A good news/bad news story here: Finally took the often given advice here and dumped the dealer that spent 3 years looking for oil leaks -- never fixing any.

Took it to another dealer and within 2 hours they called me and said they'd found 3 leaks. They sealed the Bed Plate, one valve cover and replaced 2 cac hoses. That's the good news.

Drove home (about 30 miles) and was looking over the invoice for what all was done, and I see an entry for 16 qts of 15w 40 oil -- yikes!! So I go out and yes it's over the top of the dipstick grey plasic piece -- couldn't really tell by how much (dark combined with old eyes).

So I drained out a qt. -- checked it again and it still was over the top. I figered with all the putting the dipstick in/out I wasn't getting a good reading. thought I'd check it after a drive the next day.

Had errands and drove maybe another 90 miles or so -- nothing that worked the engine hard, empty and mostly freeway (other than stuffing a dodge on an onramp)

Get home and dump another qt. -- still high, and another qt, still high, but looks like it's now at the top of the grey plastic piece (still over max). Take one more qt out -- now we're at 4qts total and it's finally in the middle range.

So that means I drove 30 miles being 3 qts over the max, and another 90 with it 2 qts over max. I won't even go into my talks with the new dealer I'm using....

So Good news: no oil leaks yet (the valve cover one stank of burning oil), the rest I could have lived with.

Bad news: what damage could have happened that will show up 1 mile or 1 day out of warranty??!

Thanks for any input from you engine gurus out there...

 

I've seen/had a LOT worse on my first 03. It had 5" additional inches of diesel on the dipstick at 491 miles and AFAIK it ran for a LONG time after we got rid of it. You should be fine. Worst case scenario you frothed up the oil some. I'm sure you weren't hot rodding it for those 30 miles, right?

 

Did ANY of it smell like diesel? If it is just a straight overfill, you are more than likely fine as Tim said. Keep an eye on it, because it could also be what Tim mentioned - fuel dilution which is usually an injector issue.

This is a HUGE reason that I do not advocate just adding 15 quarts for a fill (as the book says)! If 15 quarts gets you to the middle-to-upper part of your dipstick, then fine. But if it puts you over the maximum on the dipstick, then how do you ever detect fuel dilution? IMO It is extremely valuable to always have the oil level "in range" on the dipstick. And we all know that our stupid dipsticks are not the best!

Good thing you checked up on the level Dan. We often take it for granted that the dealershi will get it 100% correct.

 

wont cause any damage.

 

Thanks a ton guys -- service guy said same thing on fuel in oil, since he doubted the tech's would have made the mistake -- still he said he wouldn't rule it out.

I check the oil pretty often and had just done an OC about 1500 miles before. No diesel smell whatsoever in what came out.

Oh yeah, and the work was done over Thanksgiving -- maybe I should have known better, but then again it could have been worse and been over New Years!

Light on the throttle the 1st 30 miles, tho the tech drove it 12 of those on test-out. Put my foot in it once after the 1st qt. was pulled.

Yeah, I'm glad I saw that on the invoice or who knows how long the extra oil would have been in there!

Thanks again to all of you -- I feel a whole lot better...