This is wierd. I hope someone might know why.

I changed my oil and catch the old oil into one of those plastic oil containers for bringing to the recycle center. I finish the job and don't have time to bring the oil to the recycle center so it sits in the catch container for a few days. I finally bring it to be recycled and it seems lighter than before, but there's NO leaked oil on the garage floor where it's been sitting. I shrug. The guy at the recycle center says that it "looked like only about 2 qts".

How can this happen? I check my oil often enough to know I never get close to the "low" mark on the dip stick. This has happened twice now.

 

No, but it does burn inside the engine.

 

So how can I have ok level of oil (according to dip stick, which is accurate enough considering when the new oil is added), drain the old oil, and then have too little?

 

Say you add your new oil into the engine, dipstick reads full. 3000+ miles (depending on how often you change your oil) is going to burn some of it, hence you drain less than you put in...people with engines that aren't in the greatest shape burn more than normal. But it is normal for engines to burn a little bit of oil.

 

communication failure.

I'm saying that the dip stick reads normal. Between reading the dip stick and draining the oil, I do not start the engine.

 

Filter retains quite a bit of oil as well.

 

You'll never get all the oil out of your engine when you drain it, unless you leave it draining for days. The difference between the MAX and LOW readings is approx 1 litre. Your engine will burn oil and some will remain in the engine. This is normal, I wouldn't worry.

 

my h22 prelude burns oil.. not much though in relation to others with the h22.