# fuel filter: to do or not to self do



## pandrad61 (Jul 8, 2015)

my dealer wants 45$ in labor for my cruze fuel filter + the parts cost. seems a good deal for avoiding getting on my back and doing a 2hr change as the write up here suggest. at that price would you have them do it or is it fast enough to do yourself?? this is the question.


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

It's honestly pretty easy to do yourself. And the filter itself has dropped severely in price. I think I spent $70 on the filter the first time and it was like...$25 this time - they commonized it with the 6.6L.

The worst part about it is determining what to do with the excess diesel that comes out. Mine is still sitting in the drain pan from February. I need to start putting it out in the sun to slowly evaporate while I am outside doing the lawn.


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## pandrad61 (Jul 8, 2015)

from the write up it is easy enough i can do it. heck easier then other jobs ive had to do. unfortunately i work 4 days a week 12hr shifts so very burned out on days off. either way i have to pay the part but is 45$ savings worth the effort or for the 45$ better off waiting in the cold ac (Florida sucks) eating a Chevy provided muffin lol. also they charge 45$ for a oil change using syn dexos 2 oil plus free tire rotation. i figured have them do it all at once to save me the trouble ( i do my own oil usually but being stuck with dexos 2 until warranty is up it comes out the same buying the oil vs them doing it. once warranty is up a delete kit is on and rotella t6 for life)

also did you buy the filter from parts dept or online for 25$ that price seems very reasonable for every 33k miles


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## IndyDiesel (May 24, 2015)

I would probably do myself. Not sure I would use rotella even if deleted. I have been getting dexos 2 Pennzoil for less than 18 dollars. It’s not a hard job if you have a nice break over bar and the correct socket, but it is dang hot in FL in the summer. good luck, either way get it done, I went like 41k miles on my first filter, about ready to do again.


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## pandrad61 (Jul 8, 2015)

why not a fan of rotella? when dad use to drive rigs it was most folks go to, relatively cheap by the gallon and easily available. Pennzoil does a dexos 2 oil? my parts store dont carry it. for 18$ ill do my own oil lol. i have a breaker bar but the huge socket not so much, one thing that keeps me at the dealer is that i have 100% proof i have kept the severe maint schedule done. my tranny flush done, brake flush done. i plan on passing the car down but if ever the day i need to sell, hoping with all the proof i can ask for a better price.

im at 33k miles and mine says to do fuel filter, i expected a bit more but ohh well.


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

Pennzoil Euro L is Dexos2, and carried by Walmart.

Even with a breaker bar, I have not been able to loosen the drain plug. The dealer must put that thing on with a **** impact.


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## pandrad61 (Jul 8, 2015)

a dealer not using proper tq spec never thought of it lol. ive never used penzoil in the long run so not sure how it is quality wise. ive always ran castrol gold bottle in my cars, or rottella t6. my Walmart dosent have it ill have to check the newer one they built.


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

A lot of people have run it on here. I plan to whenever I get around to getting that drain plug out. This oil change, it'll be going to the dealer again, as it'll be raining too much for me to want to deal with it.


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## Lugnut (May 4, 2017)

MP81 said:


> It's honestly pretty easy to do yourself. And the filter itself has dropped severely in price. I think I spent $70 on the filter the first time and it was like...$25 this time - they commonized it with the 6.6L.
> 
> The worst part about it is determining what to do with the excess diesel that comes out. Mine is still sitting in the drain pan from February. I need to start putting it out in the sun to slowly evaporate while I am outside doing the lawn.


Diesel fuel is an oil. It will not evaporate like gasoline. I would pour it into your waste oil when you do your next oil change and drop it off at the local auto parts store oil recycle center.


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

So is gasoline - both are refined from crude oil. Diesel fuel is just "less" refined.

And it most certainly will. It just takes much, much longer. The first filter change was nearly evaporated by the time I added more from the filter change this year.


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## Taxman (Aug 10, 2017)

pandrad61 said:


> also did you buy the filter from parts dept or online for 25$ that price seems very reasonable for every 33k miles


Delco TP1015 are about $23 plus postage at RockAuto. 
Use the everpopular 5% coupons and you can probably get four delivered for $95, which is probably less than the cost of paying the dealer to change it once. 
I'd rather crawl under the car for 20 minutes on my day off than drive to the dealer, spend ten minutes checking in, and sit in the waiting room for an hour.


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

Taxman said:


> Delco TP1015 are about $23 plus postage at RockAuto.
> Use the everpopular 5% coupons and you can probably get four delivered for $95, which is probably less than the cost of paying the dealer to change it once.
> I'd rather crawl under the car for 20 minutes on my day off than drive to the dealer, spend ten minutes checking in, and sit in the waiting room for an hour.


Honestly, the longest part of changing the fuel filter is taking the underbody aero panel off.


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## IndyDiesel (May 24, 2015)

When I changed the fuel filter last Fall, I didn’t drain water if any was there, just removed the housing with a breaker bar to get leverage and was no problem, metal pan to catch the diesel. Replaced the two rubber seals, put back on and the aero panel and cycled th fuel pump several times prior to start and was done, it’s easier in my opinion and than changing the oil filter. I hate changing the oil filter.


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

IndyDiesel said:


> When I changed the fuel filter last Fall, I didn’t drain water if any was there, just removed the housing with a breaker bar to get leverage and was no problem, metal pan to catch the diesel. Replaced the two rubber seals, put back on and the aero panel and cycled th fuel pump several times prior to start and was done, it’s easier in my opinion and than changing the oil filter. I hate changing the oil filter.


Yeah, I never both draining anything - more is going to come out anyway.


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## pandrad61 (Jul 8, 2015)

seems that is such a simple thing ill simply do it myself. id use the old diesel as a cleaning solution for parts


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## IndyDiesel (May 24, 2015)

pandrad61 said:


> seems that is such a simple thing ill simply do it myself. id use the old diesel as a cleaning solution for parts


I use the old diesel to start a brush fire, works great, not as explosive as gasoline


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## mcbockalds (Apr 6, 2014)

IndyDiesel said:


> When I changed the fuel filter last Fall, I didn’t drain water if any was there, just removed the housing with a breaker bar to get leverage and was no problem, metal pan to catch the diesel. Replaced the two rubber seals, put back on and the aero panel and cycled th fuel pump several times prior to start and was done, it’s easier in my opinion and than changing the oil filter. I hate changing the oil filter.


"I didn’t drain water if any was there"

I don't understand this. What would you have done differently to drain the water?


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## mcbockalds (Apr 6, 2014)

MP81 said:


> Yeah, I never both draining anything - more is going to come out anyway.


I don't understand what you would do differently to drain "anything"?


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## IndyDiesel (May 24, 2015)

mcbockalds said:


> "I didn’t drain water if any was there"
> 
> I don't understand this. What would you have done differently to drain the water?


Perhaps someone can chime in, I think @Tomko drained the water out prior to changing the filter. I just changed the filter. I think there is a way to drain water and not change the filter.


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

There's a small hex head inside the large hex (which you use to remove the filter housing), I want to say its an 18mm, that you loosen, and out the middle is the drain for the water.

There's no real sense in doing it when you're removing the housing anyway.


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## IndyDiesel (May 24, 2015)

I only changed my fuel filter one time during my 71k miles, at at 42k. The issue is you have to remove this large shield with several bolts to loosen the shield to move out of the way, that takes time, why not just change the filter rather than doing the shield thing to drain a little water if it’s there?


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

IndyDiesel said:


> I only changed my fuel filter one time during my 71k miles, at at 42k. The issue is you have to remove this large shield with several bolts to loosen the shield to move out of the way, that takes time, why not just change the filter rather than doing the shield thing to drain a little water if it’s there?


Absolutely. And it separates it anyway, and you're going to dump all the extra fuel out getting the filter out. You're _supposed to_ drain the water every oil change, but seeing how little (basically none) is in there every 35-40k miles, definitely no reason to bother.


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## mcbockalds (Apr 6, 2014)

Thanks for the replies guys. Most helpful.


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## sailurman (Sep 29, 2016)

I'm down to 20% and will be doing it myself this time. Appreciate all the input.


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## MOTO13 (Mar 26, 2014)

It takes longer to remove the panel fastened on by the 10 screws under the car than to change the filter itself. From start to finish it's a 30-40 minute job.


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## BDCCruze (Jul 12, 2017)

I did my own fuel filter.

It was pretty strait forward. My advice would be two things. 1) Make sure you have the correct size socket for the filter housing. I bought one specifically for this purpose since I know I would be putting 2-3 of these on during my ownership. 2) When you take it off, do not slam the wrench trying to break the housing free, just us slightly increasing torque on the wrench until it comes free. The housing is bolted to the body with what appears to only be plastic.


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## sleepyzzz (Nov 2, 2018)

i am down to 12% on my fuel filter, and my dealer quoted me $150 labor to change it. I went to another dealer and was quoted same price. is there a thread with pics to doing this? it seems simple enough, just a messy job. i believe that i have a pair of rubber gloves to keep the diesel off of me, and a bucket or pan to catch it as it drains. do you all recommend putting Vaseline on the o rings before installing them? if not, what would you use? I have read where diesel will break down rubber, and i don't want to screw this up. thanks for the help.


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

sleepyzzz said:


> i am down to 12% on my fuel filter, and my dealer quoted me $150 labor to change it. I went to another dealer and was quoted same price. is there a thread with pics to doing this? it seems simple enough, just a messy job. i believe that i have a pair of rubber gloves to keep the diesel off of me, and a bucket or pan to catch it as it drains. do you all recommend putting Vaseline on the o rings before installing them? if not, what would you use? I have read where diesel will break down rubber, and i don't want to screw this up. thanks for the help.


Here is the How-To: https://www.cruzetalk.com/threads/how-to-fuel-filter-change-cruze-diesel-diy.50945/

It's quite easy. You spend more time taking the aeroshield off than doing the actual fuel filter.

Don't put Vaseline on the o-ring, it'll seal just fine on its own.


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## BDCCruze (Jul 12, 2017)

sleepyzzz said:


> i am down to 12% on my fuel filter, and my dealer quoted me $150 labor to change it. I went to another dealer and was quoted same price. is there a thread with pics to doing this? it seems simple enough, just a messy job. i believe that i have a pair of rubber gloves to keep the diesel off of me, and a bucket or pan to catch it as it drains. do you all recommend putting Vaseline on the o rings before installing them? if not, what would you use? I have read where diesel will break down rubber, and i don't want to screw this up. thanks for the help.


With 12% left, you still have around 1200 miles to go.

I've done mine twice now. It is pretty simple. The worst part is getting the housing cover off because it feels like you are going to break it. Just make sure to keep the wrench square to the housing cover center and use a firm but consistent motion to loosen it. Do not slam or pound on the wrench to loosen it.

One other tip, when you crack the inner drain, the diesel fluid really won't come until you break the seal on the housing. Then it will start flowing out. You may want to crack the drain, let it flow out slowly for a few minutes, then tighten it, loosen the outer housing a few turns, then open the drain back up.


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## TyGeR (Oct 24, 2016)

My dealer did this once for me an it was about $100 bucks in parts and labor. Buying the filter from them was over $50 bucks. You can find the part on Amazon for $20-$30. I normally keep an eye on prices and buy one cheap to have when I need it. I had to buy a 36MM socket to fit the bottom of the filter housing, You dont have to buy I highly suggest getting the socket and not doing it with channel locks or anything else. A hook took is also nice to get the O-Ring off. CHANGE BOTH O-RINGS. They come with the new filter. Ill link a decent video for doing this. Also note that the filter housing WILL NOT come off as easy as it does in this video. It will feel like your about to break the filter housing but hold the socket straight and keep pulling and it will break loose.

Search TP1015 on Amazon and it will show you a list of parts. I get the AC Delco.







Amazon.com: ACDelco TP1015 Professional Fuel Filter with Seals: Automotive


Buy ACDelco TP1015 Professional Fuel Filter with Seals: Fuel Filters - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases



smile.amazon.com


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## kelaog (Aug 1, 2019)

My dealer in Canada wanted $150 for the fuel filter change. That is more than what they charge for the oil change.... I did this myself. It is easier than changing oil. Like others have suggested, the time consuming part is removing the under body panel. You just need to make sure you have the required 36 mm socket. ( I think it was 36)

For fun, they charged me $500 to change the transmission fluid because it's "special" and you have the drop the pan...I've never felt like I owned a Mercedes until I bought this car.Also, what transmission service doesn't require you to drop the pan was my question. I like the car, but I cannot stand the parts and service department.


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

Wait, wait...drop the pan for trans fluid service?

There's a drain plug _in_ the pan to drain the fluid out...no pan drop necessary...


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## kelaog (Aug 1, 2019)

MP81 said:


> Wait, wait...drop the pan for trans fluid service?
> 
> There's a drain plug _in_ the pan to drain the fluid out...no pan drop necessary...


I'm assuming it was to change the filter, but I am assuming I got the BS diesel surcharge from these guys regardless. I had the same service done on my 2010 Dodge Pickup and it was $300 at the dealer....


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

Filter is integral, you cannot change it, not in the typical sense, anyway.


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## MRO1791 (Sep 2, 2016)

This can be a difficult job. On my second change on my gen 1 the cap would NOT come off, and the torque trying to get it off popped the entire housing off the mount, all of which is plastic. I had to remove the entire housing from the car and put it in a vise, and it was STILL difficult to remove, and no, I did not over torque it on the last change, which was easy. It appears the housing and or cap has swelled, as it was tight even after it began to turn, and again upon install of the new filter (even with teflon grease lube on the threads). I have a replacement housing for next time. So be careful, if you are putting a large torque on that housing to remove the cap, you may be better off to disconnnect the one electrical connector, and 2 fuel lines and remove the entire thing to replace the filter. I should also point out that my filter would not stop draining, I think I had almost a gallon of diesel and still going by the time I had it all together. That is not a problem for me, as I have a diesel tractor that can burn that fuel, no problem. I just caution, this can be an easy job, or it can be a bit difficult, results will vary. (Gen 1 and Gen 2 have basically the same housing and filter).









2918 Cruze Diesel - Changed the fuel filter --- What a mess!


I had to use an impact to remove the filter casing. Great idea until it actually comes off and sprays diesel fuel all over me (hair, chest, face, mouth, arms, legs) and made a huge mess on the floor. Be VERY careful when using an impact wrench for this job (36mm, BTW). After showing for 45...




www.cruzetalk.com


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## MRO1791 (Sep 2, 2016)

kelaog said:


> I'm assuming it was to change the filter, but I am assuming I got the BS diesel surcharge from these guys regardless. I had the same service done on my 2010 Dodge Pickup and it was $300 at the dealer....


Part BS, and part the insane OEM AW-1 fluid cost. That transmission is used in various cars, and other cars that use it have less expensive fluid, but best yet, Amsoil of all places has the best price on AW-1 compatible fluid, but the dealer is going to use the way overpriced GM spec AW-1 fluid.. that would be part of the cost, the BS about dropping the pan and a filter is utter and total BS, there is no replaceable filter and also no reason to drop the pan.


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## kelaog (Aug 1, 2019)

MRO1791 said:


> Part BS, and part the insane OEM AW-1 fluid cost. That transmission is used in various cars, and other cars that use it have less expensive fluid, but best yet, Amsoil of all places has the best price on AW-1 compatible fluid, but the dealer is going to use the way overpriced GM spec AW-1 fluid.. that would be part of the cost, the BS about dropping the pan and a filter is utter and total BS, there is no replaceable filter and also no reason to drop the pan.


Thanks for the information. Sadly this use to be the kind of job I would have just done myself and not thought twice about it; however, I just don't have the time these days, or a good garage space anymore. I think next time I'll just have a local garage do it with the Amzoil stuff for no other reason than supporting a local guy, and using a higher quality oil.


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## wikiriki (Dec 11, 2013)

I always do my own service, including the fuel filter change. It's easy. I'd rather know it's been done right than wonder if some apprentice I'm paying too much money for is going to screw it up. You can save a little time and money by having someone else change your oil, but once they cross-thread the plug or forget to put your oil cap on (happens all the time).... Nope! Not lettin'that happen to my baby. No one will care for my vehicle as well as me.

BTW
I've been using exclusively Delo 400 and Rotella T4 15w40 since new and have had stellar oil analysis results. Considerably less wear than other comparable vehicles using the recommended oil. So what if I sacrifice a few mpg for a little more longevity?


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## kelaog (Aug 1, 2019)

wikiriki said:


> I always do my own service, including the fuel filter change. It's easy. I'd rather know it's been done right than wonder if some apprentice I'm paying too much money for is going to screw it up. You can save a little time and money by having someone else change your oil, but once they cross-thread the plug or forget to put your oil cap on (happens all the time).... Nope! Not lettin'that happen to my baby. No one will care for my vehicle as well as me.
> 
> BTW
> I've been using exclusively Delo 400 and Rotella T4 15w40 since new and have had stellar oil analysis results. Considerably less wear than other comparable vehicles using the recommended oil. So what if I sacrifice a few mpg for a little more longevity?


I'm assuming you're deleted? I thought the recommended oil (ignoring the fact you're using a heavier weight) was to avoid ashing up the DPF/SCR.


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