For spin-on filters under the car...
There should almost never be a reason to have oil running down your arm. Punch a hole it it with a screwdriver and let it drain before you unscrew it.
My 7.3L (with seemingly the largest spin-on ever made, mounted sideways) was a breeze to change. IF I drained it first. If not, I was taking a oil bath.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:Knock a hole in the filter with a punch before you check fluids/tire pressures/jack the car up/drain the oil, and change the filter as the last step in the oil change process, you won't even need to wipe out the little tray before spinning the new filter on.
Good tip, thanks. I should try that with my Ghia which has a high mounted filter (80's vintage mod).
To add to that...
I always break the filter loose first. I don't want to destroy the filter and drain the oil only to find for some reason I can't get the darned thing off.
Yeah, I was thinking that also, but I also remembered that one of the suggested way to get off a stick filter is to nail a big screwdriver through it and crank it off. If I wasn't in my garage for some reason then yes, certainly make sure it will come off first, but not a bad idea in general of course.
I have a Ford F53 chassis motorhome. Someone thought it would be a good idea to put oil drain plug and spin on filter right above a chassis cross member.
spandak said:BMWs cartridge system on top of the engine is the best I've dealt with so far.
I'd personally take a marginally less convenient, but far more robust, canister configuration over the POS cartridge housing (along with half the rest of the car) that BMW apparently designed to expensively fail at unnecessarily regular intervals once the warranty expired.
Mr_Asa said:stanger_mussle (Forum Supporter) said:My JK Wrangler had the cartridge style filter but it was right on top of the engine. Yeah, you could over-torque the cap and crack the housing but it really made oil changes easy.
My Ram on the other hand, has a spin on style but it's located on the passenger side of the engine block right above the steering rack. You have to angle it to thread it out of the trans lines which spills hot oil all over. It's in a terrible spot.
Dodge Rams seem to consistently have the worst filter locations
I always hated changing the filter in dodge Cummins trucks. Too high to do from the bottom, too low to do from the top. They are big, and I always prefilled them, so they got heavy. So you have to maneuver it into place without spilling, and try to get it started with oily hands, in spot that arms aren't quite long enough to reach.
Streetwiseguy said:The Toyota filters come with a little doodad that plugs into the small cover on the bottom of the filter cap. It drains the housing.
...except the filter housing starts draining the minute you pull the plug off. If I jam the little spigot in there, I get no more oil. However, not enough oil drains out from pulling the plug to cover the amount still in the tilted housing. Then the wet filter must be pulled and the housing disassembled to clean all the bits. I am able to fill the housing partially if I spin the plug back on first.
The small spin-on filters used by Toyota since the '80s still appears on my tC. I break the filter from the mount, grab it with a rag, and pull the whole thing without a drop hitting the corrugated cardboard spread underneath the car. Whatever spills out ends up in the rag.
I've read used spin-on steel casings end up as construction re-bar.
SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:To add to that...
I always break the filter loose first. I don't want to destroy the filter and drain the oil only to find for some reason I can't get the darned thing off.
Change the filter before you even get to the drain plug, you'll let the oil gallery drain down. Usually good for a quarter to half a quart difference. If you change the filter after you put the drain plug in, you dump all that oil out anyway, but now it's still in the engine and not in your waste oil container.
You want to CHANGE the oil, right?
I used to be a weenie with my RX-7 and leave it in gear so I could rotate the engine with the driveshaft to slosh as much oil as I could out of the rotors.
Jerry From LA said:Streetwiseguy said:The Toyota filters come with a little doodad that plugs into the small cover on the bottom of the filter cap. It drains the housing.
...except the filter housing starts draining the minute you pull the plug off. If I jam the little spigot in there, I get no more oil. However, not enough oil drains out from pulling the plug to cover the amount still in the tilted housing.
I have never actually got the drain spigot thing to work, so I never bothered with it. I asked a friend at a Toyota dealership how those worked, and he said nobody there bothers with it either.
In my opinion, if you take the drain plug off of the housing, you're introducing the possibility of a new leak after you put it together. Not touching it means no problems.
Driven5 said:spandak said:BMWs cartridge system on top of the engine is the best I've dealt with so far.
I'd personally take a marginally less convenient, but far more robust, canister configuration over the POS cartridge housing (along with half the rest of the car) that BMW apparently designed to expensively fail at unnecessarily regular intervals once the warranty expired.
The nice thing about the BMW layout is you can change the filter from under the hood. And the dipstick tube points to the deepest part of the oil pan. If you have a fluid extractor, you can do the oil change without raising the car, or dealing with the undertray, or suffering a leaking drain plug gasket.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:Jerry From LA said:Streetwiseguy said:The Toyota filters come with a little doodad that plugs into the small cover on the bottom of the filter cap. It drains the housing.
...except the filter housing starts draining the minute you pull the plug off. If I jam the little spigot in there, I get no more oil. However, not enough oil drains out from pulling the plug to cover the amount still in the tilted housing.
I have never actually got the drain spigot thing to work, so I never bothered with it. I asked a friend at a Toyota dealership how those worked, and he said nobody there bothers with it either.
In my opinion, if you take the drain plug off of the housing, you're introducing the possibility of a new leak after you put it together. Not touching it means no problems.
I didn't say I USED the little doodads from Toyota....
Driven5 said:spandak said:BMWs cartridge system on top of the engine is the best I've dealt with so far.
I'd personally take a marginally less convenient, but far more robust, canister configuration over the POS cartridge housing (along with half the rest of the car) that BMW apparently designed to expensively fail at unnecessarily regular intervals once the warranty expired.
Maybe they've changed it since 2003, but when I got the 530i, I didn't have the correct socket (36mm?) and I tried to loosen the cap with an adjustable wrench. It seemed overtightened and I didn't want to break it, so before I committed, I got the correct socket and a new cap.
With the correct socket, it took a considerable amount of torque to loosen the cap, but it came off in one piece. It says right on it 25 N-m. My guess is they all get overtightened, not cleaned, no new O-ring, yadda, yadda. I find the design to be fine. Good access, no leaks. I always change the O-ring and use a torque wrench to tighten to 25 N-m.
In reply to Driven5 :
I never had a problem on my car even at 240k.
The new ones are plastic and probably have problems but the old aluminum housings were great
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
And all of the time and effort saved by that cartridge in the short run gets completely wiped out in the long run by everything else that needs to be done once the 'German engineered' oil filter housing gasket (which is also separating the coolant from the oil) inevitably hardens and fails, leaking down onto a number of oil-sensitive-yet-engine-critical rubber and plastic bits that it was idiotically placed almost directly above... Something that in all fairness to them, is a problem I've never encountered on a canister based oil filter system.
.
In reply to spandak :
Is that 240k miles or km without a OFHG failure or replacement?... Either way, that's pretty much like winning the BMW lottery.
I wonder when Honda will switch to a cartridge filter...seems all almost all of their cars use a variation of the same filter with some varying in size. And I don't think I can change the oil on any Honda without making an oily mess lol
In reply to aw614 :
All Hondas since about 20 years ago use the same filter. L15, K20/24 with both the high mount and low mount filter, R18, J35/37...
Then again they still make V6s with belts and fixed cam timing, they are nothing if not conservative in their engineering.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to aw614 :
All Hondas since about 20 years ago use the same filter. L15, K20/24 with both the high mount and low mount filter, R18, J35/37...
Then again they still make V6s with belts and fixed cam timing, they are nothing if not conservative in their engineering.
The S2000 and the civic use different oil filters.
Slippery (Forum Supporter) said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to aw614 :
All Hondas since about 20 years ago use the same filter. L15, K20/24 with both the high mount and low mount filter, R18, J35/37...
Then again they still make V6s with belts and fixed cam timing, they are nothing if not conservative in their engineering.
The S2000 and the civic use different oil filters.
Different, but pleny of people use s2000 filters on B18s, etc. The original NSX has a filter larger than the s2000
Slippery (Forum Supporter) said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to aw614 :
All Hondas since about 20 years ago use the same filter. L15, K20/24 with both the high mount and low mount filter, R18, J35/37...
Then again they still make V6s with belts and fixed cam timing, they are nothing if not conservative in their engineering.
The S2000 and the civic use different oil filters.
Not according to my catalog, they don't 
correction. The '20 Accord with the 1.5 does use a different filter.
In reply to Driven5 :
Miles. To my knowledge it was never replaced. In fairness the engine was pretty much covered in oil from every other seal weeping but I never had oil in the coolant. And it never dropped anything.
I use a trimmed milk carton around the filter to re-direct the oil to the drain pan and so the oil misses landing on all the horizontal surfaces the manufacturer left under the oil filter. A deep measuring type funnel can work as well. I have one of those that has a shut off valve at the bottom for measuring liquid and then draining the funnel. Helps when changing oil in a car that takes 4.675 quarts or whatever uneven number the manufacturer dreamed up to make oil changes more complicated.
Before I clicked on this thread, I knew that there would be some Toyota content.
My 2019 Tacoma has one of these. I try not to second guess Japanese engineers, so there must be some good reason behind it, but I think they've either written off the idea of DIY maintenance or are actively trying to put an end to it. It's not super messy, but a little more involved, and more stressful than an old school filter change.
My 2005 Tacoma had a traditional spin-on filter, but it was on top of the engine and facing downward. This seemed like a fantastic idea until the first oil change. There was a built in aluminum funnel around it to catch the inevitable spillage, but there wasn't much space to get a tiny water bottle down there and everything was always sharp and hot.
It was harder than this photo would indicate.
In reply to Woody (Forum Supportum) :
The purpose of the drain location is to ensure that the belt gets regular lubrication.
My ALH TDI has a very easy cartridge filter. I've changed it dozens of times. Still has the original holder.
The R53 MINI has an annoying cartridge filter - partly due to the design and partly due to the location between the engine and the firewall where it is hard to see. The cap has an off-set pre-load spring that makes it easy to cross-thread the cap when reinstalling.
My GT6 has an old-school cartridge filter, mounted to the side of the block. Behind the steering column. It's one of the things about a GT6 that reminds you the car was originally designed to be RHD. Fortunately, the filter is roughly above the oil drain plug, so when oil pours out after loosening, it more or less goes into the same pan.
The cartridge filter on the 2017 GC is on top and easy. Similar design to the VW. The old 2008 GC had a canister filter underneath. A little more messy than the '17, but not too bad.
I agree about the filter on the Cummins - that one was a PITA. Besides the 3 gallons of oil the engine took...
THe one filter that sticks in my memory was the filter on the 1986 Toyota 4WD pick-up with a 22R. Buried under the intake and above the front differential - which was tucked up into the chassis because IFS. I could barely get my skinny left arm into the space and get my hand on the filter. I forget how many different styles of filter wrenches I bought before I found one that worked well in the confined space. Then after getting it off the engine, the next trick was fishing the filter out of the engine bay without spilling oil all over. I sold that truck in 1999 and I still have vivid memories of doing a filter R&R. The only task more fun was the starter - which I had to replace twice in that truck...
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