People Who Need To Be Beaten To Death

When I bought the BMW I knew it needed both a new battery and on oil change. No problem I said. Easy as pie I said. I do that all the time I said. How hard could it be I said.

Yeah.

First off, the battery. The battery is located under the back of the gas tank. In order to access it you must remove the left side fairing. I wasn't aware of that and ended up removing the entire fairing.You can see the battery just under the back of the tank. It's the black rectangle with the white sticker on it. There are approximately 700 screws holding the fairings on. Different sizes for the various locations of course. Plus we don't have a BMW dealer locally so I had to order it as well as the oil filter. Ok, bad but I can deal.

Battery replaced it's on to the oil change. The drain plug is easy to find and access. The filter not so much. See, the filter is recessed into the bottom of the engine case. Like so. None of the filter protrudes. It's entirely buried in the engine case.

To remove it requires a special BMW oil filter socket. Which I do not have.

Now, Car Guy kindly reminded me that K&N oil filters have a nice handy 17mm nut grafted to the bottom for easy on and off. Luckily, the new filter is a K&N so if I could just get the old one off I'd be pooping in tall cotton.

Easier said than done, which brings me to the certain someone(s) I'd dearly love to beat to death. Anyone who puts on oil filters with breaker bars and tightens them so tight that it's nearly impossible to get them off short of a fully equipped repair shop needs to die a slow, fiery death.

I've had to do this before, remove a filter without the proper wrench and it never fails that those put on by shops and oil change businesses are put on by the ham handed. Oil filters are supposed to be hand tight, no more. See, they have what's commonly referred to as a 'rubber gasket' which does the actual sealing. Torquing it down to space shuttle specs is not required. It is in fact contra-indicated and if I have to hunt all of you oil wrench gorillas down and drown you in vats of used two stroke motor oil to make that point I am perfectly willing to do it.

After a solid hour of sweating, grunting and swearing I finally got the mangled remains of the old filter off and finished the oil change. It was tight. I mean Nun Twat tight, not to be indelicate about it. What is supposed to be one of the easiest vehicle maintenance tasks possible took me almost 3 hours.

The BMW is now back together, buttoned up and running like a fine Swiss watch. Well, maybe a German cuckoo clock.

No thanks to King Kong the oil change guy. Beat. You. To. Death. Write it on your sloping foreheads.

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