The quoted directions in post #49 make no assertion whatsoever as to what temperature the oil should be when you put the dipstick in to take the reading.See post #49, the manual does explicitly say that the engine should be at normal operating temperature, so yes, warm oil. And oil does expand when it warms up so a cold oil reading will be different.
But if owners think they know better than the factory, they can do whatever the heck they want. Afterall, I’m not making their car payments…
It gives a sequence of instructions. At one step they say to bring the temperature up to operating temperature. During this step the dipstick is seated in the tube.
The next step, prior to removing the dipstick is "wait at least 5 minutes". I've explained why I believe that step is important.
Waiting 12 hours during this step is completely consistent with these directions.
There is no explicit instruction to measure the oil while the oil is still warm. I don't believe there is an implicit expectation either.
The time to NOT measure your oil while following these instructions are:
1) if its been fewer than 5 minutes since the engine was run to operating temperature
2) if the engine didn't reach operating temperature the last time it was run
3) if the engine hasn't been run with this oil
I expect cases 2) and 3) would be fine if enough time had elapsed.
The instructions are such that they give easy steps to get a relatively steady state oil level reading starting from uncertain conditions.
There are plenty of other ways to determine how much oil is in the car. The instructions need to be clear and deterministic and able to be followed by typical owner. They don't need to be exhaustive.
I don't envy the folks who have to write instructions for such things. Wow.
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