Low temperature affecting oil level sensor?

[Parker Freeland]

Greetings everybody! I came out today to my 2013 LR4 in 14 degree temperature and did an oil level check and it said below minimum! Last night I did an oil check before starting the car and it was at the max and said okay. I called a local indie shop and they said they had never seen this before. No leaking dry as a bone everywhere around the engine. Ran it for about 10 minutes, waited 20 minutes and rechecked and it said the oil level was okay again. Are these systems susceptible to cold weather?

Nowadays I do an oil level check just about every time I start the car. Land Rover... proud and paranoid!

Thanks!

 

[umbertob]

I remember the opposite problem, someone with a new LR4 in hot SoCal weather checked the level 20 minutes after shutting off the engine (oil was still very hot, obviously) and got an equally dire Overfilled, See Dealer message, which went away overnight as the oil volume shrunk to a more accurate level. So yeah, in cases of extreme temperatures either way that digital gauge can probably give inaccurate information and you may want to either run the engine for a few minutes, then let it rest for 20-30 as you did if the car has been sitting in below freezing temps, or let it cool a bit longer than 30 minutes in extremely hot weather before reading its level. That, plus the car must be on perfectly level ground, of course. My garage is level but my driveway is not, and that can trick not only the oil gauge, but the fuel gauge as well.

 

[scott schmerge]

Greetings everybody! I came out today to my 2013 LR4 in 14 degree temperature and did an oil level check and it said below minimum! Last night I did an oil check before starting the car and it was at the max and said okay. I called a local indie shop and they said they had never seen this before. No leaking dry as a bone everywhere around the engine. Ran it for about 10 minutes, waited 20 minutes and rechecked and it said the oil level was okay again. Are these systems susceptible to cold weather?

Nowadays I do an oil level check just about every time I start the car. Land Rover... proud and paranoid!

Thanks!

gap iid will give you a live value of calculated volume in liters. It will also give you a measurement that I’m assuming comes from a sensor. See attached. This is from a demo screen (not my actual truck).

Point being, your volumes shouldn’t vary that much in cold weather, but wondering what your sensor registers...if it’s wacky, might be a faulty sensor.

 

[Parker Freeland]

I'll plug in my Gap tool tomorrow morning and see what it says against what the dashboard says. Great idea thanks!