Anybody use an oil extractor?

I see Griot's Garage has one for $95.

Eastwood has one that is similarly priced.

HF has one that is a little more.

What do I want?

Since I like to spend my money at Amazon, here is another one. I like this one. It is metal construction and has an 8 quart capacity.

EDIT: a possible downside with this one compared to a plastic tank one is that there is no way to see how much oil has been pulled out. In a case where you want to add just what you managed to pull out, this would make it hard to determine how much to add.

How about Mityvac 7400?

Fluid pump

How about one of these things? Basically a drill pump without the necessity of a drill.

I don't own anything with the oil filter up top. Both Korean cars, the bike and the truck all have them down beside the drain plug.

Bobzilla wrote: I don't own anything with the oil filter up top. Both Korean cars, the bike and the truck all have them down beside the drain plug.

This was my question - I would love to take the oil out the top, but I still have to crawl underneath and fight with the oil filter. and that's generally the messy part anyway.

In reply to Robbie:

I am interested in using one to change the oil on a jet ski and a boat. There is not much access from the bottom.

It looks like specific recommendations may not be coming, so I guess I'll pick one and order it and see how it goes. I figure any of them will work.

I have a Mittyvac one that I used with great effect but for some reason went back to crawling underneath. It works great. I think that it's just that when I change the oil I do other things like check bushings and inspect stuff. I'm going under anyway so I pull the plug. It saves me having to empty the vac and clean it.

There's not really a lot to one of these (i.e. hard to berkeley up making one), I'd probably go with the big air powered HF unit (the manual ones require a lot of pumping) or one of the tall cylinder units.

I've got one of the smaller (2 qt?) air powered units, I think it's a Mityvac.

While I don't use it for oil changes (I've got a lift), having a vacuum extractor around is handy for plenty of other things. I've used it to suck up oil left in a top side oil filter housing, clean out master cylinder fluid prior to a brake fluid flush and deal with diffs with no drain plugs (thanks BMW).

I've also used a time or two on acquaintance's cars when they didn't think they were getting a good brake bleed pumping the pedal.

So, as a follow-up, I bought a Mityvac 7400. It is a manual pump version with a 7qt capacity. I used it for the first time yesterday to change the oil on my new jetski that needs its first oil change at 10 hours. It was really easy to use and the only thing I would change about it is that it would be nice if one could reverse it to use as a fluid dispenser if only to get the old fluid out of it without having to pour it. I know some of the other Mityvac models as well as other brands offer this and I didn't think I would need it. I guess I don't need it, but it would be useful.

The only other thing is that I ended up buying one with a translucent plastic tank so I could see how much oil I extracted to provide a guide on how much new oil to add. I can in fact see the oil level but the tank body is not really calibrated or marked in any logical fashion to be able to get a good indication of how much fluid is in it. There are some random and vaguely indicated levels but it would just be a guess to try to figure out what level the numbers correspond to. I doubt I will ever use it on any of my cars since changing the oil is about the only time I crawl under them and I like taking a look for anything amiss while under there and 3 of the 4 cars I'd still have to crawl under to get to the oil filter anyway.

In reply to Reed Cooper :

I wonder how well they work on canoes? I too just hate getting oil on my dress when I work on cars.

Since this old thread got brought back up, I am still happy with the Mityvac 7400 I bought 4 years ago, but I only use it to change the oil on my jetski. Haven't tried to suck oil out of a car with it.

I have a compressed air powered Mity Vac too.   It never worked out for brakes (I believe pressurizing the master cylinder works much better).  It has always worked very well for a general fluid evacuator though.  No gasoline though.  I’ve read that that’s a no no with a Mity.

EvanR said: MoPar 2.2? From the top.

Yeah, my '86 Chrysler Executive is like that.

Lets keep it going. Been thinking about getting one of these. Even if I still have to go under the car and pull the plug, it'll save me from doing the oil pan to waste oil bottle transfer, and probably make the under car work a lot cleaner.

After looking at a couple of youtube videos, I made one up for nothing using just stuff around the house.  A shop vac provides the suck.  You use one tygon tube from the vacuum to a solid container (a large glass jar for me) and another tube from the container that is stepped down to a fairly narrow hard plastic tube that you insert into the sump.  The tube to the vacuum is inserted through a hole in a 2 liter soda bottle/cap that you insert into the opening of the vac.  This thing emptied both of my lawnmowers in no time.  There are several variations on various videos.   

I've got the Bavarian Auto one that ECS sells.  Hooks up to my air compressor and it's the bomb!  I *love* it!  The oil filters on the Golf R and the Cayenne Diesel are up top in the engine bay, so an oil change takes all of 10-15 minutes and is super clean and easy.

I love my manual pump one.  I keep the empty oil jugs to pump the oil back out of it into the empty jugs for ease of disposal.  Mine has a reversing valve on the side.  Not sure on the couple above user that had to pour theirs out.