Anyone use an oil extractor instead of jacking up and draining the engine oil out of the drain plug?

I have always changed the oil in my RX7 the traditional way, but I recently had to get an oil extractor for oil changes on a new Audi (last manual transmission 2018 A4 Ultra Sport), and it makes it so I easy. The oil filter on the GSL-SE is up top, so wouldn't need to jack up the car at all.

Unfortunately my wife's Jetta has the oil filter underneath in a tough spot, so still have to jack that one up...

 

You can do it, but for me I think it leaves too much stuff in the pan that might not get sucked up. Maybe paranoid, but as little as I change the oil, it's not worth the risk.

I use an oil extractor on my lawn tractor since the transmission doesn't have a drain plug.

 

The last couple times I did my oil change, I didn't lift the car at all. A drain pan fits under the car and I can reach the drain plug from the top of the engine bay.

 

I'm lucky.

 

Well, I thought I would be smart - use the extractor and then jack it up to see what was left. But I had trouble getting the extractor hose down the dipstick well - there is some kind of catch and only once did it go all the way to the drain pan. Of course I pulled it back out and then got frustrated I couldn't get it back in again. So I jacked it up and changed as normal.

Next time (@340K miles) I will try again - it is just really nice not having as much mess to deal with using an extractor.

 

I'm with sa7 on this. I just slide the oil catch pan under the car and then undo the drain plug from the top, done.

 

Just a little bit quicker and easier than removing the standard plug. Easy to reach and operate by hand from the engine bay.

 

There is no way I could reach the drain plug coming from the top on a GSL-SE. Even if my arm was long enough, no way to snake thru the engine bay.

 

Fumoto valve for the win. I have them on all of our cars, and they make the job so much faster and easier,

 

if you had a header on the thing you can actually see the drain plug from the top, its much easier than you'd think

 

I use an extractor on my cars with top oil filters. I did the test to see if it left much in the pan and it does leave a couple of ounces. You could argue that's where all the metal particles would be but I always warm up the car before I pull the oil. Also, I put very few miles, maybe 1K a year and I change the oil based on time rather than miles. Your case might differ of course!