A Question for all you MANLY men

So, uh, at what point does it become CRITICAL to get an oil change?


I HATE taking my car to get an oil change/tire rotation..... so I've been putting it off for months.

Is the oil black? Then it needs a change.

Though considering how freezing cold it's been here, I haven't bothered to change mine and mine's pretty black, lol. But it's not completely black, so I've got a ways to go yet. But yeah, if it becomes black as death, that ish needs ta go.

Depends on the car. Older? Newer?

Type of driving you do? Highway or lots of stop and go.

Dusty, filthy roads?

What kind of oil? Conventional or synthetic?

I run it 6 to 7k but I put premium synthetic and a premium filter in too. If it looks excessively dirty, I will do it more often.

Newer car: '06 Mazda 3 (driver's manual says 5K is fine for the type of driving I do)
Lots of stop and go driving
Mostly clean streets... Pretty much only hit gravel/dust in parking lots or when I go to Grenada.
Conventional oil.


...... it's been 7500 miles since I last had it changed.


and I don't LOOK at the oil, so I don't have a clue if it is black haha

At 7.5k miles, I'd say it's a guarantee it needs changing, ha ha.

Looking at the oil ain't hard or anything. o. o You know what a dipstick is, right? (And no, I don't mean the insult.) Just pull it out and see what things look like. It's used to check the color/clarity/cleanliness of the oil, and also to see how low it is. It's possible you may not even have very much oil in there, which would be very dangerous because all that sheeit isn't getting lubricated while running, which will wreck the car. A dumbass friend of mine drove his brother's car around a lot without ever checking on the oil, and he completely wrecked the engine and everything else because he ran the oil so low there was none left.

Abs correct.

Also, if you're holding on to that car for a while, I'd get synthetic oil. A few dollars more per change, a good investment. Slight better mileage, better engine protection, teeny bit more response.

Sigh. I think I knew the answer would be "GO GET YOUR DAMN OIL CHANGED" ... but I still don't wanna. I will, though. BY February. ........ Hopefully more like Friday, though.

Yeah, I had planned on asking for synthetic oil whenever I got back around to it. I hadn't even heard of it when I got my oil changed last time (way back in like... July?). This car is probably going to need to last me for a good long while. So I KNOW I NEED to take care of it. I just don't like to. I have even been known to give a friend $10 just to go get it done for me or take them out to eat if they do it. If I weren't so broke right now, I'd do that again.

Honestly, I don't even know why it is so damn painful for me.

Thanks to both of you big, brawny mens.

I hate doing it, too. But it's just something that's got to be done.

I do mine. It's easy once you got the right tool and a floor jack. Especially, the 2nd time + on any car.

I have always kinda wanted to learn to do it myself.
Of course, I put it off so long that it coincides with the time to get my tires rotated which I'm DEFINITELY not doing myself. Haha. So might as well kill two birds with one stone, I guess.

For serious, though, I have always kinda wanted a man to take care of all that shit for me. Any takers?!?!

I would if I was down there.

Me and my brother considered doing it to ours and our mom's car. We added up the materials and anything... and it was barely cheaper than just taking it somewhere. So we decided not to.

What the hell is there to hate about doing it It's cheap (usually near as cheap as doing it yourself, so long as you don't take it to one of those bohemian carwash/oil change places that offer backrubs and hors d'oeuvres while you wait and shit) and takes like twenty minutes.

I'm just not a fan of the people interaction. Hell, I hate going to stores period.

Doing synthetic at home...about $28-29.

Having synthetic done at a place....$40-50+

Plus the satisfaction of having it done right and avoiding the oilchange-joint horror stories like them forgetting to put the new oil in, etc.

"What kind of oil do you want?"
"5W-30"
"Be about twenty minutes"

You hate ALL people THAT much?

I love going to the store, most specifically the grocery store. FOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

It only costs like $30 here, Clinton.

Eh. It's usually not that easy. And a lot of the people speak in such a way that I can't understand what the fuck they're saying. So I have to ask them to repeat themselves or just nod my head in agreement to whatever they're saying.

Hey man... we've got some hicks over here.

$30 probably for shit oil.

I imagine your oil change joints down there probably do have a language barrier. Ain't be that suprised.

Shopping for oil is fun. Gotta go for the combo oil/filter deals at Advance Auto, Autozone and the like.

Still seems like a pretty small price to pay to make sure your car runs good.

Though, doesn't matter much to me either way. Drive a newer Honda, oil change only once every ~10,000 miles

What kind of Honda?

I don't know exactly what happens if you don't get an oil change, but my buddy is a big car guy and he cringes when people don't get it done like every 6 months or something

Happened to me once... It was a little crappy car that only cost $300, though. It stopped running. My dad said the head gasket got blown.

Changing oil by yourself is a cinch. Dammit, don't be such a pussy, Loxx.

Only thing I hate about changing the oil in my car is the filter is a real pain to get off. It's right below the exhaust manifold, and that heat shield gets in the way. There just isn't much room to work in a Geo Prizm, lolz. So, in the past, I'd screw that bitch on tight as can be, and would have the damndest time trying to get it off, having to crawl underneath and jab a screwdriver through it to get leverage, that sort of thing.

Haven't had trouble with it lately, though. Knowing how hard it is to get off and not having a tool to easily twist it off, I just don't tighten the thing on incredibly hard anymore. It's snug, but can easily be taken off with a good grip and some force.

I don't even use floor jacks, lewlz. I just get down on the ground and reach my arms back to the oil pan. :O Saves some time, and besides, I hate being under a jacked-up car, even on cement and with a good jack. Just bothers me.

Whenever my car does go kaput, I think I'll get an authentic Toyota, a Corolla probably, since it's what my car is based on. These shitty Geos suck so bad. They have all the Toyota specifications, but are built so shoddily. Need me a true Japanese car—guarantee things wouldn't break down and wear out like they do on this Prizm.

My dick itches.

It's not about the difficulty... it's that for just a few more dollars, someone else can do it. So pfft.

Abnormal Freak wrote:

My dick itches.

All I got from that.