Filter housing on so tight it broke my filter wrench. What now? (Solved)

Yeah, for real. $280 to just go to a spin-on and no other benefit.

 

I did an oil change today and my housing and drain plug were tight ASF. Dealer did an oil change without my consent when I when in for a battery warranty exchange. I still had 2 free oil changes left. And don't get me started on the wheel lug nuts. FML

 

Let me guess. They stretched the lug bolts.

 

Same one. The brand is Motiv X.

 

No, nothing happened. Heres the quick story. My truck is leased. Did take it to them for the 1&2 scheduled maintenance. Decided to keep it after the whole ridiculous price increases. Never went back. But they were the last to rotate the wheels and they were torqued with a 1” impact gun. Also, one of my oil changes, they didn’t change the oil filter.

 

I’ve been doing my own oil changes for a while (I do them at 5k). I’ve been using a torque wrench to reinstall the filter housing to spec. Seems like it takes hardly any torque to get the wrench to click. When I go to loosen it for the next oil change it is considerably tighter (I end up needing to use my breaker bar to get it loose) than what I tightened it to. Been trying to think of what would cause it to tighten up so much.

 

The vibration of the engine/vehicle seems like it's the reason for the filter to tighten. I've been changing my own oil for almost forty years and with regular oil filters, I always hand tighten it, but it always requires a filter wrench to remove.

 

Plastic or metal cap? I never have that problem with the metal ones on either the Tundra or daughters Lexus.

 

Plastic

 

Why are you using a torque wrench to remove something? Maybe just me but I wouldn’t use a calibrated device in place of a breaker bar….just seems like the wrong application.

 

Didn’t have a cheater and that is a HF torque wrench that I don’t believe is accurate. No quality tools were damaged while creating this thread.

 

They use impacts on the plastic thing?? For the love

What are the torque specs on the oil change pieces and parts? I haven't seen those

 

Lefty-Loosy

 

If your old school then you should know when tight is tight enough. The oil filter cap seals by o-ring same as a spin on. No need to TQ it with an impact, lol. There are just some things that don’t need to be torqued in my opinion. Just like the trans drain plug and rear diff plugs. But if you want to know it’s on the cap itself.

 

18 ft-lbs if I recall correctly

 

Just going to tack on an undesired update.

When I was changing the oil, I had just blown out my floor jack and I needed to get a new one before I could rotate the tires. Had time this weekend, so as I was getting ready to start I found the dealer has either left lug nuts off, or didn’t tighten them. I use blackout covers, so I didn’t notice.

I’ve been running on 3 lug nuts for who knows how long.


pricks

 

Holy smokes! I'm glad nothing happened! That is crazy!

 

FOLKS. If this near-death story doesn't convince you to do maintenance work yourself (and/or with friends, sons, buddies, etc.) then I pray for you

Glad you survived.

 

Consider yourself lucky. wow!

 

Definitely freaked me out. I’ve been driving around a lot for work, and last week I felt a little shimmy in the wheel and figured I’d waited long enough to rotate my tires, and I got a new jack 2 weeks ago.

When I was starting to loosen the lugs (none were very tight ) I found those two missing on the front passenger side.

I am going to write that dealer a letter. They will kill someone doing this.

I got replacements today and got everything on and tight.

 

I would send the dealer a copy of the receipt along with the letter.

 

Just an update on what I experience. I just changed the oil this past weekend and noticed that (this time) the effort required to loosen the filter housing was consistent with the torque to which it was tightened when I had previously changed the oil. Only difference is my engine was still hot from driving where in previous oil changes the truck has always been sitting and engine is cold. May or may not have had anything to do with it. I will also add that I'd been using the Costco special oil at $40 per 10 qts. This time I went with Amsoil OE 0W-20 and noticed that my engine seems to be running a bit quieter than it does with the Costco variety. May or may not be something to that high dollar Amsoil stuff.

 

I know some people can't or don't have time to do their own work, but you have to inspect their work. In the engineering world, trust but verify.

 

Switch to 5w30 and see how much quieter is gets.

 

It takes quite a bit more torque to move something from a stop than to keep something moving that’s already in motion. Though I’ve seen estimates showing Less torque is required on loosening a stopped fastener than in tightening it. This fails to take into account that, Once stopped, the friction surfaces and heating and cooling cycles, as well as corrosion come into play, so it could make a significant difference in loosening vs tightening torque.

I should add that there’s much more qualified people to speak about this than I am. I am NOT an engineer.