I've been changing the oil in my 911 for 25 years. I put up a post maybe an hour ago (now deleted) asking if anyone had ever had an experience like mine today, where I drained the oil, changed both filters (993 motor) and then -- when it was time to refill -- saw that only 4 quarts of oil had come out of the engine.
Even though I knew I didn't have a leak, and couldn't have burned through 6 quarts of oil since my last change, I put the same amount back in, warmed the car up and checked it. Full and happy.
I just couldn't figure out where the other 5-6 quarts had disappeared to.
While I was warming it up enough to confirm that the thermostat for the front coolers was working (impossible idea that a stuck thermostat could hide that much oil), I went through the steps in my head, and finally saw the obvious. I'd drained the tank, gone under to get the small filter, let the oil drain more from that, and then went to the top filter...
...completely skipping the most obvious step in the job: draining the oil from the sump.
So dumb, it was kind of funny to me. Never mind that I now had thrown away four expensive quarts of Penn Grade 20/50.
So be it.
I just drained it again -- from both sources -- and refilled it. Everything's fine.
But it made me wonder if I'm the only one to make a completely obvious error while working on the car. Does anyone want to volunteer a moment of shame?
