Just completed the “Back on the Road” Spring service which included a change of Engine oil and filter.
When I purchased the car around 12 months ago I checked the oil and it seemed a bit on the high side but bearing in mind the advice to always keep the level at the max mark and with the old bullet dipstick being hard to read with relatively new oil I thought it may just have been me. I did buy the new modified dipstick towards the end of last year but I still seemed to be getting a high reading. I thought nothing of it until I came to change to oil for this season. Imagine my surprise when my trusty drain pan started to overflow and I only just managed to get a suitable container in time to avoid a nasty oily puddle on the drive. Once the new oil was in (the recommended Mobil 5W30 Super 3000 at a good price from wilko), I measured the oil that had been removed from the sump and the filter. To my surprise I had a touch under 6l of used oil which filled the old Mobil 5L tub to overflowing.
The car had had an oil service from one of the Mazda specialist about 18 months before I bought it but as it had only done less than 2500 miles I decided to wait until now to change all the lubricants. I know it’s good to keep the oil topped up but almost 1.3L seems a bit excessive. I don’t think the previous owner had added any oil – in fact he had hardly driven the car since he bought it 3 years previously so it looks to have been there from the service. Just over 4.5L of the new oil sees the level sitting just above the top hole on the new dipstick which seems about right with the factory specification of 4.7L with an oil filter change.
At the same time I took the opportunity to change the brake fluid whist doing the front brake pads (27000 miles on the original pads which still had a bit of meat left on the outer pads although the inners were marginal but good enough to pass the last MOT!). The difference in braking was amazing, hard pedal, instant response and good feel – well worth the effort as I don’t think it had been done since the last Main Dealer service 8 or 9 years previously.
Interesting to know that the car runs without issue with around 6 litres of oil onboard.
Surely with more than a litre of extra oil the dipstick reading was at least 10mm higher than the upper dipstick mark?
I would suggest from what others have posted and suggested, that a little over max is the way to go. Finger in the air = 500ml max, so 5 litres sounds good.
Please confirm that the car performed without issue for the 12 months owned with 6 litres of oil in the sump. Guessing others will be as surprised as I am and once again suggests that the dipstick on the MK3 is not properly caliberated.   Â
Right, I have now checked exact the amount of oil extracted from my car yesterday and it looks like 5.7l plus a bit for spillages etc, so it was overfilled by about 1l. I have also looked at the previous dipstick reading on a photo and the level is at least above the max mark by the difference between the low and high levels. When I first checked the level on the old style dipstick it looked as though the oil had smeared up the gauge, in retrospect it looks like the level being too high had filled the lower end of the dipstick and dragged some upwards when removed. On the new one the same thing was apparent with a smear of oil again well above the max level.
As I only ran the car for about 3 months and did 600 miles or so last year it’s difficult to say if it ran ok, it passed 3 MOTs in this condition and as far as I can tell ran normally with no smoking or oil leaks. As it had not done many miles post the last oil change it’s difficult to say if any damage occurred. As a final thought, the garage who did the last oil change also forgot to replace the crush washer on the sump plug. I scratched around for a while trying to find it on the floor or in the oil tray, a new one was fitted anyway.
Since getting my Sept 2006 2.0 Mk3 second hand at 4 years old and with only 13k miles on I have always ensured the engine oil was around 5mm above the max mark on the “old dipstick” (the one with the hard to read aluminium bit on the end) it was always a bit of a guess tho’ but fortunately the engine has never used any oil between oil changes (done every 12,000 miles) the car has now done 128k miles and still no or at worst very very little oil is used. I have just got hold of a “revised dipstick” (a standard type metal blade with small holes for min & max - wish I had got one a lot earlier!) from MX5 parts at the Spring Rally, and after fitting the level is now much easier to read but it still about 5mm above the max! I have had no issues with the engine running at this level of oil in the 115k miles I have covered - including long European motorway runs at 80-90mph a few laps of the Nurburgring, and daily driving to & from work. The oil I’ve used in this time is Mobil 3000 5W/30 Fully Synthetic FE.
YEP that’s the “bullet” dipstick as Keat63 refers to - it is not very good! the flat blade one - a used in the majority of all other cars - is spot on to read!
Mine was serviced this week, the invoice includes 4.5 litres of oil but the level according to the dipstick’s about 7mm above max. It’s always come back like this whenever it’s been serviced & never uses any oil in between the annual services.
My dipstick’s the “blade” type i.e. the later one - original factory fitment on my car.
