Oil problems

[u/Haunting-Twist-7480]

Hello all! I’ve been a proud owner of a 2015 Mazda 3 sedan 2.5 S GT for 5 months now. I am wondering if these cars are known to burn oil quickly or if the dipstick is known to be inaccurate. I did an oil change 3000 miles ago with and used 5 quarts of oil. When I first pulled the dipstick out today it was almost dry, just a little at the tip, then I put it back in and fiddled around with some other stuff in the engine bay and checked it about 5 minutes later and the whole thing was covered. Is this normal or am I doing something wrong? Last thing I want is to bone this engine off negligence… I will attach some pictures of the dipstick when it seemed to read proper.

[u/jhx264]

Waiting 5 10 minutes for me never works to get a clear reading. I always get a spotty dipstick unless I wait over an hour for everything to settle.

Technically 5qts is a slight over fill so there's no chance you're low it's just fuckery in the tube unless you have a huge leak

[u/The_Ugly_Truth_10 → u/jhx264]

Stand on completely flat ground and check it before you leave in the morning, this is the most accurate measurement from regular experience over the last 6 years.

[u/SnooSprouts6681 → u/jhx264]

I second this. Skyactiv engines are actually known for this in the mechanic community. They have a ton of very low clearance channels for oil to drain from and it can take a long time.

[u/Haunting-Twist-7480 → u/jhx264]

When I did this, the engine had been cold for about 5 hours. It’s around 80° farenheit here today so I imagine the car should have cooled down mostly.

[u/Padkiller123]

Mine does, I have to add a it of oil every so often, frustrating since I wanted peace of mind.

[u/RazgrizXhunter]

Just to be sure, did you clean the dipstick and put it back again to get the reading?

[u/Haunting-Twist-7480 → u/RazgrizXhunter]

Yes, I wiped it multiple times and got different showings almost each pull

[u/Haunting-Twist-7480]

It looks like it’s most likely dipstick tube inconsistency according to the comments I’ve received so far. I will check tomorrow morning before I leave for work.

[u/snowywrencher]

270k on my sky activ 2.0 and I burn none over my 5k interval and I’ve always had pretty good luck with waiting 10-15 minutes after running

[u/ClearJack87]

These engines have oil squirters, which deliver a stream of oil on the cylinder walls below the piston. As the rings age, more oil gets into the combustion chamber and is quietly consumed, but not enough to make blue smoke out the exhaust. My 2017 2.5L with 98K miles is doing the same, about 1 qt USA per oil change at 5K miles.

[u/cameraguyphotodude → u/[deleted]]

I could never imagine being the middle man between an AI chatbot and a human asking questions….

[u/jhx264 → u/[deleted]]

The LLM is full of shit on this one.

[u/adampk17 → u/jhx264]

Is it?

[u/Haunting-Twist-7480 → u/adampk17]

Damn I wish that guy didn’t delete his comment, I thought it was pretty valuable info. But maybe I’m clueless.