turn durable products into disposable replacement services, it's unbelievable.

For what it's worth I have yet to actually physically see a new vehicle without an oil dipstick.

It seems to be mostly a euro thing. BMW stopped using oil dipsticks nearly 2 decades ago. Land Rover also somewhere in the late 00's.

But I agree it's a moronic idea. Not only does it prevent you from checking oil condition like you said; if it's after an oil change, it takes about 15min just to check the level (and another 15 if you messed it up). At $150+/hr shop rates, that adds up.

My wife has a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee. The AC condenser got a leak in it and it was going to be over $2k to fix in a shop. I took it on myself to save money. The condenser mounts to the back of the radiator, so I had to get at it by removing the bumper and everything between that and the engine block. Also attached part of the radiator is the transmission cooler. Unhooking everything meant that I was going to lose some fluids, but that was fine, I'd top them off and pay to have refrigerant added.

After I reassembled, I when to check the trans fluid levels, and couldn't find the dipstick. It turns out, like you said, if you crawl under the vehicle, on the back of the trans pan is a bolt you can remove, and if you have a special dipstick that you buy separately for this sole purpose, you can stick it in there to check levels. There's not way to add fluid without pumping it in there, but at least you can see how much you have.

Since I only lost less than a quart, I took it into the shop, explained what's up, and asked for it to be topped off. The shop guy calls back later, and told me that to do the trans fluid, the filter is only sold with a whole new pan, and because Chrysler, the fluid cost like $40 a qt, and I needed like 15 to fill it. It still cost more than $800 to just do that, then more than $500 for the refrigerant. I still saved about $500-1k in parts and labor for what I did, but, the lack of dipstick and fill tube was an extremely inconvenient and expensive thing.

I would argue that it adds a new failure point, and a catastrophic one at that.

Yes, many hunans don't monitor their oil properly. I've seen some destroy engines because they thought the low oil light could be ignored for a week.

Even if you still had the dipstick, owners would become reliant on the sensor and grenade the engine when it gets it wrong. Remember how Teslas had hoods that flew open while driving? The problem wasn't the latch. The problem was owners relying on a crappy sensor.

New Cars Don't All Come With Dipsticks Anymore Because Of Digital Oil Level Measurement

Unless you're sitting in it. ;)

Exactly

Right now there is no better detection system than in

• Seeing the oil level
• seeing the oil color
• smelling the oil content
• feeling the oil viscosity and any contamination

You would think an engineer would understand this.... I assume this is a decision from management.

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.

That is absolutely piss-poor design. But definitely a BMW thing to do.

Electric cars do have oil that will ultimately need changing but it's less exposed to contaminants than the engine oil in a internal combustion engine and therefore will last a lot longer. EVs typically have a reduction gearbox and differential and these will require oil changes in a similar fashion to a manual gearbox or differential in a ICE vehicle - i.e. barring exceptional circumstances it will last long enough to get out of warranty but don't believe it will never need changing.

Nope. The only fluid I worry about in my EV is windshield wiper fluid.

I'm not sure if this is universally true but I've never seen a fully electric vehicle that uses motor oil. Hybrid vehicles with an internal combustion engine and an electric drive train would still need it, of course.

Not having to take my car for oil changes is bliss.

It still has oil in the transmission. And yes, you are supposed to change it occasionally because its high slip friction oil that burns over time.

Depends on how much you drive, and what the recommended interval is. If the interval is 7k miles, and you drive 18k in a year, yeah, you need to change the oil 3x/year.

It seems to me that counting the number of cycles each makes, and basing your intervals off that would make more sense than mileage. If I'm constantly running at high RPM, that should require more frequent oil changes in terms of mileage.

This is a reactionary response, you're just arguing, slow down a bit.

Do you see a value in a check engine light that tells you something is wrong in between full inspections? This is similar, this is telling you there isn't enough oil and damage is occurring before you get a chance to inspect the dipstick.

It's not planned obsolescence unless they also make it unreasonable to service. We already expect to routinely service engines, and they are already very complex and full of sensors, sure this is adding to the complexity but it's relatively pretty minor.

The argument being made, and I agree with it, is that the benefits of an additional long-serving sensor way outweigh the con of having one additional sensor in your car. You get early warning before damage occurs, you get built in fraud protection when you're changing your oil at a shady chain, you eliminate a direct access port for dirt to contaminate the oil.

The U660F transmission in my wife's 2015 Highlander doesn't have a dipstick. Luckily that transmission is solid and easy to service anyway, you just need a skinny funnel to fill it.