I've changed my oil several times but have not replaced the crush washer. I've never had a car with a crush washer and the idea seems silly. The manuals say replace the washer with every oil change but why? It's a washer, why replace it?

 

so you don't over tighten the drain plug... if you dont replace it over time you will strip out the plug hole on the oil pan and then you'll be replacing your whole oil pan

 

They're meant to be crushed one time, but people tend to reuse them. Being as inexpensive as they are, it's best to just replace it.


I've been using a plastic drain plug washer for months, and a few oil changes, without any issues.

 

I bought spares but keep forgetting to take them out when changing the oil. I ve reused my aluminum washer for maybe 5 years now. No leaks and the bolt isn't stripped because I use a torque wrench

 

Ditto. The torque spec is 33 ft-lbs. A new crush washer ensures some sponginess and so good seal when torquing. An old crush washer has less-to-none of this sponginess, so the drain plug and oil pan threads will be overtorqued, and the seal will not be as good, leading to leaking and what upcomintuner wrote.

I can feel a new crush washer compressing when I torque the drain plug.

 

I've never had a car without a crush washer. From Toyotas, to GM's.

I've reused them many times, but will replace it when it starts to drip.

 

Although they're really only supposed to be used once, I used the same crush washer several times before switching to a plastic one.

Never used a torque wrench, never stripped my oil pan, and never had any leaks.

 

The HOnda's manual say to repace the washer every oil change. YOu don't have to replacee every oil change. Just check the condition of it, and the washer look very flat then it need to replace. You don't really need a torque wrench to tighten the bolt. I just use my hand to tighten it, but not extremely tight. Ottherwise bad thing would happens..

 

Same here.

Although I have worked on other peoples cars where the plug was torqued so much that the washer deformed into the threads and couldn't get it off. I'm guessing in that case there might have been strippage.