I did my oil change for the first time yesterday. I believe the dealer over-torqued the filter housing and for the life of me I couldn't get it free. I ended up breaking the oil wrench and strip the housing.
My question is how good is the fresh oil without filter? Can I just replace the filter later without oil? I don't want to dump another 50 bucks for mobil1 again. I did countless oil changes before but this is the first one. Thx

 

How many miles in between the last oil change and your most recent one? In my opinion you should be fine as long as you haven't been tracking the car.

 

Yeah u can replace the filter with out changing the oil. Going to lose some oil just fill up after u exchanged. There's are members here changing their oil every 15k but changed filter around 7.5 or 8k miles.

 

Dude...how the hell did you break an oil filter wrench and strip the housing of the filter?! I've delt with some pretty tight ones too but damn, shouldn't be that bad!

 

When I first got mine I also broke a filter wrench trying to get the filter off. I had to take it to a shop to have them loosen it up for me so I could get it off.

 

Drill through the filter. Stick a big screwdriver through the 2 holes and then twist that sucker off. Except you probably don't have room for that.

 

Yep, this happened to a friend's F when he came over to my house to change the oil. I also broke a filter wrench I replaced it with this:


I bolted a socket to the top to make it easier to use. I know this wont break Never had the problem on my F or my wife's ES, because no one but me has ever changed the oil.

My friend ultimately went to the Lexus dealer and they loosened it up and changed the filter and oil. We did his next oil change without incident.

BTW, the drilling through the housing is really not a good idea. That aluminum filter housing is an expensive part.

Lou

 

YEa...wtf? This isn't a twist on filter...why would you do this?

 

He thinks our car has a regular filter , this is a cartridge, or element type filter!!!

 

Or maybe he figured that the OP stripped the housing anyway so he may as well remove it by any means necessary and get a new one!

 

Yup,

 

If it's too tight.... And you dont have the right tools ... (like below)



You can use one of these (like below) to break it free...



Found just about everywhere..

~ Joe Z

 

My mechanic uses this chain-link looking wrench thing and it works perfect.

 

You can also tap on the flange with a hammer to break it free.

Even if I rounded off the flutes on the housing, I wouldn't drill it and screwdriver it. Time to buy a strap wrench.



I've been going 12k on oil and filter change for awhile now. You'll be fine waiting another 5k.

 

Toyota put a tech tip out to dealers in Canada concerning the use of a proper SSTool so as not to strip the housings. The stamped steel units are the worst... but there are a couple of wrenches that work better than the rest... this one won't get stuck or strip. I suspect it will take stripped housings off even.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toyota-Lexus...item337f193899