First oil change on my 2011.
Bought my LC last November with a little under 50,000 miles from a Toyota dealer in southeast Texas. It was a trade-in on a new one. One owner, clear carfax and the dealer had service records since it was purchased and maintenanced there.
First, took off entire skid plate to check everything underneath. There are 3 pieces in the front covering the bottom of the engine. You only need to take off the driver's side to change the oil.
I will skip the oil change basics. Unless anyone has questions about it...we can definitely discuss.
Here are the Important details I want to mention/share:
1. I put on a different housing which was suggested here on the site. The housing is aluminum, made for the Venza (I believe). It is identical to the black plastic LC/Tundra 5.7 oil filter housing in every way except you have to change out the part the filter slides on in the middle of the housing due to its length difference (see pics). In my opinion, the aluminum looks better and should be better quality. Also everything else around it is already aluminum so not sure why the black plastic was chosen for this part in the first place.
2. I used a drain tool for the filter housing sold on Amazon which I believe saved me some trouble in regard to getting the oil out of the housing before unscrewing it (see pics). Every replacement filter includes a little plastic piece which is used to stick into the filter housing to drain it of the oil inside before unscrewing the entire filter housing. These work, but seems people were getting a little messy when I watched YouTube and read other articles. So I decided to get this screw type to assist in this task. There were a few people knocking these for being too slow or not letting all the oil out. I didn't have that problem. Got it on fast, got all of the oil out and went on to take off housing. No trouble at all.
3. I used a filter housing wrench designed for the job. This tool is great and you can't remove the housing without it (see pic). I recommend using a socket with it, not just a ratchet. I do feel that if you have a stubborn housing you could break something due to the need of some extra torque when loosening. I have also read that this happened to others so I just avoid that.
4. I made sure to scrap off the drain plug washer off the outside of the oil pan and replace it with a new one.
The oil change took a while since I was tinkering with things a lot and finding the best approach for each task. From jacking up only one side of the vehicle to resetting the oil change reminder, it was all pretty simple, routine work. All in all, it was a success. I did fit 8 quarts of oil in the motor.
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