Stuck oil filter tip

Hi everyone, (1st post) having spent a few years benefiting from the wealth of knowledge and time other people give to the forum, i think I can give a little something back for a change.

Just spent >8 hours trying to remove the oil filter (yes I did lube it before it went in before) I tried something I haven't seen on the many posts and videos I have watched. I had already tried a strap wrench and three different oil filter extractor tools which resulted in a partially crushed and leaking filter that still wouldnt budge. I was about to try more destructive methods but I thought i'd give this a try.

Using a long metal pipe I carefully poured boiling water from above to run round the rim of the filter hoping it would expand a little and maybe soften the crusted oil that was gluing it in. Happily it worked and the filter unscrewed (relatively) easily.

Hope this helps someone.

Good result, never heard of undoing it like that before but it worked that's the main thing.
Don't do the new filter up so tight this time.

That's a great tip! I remember the first time I changed the filter on my 90, I think it had been put on using a 12ft extension bar - whatever happened to hand tight for oil filters?! Thanks.

Handy to know, getting the oil filter off my 2.5 petrol last month was quite the chore.

I initially went at it with a G clamp as I'd done before on previous cars but it wasn't budging. So off to euros to get one of those three claw filter wrenches (for free because of another mistake of theirs)... I thought it'd be easy with that but absolutely not, ended up having to get multiple extensions and a 2ft breaker bar on it. No idea how long the old filter had been on there as it certainly hadn't been changed recently. The new one was put on hand tight only!

Good to know. Remember to put Sikflex on the threads of the new one