1st X3 Oil Change at 7500 Miles

[jwbekens]

Did my first X3 oil change today. Hayuku's pictorial was helpful. Got a 36 mm socket for the filter cannister off ebay, but I found them for the same price at Advance. The X3 takes 6.6 quarts of oil, a quart less than an X5. When I bought the oil at the dealer, the service tech told me they put in 6.9 quarts routinely. The stiffening plate on the X3 is so far from the oil drain hole that using a torque wrench for the drain plug is near impossible with the X3 on a set of Rhino ramps. (Torque wrench handle hits the ground unless you have VERY tall ramps.) Yet another reason to get a fumoto drain plug. The drain plug area is well protected by the stiffening plate is way up in there, so a nipple drain plug has an extremely low chance of getting stuck on something if you are going off-road.
Oh, there was no crush washer on the drain plug from the factory. The old filter looked exactly like the one in hayuku's pictorial (pretty filthy). Glad I changed it and the oil.

Jon