czirrfb3

He has obviously worked on all kinds of cars besides just diesel I mentioned he personally owns nothing but hondas I mentioned his current occupation because he is smart enough mechanically to acquire such a job with a reputable company so I trust his opinion when it comes to working on cars.

You cloud be a master chef but working at an Asian restaurant doesn't mean you only can cook asian food.

cosmomiller

Never too late teaching an old dog new tricks.

hirev

I just have too add my 2 cents...been doing my own wrenching since 1967, my first car. This Honda, and every car I have ever changed the oil on, that's 27 cars...I have hand tightened the filter and drain plug. NEVER had any issues or leaks from these spots. I also do the valve cover and valve adjustments without a torque wrench. Everyone has their own way I guess. And the thing with the oil filter having number on it....on this thread...was brilliant, a very good way to teach anyone how tight the filter should be. I just did my change, and because the guy who did the one before me was good at what he did, I had no issues getting the pan bolt off or the filter off, without a filter wrench. I have had this car since 10/03, new. MANY oil changes, valve adjustments, etc.....

engifineer

And on all the other cars you DONT want to use a filter wrench to tighten, because they are designed differently. This filter is made to tq a lot tighter.

On the street under normal use, you likely will never see one issue. At constant high revs, high vibration and high oil pressure it can back off if not tightened enough, spray oil on the header and you can stand on the side of the track and watch your car burn to the ground because "you have always tightened other filters by hand".

So, 99.9% of the time you will have no issue. But that other slight chance warrants the 30 seconds of extra effort to do it the right way.

And as I stated you do NOT tighten other car oil filters that tight unless you want to destroy them removing them. So this should not apply to other vehicles unless stated so in the manual.

There is a reason you read the spec when you work on something new, rather than saying "well my old 71 chevy worked this way, so my new honda must as well". And there is a reason Honda spent the time to put a spec AND indicators on the filter to show how to do it, since the car has a filter designed to be tightened more than the average vehicle. Kinda silly to think that was just for fun and that they did it for no reason.

engifineer

An extra .5 turn makes a LOT of difference. Go read up on clamping force and how you calculate it. Why do you think it is so much harder to turn that far by hand? Because it produces a lot more clamping force. And unless he has worked on an S2000, which has a different filter design that EVERY other honda on the market (hence why their filters are universal for all models other than the S2k) then he does not know any more about it than anyone else

Chuck S

Never known anyone who trusts or can even hand tighten an oil drain plug. I have to use a wrench.

-- Chuck

windhund116

Guys...

To OP, just follow factory wishes. It will not hurt your car... Really...

cosmomiller

I sincerely hope you will continue to have an unmarred experience. The fact you have remained problem free up to this point means nothing but you have somehow remained problem free. If you maintained this attitude in the aviation field as a mechanic ( "no one has crashed so far from me disregarding published maintenance procedures") you would be fired in a heartbeat and I would be the first to give you the slip.

This filter and installation procedure does not exist for grins and giggles.

windhund116

Reminds me of the old adage, "When all else fails, read the instructions."

jyeung528

this could be accurate, because my memory certainly is not.

honda actually sent out a sticker with the revised torque spec and asked us to stick that over the original torque spec in the owners manual.

if i remember, i'll bust out my owners manual and see what it says. this had got to be about 13 years ago, so my memory possibly out of wack.