FloTool 5060TSMI Topsider Extractor Multi-Purpose Vacuum Oil Change Pump for 4-Cycle Engine, ATV, Boat, Large Vehicle, 8-Quart, Blue

I'm one of those guys that prefers to change his own oil... I always have since my dad taught me. I like buying quality oil, quality filters, and knowing that the job was done right. Does changing your own oil save you time or money? Probably not. But do you get the satisfaction of knowing you put high quality oil in, that your filter wasn't over tightened, and your drain plug wasn't over tightened and/or stripped? Yes. The problem for me is... I rent, and now that I don't live near family, I don't have any place I can go to jack my car up and drain the oil from underneath. Even if I did, then I have to deal with a messy drain pan. Where am I supposed to store that in my apartment? So I just recently found out that products like this exist and you can suck the oil up through the filler tube. A lot of people worry that you aren't getting all of the oil, or that it doesn't get all of the contaminants that settle to the bottom. Well - I did a lot of research, and what I found indicates that this way might even be BETTER than the traditional method of draining oil. The product came in a small box and is a lot lighter/smaller than I expected. It holds up to 8 quarts. It was super simple to put together and use. It took probably 15 minutes to suck up all of the oil from my car, and I did have to pump it up a few times toward the end... but it worked great. I dumped the old oil back into a container and I got almost a full 5 quarts (which is what my car takes). So, it definitely didn't leave any behind. The beauty of this is that you can screw the provided caps on, and store the oil without having to deal with transferring it from a drain pan into something else. This particular oil evacuator is not as popular as some other brands on Amazon... but I liked that this one was made of metal. The downside is that you can't see how much is in it, but that doesn't bother me. I was nervous that the plastic tube wouldn't fit into the dipstick of my Chevy Sonic, but I had no issues with that at all. All in all, I highly recommend this. Time will tell if it lasts, but for $60... this product allows me to change the oil in my car without spilling a drop. This means I can do it in the parking lot of my apartment complex. I'm quite happy!

I own a few cars (4 at this given moment, just between my wife and I) and, while I don't mind oil changes, I don't particularly look forward to climbing under the car, getting burned by oil, etc. I actually stumbled upon the Topsider after looking at numerous other options, none of which had enough capacity to handle the 9.5qts from my 2004 Audi S4. I first tried it on my 2005 Lincoln Navigator but the hose was too large to fit all the way down the dipstick tube so it wouldn't work. This wasn't a huge issue for me because I had to get under the car, anyway, to change the oil filter. Today, I used it to change the oil on my wife's 2004 Mini Cooper S. I followed the instructions - clamped the hose, pumped it 40 times, stuck it down the dipstick tube, released the clamp and waited to hear bubbling. It was honestly that simple. What's funny is the Mini was only supposed to take 4.7qts of oil (5 was OK) but the previous owner must have overfilled it and the topsider removed about 6 qts - all very effortlessly. I can't wait to use it on her 2001 BMW 330i or on my S4 - should make the jobs much easier. Even though it didn't fit the 2005 Navigator I still gave it 5 stars because it will make life so much easier, overall. I've already recommended it to several friends and one friend is borrowing it to do his 2003 E320 tomorrow. Very excellent product. ===== UPDATE 3/11/2015 I've been using the Topsider for about a year now during which time I estimate I've performed between 10 and 15 oil changes, plus a few buddies borrowed it for a few oil changes. I am still as thrilled with this product as the day I purchased it. Like other users, the little plastic clip began to weaken and wasn't holding like it previously had, so I decided to build a shut-off valve myself and I couldn't be happier. I went to Home Depot and picked up a ball shut-off valve, a few couplers and some hose. Now there is zero loss of suction and no more clamping of hoses. I recommend this to all my friends and family, it's a terrific product, well made and immensely helpful.

These siphon units on Amazon are all cheaply made. This one from topsider is the only one with metal, hard to topple over because its a wide base canister AND all the fittings are on TOP of the unit. All these design choices together adds peace of mind that you will not accidentally spill used oil everywhere. The others on the market are missing at least 1 if not 2 of these design elements making them inferrior. With that said, the gauge of metal is not the best, and its hard to tell the strength of the vacuum, which seems to be a consideration since the manual forewarns you many times not to over pump the unit. So I was careful not to pump it too much because you are flying blind. Also, because its all metal design, you cannot tell how filled it is. I had to just go by weight. I held 5 quarts in one hand and this filled unit in the other, and you can tell theres more than 5 quarts in this unit. Very crude but works well enough. the fittings are less than perfect fitting and I lacked confidence when assembling the hoses. I just couldn't tell if I had pushed them in well enough. There is no satisfying click or full connection. You just have to push the hoses together "as far as you can make it go" and then see if it can pull a vacuum. Lastly, you only get one set of hoses, caps, and gaskets. At this price PLEASE include SPARES in an orange back and zip tie it to the handle. Mark it as "SPARES" so that when you go to use it again, you know you have all the piceses you need, even if you misplaced something from last time. We are talking pennies here, for a night and day difference in your diy experience. At the end of the day this is a great solution, and definitely works. Took me less than 30 minutes to do the oil change my very first time doing ANY oil change of ANY kind AND assembling the unit. And even then a good amount of the time was just waiting for the suction to siphon out the oil. I highly recommend. Especially if you have a Euro car, because everything including your filter is accessible from the top of the engine. We are talking 10-20 minute oil changes for cheap, for life. Really great.

Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. This time I lost. Before buying this tin slag I read reviews and came away generally impressed. There were quite a few folks that had some good things to say about this. I even watched a you tube video of some other jeep enthusiast who used the device over and over. He was quite diligent in his "pseudo" transmission service. He vacuum the fluid out with this Topsider then filtered it through a coffee filter then poured it back into the fill spout of his jeep. Over and over until he was satisfied he had virtually flushed his transmission. I was impressed yet a little concerned over some of the other reviews. Namely the reviews that said this thing is junk and doesn't create a vacuum. Honestly I thought it odd that some folk had such a great experience with this product but the folk whom didn't ALL had the same problem. Just didn't create a vacuum. This was one of those purchases I immediately regretted after proceed to check out. It was like the earth stood still while the gods of fate moved around boxes in the warehouse until they were sure that I would be the sucker to receive the bad can. Literally, I could hear fate whisper in my ear. "Hey dummy, hows it going? You looking forward to your Topsider? hahaha, of course you are. Good luck with that." As soon as I realized it was a true hahahha and not an innocent heheheh I knew I was doomed. Granted all this happened in a fraction of a moment. In just the time it took for my brain to register yet another one star review about this thing not creating a vacuum. By the time I received the email notification from Amazon that my order was processed, I was already shaking my head with total clarity. I knew precisely my spot in the universe at that moment. I should have cancelled the order right there but in that moment, that intimate moment where I was being strong armed by fate, I became insane, thinking I would get a different result than the last sad sack who wrote the last 1 star review. Nope, my result wasn't different. It just doesn't work. The o rings are made too thin and flimsy. The have zero sealing capability because they cant withstand the pressure of twisting on the pump and separate cap. Poor design. In my case I have taken the dissatisfaction one step further right to the pump. This thing cant even find a seal on a beach let alone in a plastic bag and good lord forbid it find a seal in the tank. Yup fate handed me a broken pump and a poor excuse for a product. Yes I placed the oil drops in the oil hole. yes i pumped enough times yada yada. I was temporarily insane. You might even say I was the sucker in this transaction. Simply stated, in my experience this will not work. I went shopping for a "sucker" and found out the only sucker in the house is me. Sucks to be me.

Awesome product! Never again will I have to raise, remove belly pan, remove oil plug to drain the oil from my 2000 VW TDI! Simple, quick and clean. It makes oil changes/car maintenance a love affair again. This product is so much better than the plastic versions available at department stores and is....made in the USA. Oil and filter change finished in about 15 minutes. I would recommend this product especially to those whose engine oil filters are located on the top-side of the motor. VW TDI Mk IV owners (as well as top-mount oil filter autos) who do their own oil changes - this is a must have. P.S. - What I call "belly pan" is not the oil pan - but a plastic shield covering the underside of the engine and acts as a sound dampener on VW diesel motors. Also, put a little grease/ petroleum jelly or oil on the o-rings/gaskets! This will help ensure the vacuum/seal. Before using the pump I read the reviews posted here. I followed the instructions to the letter. Additionally; I put petroleum jelly on the gaskets, insured a proper fit to the siphon & pump handle ports on the reservoir, tested the integrity of the vacuum/suction before use. Then I proceeded wth my oil change and was careful when using the pump: 1. Hold the pump cylinder with one hand; 2. the other hand for the pump handle. You will feel the resistance build while pumping as the vacuum increases - so use good judgement on knowing when to stop pumping. I pumped it 30 times then I felt the vacuum was sufficient - it was. The device worked perfectly! But the reviews here do have a point - it is fragile at the caps (pump cylinder & hose) - so use caution. Be careful, follow the directions and it will work fine. It was worth the $50 I paid for it.

I picked this pump over several others, because the oil does not contact the pump gaskets. Other reviews mentioned how these type of oil pumps lose their seals when contacting synthetic oil a few times. I changed the oil on a 1991 ZR-1 Corvette; it takes 8.6 quarts and I was using Mobil 1 10W30 synthetic. Time to withdraw was 35 minutes. As stated in their own instructions, the main issue people have is creating a good seal for the pump and hose which are both screwed on to the tank with rubber gaskets. As per the instructions, I placed some oil around the gaskets, just like an oil filter, to improve the chances of a good seal. I still heard the hiss of a leak and only could stop it by cranking on the pump's screw-on base with a strap wrench. The good news is it did get every last drop of oil out, but this was with approximately a dozen breaks to create more vacuum with 25-35 strokes each; that's a lot of pumping! Although I stayed on my feet during the oil change, it was a bit cumbersome to use. The pump handle does NOT fit the hand well, because you are supposed to hold the shaft of the pump with one hand and pump with the other. Shaped like a "T", you cannot spread your fingers on both sides of the handle without risking a pinch of the fingers in the middle on a full downstroke. I can understand how some say "it's easier just to pull the drain plug and get it over with". I am keeping it, however, and did order a 3/8" ball valve with barbs on each end to replace the comical plastic "pinch" valve. One helpful hint is that they ask you to measure the insertion hose against your oil's dip stick for length and mark it. Use a piece of lighter colored tape (painter's tape, etc.) to encircle the extraction hose and make this mark obvious, because once you start drawing oil, your Sharpie marker line will be indistinguishable from the rest of the line.

This is a tool that I should have purchased a long, long time ago. I've been changing my own oil for about 12 years now and this is such a clean, easy method compared to dragging a pan under the car and draining the oil from there. Especially for those home-mechanics that have to work outside where a gust of wind can ruin your day (ask me how I had to wash my parking lot neighbor's car when I was changing the oil on a truck 7 years ago)! The construction is pretty solid, the vacuum pump feels substantial and looks like it can take a whack or two from a clumsy user. I got about 5 quarts into the pan from the car and it looks like you can get a bit more in there with no issue. Quick hint: There are two tubes and a spacer included in the vacuum hose - one tube is a thicker, flexible clear plastic tube and the other a thinner, more solid and opaque for inserting into the dipstick. The instructions say to get soapy water and insert the thinner tube into the black plastic spacer, then insert both into the clear tube. It's actually a lot easier if you use the hot water trick: First, heat up a pot of water on the stove, just enough to see the vapors rising and maybe a slight simmer. Shut the heat off, then quickly (for no more than 3 or 4 seconds) dip about a half-inch to an inch of the end of the clear plastic tube into the water. This will soften the clear plastic and allow you to slip the thinner tube and spacer combo into the end of the clear tube easily. Let it cool and it should have a solid, leak-free fit. In summary, if you're the kind of person that insists on changing your own oil but accidentally spills enough oil to make the EPA declare your driveway a superfund site, buy this immediately. I changed the oil 15 minutes ago and have literally a drop of oil that hit the pavement thanks to me not paying attention to a drip coming down the side of the oil filter. It's the best standard maintenance tool I've owned since my first wrench, and it is worth every penny.

This oil extractor is well-made, with a steel body. From reading other reviews I knew the hose might be too large to fit down the dipstick tubes on my vehicles (Ford Explorer, Dodge Caravan, both with V6 engines), and unfortunately this was the case. The hose fit down the dipstick tube, but there is a constriction at the block that is too small to allow the stock hose to get into the oil pan. However, another reviewer said that Air Power America would send a smaller hose on request, so I went to their website, customer service, and filled out a message form explaining the problem, mentioning the smaller hose, and including my address. A few hours later I received an email saying they had shipped a smaller diameter hose for free. I received it two days later via first class mail. That's great customer service, though it would be better to simply include the smaller hose with the extractor. Other reviewers mentioned that it took a lot longer to extract the oil with the smaller hose, so I carefully measured the distances on both vehicles and used about a foot of the small hose just to get from a few inches above the constriction to the bottom of the oil pan. The small hose fits snugly into the stock hose, which I also cut to just a few inches longer than necessary to fit down the dipstick tubes. This maximizes the flow rate. I also read that the hose clamp tended to reduce the flow rate by making permanent dents in the fat hose, so I discarded the clamp. I simply slid the hose down the dipstick tube and started pumping, and the oil started flowing. No need to complete the pumping before starting the oil extraction. The fat hose was long enough to allow the pump/tank part to sit on the driveway, so gravity assisted the oil flow. I should have let the engine cool longer though, the fat hose softened and collapsed somewhat towards the end of the process. It only took 10-15 minutes, and judging by the amount of fresh oil it took, I'd say it essentially got all the old oil out. This was very convenient and a lot easier than the jacking, crawling, and mess of the usual process. I didn't change the filter, will do that every other time from now on.