Quarts to Liters

Car owner's manuals for the US market list engine oil capacity in quarts, and oil is sold in quart bottles. If your manual says 4.5 quarts and the shop sells oil in liters, you need about 4.26 L. Buy a 5 L jug rather than four 1 L bottles, and stop at the dipstick's full mark rather than at the calculated figure.

In the kitchen, a quart is four cups or two pints. Slow cookers, stock pots and ice cream makers are sized in quarts in the US, so a 6 qt slow cooker holds about 5.7 L.

Paint, antifreeze and pool chemicals are also sold by the quart in the US. A quart is enough paint for a small piece of furniture or trim, and since 4 quarts make a gallon, a gallon can is often cheaper per liter than four quarts.

US liquid volume units halve in steps from the gallon: a gallon is 4 quarts, a quart is 2 pints, a pint is 2 cups. Because the gallon is fixed at 231 cubic inches and the inch at 25.4 mm, every one of these units has an exact metric value. The UK system uses the same names and ratios on the larger imperial gallon of 4.54609 L.

Need the whole gallon? L to gallons works in that unit, and pints to mL goes a step smaller.