The oil change went fairly easy today save the oil filter removal process. I had to resort to an old trick of using a bit of sandpaper in my palm to loosen the old filter which was no doubt overly tightened by a mechanic. I decided to loosen and remove the filter from the top of the engine bay because I found no clear path from the bottom. Is this how it's typically done?

I used my new 16-inch 12pt 30mm Allen combo wrench to remove the drain plug and found the wrench to be the perfect tool for the job. I could loosen and tighten the drain plug from the side of the car without even being under it. I used a new drain plug gasket even though I found the old one to be in decent shape.

I hand tightened (but not too tight) the new Mann W930/13 oil filter, added 10W/40 Pennzoil conventional oil, and went out driving. Checked the oil level when back home and it was good.

So all went well except for the oil filter removal process. Please advise of a better way of extracting it if you know of one.

Thanks,
Joe

 

That's a really good trick. Sounds like it's even better than rubber gloves.

Beats the heck out of buying useless oil filter wrenches which are never used again once one takes over the task of changing the oil. It seems every car purchase is accompanied by the mandatory requirement of buying yet another filter wrench because of the gorilla who installed the last oil filter.

 

Yes, the sandpaper worked after I first tried with rubber gloves with no success!