After about 4 months of driving, the oil light on my car keeps coming on and off. I added 2 qts of 10w40, but the oil is still not registering on the dipstick.. Any ideas about what may be wrong or what I should do?

Asked by jrjasmin Mar 14, 2015 at 07:41 PM about the 2003 Honda Accord Coupe EX

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

5 Answers

86,145

What happened four months ago? Did you hit any rocks or parking curb? You added two quarts and it's not registering on the dipstick? I imagine that you have already checked for a leak, how does your car run and sound? Two quarts is a lot of oil to be down and it's still not full?

I "inherited" the car four months ago, but there doesn't seem to be any leaks, although the car does sound like its struggling when I try to accelerate sometimes. And yeah- two quarts... i just bought an extra quart to have on hand, but when i couldn't see anything after adding 1 qt put in the next one..

86,145

I had a 1995 Honda Accord EX and sold the car with just under 150,000 miles a year ago. The car used very little oil and served me well. These cars are naturally pretty spunky and have excellent acceleration, so, if your car seems tired that's something to be concerned about. So, what's your guess about how many quarts it might need to bring that to the full line? I'm sure you would have to know if it sounded so bad like it was running on very little oil. How many miles are on this car? 2003 was not a good year for the automatic transmission either, how's it shifting? Do you have any idea when the timing belt got replaced? If it's going bad or if it's all stretched out or something, the car will run terrible. Finally, even though you inherited the car, do you really want to keep it? Depending upon the overall condition, it might be better to say goodbye. Good luck.

13,105

Is the car smoking or making blue clouds out of the exhaust? How about the transmission fluid and antifreeze colors? Any foam or slimy weird crud on the oil cap or radiator cap or overflow bottle on on the transmission dip stick? Have you tried adding any additional oil to the engine to bring the level up to the low mark on the dip stick? It may be as low as 3 or 3 1/2 quarts under. Add more oil until it DOES show ion the dip stick, then check again for leakage. It would not be the first car that was used and oil never checked or added during it's lifetime. How well was the car maintained before you inherited it, and how many lies on it? Sounds like you have an internal leak someplace if you are not finding any signs of external leaks which is why I ask about the colors of the other fluids and also check the levels of them as well. After you do all the above, write back and let me know.

86,145

If your has the conditions described above, discolored transmission or antifreeze fluid or slimy oil, blue smoke or trouble shifting, I would advise you to sell the car. The fact that you're oil was so low and left unattended is not good.

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