Changing oil in Honda ATV

[charles p]

I've always drained mine through the drain plug but a friend of mine turns his on one side and lets it run out the fill tube.  Anything wrong with his method?  Sure is faster.
 
New lawn mowers are drained by tilting them now.

[flintlock]

If an engine has a drain plug, I use it...Seems silly to use the drain tube on a 4-wheeler...I also think that you will remove more of the old oil by using the drain plug vs tipping it over and letting the oil run out of the tube...
 
I have a Rancher, I simply pull the plug and while draining, replace the oil filter...Install plug and fill her back up...

[Old Syko]

By rolling the thing on it's side a certain amount of oil runs back up into the upper extremities of the engine where it cannot drain.  The drain plug is where it is for a reason and most plugs are magnetic so they can attract metal cuttings that would otherwise remain in the case.  Although your friend may be getting by the way he is doing things, it's certainly not something I would want to do on a regular basis.

[SHOOTALL]

alot of oil plugs have a magnet in them to attract metal and keep it from circulating in the engine .

[Lloyd Smale]

Little off topic but my brother in law ran into kind of a pain in the but when changing his oil. He has two honda ranchers one new last year and one about 5 years old. Both take differnt oil filters and he went to the shop and they gave him the wrong filters for both. He went back and they did the same thing the second time. Finaly he brough the old filters in to make sure he got the right ones. Seems just about every year of rancher production they changed the oil filter design. I ran into the same thing years ago with starters for my two big reds. every year they seemed to change starter design. Never saw this with the other brands.

[Dave in WV]

I'd use the drain plug. Gravity is your friend when draining engine oil. 
 

[hillbill]

if you dont have one of the sealed batterys, you could run into problems tipping it.