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Hello fellow dirty mucks – I went to purchase a used car today, which I decided not to buy. One of my observations was of the motor oil dipstick. While the oil condition itself was fine, the dipstick actually had some carmelling on it. It looked like at one time some oil bot burned onto the stick. I currently have four cars with over 100k, actually two are over 250k miles and none of the dipsticks look like that. I was concerned that maybe at some point in the car’s history an oil change or two was ignored causing this kind of buildup on the dipstick. Am I wrong to be concerned about this? What causes that characteristic?
Thank in advance for any feedback.
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Some light oil sludge or dry yellow/brown residue on the dipstick is quite normal. They will all do that eventually if they never get completely wiped off. Car’s are lucky to have the oil checked at all, let alone anyone bothering to wipe the whole thing off. It’s just from oil-infused crankcase vapors that go up the dipstick tube and condense on the dipstick over and over again.
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