A little off topic story about oil levels. In my old truck, it never used oil. Never worried about it but after 250,000 km and noticing bubbles coming from between the head and block, I figured it was time to change the head gasket. While the head was off I had the head rebuilt at a local shop as the engine has over heated a few times over the course of it's life.
I reinstalled everything, the truck worked great. A little time later on my first trip out to the rigs in Alberta, I was on the highway and I noticed I could hear the lifters when going uphill, and then they would get quiet going down hill. Quite weird I thought but my truck's never used oil, the head is new, the oil pressure gauge shows good pressure but I figured I would pull over anyway.
I pulled the dipstick and cleaned it off, put it in again and pulled it out to find nothing on the dip stick! Luckily I kept a liter in the back, put that liter in and it came up just a quarter inch on the stick and WELL below the add line! We'll, since I was near Red Deer, the oil pressure still said it was good and I had an extra liter now in the motor, I drove in, bought 3 more liters, added two of them and finally hit the full mark. The funny thing is, my truck only takes about 4 liters of oil!
So, lesson learned, any changes to an engine, I check the level often despite what the pressure gauge says and always carry extra fluids.
Oh, and I had another truck that didn't use much oil in the city but on the highway, it would chew through about a liter every 150 km. That truck cost more in oil than gas.
With your story JB, should I ever get a new car, I'll definitely keep my eye on the oil level.
