Comments on: How to Change Your Motor Oil

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 04:46:50 +0000

I read the whole thing and everyone’s life story in one sitting. I’d like to say that when you first start your engine after changing / filling the oil, make sure your oil pressure gauge reads pressure, or your (usually red) oil pressure light goes out.

It’s very, very rare that you will get a bad oil filter but they can get into an air lock situation. This is remedied by unscrewing the filter and then re-tightening it.

Running an engine without proper pressure will wreck it.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 14:20:53 +0000

I used to always help my dad change the oil on all of our trucks when I was a kid. After all that time learning, changing it myself the first time was more or less a breeze. However, now that my car sits in a college dorm parking lot most of the year, I usually have to go get it done by someone else. I’ve never had a problem with the lube shops, and they always check fluid levels, tire pressure, etc. I will probably take that tip to bring your own filter, though.

As far as the interval between changes goes, I’m a fan of the better-safe-than-sorry principle. I always change my oil at 3000 miles, and if I forget or just don’t have time, it’s not too big of a deal.

Another tip: in warmer seasons, you can usually step up the thickness of the oil to make things run a little smoother (or to save time finding a hard-to-find grade). For example, my ’98 Saturn takes 5W-30 oil, but I’ll usually step it up to 10W-30 in the summer. When in doubt, however, always go with the manufacturer’s recommendation.

By: grunt

grunt — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 19:14:11 +0000

The last oil change for my passat cost $57.29 including tax at the dealer (disposal fee, labor, filter, 5 quarts Mobile One 0W-40, and a washer). Five quarts of Mobile One and the cheapest filter available at my local O’Reilly’s Auto Part store is currently $54.16 with tax. Weird.

By: Kennan

Kennan — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 02:53:23 +0000

one thing no one else addressed on here that I saw that brett had wrong was don’t follow the directions on how tight your filter should be….I did that once on someone else’s car and all their oil drained out cause the filter worked loose. I always tighten as tight as possible with my hands (which is tighter than most of you with your hands) then give it at least one full turn with the wrench sometimes two.

By: Brent

Brent — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:22:47 +0000

This is my third post so everyone is sick of me now but there are a few other things I wanted to add. I’ll go right back to changing oil since reading how others collect the oil and what they do with it. I realize not everyone has access to a 30 gallon or 55 gallon drum but if you do you can make the best drain pain of all. There are countless types on the market but not a single one of them addresses the splash factor and while many have a spout of pouring the oil into a container, they still have that splash factor. I have a method many of you might like that’s guaranteed to stop the splash. Cut off the bottom 3-4″ of a steel drum and by making many cuts a quarter inch deep or a bit more all around the top you can use pliers or similar tools to bend the top down to where it’s almost touching the outside of the drum. At this point you can lay a piece of aluminum and preferably old style galvanized window screen over it and wrap a piece of wire around it where the folded part of the top is where the wire holds the screen in place. When the oil hits it, it splashes back but not past the screen so it keeps the oil in the container and not on the floor or on you. This is a great way to avoid a mess. It can also be done by using self tapping screws to hold it and you can also use a plastic barrel bottom that makes putting the screws in much easier. I like to leave a big of sag in the screen so when I remove my filter I can just turn it on it’s side on the screen and the oil drains out of it without trying to do something like finding a can to put it in or hold it right side up and try to keep from turning it over. I normally change my oil when it is very hot. Don’t do this if you don’t have a good glove and understand you can hold the drain plug in until it’s free before removing it and have hot oil run down your arm(s). I keep a glove just for this purpose. Heavy rubber gloves are great for this and will last forever. I try to jack my vehicle up in a way where the oil drain port is the lowest point on the pan. I sometimes use drive on jacks but my car is very close to the ground so sliding a very thin floor jack under it works well. I jack it up several inches and put my big floor jack under the exact center of the frame. A small jack will most times have enough lift to not need the larger jack. Once I have the oil plug out and the oil is down to a drip, I loosen the filter with a wrench if it’s very hot and let it drain out into the same pan or another pan depending on whether both points will drain into the same pan. I will leave the vehicle and drain plug and filter just like this overnight till there is no oil draining at all. I time this to coincide to a time when I won’t need the vehicle until the next day. I wipe all oil off the outside of the pan and clean the filter adapter very clean generally using a solvent in a pressurized can so it is clean, clean, clean. I oil my filter gasket and if it’s a filter that mounts vertically, fill the filter with oil before installation. I always use a filter with a check valve which keeps the oil that would normally drain back out of the engine up to the highest level it will hold it. This will generally insure the lifters and maybe the complete valve train has oil in it on a cold start, a time that’s been proven to cause as much as 90% of bearing wear. If I don’t drive an engine really hard which can either be simply driving hard or working an engine hard to perform a job function is has to do, I just don’t wear an engine out. I will eventually get to the point where so many other things are so worn that I don’t want to replace I sell the vehicle with an engine that’s still in decent shape no matter what the mileage is. When disposing of oil, Soccer Mom points out that many auto parts retailers will take your old oil for free and that’s a great feature. I and many other people build oil burning stoves and more and more, people are buying furnaces that will burn virtually anything. You can buy a furnace to heat a large building with nothing but used motor oil These furnaces burn at temperatures high enough to not even have a visible exhaust as you’re accustomed to seeing from a gas furnace. They will burn most any liquid than can be burned and that’s a good way to get rid of old oil and save a lot of money heating your home, shop or any building. Many companies make these furnaces and they can be bought and installed for as little as $5,000, no more than most conventional gas or propane fired furnaces but the fuel is free if you have access to a fair amount of oil. They are also very efficient so if you’re wanting free heating, check into it. The internet is a good source to find out about these furnaces and you probably have local professionals that can price them, install them and tell you anything you want to know about them. Since I have things other than a car to change oil on, I have enough oil I produce to heat my home. Something to think about.

By: Brent

Brent — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:22:26 +0000

I’m back with a few more tips on car maintenance. More and more we see vehicles with no grease zerks in the front steering and u-joints. This is not as big a deal for u-joints and cv joints as it is the steering parts. Check your vehicle to see if there are plugs that can be removed and have a grease zerk installed. If this is the condition, then by all means, removed the plugs and replace them with grease zerks. I’ve had many GM vehicles that had no place to put zerks in the driveshaft and u joints but the sealed units were so superior that there was no need to do so. U joint come in as many varying qualities as there are joints and the same goes for cv(constant velocity) joints most often used in front drive applications as well as 4 WD applications. Each time you’re under your vehicle for whatever reason, check the condition of the boots that cover the cv joints. A perfectly good cv joint with a torn boot will rapidly become a bad cv joint needing replacement. I can’t stress how valuable cleaning a grease zerk before greasing the joint is. Any dirt on the outside will be forced into the joint and will cause premature failure. If your car has a differential no matter whether front or rear with it’s own fluid, be sure to check the level since often a seal can leak at the end of the axle and not be seen where it will lower the level. Take a strong light and look for any oily residue anywhere since there should be none anywhere. Just remember a brand new vehicle doesn’t sit overnight and leave a drop of something on the floor. Keep a close eye on the floor or surface where you park your vehicle also since some leaks with travel down the underside of a vehicle and never drop off, especially if they’re leaking down along the exhaust where they are burned up. Many small parts such as PCV parts that keep the oil in your engine and any blowby pulled into the fuel delivery chamber where it will be burned in the exhaust. This valve keeps a vacuum pulled on your crankcase so there is never pressure in your crankcase, something that will ruin seals and gaskets and is also part of stopping an oil leak before it begins. When you change oil, that’s a good time(if not before) to check your coolant level, something easily done simply by looking at the overflow canister. It will have level marks easily read to show where the level should be when cold or hot. A cold level mark that is low when you look at it in the morning when the vehicle is cold has a leak that you need to find. If you can’t find a leak anywhere on the sytem, it would indicate a leak due to a cracked head or head gaskets or if you smell coolant inside your vehicle or notice a film on your windows, you might have a heater core leaking. These are very easy things to keep your eyes on(and your nose). If you suspect you have a leak in a heater core or head, install a bottle of something such as Barr’s Leak that seals this leak, often permanently. I had a pick up with a very small leak in my heater core but plenty enough to bother me with the smell and mess up the windows. I bought a large jar of Barr’s Leak, installed it following the directions and drove the vehicle anothet 20 years without incident. I also had this same condition and a very large diesel tractor that would have cost thousands of dollars to fix the tiny cracks in the heads and solved it permanently with that same product. If you can’t see your radiator or air conditioner condenser from the front, make sure you look at these coolers as well as any other coolers such as transmission and engine oil coolers for signs of a leak and always look them over with a strong light to make sure you can tell how much crud is in these coolers. Sometimes a car will begin to run hotter than usual or too hot and there is nothing wrong other than a dirty radiator or a/c condenser or both. I regularly blow these coolers out with compressed air but be careful using air or pressurized water to not blow at the fins at an angle which will keep them from flowing air properly. If you feel comfortable removing your grill, do so and take a stiff nylon brush and clean these coolers. After removing large foreign objects, spray them down with a cleaner that’s safe to use on them such as Simple Green and let it sit a while before using pressurized water to wash it out. Many radiators are hard to clean from the rear due to shrouds that limit your ability to reach them so blowing through from the front is a good thing to do. On a particular pickup I have, the grill lets bugs and small rocks through to the coolers behind. After using special combs to straighten the fins too many times, the fins began to break off and the only repair for this is to replace the coolers. Remember that the longer a cooler is in service, even though you can’t see the fractures, the fins become separated from the cooling tubes. Sometimes a radiator will look just fine but won’t cool properly. This is a time to replace it. On the pickup I had with a grill that let insects through it, after running many miles on small roads with no shoulders, grasshoppers and other large bugs take their toll on a cooler, flattening the fins. When I had to replace a worn out radiator, I cut a piece of 1/4″ hail screen or what some refer to as hardware cloth and installed it behind(after painting it black so it didn’t detract from the looks of the front end)the grill. In my particular case, it was easy to use black tye-wraps and tie it to the grill itself. There were places I drilled holes that couldn’t be seen so as to hold the tye-wraps on place. That completely stopped my ruined fin problems and I have since done it to many vehicles. The screen, which is galvanized, won’t rust and it will stop small rocks and break large insects into pieces that don’t hurt the coolers you’re looking to protect. I still have to blow out or wash out the small debris but it stopped coolers from being ruined. If you buy a new vehicle and have this problem from the start, there are generally aftermarket grill inserts that will accomplish the same thing and give the vehicle a custom look. I had the custom grill I wanted and the look I wanted so the hail screen worked well for me as well as costing nearly nothing except a bit of labor. Well, I’m worn out so until next time, here’s to those of you who wish to protect your vehicle and make sure it has the proper amount of oil in it instead of a fraction it is supposed to have due to sheer incompetence on the part of the people working at the oil changing facility. You can never learn too much about your car. I wish everyone safe and uneventful motoring, especially concerning the things you can control and that’s the health of your machine.

By: Brent

Brent — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:21:04 +0000

I applaud you for wanting and finally changing your oil however there really is more to it than what you wrote although what you wrote will suffice. I’d like to ad a bit to it. You are correct in pointing out you should look in your vehicle manual to see what type of oil you should use and what the drain interval(s) are since how you use it depends on the amount of mileage at which oil should be drained. Having done this all my life on practically every type of vehicle and piece of equipment I feel I have a few extra points that are worth noting. First of all, be certain of what type of oil you should use. More and more these days, synthetic oils are required and you ARE NOT going to spend $15 to change synthetic oil and a good quality filter. Now we get to filters that vary greatly in quality. There are sites that can help but one I know of that does a good job is the Amsoil Synthetic oil site where you can obtain a list of how each filter on the market performs. Buy the best one you can find. There will be a chart to show the how every brand of filter performs. Most equipment makers agree as do oil companies that it requires a micron size of 5 or above to harm an engine so using a filter that removes everything above 5 microns is a very good idea. Several companies make this type of filter with Amsoil making a kit that installs over the original filter mount which has the fittings and oil lines to install a dual filter set-up. Dual filters have been in use on big trucks forever. The common application involves a full flow filter as you normally use on your vehicle and a by-pass filter that filters oil to as little as 1 micron ensuring your engine will never have to endure anything foreign that will hurt it’s bearings and other internals. A by-pass filter generally filters all the oil in your engine about once every five minutes of highway driving. I like these systems more than I can tell you in this post. Not only does a by-pass system do a much better job but used in conjunction with certain oils such as Amsoil and some other brands of synthetic oil, it can extend your oil life to the point of NEVER having to drain all your oil with changing filters according to their claimed life and by sending in oil samples for analysis. This has more than one benefit since it will immediately point out any internal problem your engine might be having. There are filters that are rated for 30,000 miles when used in this manner. Newer type filters also employ nano-technology that lets them hold 10 times the amount of pollutant as a normal filter. I encourage everyone to check further into this entire oil changing thing. Also, check your air cleaner at the same time and keep a running count on the number of miles on your fuel filter since a clean filter does more to extend the life of a fuel pump than practically anything except using quality fuels. I must go now but I have much more to say about maintaining your vehicle and the filters that need to be changed and when. Remember you have a battery that needs to be checked on a regular basis and doing so when you check your oil will just put you ahead of the curve. Next time I’ll get into cleaning your throttle body since this is a very easy job that’s never done by most people and it will greatly increase the efficiency of your fuel system. More to come.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 19:26:56 +0000

Brett–
I’m sorry to hear about the loss of your blue Weezer album. I just changed my oil this morning. Been doing it for years……

By: Dennis

Dennis — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:09:46 +0000

When adding the oil it’s best to leave a quart out, then start the engine for a minute or so, then add the last quart. This ensures the vehicle is not overfilled before it flows through the filter. Also make sure none of the filter gasket remains stuck on the vehicle by wiping the rim b4 you install filter.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:37:39 +0000

Hi,

I just found this entry out of the blue while roaming google and I thought I’d add a few thoughs, what with being a mechanic (in a real garage, not a lube joint), I think I can be of service.

First, the quality of the oil in lube joint isn’t bad. It’s the same oil you can buy in bottles and jugs at the store, only we get it by the truckload and store it in large tanks rather than stock miles of shelves with 1L. bottle. It’s much cheaper that way.

What you have to watch for are places that use cheap filters. A good solution is to just bring your own. Many clients at work always bring an OE filter for their service.

I’d advise against stabbing and oil filter with a screw driver. It might seem like a good idea to gift it with a handle, but if it rips, you’re stuck having to get your car towed. If it’s too tight for the filter wrench and the end of the filter gets crushed, I suggest moving the wrench down to the base of the filter where it’s stiffer. Then if THAT doesn’t work, at least the filter isn’t destoryed, and you can drive the car to the shoop yourself, saving $$$.

Even if your manual says 5000, 6000 or however many miles, I really do recommendchaning it at 3K. *Most* people drive “severe duty” cycles without knowing, be it from the heat, cold, length of trips, driving habits, etc. An oil change, especially if done yourself, is cheap insurance on that 10-20,000 dollar vehicle.

Finally, I really do have to say that going to a garage (not lube joint) to change your oil is NOT a bad idea, because while the mechanic is under your car, he doens’t just look at the oil pour down. We always look over a few points. Before we raise the car, we take a quick peek at the air and cabin filters, the belt(s) and AT fluid, and while it’s up we can see if other components are showing signs of failure, we check for leaks, we check for loose parts in the suspension and steering, and we even glance at the brakes , should abnormal wear catch our sight.

This might see like fishing for money on our part (and it is) but it’s also keeping your car safe and in shape. Not to mention catching parts before they fail allows you to plan the maintenance, rather than getting towed to the garage when the failure happens.