How fragile are oil pans?

FWD oil pans are CAN be super easy. Like 10 minutes with an air ratchet. My galant and mustang are probably 1/2 hour.

i busted 3 oil pans in my old Jetta. My buddy just left his in Moab after busting his Jetta oil pan in the creek. for some reason Jetta's seem to be extra vulnerable to this.

We are looking to replace our very long in the tooth Escort - which did survive a rock incident. We were going a little too fast following someone with high clearance, both of us thought "that's too big, but the headlights make it look worse" bam - took out the catalytic converter, but not the oil pan, so we made it home on our own.

so the VW wagons get a bad rap, what gets good milage and can accomodate all the gear you want on a camping/climbing trip? And by good, I don't mean the 23 mpg of a subaru.

germsauce wrote:i busted 3 oil pans in my old Jetta. My buddy just left his in Moab after busting his Jetta oil pan in the creek. for some reason Jetta's seem to be extra vulnerable to this.

So why wouldn't u get a skid plate after the first incident? Seems like this issue is well known and expeirenced by a ton of people yet no one gets plates?

Is there something wrong with skid plates or are they just a new concept for a lot of people?

Ellen - the new Subaru trannys (CVT) can get up in the low 30's Hwy avg if you drive conservatively. But really unless someone says different you could totally go with the VW and just get some skid plates ($300) and be gravy... you could easily install it yourself. I did all of mine on my subaru and I had no exp whatsoever.

Here's someone's write up about their install:
forums.vwvortex.com/showthr…

[deleted--almost identical to 2nd half of Morgan's post above, slightly reworded]

Ellen.tradgirl wrote: so the VW wagons get a bad rap, what gets good milage and can accomodate all the gear you want on a camping/climbing trip? And by good, I don't mean the 23 mpg of a subaru.

Honda Fit? Mazda 3 5 door? With a manual transmission either one will get respectable (35+ mpg), and with the back seats down they will carry quite a bit. My '06 Civic w/ manual transmission gets 40+ mpg if I behave myself, cruising at 80 mph it still gets 33-34 mpg. I can drop the back seats and shove in a week''s worth of stuff (food, climbing gear, camping gear) for myself easily. With careful packing two people could do a week long climbing/camping trip in that car. Throw on a roof rack and I could haul even more, but gas mileage would suffer.

Any of the cars I named will probably get distinctly better mileage with a manual transmission than with an automatic, in spite of what the advertisements say. Any car that gets mileage in the 35-40 range or better will probably have an aluminum oil pan and minimal ground clearance. I've taken my Civic on some pretty crappy roads, but I've never worried about trying to keep up with cars that were better suited to bad roads than mine.

mark felber wrote: Any of the cars I named will probably get distinctly better mileage with a manual transmission than with an automatic, in spite of what the advertisements say.

Mark, you mean that even if the EPA ratings are similar, the real-world mileage will be very different for stick vs auto? Why is that?

Honda Fit has an aluminum oil pan. We actually ripped the oil pan plug off of it, ruining the oil pan. We also had a Civic. An ill timed bottom strike destroyed the computer on that one. Know nothing about Mazda 3s, but Civics and Fits are not the best off-road rigs.

My evidence is very anecdotal (my own Civic w/ manual transmission, magazine reviews of Civics w/ automatic transmissions, and a quick look at fuelly.com), but it looks like EPA test results still do not truly reflect real world driving. I also suspect that car makers are still paying much more attention to the EPA test cycle than to real world driving conditions, which makes sense for them.

At any rate, the EPA numbers show Civics with automatic transmissions getting better fuel mileage than Civics with manual transmissions, but my Civic w/ 5 speed transmission routinely exceeds the EPA numbers for a Civic from that year with an automatic transmission. A quick look at fuelly.com shows the same pattern, if you leave out the hybrids (no manual transmission option), the Si model (high output engine, geared for performance), and cars from outside North America (different drivetrains, no real basis for comparison).

Manuals used to get better mileage because they had more gears--- Auto trans only 3 or 4 gears when manuals usually had 5 gears... more gears=better mileage..

But now, auto trannies have caught up with and surpassed manual trans in the amount of available gears. And also auto trannie shifting mechanisms are much smoother/faster now- so there's less lag/losing momentum between shifts.

And Ellen- go check out the VW diesel sportwagons- they are amazing- 50mpg, 6-sp manual, and they haul when you want them to--

And if you take it off road, don't worry. Rocks don't jump out in front of you.. you have a choice of whether you drive over something too big or not... if you think your car can't clear a rock, have your passenger kick it out of the way!