bob hoern

is there anything special i should know about changing the oil? Where exactly is the oil drain plug? I didn't see it when I crawled underneath to take a look?

Edgy01

Do a quick search--it's been discussed in ad nauseam.

Mike in CA

As Dan says, this has been discussed extensively. Briefly, 997.1 or 997.2? 997.1 drain plug is more or less in the center of sump, 997.2 is at the very front edge of the sump in the center, biased slightly to driver's side. Both are recessed allen head drain plugs. Filters are in different locations and require different tools; 997.1 cap that fits over entire filter under the engine, 997.2 36mm socket for filter on top of engine. For 997.2 filter, make sure it's loosened or removed before sump plug is replaced otherwise some oil can remain in the engine due to vacuum effect.

BLKonBLKC4S

This was just posted in 6speed:

Macster

If you intend to do your car's oil you should know all about what makes a good oil change.

Someone has posted a link to a DIY which is good start.

Couple of points:

1) Use the right oil. If you buy oil at a store check all bottles you grab are the right oil. Oftentimes these get mixed up and you won't know this until you find you have 4 quarts of say Mobil 1 0w-40 and 4 quarts of Mobil 10w-40.

Also, check each bottle carefully: in one store I spotted an odd looking bottle and upon closer examination it has been opened and to make matters worse someone had put old oil in it. The bottle had I believe been returned for credit or refund without the clerk verifying the bottle had not been opened.

2) Replace the oil drain plug seal ring.

3) Use a new filter element and be sure if there's any o-ring for the filter housing to replace that as well. The new filter element for the older models comes with a new o-ring in a bag in the filter box -- I always open the filter box and check -- and when I buy the new seal ring -- from the local Porsche parts counter -- the ring is taped to the filter element box. Before you install the new filter element be sure it is the right one and matches/agrees with the one you removed. Of course this assumes the previous oil/filter service used the right filter!

4) Be sure you have a proper torque wrench and know how to use it and correctly torque both the drain plug and the filter housing. For the housing, I like to prefill the oil filter housing with fresh oil and smear a bit of fresh clean oil on the housing threads and o-ring.

5) Before you drain the oil the engine oil should be up to temp. Watch out! Engine oil can be quite hot and it can burn you if you're not careful!

6) Even though the car will be backed up ramps this will not affect the amount of oil that drains. Drain the oil for IIRC 20 minutes. (Porsche's call out for drain periods for older cars anyhow.)

7) After buttoning up the drain plug and filter housing carefully add the correct amount of oil to the engine. What is the correct amount? Well, there's the amount given in the owners manual but this may not be correct. My info is you need to get the amount of oil and a tech (or perhaps someone in the parts department but be sure he looks it up and doesn't just rattle off a number) can look this up for you based on your car's VIN.

8) After you have added the specified amount of oil and double-checked the correct/specified amount of oil is back in the engine -- count those empty bottles 3 times! -- then you verify the digital oil level sensor/sender reports the right level.

For example for one of my cars the factory drain steps calls for 7.8l of oil and then when the oil level is checked -- in this case the engine has to be running and up to temp (oh and the car level too) -- the 7 lower segments should be lit. In this case the only segment that is not lit is the segment above the max line/segment.

Please note the above is not complete but you should have all the steps nailed down and understood before you start.

Changing the oil in one of these cars is not that hard, and can save the cost conscience some money, but the oil change has to be done right. An oil change done wrong can cost way more than you can imagine.

Sincerely,

Macster.

bob hoern

thank you all for the detailed pictures and explanation. This will make my first change much easier. I do this on all my cars for the last 40 years mainly for convenience and knowing it was done right. My other cars are a 1975 TR6 Triumph, 1986 BMW 528e, and a 2005 Crossfire Coupe (which also uses 8 qts of Mobil 1 0-40w).

CHV

Here's a short vid I did w/ my buddies 997.1.



Chuck

JW911

I just changed my oil today. Oil changes on these cars are no more difficult than an oil change on a Toyota. Pull the plug, drain the oil, remove and replace the filter, refill the oil. Done. This can all be done in less than one hour. Which is a whole lot less time than it takes to drive to the dealer, wait, and then drive home.

helispud

You can do the change without ramps, you just need a low profile drainpan.

_Nathan

And DON'T do what I did when I changed the oil in my Expedition last year. When I removed the old oil filter I didn't notice that the old filter gasket had stuck to the engine. So when I installed the new filter there were two gaskets. Two gaskets makes a lousy seal. When I started the engine I could hear something strange, which was oil spraying out. I stopped the engine after only about 10 seconds but in that time about 3 quarts of oil sprayed all over the garage floor and the underside of the truck. After cleaning up the big mess I had to do the oil change all over again.

bob hoern

nathan funny you should mention this. The same thing happened to me several years ago on my crossfire. the o ring stayed put and I added another when I put the filter element in. I had a leak but not as bad as yours. I ended up having to have the serpetine belt changed because it got a lot of oil on it.

Minok

So thats for a 997.1

For the 997.2, see the other thread that has pics.

The drain plug is in a similar spot. The oil filter is accessed from above in the engine bay easily (yeah!) so the only reason I needed to raise the car a bit on the back was to be able to unscrew the drain plug fully while the drain pan was under the oil plan.. otherwise there would only be about an inch of space and I couldn't get it clear.

As I just did mine on my 997.2 I'd add some additional experience.

I had the similar drain pan to the one shown in the pics above with the green caps. For some reason, they just refuse to spend the extra $1 on the product and produce one with caps that screw in solidly and SEAL. So when I came back ofter letting the oil drain into the catch pan for about 45 mins, there was a nice puddle where the oil had slowly drained out from the green drain pan side-cap, which WAS tightened down. Ugh. (My previous version of that pan that cap failed because I kept ensuring it would be tight and the cap end just got blown out by tightening. If they engineered gasket into the cap it would be so simple, but no, you gotta hit that price point). So use an underlayment under the pan to catch the oil that will miss the pan for a variety of reasons.

Have a spare drain plug (or two) on hand. Its great to have a clean one with the new crush washer handy to seat when you pull the drain pan, while the one that was on the car just got dropped into the oil pan when you started draining. So you can rotate the two plugs over oil changes.

When using the torque wrench and the allen key bit on the drain plug to tighten, be carefull to make sure you have the key seated FULLY in the drain plug. For some reason likely related to the weight and length of the torque wrench vs the normal socket wrench, I was able to undo the drain plug with a normal socket just fine, but when I tried to seat the key with the torque wrench it didn't/wouldn't fully seat and and I partially rounded out the drain plug. I managed to do that to BOTH of my plugs and then finally got the getter one of the two in after working for a bit to seat the allen bit. Advice here is with the removed plug and the allen bit seated fully, use a rotary tool to score where the key is flush to the face of the plug on the steel. This way you can visually see when under the car, if the key is fully seated down in the plug before you try to tighten things. (I'm now ordering two new drain plugs, ugh).

Mumbles

^ Good write up Minok.



Is there a maintenance reminder to re-set in the computer ?

Minok

There is a maintenance reminder to reset.

The dealer does it right with the PIWIS.

The Durametric software, as far as I know from a year or so ago, cannot reset the maintenance interval to a specific value (of miles and time, which is what you would want the software to do) but only resets it to the maximum miles/time for the computer. So for the 997.2 it set it to 2 years/20k miles (even though what you want is 1 year/10k miles, or maybe 1 year/3k miles if its almost time to replace an air filter, belt or some other part on a different schedule).

For what its worth, my recent oil change with the very long oil drain...
The manual on the 3.6l 997.2 engine says an oil+filter change requires around 7.9 or so quarts of oil.
I put in 6 quarts (don't want to overfill).. test drove. Bottom line was blinking (ie not enough). Added another quart. (7th full quart)
Next day, giving oil chance to get in the pan, drove and at home checked again, still bottom line blinking... added another quart (8th full quart).
Following day tested level now and its showing about 2/3 up on the oil live indicator.. i.e. I still have an empty bar before I get to the top full mark, and that still allows for the topmost (overfull) mark.

So 8 full quarts of oil gets my 3.6 in the middle of the range.

So a full oil and filter change seems to be at 8 quarts, not 7.9. I expect a 8.4 quarts would get me to be 'full' but my target is never to be 'full' but just be in the middle of the readers range.

Important Note. I've been told the factory manuals have a specific process for doing oil changes that includes a way of detecting if the oil level sensor system is bad. Ideally you would use this general approach as a way of also checking that your sensor system is working right (to prevent you unknowingly running the engine dry because of a faulty sensor some day). There is another thread that talks about this on this form HERE

You cannot rely solely on the oil level sensor to know when its full, in case it has failed. I sorta follow that process. If after the full 8 quarts (given the manual said 7.9) I would have been looking at a reading that allowed another full quart without getting to overfill, I would have taken the car to the dealer to check for a problem with the oil level sensor. The proper process would likely have been to put in the 7.9 quarts and that would have had the oil gage display show a very specific bar reading, to validate the accuracy of the sensor system. Since I didn't want to measure out 0.9 quarts, I just put in 8. I've taken note of where the sensor reading is, so in the future, I expect it to also show that reading.

So its important to make sure all the oil is well drained, put in an exact amount, and then use your head and the engine capacity to fill it up and not just keep adding oil until the sensor system says the level is right because you may end up badly overfilling the engine.

request: if someone has access to the 997.2 shop manuals and can tell us what the display readings should be for a 3.6 and 3.8 l engine after you have a fixed # of quarts in the engine, that would be very good to have in the archive here.

bob hoern

Do you have a part number for the filter for the 997.2? It is thicker than the 997.1.