Car questions Oil Drain valve

Rob Keeble

Member
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Location
GTA Ontario Canada
Having to do some car maintenance work given decent weather is here (touch wood to stay now for a while), and came across this "gadget" /valve. Its called a Oil Drain Valve and given i have always battled with the drain plugs was wondering if anyone has used these things on any of their vehicles before and what they thought of them etc.

http://www.oildrainvalve.net/ez-106-14mm-1-5/


My concerns would like in having a bigger than needs be object sticking out the pan but if thats in a tucked away space my next would be having it go faulty and dripping oil out.


Anythoughts. Its one of those 50/50 types of accessories for me. Could make an oil change cleaner to do, i always end up with a mess no matter how well i prepare, still dont solve the filter replacement mess so dunno the value?
 
I put one on one of my vehicles years ago. It even had a cable so you could open and close it from under the hood. I only left it on through one oil change. Because the opening in it was much smaller than just having to nut in the pan, it greatly restricted the flow of oil out of the pan. It took forever to drain the oil through it and I figured you would get none of the gunk in the oil drained through it. That and I still had to get under the vehicle to replace the filter. That is the one that get me frustrated. They could put the filter anywhere, but they always seem to put it somewhere that is difficult to get to and it makes a mess when you change it. Coarse it saves the auto industry a couple bucks.
 
I knew there was something I forgot to order about a month ago.

Personally I'm getting them for my vehicles as I'm tired of always grabbing the wrong wrench or getting oil all over my hands once the drain plug is finally loose.

Some people just don't like change. It's kind of like the router lift debate. You don'y really need a router lift but once you use one you usually never go back.
 
Rob, being the critical thinker that you are, here is what I would be wondering about. Why can't they mount the oil filter in a easy to reach location? It doesn't have to be on the engine block, it can have two lines and be mounted on the inner fenderwell. Second thing to take your thread off topic, why aren't all auto engines built with a pre-oiler system. Without dry starts (no oil circulated) we have achieved amazing wear protection, just think what could be achieved with a pre-oiler!

Now to get your thread back on topic, anything that makes getting the oil out of the oil pan easier is not wanted by me on mine. Stuck my truck a couple of times this winter in snow that my door pushed out of the way when opened so I could mutter and cuss as I looked at it and walked to the barn for the tractor. As deep as the snow was and amount packed around the frame, engine, tranny, transfer case, exhaust and other parts, would have probably dumped my oil out and not realized it until the engine welded itself together.
 
It's a whizzbang gimmick, it fails to do the job intended.

An oil drain plug is a certain diameter to allow the oil to flow out of the pan at a reasonable rate. There is no reason to make the drain plug 2" in diameter, but making is a lot smaller as these units do is a bad idea, IMHO.

If you want to do anything with the drain plug I'd get the one with the magnet on it, while it does nothing to stop engine wear, you can see the amount of metal in your oil each time you change it, if it suddenly increases a lot, along with oil useage, and say engine noise, then it might be time to sell the car.

Jonathan Shively said:
Rob, being the critical thinker that you are, here is what I would be wondering about. Why can't they mount the oil filter in a easy to reach location? It doesn't have to be on the engine block, it can have two lines and be mounted on the inner fenderwell.​


I'm not Rob, but I'll give you my take on that, in lots of applications the oil filter is mounted in an easy to get to location, and often there are more than one filter in series. Most people don't know this, but as your oil filter gets more and more clogged up with stuff that it removes from the oil the less oil actually goes through the filter, when the filter is really dirty, the oil just bypasses the filter, and circulates unfiltered. If you have good filtration most oil never really breaks down, if you can keep it clean it will do it's job for a very long time. I don't know if they do this still, but back in the day Mohawk gas service stations had a used oil collection tank, you could dump in your used oil from your oil changes into the tank, the tank was emptied once a month or so and then the oil was reprocessed, or to put it another way it was cleaned really, really well, then it was mixed with new oil and resold to the public. OK back to why the filter is where it is. A couple of reasons, the main one is money, most car owners don't do their own oil changes, they take it to a Quick lube place they don't have any problem with the location of the filter, but why is it where it is to start with? It is easier to manufacture that way, easier and cheaper, it is also less to go wrong. Your idea of putting it on the fender well is valid, but how many hoses and connections are needed to do that? How many more things to go potentially wrong over the 20 year life of a car? Cheaper, easier and less things to go wrong are a good recipe for the vast majority of car drivers.

Jonathan Shively said:
Second thing to take your thread off topic, why aren't all auto engines built with a pre-oiler system. Without dry starts (no oil circulated) we have achieved amazing wear protection, just think what could be achieved with a pre-oiler!

I'd say that most engines don't need it. What is the use of having an engine in a car that lasts for say 1,000,000 miles but the car fell apart at 400,000 miles? I know that it is warranted in some applications and there they do have a pre-oiler, but for most people there is no point. I remember back in the late 70's early 80's when the Japanese cars were really making an impact on sales of the big three, a friend of my father's was an auto mechanic, and he asked me why I thought the Japanese cars had a much shorter mileage between oil and filter changes than the big three did, I did not know, but he told me that it was because most people are lazy and if you are supposed to change the oil every 5,000 miles once it hits that number few people go in and get it done, they do it maybe at 6,000 or 7,000 miles, while the Japanese cars were say 3,000 miles, so they would get changed more frequently. What does this do, well he told me that at his shop he kept several of the most common starters for the big three in stock, he said the changed starters in cars all the time, but he never kept stock of Japanese starters, because it was very rare to ever change them, he theorized that because the oil was changed more often that the Japanese starters and less work to do than the Big Three starters. I do not know if it was true, but it was his observation. Most cars don't need the extra life that a pre-oiler would give the engine, it's not cost effective.

Jonathan Shively said:
Now to get your thread back on topic, anything that makes getting the oil out of the oil pan easier is not wanted by me on mine. Stuck my truck a couple of times this winter in snow that my door pushed out of the way when opened so I could mutter and cuss as I looked at it and walked to the barn for the tractor. As deep as the snow was and amount packed around the frame, engine, tranny, transfer case, exhaust and other parts, would have probably dumped my oil out and not realized it until the engine welded itself together.

A very good point.

Cheers!
 
Stu there is a place down the road from me that sells recycled oil for cheap oil changes, also in Ontario in York Region (this is all i know of personally) we now have community recycling areas and what is called hazardous waste drop off points. You take your oil and many other household items that are not recycled or supposed to go in the garbage and hand them in there. I know for a fact that have a huge oil container that all the vehicle oil gets dumped in for recycling so its still going on.

I think the one element we have to consider today that has been a wake up call for me coming to North America with the different standards to what i grew up with is the emissions issue. The oil is used today to capture a bunch of engine crap that would in the past have ended up in the air. So changing the oil based purely on mileage today is in my view not a great measurement stick. In the case of my wifes now 12 year old Dodge Caravan (Town and Country Chrysler in the USA) that poor car gets warmed up for 15 minutes in winter with her remote starter, even though the trip to work is less than 5 minutes. :eek::(:eek: what can i say. So sitting there idling away and having all the crap go into the oil means that oil is black and full of soot in a very short time even though it has not done the mileage. Sludge is a poor lubricator to an old engine lets remember it also does not dissipate heat.

Anyhow i tend to agree in this item has me more concerned than on the side of a believer. And i would not be doing my own vehicle maintenance if the industry had more ethics and paid mechanics a decent wage rather than piece work or minimum wage. I know i let the old oil drain, i know how i have tightened the drain plug, i know i have changed the filter and i know i have used decent new oil. Thats the best i can do.

Thought this gadget may make it easier not to make the mess i do each time. :rofl: I also vote or having an oil filter placed in a location where when removed it does not leave oil dripping all over the inside of the engine compartment parts that are below it. I dont think its easy to satisfy all the engineering demands consumers would want and give them a exterior design that fits in their garage. LOL

Thanks for the input all. Most appreciated.
 
I had one of those on my old lawn mower, previous owner installed it as it had a hose to drain over to a more convenient location. I wouldn't recommend it. I removed the pan to do a good cleaning and had a lot of sludge that wouldn't have been there if the plug was pulled each time. Since it threaded up in the plug area it sat a little taller than not having the plug when draining and dammed up some oil/particles, keeping it from draining completely. Over the years I suspect it got worse and worse.
 
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