Rebel Yell

Now that made me laugh.......

Rebel Yell

Dave, if you didn't, do as lake says. Oil checks for the dry sump engine is counter to any oil checks I've ever done. Warn it up, then check. And, for goodness sake make sure you put the oil in the correct hole, don't mistake the surge tank cap for the oil cap. You may not think so, but that has happened before.

Stop Flop

no but it was the chevy dealer and i do trust them but who knows!

Stop Flop

i didnot check

owc6

I'm not sure that there is a low oil light on the dry sump. The C6 dry sump didn't have any way to measure oil level (unlike the wet sump), and I'm assuming that the C7 dry sump is the same, so no warning light.

lakemg

I've spent too much time on here reading about dealership service departments not getting it right with oil changes so you cannot trust them. I personally experienced an overfill condition when I purchased mine so it's pretty common primarily because the dry sump requires a different procedure to check the level and they end up overfilling. This is the first time I've heard of them under filling, but perhaps in the midst of filling the oil, they got a text message, meal truck showed up, or something else happened to distract them and it never got topped off. Thank goodness it at least had a couple quarts in it otherwise, we would be discussing the following topic: "My Engine Locked Up While Leaving the Dealership After An Oil Change"

Stop Flop

Yes i was really worried on the side of the road! Actually sick to my stomach. This is actually a new engine install. Its a 2014 and the original engine had unfixable valve issue and GM changed it with a 2017 new engine. I read the car fax report and said cost $19,500.00.

Patman

I wonder why they got rid of the low oil level sensor on the C6 and on the C7? I know that my C5 had a low oil level sensor in it (it would trigger when you were about 1.5 quarts low though, but that's better than nothing)

Maxpowers

^^^
This

Be sure you didn't overfill it. At shutdown the dipstick will show no oil with a dry sump.

owc6

The C6 wet sump still has the oil level sensor. It triggers at about the same point.

I guess my wording was not clear enough.

I'm assuming your C5 was a wet sump?

NSC5

There is no low oil sensor or light on the dry sump engine cars. Because of the nature of the dry sump there is a wide variance in the expected oil level in the storage tank depending upon operating conditions so unlike the wet sump cars there is no overall typical level when the engine is operating.

Although it is important to check oil level frequently to gauge usage among other reasons, with the dry sump system it is even more important. I suspect one reason the Cadillac CTS-V version of the LT-4 used a wet sump was to avoid this procedure which is difficult for some owners and Cadillac rightly assumes that many typical Cadillac buyers would not be happy with the dry sump level check procedure.

Stop Flop

thank you
dave

ShadowGray19

I am guessing the dealer "tech" gave it a wet sump fill of only 7 quarts. Regardless, check your oil frequently. I do so on my entire stable at least once per week. I still do my own oil changes (except on my wife's BMW with no dipstick). The last time I let a dealer do the change on a new car (other than a BMW) was a new 2010 Ford Fusion. It came with 3 free oil changes so when it came time for the first oil change I said, "what the heck, what could go wrong." Well I got it home and checked the oil. Barely showed at the bottom of the dipstick. Took almost 2 quarts on a 4 cylinder to get it to the full line. Turns out the quick lane supervisor did the change. The service manager offered me 3 additional free oil changes for the error. I said "Not a chance. I am not going to give you any more opportunities to screw up my engine."

Patman

There was no dry sump setup on the C5, that didn't come out until the introduction of the C6 Grand Sport. I never realized that the C6 wet sump had an oil level sensor, for some reason I thought they didn't have one.

KenHorse

^^^^My money's on this

lakemg

OP said it was 7 qts low so if that's the case it now has 14 qts in it. Not sure 14 qts would physically fit...

JMII

Once I joined up here and read the horror stories about the dry sump I decided to do my own oil changes. Too much confusion, not worth the risk. You would hope a Chevy dealership wouldn’t screw this up but honestly they don’t pay the techs anymore to work on Vette vs a Cruze.

Gearhead Jim

As others have posted, the (almost) foolproof way to get the proper dry-sump level at change is to have the dealer put in 9 qts and give you the 10th qt to top off at home, because the system holds about 9.8
Buy a funnel for the at-home part.

If they use the slightly older 1 liter bottles instead of quarts, you'll be almost at full.

Unfortunately, the dealer can still screw up if they fail to pull both drain plugs on the dry sump, that causes an overfill.

Our Owner Manual says to warm the oil to 175', shut down, wait 5-10 minutes, and then check level in the tank.

Foosh

The C7 Z06 had the dry sump LS7, when it was introduced in the 2006 MY.

Back to the point and as I said in post #3, about the only way OP could have ended up so under-filled is that the tech got distracted and didn't fill it properly at the last oil change, or it leaked out. The latter has apparently been ruled out by the OP.

Patman

You're absolutely right, I forgot about the LS7 getting the dry sump back in 2006.