Schwaben Oil & Fluid Extractor Review

Fluid extractors – do they really work? I’ve been getting a lot of questions about ECS’s Schwaben Fluid Extractor that I’ve been using to do my oil changes and figured this review has been long overdue. Before some of you make assumptions and call me stupid for using this, let me explain a few things.

The reason why I got this pump is because my oil drain plug is stripped and stuck in there for good (courtesy of the previous owner/shop they took it to). I didn’t really feel like blowing a bunch of money to replace my oil pan, so I looked into alternatives.  There are few different pumps out there, like some fancy electric ones with no manual effort involved, or hand pumps. Considering I had no other options for an oil change for less than $1000, I decided to give ECS’s extractor a try.

To address everyone’s number one concern of “does it really get all the oil out though?” Close, about 95% it. If you are thinking about purchasing one of these, you need to understand this will not be as effective as your traditional oil change method of getting under the car and letting it spill out. I can confirm that it gets most of it out because if it didn’t, doing our previous Oil Leveling Sensor DIY would have sucked.  I was honestly surprised to see that barely any oil dripped out when I removed the sensor and expected it to be more messy of a job.

By the time it extracts 90% of the oil, you will have to do some manual pumping to get the remaining 5% out. How thorough you want to be in your pumping is up to you. If you really want to get 99% out, you will be in for a good arm workout.

The best thing about this extractor is that it makes oil changes so much easier – it literally takes no more than 10 minutes. No need to get down on the ground, jack up the car, find torque specs for the drain plug (18 ft-lbs), etc. The primary compromise as I mentioned before is that the extractor is not as effective as the traditional drain plug method. This is because it may not capture any particles or debris that may be in your oil. Remember that you are suctioning it dry, and hoping that the suction will capture the fluid and debris together as it goes up into the tube. If there is not enough pressure to suction it up, it will be left dry in your engine. By comparison, the drain plug uses the fluid’s downward momentum to sweep up any debris on its way out so you get a cleaner flush.

If you’re like me and care a lot about keeping your car healthy, but you’re also kind of lazy, you need this extractor. I would recommend rotating the usage of the extractor 2-3 times, then doing a traditional oil change every now and then to clean it all out. I have found this to be useful to do last minute track prep, and you can also use the tubes for other fluids or suction purposes.