Porsche and the mysterious oil check dance

[Leader]

I’ve had good service experiences at Rusnak Porsche Westlake and Woodland Hills Porsche. The former has a beautiful new dealership and the latter will be in their huge new facility sometime this spring.

For my past P-cars that were no longer under warranty I have been very happy with the service at House Automotive in Encino. Excellent service and less expensive than the dealers.

As far as getting an appointment for service - waiting a few days to get in for an oil change is reasonable. Being asked to wait weeks is not.

Isn’t the first service (oil change) free on new Porsches?

[Bill in Bama]

While I think some of the wait times for a service appointment are ridiculous, I guess we have to cut the dealers a little slack, they are suffering from worker shortage just like everyone else. The oil change usually falls to the lowest guy in the shop, a young dude that has worked there anywhere from a few months to a couple of days, (I know, its scary trusting a $$$ Porsche to someone like that), and not the master tech with years of training and experience. Just sayin'

But for more major things its not something I want to wait long for attention. To their credit, when my car was flat bedded up there in August of '21 they got to it Monday morning (it arrived Sat. afternoon) and dropped the oil pan to see the damage. Then it sat for almost two weeks waiting for a new engine, and two weeks later I had my car back. I also had a new Cayenne for the month total to drive. I'm calling shortly just to see what they say.

[Bill in Bama]

Update:
I waited about calling the dealer for one more try. Today I got the car up to temp, parked and walked away, returning about 10 minutes later, but still couldn't get a reading. I drove home, parked innthe garage and after ~ 5 minutes checked it again, and success! Indicator showed about halfway on the scale, so all is well, I guess. This just points out the main problem with electronic monitoring, how do you know when it's right and when it's wrong?

[Larry C]

Bill,
Good news! Are you going to add about 1/4 quart to bring the level up closer to max or just leave it alone?
Larry

[blueline]

Update:
I waited about calling the dealer for one more try. Today I got the car up to temp, parked and walked away, returning about 10 minutes later, but still couldn't get a reading. I drove home, parked innthe garage and after ~ 5 minutes checked it again, and success! Indicator showed about halfway on the scale, so all is well, I guess. This just points out the main problem with electronic monitoring, how do you know when it's right and when it's wrong?

Thanks for the update - I was curious. Glad it's finally reading.

It would seem that you're about a half quart low, assuming the display is reading correctly and is currently halfway up the scale. Theoretically, 16 ounces would put it at full. If it was me, I'd put in about 4 ounces to start and see where the reading goes. If it moves up slightly as it should, then I'd do another 4-oz and check again, continuing until the display is at the full mark.

Supposedly the oil level reading is unavailable when the engine is running but that has not been the case for me with the 992. I checked it again today while driving (as I've done several times the past few days) and it is displaying the oil level every time I've checked. I'm going to see what the other cars do in that regard over the next few weeks/months.

[Bill in Bama]

I think I may put a few ounces in, but after two low warnings(got a second one last week and added another 8 oz), I'm a bit gunshy about trying to get it to the full mark, afraid I'll then get an overfill warning.

[Bill in Bama]

Oh, and on the second low warning, I immediately selected the oil level check and it showed at the bare minimum, so it does show while running too.

[Tom]

My inner lawyer-cynic can't help but notice how difficult it is for a DIY oil changer, yet how easy it is for the dealer to plug in their PIWIS and get an instant/exact reading. Sure can't hurt revenues at the service department anyway. I'm sure getting rid of the dip stick and replacing it with this magic 8-ball of a gauge had nothing to do with bolstering the service department, but I'm also pretty sure they have zero motivation to fix it. Just a matter of time before the aftermarket offers something. I wonder if the raw sensor data is available via the OBDII port?

[Bill in Bama]

I'm not smart enough to fully understand what I'm about to say, but stick-less cars have been around a while now but I've never seen any scanner/coding devices that perform this action. But I'm sure it's possible, the Launch 431 seems to mimic most functions of the PIWIS, so maybe?

[blueline]

I think I may put a few ounces in, but after two low warnings(got a second one last week and added another 8 oz), I'm a bit gunshy about trying to get it to the full mark, afraid I'll then get an overfill warning.

I've found the indicator to be quite accurate in that it is sensitive to small added amounts. It will show a change if you add a few ounces. I sometimes have to add small amounts (maybe 2 to 4 ounces) to the GT4 in-between oil changes. I trust my display completely in all the cars. Remember too that there will be a warning message if the oil measurement display fails. (p96 & p259)