Anyone still use magnetic oil drain plugs?
- Thread starter RonK
- Start date
Not a gimmick, but I'm not sure how useful they are. The mag plug does capture iron & steel particles too fine to be caught in the oil filter. I just changed the oil in our Prius Prime, and I wiped an expected small smudge of gray particles off the magnet, and I've seen the same thing on other cars I've used the mag plug in. I don't know how many miles were on the engine. The Prime is a plug-in hybrid, it goes 25 to 30 miles on the battery before the engine starts, and there is no record of actual engine miles or hours. Oil drain intervals are 10,000 miles of combined electric and gasoline operation. I'll drain the oil in the CX-9 in a few weeks, and I'll have my first look at the magnet then.
What about these "no-mess" oil drain systems? Would something like this clear the access panel on the cx9? I guess you leave this in place and attach tube when you want to change the oil.
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I've seen these kind of oil-draining systems used for lawn tractors because the drain valves are usually pointing out parallel to the ground (making it difficult to get all the oil out without tilting the tractor) instead of the normal car oil pan port pointing downward. But this is being used as an adapter to transfer the oil out to collection with cars now.
