We’ve been taking our 2000 Dodge Caravan to the same fixit shop for 70,000. They are the only ones to change our oil every 3,000 miles. Today they tell us that our drain plug is stripped and the only fix (old style plug or something) is to replace the whole oil pan for about $250. Is this stripped plug their fault? Or a wear out part?
if its a steel oil pan its probably there fault, super over tighting or cross thread 1 too many times. if its alluminum, im not sure. my steel oil pan has 185000 miles with the same pan, no problems.
It’s their fault. Period. Stripped drain plugs are as common as they are inexcusable. Some people simply overtorque them or cross thread them.
The solution is to tap the hole oversize and install an oversize plug.
And by the way, if it’s only the plug that’s stripped and not the hole, there’s no reason to do anything but chase the hole and replace the plug. Thread sizes haven’t changed for generations. They’re all defined in the Machinist’s Handbook. Thread diameter, root diameter, peak diameter, thread pitch, thread type, all of it has long been standardized around a common system. There is no such thing as an “old style plug”.