Howdy everyone - been reading here a while, but this is my first post in this very informative and entertaining forum!
Anyway, back in mid June, I bought the used van in my signature from a local dealer. It had 41,700 miles, and the oil was fresh and new. In fact, by the time I hit the 44,700 on my window sticker, the oil still wasn't particularly dirty. But I decided to go ahead and change it anyway (I'm guessing y'all understand!)
Having read up some around here, I chose Motorcraft 5w-20 blend ($11.50/ 5 qt jug at Wally World), and Mopar filter, and will run it to an OCI of 5k. I chose the blend oil because this motor seems to run a little warmer than I expected (204).
So yesterday morning, I headed out to the carport ready to get to work. I crawls down underneath with my ratchet, and discovers that the dealer, who did the last oil change, had evidently put the oil pan drain plug on with an impact wrench. No matter what I tried, all my tools would do was round the edges of the bolt (it was 13 mm). Why, oh why, do those morons torque things down so hard?
So it's off to the Advance store for a gripper socket and a replacement drain plug.
Back home, with the help of the gripper and a ball-peen hammer, the plug comes out and things proceed. Oh - the dealer seems to have used the same impact wrench to put on the filter. Aggravated as I was, I didn't notice the rubber seal remained stuck to the filter mount as I applied the new filter. You can guess what happened when I started it up to check for leaks.
After cleaning up and re-re-attaching the filter, things were finally as they should be - except for the missing half quart of oil in the sump. All I had was a bottle of GTX 5w-30, so that's what went in to top it off. I hope that won't be an issue - someone pipe up, please, if you think it will.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
Anyway, back in mid June, I bought the used van in my signature from a local dealer. It had 41,700 miles, and the oil was fresh and new. In fact, by the time I hit the 44,700 on my window sticker, the oil still wasn't particularly dirty. But I decided to go ahead and change it anyway (I'm guessing y'all understand!)
Having read up some around here, I chose Motorcraft 5w-20 blend ($11.50/ 5 qt jug at Wally World), and Mopar filter, and will run it to an OCI of 5k. I chose the blend oil because this motor seems to run a little warmer than I expected (204).
So yesterday morning, I headed out to the carport ready to get to work. I crawls down underneath with my ratchet, and discovers that the dealer, who did the last oil change, had evidently put the oil pan drain plug on with an impact wrench. No matter what I tried, all my tools would do was round the edges of the bolt (it was 13 mm). Why, oh why, do those morons torque things down so hard?
So it's off to the Advance store for a gripper socket and a replacement drain plug.
Back home, with the help of the gripper and a ball-peen hammer, the plug comes out and things proceed. Oh - the dealer seems to have used the same impact wrench to put on the filter. Aggravated as I was, I didn't notice the rubber seal remained stuck to the filter mount as I applied the new filter. You can guess what happened when I started it up to check for leaks.
After cleaning up and re-re-attaching the filter, things were finally as they should be - except for the missing half quart of oil in the sump. All I had was a bottle of GTX 5w-30, so that's what went in to top it off. I hope that won't be an issue - someone pipe up, please, if you think it will.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
