The extractor tube length cant be to much longer than the dipstick length can it?

 

It's plenty long

Shove it down till you hit the base of the pan and get sucking


Here it is in action. Sucking from the base of the oil sump.

 

i was referring to length of tube you need to stick down the hole before you hit bottom. So you dont feed to much tube in and get things bent and stuck.

 

Yeah. That's the tube shown. It comes in 3 bits that you can use depending on your needs. It's far longer than the depth to the sump. No measuring needed. Just finesse/shove it in till you hit bottom. There's oodles of tube to spare. I only need two of the three pieces.

It's fairly rigid so won't just bend back on itself without a real deliberate effort. You'd need to be trying very hard to bend it. Not sure how it would be even possible to put a kink in it.

 

Repair complete. The dealer tried everything at first including putting a coat hanger type rod down the tube to straighten it out, no luck. Heated the engine up, tried to twist it, took some parts off the side of the engine to get better grip, nothing. They were a little afraid of breaking the tube off real low in the pan and having a missing few inches in the pan which would be a complete disaster They decided to drop the pan on the dipstick side about an inch and used a hook to straighten out the tube so they could extract it.

5 hours labor + taxes etc came to a $1,000 lesson. Sure hope my wife isn’t on the forum, I told her it cost me 2 extra oil changes which is technically accurate.

Stong lesson for the DIY oil changers out there, mark the extraction tube at the length of the dipstick plus maybe one inch and go no further.

 

l've changed the oil twice using the Mityvac vacuum pump and each time l've pushed the tube down the dipstick hole until it won't go any further.

lt comes to a definite stop, not sure how much further than the length of the dipstick.

Never had any issues. But after reading the above l will take more care next time!

 

Any pics of your mighty vac? I might have to change my oil since my dealer will not service my 2013 RRS since it's >10 years old. That's unheard of.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience, and sorry about your expensive lesson. Education is expensive they say...

 

I would not be so terribly obsessed with getting every drop of oil out, because you can't. Really there is no point in getting it all either. Many fail to remember there are oil coolers, transmission/oil coolers and miles of line in the system. All have oil left in them, not to mention pooling under the rocker covers. You really don't even have to change filter more than every other time (reference Toyota). Oil systems are closed off now and have been for decades. They used to get crud in them from the atmosphere, but not anymore. Yes they would help if your engine is making metal, for a little while. Eventually why you are making metal with cause your engine to fail (again, reference Toyota). The main reason for changing your oil is to get rid of the blow by components that get into your oil (why it turns black). Oil keep this in suspension, but it is way too small to filter out. Why it is called dispersion oil. As for lubrication, most modern oils with synthetic bases can go well over 50,000 miles. It is the pH change and other issues with the blow by for the change. I suspect the reason you can go an incredible amount of time with the "Special Land Rover Formulation" oils: buffers. Buffer, as you remember from that chem class you slept through, keep the pH in a narrow range. Preferably a range that is not corrosive to the materials in your engine.

Bottom line, don't obsess with getting it all out, you can't, no matter how far you shove the tube down there. Even drain plugs leave oil in the pan. They typically have a lip or are on the side. Leaving 5% of the oil in there will impact nothing.