Bought a 2003 recently and took it in today for the first oil change under my ownership. Lube techs showed me the drain plug and explained that whoever had done the previous oil change cross threaded the oil drain plug and stripped it. He told me they tried to use an oversized drain plug and that it did not work, so they ended up using a "last-ditch oil plug", i.e. a universal winged oil drain plug. Is there any harm in just using that plug as long as there are no leaks? Or do I need to go through the effort to drop the oil pan and replace it at my next oil change interval?
Stripped oil pan drain plug
- Thread starter jimmypeod
- Start date
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Trunk Monkey
Moderator
Those are intended as a temporary fix.
FYI just know dropping the pan is more complicated on these than it should be due to the internals/baffles that extend into the duckbill shaped lower pan. IIRC there is a crossmember or something below tbe pan that prevents simply dropping it, too. Just something you’ll want to examine before committing.
If it's no longer leaking, it's a okay and I wouldn't take it back out, I've been sucking the oil out via the dipstick tube using a fluid pump and it gets out as much as pulling the plug (way more convenient too I reckon).
I suspect mine (2003 lx) also at some point had a similar issue. I tried to install a fumoto valve and realized the threads wouldn’t work. It seems like it had a helicoil installed at some point. I would love to change out the pan to fix it, but as mentioned above…it’s no small task. I only do my own oil changes and am very gentle with the bolt now to try and keep it working. So a helicoil type solution might also work.
