OK so I had quite a morning and I have what I think is a pretty good story.
So I am preparing to do an oil change tonight after work. I am still trying to figure out my dipstick issue here, but with the new knowledge that I need to warm the car up and turn it off and wait one minute before checking the level I get to work this morning with the car warm and park on a level spot in the parking lot. Then I grab my old stock dipstick and put it in to check the oil. As I'm pulling it out I hear a distinct snap and I pull the dipstick out to this horror.
Awesome, I just wanted to confirm my oil level compared to the ECS dipstick and now I have a piece of plastic lodged in my dipstick shaft.
I just bought a Topsider oil extractor so I thought I might try my hand at using this to suck it out. Yeah I know what your thinking, and it didn't work. I tried 10 times.
So at this point I figure I might as well try to drain the oil and see what happens. I get just about all the oil out (the Topsider is awesome) and as I go to pull the tube out of the dipstick I hear a clink. I thought I might have imagined it so I did it again, same clink! So i put the tube in a third time and draw it out very very slowly. Then to my extreme delight I see the red plastic end come out of the tube. I fist pumped and and exalted more joyously than I like to admit.
So I'm still not exactly sure how to check my oil, but I feel good that my engine won't explode from plastic bits.
I fill the new oil as I measure the old oil taken out so as to leave it the same. The oil looks the same on my aftermarket dipstick . Here is my issue with the dipsticks incompatibility. Do I have a bad stock dipstick or a bad aftermarket dipstick? What do you guys think?
