I am a single mom on a very tight budget. My daughter and I both drive VW diesels. I would like to change my oil myself. Somewhere I remember seeing a kit that included a pump to remove the oil. Both of my cars have metal skid plates and it would be so much easier to do it from the top! Thanks in advance for any recommendations you might have.
I myself use the Pela extractor and you basically need to watch the video. Pretty much the procedure is same for most TDI cars. Make sure you find out proper capacity of your particular TDI motor. Peter at
www.idparts.com sells a nice oil change kit that makes it pretty easy. If both of your cars are
2003 tdi cars, then you'd be able to use the same oil and in this case any other oil stating that it meets VW spec
505.00 would be fine. If you have a
TDI 2004-2006, then you would need an oil meeting
505.01 specification. If you have a newer
common rail TDI (2009 to present) you would need a
507.00 vw spec oil.
Again if you would call one of our vendors such as
www.idparts.com you will be guided to the right course of action.
But by all means read the boards and ask questions. Some people have had great luck with Mobil 1 TDT (turbo diesel truck) oil which is relatively inexpensive at around 20 bucks a gallon. However, I would not use it with the new common rail diesel. But of course read up on this subject as the Mobil 1 TDT is not a VW approved oil, but has some other important approvals.
Remember to be careful in tighting the oil filter cap as it does not need to be torqued to smithereens. With my Passat, I torque the oil cap to 18 ft pounds. If you choose to drain the oil be careful with the drain plug as it only needs 22 ft pounds. If you over torque, you could strip the delicate oil pan threds.
Below is a video on how to change your oil using a Pela.
http://pics2.tdiclub.com/video/cincitdi/oilextraction.html