I’ve been wanting an oil extractor. Anyone I know who has one sings its praises like nothing else. You slide the plastic tube down the dipstick channel, pump out all the oil into the container, and you’re ahead of the game. No messy oil collection trays. No fouling of drain plugs. And no laying on your back to finish the job. So I ordered one from Amazon, bought oil and a filter at O’Reilly’s, and set out to effortlessly change the oil in my wife’s 2016 Mazda CX-5.
The specific one I purchased is the EWK 6.5-liter Oil Extractor (if you buy one using that link, btw, we get some dough… just FYI). It’s a tidy and simple system that even I can’t mess up. It comes with the fluid containment vessel, three tubes, and …that’s it. There are two ways to extract the fluid. You can manually pump it out or hook up air to pull it out pneumatically. I just stuck with the manual method and it was fine, but I imagine the powered air method is pretty sweet. This version, oddly, doesn’t come with a cap to seal it up when you’re done, which is stupid. But the cap is also on Amazon, and I ordered that too.
I pulled the CX-5 into the garage, popped the hood, pulled the dipstick, and started pumping. A few minutes later, I had sucked out all the oil. So it was time to now remove the filter. And I assumed this would be easy enough to reach… because I’m dumb. It is easy, but there’s a plastic panel that needs to be removed first. And for proper room to do this, I had to lift the nose of the car up. The plastic panel is held in place by two 8mm screws and a plastic rivet that pops right out.
So while the extractor made removing the oil a much easier cleaner affair, I still had to get down on the ground to finish the job. If you have a top-mounted filter, this would be the perfect solution. Or, like on my Montero, the filter can be accessed without lifting the truck up, that’s a bonus too. Really though, not messing with the oil pan drain plug is a bonus. If for some reason, I didn’t fully tighten it, cross-thread it, or just generally fuck something up, I would be down a vehicle. So this extractor is still extremely useful and I’ll definitely keep using it for future oil (or other fluid) changes.
Once the CX-5 was finished, I lugged the container down to that aforementioned O’Reillys which recycled the oil. It’s a far cleaner vessel than the standard oil catch trays I’ve used in the past. Next time, I’ll try hooking up an air line to see what that’s like. Either way, despite still getting under the car, I’m sold on this extractor. If you want to check one out, click that link above.
