The Dipstick Is Dying: GM Goes Digital - September 24, 2026

Tyreese: Alright, look. I've got two stories for you today, and the first one hit me right in the chest, because it's about a tool I've used on every single job for thirteen years. The dipstick. It's dying. I'm not joking.

Tyreese: General Motors just confirmed it. The twenty twenty seven Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra, the new ones with the sixth generation small block V eights, they do not come with a dipstick. No tube. No stick. Nothing under the hood to pull. Instead, the oil level shows up as a digital gauge, either on the driver instrument cluster or the center touchscreen. You check your oil from the cabin like you're checking the weather on your phone.

Tyreese: Now here's the thing. When I first saw this headline, my gut reaction was, nah. That doesn't make sense. Truck buyers are tinkerers. Half-ton truck people open their hoods. This is the crowd that will argue with you about which oil filter is better in a parking lot. So why would GM take the stick away from them?

Tyreese: So I started digging. And this is where it gets interesting. Because the reason isn't what everybody thinks. One of the auto writers over at Road Ethos pulled the thread, and it turns out the sixth gen V eights run port injection, and the port injection hardware physically left no room for a dipstick tube. Think about what just happened. They didn't take the dipstick away to be cute. They took it away because there was literally nowhere to put it. The engine got redesigned around efficiency and the stick didn't fit the package anymore.

Tyreese: And GM's a company man about it. Their spokesman, Trevor Thompkins, told the Detroit Free Press that the move was about simplifying ownership. You check the oil from the cabin, no hood, no wipe, no second pull. And GM says the virtual display does something a dipstick never could. It continuously monitors the oil level, so it can alert you to a leak while you're driving down the road. A dipstick can't do that. A dipstick only works if you remember to pull it.

Tyreese: Okay, fair. But here's the part people miss. This is not a first. BMW has been doing electronic oil level checks since the early two thousands. Mercedes killed dipsticks on a bunch of models years ago. And GM's biggest truck rival, Ram, already ships the three liter Hurricane inline six with no dipstick, while the revived Hemi still keeps one. So the industry's been drifting this way for twenty years, and GM just made it official on America's best selling truck.

Tyreese: We've done this a hundred times. You pull into a driveway, you pop the hood, and the first thing you do, before you touch a drain plug, you pull that stick. You check the level. You check the color. You wipe it on a rag and you show the customer. Look at this. See how black that is? That's why we're changing it today. That pull is the trust ritual. It's how the customer knows you're not making it up. It's how you catch the truck that's two quarts low and about to eat a bearing. And in about a year, on the two best selling trucks in America, that ritual is gone.

Tyreese: I'm sitting here thinking about what replaces it. Because the job still has to get done. You drain, you fill to spec capacity, and then what? You climb in the cab, you scroll the screen, and you trust the sensor. You can't eyeball the condition anymore. You can't see if the oil came out glittery with metal. The truck will tell you it's full, and you have to believe the truck. And the truck runs over the air updates now. GM said it straight up. These twenty twenty seven trucks are their software driven strategy, updates coming wirelessly, refined over time. Which means the vehicle you serviced in January might behave differently by June, and nobody mailed you a memo.

Tyreese: Here's the thing about the numbers, because the engines themselves are good news. The new five point seven liter makes four hundred and two horsepower and four hundred twenty eight pound feet of torque, replacing the old five point three. The six point six makes four hundred eighty one horsepower and five hundred one pound feet, replacing the old six point two. Naturally aspirated V eights, at a moment when everybody else is going turbo six. Truck guys are happy. But the two point seven liter TurboMax four cylinder and the three liter Duramax diesel keep their dipsticks. So the same dealership will sell you trucks with and without a stick depending on what's under the hood. You know what I mean? That's the confusion coming for us. You show up to a twenty twenty seven Silverado and you have to know which engine before you even pop the hood, because the playbook changes.

Tyreese: So let me pull this back to the lesson, because that's what this show is for. The wrench work is becoming software work. It was already happening with the oil life monitors, GM has those across every nameplate now, telling the customer when it's time for a change. Now the level check itself lives behind a screen. The operator who thrives in the next ten years isn't just the one with the fastest drain. It's the one who knows the systems. How do you reset the oil life monitor on a twenty twenty seven Silverado? How do you verify a fill on an engine with no tube? What does the sensor do when the oil's a quart high? That's your new job ticket, right next to the filter part number.

Tyreese: And boom, the bigger idea. Every time the truck gets more digital, the dealer gets further away from the driveway and the mobile operator gets closer. The dealer needs a service bay and a scan tool and a two week appointment. We need the same knowledge and a van. The vehicle changed. The advantage didn't.

Tyreese: Alright, second story, and it connects straight back to yesterday's episode. RelaDyne, the biggest lubricant distributor in the country, just bought Rossee Oil Company out of Eatonton, Georgia. Rossee has been around since nineteen forty five. Eighty one years. Fourth generation family jobber. Four distribution facilities across Georgia, in Eatonton, Moultrie, Wrightsville, and Swainsboro. Fuel, lubricants, diesel exhaust fluid, cardlock, the whole package for commercial and agricultural customers. And this is RelaDyne's fifth acquisition this year alone. Terms weren't disclosed, they never are, but their CEO Eric Royse said the magic words. Regional density. That's the strategy. Buy the local jobbers, pack the map, control the supply chain.

Tyreese: Why should a mobile operator care about a distributor deal in Georgia? Because we talked yesterday about the base oil shock, the allocations, the rationing, contract buyers getting filled first and everybody else hunting for supply. When the distributor layer consolidates, the allocation power consolidates too. Your oil comes from somebody, and that somebody answers to somebody bigger now. My takeaway is simple. Know your supply chain by name. If you're buying jugs at retail, that's one thing. But if you're buying drums or bulk from a jobber, know who owns that jobber, know whether you're on allocation, and have a second source before you need one. The big guys are building density. You should build redundancy.

Tyreese: That's the show today. The dipstick is dying, the screen is taking over, and the supply chain keeps consolidating. None of that is a reason to panic. It's a reason to be the operator who actually keeps up. I'm Tyreese. This is the Mobile Oil Change Industry. I'll see you tomorrow.