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Oil Change
1
(33 posts, started )
Oil Change
Posted this away back in 05/06 in PitstopUK (Old team) Laughed reading it again so thought I'd lash it up here...


The Best way to change your oil.

1 Drive down to the mechanic's when the mileometer reaches 6000 miles since the last oil change.
2 Drink a cup of complimentary coffee.
3 15 minutes later, pay mechanic £40 and leave with a properly maintained vehicle.

Total 15 minutes. £40.


The 'Real' way you change your oil.

1 Go to local motorfactors and pay £20 for 5 litres of Oil, Oil Filter and hand cleaner.
2 Search around the garage for your axle stands.
3 Jack up car and place axle stands. Lower car, realise that the floor pan is now getting bent as the stand is in the wrong place. Re-jack the car and place the stand again. Finally lower car.
5 Get underneath car and try to loosen sump plug with an imperial spanner that's about the right size.
6 Round of sump nut with spanner, so try again with the correct spanner you found at the bottom of the tool box.
7 Still not having much luck with the nut, so try a pair of Molegrips on the nut. But they keep slipping off.
8 Try swearing at it. That often helps.
9 Finally manage to loosen the nut using one of those 'Multi-spanners' that you bought off QVC.
10 Now that the car is dripping oil, you realise you've not got a suitable oil tray. The bucket you were going to use won't clear the sump.
11 Run around the house like a mad man trying to find something to use.
Note: Don't be tempted to use that fruit bowl the mother in law bought for your anniversary present. It's not worth the hassle.
12 Find a large plastic bottle and cut the top off with a kitchen knife. Cut yourself with the knife whilst you are at it.
13 Run back out to the car and place the oil tub.
14 Get under the car and remove the sump nut. Lose the nut in the oil tub.
15 Again, swearing here often helps.
16 Once the oil has finished dripping, remove the tub and fish out the nut. You now have a very oily hand.
17 Drip oil over the road, through the house and all over the sink after you realise you've not brought a rag out with you.
18 Get back under car and realise you need the oil filter strap.
19 You can't be bothered to look for it, so try with all your might to remove it with your bare hands.
20 Get out from under the car and look for the oil filter strap.
21 Can't find the oil filter strap, so go back out to the car and take a large flat headed screwdriver and a hammer.
22 Get back under the car and hammer the screwdriver through the oil filter.
23 Get oil down your arm and drips over your head and face.
24 Rush back into the house to the sink, again realising you didn't bring a cloth out with you.
25 Swear.
26 Back out to the car. Smear a ring of new oil over the oil filter gasket and fit new oil filter to car.
27 Put the required amount of oil into the engine via the rocker cover oil cap.
28 Notice oil all over the drive and realise you didn't refit the sump plug nut.
29 Search around trying to find the nut.
30 Remember it's back in the house next to the sink.
31 Run back into the house, grab the nut run back out to the car.
31 Get underneath the car. Get oil all over your shirt as you are lying in a pool of oil.
32 Refit the nut and finger tighten.
33 Swear as you realise just how much oil is over the drive as well as over you and your shirt.
34 Go back into the house. Shower and change into the overalls you should have put on before you started.
35 Get a bag of kitty litter and a piece of old carpet from the garage.
36 Put kitty litter on the oil slick that looks like something from the Exxon Valdies.
37 Put carpet onto of kitty litter/oil slick sludge.
38 Realise that the 'old' carpet was a piece you were saving to re-do the top stair with.
39 Swear.
40 Tighten nut with spanner.
41 Slip with spanner and bang knuckles on engine or inner wing.
42 Bang head on sump or inner wing in reaction to step 41.
43 Begin swearing fit.
44 Throw spanner.
45 Realise that spanner has gone somewhere not so easily accessible. E.g. Under a large bush, a car etc.
46 Spend five minutes swearing and fishing the spanner from the inaccessible place.
47 Tighten nut.
48 Refill remainder of oil only to realise that you've now not got enough.
49 Go back to local motorfactors and pay £29 for 5 litres of Oil, 5 litres of industrial Oil cleaner and a new oil filter strap.
50 Tighten the oil filter with the new oil filter strap.
51 Jack up the car and remove the axle stands. Lower the car.
52 Move the car back and get the power washer out.
53 Put the industrial oil cleaner onto the oil slick and spray away.
54 Realise you are getting oil splats all over the car so start to wash that too.
55 Get an earful from the wife as she complains that you've been at that for hours and you are now washing the car.
56 Finish washing the car and the drive.
57 Put all your tools away. Placing the new oil filter strap next to the old one you had but couldn't find earlier.
58 Swear.
59 Go in the house and ask what is for tea.
60 Wonder why you've just been slapped.

Total

£20 for 5 litres of Oil, Oil Filter and hand cleaner.
£150 to have the Hall, Living Room and Dinning room carpets professionally cleaned to remove the oil.
£12 to replace the shirt that was ruined by oil.
£2 to replace the bag of Kitty litter used on the oil slick.
£1 for the box of plasters.
£29 for 5 more litres of Oil, 5 litres of industrial Oil cleaner and another oil filter strap.
£150 to have the dent in the floor pan repaired so that the car passes its next MOT.

3 hours 40 minutes.Total: £364



Wow, thats a huge comparison and money saving. Thanks.

For now, ive always thinked that changing oil myself would be cheaper and more trustable - (who knows what those guys would do with the machine). Maybe its not major thing for me yet, im changing my oil on my scooter - well, i just add it But thanks anyways for that helpful information.
Satisfaction of completing the job yerself: Priceless
#5 - 5haz
Hehe, reminds me so much of my dad, 'cept we were stuck in a paddock without shelter in torrential rain as well.
Quote from Believer :

1 Drive down to the mechanic's when the mileometer reaches 6000 miles since the last oil change.



Funny though
6000 miles? What kinda car do you drive? My Corolla's oil changes are every 4000 miles or so. At 6000 miles your oil must be damn dark!
Quote :The 'Real' way you change your oil.

truly epic... i laughed at almost every one, because i've either seen it happen, or had it happen.

and then there's the time my dad was changing a front tire, and didn't put on the e-brake... then he asked me to get something out of the back... long story short, we had to refinish a rotor.
I've never dented a floor pan even after putting the car down on the jackstand. I also take off my passenger side wheel to do an oil change. Then I don't have to crawl on the ground. You just take off the splash guard, and the filter's right there. I also put in an extended life mobil 1 filter. IDK how many miles I should go. I'll probably do 4000 or so.
Rather original, I'll give you that.
#11 - senn
i have tiled floors, so no probs cleaning them. I wear old Work overalls that are stained and grease soaked anyway. They also double ok as a rag sometimes (and when they die completely)
Plus its more expensive here than where you are to get oil/filter change. Most "genuine original workshops" don't even bother changing it, they just charge you $$$. Same with "dedicated" brake workshops who fit new pads and don't bleed the damn air out the lines, or replace the fluid (basic basic stuff)

worst injury is the old busted knuckles, but as far as i'm concerned, HTFU, bleeding stops. My Tools are almost the only thing fairly well organized at my place, and if i don't have the right size tool, i buy it (long as the tool i need isn't say a compressor :P) I have done the screwdriver thru the filter trick, but i wasn't the last one to (over)tighten the filter...

Plus i also feel it gives me a chance to glance over the other bits of my engine, see whats leaking/wearing etc, which nowadays it seems *some* mechanics are too lazy to check. Worst part is tho, being as the engine should be warm before you change the oil, my exhaust manifold is over the top of my filter (close enough to burn you badly if you're struggling for purchase) but again HTFU and some thin gloves usually does the trick.

I'll keep doing the basic stuff myself i think, for the cost, and the enjoyment
Quote from S3ANPukekoh3 :My oil change cost $79, $70 for the oil (castrol edge 0w-40 =]) $9 for the filter, I did all myself, outside(why would you do it inside???). I didn't even need to jack the car up, it took me 20 minutes, and I've never done it before.

*Golf-clap*
I've never done an oil change. Every time i go to do one i can never find the right tools.
Quote from mookie427 :yeah, there's a funny unit of length in the UK called 'miles'

Except that its called an odometer.
Quote from mookie427 :yeah, there's a funny unit of length in the UK called 'miles'

you guys don't use the metric system? i thought america was the only country to not use it.
Quote from Riders Motion :6000 miles? What kinda car do you drive? My Corolla's oil changes are every 4000 miles or so. At 6000 miles your oil must be damn dark!

Every 4000 on a Corolla? It's a Toyota, shouldn't need changed except for every 5 years or so like on my old Toyota

Just changed the oil on the wife's vehicle. Mobile 1 synthetic, every 7500. We don't live in the city though, so every trip is "highway miles" of a half hour at higher speed or more. No 5 minute trips or stop, idle, go, stop, idle, go..
Quote from bunder9999 :you guys don't use the metric system? i thought america was the only country to not use it.

Havn't you heard we're just America's little brother, we do everything they do but in a smaller way

1 American Mile = 10 British Miles
Quote from Klutch :Except that its called an odometer.

Unsuccessful troll is unsuccessful.
Quote from G!NhO :Everything sounds weird for you.

I know I have a huge magination
Quote from bunder9999 :you guys don't use the metric system? i thought america was the only country to not use it.

Technically, we are a metric country so tools come in metric. But we have the Metric Martyrs who keep fighting the metric system to keep on imperial. So every time the gov't tries to keep the EU happy by making the switch they swing in and chuck a spanner in the works. So we have generations of children now who are taught to use metric for measuring the length of a desk or some such, the weight of a packet of butter and what have you, but will use imperial for the size of their trousers, the distance from one town to the next and their weight and hight.

So naturally there is a lot of confusion in this land.
But as even a numpty can work with both, and interchange between them without so much as a scratch of their foreheads, it's not that bad really.

I can measure a desk in millimeters and inches, or tell you the distance between two towns in miles or kilometers. I do machining in mm unless it's 'accurate' in which case I revert to thousandths of an inch (often on the same bit of work). I fill my car with litres, but happily work out miles per gallon in my head.

It's not hard. And having two standards to work with really improves your potential!

That the EU want to standardise everything to THEIR specification should fill your heads and hearts with dread and fear. Why 'ban' something that is legitimate, understood and accepted. It's even hard to mix them up. You wouldn't buy a desk that was advertised as 1700 wide thinking it was inches, and nor would you buy one that is 67 wide thinking it was millimeters.

And I detest people that call kilometers "kill-om-eters" when it should be "kill-oh-meters". Unless you say "mill-om-eters" and cent-im-eters" too (which nobody does).
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Oil Change
(33 posts, started )
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