Engine oil extractor pump

[poundcoin]

Never knew of the method of extracting engine oil out of the dip-stick hole until I was watching one of the car programmes a few weeks ago .
They were using a manual model that needed a bit of pumping .
Thought that was something I could do myself rather than grovelling under the car and probably cross-threading the bung.
Then yesterday , whilst in Lidl , happened on a stack of 12v electric pumps for £19.95 that connect to the car battery for the same purpose .
Video here of one in operation .
https://youtu.be/_X2NDDG3O1A

Anyone tried this method ?

[richlist]

Some cars have magnetic sump plugs that attract/collect any fine metal particles in the oil. What concerns me about sucking the oil out of the dipstick hole is

1. The possibility of leaving those particles in the sump.
2. Not removing all the old oil.

[bungeejumper]

Seems a bit cheap and nasty to me. There's no way that you could ever get the crud out of the sump, and at worst you're more likely to stir it up and send it back into circulation. My independent garage is still billing me for a sump plug washer, and that's the way I prefer it.

But all right for a quickie intermediate oil change, I suppose?

BJ

[bungeejumper]

Another question. (Honestly, I don't know the answer to this, having stopped doing my own oil changes about 30 years ago.) How many cars will let you change the oil filter without ramping the car and getting underneath it anyway?

Happy memories of the canister filters on my old Mini. You'd use a proper filter wrench, like a stronger version of the things you use today to get the lids off glass jars, but there were times when it wouldn't budge. So you'd drive a long screwdriver through the canister, thus giving you the leverage you needed to make it turn. And if that didn't work, and the canister just ripped, you were truly and comprehensively boggered. Anybody else been there?

BJ

[poundcoin]

[align=][/align]I don't see what harm it could do extracting oil this way perhaps as an interim oil change as long as you top up with the correct viscosity .
Having read a few other reviews many said that there would always be a certain amount of crud left in the bottom of the sump anyway , using the conventional method of draining .
On my little Fiat it's true you still have to grovel about underneath to change the filter .

[Watis]

I don't see what harm it could do extracting oil this way perhaps as an interim oil change as long as you top up with the correct viscosity .
Having read a few other reviews many said that there would always be a certain amount of crud left in the bottom of the sump anyway , using the conventional method of draining .

I can remember using a special engine cleaning oil. you drained the old engine oil then added the cleaning oil and idled the engine for ten minutes. Then you drained that, along with all the crud that would otherwise have stayed in the engine, before refilling with new oil.

Does anyone else remember using this stuff? Is it even available these days?

Watis

[MonsterMork]

It is a system called "Top down servicing", and has been gradually creeping into the motor industry over the last few years (initiated, I believe, by Mercedes, though I am open to correction on that). The basic concept is that all engine servicing can be done from under the bonnet without needing to raise the car on a lift, get underneath, remove all the underytrays and so on before being able to access the sump bung or filter. Personally speaking I think it is a load of old bollards

As previously mentioned sucking the oil out of the top through the dipstick tube won't necessarily remove all the clag that builds up in the bottom of the sump, yet pulling the bung out of the bottom will, in most cases, help to do so. Removing the oil filter out of the top might seem like a good idea, but when the ruddy thing is placed directly above the alternator (Volvo V60/Ford Focus for example), you end up dripping oil into the alternator and eventually frying it, or otherwise pissing crappy old oil all over the engine bay whilst you take the filter away.

A "normal" service, where the car is in the air, the spanner monkey gets a full look around the vehicle and can advise on any potential issues. Working "top down" and only spannering under the bonnet won't spot a missing exhaust mount for example (summat that will fail your MoT later that year).

Watis asked about a special cleaning oil from the old days. Yes, it is still available, though not necessarily that easy to find. Generally speaking most workshops will just bung a can of chemicals into the oil system, run the engine for the appropriate amouint of time, then dump the oil and filter and refill with fresh new stuff. It is a lot easier and quicker than doing a double oil change like wot we did in ye olden days.

[bungeejumper]

I can remember using a special engine cleaning oil. you drained the old engine oil then added the cleaning oil and idled the engine for ten minutes. Then you drained that, along with all the crud that would otherwise have stayed in the engine, before refilling with new oil.

Does anyone else remember using this stuff? Is it even available these days?

Flushing oil. Still used, and especially after anything that might have left crud in the system, such as a failing turbo or maybe a new set of pistons, etc, that's been bedding in. I also insist on having my gearboxes flushed between oil changes. (Yes, some manufacturers claim that their gearbox oils are good for life. Don't believe a word of it. Can make a noticeable difference to a smooth change.)

BJ

[kiloran]

Happy memories of the canister filters on my old Mini. You'd use a proper filter wrench, like a stronger version of the things you use today to get the lids off glass jars, but there were times when it wouldn't budge. So you'd drive a long screwdriver through the canister, thus giving you the leverage you needed to make it turn. And if that didn't work, and the canister just ripped, you were truly and comprehensively boggered. Anybody else been there?

BJ

Been there, done that, many years ago. I was desperately close to giving the car a good Fawlty-like thrashing (and that was in pre-Fawlty days) when I finally managed to shift the filter. Amusing to look back on, but bad at the time.

--kiloran

[DrFfybes]

don't see what harm it could do extracting oil this way perhaps as an interim oil change as long as you top up with the correct viscosity .
Having read a few other reviews many said that there would always be a certain amount of crud left in the bottom of the sump anyway , using the conventional method of draining .

An oil change is never going to replace all the oil in the engine, but a top drain will leave a LOT more than doing it properly.

Basically it is to avoid snapping all the cheap nasty plastic connectors on the undertrays they fit to modern cars and to save the dealer money. A decent mechanic will look at the sump plug for bits and possibly in the catch tank, which can give early warning of any problems.

Would you use a car wash that stopped halfway down the doors?

P

[richlist]

Many new lease purchase cars come with 2 or 3 years free servicing or pre purchased service plans. So if the garages want to do a second rate oil change on cars that they are going to get back in part exchange, it's likely to be their loss. The current owners aren't gonna give a fig......they aren't buying them, paid little or no deposit, and are only concerned with how low the monthly payment is going to cost.

How someone carries out an oil change is not even a consideration for a very large proportion of drivers.

[wilbobob]

Our Smart ForTwo had no sump plug, so there was no choice about extracting through the dipstick hole. That was the only way unless you bought a new sump cover with plug from one of the modding shops. Don't know if newer models have changed.

[MonsterMork]

Our Smart ForTwo had no sump plug, so there was no choice about extracting through the dipstick hole. That was the only way unless you bought a new sump cover with plug from one of the modding shops. Don't know if newer models have changed.

We had to change a sump pan on a Smart for a customer a while back (it had rusted through from the outside and was marking it's territory), and we too were surprised not to find a sump bung as we were not expecting a top down service on it (was the first one we had had in the workshop). We were even more surprised to find the cost of a new pan, direct from Mercedes, was only approx 30 quid plus the vat! We drilled an appropriate hole, welded in a threaded insert and put in a bung so now we can service the thing properly for them. ISTR the total cost was somewhere in the region of a hundred and fifty quid, including parts, oil and filter, labour and an MoT.

[bionichamster]

I always get under my older car (depreciated way beyond any financial benefits of maintaining a 'full service history') and drain the oil the old fashioned way, usully leaving it to drip for around an hour. However removing the undertray is a real pain as its been scraped and walloped by so many speed bumps and other things that I've had to repair and modify the tray and the mounts several times. Also the car is low on the ground and needs to go on ramps to get the tray off, these tend to skid around on the gravel driveway and make getting the car onto them a bit of a pain. For this reason I've wondered about using a pump to remove the oil on some changes (was thinking of every second change as a sop to the often voiced opinion regarding 'crud' being left behind). This would make it much easier to do more frequent oil changes (take the interval down to 5 or 6k from 10k at the mo).

I was in Lidl last night and they were flogging a small electric oil pump for £12.99, so I bought one. Perhaps this weekend or next I'll try it out. My intention is to drain the oil with the pump, then I'll remove the sump plug and let it drain for an hour and we'll see just what has been 'left behind' compared to the usual procedure. That should save on speculation as to what is still in there. Personally I'm not sure that a standard sump plug drain will really remove much more 'crud' but we'll see.

On a previous car every now and again I used to buy a very cheap thin oil and run it through the engine for a few minutes after an oil change then drain it, the engine had done over quarter of a million miles when I scrapped the car, the body was shot but the engine was running perfectly when I drove it to the breakers. But given that VAG PD engines are apparently very oil fussy I'm loathed to do such an oil flush on the current car even for ten minutes.

Will report back at some point on what I find coming out of the sump after using the pump.

BH

[poundcoin]

.......

I was in Lidl last night and they were flogging a small electric oil pump for £12.99, so I bought one. Perhaps this weekend or next I'll try it out.....

Will report back at some point on what I find coming out of the sump after using the pump.

BH

So the electric pump was only £12.99 , my mistake I thought it was £19.99 . Think I was mixing that price up with the trolley jacks that were stacked next to them . They look a bargain too (if they work) .
Be interested to see how you get on with the Lidl pump bc.

[bungeejumper]

My intention is to drain the oil with the pump, then I'll remove the sump plug and let it drain for an hour and we'll see just what has been 'left behind' compared to the usual procedure. That should save on speculation as to what is still in there. Personally I'm not sure that a standard sump plug drain will really remove much more 'crud' but we'll see.

Unfortunately I can't see how that will work. It's the active gush of hot oil flowing from the top three quarters of the engine that helps to shift the crud out and away from the bottom of the sump. So if you've removed that top-three-quarters of oil with the pump (and allowed the car and its remaining sump oil to cool down) you'll be draining something altogether thicker, and with no gravity behind it to push it along, and most of the crud will probably stay right where it is around the plughole. You won't ever actually see it, so you won't know it's there. Or is my thinking flawed?

[bionichamster]

Results of oil change using Lidl oil pump.

Yesterday afternoon I changed the oil in my VAG 1.9 Tdi engine, I drained the oil using the Lidl oil pump and once I had done that I removed the sump plug to see how much was left. Here are the results...

Preparation
Used car to take dog to park, engine was partially warm when we returned, ran the engine for another five mins at home, temp was 3/4 of way to the usual 90deg mark for standard operating temp. Then put the car on ramps and left for half an hour for oil to drain into sump. I then set up the pump and shoved the tube down the dipstick channel. Tube met with some resistance and I had to jiggle it about a bit to get it what I thought was the right distance, but which was a total guess.

What happened:
Switched pump on and not much happened, so I pushed the tube a bit further in and the pump note changed, oil started coming up the extraction tube, then down the out tube. Unfortunately I was draining it into a black plastic jerry can and couldn't see the rate at which it was coming out without lifting the end of tube up. The oil was dribbling out with the odd additional splurt, not a huge amount but probably not far off the claimed 0.2 l per min.
It was impossible to tell how much if any oil was passing by looking at the transparent tubes once they are coated with jet black engine oil (this is a diesel car remember). So every now and again I lifted the end of the tube out of the jerry can to see how much was coming out. On occasion it was no more than a drip so I jiggled the tube that went to the sump until it started drawing more. at one point the entire in tube was down in the engine with the pump a few mm from the top of the dipstick tube although it wasn't always that far in.

The instructions say run either until the oil is drained or 20 min. In the mean time I removed the filter which is a drop in type on the upper side of the engine.
The jerry can felt like it had a reasonable amount of oil in it and I could hear more splashing away. As it approached 20 min the splashing had subsided and I wasn't getting significantly more oil out regardless of moving the tube around, so I switched the pump off and left it for 15 mins before running it for a further 5 minutes, I then figured that's it.

One handy thing was I then used the pump to slurp out the oil sitting in the bottom of the filter housing and the space below it, and felt pretty chuffed at extracting what might have been an extra 50ml or so that normally would only be partially removed with a rag..

What happened next:
Clear that stuff away and get ready to remove the sump plug. Needed to put somthing under it to catch any oil so I can measure how much there is, but I'm expecting 1/2 liter or a bit more at worst. I find a 2 liter ice cream tub and reckon that's probably overkill, but use it anyway.
Undo sump plug with ice cream tub sitting on blocks directly underneath. Blimey! oil gushes out like it would on a normal oil change, a big thick smooth jet flowing into the 2l container, I watch as container starts to fill, as it passes the halfway mark the oil flow has weakened but is still worryingly substantial I screw the sump plug back in and go and get a second 2l ice cream tub.

I drain the remainder of the oil into the second container which after 20 mins is almost as full as the first.

Final result:
I reckon there was almost 2 and a half liters of oil still in the sump, that is equivalent to half the engine's oil capacity. However the oil level was at almost halfway on the dipstick so there was probably only 4.5 liters or a touch more in the engine and on a normal change I'd expect to remove a bit more than 4 liters.

Conclusion
The pump at best got about half the oil out, but probably a bit less than that. I think the problem is where the tube going down the dipstick channel ends up. I suspect it didn't settle in the lowest part of the sump, and may only do so by accident. I may not have have pushed it far enough early on, or indeed pushed it too far later and perhaps caused it to curl upwards out of the oil pool, who knows it's so hard to tell because the tube is so flexible and meets with resistance.

Future use?
I might use it to do a mid-change oil top up but I doubt I would trust it to do a full oil change. It is to difficult to know if it is in the right place and would probably entail running for 20mins, letting it cool and then running for another 20 in order to drain a reasonable amount, let's face it the quoted rate would struggle to remove all the oil in the reccomended time anyway, and even then I'm not convinced. I will however use it for draining and cleaning the filter housing. I can imagine that if the car is designed for top down servicing that this pump would work ok but unless you can be certain that the tube is located in the correct point of the sump (lowest point) then I wouldn't trust it.

Next oil change will probably be in the autumn I may repeat the above test and see if I get the same result.

BH

[bungeejumper]

I watch as container starts to fill, as it passes the halfway mark the oil flow has weakened but is still worryingly substantial I screw the sump plug back in and go and get a second 2l ice cream tub.

LOL, that brings back some panicky memories. Both from cars and from household water plumbing projects (draining down a hot water tank.) Except that in my case I'd probably have cross-threaded the bloody plug, I was in such a hurry to stop the flow. And, in the case of the water tank, I did. Not my finest hour. Anybody got an aqualung handy?

I think the problem is where the tube going down the dipstick channel ends up. I suspect it didn't settle in the lowest part of the sump, and may only do so by accident. I may not have have pushed it far enough early on, or indeed pushed it too far later and perhaps caused it to curl upwards out of the oil pool, who knows it's so hard to tell because the tube is so flexible and meets with resistance.

It does sound a bit like that. Maybe you could measure the vertical distance from the oil filler cap to the bottom of the sump, and add an inch or two for wiggles, and then mark the tube?

Thanks for the report, anyway. Maybe there's a YouTube somewhere on how to do it on a TDI?

BJ

[poundcoin]

Wow thanks for that comprehensive report bionichamster .
Makes me not so sure I need one now and probably will continue to pay my local garage to do the oil change .

[Halicarnassus]

Around 5 years ago I started servicing my won family's cars. Three of them. Saved a fortune over this time. Also have much more control over quality of oil. I do however prefer to stick to a spanner and oil pan!