The Simple Magnetic Drain Plug Remover Helps You Change Your Oil Without Making A Huge Mess

Over the past few weeks we’ve looked at torque limiting extensions to help ensure lug nuts and bolts are properly torqued, a tool kit for removing plastic rivets with ease and a fluid transfer pump that’s necessary for fluid changes in some vehicles. This week’s cool tool is a magnetic drain plug remover to help you change your oil without making a huge mess of it.

Reader txp-delta-rev suggested a magnetic oil drain plug remover tool. It’s a simple tool that removes drain plugs without getting you covered in old fluids.

Last week, I said this about draining fluids from cars:

A lot of cars make fluid changes easier by having fluid drain plugs on their engine oil and transmission pans or differential housings. For these vehicles, getting fluids out is as simple as opening the plug and letting the fluid drain into an appropriate container.

But as txp-delta-rev notes, that simple task can sometimes be accompanied by getting yourself absolutely covered in oil. It’s not that big of a deal if you’re changing engine oil, but get something like burned gear oil on yourself and you’ll be smelling it for months. One of the closets in my apartment still smells like gear oil over a year after replacing the differential fluid in a Mercedes-Benz 240D.

If you’re unlucky, your drain plug could also fall into the void of old fluids below.

This is where a magnetic drain plug remover makes the job much easier. You first loosen your drain plug with a ratchet, then deploy this tool. Instead of losing your drain plug or covering yourself in fluids, it grips onto the plug with a strong magnet and its long, flexible length puts you out of the fluid stream’s way.

These tools come in many shapes and forms. Watch Real Tool Reviews on YouTube try out a particularly strong example:

The one from the video above is from OTC Tools and costs about $19 on sites like Amazon but these tools can be had for about as cheap as $11.

Do you know of a weird or unique but must-have tool that every wrencher should have? Do you want to see us put a type of tool to the test and see how it performs? Shoot me an email or drop it down in the comments!