Oil Change Life Hack

"HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles" (hondasfordsvolvo) 08/10/2020 at 21:54 • Filed to: None

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Doing an oil change on my wife’s car I stumbled into a nice life hack. When your oil filter is dirty, and your hands are oily, just put a palm sander disc in your hand, the Velcro end on the hand, and sand paper on the filter gives you all the grip you could want.

Also did intake and cabin filters. It’s been at least 3 year since the cabin filter was done, and that’s assuming they changed it when the blower motor was replaced.

jminer > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 08/10/2020 at 22:20

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I like the tip - I’ve always just used a paper towel and that’s been enough to get the purchase needed unless the filter is stuck hard.

Then it’s always a big pair of channel locks.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 08/10/2020 at 22:22

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 I have life hacked with the adhesive discs. Peel the backing stick the disc on the palm of your hand and it's a real nice way to ease the edges on a piece of plywood, for example. I life hacked an oil filter today myself, but I used my German Hazet filter wrench that I bought in Germany when I was stationed there 30 years ago.

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > jminer 08/10/2020 at 22:25

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A towel may have worked but this time the sand paper was closer lol. And it worked a treat . I’ve only had one time that I couldn’t get a filter off by hand. I went straight for the screwdriver technique because again the materials were closer 

jminer > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 08/10/2020 at 22:35

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Never had to resort to the screwdriver method - have a giant set of channel locks that have never failed to bust one loose.

facw > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 08/10/2020 at 22:42

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Meanwhile in Volvo land:

Personally, cartridge type filters installed with proper tools make more sense to me than spin ons, though it does seem like both could just have standard hex nuts on the end instead of requiring special tools.  

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > facw 08/10/2020 at 22:48

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My BMW has the same set up, I know VW uses it too. Seems all the European manufacturers agree it’s the way to go. I don’t really think there’s an advantage to one over the other. 

shop-teacher > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 08/10/2020 at 22:51

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That's a good one!

facw > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 08/10/2020 at 22:53

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One clear advantage is less waste. The amount of metal in a spin-on seems trivial, but considering how many oil changes there are it adds up. It’s possible to recycle the spent spin on filters of course, but from what I’ve read it often doesn’t happen because separating out the components is too much extra work for recyclers. And reducing waste is always preferable to recycling waste from an environmental standpoint.

On the flip side, IIRC some consider the plastic housings a greater risk for failure, especially as they age, and they require lube techs to be careful with gasket positioning and force, and we all know “careful” and “lube tech” don’t always mix.

bison78 > jminer 08/10/2020 at 23:01

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There is always the chain wrench, although getting the chain around the filter and re-attached to the handle can be difficult some times.

Not quite sure why the chain wrench doesn’t go directly onto the filter in this example:

nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 08/11/2020 at 00:12

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I stabbed through my filter with a long flat head screwdriver and a hammer only to peel apart enough that after I finally unscrewed the rest of the filter and screwed in the new filter the oil span was stripped out. Great time I tell ya.