Stuck Oil Filter on 4.0L...Godzilla works for Toyota!

Gave the Taco her 1st Oil Change today (5,001 mi). Went to the store and got the required bit of hose to drain the oil filter and was set to go. Drained the pan and then went to remove the filter....NOT! Maybe it requires one of those top fit wrenches, but the old strap style wrench I have simply started to collapse the filter and it wouldn't budge. Thought of the old school remedy of poking a big ass screwdriver through the filter to get it off, but figured with the filter draining down that wouldn't be a good idea. Ended up pulling off the Engine Cover which let me get my custom filter wrench (18" 90 degree offset Rigid Aluminum Pipe Wrench) on the filter and very carefully pop it loose. Is it common for these filters to get very tight, or was someone in the engine area way overboard when they installed this one? Then again, are they maybe just making the shells of the filters so thin that they collapse with the old narrow strap type filters?

 

oe filter are all tight for some reason. even if torque to spec.

 

I typically spin mine til it stops and then snug it less than 1/4 turn. When it's time to take it off it's like an ape crawled under the hood.. Idk why it gets so much tighter, but yea it's common.

 

Thanks....must be something with the 4.0 and where / how the filter sits. My 4.7 on the Tundra uses the exact same filter and I have never had an issue with it. Definitely seemed like a really big ape had tightened it up!

 

Drove a screwdriver through mine

 

Mainly because, unlike most aftermarket filters, Toyota filters seat against the block with the metal of the filter. Aftermarket filters seat mostly with a rubber seal.
Here:

VS

100% agree. Best filter tool available and they are super cheap. All the Toyota techs (in Halifax) use them.

 

I use one of those filter removers that I call Hat or Cap Style, fits similar to the one shown above.

 

My 1st oil change after I bought it from the dealer.
Next oil change I bought that clamping style socket type one above. I use the Fram or mobile 1 oil filters now too.

 

The reason why filters even from factory are "overtightened" later on is because of all the vibrations the engine naturally produces continues minutely spinning the filter tight until it's time for the oil change, so by the time you go and try and remove it at 5 to even 10k miles, you are using a breaker bar to remove it. Lol.

That's why I spin on the filters until a little past snug these days, it will tighten itself in time and I don't wait til 5 or 10k to do my change for that reason additional.

 

Shouldn't 50% then spin looser?

 

50% what?

 

+1 on this.

 

50% of the filters installed.
I was being an asshole because physics won't allow something to spin tighter unless there is force applied in that direction. A force like a fastener on a rotating assembly.

 

Lol ahh I gotcha on the asshole card!

If you think about it that way though, it's not a physics thing, it's more a fluid hydraulics thing. Can't loosen what is tight, seated on a flush base and under oil pressure when running. Similar to installing a lock washer on before a nut on a fastener to prevent the nut from loosening itself due to the pressure being applied by the lock washer.

 

Safety wiring is the practice of wiring nuts, bolts, filter anything that can thread off because those tightened items can come loose while racing. So tightened items can come loose.
If somehow the filter got tightened by expanding of fluids, I don't know. But that is a far cry from the completely wrong statement that a filter tightens itself by vibrating tighter.

 

I change mine by hand. No wrenches, screwdrivers or other tricks. It's not a v6 though.

 

I actually have both styles but prefer the Cap for use on the Tacoma.

 

If that's what you want to think, who am I to convince you otherwise? I know that every time I have went over 5-6K since my last change, my filter is always much tighter than it originally was. Usually by a significant margin. Then again it could be attributed to the whole contraction/ expansion of metal when heat/ cold cycled over a long period of time the more I think about it, so now that you mentioned that small piece my mindset on WHY it is tighter later on is a bit more open to that ideal.

Maybe the vibration actually does have nothing do with it, rather temperature.

 

What this guy said.

It's just that first filter - I remember mine on my '15, as well. Some say it's put on ridiculously tight by a machine during assembly.

It has nothing to do with follow-on filter removal / changes. It's insanely tight from the factory.

The above filter wrench is all that worked for me. I do now have a collection of filter wrenches, though.

I still go with factory Toyota filters. It has nothing to do with how they seat.