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| Oil Change |
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My mom has a tendency to say realllllly irritating things most of the time. She comes up with these catchphrases, if you will, that drive me out of my fucking mind. "Smart is as smart does," "Your house is disgusting. You should clean it up some time," and "Study, study, studyyyyy!!!!" are some of the lowlights. However, she has, since forever, had one of these anecdotes that seems to actually be quite useful: "Oil is the lifeblood of the car." Knowing the minute amount of information I know about engines these days, I think it's a pretty apt statement. If you think about what a car's engine goes through when you're just driving around normally, not even really getting on it, it's amazing. Anyway, enough rambling...the point is, change your fucking oil, you lazy bastards. Now, the first thing you gotta do it jack the car up on the driver's side pretty high. Now, when you crawl under the front bumper, head for the passenger side front wheel, and you'll see a box with a rippled underside and a bolt on the edge of it, as shown in the picture. The box is the oil pan, and this is where the oil is stored that you need to get out. To do so, all you have to do is unscrew that bolt. It's 14mm. However, before you pull the bolt out all the way, make sure you have something under the hole to catch the oil in. Any kind of big pan will work. They sell special ones with spouts and shit, so you can go get one if you feel like it.
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After a few minutes, all the oil will have drained out of the pan. Go back under the car and screw the bolt back in. Tighten it down pretty damn tight, but not like "break the head off the bolt" kinda tight. Now, scoot wayyy under the car, like 3/4 of your body or so, and if you look up at the alternator from the bottom, right below it and above the axle is a white canister, which is circled in the picture you see here. The green arrow points to the alternator, just to educate your dumb ass a bit.
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What you need to do next is use an oil filter wrench to unscrew the oil filter. It's a little hard to get used to, but basically you stick it around the filter, pull on it to tighten, and twist it like normal. Whatever, you'll get itunless you just plain suck ass. In that case, I guess you're just out of luck. Haha. Note that when you unscrew the filter, yet more oil will come out, so make sure to get it in the pan or whatever you're using to catch the oil. When that's all done with, pull out the new filter and look at the end where it screws onto the car. There will be a black rubber ring that will act as a gasket so the oil doesn't leak out all over the ground. Put a bit of fresh oil on your finger and rub it all the way around the rubber so it seals completely when you screw it into place. Then, hand tighten the new filter onto the car until you can't move it any more, and finish tightening it down with the oil filter wrench until it's pretty hard to move, but be careful. You can crush the filter pretty well if you go crazy on it. Maybe that's just my massive, inhuman awesomeness, though...who knows?
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Finally, it's time to refill the oil. Unscrew the oil cap, located near the back right corner of the cam cover, until it stops spinning, and then just lift it straight up and off. Put a funnel in the hole and pour in FOUR QUARTS of either 10-W30 or 5-W30 oil. If you choose not to use a funnel, you'll just get a bunch all over the cam cover like a douchebag. Good work, Cap'n. When it's all in, screw the cap back on and start the car up. Let it run for a minute and check for any leakage on the ground. It will be pretty apparent if something's wrong...puddles and whatnot. If all looks good, congratulations, you are no longer a slave to the motherfucking Jiffy Lube man. One other note...If you can find them, buy a WIX filter. They are the bombocity of oil filters. Just take my word, they rock out hardcore. You can apparently get them at NAPA and CarQuest stores.
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