Engine look normal to you?

[RandomFact314]

OK OK OK, I know this may make some people cringe but a little backstory:
For the past almost 4 years now I thought that my car held 3.6quarts of oil. I'v always added about 3 1/2 quarts when I do the oil change but LAST time I did it I figure there is a quart between full and low so I just put 3quarts thinking it would fall in the middle. Well little did I know that there was a "quarts" and "US quarts"... In US quarts my car (apparently) holds 3.9quarts, So I shorted it this time around and since it burns just a tiny bit of oil, when i hit 4,800 miles on this oil change I had a check engine light come on and I realize there is about 1.5 quarts of oil in the whole damn car

So anyways I panicked a little, as I usually do when it comes to my cars. I drove 2 miles to a gas station and put a quart in, then drove home (20 more miles) and did a full oil change. Then I did a compression test the next day and got 225, 220, 219, 225 which is higher than the 213psi that is suppose to be possible with this engine but I read that carbon build-up will raise compression readings so no biggie.

Well today, because I'm really weird, I decided to paint my valve cover the most obnoxious color I could find. I found a shiny metallic hip-hop chain looking gold and thought that was perfect, well it ended up coming out like a really creamy coffee color instead, which I didn't mind. I take the valve cover off and take a look at the inside of the engine to see how bad it is and was pleasantly surprised at how clean it seemed to be, especially for 192,000m on the clock.

But what about this VVT cam shaft sprocket? (I'm pretty sure thats what it's called) It obviously has some burnt look to it, is that normal or what? I've never been inside a DOHC VVT engine before so IDK what they normally look like with wear on them.

[markweatherill]

It sounds like the difference is that 3.6 quarts is 'drain and fill' without the oil filter, and 3.9 quarts is with the oil filter.

I grew up with metric and decimal so I associate pre-metric measures with expressing quantities in fractions. So should that be 3 9/10 quarts?

[Ecky]

At a glance, the inside of your engine looks normal to me.

For what it's worth, my Insight's engine has ~335k km on it and looks about the same inside. Modern engines that are taken care of are usually not the major point of failure in a car.

[Daox]

As long as you haven't seen the oil light come on, you are fine. If you wan to really be sure, do an oil analysis and see what kind of metals are floating around in it.

[ChillyBear]

A couple of the can lobes show a bit of wear, but that could just be an effect of the camera. But that's why I always use the blue bottles of STP stabilizer (zddp), on top of my 0w-20 syn. Modern oils have very little zinc, although they don't need it all that much.

I've seen Toyota v6's run great on 1/2 quart of oil, and I saw an ecotec run ten miles with no oil, and it ran fine after being filled, you are probably alright.

[me and my metro]

This is what it would look like if you ran it out of oil!

[Ecky]

I once threw a rod bearing in one of my previous cars. I then drove it home 70 miles with one of the pistons bouncing around inside the block. :P

[RandomFact314]

Originally Posted by Daox

As long as you haven't seen the oil light come on, you are fine. If you wan to really be sure, do an oil analysis and see what kind of metals are floating around in it.

No oil light but I did get a check engine code, i THINK it may have been a P0012 which said that it could be from low/dirty oil so obviously it was low enough to trigger that code but I dont know how bad you got it when you went long enough to get the code, if that makes since.

Like I heard if you actual oil light comes on, well it coming on means that you already knee deep in poo

[me and my metro]

If the oil light comes on because the car has run out of oil you have a problem.
It really should be a replace engine light!

[RandomFact314]

Originally Posted by me and my metro

If the oil light comes on because the car has run out of oil you have a problem.
It really should be a replace engine light!

They really need to re-do all the warning lights cars have these days.
Check Engine: just pop up the actual code instead
Hot coolant: make it look less like a sail boat/ just make it a fire symbol
Oil light: just make it pop up saying "god dammit, im dying"

If you think the sail boat thing is stupid, I literally got a call from my sister one day and she asked what the sail boat light meant in her car. And I didn't that it was a thermometer in water till I was like 16 or so