Morning folks, thought I'd share my little blunder. Back a couple months ago I changed the oil in my aunt's 2017 Mitsubishi Outlander with the 2.4. Was quite simple, or so I thought. Day after I noticed a small oil spot in the driveway where it was parked. I assumed it was just a little residual from when I dropped the filter on the plastic cover underneath that I just missed cleaning up. Unfortunately it was not, it was coming from the drain plug. I've never had this happen before in all my years of changing oil and all different vehicles. Apparently this engine uses an aluminum crush washer, and from the picture probably was never changed (dealer maintained until 24K).
You can see the original plug's washer is completely flat and no longer had any sealing capabilities. I picked up a plug and washer from the dealer just incase, but all I needed was a new washer. Installed new plug/washer and all is good. I did not re-use the old oil and filter even though it had maybe 1,000 miles on it. While most see that as a waste a 5qt jug of Supertech 0w20 was $15 and I had the filter already here ($5 Hastings white can). I also did this at my own expense since it was my screw up, even though she offered to pay. So it looks like I'll need to pick up a pack of washers for oil changes in this thing. I guess it's a little bit of ignorance on my part for not checking it, but I've reused washers and had no problem before. It never lost enough to notice on the dipstick, but better safe than sorry.
You can see the original plug's washer is completely flat and no longer had any sealing capabilities. I picked up a plug and washer from the dealer just incase, but all I needed was a new washer. Installed new plug/washer and all is good. I did not re-use the old oil and filter even though it had maybe 1,000 miles on it. While most see that as a waste a 5qt jug of Supertech 0w20 was $15 and I had the filter already here ($5 Hastings white can). I also did this at my own expense since it was my screw up, even though she offered to pay. So it looks like I'll need to pick up a pack of washers for oil changes in this thing. I guess it's a little bit of ignorance on my part for not checking it, but I've reused washers and had no problem before. It never lost enough to notice on the dipstick, but better safe than sorry.