Have been meaning to ask this question and just never got around to it. Any ideas on why my 99 Accord with the 2.3 would hold 5 qts. of oil? Owners manual says approx. 4.5 and Hayes manual says 4.0 Every 4 cyl. car I've ever owned held 4 quarts. Think someone put a larger oil pan on it or it's got the wrong dipstick in it? Or both the owners manual and Hayes is wrong?

 

i have a 98 accord ex, and i too have noticed i can easily put 5 quarts in and the dipstick isnt even touching the max level. i think its safe to assume the dipstick is most likely wrong for the car.

 

How do you drain the oil? The engine "holds" more than 5 quarts, but it never all drains out.

I normally rotate tires while the oil is draining, so I'm jacking up one corner after another. That gets more oil to drain out.

Another thing is it's very unusual for a garage or driveway to be perfectly flat. They have to drain rainwater, etc, so there's some slope. Park your car backwards & see if it changes.

 

I drain it when the oil is warm. Pull it up on ramps, let it drain till it goes to just dripping. Then take oil filter off, clean mounting base, fresh oil on new filter gasket, hand tighten it on, re-install drain plug on the pan. It's always taken 4 7/8 to 5 qts. to fill it back up. No problems running 5 qts. in it during the 42,000 miles I've put on it, so I guess it's not too overfilled if it is in fact overfilled with 5. Not running an oversized filter so that's not it either. Guess I'll just keep running 5 in it.

 

I happened to have some specs for the 98 EX 4-cyl we used to own. It says 5.9 quarts total but 4.5 quarts for oilchange with filter. Probably driving up on ramps gets more to drain out.

I'd trust the dipstick.

 

I've changed the oil on our '99 Accord 5 times since we've had it. It has always taken 5 quarts.

 

I've performed oil changes on cars made in Germany, the United States, and various points around Asia, and virtually every car I've worked on for the last fifteen years has taken about a half of a quart extra to bring the oil level up to the "Max" line.

 

FWIW for my car 5qt is just slightly over the upper mark.