How to Check Your Oil

For the novice driver, here is a step-by-step instruction on how to check your oil to make sure it at the proper level. You should only need the following:

1) Vehicle

2) Paper Towel or Old Rag

Once you a your vehicle, you want to check the oil before starting. If you have driven your vehicle, I recommend waiting about 10 to 15 minutes to first let it cool down, and second so that you can get a proper reading from your vehicle. If you do this while the vehicle is running, you will not get an accurate reading and may end up, when adding oil, overfilling your car's oil which will lead to damage. The paper towel or old rag is used to wipe off the end of the dipstick after pulling it out so that you can get a proper reading.

You then need to get into your vehicle and locate the hood release. This is usually located on the driver's side of the vehicle either under the left side of the dash where the steering wheel is, or on the sidewall where this one is located. Pull the hood release to "pop" the hood.

After hearing an unlatching "pop" this should release the hood from the closed position. You then need to go to the front of your vehicle and locate the hood latch that is usually located underneath the hood, either in the middle of the hood behind the grille, or in this cars case above the passenger side headlight. Unlatch the hood, and open.

After opening your hood, you need to locate your engine oil dipstick. This is usually located on the front driver side of the engine, and with newer models, it should be marked like the one in the image. On older models the dipstick could be located on the passenger side of the engine, in this case it should be the dipstick closest to the front of the vehicle. In the event that your vehicle is equipped with an automatic transmission, the dipstick that is farthest back (closest to the cab) is the transmission dipstick. After locating the correct dipstick, pull the stick out and wipe off the end with the paper towel or old rag, then re-insert the dipstick. After doing this, pull the dipstick out again and, if properly filled, the oil level will show and be within the hash-marks, or between the two dots on the end of the dipstick. If not, you will need to add oil to your vehicle, which is not described in this step-by-step.