curious, anybody run into this?

Several of my Mopars have that. It's a plastic coating to insure (snicker) easy insertion of your dipstick into a tight, kinky, tube.

Take that plastic coating off, and you won't hardly be able to insert the dispstick. It'll snag in the bends in the tube.
ok, it is pretty hard to insert already. I think if it were any harder, it might kink and break.

ok, no puns intended.