I added oil to the engine while running, it didn't react well, did I damage anything?

Asked by Melanie Jan 22, 2016 at 01:28 PM about the 2002 Ford Taurus SEL

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

Car was down a quart, I was also checking tranny fluid which I know you have
to do while running.  Not thinking, I poured the oil into the engine, it
immediately started running sluggish and rough, almost stalled.  I kept it
running till it eventually smoothed out, but since then it seems to still be
running sluggish.  Is it my imagination or did I damage something?

5 Answers

I don't think you damaged anything. I can't think of anyway that adding oil while the engine was running would hurt the engine. Interesting post though. It would also be interesting to see other peoples take on this.

That makes me feel better, lol because I literally searched about 100 pages looking for this question before I decided to just ask it. Another reason why I thought I damaged something is (now don't laugh) I don't know the exact terms for the "parts" I'm about to describe, with the engine cap off on my Taurus through the opening you see what appears to be metal bands going back and forth in kind of a "piston" like motion, two bands if I remember right, one bigger than the other. The bigger one has symmetrical geometric openings in the metal, best way I can describe is looks like a cookie cutter cut the sections out. Anyway when I poured the oil over these bands they immediately went to at least 1/4 the speed they were, like in slow motion, and I could hear the idle drop to where it sounded like it was about to die, I ran and got in and lightly but firmally pressed the accelerator, a few times till it seemed it would hold idle. I wasn't about to turn it off, thinking it might not start, and something told me to let it run a bit till the bands appeared back to the way they were. ok thanks for your help guys

You were seeing the valve train in action, opening and closing the valves.

The valve train slows down and speeds up with the engine which is normal.

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