Did I do Damage

If oil light did not go on then no damage. Sounds like you changed the oil before Subaru's recommendation for first oil/filter change at

If it was only idling I would not lose too much sleep over it.

Marcus

I like people, they are bio-degradable !.

I'm no expert but should be OK. I assume your oil light did not come on. Frank

Funny you should mention that "NOT before 1000 miles". Any new car I have always changed the oil within the 1st 500 miles. Reason being, you can sometimes have little bits of metal from a new motor that the oil filter may, or may not get to, floating around. I have read from "experts" that no current auto manufacturer uses the so called "break-in oil". This was something used 30 years ago. I am curious where you heard this not before

1K. I cannot find reference to this in any subaru document and I called my service folks at subaru and they had not heard of that either. They told me it is just normal oil in it from the factory.

I dont recall seeing the oil light. It freaked me out though. I have had cars be a full quart low and they still register on the dip stick. I dont know if the boxer motor is different compared to inline 4 cylinders i have had.

Your fine. Oil was still flowing through your pump

Lesson here is always check your dipstick!

How could you have not, and on a new car? Hope your OK, you probably are.

MN

I had an oil analysis done on the factory oil for my 2004 WRX. Change was exactly at 3000 miles on the odo. Several metal wear levels were about 3 to 4 times higher than typical cars; they had no other WRX's to compare the levels to. Blackstone Labs told me this was normal for a car breaking in.

However - there was a really high level of molybdenum; it was about

12 times that of an "average" oil analysis. There were a variety of guesses when I posted it. Moly is used as an assembly lube. Some manufacturers are known to use it as a breakin additive (for a more "graceful" wear pattern). Rings are also hard-coated with moly. It could have been one or a combination of those things.

Wow, that sucks. So then I pretty much screwed the long term on my motor. Weird, the service people have not heard of this. I dont doubt what you are saying, but it is strange. I know I changed the oil in my Tacoma at

200 miles or so and I now have close to 100k. So who knows. Makes me worry about hanging on to it for too long. :-(

It's in my owner or service manual. 04 OBW.

Yawn...

As in don't lose any sleep over it! You had enough oil to pressurize the system, else a light would have gone on or a pressure gauge would have registered no pressure, and since you were just idling, there wasn't much load on anything.

The bit about "don't change before 1000 miles" may be because of moly additives as someone posted, but as for long term problems caused by changing too soon, report back at 100k, then 200k and beyond to let us know! One of moly's endearing qualities is it's claimed to adhere to ferrous materials, so it circulated and "stuck" to the place it might "stick" in those first few miles, and there's probably plenty left even after that initial change. I doubt you'll know you ever changed it "too" early!

Rick