I’m Curious About Oil Changes

I'm steering away from mask debates, face shield debates, and fans at school sports debates today. Instead, I am curious about how many people change their own oil. And also how you dispose of it.

I change most of my own oil. The exception would be my Corvette, and that's because I didn't want to have to buy a special low jack that would fit underneath that low riding sucker.

I use full synthetic oil in everything of mine that has oil unless the owner's manual tells me to do otherwise. Along my "quest for quality" in my oil change process, I also buy premium filters. The job that these items do is too important to buy the stuff that was on sale.

My oil pan is "Da Bomb!" I think I paid $4.99 for it more than 25 years ago. It's got a little peg that you can turn your old filter over and let it drain.

The old oil gets poured into the container that provided the new stuff. Then I drop it off at MasterLube.

So, I have many questions. Are you good about changing your oil? Do you change it yourself or feel that this is better left to the professionals? Are you like me and can't do an oil change without either spilling oil on the garage floor or dropping the drain plug into the drain pan more often than not?

I had a brief career as an oil changer almost 30 years ago. I had a friend who opened his oil change joint and was having trouble finding employees so I volunteered to help him until he had enough help hired.

I thought I would be holding a clipboard and running credit cards. It turns out he did most of that while I mostly burned my forearms trying to get to hard to reach oil filters.

My oil change career lasted less than two months.