Let me start off by saying although I'm not a professional mechanic, I have decades of experience doing DIY repairs and maintenance to to all sorts of vehicles, and I've literally done hundreds of oil changes on my vehicles as well as friend's vehicles. The only incident I've ever had prior to this was stripping the threads on an oil pan when I was young and assumed that "if tight is good, tighter is better" :-)

This is my first DIY on change on the Countryman as we are now out of the free maintenance period. Before I started the job I did watch the oil change video several times that Sweet Pea posted elsewhere here and on Youtube, and it's just about as clear and concise as it can be.

But dang am I struggling with getting the oil filter cap off and on!

I struggled to get it off...had no problem getting it loose, but then it just did not want to come out. There's not much maneuvering space in there. Kept running back in the house to watch Sweet Pea's video looking for a clue.

And I struggled even longer getting it back on. Just could not get it in the right position for it to correctly start threading. Finally thought I had it, and even used a torgue wrench to make sure I tightened it the right amount.

Started the car, and for the first few seconds everything seemed good, but then got a oil pressure warning message.

So now there's oil all over the place around the filter, and a couple of quarts if not more on the garage floor!

There must be some sort of trick to getting the filter cover lined up and threaded properly. What is it?

 

suspect the cap is damaged or the oring is damaged or displaced. The way that oring is configured it should not need to be torqued to seal.

Be sure to wet the oring with oil when you put them on..

 

...and hope to he!! you didn't cross thread the can. That is an expensive fix. There are horror stories in this forum about such and THE reason I bite the bullet and have it done at the neighborhood BMW/MINI independent.

 

Thanks for the responses.

Looks like the threads on the cap are damaged. I suspect the dealer did this while doing the previous oil changes, which would explain why I had all the trouble getting it off, but then again I can't rule out that I caused the issue myself.

Hopefully that's the only issue.

Judging by some other posts I found in the Gen 2 area of the forum, looks like this is a common problem (Gen 2 cars use the identical part), and therefore the dealers stock the part, so hopefully I can pick one up tomorrow at the dealer.

Dorman makes an aftermarket replacement that Autozone sells, but none of the local stores have it in stock. And I saw two Amazon reviews for the Dorman part which say that the quality is far inferior to OEM, so assuming I can get an OEM one quickly, that's what I'm planning to do.

 

Good luck with that. Some non OEM stuff is just fine like brake pads and tires but there are parts that just can't be as reliable.

 

Always thread the oil filter canister in by hand before doing the final tightening with the ratchet - if it doesn't easily thread in, back it out and start over.