Two Fast & Easy Ways to Change Your Motor Oil

Vehicle maintenance goes beyond just giving your car or truck a good bath and using metal polish or wax detailer to make sure that it looks great while you’re driving it (though, both of those are very important), vehicle maintenance also needs to be happening behind the scenes regularly, we’re talking about changing your motor oil.

Changing the engine oil in your vehicle is a necessary task. Without new motor oil, the engine gets dirty, overheats, and can become damaged through lack of lubrication. Usually, the oil is changed as part of your car’s service package when you buy it from a dealer.

Engine oil is also designed to hold contaminants in suspension until they are filtered out. This prevents microscopic damage from being caused to the internals of the engine and is why after a while oil turns black and has to be changed. 

If you have an older car that’s been sitting, chances are it’s in need of a good metal polish job and an oil change. Or if you don’t want to worry about the cost of an oil change you can save some money by doing the job yourself and, even if it’s your first time, it is perfectly possible to perform your own oil change.

Two Ways to Change Your Oil

When it comes to changing the motor oil in your car, there are two ways that you can go about this:

• You can open the drain plug located on the oil sump and then let the oil drain out into an engine oil drain pan or another sturdy container.
• Or, you can use an oil change pump to suck out the oil out of the engine.

Drain Your Oil

Each of these “techniques” has its advantages and disadvantages. Using the standard, “let the oil drain out” method is quicker and less tedious, as long as you know what you’re doing to begin with and have some automotive confidence. To change your oil this way you’ll need a set of ramps to lift the car and a container to catch the engine oil. It is a simple job but if you have never worked under a car before you might not feel comfortable starting now unless you can get some guidance from someone with previous experience. However, this is a very quick way to make an oil change and you’ll always be able to drain all of the engine oil out.

Oil Change Pump

The second method, using an oil change pump, also known as an oil extractor does not require any mechanical know-how at all. It is simply a matter of pushing a tube down the dipstick rod and using a hand-powered pump to create a vacuum that sucks the engine oil out after the sump. 

Basically, if you know how to check your motor oil, you can change your oil with this method, no prior automotive knowledge is required. However, these devices do have mixed reviews, and sometimes, taking this route will require several tries to get all of the engine oil out. On the flip side, however, you don’t have to worry about lifting your car up to drain the oil or messing with anything you’re unsure about. Keep in mind that sometimes it can be difficult to get all of the oil out.

Whichever technique you decide to employ to change your oil, make sure to change your oil filter too. There’s no point in changing the oil if you’re not going to change out a mostly or completely blocked oil filter in the meantime. And while you’re at it, once you’ve changed the oil, and detailed the inside you might as well wax and buff your ride with the best metal polish around! Don’t forget about those wheels either, Quick Sheen offers a complete car kit stocked with all the items you’ll need to make sure that your car or truck looks slick all year round, from anti-fog spray to severe corrosion and rust remover, we’ve got it all. Shop for your metal polish and other car care products, here.