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Most people are familiar with the Fumoto Valve, but I thought I’d do a post about another option on the market with the ValvoMax product. This option fits both the Turbo 2.5 and 2.4L oil pans without issue, as well as many other Subaru models. I personally like this product because the design is very strong with many redundant points to reduce leakage risks. I haven’t heard of any Fumoto valve failures, but my engineering brain really likes this design. However, it is very simple to install and use and gives you complete control of the oil flow coming from the pan (obviously this is not important to many people). If the control ball somehow failed, it would stay in the closed position. If this is going to leak, there is a tight seal inside the twist cap. Should this fail, there is an additional seal around the base of the lid. The cap sticks out maybe 1/2 more than the standard oil pan bolt, so there’s no significant risk of anything hitting it.
I have used this in my Legacy for 7 years with 0 problems and lots of super easy oil changes. (My tires are so long that I don’t need to raise the car!) This is extremely easy to install on the Outback because many people can crawl under without raising the car at all.
Not trying to convince anyone that this is a “better” product, but there’s very little information/talk about it compared to the Fumoto, so I think I’d give it a look!
First oil change on ’23 Outback. Oil flavor of the day was Pennzoil Ultra Platinum 0w-20 – $15 for 5 quarts after rebate.
A few pictures below to show how it looks installed.
