A friendly warning to Fit owners-------
08-10-2014, 04:59 PM
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A friendly warning to Fit owners-------
Never use a recovery jug/vacuum pump "easy oil change" device on your Fit.
I bought an Attwood 5-quart oil change system mainly for use on my emergency electric generator and tree chipper, but when it arrived, I decided to try it on my automatic trans. For the three quart drain-and-replace-three times procedure, I stuck the tubing of the oil changer into the dip stick tube of the A/T, and it worked perfectly to extract three quarts of ATF. Then a bad thought occurred to me. Time for an oil change also, lets do that too.
The engine dipstick tube has several sharp bends in it, and in shoving the extractor plastic tubing down that metal tube, there is some resistance as the plastic tube is forced through the metal tube bends. Enough resistance so that you can't tell when the plastic tube hits the bottom of the oil pan. I kept pushing more and more tubing until I decided that this was way far enough, and started to pull some of the tubing back out.
The tubing would not come out. It had snagged on something in the crankcase (maybe one of the oil "flipper paddles" that fling lubricant around the crankcase)- who knows what? It absolutely would not budge back out until my pulling caused the extractor tube to tear apart, leaving about 18" of plastic tube stuck and un-removeable inside the crankcase with no way to get it back out.
I will get the chance to find out what snagged the tubing when I remove and replace the oil pan in the next few days. According to the Honda Fit Service Manual, that requires a small oil pan gasket, two oil pan dowel pins, and a lot of Honda liquid gasket silicone rubber sealant (90% of the oil pan is sealed with the liquid silicone). Of course, my local Honda dealer has none of this in stock and I have to wait days to pick the materials up.
Keep in mind that I HAVE a nice Fumoto oil change drain plug on the car, so draining the oil is as simple as it gets anyway. The decision to try the vacuum pump/jug was made after it worked perfectly for the ATF.
I could probably drive the car to a shop for the oil pan R&R without destroying it, but why? With the right materials and some hours of labor, it's done. Leaving the plastic tube in the engine without removing it would very likely cause the tubing to be chopped up and clog lubricant passages and close down the oil filter.
So, unless you want to see what your engine looks like without the oil pan as you pick plastic crap out of the bottom if it, don't try the vacuum jug oil changers. You will probably buy yourself a giant headache.
One other little detail--- the Honda manual lists FIVE different liquid gasket part numbers for sealing the oil pan. Four of them set within five minutes, and the fifth one sets within four minutes. That doesn't give you much leeway in attaching and torquing the thirteen bolts on a GE Fit. Although I ordered and will pay for the Honda gasket material that is actually used at this local dealer, I will use instead the gasket material that has the OEM rating for GM, Ford, and Chrysler for sealing oil pans that sets in one hour and fully cures in 24 hours.
I bought an Attwood 5-quart oil change system mainly for use on my emergency electric generator and tree chipper, but when it arrived, I decided to try it on my automatic trans. For the three quart drain-and-replace-three times procedure, I stuck the tubing of the oil changer into the dip stick tube of the A/T, and it worked perfectly to extract three quarts of ATF. Then a bad thought occurred to me. Time for an oil change also, lets do that too.
The engine dipstick tube has several sharp bends in it, and in shoving the extractor plastic tubing down that metal tube, there is some resistance as the plastic tube is forced through the metal tube bends. Enough resistance so that you can't tell when the plastic tube hits the bottom of the oil pan. I kept pushing more and more tubing until I decided that this was way far enough, and started to pull some of the tubing back out.
The tubing would not come out. It had snagged on something in the crankcase (maybe one of the oil "flipper paddles" that fling lubricant around the crankcase)- who knows what? It absolutely would not budge back out until my pulling caused the extractor tube to tear apart, leaving about 18" of plastic tube stuck and un-removeable inside the crankcase with no way to get it back out.
I will get the chance to find out what snagged the tubing when I remove and replace the oil pan in the next few days. According to the Honda Fit Service Manual, that requires a small oil pan gasket, two oil pan dowel pins, and a lot of Honda liquid gasket silicone rubber sealant (90% of the oil pan is sealed with the liquid silicone). Of course, my local Honda dealer has none of this in stock and I have to wait days to pick the materials up.
Keep in mind that I HAVE a nice Fumoto oil change drain plug on the car, so draining the oil is as simple as it gets anyway. The decision to try the vacuum pump/jug was made after it worked perfectly for the ATF.
I could probably drive the car to a shop for the oil pan R&R without destroying it, but why? With the right materials and some hours of labor, it's done. Leaving the plastic tube in the engine without removing it would very likely cause the tubing to be chopped up and clog lubricant passages and close down the oil filter.
So, unless you want to see what your engine looks like without the oil pan as you pick plastic crap out of the bottom if it, don't try the vacuum jug oil changers. You will probably buy yourself a giant headache.
One other little detail--- the Honda manual lists FIVE different liquid gasket part numbers for sealing the oil pan. Four of them set within five minutes, and the fifth one sets within four minutes. That doesn't give you much leeway in attaching and torquing the thirteen bolts on a GE Fit. Although I ordered and will pay for the Honda gasket material that is actually used at this local dealer, I will use instead the gasket material that has the OEM rating for GM, Ford, and Chrysler for sealing oil pans that sets in one hour and fully cures in 24 hours.
Last edited by manxman; 08-10-2014 at 09:06 PM.
08-21-2014, 07:36 PM
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Re: A friendly warning to Fit owners-------
You're welcome. To clarify, the component closest to the flat bottom of the oil pan is the inlet to the oil pump, and it sits about 2" above the bottom of the pan. So the suction tube of the vacuum pump did not snag on anything-- it simply folded like a plastic soda straw and became creased. Even though the oil was warmed up, the creased tube would not relax the crease, and it got stuck on the sharp edges of the dip stick tube.
As stated in the OP, I used a pump from Attwood. At least five other companies make and sell these pumps for "easy oil changes". I assume that all of them might easily get stuck in the oil pan as this one did.
The vacuum pumps do have a safe, valuable use though. They are much easier and cleaner to use for ATF fluid changes on auto transmissions. The vacuum pump tubing can't go far enough into the dipstick tube of the auto trans to get stuck on anything, and easily vacuums out three quarts of ATF for the three step fluid change procedure.
As stated in the OP, I used a pump from Attwood. At least five other companies make and sell these pumps for "easy oil changes". I assume that all of them might easily get stuck in the oil pan as this one did.
The vacuum pumps do have a safe, valuable use though. They are much easier and cleaner to use for ATF fluid changes on auto transmissions. The vacuum pump tubing can't go far enough into the dipstick tube of the auto trans to get stuck on anything, and easily vacuums out three quarts of ATF for the three step fluid change procedure.
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