Is this the right oil dipstick for my 1998 2.4 Tacoma?

When I bought this truck last July 4th, The dipstick was dirty (still has some dark stuff on it...) and was showing dirty oil a quarter inch above the full mark. I changed it and it added the 5.8ish quarts and it read high again. This time I just put in 5 quarts and it reads perfectly at full. I just want to make sure this is the right dipstick. Can someone compare it to theirs please? This truck was supposed to have 139K original miles. But many of the things the previous owner told me have been very suspicious. Like the oil and filter had been changed recently, oil and filter were very dirty... Brakes were mushy, but previous said he had checked and adjusted everything during a recent brake pad and shoe replacement. The back brakes were completely out of adjustment and the E brake was non existent... So I am concerned about the dipstick. Thanks.

 

What are the truck details? Which engine, transmission, etc? The more details the better.

 

Also, get us a close up of the handle and a measurement from the full line at the end to the part where it would sit in the tube.

 

Have a 1998 2.4 automatic taco myself. Dip stick is perfectly clean looking with no stained black oil residue. Thats probably a good sign that your truck previously had been driven a long time without regular oil changes - and is a worrying point, but if its not burning/leaking any oil or running poorly I wouldn't worry to much over it.

As for changing our your oil its actually pretty normal what you experienced as I actually had the same thing this morning when I changed my oil. Our trucks take 5 and a partial quart. Sometimes when you fill it with 5 quarts at first it'll look like its full on the stick, but once you drive it around and a block and come back to check it'll go down again to show that its still not full to capacity - warranting that extra partial quart. So no worries there. Just add a little bit more after driving it a block to see if goes down.

Given the condition of your truck and the iffy previous owner. I'd consider changing the other fluids to like the differential/atf/coolant just to be sure you know you got fresh stuff in.

But, will say our trucks honestly can handle quite a lot of poor maint and still last. My previous truck (same model as my current) was driven to the point all the fluids smelled and looked like black tar, but after changing everything it worked perfectly fine. Haha but that's just me. Will say it didn't take synthetic oil well though and had to only run it with conventional. My new taco that was far better maintained handles synthetic oil perfectly fine.

 

I will go out and measure the one in my first gen tomorrow and look at the part number and let you know so measure the length from under the yellow handle to the tip...

 

Its the correct dipstick, ahah I remember seeing the matching number on my truck. Its the same number for both he 2.4/2.7L tacos and 4runners.

 

I looked at the specs... the 2RZ-FE takes 5.8 qts, the 3RZ-FE takes 5.7 and the 5RZ-FE takes 5.5qts with a 4X4 taking a little more. I would dump the oil/filter and measure it then add it back and look at the dipstick to be sure.

 

After driving it about 5 miles and re-checking, it still is right at the full line with 5 quarts. Apparently I didn't get some drained out. Here's additional pics.