Thats a cool drain pan.

 

I bought my first car when I was 16, and out of necessity did all my own maintenance. About the easiest maintenance chore on a car is an oil change. Back then we changed oil every 3 months. Imagine paying $1600 a year for oil changes. Porsche dealers should have a sliding scale for maintenance work. Oil changes could be performed by new employees at a greatly reduced rate. An experienced tech could check the work before returning the car to the customer. Actually all routine maintenance could be performed by new employees. I can't think of any scheduled maintenance item that couldn't be performed by an average new guy after an hour or two of training. Hell, maybe that's the way they are currently doing it and still charging $400 for an oil change.

 

I have a similar drain pan... low profile... BUT... it splashes.... so I cut a big hole in the "floor" so the oil falls farther and the floor now lessens the splashes. I jack the car, then lower the car down flat... this then would only allow for a few inches between the pan floor and drain ..... splashing up against the car pan.... hence the need to cut a hole in the pan.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

 

I had a similar pan before I put in my lift. I found that tipping the pan a bit when the oil first rushed out gave me better access to the drain plug and with the oil falling onto a slope it didn't splash out of the pan.

To put things in perspective ... 8 oil changes (less than two years) paid for the lift while at the same time being much more convenient.

 

I love the fact that this thread started with a comment about the price of an oil change and ends with a very sensible and solid justification for a full garage lift.

 

The QuickJack is a great portable lift that gets the car up high enough for oil changes, brake jobs or anything you can reach with a creeper. You can pay for it with the equivalent of a couple dealer oil changes. There's even a 12 volt version for the track. Set it up in a corner when done.

 

holy cow that is really quick work. I’ve found in practice things take at least 2x what I estimate.

like someone said earlier 997 doesn’t need ramps. Drain plug is accessible from the ground.

Draining takes at least an hour for me. The flow doesn’t stop after an hour. Ymmv as it has been said.

and there’s always the “I swear that 8mm hex was just in my hand 10s ago” and the subsequent 10-30 minute search to find it. And the occasional I give up, need to go to autozone to buy a tool and come back.

i think filling takes me at least 15 minutes plus warming up the car to check level and leaks which is another 20 minutes. 10w40 flows slowly and there’s quite a few bottles to go through

then pouring the old oil into recycle containers and cleaning up the inevitable mess. 20 minutes.

If I didn’t have quickjacks, lowering the car itself would be another 15 minutes. Even with quickjacks raising the car takes 5-10 minutes for me to everything lined up right.

i have fairly low time commitments and I enjoy doing it myself but I can understand if people with kids for example don’t want to deal with this kind of stuff.

it certainly takes longer than a 4 cyl Toyota with a 4L oil capacity.

 

I'd like to see the body build of someone who can get under an H&R lowered GTS without ramps, a jack or a lift and access the drain plug. As for draining, for my last change I had driven the car for an hour prior so the oil was hot. Removing the refill cap speeds up the drain too. Not one drop came out of the drain after 35 minutes. Maybe an additional drop or two could have been gathered letting it sit overnight but what's the purpose? How much of the old oil remains in the engine that you'll never get out no matter how long you let it drain? My guess is more than a few drops.

 

sure lowered car is another story. Good luck finding a thin enough drain pan for that.

i do all the same and it keeps draining for more than an hour. Always drain hot and undo the filler cap. Ymmv. Maybe slope of the car matters. I’m roughly level when draining as it would be when doing it without lifting.

Everyone has a different comfort level when working. I’m slow and I don’t see how people can get this stuff done in 30 min. It takes me 30 min alone to clean up and put all the stuff away afterwards.

 

I use a cheap plastic tote from Home Depot...




Karl.

 

Its all relative. $400 is quite reasonable when you consider an oil change on a Veyron is between $20,000 to $25,000.

 

just wondering Karl,

when the 911 sits on Ramps like that with a slant downwards towards the front, does it help more with draining all the oil over having the 911 levelled?

thanks

 

At first glance, you'd think tilting the car forward would help because the drain plug on the 997.2 9A1 motor is at the front end of the pan. Seems logical.

However, the 997.2 9A1 oil pan doesn't have a simple/flat interior surface. There are baffles, and apparently the drain hole isn't at the lowest point (which is very odd). Following are a few pictures taken from this thread...




So I don't know if it actually helps or not.

FWIW, my drain procedure is to warm up the engine, reverse onto the ramps and let it drain overnight. When I do that, it takes 8 liters (8.45 quarts) to bring it back up to the normal full level.

But YMMV.

Karl.

 

That’s interesting with the oil pan, wondering if it’s the same setup as with 997.1 like mine. Great pics

my procedure is to warm up 911 with a small drive, lift the rear passenger corner up and lock it with safety pin, crawl under pull drain plug and filter, lower 911 back to ground and levelled on top of a low profile oil container, wait 15 mins, lift back up and install plug with filter, lower again and fill up with 8 litres exactly. That puts it at 2nd bar for oil reading .

my cost in Canadian coin

Motul 8100 X-cess 5/40 8 litres $64
Hengst oil filter $17
oil drain plug washer $1
Labour 1Hr $0

Total $82ca, in US funds $60

 

I can actually get my arm in there and get the plug and filter off without ramps etc (long arms i guess). And my car is on H&R's as well. I have a low profile drain pan that just squeezes in there. The toughest part is that its friggin hot down there with such little space.

I have the same drain time experience; it drains out fast and mostly all done in less than 15 mins, certainly not more than a few drops after that.

I am surprised that the guys who leave their drain plug out all night arent concerned that a breeze or a bug might cause/allow some contaminants to get in to the oil pan causing catastrophic engine failure within 100kms. But then again I am still shaking a little over that close call you had at Pep Boys