Like your Jiffy Lube?

I stopped going to those places when they "torqued" the drain plug to 55 ft-lb. Yikes!

I've found oil filters that can't be removed w/o destroying them, the old screw it on until the gasket touches, then give it 1/3 of a turn, then add three more turns for good measure and laugh at the poor guy who has to try to remove it trick!

I wonder how far they got before the oil pan cracked on a previous car...

Pat

I assume that was a non-aluminum oil pan? How much torque can you put on aluminum before the thread disappears?

Leon

Nope, it was my Miata.

At least 55 lb-ft, apparently, though I wasn't especially happy to find that out. Another question might be "how many times would the threads survive such abuse before disappearing?" I shall let someone else perform that research; my mechanic uses a torque wrench on the plug now, and I'd stop changing the oil before I'd allow another quick-lube joint to touch my car.

I only went that once because I was leaving on a long road trip and couldn't get an appointment at my trusted shop in time. My fault, for procrastinating.

I put a lever-release oil drain plug on my '96, along with an oil filter relocation kit to the firewall. Even if you (meaning any reader) don't do your own oil changes, a lever-release oil drain plug prevents the attendant from ruining your pan and the remote kit prevents the attendant from using a tool to put on your filter.

I thought some of these quickie rube establishments sold tool-less oil drain plugs for a reasonable price. Wouldn't that make sense?

The one I had was sticking way out below the oil pan so I never put it in. Too much crap on the road.

Leon

I used to have a Hyundai Elantra and Jiffy Lube stripped the aluminum oil pan, which costs $400 to replace. They said they didn't do it, and, since it took a few months for me to notice the leak, I couldn't prove that they did it. I ended up using a "jam-in" (self-tapping) plug rather than spend the $400.

pws wrote in news:468947f7$0$12251$ snipped-for-privacy@roadrunner.com:

That would be the ultimate in automation, when you want to change oil just hit a bump and the old oil is gone, all you need do is to fill it back up. Seems like a great time saver to me....