CHANGING engine oil is a messy business in more ways than one. Every year, despite the various recycling schemes available, Americans pour over 200m US gallons (750m litres) of used engine oil into trash cans, onto land or down the drain. Most of this ends up polluting rivers and streams. The job could become much faster, simpler and cleaner, though, with a new invention: a plug-in oil cartridge that takes around 90 seconds to replace.

Nexcel, as it is known, is a sealed unit that contains both oil and oil filter, along with some electronics to communicate with the host car’s engine-management system. An oil change begins by selecting the vehicle’s service mode, which tells the engine’s oil pump to transfer oil in the sump into the cartridge. That can then be unclipped and swapped for a new one which contains fresh oil and a clean filter.

The idea comes from Castrol, the lubricants division of BP, a large British oil company. Castrol says a Nexcel cartridge should cost about the same as a conventional oil change, but will be better in several ways. It will, for example, be able to monitor the condition of the oil more closely and ensure it is replaced in a timely fashion. It will also let an engine warm up to its most efficient operating temperature more quickly because, when the engine is started, the cartridge pumps into the sump only the minimum amount of oil needed to let it run smoothly. This may sound risky, but it is a system already used in the “dry sump” engines of many high-performance cars. In fact, the first vehicle to use Nexcel is a dry-sump Aston Martin Vulcan, a car made for the racetrack.

Apart from quick oil changes and rapid engine warming, the main benefits of Nexcel would be environmental. Although garages collect oil for recycling, different grades often get mixed together and other substances, such as brake fluid, may find their way into the tank as well. As a result, much exhausted oil ends up burnt as furnace fuel rather than being reprocessed as lubricants. According to Oliver Taylor, the Nexcel project’s chief engineer, employing cartridges could increase the amount of oil thus reprocessed from the current figure of around a tenth, to three-quarters. The cartridges can be cleaned and reused, too.

The main problem with Nexcel is that engine layouts will need to be redesigned to accommodate the cartridge. That is not insuperable, but might require Castrol’s proprietary layout to become a more open system which others can copy (perhaps for a royalty), for no carmaker will want to be tied to the product of a single firm. Castrol is discussing this with manufacturers, and hopes the first Nexcel-fitted vehicles will appear in about five years’ time.