Tony: Of course, you're good to go buddy!

BobK: Mercedes never intended us to use Topsider-stype devices (with plastic tubes) to suck oil from the bottom of the oil sump. The real machine that MB mechanics use to remove old engine oil does not use plastic tubes. They just attach it to the oil dipstick tube at the top, and the machine will generate a strong vacuum to pull up old engine oil directly (no plastic tube inserted.)

For DIY topsider-stype devices, they cannot generate strong enough vacuum to pull up oil directly. Therefore, they have to resort to plastic tubes inserted through the oil dipstick tube so that they can touch the bottom of an oil sump and be immersed in oil. I observed that I could always suck a little bit more dirty oil by lifting up the car's rear. The junction between the oil dipstick tube and the oil sump is located near the left front of the oil sump, so it's easy to understand that more oil can be sucked out if a car's rear is lifted up.

When changing oil, I simply back up my car on a slightly sloped driveway and I'm good to go. Changing oil is a 5 minute biz for me since I started driving Mercedes at the beginning of 2003. Before that, I drove some old Honda, for which changing oil is a major pain due to oil filter location. I did try a topsider-stype device on my Honda but it did not suck oil very well because it's impossible to push the plastic tube all the way to the oil sump's bottom.

Last but not least, I can assure you that you can always remove more old dirty oil by using the topsider method in lieu of draining it through the drain plug thanks to gravity. The position and shape of the area surrounding the oil drain plug (inside the oil sump) prevents a somewhat decent amount of old dirty oil from escaping the drain plug.)

Eric