Exactly! Even for street use they are almost necessary for most cars. Not for a high ground clearance Jeep probably, but offroading without one? While expecting a stone to hit a drain valve?Spend your money on a skid plate for going off road before worrying about easy oil changes. One rock and you will get an easy oil change.
I looked up lucky in the dictionary and your picture was in there,L.O.LI dumped a load of oil after unknowingly catching a cornstalk on the drain valve lever on the grain truck year before last. I got it on the road as usual and was up to about 35 mph when it lost oil pressure. I kicked it in neutral, shut it off and coasted it toward the farm. Momentum brought me to within a few feet of the driveway but to this day there is a 2 mile plus long black diesel oil stripe on the road. I stuck a big fat cable tie on it as a precaution and so far so good.
Nothing wrong with drain plug. If you rack a lot of miles then the stripped plug/pan thing becomes more potential. If just plug easy. I've seen many stripped pans though from others wrenching to tight.What’s wrong with pulling the drain plug? I get their concept but are useless to me. Oil sampling suck it out of the dipstick tube. When I had one I had to remove the skid plate to take the filter off.
If people torque plugs properly you won’t have stripped plugs. Thats the aircraft mechanic in me. Your Pilot makes sence since you have a skid plate. The filter location being behind the tire for removal.Nothing wrong with drain plug. If you rack a lot of miles then the stripped plug/pan thing becomes more potential. If just plug easy. I've seen many stripped pans though from others wrenching to tight.
On my Pilot it makes it that I don't need to remove the skid plate.
exactly. I'd even say 95% of people with solid front axle Jeeps that wheel don't even need an oil pan skid. It's tucked up pretty high and behind the front axle. I've done tons of wheeling (including Moab and other midwest rockcrawing/mud) and never hit my oil pan or oil pan skid plate (notice it's pretty much scratch free in this pic). I only run one because it's the best way to run an exhaust loop skid and you can take some bad hits to that if you slide off your line or do stupid stuff. If only off roaded in places like Moab where it's the big rocks then I wouldn't run either. Fumoto could be a nice setup with a skid plate, since then you could hook a hose up to it to drain, most of the skids don't really have the hole in the right spot for the oil drain to go neatly, seem to work better with cold oil.If you off road this as much as you claim - why don’t you have a skid plate? There are a wide variety of skid plate options for Jeeps. Pick one and protect the pan and the drain plug.