Ok! You’ve got a ride and you like it what’s that mean? MAINTAIN IT! The first step in order to keep your ride riding high is an oil change. What’s an oil change? An oil change is simply you draining out your old oil that you have in your car and putting in fresh oil and replacing the filter.

Now you still might be saying “Well…. It sounds easy but is it really?” YES! Doing an oil change is just that. In fact can’t put it any easier for you in these next few steps I give you…

1. Find out what kind of oil you use and what type of oil filter you need. If you don’t know what type you need bust out that manual that still sits in your glove box from day 1 when you first got the car. Oil change will be somewhere check the index.
2. Go to the store. Take the manual in with you so that both you and the kid behind the counter who drives that piece of rust in the corner of the lot that birds won’t even poop on anymore cause it’s so nasty don’t get the wrong items. And yes that’s right they do give you the wrong parts for your cars! I once had to buy a oil pan gasket for my car and when they brought it out I knew right then that it wasn’t right! It was the size of a stationwagon and I knew mine was the size of a shoe. BUT! He assured me that he was right. Needless to say I made another trip up there the next evening.

Getting jacked up! Go home and jack up your car. Now when you do this please, please don’t drive your car on a a 2×12’s and a cinder blocks. I want you to use either a actual car jack or the ramps that cars can drive up on. REMEMBER to put your car in PARK! Too many people have either gotten hurt and or killed while working on their cars and not engaging the parking brake. NOTE: If you don’t feel comfortable when doing your first oil change then don’t! Safety First!

Drain the oil. Find the oil pan under the car and you’ll see a small nut at the bottom of the pan and twist it off. Be sure to put something under the drain so that you don’t pour this hot black oil onto your nice clean driveway.

Swap out the filter. After the oil is drained you then must unscrew the filter. The oil filter is attached to the engine and might be rather hard to take off. AutoZone and various other retailers sell a special tool to loosen the filter.Before putting the new filter on take your finger and dip it in oil, that’s right I said dip your finger in oil. The reason for this is because you need to take your finger and wipe it around the bottom of the filter where the filter and engine meet between the threads of the filter itself. Why? Because you want there to be a nice lubed up fit between the two parts (engine and filter) . If you don’t do this it will cause friction between the two and could cause the efficiency to decline and the filter to not work properly. This then defeating the purpose of the oil change…

Fill her up! Once the pan is completely drained you’ll then put the nut back on the car and then open the main oil cap on top of the engine with the little cute yellow container. Open the first quart up and pour the CORRECT amount of oil into the car (you’ll find the right amount of oil to put in by the owners manual). Aftermath, once your all done you need to quickly look under the car for any leaks. Actually this needs to be done while your pouring the first quart in the engine.

I hope this helps your out in maintaining your car and also makes you feel more like you can work on a car and still not me a mechanic. That’s it for Oil Change 101.

ACF