My Oil Change Experience
#1
Driver
Thread Starter
My Oil Change Experience
Just did my first oil change on my new-to-me 2006 IS 250 @ 75k miles, and wanted to share my experience and personal lessons. I figured it would give other people some insight/heads up, perhaps share some tips for the next time around, or something to laugh at
1.) Lifting a car by the crossmember is scary. Used a metal plate from Home Depot to make the contact point of the floor jack bigger. But I'm worried one day that floor jack is going to shoot out.
2.) Used these square rubber furniture pads on my jackstands to rest the lift tabs on. Looks to hold up just fine.
3.) Safety glasses are very nice when working under the car. And don't sing while under there unless you like eating dirt.
4.) The oil pan screw can be very tight. Constant pressure doesn't help (even with a breaker bar), as it seems to even stress out the oil pan cover in a scary way. A nice swing of a bottlejack onto a wrench does the trick in 2 seconds. Maybe a physics major can chime in and say why this is so.
5.) Having a small oil container helps so you can hold it up and catch all the oil.
6.) Never drop a socket wrench in the oil container...
7.) Installed the nifty Fumoto oil valve. It looks like it sticks out too much. I'll probably see if I can adjust this the next time I change the oil.
8.) I got all excited about trying this filter drain tube thingie. When I go to unscrew it, the entire filter cap turned as well Does the filter drain screw turn in the same rotation as the filter cap? I assume so, but it seems to make more sense if it was opposite so this doesn't happen. If anything, this acted as a built in SST Even without draining the filter first, it was really easy and clean to let the filter drain straight down "the normal way".
9.) That filter drain bolt does not move. There is no good place to get leverage on that filter cap...
10.) I have an autozone toyota oil filter wrench that fits nicely, except it slips a little.
I've changed the oil of a number of cars. By far this has to be the cleanest I've ever done. All the other cars, even a Toyota Corolla, had oil that drips everywhere. Everything on this car is a straight shot down. Very very impressed!
Home Depot only had a 5' long tube for my oil filter drain idea. Looks like you only need a foot, so I have some extra if anyone wants any. Just PM me your address and I'll mail one to you no charge.
HTH, thanks for reading.
-w
1.) Lifting a car by the crossmember is scary. Used a metal plate from Home Depot to make the contact point of the floor jack bigger. But I'm worried one day that floor jack is going to shoot out.
2.) Used these square rubber furniture pads on my jackstands to rest the lift tabs on. Looks to hold up just fine.
3.) Safety glasses are very nice when working under the car. And don't sing while under there unless you like eating dirt.
4.) The oil pan screw can be very tight. Constant pressure doesn't help (even with a breaker bar), as it seems to even stress out the oil pan cover in a scary way. A nice swing of a bottlejack onto a wrench does the trick in 2 seconds. Maybe a physics major can chime in and say why this is so.
5.) Having a small oil container helps so you can hold it up and catch all the oil.
6.) Never drop a socket wrench in the oil container...
7.) Installed the nifty Fumoto oil valve. It looks like it sticks out too much. I'll probably see if I can adjust this the next time I change the oil.
8.) I got all excited about trying this filter drain tube thingie. When I go to unscrew it, the entire filter cap turned as well Does the filter drain screw turn in the same rotation as the filter cap? I assume so, but it seems to make more sense if it was opposite so this doesn't happen. If anything, this acted as a built in SST Even without draining the filter first, it was really easy and clean to let the filter drain straight down "the normal way".
9.) That filter drain bolt does not move. There is no good place to get leverage on that filter cap...
10.) I have an autozone toyota oil filter wrench that fits nicely, except it slips a little.
I've changed the oil of a number of cars. By far this has to be the cleanest I've ever done. All the other cars, even a Toyota Corolla, had oil that drips everywhere. Everything on this car is a straight shot down. Very very impressed!
Home Depot only had a 5' long tube for my oil filter drain idea. Looks like you only need a foot, so I have some extra if anyone wants any. Just PM me your address and I'll mail one to you no charge.
HTH, thanks for reading.
-w
#4
Great little write up. I have a fumoto valve to install when I change the oil later in the week. I've had the fumoto on my last 4 cars and it really does make things a little easier.
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#9
Lexus Champion
iTrader: (2)
My last free oil change will be used up this week. Thanks for the great write up...
I'm a bit confused about the filter drain bolt... is that a bolt to remove that is on the filter? I drain the oil out of the filter first before removing the filter correct?
Any chance you can snap a picture of the filter drain bolt?
I've been doing oil changes on traditional oil can filters on my Corolla, Sentra, Civic, RSX for over 10 years. The filter drain is new to me.
I'm a bit confused about the filter drain bolt... is that a bolt to remove that is on the filter? I drain the oil out of the filter first before removing the filter correct?
Any chance you can snap a picture of the filter drain bolt?
I've been doing oil changes on traditional oil can filters on my Corolla, Sentra, Civic, RSX for over 10 years. The filter drain is new to me.
#14
Driver
Thread Starter
http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums...howtopic=51010
This link might help. It shows the picture of the filter bolt. So the oil filters in these cars are a little different. Instead of a "normal" filter, you just change the filter element inside. Interesting idea.
Anyways, the filter bolt is an easy way to drain all the oil in the filter housing before removing the filter element. You unscrew the bolt, shove a tube in it, and let the oil drain mess free. Unscrew the filter cover, remove filter element, clean, insert new, put everything back together, done.
Hope that helps!
This link might help. It shows the picture of the filter bolt. So the oil filters in these cars are a little different. Instead of a "normal" filter, you just change the filter element inside. Interesting idea.
Anyways, the filter bolt is an easy way to drain all the oil in the filter housing before removing the filter element. You unscrew the bolt, shove a tube in it, and let the oil drain mess free. Unscrew the filter cover, remove filter element, clean, insert new, put everything back together, done.
Hope that helps!
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