Okay, I'll admit to being clueless since I haven't owned a car in decades. I went under the hood to check the oil and the coolant this morning.


The oil was easy (although it's so light in color it was hard to see on the dipstick), but how are you supposed to check the coolant level?


Assuming I'm looking at the right thing, it's buried in the front of the engine below the grille. I couldn't figure out how to see the MIN MAX lines. What am I missing?


(Go ahead, laugh.)

 

There are little indents on the side of the tank the mark low and high (its a semi-transparent plastic tank in the location you described). Coolant is usually green so you can see the level through the side of the tank. Shine a flashlight through it if you don't see it right away. You can keep it towards the Max line but don't overfill and make sure you use the concentration spec'd in the manual.

 

You're looking at the right thing. It's not the easiest thing to see.

I think the easiest way to determine the level is to take a little flashlight (or torch?) and hold it against the outside of the container in various spots. You should be able to see about where the fluid level is by watching the color change from greenish to whitish.

(You can also pull the cap off and the hose inside the container out and use the hose as a sort of dipstick.)

The MIN and MAX are molded into the container, and there are ridges around it at those points. With the right lighting, they aren't too hard to make out.

 

Thanks. I was too lazy to walk up the 3 flights to get a flashlight, but I'll do that. I've only put 400 miles on the car, so I'm probably ahead of myself.

 

The level should get higher in the recovery jar after the car has been driven for a good while, and the coolant has warmed up, or after you've used the AC for a short time. It should be lower when the engine has been sitting for a long time, and cooled off. If the engine is hot you can fill the jar to the max line, and that is as high as it will get, however if the engine is cold you shouldn't add coolant more than a little bit higher than the min line, about 1/3 of the way up, as it should go up even further when the engine heats up, and could go over the max linge.

 

Your coolant may be blue in color.

 

On every car I've ever owned I've always gone over the min/max lines with a black marker pen. With these lines now so easy to see it makes it easier to concentrate on just looking for the actual fluid level now, which should be somewhere in between.

 

Easy?
Honda has provided The Fit, with the most frustrating Oil Dipstick I have ever encountered.

The big plastic piece seems designed to smear the oil from top to bottom, and given the light colored nature of todays synthetics makes getting an accurate reading of where your oil level is...nearly impossible.

Your eyes are better than mine if you can at all say checking the Oil Level with a Honda Fit Gen 3 Dipstick is at all easy.

 

Touching it to a paper towel, as someone suggested in another thread, will show the oil level on the dipstick. Or use a flashlight to see where the oil is.

Using your tongue would be a third option but I don't suggest it.

 

I tried the touch or lay it on a paper towel advice.
It didn't work too well to me.
If the oil is overfilled or smeared all along the plastic piece, then touching it to a paper towel, only reveals where the oil is....on the paper towel.

Maybe it would work better if the oil isn't overfilled?
But my results with the paper towel trick....were just the paper towel pretty much absorbing the oil and not really leading to any clearer idea where the line actually was.

My ultimate conclusion is simply to try again...after a few months when maybe the clear synthetic oil...is not longer so clear.

In the meantime? I have to trust the dealership got it right, because Honda's dipstick is so messed up.

Really, we shouldn't have to resort to "tricks" to be able to figure out our oil levels.

 

While I no longer own the Fit, here's what I do to another car with the 'hard to read' oil level issue. You might want to give it a try and see if it works. Works perfectly on mine. Take the dipstick out of the car, wipe it down, and lay is aside. Leave the car for about 15 minutes or so and then reinsert the dipstick. Pull it out and check the level. That 15 minutes or so gives the oil drawn up the dipstick tube time to drain back. I'm not sure if it'll work on the Fit, but my Corolla draws oil up the tube like the Fit does and that trick works every time. I usually place the clean dipstick in the car as to not forget it's out.

 

I don't know about the Fit but on my Corollas (and I suspect this is standard for all cars) you could fill to the maximum line even when cold. There's sufficient additional volume in the coolant reservoir to allow for expansion from maximum when heated. You just never want to fill above "max." when cold, or have it just sitting on "min." when hot.

I always like mine sitting near the maximum line on the rationale that a car will never gain coolant but will eventually lose some. With a new car loss shouldn't be much of an issue but since my Corollas are 36 years old I do have to add coolant every few months. It kind of irks me that the local car place says it checks fluid levels as part of an oil change but when I take my Corollas there and look at the engine afterward the coolant can still be on 1/4 and I know that just means a week or two of driving before adding coolant. I have taken to asking them to make sure all fluids are truly topped up.