Is it necessary to pre-fill the oil filter?
 

For the people who do there own oil changes - do you pre-fill the oil filter before putting in a new one?

Yes, but dont over fill it or you will spill and make a mess

Okay but since our filter's are "upside down" wouldn't it start leaking regardless when you go to screw it back on?

It's not necessary. But what you can do with manuals, not sure about autos, is when you finish changing your oil and top it off, before you start it push the gas pedal all the way down and turn it over for 10-15 seconds. Or, if you have an oil pressure gauge, crank it until you get oil pressure. The car will not start when the gas pedal is depressed all the way. Again all this is unnecessary but yea if you want to you can do that.

Try moving the filter in circles so the paper filter absorb the oil, and place as quick as you can

Pre-filling an "upside-down" oil filter, such as the ones on the twins, will not do much except potentially make a royal mess. Whatever oil you manage to keep in the filter while installing will drain down into the sump before you start your car, depleting your oil filter of most of the oil. The rest of the oil will be wasted making your engine bay a slippery, smelly mess.

Should you wish to soak the oil filter before you place it on the engine, I would pour out the freestanding oil before installing the filter. That said, I, and many others, have never had an issue installing a dry filter onto our respective cars.

The only thing I make sure to check following an oil change is that my oil pressure light disappears in a reasonable (<5 sec) amount of time following initial start. I'm not sure what I would do if the light remained on for longer than 5 seconds or so, but it would probably involve talking to a professional mechanic.

You know, my friend's , cousin's, brother, dad's uncle, once read the the oil filter instructions and miss read lubing up the o ring for filling up the oil filer with oil.

The Subaru/Toyota service manual doesn't say to fill the oil filer with oil. So I think you'll be ok with out oil in the oil filter.

I'll second, third, or whatever, the don't sweat it crowd. Most that could be said has. A couple of things I would suggest, which you almost certainly do already are 1) change the oil while the engine is warm and 2) start the engine and do leak check immediately after you refill and check all the caps, drains, filter, etc. That way you maximize the residual oil in/on the various whirly-bits and lessen any "cold start" lube starvation.

Well, yes.

Now, how much oil do you think the filter would hold, if you pre-filled it, then turned it over to drain so as it doesn't spill all over the engine compartment ....:popcorn:

In addition, if you start messing with the oil/filter and get the filter/your hands all oiled up ...... how in the heck are you going to get an accurate "hand tighten" twist on it .... ??

Back in the day ...... back in the day ...... I can't remember ....... OH! ....that's because most cars didn't have oil filters ...... :bonk:


humfrz

Assuming you warm up the engine, no.

Your engine warmup would've coated the engine with enough oil to last through the oil change with a dry filter. Restarting the engine would have no damage.

Don't overthink this.

-alex

Serious answer:

No need to fill the oil filter. If you want to be careful about oil, you would be better off using jack stands to change the oil when the car is as near to level as possible, as opposed to using ramps. See my post #99 on this thread:

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11734


Embarrassingly bad and REALLY WRONG answer that I couldn't resist giving:

That's why I change my oil with the car upside down. That way the oil filter is in the correct orientation and all works as I want it to. :)

Presumably the Aussies are OK as is?

That's what I do, I run a bit of oil on the o-ring (ensures proper seal of oring?) and that's it, never had any issues with a "dry" filter install

Wow! That must be way, way, way back in the day. I have never seen a car without an oil filter... :D