Oil level question

It’s fine. Operating temperature measurement is what counts.as the engine cools the oil passageways and accessories such as oil squirters, valve lash adjusters and all the oil galleys in the block and heads bleed down to the pan. But the dipstick is intended to be read at operating temp after a recent shut down.

 

That's for damn sure. I just did my first oil change and that fresh oil is very hard to see on the dipstick.

 

Take some fine sand paper and rub the tip a touch ( inserted pun) it'll grab the oil and make it much easier to see.

 

When oil heats up it expands and when it is cold it is thicker. That's why Toyota says to check the oil when engine is at operating temperature. Allowing the engine to sit for 5 mins allows all of the oil to come back to the proper measuring level.
What I usually do is right after turning off the engine, I pull the dipstick out and let it sit outside for 5 mins and then reinsert after cleaning off course. Lightly scrubbing the dipstick with fine sandpaper does help as well.

 

re: not being able to see clean oil on the dipstick, while I haven't tried this with the tacoma, when I had the same issue on a previous car I bought one of these white plastic drain snakes since they're basically the same shape as the dipstick shaft:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/BrassCraft-20-in-Plastic-Hair-Snake-BC00112/305468409
Take a pair of cutters and snip off the barbs before using. Then hold the actual dipstick against it and mark on the white plastic so you know how far to insert it, and also mark the "full" level. It's a little bit easier to see the oil against the white plastic compared to the regular dipstick.

I thought about drilling a series of very small holes (maybe 1/32" or 1/64" diameter, every 1/8" or so (in the plastic), above and below the "full" mark since the holes that reached oil would stay filled with oil, for a few seconds anyway, and the ones not reaching oil would be empty. I didn't end up doing that on the previous car, but the Tacoma oil is so close to colorless when it's in a thin layer that it might be worth it to try.

This particular one in the link (20") might not be long enough for the Tacoma, but I'm sure there must be longer ones.

 

I bead blasted the tip of the dipstick. No problem reading it now.

 

"Back in the day," dipsticks used to always have either stamped cross-hatching or knurled patterns in the tip section. But in this day and age of shaving every penny of production costs off, anything that clears the hurdle of : "will anyone sue us, or not buy the vehicle, if we remove this" with an answer of 'no' gets removed.

On the plus side, the fact that the oil barely breaks a sweat in lubricating this engine is a GOOD thing. I've had new vehicles that already had some discoloration of the oil by the second tank of gas.