How to Change Your Own Oil

Video Transcript

"Hello, my name is Mark Blocker and in this segment we're going to cover, how to change your own oil. To change your own oil in your car, you're going to need a little drain pan, you're going to need a wrench or if you have the right size wrench that works best or you can use your an adjustable wrench to remove the drain plug. And essentially what we need to do is remove the drain plug and the oil pan and that's going to allow the old oil to drain out. We'll catch it in this pan and then we're going to replace it with new motor oil. O.k., I've got the vehicle jacked up. If you've got a truck or something with higher clearance you might not need to do this, but most smaller cars, you're going to need to raise the vehicle up so you've got adequate space to get underneath there, place the pan underneath there and remove the drain plug. Now, I'm just going to slide underneath and I'm going to remove the drain plug real quick and we'll let the motor oil drain out. You want to remember when changing your own oil, you want to have your vehicle at operating temperature, in other words the engine's thoroughly warmed up, take it for a short test drive, whatever it takes. Just make sure that it's good and warm. That thins down the oil and it'll allow it to drain out more quickly and thoroughly. After the oil stops dripping out of the oil pan, You can replace the plug in it, make sure you tighten it down and then we can add the engine oil. O.k., the engine oil is added in the valve cover, should be a cap there and it'll have the engine oil indication on it. And what I've done, it's just an inexpensive way of making a funnel. It's just taking an old oil container and just slicing it in half. You can slide that in there and it makes for an easy way to dump it in. Just make sure you replace the proper amount of oil that's required for your vehicle. This information can be found in the owner's manual. Generally for a four cylinder engine it's four quarts and most other vehicles are five quarts for standard automobiles. Trucks usually take a few quarts more. That information can be found inside your owner's manual as well as the viscosity rating that's recommended for the engine oil for your car. O.k., so that's how to change the oil in your car."