Common Oil Change Mistakes

Oh. Hey, friends, it's Len here from 1A Auto. Is it just me or is nothing ever as easy as it seems? We're going to be doing an oil change on this vehicle right here, and an oil change is pretty much as basic as it can get as far as maintenance for your vehicle. It's also one of those things that you're going to do more often than pretty much anything else. So it's a good idea to know what's going on, how to do it, and maybe some things along the way that you should probably pay attention to. I've been doing this for a while. I've worked in garages, I've worked in the driveway, I've done all sorts of things. I've seen all sorts of things and, of course, I've heard a few things along the way. I want to kind of talk about it, so let's get into it.

Hey, buddy, where is your safety attire? Yeah, yeah, give me a second. Gosh. Okay. This belong here. Come on. Okay. Nothing's ever easy. Now the first thing that we're going to talk about is safety. This is going to be very important because, of course, we're going to be dealing with chemicals and we're going to have to get underneath the vehicle itself to, of course, drain the oil. If anything potentially comes out and gets inside your eyes, I probably don't need to tell you what might happen. Of course, if you're working with your hands around any type of chemical, it's a good idea to make sure that your skin is protected. If you get some of that used motor oil on your hands, it might be okay for like a minute or two, but overall, if you leave it on there, not only is it typically going to stay in your hands a little bit, even though you scrub, scrub, scrub, but you could also potentially get some skin infections or even skin cancer.

Obviously, you're also going to want to make sure that you have the proper tools to be able to do the job. You want to make sure that you're in a nice, flat level surface away from anybody or anything essentially, especially if you're going to be jacking up the front of your vehicle so you can try to get under it. Come on. Okay, let's get this under here. Holy cow, that was dangerous.

Okay. So trying to get this thing up in the air so I can get underneath that outside proved to be a little bit difficult and maybe even a little bit scary. So I'm inside on a nice flat surface, I'm going to start jacking this up. Oh, get out of here you meatball, do you even know what you're doing? Some people don't think about this, but every manufacturer has its own specific raising and supporting locations on their vehicle. Some of them are going to have a solid frame that pretty much goes all the way around. That's going to be perfect for jacking things up and, of course, using jack stands. Other cars won't, maybe they'll have a pinch rail or other safe raising and supporting areas. You want to make sure you know exactly what you're doing, that way there you're safe as possible. In my case, I'm going to be using a lift and this is where I'm going to be lifting from. So now let's talk about some of the common materials that you're going to need to be able to do this job.

Great. Now if you're doing it in the driveway, you're probably going to want to have a nice jack. So that way there you'll be able to access the undercarriage of the vehicle you're working on. Commonly, they're going to be a little low to the ground and trying to slide underneath them, it's a little bit easier if you've got a little bit more space. If you're going to be jacking it up, you need to make sure that you have some jack stands as well. Now, these are just as important as the jack itself. I wouldn't jack anything up and climb underneath the vehicle without having some stands or something that's going to help protect me while I'm under there.

Side from that, of course, while the front wheels are up off the ground, you're going to want to choke the rear wheels. If the vehicle is sitting at an angle, there's always the possibility that it could potentially roll away, and that's very unsafe and very scary. Other than that, a common selection of wrenches and even a filter wrench that fits your particular application, of course, is going to be helpful. Some rags so that you can clean up your mess and keep your hands clean. And, of course, you're going to want a collection bucket because, of course, when you're draining out all that oil, you're going to want to make sure that you recycle it in the end. One last thing that some people don't even think about, I like to have a fire extinguisher around because sometimes crazy things can happen.

If you don't have a fire extinguisher, you can use some of this. As for my application, your oil filters right up top. Not on every car though. Some cars it's going to be right of it, sometimes on the side, or even right next to the drain plug. Sometimes though, it is up top. If it's up top, it's a good idea to make sure that you take off the filter and replace it before you go ahead and drain the oil. Come on. Oh, no. Oh, geez. Shoot. Unbelievable. You definitely don't want to do that way. Obviously for me, I would just go ahead and use the proper size filter wrench. As you can tell, when I go ahead and squeeze on it, it's going to tighten up to the filter and I'm going to be able to remove this oil filter. Okay. So let's get this filter off the right way. You always want to make sure that you have a nice collection bucket underneath it. That way there, any of this oil isn't going to contaminate Mother Nature. Watch out for that oil, it's going to go right into that collection bucket for us.

Okay. So, now when we unscrew the filter, you want to take a look at it. This one right here, as you can tell, is completely filthy. You also want to make sure that it has the gasket that comes along here. A lot of times what can happen is the gasket will stick to the engine right where the oil filter is. If you don't clean this off and you leave the gasket on there, you're going to have a double gasketed situation, in which case under pressure, oil goes everywhere. Let's get the filter out here. Put that right on there. Let's go ahead and tighten it up. Okay. Now the next thing that we're going to want to do is prime our new oil filter. What I mean by that is we're just going to take some of our nice, clean oil and put it right inside there. Also, I want to take some of that clean oil and I'm going to go right along the gasket. That's going to help ensure that it doesn't stick to the engine for the next removal.

Now, when you're tightening these, you essentially want to go so it feels like it just barely bottoms out, and then just give it a little bit more. There we are. Now, from underneath the vehicle, what we want to do is find the drain plug, and that's typically going to be located on your oil pan, which is the pan that's underneath your engine. Now drain plugs can be located pretty much anywhere on your oil pan. Sometimes they're going to be located on the backside here, sometimes over on one side or even the other, and even in some possibilities, it might be located on the front. Either way, it should be in the lowest area of the drain pan. With that said, if you go ahead and jack up your car like this on the front and the drain plug is for some reason on the front, obviously, you're not going to be able to get out all that oil. Obviously, you'd want to try to clean up any of the debris that's around it. By leaving any of that on there, you're, of course, creating an issue where dirt and debris might make its way into the engine. All right. This kind of worked for taking off the filter. Oh, these pliers are garbage. Use the proper size six-point socket to try to remove our drain plug.

If you use the wrong size, well, you can imagine what will happen. Now we're going to take this and we're going to carefully let it drain into our bucket. Now commonly, while this is draining, people are going to try to be efficient. They're going to look for that oil filter and they're going to remove it. So, of course, you can look up along the sides of your engine, underneath the engine, and you're going to want to find the oil filter. It's going to look a lot like this right here. Once you find it, you just want to go ahead and turn it to the left and then remove it, but be careful when you do because oil will come out, could potentially come down your arm. But essentially, it's going to get pretty slippery, and well, oh, geez, make sure you clean up your mess.

Oh my God, why did you just do that? You never try to clean out the inside of your engine with a parts cleaner. What is this guy thinking? The next thing that I want to do is find my drain plug. We're going to look to see if we have a gasket on it. A lot of times these will either have a gasket that's actually attached to the drain plug, or it might be a separate gasket. Either way, you want to make sure it has the gasket on it. If it doesn't, where is it? Sometimes it might potentially be stuck right up on the engine along here. This one obviously isn't that way. Maybe it's inside of your collection bucket. You are trying to recycle it, you want to make sure everything's good to go, it fell off when you took off the plug. You want to make sure you find it. You want to make sure you inspect it, and if it needs to be replaced, replace it.

All right, let's go ahead and get this in there. If your oil is still dripping out of the pan, why would it make any sense to just go ahead and put the drain plug in before it's even done? What kind of rush are you in anyway? Oh, geez, it's going to come back out. Now these drain plugs you want to make sure that you tighten them up. If you go ahead and leave them loose, you're, of course, going to have an issue, and then torque it to manufacturer specifications. What the heck is this guy doing? Never spray your exhaust with parts cleaner, it doesn't make any sense, especially if it's hot. Partially because, well, this still has O2 sensors in it. The O2 sensors don't like parts cleaner on them.

They don't like any chemical actually. Just clean down the area where you were working that got the oil on it. Let me get that in there.

Hey, can you help me with this?

Yep. Hold on. Hey, did you tighten your drain plug? Okay. Let's start this up.

Did you even add oil to that?

Oh, geez. Oh my God, what is this guy doing? I hope he didn't just cause internal engine damage. Add oil before you start it up. Now, it's going to be time to fill the engine with oil. All right, that's full. I'll clean that up later. This guy is something else, when I said fill the engine, I didn't mean fill the engine, I mean the proper amount and type of oil. You want to make sure that the type that you're using or at least the weight that you're using is the proper weight for the type of vehicle you have. You want to, of course, check out the manufacturer specifications for that. So let's take a quick look at the numbers on the bottle right here. We've got 5W-20. This stands for the thickness or the weight of the oil.

Overall, the lower the numbers that you see right across here, the thinner the oil is. Well, that's great for newer cars. Newer cars are going to have very tight clearances inside of their engine where all the valves and everything else are. An older vehicle like this one right here, this has got 264,000 miles on it. The clearances aren't exactly so tight anymore. I looked inside the owner's manual and this requires something that's much heavier than this 5W-20 oil. If I used 5W-20 oil inside this engine, more than likely, I'm going to hear some engine noises, especially once the engine gets hot or even the temperature outside gets hot. What's going to happen essentially is it's not going to be lubricating the engine properly and it's going to, of course, cause an issue.

So make sure that you have the proper oil viscosity for the application that you're doing and, of course, for the time of year. Obviously, if I was to use 15W-40 oil on this particular application, I could potentially cause a lot of damage to this engine. Also, the quantity. Just because you have a 6-cylinder doesn't mean you're going to have six quarts. Four-cylinder, four quarts, 8-cylinder, eight quarts, make sure you know the proper specifications, and let's get to adding. When we add, it's best to use a funnel and make sure it's a clean funnel.

Let's go ahead and put this right in here and we'll add the proper amount. So you're probably wondering why is the oil level even that important? As long as it's got some, you should be good to go. Well, of course, the engine needs to have the proper lubricity inside. There's a lot of moving internal parts that need to be lubricated. If the oil is low, it could potentially cause some major issues, especially on newer engines that VVT solenoids. All right. Now with that out of the way, we have a nice clear view of VVT solenoids that come right across the top of this valve cover. You're going to find that this one actually has four, it has two on the front back and then two on the rear as well. Now, a lot of older cars aren't even going to have variable valve timing solenoids, or VVT solenoids. On newer cars like this right here, it has these solenoids which essentially is going to change the timing of the cams that are inside of your valve covers to help with fuel efficiency and, of course, extra power, but older cars won't.

If you have your oil too high, there's a possibility that it could get aerated inside the engine, which essentially means there's going to be a whole bunch of little air bubbles inside where the oil is supposed to be, and that's going to make it so the engine isn't getting lubricated properly. All those little air pockets are going to cause areas where there isn't lubricity where there should be, so, of course, you might find where on your internal engine parts. Of course, if it's overfull, you might even find some blue smoke coming up the tailpipe.

Now, after you run the engine for a little while, you want to make sure that you turn it off. With it still being on a flat level surface, we're going to check the oil level. I'll remove the dipstick, wipe it off completely, put it back in. Now, at this point, we can see where the oil level's at. It's right in between the safe zone. As long as it's in between the lower dot and the upper dot, you're doing all right. Okay, let's get this back on here, make sure everything's nice and tight. Looks like I need brake fluid. I'll go to the store and get some right now. Let's see what this guy's up to now. Where is he? Oh, he left his brake fluid cap off? That's great. That's what you want, contaminants getting into your brake fluid. And his air filter hose, just leave off so anything can get inside there. Genius.

So that's pretty much what I've got for you. Maybe you've done an oil change on your own or maybe you've heard a couple of stories, either way, if you want to talk about it, leave it in the comments section below because I always love to hear from you. If you liked the video or you love the video, feel free to smash on the like button for me, it'll mean the world. While you're at it, go ahead and subscribe and ring the bell. That way there you can be kept up with all of our latest content, Thanks.

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