Oil leak from filter housing

[aaronjb]

Well .. it's under the car, which is fairly sensible there's even a hatch in the undertray to get at it.

And if they'd made the hatch about 1" bigger all around, it would actually come out through it without getting stuck and tipping all the oil out into the undertray

[Nick W]

My BMW is the same - when you try and pull the filter & cap out through the little service hatch, the filter will invariably become detached..

You can, however, just about wiggle them both back in again as a unit to avoid the filter getting crushed. Once you've cleaned all the oil off yourself, of course, that came out of the filter housing.. (there is a drain bung on the filter cap, actually, but it is almost always seized in..)

Didn't they put it somewhere sensible, like on the previous v8

The M50(and derivative) engines put it vertical at the front of the head casting. Vauxhall's 1.0l triple is the same, as are other engines. This arrangement makes sense as it's easy to remove the cap, change the filter without making any mess, and reassemble without any issues. Replacing a horizontal spin-on filter with a large, separate, poorly located casting to hold a paper filter is an underengineered solution to a problem that did not, and still does not, exist.

[aaronjb]

The M50(and derivative) engines put it vertical at the front of the head casting. Vauxhall's 1.0l triple is the same, as are other engines. This arrangement makes sense as it's easy to remove the cap, change the filter without making any mess, and reassemble without any issues. Replacing a horizontal spin-on filter with a large, separate, poorly located casting to hold a paper filter is an underengineered solution to a problem that did not, and still does not, exist.

I loved that location on the M3 - made oil filter changes so easy. Of course, if you try and be all clever and 'pre fill' the filter with oil you, er.. well I would have just filled the sump, had I not also left the sump plug out at the time 

[Nick W]

The M50(and derivative) engines put it vertical at the front of the head casting. Vauxhall's 1.0l triple is the same, as are other engines. This arrangement makes sense as it's easy to remove the cap, change the filter without making any mess, and reassemble without any issues. Replacing a horizontal spin-on filter with a large, separate, poorly located casting to hold a paper filter is an underengineered solution to a problem that did not, and still does not, exist.

I loved that location on the M3 - made oil filter changes so easy. Of course, if you try and be all clever and 'pre fill' the filter with oil you, er.. well I would have just filled the sump, had I not also left the sump plug out at the time 

that's the disadvantage - ignoring operator error - the filter is a long way from the pickup and pump. I'd go for an external, crank driven pump next to the sump with a spin-on filter hanging off the pump housing. Like an XE Vauxhall