zynasis

hi all,
i am quite new to servicing a mazda 3 2004 NEO 2L at home, and have tried and failed today.

i managed to get the plastic cover off the bottom, but cannot locate/remove the oil plug. what i think is the oil plug, i cannot undo. it feels like it was screwed on by the mighty hand of Lucifer himself...

another bolt, which looks suspeciously like an oil sump plug, i cannot undo due to lack of socket size. appears to be atleast 20mm, and the largested i have is
only 19mm...

then i thought, well, atleast i might be able to replace the filter... nope, again, the devils's powers struck this and i could not undo. it would not budge.

anyone else had similar problems and know of a solution?
attached is photos of what i suspect one is the plug.

is this the plug?
http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/i...s/SDC10076.jpg

or is this it?
http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/i...SDC10080-1.jpg

filter:
http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/i...s/SDC10082.jpg

onebadmazda3

the first picture is your oil plug. should be a 17mm. i hope you was turning it the right way. lefty loosey. the third picture is the oil filter. you need to get a oil filter wrench from the auto part store. if you dont wanna buy one you can always hammer a screw driver through it and get it loose like that. hope this helps.

zynasis

thanks, that helped alot. i believe i was turning it the right way, it was just incredibly hard to turn... now i think about it, maybe i should of taken off the oil cap on the engine, incase there is compression holding the bolt in.

the oil filter remover thing i might just get, im not quite confident enough to bash a whole through it ;-)

again, thanks for your help