Oil level in a Ford KA

Mine was similar. Leave the car to stand a good while after the engine's been run before you try to read the oil level, and on mine, certain angles worked better than others when you put the dipstick in.

this is the kind of question i'd ask before buying the car.

By far the best and most accurate way of checking the oil in *any* engine is to check it first thing in the morning, when the engine's been standing for several hours (if overnight it's likely to be 10 hours or more). This gives the oil plenty of time to drain back into the sump and the reading should be nice and clear - you probably won't even have to wipe the dipstick and re-insert it.

A lot of engines hold quite a bit of oil in the head - well hold is the wrong word, but the head seems to retain quite a bit of oil, meaning that dipstick readings are frequently unclear, and often under-read quite a bit, so careful you don't overfill it with oil as a result of wrongly assuming it to be too low on oil (which sadly buggered the engine in an Omega TD I had :-( ).

Peter

have you tried looking at the other side of the dipstick? one side is normally the "clean" side and doesn't get any of it dragged along the pick up pipe

You'd ask how easy it is to dip the oil?

Be quite a list of questions, then...

The message from jeremy contains these words:

D'yer know - it's possibly one of the very last questions I'd ever ask!

Have you had any bumps in it?

When did it have its last service?

Does it run on unleaded?

When did the brakes last get replaced?

How easy is it to get a clear dip-stick oil reading?

--Nick?

What sort of old clunkers have you been buying, then?

Haven't had to ask that question since we had a MkII Fester.

Thanks for the replies.

I had tried all suggestions, well, apart from asking before I bought.

Rather surprisingly I got the clearest reading using the dipstick on my Mondeo (1.8l petrol). The critical dimensions of the two dipsticks are the same, but whilst the KA dipstick has a kink at the tip the Mondeo dipstick is straight. The oil level is above the max mark by about half the distance between max and min. Maybe this caused extra oil to be thrown up the dipstick tube. Hope this isn't in oil seal knackering teritory.

Jon McD

I'm too late with this one, but surely you're better off wiping the dipstick before putting it in?