Changing the Oil Filter without Spilling Oil

I was going to suggest the bag thing, but that's moot. Just wanted to say that it really doesn't matter if you drop the filter first or drain the pan first - one doesn't affect the other with the engine off.

I put my drain tank under the filter.

You could punch a hole in the lowest part of the filter and let most of the oil drain from it. Then wrap a paper towel around it while removing.

What do you do with your filter after you remove it?

I will put it in a ziploc bag for the recycling guy to pick up.

I have to admit, though, that I will often come back the next day and find the filter and the bag immersed in a bigger puddle of oil on the garage floor. It happens enough to make me wonder if the oil is a solvent for the plastic in the bag.

Is it?

Tim

You don't empty the filter out into whatever you drained the oil into? I mean, I know there will always be some remaining oil that can drip if it's tilted the right way, but, after turning it upside down and letting it drain all it can into the waste container while you put the new oil in and clean up, if you take one paper towel sheet and wrap that over the top of the filter, that provides plenty of absorption for whatever remains in the filter even if it gets turned over. I put the filter with the single doubled-over paper towel sheet into the new filter's empty box and close the top and toss that into the trash - never a problem with pooling anywhere - like I said, the single paper towel sheet handles that little bit with ease.

Thanks to all!

Tim

In CA residential disposers of waste motoroil and filters must take them to a specific facility -- they are not picked up by the 'recycling' (paper & recyclable containers) or the general trash (waste oil and filters are forbidden) or of course not the greenery branch.

ziploc type bags are recommended for transporting oilfilters to the waste oil recycler.

I will put it in a ziploc bag for the recycling guy to pick up.

I have to admit, though, that I will often come back the next day and find the filter and the bag immersed in a bigger puddle of oil on the garage floor. It happens enough to make me wonder if the oil is a solvent for the plastic in the bag.

Is it?

Tim

Yes Tim, it is. Plastics are made from petroleum, and petrolum will dissolve them. Thats why you never use a petroleum based lubricant with a latex condom. Or store used oil filters in baggies....they will dissolve.

If I put a motoroil filter into an undamaged ziploc bag of sufficient size and strength to contain the filter and zip/seal the bag properly, I would expect that over a reasonable period of time, say weeks, that it will not leak.

Disclaimer: I have not performed this test. I have put an organic solvent into a ziploc bag, such as paint thinner in a gallon bag, and found the bag to leak that solvent.

I don't think the leaking is from dissolving anything. I think the leaking is from microporosity of the polyethylene bonded edges being large enough for the solvent to escape but small enough to be waterproof due to the viscosity of water.

I would not expect uncontaminated motoroil to dissolve polyethylene. If you combine motoroil with some other unknown solvents (consider gasoline) then the equation has changed.

-- Mike Easter