Originally Posted by LR2driver

Of course, they use shop lifts to raise the car. I suspect that emptying the oil pan from the drain plug leaves a fair amount of oil in the bottom of the pan since the plug goes in horizontally, not vertically at the bottom as with some other vehicles.

Originally Posted by LR2driver

I pulled the trigger on a Mityvac #7201 8.8L extractor (Amazon link). I also considered buying a different unit, the OEMTools #24397 9.5L extractor, as it has a slightly larger tank. But I decided to go with the Mityvac since it's a more popular brand and I thought I'd have an easier time finding parts, if needed. The price on this Mityvac moves around on Amazon, so you can set an alert to try to catch a price level that works for you.

I used it this weekend to change my oil without any drama. There are several Youtube videos demonstrating how they work, so I won't repeat all those steps here. But I'll mention some points beyond what I read online:

- There are two clear vinyl hoses that connect to each other. One goes into the dipstick tube and the other goes into the extractor. They are each five feet long for a total of ten feet, which is plenty long. The larger dipstick hose provided is 6.6mm OD which fits into the LR2 dipstick tube perfectly. I could feel it bottom out on the floor of the oil pan.

- I discovered that the rubber union which connects the two hoses is not permanently attached to one of them, as I thought it was. It fell off but luckily not while I was extracting. So I just pushed it back in and secured it with some Gorrilla tape.

- It requires ten pumps for a strong vacuum to extract the warm oil. I had to pump again after 4 quarts filled the tank. I stepped away to do other things while it was extracting, so I did not time exactly how long it takes to capture all the oil. But I would estimate a total of 10 - 15 minutes including the additional pumping required.

- Based on the markings on the tank, it extracted a little over 8 quarts. Before extracting, I loosened the oil filter cap so it would drain into the pan. And I topped off the oil level to the full mark last week. So the extraction volume is in the ballpark for what I expected. The fact that the hose hits the bottom of the oil pan when I pushed it into the dipstick tube was reassuring.

- This unit has a feature where you can reverse the flow and dispense liquid from the tank. But I found it easier to simply pour the oil into my recycle jugs from the spout at the top.

PROS

- You don't have to raise the vehicle, change your clothes, and get under the car. You could do this wearing a tuxedo.
- No messing with the drain plug in an aluminum oil pan.

CONS

- There is cleanup time involved. At the end of the job, I ran a mixture of water and Dawn detergent through the hoses to clean them.
- This is another piece of equipment to store in your already cluttered garage or closet.

In summary, this works for me. I'm a renter and have assigned parking in a lot with limited space, so this is a convenient solution. But if I had a garage, I might be just as happy doing a gravity drain.

Also, this is not a time-saver. The cleanup time for the hoses offsets time saved not having to raise the vehicle and go underneath. So I would say that extraction and gravity drain methods take about the same amount of time if you consider the job from start to end.

The real PITA for most oil changes is changing the filter, which is always fun on the LR2 trying to snake the filter cartridge in and out. It's much easier if you remove both the Power Steering reservoir out of the way (to the right) and the Windshield Wiper Fluid neck filler (to the left, remove one 10mm bolt). Also, I wore a welder's sleeve to protect my arm from the hot components as I reached in.

I'll be changing my oil & filter more frequently now. I haven't decided yet if I'll go by mileage or the visible condition of the oil.

Originally Posted by PoppyAnn

I use to work in a HGV garage and a owner driver came in and asked if he could watch/help (he wanted to make sure the oil was changed along with the filter) i told him that he would hardly notice the difference in how the oil looked between before and after we drained all of the oil and left it to drain for close to 2 hours then put in new oil and filter ran the truck found our circuit then checked the oil he said if he had not watched me change the oil plus filter plus clean the inside of the filter housing he would have believed that we had not changed it as the new oil looked almost as dark as the old oil had i said even with flushing the engine then changing the oil it was almost as bad, to get clean oil would take flushing the engine several times to get most of the dirt out as the particles are so fine they get through the oil filter if you have a centrifugal filter fitted that can catch most of them but the problem with it is it removes the additives in the oil as well which makes using a expensive oil a wast of time, in the army we were instructed never to clean them which stopped them working just to prevent them stripping the additives out of the oil.