Can you drain the motor oil by removing the oil filter only?

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Originally Posted by bogito
Hi guys,

I saw that question on another forum and never thought about it but now I got curious. I do not change the oil of my car myself so have no true idea if this is possible. What do you think? Is it possible to drain all the oil by simply removing the oil filter and will all the oil come out?


What was the answer in the other forum?
What kind of car are we talking about?
 
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Originally Posted by twouvakind
This would help but it still wouldn't drain it all.
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The fill cap becomes the drain plug!

Added bonus: all the debate about ADBVs goes right out the window.
 
I don't see how this would be possible given any geometry. Whether the oil filter is at the lowest point is immaterial, given the oil filter has an input and output.

The output is obviously only going to drain what went past the oil filter, the input comes from the oil pump so nothing before the oil pump would be drained, so no.
 
Originally Posted by twouvakind
This would help but it still wouldn't drain it all.
[Linked Image]


Actually no as the cars in Australia are always like the picture and they seem to do fine.
 
Originally Posted by Bailes1992
Only if the car was running
lol.gif


A disclaimer should be noted here to the OP, please don't try this.
 
Originally Posted by bogito
Hi guys,

I saw that question on another forum and never thought about it but now I got curious. I do not change the oil of my car myself so have no true idea if this is possible. What do you think? Is it possible to drain all the oil by simply removing the oil filter and will all the oil come out?


Yes remove the oil filter drive it around, this will remove all the oil and destroy the engine and you'll change the oil indirectly by buying another car.

Is this a troll post?
 
Even if the oil filter sits lower than the drain pan, the oil still needs to travel from bottom of the pan through the oil pickup tube and through the oil pump before reaching the filter. You can't drain the sump by removing the filter unless the engine is running... and if you do this, you have much bigger problems to deal with.
 
Originally Posted by Kestas
I've changed my oil change regimen to removing the oil filter first then do the drain plug. It avoids the splash from dropping a hot filter.

^this
I also started doing this a few OCs ago. Makes life easier (or at least less messy).
 
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I saw many of you asking where was this question asked. I saw it on Quora, some guy just asked the question without mentioning what car/model/year is he talking about.

More interesting is that another guy said that he did that in an air-cooled Volkswagen Beetle and another guy mentioned he did that on 1980's era GM 4 cylinders.

So as I said in the beginning, I just got curious if that is possible as I've never heard of that method.

Thank you for all the answers. I understood it's not a good idea
smile.gif
 
the beetle didn't have a filter, but it had a strainer on the bottom of the pan. Remove the strainer and it was like removing a 3" drain plug. totally different.

oil filters are pressurized, so a pump sits between the filter and the pan.
 
Even if you remove the filter with the engine running, you will still leave the oil that is below the oil pickup screen in the oil pan.
 
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