Thread:

How many of you change your own oil?

The other night my 18 year old step son wanted to change his oil in his truck. I told him to just go have it done, it is a pain in the butt. Then I got to thinking, he will never understand unless he does it at least once.

I warned him of everything, and assisted him through it all.

He takes off the drain plug, and gets oil all over his arm, as he is trying to move the pan because it shot out alot further than he expected. Then because it missed the pan, I told him he needs to clean up the spilt oil. Now that he has drained the oil and cleaned up the garage floor, I told him he needs to take his funnel and pour the old oil into empty containers so he can take it to the local auto parts store to recycle. Well, he spilt more oil on the floor, the container is covered in oil, and he is now starting to get really pissed, and I am laughing my ass off. I told him, you have not even got to the oil filter yet, he just looked at me, hesitated, and asked if I would do it, well he cleaned the floor up again. So I did, and I don't think he will be changing his own oil again any time soon.

Originally Posted by Lucky

i do randomly to look at my own shit ! Tell you the truth , bu the time you buy the filter, oil and DISPOSE of it , It cost you MORE ! But i like to do it myself , it gets greased correctly and inspected correctly and the drain plug will not fall out !

You do worry about what they are doing, but I always watch them and then go home and check everything out.

I change my own oil....it gets done faster, I use the oil filter I want, and I have the satisifaction of knowing it is being done right....

I took it to get it done ONCE and that will be the only time, after I brought it home, I was leaking oil all over the place cuz they didn't put the filter on tight enough

I laughed out loud reading this.....especially the part of the oil shooting past the drain pan. Who hasn't ever had that happen? Too funny.

I take my truck down to a well known very good Jiffy Lube. A gear head owns the shop and only hires good mechanics. But after the oil change i still check the oil level myself and i check the drain plug and filter to make sure there on tight.

Originally Posted by Never Satisfied

The other night my 18 year old step son wanted to change his oil in his truck. I told him to just go have it done, it is a pain in the butt. Then I got to thinking, he will never understand unless he does it at least once.

I warned him of everything, and assisted him through it all.

He takes off the drain plug, and gets oil all over his arm, as he is trying to move the pan because it shot out alot further than he expected. Then because it missed the pan, I told him he needs to clean up the spilt oil. Now that he has drained the oil and cleaned up the garage floor, I told him he needs to take his funnel and pour the old oil into empty containers so he can take it to the local auto parts store to recycle. Well, he spilt more oil on the floor, the container is covered in oil, and he is now starting to get really pissed, and I am laughing my ass off. I told him, you have not even got to the oil filter yet, he just looked at me, hesitated, and asked if I would do it, well he cleaned the floor up again. So I did, and I don't think he will be changing his own oil again any time soon.

Originally Posted by Never Satisfied

The other night my 18 year old step son wanted to change his oil in his truck. I told him to just go have it done, it is a pain in the butt. Then I got to thinking, he will never understand unless he does it at least once.

I warned him of everything, and assisted him through it all.

He takes off the drain plug, and gets oil all over his arm, as he is trying to move the pan because it shot out alot further than he expected. Then because it missed the pan, I told him he needs to clean up the spilt oil. Now that he has drained the oil and cleaned up the garage floor, I told him he needs to take his funnel and pour the old oil into empty containers so he can take it to the local auto parts store to recycle. Well, he spilt more oil on the floor, the container is covered in oil, and he is now starting to get really pissed, and I am laughing my ass off. I told him, you have not even got to the oil filter yet, he just looked at me, hesitated, and asked if I would do it, well he cleaned the floor up again. So I did, and I don't think he will be changing his own oil again any time soon.

But now that he has done it and knows what to expect he sure won't spill any next time! Don't let him get discouraged. I always do my own and five quarts for $10 and a $4 Wix filter is a lot cheaper than the oil change shop. The recycle facility is on my way to town and they take it in the oil jugs. Used oil is becoming valuable as a shop heater source but I have yet to find anyone who will pay me for a small volume. Our boat club has an oil barrel for members to dump into and we sell it for $1/gallon.

My sister took her Toyota Tacoma to Wallmart to get the oil changed, I have no idea why she went to Wallmart. True story here, when they drained her oil, they also took the drain plug out of the trany, and drained it. She got a few miles down the road to find shifting problems. She nursed it straight to the Toyota dealership to have it checked out, and that is where they discovered what Wallmart had done.

Still change the oil myself on my stuff. I've got time during the day so its no big deal to do it while I'm at work. My wife usually takes her truck in to get it done just because its more convenient that way, although I still do it from time to time...

Having a disposal tank at work makes it easy to get rid, before that it just got recycled the old fashioned way....

With my truck, I'll buy good oil and filters and have the Jiffy Lube service it. Typically I'll take my company truck in first, have them service it, and then take my truck back right afterwards. The last few times I've just given the guy a $20 bill to buy his guys some beer after work as he doesn't like charging the $50 when I'm bringing my own oil and filter. I used to do it all myself but I'm over that.

The car, yeah, it goes to the dealer.