Frustrated... Who's done their oil change themselves please chime in...

[John VonJeep]

This just makes me love the cartridge filter on the 3.6 even more. What an ordeal.

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[oceanblue2019]

hand tighten and 1/4 turn. no more.

Factory - hand tighten then 1/4 second on the impact trigger.

 

[music293]

If it’s useful to anyone, this is the type of oil filter wrench I use. Can’t recall if it’s this exact one, but the setup is the same…

 

[wranglerbro]

So after reading several threads it seemed like a good idea to change the oil in the 4xe and I only have 2.5k miles. Get the metal particles out and put fresh oil in. I'm not leasing my Jeep and want to keep my first Jeep for a long time.

So mind you I've changed the oil in maybe what....30-35 different cars and never had any issues. This Jeep made me so frustrated and look so stupid I have no words for it other than a sore shoulder (rotator cuff) and not looking forward to tomorrow. Regardless, I drained the oil and started to take the oil filter off and couldn't.... Okay I'm not He-Man but never had a problem taking one off with my hands. So fine I look for an oil cap that fit it. After checking the ones I have I don't have one. Let's go to Autozone and nothing. So after a couple of trips I just bought one of the metal strap oil filter wrench. I couldn't quite get a good grip with it without slipping. So what do I do...??? Also why the hell is it no coming off? Only thing I can think of is that it's under pressure and the factory didn't seat the oil filter on before threading the damn thing on. So okay I used to punture the oil filter to relieve the pressure and it should be easier to take off. Nope nothing works. I even tried vice grips and making a lip to turn the oil filter off. Nope doesn't work. Fine puncture the oil filter and use the screw driver at this point to twist it off. Nope. Other than a bloody mess of oil and mess up oil filter housing I have nothing to say to the Jeep. It was starting to get cold outside so I put away all the tools and start ranting to myself where my kids are looking at me thinking I went off the deep end. At one point I brought the wife out to look at it and make sure I wasn't going to the wrong way. I even looked on YouTube to make sure there was nothing special like counter clockwise threads and I couldn't take off a damn oil filter...

At this point I'm lost. I'm ranting on here to vent my frustration but also to hear if anyone who's done their own oil change, especially with the factory installed filter and had any issues...

The only thing I can think of to try tomorrow is to get one of those silicon pad to open jars and try to take it off my hand and if that doesn't work, wrap the oil filter housing and use the strap wrench again.

Even if I get it off somehow short of cutting it off, I'm sure there's something wrong with the threads and it will be my word at the dealership in the future against a factory installed filter to get any warranty work if it involved a new transmission housing since that's where the oil filter screws onto....

TLDR: New owner looked stupid because he can't get the oil filter off. Too stupid to let the dealership do his oil changes.

After finishing my first oil change on the 4xe, I am now convinced Jeep hired Thor to install the oil filters at the factory. What a PITA!

 

[MJKid88]

Just saw this thread now.

I've owned nothing but Jeeps since 1988; most were purchased new and I've always done my own oil & filter changes.

With that said, I've never struggled so much to remove an oil filter. For a while, I thought that I might need to have it towed to a repair shop to get the rest of the filter off.

I would recommend taking advantage of the Wave program and have the dealer do the first oil change.

 

[Jhawth]

Lefty loosy righty tighty, if that doesn't work I'd get a blow torch, a hammer, and an ice pick.

 

[Shasta_Steve]

Did my first one two days ago. It was tight but came off pretty easy all things considered. I had intended to let Jeep do it but after showing up for my appointment I was told it would be 2 hrs to change the oil and 3.5 hrs if I wanted them to rotate the tires too. Changed my own oil and will be using a different dealer from here on out.

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