Seize the Day, Not the Oil Filter
This article is based on first- and second-hand accounts, manufacturer guidance, and personal opinion. This Article may include affiliate links to a third-party vendor.
An oil change is the most basic maintenance task of any vehicle with an internal-combustion engine. On most cars, it’s pretty easy. On Aston Martins, it’s not too difficult but there are some extra steps or obstacles to know about. For example, when changing the oil in an early V8 Vantage, the 4.3L engine has a pair of oil bypass filters (sump plugs on the 4.7L engine) that are easily overlooked if you don’t know about them. Even if you do know about them, the bolts securing the bypass filter covers very often strip and can be a major hassle to remove. Using a specific tool almost entirely mitigates the stripped-screw risk, but… I digress.
What shouldn’t be much of an issue during an oil change is removing the oil filter itself. Sure, in many instances it may be difficult to get a firm grip on the filter due to packaging and tight spaces, but an oil filter wrench can make quick work of that.
That is… so long as the oil filter hasn’t seized and is stuck to the engine.
I recent got an email from one of my customers asking for advice about how to get an oil filter off an engine when it was completely stuck, along with this picture.
He said it looked like the shop had over-torqued the filter and he tried every tool he had to get it off, eventually resorting to using a Dremel to open it. It’s a pretty gruesome image and not something you want to see, especially if it’s your car!
Here’s what I recommended to get it sorted:
1) Use a hex-head bit to remove the oil filter adapter. The remnant oil filter will come off with it.
2) Clamp the bottom portion (the part with the holes) of the remnant filter in a vice as securely as possible.
3) Use the hex-head bit to spin the oil filter adapter while the filter remnant stays locked in place by the vice. (Make sure you're spinning it the right way so it's loosening the filter from the adapter/as if loosening the filter from the engine.)
Doing that should have separated what’s left of the oil filter from the oil filter adapter, and then he’d be back on track and able to finish the oil change. However, he later responded saying the oil filter and oil filter adapter wouldn’t come loose, it was stuck in a way he’d never seen before, so he needed a new oil filter adapter. We got one ordered in for him, and he also gave me permission to use his picture and this experience for an Article. (Thanks, Rob!)
At this point, I have to say that I haven’t personally had to obliterate an oil filter to get it off an engine. I’ve come really, really close, but not to the point of what Rob had experienced. The thing is, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this so I kicked the picture over to a buddy of mine and asked his thoughts. His response was immediate:
“I bet you anything they didn’t put oil on the rubber gasket before installing the oil filter.”
I always figured that was part of it, but he said he’s seen this a few times as well and it’s because they didn’t lubricate the filter when installing it and probably over-torqued it as well. Personally, given the oil filter adapter was still stuck inside the oil filter even after it was removed from the engine, I think it was a combination of both.
Preventing This From Happening
As scary as this looks (and is, if it’s happening to you), it’s entirely preventable. The picture below is my 4.3L V8 Vantage Oil Change Kit and it shows the rubber gasket that’s embedded in the oil filter.
The first thing to do is to lubricate that rubber gasket to prevent it from seizing to the engine. It doesn’t take much and it doesn’t have to be anything special - just use the engine oil you’re already using to give it a thin coat of oil. It shouldn’t be dry, nor should it be dripping wet. It just needs to be slick enough so the rubber gasket slides easily and smoothly against the metal of the engine as you install the filter.
The second thing is to properly torque the filter when installing it. I try to include torque specs in my DIY Guides when I can get them, including for engine oil changes. However, sometimes there aren’t any torque specs. For example…
The oil filter cap torque spec for the 4.0L twin-turbo V8 engines is a very specific 25 Nm (18.5 lb/ft).
The oil filter torque spec for the 4.3L and 4.7L V8 Vantage is a somewhat less specific range of 15-18 Nm (11-13 lb/ft).
The torque spec for the large white oil filter used in the V12 engines is… “hand tight.”
Seriously, that’s direct from the Workshop Manual.
Of course, the concern here is if the oil filter isn’t on tight enough, it can leak oil. If it leaks enough oil, it can cost you your engine. It can be intimidating if you’re not sure what constitutes “hand tight” and I often tell people if they aren’t comfortable with a job, have a shop do it. But, in Rob’s case…. it may have been the shop that caused the problem.