I can not tell if my oil filter needs to be turned to the left or the right. It seems stuck either way I try to turn it. Im on my back looking up at it so from that perspective do you know which way I should turn it ?

Tighty tighty Lefty loosy. Normal. If it gets too tough, drive a large screwdriver through it on the half away from the block, and use that for leverage. It'll make a mess, but it'll come off. Be sure to prelube the seal and threads on the new one.

I've used the screwdriver trick a number of times on stuck filters, what'* the big deal?
Either that or get a filter wrench.

Even if you destroy the outer housing and filter media, you can then access the threaded stud and use vice grips to remove the rest. I had to do that once. It all depends on the idiot that put it on last!

I once pulled an oil filter off an 80s camaro that was on so tight I had to use the largest band wrench we had with locking pliers attached to the end for extra leverage and both arms to even turn it.

When I finaly got the filter off I found out why it was on so tight. The gasket from the old oil filter had been left on the oil filter housing and when the new oil filter had been put on it had of course started leaking. The guy that put the new oil filter on must have just figured the filter was loose so he kept tightening it with a band wrench till it stopped leaking.

The two rubber gaskets had been crushed paper thin from all the force that had been applied to the filter.

I had a similar problem to that once too. Guy had his car towed to our shop because he was trying to take the oil filter off but was turning it the wrong way. Ended up shreading the oil filter housing but leaving the bottom of the oil filter still screwed down to the block.

The car was an 80'* pontiac with one of those little quad 4'* in it. Was a real pain in the *** to slowly turn and wiggle the bottom of the filter off.

I can remember _one_ filter box on which I was amazed to find directions telling you to tighten the new filter on with a wrench. No kidding. It was at Sears, one of their Sears house-brand filters. This was a few years ago now; I sure hope they've changed the directions since then.

You sure are. The only time I had a filter nightmare was with (ironically) a friend-of-a-friend'* old 1970 Bonneville, many years ago. Engine was a total neglected sludge-o-rama, and that filter had to come off no matter what. It wouldn't budge. Finally stabbed it with a screwdriver and tried to rip it off that way. No joy. I now had an undriveable car sitting in the middle of my parents' garage, it was getting dark, and the owner was expecting me to be done with the car by 5:00.

I finally noticed that I could unbolt the whole filter housing from the block, so I did that, raced over to a friendly gas station in another car, got a replacement gasket for the housing from them, and watched as they clamped the filter housing in a vice and used a honking big wrench to torque off what remained of the filter. It made the biggest screech I'd ever heard as it let go. That sucker had been on the car for _years_ -- probably one idiot torqued it on back around 1974, and everyone else after that had tried to remove it, failed, said the hell with it and just dumped fresh oil in.

To this day, whenever I find a _really_ stuck oil filter, I get more determined than ever to get it off of there.