Anyone use an "oil extractor" to change oil?

[Russell]

It seems as if it would tend to leave a bit of sediment in the bottom of the oil pan. Just wondered if there is a downside?

[Unregistered]

It seems as if it would tend to leave a bit of sediment in the bottom of the oil pan. Just wondered if there is a downside?

That can be overcome by draining it every other oil change, though I've done the Pela oil extractor for the last two years and haven't done the drain yet.

[George M]

That is the clear downside...sediment in the bottom of the pan. Guess the question is why?. I believe an extractor's best application is an automatic trans without a drain plug. Put the syphon tube down the dipstick tube...if your car has one...and suck out the fluid that way. Still a good idea to drop the trans pan once in a while and change the trans filter and clean out pan sediment/magnets. I would never use an extractor on an engine sump...but to each his own...better than not changing the oil.
:-)
George

[Bimmer Nut Ed]

I now only use an oil extractor. It just makes the job so much easier. I too, at first was skeptical about it's use. My thought at the time was that it was not extracting all the oil. But when I tried it on (each of) my cars, I found that it drained more oil than pulling the drain plug. Here's what I did, I sucked the oil out with the extractor, then I used my normal technique to drain the oil, lift front of car, remove drain plug. What I found is that when I removed the drain plug, absolutely nothing more came out. It was weird. It seems that the extraction device (big sucker) drew more oil out than draining it through the drain plug. I have to wonder if by raising the front of the car, in my usual method, I was inadvertantly causing some oil to pool at the back of the pan, or somewhere else, and therefore I did not get all the oil out. Please realize, I was not letting the car down again, with the drain plug off, to perhaps get that last bit of oil out. Anyway, I'm real happy with the extractor and I use it all the time now. My opinion/2 Cents.

And, I'd have to think, if the "sucker" is reaching to the bottom of the oil pan pool, it's got to be sucking out any grit or sludge that would collect there too.