Can one change the oil filter without changing the oil? In other words, does all the oil drain out if I unscrew the oil filter?

 

Only the oil in the filter housing will drain if you don't unscrew the drain plug. I change my filter ONLY (and top off the oil) every 5,000 miles, and do a full oil & filter change every 10,000.

Javier

 

This is awesome information. I attempted to change my own oil a little while back which ended up being a complete nightmare. Long story short, I wasn't able to remove the filter housing cap and ended up just changing the oil. I was originally going to wait till my next oil change to swap the filter, but now I'm going finish what I started. Thanks for the info!

 

+1, great info, sounds like you've saved a lot of money over the years

 

No need to change the filter every 5K. Waste of time and money!

Koz

 

Hard to call it a waste of time and money when it takes me about 10 minutes to do and a filter costs about $2...

Javier

 

Thanks for the replies guys. Time to swap filter only...

 

are you using regular or synthetic?

 

I've never heard of anyone doing this before. Doesn't oil get everywhere when you unscrew the filter?

 

Synthetic.
I've been doing this for almost 4 years now. The only oil that will spill out is that which is contained inside the filter housing. Use of an ordinary oil pan overcomes that obstacle.

Javier

 

yep when u unscrew the filter u just let it drip out the bottom so its pretty clean and easy... its barely like 1/2-1qt that comes out lol.

 

filter 2 dollars make me holla

 

Is this for all vehicles or just Lexus? Because my whole life i've been swapping out all the oil and filter every 5k w/ synthetic and it's getting really expensive >.>

 

This is exactly the OPPOSITE of what I've done with my cars for the past 10 years. Every 5k (3k actually, on mustangs) i change the oil, and every 2 oil changes (10K) i change the filter. This makes far more sense to me. The oil DOES need to be maintained more frequently (for those who pamper their cars), but it is overly wasteful to change the filter every time. I would recommend against going 10K between changing the oil.

 

Great info!

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/is-...e-stuff-3.html

Koz