grane

I spoke to my MB dealership tech who is a personal friend from another part of the country. He encouraged me to change my own oil and filter on my "out of warranty" G500 since the A service is due. (As you know this car/engine does NOT have a supercharger.) His dealership uses an oil extractor extracting through the dipstick rather than removing/replacing (any cladding and shields) the drain screw and copper crusher washer in the aluminum pan. I have a MityVac MV7300. I use Mobil 0-40 religiously with an OEM or a Mann filter. Ok so far. What he told me next goes against the "conventional wisdom" that one should warm the engine oil before changing it - he says leave it COLD!

His advice: Without starting the car, extract the oil and change the filter AFTER the car has been sitting overnight level in the garage. The benefit is that the cold oil has drained down, out of the operating and top end of the engine as well as the filter, into the oil pan. Thus you are extracting the vast majority of the oil in the engine with your handy extractor.

If you think about it this method makes sense. I am going to follow his instructions this week and report back in detail.

Comments?

kjb55

Gravity is your friend. And I know that this has been discussed before. But given that a G500 is high off the ground. Crawl under there, drain from the plug nice hot oil with all the contaminants nicely suspended in the oil AND let it sit over night. It will all drain down from the top and right out the bottom.

Cold oil - all settled to the bottom of the pan - with all the junk at the very bottom, and a little plastic tube is expected to suck it up... No way.