It seems counterintuitive: Replacing a simple, trusty, low-tech part with costly sensors to measure oil. But this is why some automakers are going that route.
Call it the case of the disappearing dipstick.
Stellantis customers with the new Hurricane twin-turbo six-cylinder engine in their Jeep SUVs and Ram pickups may be in for a surprise when they open the hood to check the oil.
The dipstick — an appendage poking out the side of the cylinder block of nearly every American automobile engine for a century — is gone.
It has been replaced by an oil level measuring system that uses a sensor mounted vertically in the oil pan. The sensor transmits data that can be accessed on the car’s touchscreen in the center of the dash — similar to the method used in many European luxury cars for more than a decade.
In an era when automakers are working to rein in ballooning costs, why would they replace a no-tech commodity such as a dipstick — essentially a thin, flat piece of flexible metal with a plastic grip that likely costs pennies to make — with a more expensive system that contains a sensor, wiring, lines of code and added computing power?
“Today’s consumer does not prioritize manually checking the oil level. With a sensor, that info is presented to them every time they turn on the ignition. This is customer-focused engineering,” said Stellantis spokesperson Dale Jewett.
Mercedes-Benz makes no passenger vehicles with dipsticks. “With digital oil level measurement, customers can easily monitor their vehicle’s oil level in their vehicle’s driver display and receive timely alerts if oil level is outside normal limits. This proactive approach
helps to avert potential engine damage,” Mercedes-Benz USA spokesperson Andrew Brudnicki said in an email.
“Moreover, the accuracy of the oil measurement is not reliant on a person’s expertise. Digital measurement eliminates the risk of human error as external factors that can result in misinterpretation of the oil level. For example, if the vehicle is not on a level surface, differences in cold and warm measurement, the angle at which the dipstick is viewed,” he added.
Leave it to the experts
But there may be more to it.
“Manufacturers don’t really want the driver, their customers, under the hood anymore. A lot of cars now are hybrid and have high voltage and there’s a higher safety concern,” said Michael Crossen, an assistant test project leader at Consumer Reports. He’s also a trained technician who helps keep the publication’s test car fleet in good repair.
“You also have the scenario where the customer does check the oil with the dipstick and maybe it is a little low,” he said. “And they want to top it off. The customer could overfill it, which isn’t great. And a lot of cars are requiring very specific oil. Manufacturers don’t want someone just dumping in whatever they have laying around.”
Crossen said optics might also be playing a role in the dipstick’s dismissal. Except for the yellow plastic grip, which is meant to make the dipstick easy to locate in the engine bay, the flexible metal rod has not changed much in a century. A dipstick, he said, is archaic and out of context in modern cars loaded with electronics that present information about the health of a vehicle at the touch of a button or with a screen icon.
“The customer has to pop the hood. They might get their hands dirty. It’s not the modern way of doing things,” he said. “So, there’s a perception of ‘Hey, look what I can do from my center screen”.
The engine’s lifeblood
The Hurricane six-cylinder, like virtually all other modern engines, has been designed with tighter tolerances between critical parts. It’s also more thermally efficient than the old Hemi V-8 it replaces.
Because the Hurricane engine operates at higher temperatures, using oil with the proper viscosity and maintaining the correct level are crucial to the engine’s long-term reliability. Oil does more than lubricate fast-moving internal parts such as bearings, rings and camshafts. It also helps keep those parts cool.
While using the wrong oil might not cause immediate damage to an engine, it could affect performance and fuel economy. There are dozens of brands and many blends of oils at auto parts stores and elsewhere. That confusing array may be one reason for the dipstick’s demise.
Because oil is so important to an engine’s health, automakers have been paying more attention to it and creating ways to prompt consumers to keep the oil fresh and full.
Oil pressure monitoring has been standard on engines — with gauges, warning lights or both — for decades. In the 1980s, oil life monitors began appearing. In many cars, oil temperature could also be displayed. In the early 2010s, the first mass-produced oil level monitors rolled out, mostly in German cars.
Mercedes-Benz went dipstick-less in 2018. Most BMWs and all Minis have dispensed with them. “The value in the tech is that it more accurately measures and monitors vehicle oil with appropriate warnings,” said Mini spokesperson Andrew Cutler.
“Newer connected vehicles also provide alerts to customers via their vehicle app and can also assist with scheduling of service appointments. Dealers can also tailor service programs and activities based on the vehicle/customer needs with connected car data,” he added in an email.
The 2025 Ram 1500 is the first internal combustion powered pickup without a dipstick. While computerized oil level monitoring technology might be valued by drivers of upscale import brand vehicles, it’s a different story based on early feedback from Ram truck drivers, said Tim Esterdahl, host of “Pickup Truck Talk” on YouTube and TikTok. A recent video focusing on the Ram’s dipstick disappearance garnered 3.3 million TikTok views. On YouTube, that same clip provoked 266 comments — nearly all negative.
“Even if most pickup guys don’t check and change their oil, they will want the opportunity to do it. They don’t trust technology and they don’t trust sensors. Even though BMW has done it for years, pickup drivers don’t care. And they are irate,” Esterdahl said.
“You always want to have a mechanical way to check the oil, which is what a dipstick basically does. There are so many trust factors involved in a computer system and they are so complex,” he said. “All the guys I am talking to can’t wait for an aftermarket dipstick to be added.”
But the dipstick dismissal in the Ram’s Hurricane engine may not be a bad thing, said Dave Bell, a master technician who runs Dave’s Auto Center in Centerville, Utah. He is host of a YouTube channel on auto repair that racks up millions of views weekly. His recent video on oil change intervals, for example, has been seen nearly 600,000 times. He often shows viewers the inside of engines that have succumbed to oil-related failures.
“It’s amazing to me how many people actually don’t even know how to check their oil. I mean, they buy a $50,000 car or truck and they never even check their oil,” he told Automotive News.
Bell said many drivers have been lulled into ignoring their engine’s oil because manufacturers have extended oil change intervals to as much as 15,000 miles, and because oil quality monitors tell them when to change the oil.
“People have this misconception in that they think, ‘I’ve got oil in there, I don’t have to check it.’ But engines burn oil. As long as there is a reliable [oil] level sensor in there — and I stress the word reliable — I wouldn’t have any problem with them if they work correctly. Maybe people would pay more attention to a warning that came on saying they’re a quart low,” said Bell, whose shop derives a significant amount of its revenue from rebuilding failed, worn-out, abused and neglected gasoline and diesel pickup engines.
Implications unclear
In vehicles with dipsticks, no record of the oil level is kept in the car’s engine computer. Low oil pressure, often caused by low oil levels, triggers a trouble code that is stored in the car’s computer and a check-engine light to alert the driver to a potential problem. But an engine can have a crankcase with the proper amount of oil and also have low oil pressure. That can be caused by a failing oil pump, debris in the oil pickup tube, a stuck pressure relief valve or another problem that reduces the flow of oil through the engine.
Now the Hurricane engine has the electronic infrastructure in place to store oil level information. That could make a significant difference in determining the cause of engine failures and the expensive warranty claims that often accompany them.
If Stellantis and the other automakers that have dispensed with the dipstick are retaining oil level data, they are not talking about it publicly. Requests to BMW and Mercedes-Benz for information on how the data is tracked yielded no information from engineers in Germany. Stellantis’ Jewett said oil level data for the Hurricane engine is not stored or tracked.
Crossen, of Consumer Reports, said he’s seen no oil level data in the computers in vehicles without dipsticks. But a case can be made for automakers to save that data.
Typical leases run three years. But powertrain warranties are usually longer. The Hurricane engine, for example, has a five-year or 60,000-mile warranty. Ignoring oil change intervals or using the wrong oil could cause problems long after the vehicle is returned at the end of the lease. Closer oil monitoring, along with strong warnings might prevent damage, such as sludge buildup that can choke off the flow of oil and destroy an engine.
Some vehicles store lifetime fuel economy data. Bell said automakers could easily collect and retain a vehicle’s lifetime oil data, too: “They could gather that information for the life of the vehicle and store it on a chip.”