I found this thing called an "oil extractor" from Sky Mall, you know, the magazine that you get on the airplane? It says in bold "NO MORE CRAWLING UNDER THE CAR TO DRAIN YOUR OIL" As I understand it, it's basically a vacuum pump that connects to your dip stick hole and is designed to suck out everything in your oil pan giving you the same effect as opening the bottom of the pan. It also says that this is how Mercedes changes its oil.

It looks ligit but I wanted to check with you knowledgeable folks first before buying the unit.

Please opine! Thanks.

BTW. you can go to Skymall.com and type in 48871A to get to the actual ad.

 

I purchased an oil extractor from Bass Pro Shop:

http://www.basspro.com/servlet/catal...=SearchResults

After reading the following: http://www.bmw325i.net/maint_oil_extractor.shtml
I purchased the oil extractor specifically for my BMW but ended up using it on all my vehicles including the RX300, which gets an oil change every 3,000 to 5,000 miles. I was concerned about getting all the oil and solid particles out but I'll warm up the engine oil to suspend the particles and then extract out the oil, which amazingly seems to suck out slightly more oil than the conventional way I use to do it with the drain plug.

What I like about the oil extractor is that it takes a few minutes to perform, no mess, and all the oil is contained in the vacuum tube and easily transferred to a recycling jug that the garbage company provides as a service. I change my oil often so its been a very convenient piece of equipment and so far there's been no down side to using it. However, changing the oil filter on the RX300 is far more difficult than on my BMW, where it is located on the front top portion of the engine and easily screws off and on.

 

I used a little Jabsco drill pump to change oil in the engines in my boat for years.

http://www.go2marine.com/product.do?no=52012F

It saved crawling around in the bilge to get to the drain plugs and the inevitible loss of about a half cup of oil thanks to my fumble fingers and the lack of any real place to put a catch basin. Although I don't feel I quite got a good, complete drain of the old oil, annual oil samples revealed no problems.

A friend in the local police garage once told me one of their largest expense items was replacement oil pans. Consider a fleet of a couple thousand cars and trucks, each in nearly continuous service. If you change oil every three weeks or less, as such service demands (mileage), you have a lot of oil plugs being cross-threaded every month. (Yes, I agree they must hire chimpanzees to do this work - about like the guys down at the oil change place.) Here was the cops' solution:

http://www.fumotovalve.com/

They installed these on every vehicle in the fleet and stopped the problem with the monkeys in the grease pit destroying oil pans.

 

Ah yes,

the beloved oil extractor.
I use mine religiously on my BMW, but on the Lexus, where the oil filter location is a PITA.... I don't bother.

Besides the RX doesn't even have to be raised for access to the drain plug.

I have no problem draining the oil on the RX from underneath.

I feel the oil extractor is great for those annual oil changes on the lawnmower in the spring or motor boat and for vehicles where the oil filter is accessible and the drain plug isn't (ie: engine covers that have to be removed to gain access to the drain plugs, etc...)

To each his own.

I do however like the fact that I can easily pour from oil extractor into the old oil jugs much easier than transfering from the plastic catch pan that I use.

 

I totally agree with Fern.

You need to look at the worst (most difficult) part. Access to the drain plug is so easy (relatively).

Compare the drain plug access difficulty with using and cleaning the pump.

I might reach for the pump if the oil filter change would be without oil spill.

How about the drain plug with a spigot with lock?

Last of all, I would still use the drain plug every fifth time or so. [Bad analagy but try drinking ornage juice with straw vs pour the glass out. See what is left behind... granted the spread over area can be deceiving].

Salim

 

it's the darn oil filter, isn't it? I heard that you can get to it from the top but you really need to have a skinny arm for it. Otherwise, you have to go underneath the car... Listening to what you guys are saying I think it might be double work since I have go down there anyway.

Maybe in I can get my wife to reach down from the top with her skinny arms

 

Here is the view from the bottom. Using the K&N HP-1002 filter for my RX, I find it much easier to use get the thing on and off.

 

Yes, you will need an oil pan to catch oil released when the filter is loosened anyway. My advice is to save the $ and buy K&N oil filters, it has a 1" nut welded on the filter dome (see Lexmex's pic), all one needs are one 1" socket, a 3" extension, and a wrachet, the rest is reach and turn from the top.

 

Until I took my oil pan off recently, I was happy with the drain plug method. However, I found when I took the pan off there is a part of the pan which is about ½" high that is below the level of the drain plug and as a result simply sits there. I cleaned the pan pretty thoroughly and scraped some old oil off the sides of the pan, but I was surprised how much old oil was unable to be extracted unless you were to jack the front up about 45˚, which would be neither easy nor fun...

 

It's a very interesting product.

So what if one use this oil extractor and skip every other oil filter change? Would that be very unwise or would the filter hold up 10K miles?

 

The filter is there to block particles and still provide adequate flow. Unfortunately the flow is more important than the filteration. [Good filters have a bye pass to accomplish this]. The longer you use filter, the filteration gets better but the flow gets worse.

I would change the filter with every oil change. Almost a qt. of old oil is left in the filter chamber.

Salim

 

i have used the oilboy for a few years. it works pretty well, it does take a bit longer to get all the oil out.

sometimes it frustrates me to use it and sometimes i swear i won't use it again.

but all in all it works pretty well. i paid $55 for mine a few years ago