Stuck Oil Filter Cap, and First Oil Change

I ran into a problem changing the oil on my wife's 2016 Prius. The oil filter cap was stuck. I mean really stuck. I did a search and couldn't find anything in the 4th Generation Prius forum, only in the 3rd Generation forum. Here's the link if you want to refer to it. Oil Change problems couldn't get oil filter Off! Suggestions? Please help! | Page 2 | PriusChat There's some good suggestions there that will work on your 4th Generation Prius too. But there's nothing that I could find for the 4th Generation Prius, so I thought I'd put something here for future reference.

Let me start by saying I'm not new to changing my own oil. I worked at a service station going through college and I've changed my oil on every car we've owned. But the first two years of service were included with the new Prius, so I didn't worry about it.

So the first problem was getting the car up high enough. You'll want to think this through. I have some homemade wooden ramps that work well on my Subaru Outback, but it has double the ground clearance. These worked enough to get the car off the ground, but barely. I'll want to see if some commercial ramps will work better.

Draining the oil wasn't an issue. Just like I expected. I had purchased a steel tool to remove the oil filter cap. It looks a little different than the others I've purchased in the past, but no big deal. I put it on. I did all I could trying to turn it. No joy. If I had a lift, I'd be able to get more leverage, but I don't. And the oil is drained out of the engine, so I can't even move it onto the other ramps I have that are higher...if they will fit.

I have a wonderful 3 foot pipe I use for a cheater bar. But there wasn't enough room to get it on. So I did some searching on the Internet and someone mentioned using an impact driver. Hmmm...I have one of those I've never used. I got it out. I put the 3/8 inch bit in. I turned it on. The bit twisted off! This cap was stuck! Not being smart, I still could use the remaining length of the bit. I turned it on. It twisted off again, even with the shorter length. I now have a new project. The remaining portion of the bit is still stuck in my previously unused Ryobi impact driver. Be smart. Don't do what I did.

My wife had my Subaru which has a breaker bar I've had for years. I bought it to be able to change tires and get the nuts off. But she wasn't due home for awhile. I have a Craftsman torque wrench that is almost the same length. But I can't really use it with impunity. I don't want to ruin it. The cap didn't budge with 75 ft lbs of force.

I had an old ancient corded impact driver. It you dropped it on your foot, it would break ...your foot, not the impact driver. So I pulled out the extension cords and with high hopes, I thought I had a solution. No joy. Not enough room to get this massive tool in that space.

I had an electric impact wrench. Cool! Again, I had high hopes. Nope. It would work...if I could get it in there.

I looked again at trying to jack the car up higher to give me more room to get some leverage. But.the front jack points would be sitting on the initial sloped portion of my wooden ramps.


Somehow, I put together an idea that may work for you some day. My wife came back with the Subaru and the breaker bar. By itself, I knew I didn't have the strength to move this cap, even with the breaker bar. But I still had the jack out. What if?

I put the breaker bar onto the cap removal tool. The end of the breaker bar, I put on the jack. I "jacked" the breaker bar up to the point I had no more clearance...and still the cap didn't move. But the tool did. There are openings in the tool and corresponding protrusions on the filter cap...but they weren't touching. So I took a pair of pliers and bent those several times till they would actually grip the filter cap.

And then I set it up again with the jack. Nothing happened. I went in to get dinner and just let the constant pressure work...and it did.

So after a very long-winded story here, what worked?

• The tool was important, but needed to be modified to grip better and not slip.
• The jack provided the force I couldn't get by myself.
• The constant pressure did more than all the force I could do on my own.

Lastly, I think one of the reasons this filter cap freezes up, is simply that the threads are very close and there's a lot of them, and it sits for months probably till the next oil change. The next time I do this, I'm going to put a light coating of grease on those threads. It won't cause the filter cap to unscrew on its own, but it'll make it easier to unscrew like it should be.

I hope this helps the next person who tries to do something similar, and runs into roadblocks.

Chris

 

One of the methods on the Internet that was suggested, was to punch a hole through the filter body with a screwdriver. That was kind of useless with this filter element.

But it reminded me of a situation when I was in the USAF and stationed in England. We lived on RAF Lakenheath in base housing. I wanted to change my oil on this car I'd bought and couldn't get the filter off. So I walked up and down the neighborhood asking if anyone had an oil filter wrench. No one had, but this one guy made a suggestion to use a screwdriver. So I did.

When I went to put the new filter on, I saw that the store had given me the wrong filter! It wouldn't fit. So I now had a destroyed oil filter and nothing to put on. We only had one car then, and the nearest store was in Bury St. Edmonds, about 20 miles away. And...in those days, they rolled up the streets at 5pm and it was already late afternoon.

So I went back to him and told him what happened and asked if he'd drive me over before the store closed. He did, and this guy I didn't know before became a great friend.

Chris

 

Just a bit of follow-up. I changed the oil last week and had no problems with removing the oil filter. If you put it on and tighten it by hand, it'll come off with just a bit of encouragement like any other oil filter.

I'll add this in...I have some wooden ramps I made from 2x6s that work okay, but I'd like a bit more height. And of course you're constrained by the low height of the Prius so you can't get any ramps with too much incline. What do you guys/gals recommend for ramps?

Chris