Prep for Changing the Oil in Your Car

Series Summary

Changing the oil in your car is an essential maintenance duty for every car owner. Keeping a regular oil change and maintenance schedule will ensure good performance of your vehicle, contribute to a long engine life, and will decrease the likelihood that your engine will overheat. Changing your oil may seem like an arduous, confusing, and extremely dirty job. Though it may be a dirty job, changing your engine oil is not as difficult as most people think - all you need is the right information. If you would like to learn how to change your oil, learn for free from one of our experts.

In this free online video series, learn from mechanic Mark Sullivan as he teaches you how to change your car's oil. Learn what supplies and equipment you need to change the engine oil in your car, how to lift your car with a floor jack, how to remove the drain plug of your oil pan and drain the oil out of your engine, how to remove and replace your oil filter, what type of oil to use in your engine, how to replace the oil in your engine, how to circulate new oil in your engine, and how to clean up the mess after you have changed your oil.

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Mark Sullivan for Expert Village and today we're going to teach you how to change the oil in a standard internal combustion automobile engine. Here we have a standard automotive engine. This is an inline 4 engine, meaning it has 4 cylinders. Today we're going to change the oil. The things that you'll need to know about to begin changing the oil is first if you do not feel comfortable doing this operation on your vehicle, take it to some quick lube oil change facility where you can drive through. It can cost you about $40. But this way if you do it yourself it can cost under $9. So, the things that you need to know first are some of the basic components of your automotive engine. The first thing you do is make sure that the key is off and the key is removed from the ignition. Secondly, put the vehicle in gear so that it will not roll away. Third, set the parking brake. That's a standard type parking brake, pull it so that it's locked on. So this is safety first. Set your parking brake, have it in gear, make sure the key is out of the ignition switch. It is removed. Then you would pop the hood, open the hood. So you lift the hood and then support it carefully with the hood latch rod."