Oil Change
7/29/2

I�ve got an itinerary of what maintenance and repairs I want to do to my car. This last weekend was the oil change weekend. Next weekend is the fuel and air filter weekend, and I might replace the missing pins in the front of the car, in it�s �mouth.�

Friday on my lunch break, I braved the 100+ heat index with the top down and went to Target to get my Mobil 1 10w-30. I had already observed that Target had a cheaper price than Hel-Mart. Target had $3.50ish when Hel-Mart is $4.50ish. Well, I went to a different Target than the one I originally priced it at and it was actually $3.70ish. I got four quarts. I picked up sushi at Publix on the way home. Again, no eel rolls so I had to get something else. Harvest combo or whatever that was, it was lame.

After work, I needed to pick up, allegedly, a short handled ratchet which they have for getting into the hard to reach areas and using the oil filter wrench, actually a socket by definition, to loose the oil filter. Lowe�s didn�t have anything like it. Advance Autoparts didn�t have it either, but they did have the holder and it was just sold out. I bought the oil drain pan I needed and got suckered in by an Eagle One tire treatment sampler. Six dollars total.

Then off to the Mazda dealer where I�m told that a filter will cost around $4. OEM is the best, yadda yadda. Well, our Dealer charges $6.75 for the $4 filter. I saw Purolator filters at Advance for $2.99 and they are probably in the top three best filters, so that�s what I�ll get next time.

The rest of the day was going to the library with Aisai and then eating at Marvin�s, a mythologically good restaurant just into Tennessee, but I am getting tired of it really. I can�t eat all that much and it�s an all you can eat. I wish it was an all you could take home and eat tomorrow also.

Saturday, I wake up later than I plan and start the oil change. I put a black plastic sheet across the section of the driveway that I�m going to do the oil change on and then take the Black n� Tan for a drive to heat the oil up. I�m back shortly and pull it so the engine is over the black plastic sheet. I jack at the jacking point and put my jackstands in.

Note: I�ve only had one friend in high school have their father killed by having a jack fail and crush him to death, so I will always use jack stands. I suggest you do also. Never trust a jack.

I drain the oil and discover the difference between the $4 drain pan and the $7 drain pan is that the $7 drain pan would have probably caught more of the oil since it was bigger. I had to reposition the small drain pan several times and got a good amount of oil all over the place.

I didn�t like the nasty Frankenstein bolt the last person who changed the oil had used, and I sure didn�t like the metal washer, so I took the 626 to AutoZone to get another one. The Mobil 1, for comparison sake, at AZ was $4.99 and the Mobil 1 filters, which are very good, were $9.99.

The AZ fellow asked what I needed and I told him. He punched it up and I was amazed that a magnetic core drain plug was only $1.67. Why on earth did the previous owner put this dork bolt in when a real drain plug bolt was so cheap? I�ll never know, unless my suspicion that they didn�t know what they were doing is correct.

Back home and in goes the magnetic core drain plug. While I was gone, Aisai has mowed and sprayed grass clippings all over the place. Fine, they�ll soak up some of the oil on the plastic sheet.

Now it was time for the filter. The engine was still pretty hot and my had was pretty large and I couldn�t get it. The oil filter wrench from the previous owner didn�t fit the OEM filter on the engine. That and the fact that the oil was filthy leads me to believe that in the 5k miles that he owned it, he never changed the oil. Grrr.

Aisai�s little girly hands could reach the filter, but weren�t strong enough to turn it.

So here I am, I have a car with no oil in it and I can�t get the filter off. I remember these times from my 323. I decide to see if the power steering will work without the engine running. Sure enough, it does. I turn the tires all the way to the left and am then able to lie on the ground and put my hand up onto the filter. Turn turn turn and oil comes all over the place. Aisai has to take the filter from my hand and carry it out since my arm doesn�t hinge that way. The puddle on the black plastic is very large now.

When I get up, Aisai comments that I have oil all over the back of my head. I wipe it onto a pink towel that I�ve commandeered for garage duty. I put on the new filter from the bottom and Aisai tightens it from the top.

After all this, we went down to the Talladega Scenic Drive, which was very nice, but we left the house at noon and didn�t get back until nine. Aisai got pretty burned. We had the top down the whole time. We drove a total of about 400 miles over the weekend.

Fast forward to this morning and Aisai calls me on my cell phone while I�m in the lab. She tells me that there was a palm of her hand sized pool of oil on the garage floor. She was worried that she didn�t get the filter on tight enough. I think this is from me spilling oil all over the suspension when I took the filter off, because I think I pulled the car in right after so the car could cool down. Just to make sure, I went out and tried to turn the filter.

With the engine cooler, I was able to get my arm pretty far into the area where the filter is. I couldn�t turn it with my right hand, as there was no room for my radius and ulna to move to.

I put in my left arm and turned it a full quarter turn. Yikes.

Total cost of a synthetic oil change at home was $31 but from now on I�ll use the Purolator filter for $3 and then it will be only $20.

This weekend is the fuel filter and air filter. Air filter is a little simpler than putting on shoes. The fuel filter will dump gas all over me, making me smell all manly. I don�t know about the clips for the front. I know if I get the actual Mazda clips it will be around $20. I�ll see what the aftermarket holds when I go to Advance to get the filters. I already know that Hel-Mart doesn�t have the fuel filter and the air costs $9.95 there. Target doesn�t have them at all. So I�ll bear that in mind when I get them.

Tonight I should wash and vacuum the Kronos for it�s sale, hopefully, later this week. Aisai will print out bill of sale forms and we�ll both take it to Best Buy to have them put the OEM stereo back in, so that I can put the Sony Xplod in the Black n� Tan when I get around to it.

And after next weekend, the Black n� Tan gets plugs and wires. NKG wires probably, but just Champion Platinum plugs. The new fad is iridium, not platinum, so I�ll be, like, so last year.