Easy R500 Oil Change

Having never paid so much for a car, I was worried about screwing something up when changing the oil and filter on my R500.  I've always been a 3000 mile guy, and, even with Mobil 1, I was not going to wait 13,000 miles.  My car has about 6000 miles on it. With some information from this forum, it was easy.  I bought a $32.00 vacuum pump from the boat section of Agri-Supply which worked real well getting all the oil out of the crankcase.  That's when I did something stupid.  I was sure that changing the filter required taking off the fairing.  I took it off and couldn't find anything.  Then it occured to me that the thing next to the oil filler car was the filter housing.  I've got all kinds of do-it-yourself books for the other cars I have and have owned before, and it drives me nuts no to have anything on the R500.  I was worried about the filter cartridge because of problems with putting a cartridge on my old 72 Land Rover.  This one was a snap, and I didn't have to use any of the new o-rings provided.  There was a mark on the oil filter cover to match up to show me when I had tightened it up to the right point. 
 
Now I can look forward to oil changes without having to get under the car, and with Mobil 1 from Costco and a $15.00 MB filter cartridge, I'm saving a couple of hundred bucks when I change my own.  I just thought this would be helpful for other non-mechanical people like me. 

Just curious.... How does the vacuum pump work? If that what the dealership mechanics use? Is it better than draining the oil from the plug underneath as far as getting all of the oil out? Thanks in advace.

The vacuum pump consists of a 6 liter plastic tank and a tube that is small enough to go down the oil dipstick tube to the bottom of the oil sump.  A pump is on the top of the tank, and you pump it to create a vacuum in the tank, which starts the oil flowing.  If you can't find one, they are available at Griot's Garage and Auto Sport catalogues.  The beauty of this method is that you don't have to get under the car or take the fairing off the bottom of the engine. It worked well for me.

Thanks for the info. Off the subject, have you figured out how to change the air filter? I can't figure out how to get the dang air filter housing off.

I haven't looked into that yet.