dry start after oil change ......

how many of you put oil in your oil filter prior to install when perfoming an oil change . why or why not. myself ive totaly negleted to do this thinking that not all the oil in the cyl walls has drained to the oil pan in the short time it takes to change da oil & filter. so whats the real deal. tell us what you think.

 

I do not because its very hard for the V6 oil filters to hold oil when turned upside down compared to the 4 cylinder.

 

I do it, but it's not a big deal and I don't worry about it on engines where the filter is inverted or horizontal.

Pressure comes up quickly, and the engine is not under load.

 

I put about 6 oz of oil in the filter. Enough to soak the filter media and have some in the filter. Have noticed that the oil pressure light goes off right away on first start. I feel it is one of those it can't hurt things. On a horizontal mount I would put in just enought to soak the media, a oz or two.

 

It's a good practice to fill the filter first, but it won't hurt anything if ya don't.

 

I have always put oil in the new filter as long as I have been doing oil changes, it's just how I learned to do it and it helps build oil pressure much faster than relying on the oil pump to fill the new filter before any pressure goes into the lubrication system. I fill the new filter with fresh oil as soon as I start getting the stuff ready for the oil change. The filter media will soak up a fair bit and I top it off again before actually installing the new filter. On first start after the oil change, the oil warning light turns off almost immediately... I know this is not saying much since the light only comes on when pressures are dangerously low, I just like it a lot that the light turns off so quickly when the engine is first started after an oil change.

Like Rich and Tacomathom suggest, it's probably true that nothing will happen if you don't fill the oil filter. If not doing this was creating real problems, we would be hearing/talking about this issue much more, and it would probably be stated with flags and all kinds of warnings in the owner's manual.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about not pre-filling the filter. Even if you don't pre-fill the filter, all the bearing surfaces will have an oil film on them so there will be some short term protection.

On some engines it's impractical or impossible. For example, newer Subaru engines have the filter mounted upside down. The old 22REs had the filter mounted sideways and many of them are still running strong.