Rocketeer changes the oil in his Fiat

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Every 7000 miles or so, my 2016 Fiat 500–which I just love to drive–pops up an “oil change needed” message, with an annoying yellow reminder light. This morning I got up, put on my grubbiest clothes, and headed down to the garage to do battle.

Whoever designed the oil drain plug and oil filter installations on the Fiat 500 1.4 liter engine should be horsewhipped. To access the oil drain plug, you have to remove a large tray from underneath the engine compartment. The purpose of the tray, I believe, is to catch the oil that you spilled trying to do the last oil change.

The drain plug is reasonably accessible, but directly below and a bit aft of it is a suspension crossmember. Without intervention, the stream of oil would hit the crossmember and run along it before dropping to the ground, creating quite a mess on your garage floor. Fortunately, I thought ahead and made a simple v-shaped trough of a piece of sheet aluminum to wedge into place above the crossmember and guide the oil into my catch basin. Unfortunately, due to a minor oversight in the design of the trough, the oil ran out both the aft end of the trough as intended, where it missed the drain pan I had placed there, and out of the front end of the trough, where there was no drain pan at all.

The oil filter installation was worse. The oil filter cartridge clips into a deep cup which has external wrench flats. The open end of the cup screws onto the oil filter boss on the engine, sealed by an o-ring. The cup, of course, is plastic; my experience with car stuff in general says it oughta be good for maybe 90,000 miles before it crumbles into dust. The filter is on the front right-hand corned of the engine, and is theoretically accessible from the top. Or it would be, if those blasted Fiat engineers hadn’t put an air-conditioner line, a wire harness, and the fill spout of the windshield washer bottle in the way. And you have to get it out so you can replace the o-ring.

I could just barely get the damned thing out if I unclipped the a/c line from its moorings, which gave me a vital half-inch more space. (12mm for our metric friends.) I figure the clip, which is not really designed to be constantly unclipped and clipped, has about two more unclip/clip cycles left before it breaks.

I’m going to tell Mrs. R that my greatest ambition in life is to visit the Fiat factory–and punch the lead engineer in the nose. :wink:

You might recommend that I take it to a dealer to have this done. I’m sure they’d change the oil, but there would be every incentive for them to ignore the filter and just lie to me that they’d done it. (I read the other day about a Prius owner who took his car to the dealer religiously to have his oil changed. They never did it at all, lying to him every time for years. When his engine blew up, they wound up in court.) And no way for me to check, short of maybe putting a blob of toothpaste on the filter cup’s wrench flats to see if it’s been disturbed. (You can tell I spent my whole post-oil-change shower thinking about this.) :slight_smile:

Summary: great little car, stylish and fun to drive; pain in the patoot maintenance-wise, though.

2

You’ll get used to it. Second time is always easier.

My 1980 Fiat is the easiest car ever to change the oil. The filter is right up front, hanging vertical, so when you unscrew it, not a drop is spilled.

Love that car.

3

Actually, it’s my third time changing the oil, but a merciful Nature blots out my memories of it. :wink: (I don’t commute, so oil changes only come up every year and a half or so.)

My old Dodge Omni had the oil filter sticking out of the front of the engine block. Plenty of room around it and very easy to do. That was the Chrysler 2.2 liter engine, no air conditioning, no power steering ==> no clutter. First car I ever bought new. Pored over the literature for days, ordered it from the factory just the way I wanted it.

4

I might also mention that replacing the cabin air filter, which is super simple on my daughter’s Honda Fit (swing the glovebox down, unsnap two catches, filter slides right out) is a half hour of fun on the Fiat (remove two interior panels–one screw (stripped) and two push-in “christmas tree” fasteners; remove cover plate–two more screws; wrestle filter element out past a wire harness conveniently routed right smack-dab in the way. Installation is the reverse, except now the christmas tree fasteners aren’t as tight as they used to be :frowning: .).

5

I hear you, Rocketeer. Hats off for perservering.

I did my own oil changes on my previous vehicles, but as much as I love my Pop I admitted defeat from the get-go and took it to the dealer for every oil change. Even when I was a skinny kid I couldn’t have squirmed around in tight spaces you’d need to negotiate in the new models.

It’s funny that you should post this because at this moment I am at a dealership for an oil change, and not the original place because that closed permanently, which I discovered when I drove up at six forty-five in the morning. Now I’m waiting with the hoi polloi at a big catch-all Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep/testosteronemobile dealership instead of at the fancy “studio” down the street. Oh well, at least there’s decaf coffee and the wifi is free.

6

My 135i has a full under tray beneath the engine. Fortunately, it has a convenient little flap with a quarter turn fastener right below the oil drain plug. Unfortunately, as I learned during my first oil change, the access hole is just a little too small. The oil blasts out the drain hole and at least half the stream is blocked by the flap. Part of that flow then splatters everywhere, and the other part rebounds back up into the under tray, only to ooze out of any of a dozen other exit points.

My Lotus had an undergrad that ran the full length of the car. Fortunately there was a joint so you could remove just the engine portion. It that still required removing nearly 30 screws of three different sizes. Getting the tray back in place when done was a treat as it was thin, lightweight aluminum and thus super flexy. It required both hands, the forehead and at least one knee to get everything lined up.

Worst was my Miata. As I recall, you needed hands sized like a five year old’s, but with the grip strength of a pro arm wrestler. The filter was on the back of the motor with minimal side clearance and juuuust enough room to clear the firewall when unthreaded, but not a millimeter more.

Asshole designers, all of them.

7

Our first-generation Miata with the 1.8 liter engine had the oil filter hidden away on the side of the engine, right above a crossmember and below a bunch of other stuff. Almost completely inaccessible. I actually looked into getting a remote filter kit, but our car had an antilock brake module where the remote filter wanted to go.

8

I have once taken one car to a dealership for an oil change. It is my '18 Impala with the 3.6 L engine. This is because the first two oil changes are free. It doesn’t look like the third one will be too hard, except for one thing- the oil filter is parallel to the front cylinder bank catalytic converter. It will definitely be a get it on the ramps and let it cool operation, since I see no way I could avoid touching the cat! It really is that close.

9

Aww… I thought this was going to be another model.

10

I misread the thread title. I thought you tried to change the oil in your flat!

I didn’t realize they made Impalas back in ‘18.

11

The world agrees with me. The other day I was poking through sites selling Fiat accessories and stumbled on an aftermarket machined aluminum oil filter housing. For $275. :eek:

12

If you’re determined to change your own oil all the time and the drain hole is in a relatively protected area, invest in a Fumoto valve. You won’t regret it.

13

Move into the new century! The '19s are out now!

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One way to make the oil changes easier is to get a hand pump vacuum device that will suck the oil out from a tube inserted through the dipstick. You’ll still have to deal with the filter, but at least you won’t have to crawl under the car each time.

I’m usually disappointed at how poorly modern cars are designed to handle repairs. I know they have to pack in a lot of stuff to get maximum performance, but often it seems there was no consideration to making things easy to repair.

15

There is no consideration for making repairs easier, only assembly. If automakers cared about your cost of ownership BMWs wouldn’t cost a fortune to fix.

16

Dipstick. Heh, what a quaint concept. My car, you gotta warm it up for ten minutes then scroll through the configuration menus to get to the electronic oil level readout. One of those things that you can only hope it’s correct 'cause there’s no real way to know.

17

Rocketeer, you should make one of your models of this.

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Rocketeer changes the oil in his Fiat in his flat! Recursive right down to your model bench with a tiny little Fiat in a tiny little flat.

19

Mercedes, by chance?

20

BMW. I ranted about the too-small hole in the undertray above. I bring that up not to shame you for not memorizing the contents of this thread, but because I want the opportunity to gripe about the horrible design decision they made and the resulting grief I got for splattering oil in our driveway.