Sorry but that is just not correct. Maybe you haven't had that (yet) but it doesn't make it true. Rings wear, period. As they wear, they will allow more and more oil to pass. It is impossible for it not to happen. Show me something, anything, that says that any loss of oil between changes is bad or even abnormal. On a new engine, let alone a high mileage one.
In the market
- Thread starter Shadz
- Start date
No, not true at all. Many owners report 0 usage or usage so low that it's barely discernible on the dipstick. Spend some time on the ram forums or talking to other owners before making those assertions. Oil choice and changing it early is extremely important, no doubt from you're comments you're not doing that so that's why you start to see oil usage.
This sparked a question I had on how accurate a dipstick really is and if engines have been using oil, like most mechanics and engineers believe they will, for years and nobody really noticed. I mean there are plenty of pockets in the oil pan and in the engine to make measuring with a dipstick pretty suspect. It seems like the oil life indicators is really the better way to understand your engine’s oil.
I've been nerding out on oil for about 5 years now. I change the oil myself using the best oil I can find (currently thats HPL) and I have many UOA reports from Blackstone, I check my oil at least monthly. The reason for this is part nerd, but also because I have a pacbrake remote oil filter kit installed and I want to make sure its not leaking (a few guys have had issues with one of the o-rings and mine has been perfect to date but I keep an eye on it).
Only once in all these years have I seen it drop about a 1/4 inch below full which freaked me out. Next day after my trip to town I waited 30 mins and checked again, it was right back up to the top. If you check your oil multiple times and see it multiple times at the top of the dipstick, clearly the oil is not magically being topped off so if you get one or two occasional low readings but subsequent ones move back to the top then obviously you're fine (that's ignoring fuel dilution issues but the hemi doesn't have a problem with this, mine certainly doesn't as the UOA's I have done can verify that).
I will also say that I do get very slight variations if I'm too quick with the pop-in-and-remove procedure. If I wipe the dipstick, put it back in and pull it out within a second I can get inconsistent results. If I put it in and wait for a good 5 to 10 seconds before pulling it back out, the dipstick always returns at the same mark.
I don't see how a sensor is going to change any of this. Its going to read the level in the pan and if a physical dipstick would read a little low one time due to pockets, so would the sensor. They're both reading the oil in the pan so that doesn't make the dipstick any less ideal.
As for the sensor vs dipstick; I guess it really depends upon implementation. In many cars/trucks (certainly in mine), the temperature dial gauge is basically useless. It quickly goes to about a 1/3 up the gauge and sits there without moving ever. Anywhere from like 60C to 120C it will not move at all. Ram doesn't want to scare everyone (apparently) by having a needle move up and down so its a dummy gauge.
Thankfully I can customize my dash and can move a digital readout to it. This shows coolant temp, transmission temp, oil temp, and oil pressure and these are very accurate, constantly moving up/down by one unit as we drive around. So I do know that the dummy guauge is completely useless as it never moves or syncs up with the digital readout gauge.
Point of all this: how do they implement the oil level sensor? Is it a stupid dummy gauge or is a true accurate reading at all times with at least 8 to 10 levels of reading (IE I want more than just "low" "average" "high")?
I cannot stand when engineers remove information from my fingertips. They may be trying to help people who don't care, but they're freaking me out when I can't see what's going on. At least continue to give us the option to see all the real/accurate data we want.
Thankfully I can customize my dash and can move a digital readout to it. This shows coolant temp, transmission temp, oil temp, and oil pressure and these are very accurate, constantly moving up/down by one unit as we drive around. So I do know that the dummy guauge is completely useless as it never moves or syncs up with the digital readout gauge.
Point of all this: how do they implement the oil level sensor? Is it a stupid dummy gauge or is a true accurate reading at all times with at least 8 to 10 levels of reading (IE I want more than just "low" "average" "high")?
I cannot stand when engineers remove information from my fingertips. They may be trying to help people who don't care, but they're freaking me out when I can't see what's going on. At least continue to give us the option to see all the real/accurate data we want.