Oil Change

I just changed my oil myself. this was my 8’s third oil change. the first two were performed by dealerships (1st by the dealership I bought it from, second by a highly recommended dealership). I didn’t jack the car up at all.

the crush washer I removed from the oil drain plug had been painted black! it must have been the factory crush washer. so two different dealerships must not have bothered to replace it. I did. (crush washer cost a buck, the filter was $8.something, for a total of $9.95 with tax for both)

the oil filter was only hand tightened. a pleasant surprise, in that it was easy to get the old oil filter off.

the car had been driven about 4 hours previously. I wrapped the oil filter with a diaper first; fortunately, because some oil came out with the old filter.

breaking the drain plug loose could have been a problem, but I have a 2-foot long socket driver (non-ratchet) that I use for taking off wheels, with that it wasn’t too hard.

the hardest part was putting the drain plug and new crush washer back on. since I didn’t jack the car up, there wasn’t much room between my oil collection pan and the place where the drain plug went. the crush washer slipped off and fell in the old oil! that sucked. after that I moved the pan away and just put some newspaper under the hole to catch the odd drip or two while I put the plug back in. I don’t have a torque wrench, so I just tightened the drain plug some random amount.

• maintenance
• oil
• rx8