A little humor???

Maybe???

Oil Change instructions for Women :

1) Pull up to Jiffy Lube when the mileage reaches 3000 miles since the last oil change.

2) Drink a cup of coffee.

3) 15 minutes later, write a check and leave with a properly maintained vehicle.

Money spent:

Oil Change:              $20.00

Coffee:                     $ 1.00

Total:                       $21.00

Oil Change instructions for Men:

1) Wait until Saturday, drive to auto parts store, and buy a case of oil, filter, kitty litter, hand cleaner, and a scented tree, write a check for $50.00.

2) Stop by 7/11 and buy a case of beer, write a check for $20, drive home.

3) Open a beer and drink it.

4) Jack car up.  Spend 30 minutes looking for jack stands.

5) Find jack stands under kid’s pedal car.

6) In frustration, open another beer and drink it.

7) Place drain pan under engine.

8) Look for 9/16 box end wrench.

9) Give up and use crescent wrench.

10) Unscrew drain plug.

11) Drop drain plug in pan of hot oil:  splash hot oil on you in process.  Cuss.

12) Crawl out from under car to wipe hot oil off of face and arms.  Throw kitty litter on spilled oil.

13) Have another beer while watching oil drain.

14) Spend 30 minutes looking for oil filter wrench.

15) Give up; crawl under car and hammer a screwdriver through oil filter and twist off.

16) Crawl out from under car with dripping oil filter splashing oil everywhere from holes.  Cleverly hide old oil filter among trash in trash can to avoid environmental penalties.  Drink a beer.

17) Install new oil filter making sure to apply a thin coat of oil to gasket surface.

18) Dump first quart of fresh oil into engine.

19) Remember drain plug from step 11.

20) Hurry to find drain plug in drain pan.

21) Drink beer.

22) Discover that first quart of fresh oil is now on the floor.  Throw kitty litter on oil spill.

23) Get drain plug back in with only a minor spill.  Drink beer.

24) Crawl under car getting kitty litter into eyes.  Wipe eyes with oily rag used to clean drain plug.  Slip with stupid crescent wrench tightening drain plug and bang knuckles on frame removing any excess skin between knuckles and frame.

25) Begin cussing fit.

26) Throw stupid crescent wrench.

27) Cuss for additional 5 minutes because wrench hit bowling trophy.

28) Beer.

29) Clean up hands and bandage as required to stop blood flow.

30) Beer.

31) Dump in five fresh quarts of oil.

32) Beer.

33) Lower car from jack stands.

34) Move car back to apply more kitty litter to fresh oil spilled during any missed steps.

35) Beer.

36) Test drive car.

37) Get pulled over and arrested for driving under the influence.

38) Car gets impounded.

39) Call loving wife, make bail.

40) 12 hours later, get car from impound yard.

Money spent:

Parts:                    $ 50.00

DUI:                      $2,500.00

Impound fee:              $75.00

Bail:                       $1,500.00

Beer:                          $20.00

Total:                     $4,145.00

But you know the job was done right!

Comments

A little humor??? — 34 Comments

  1. Yup, been there, done that (well except for the DUI, but I DO understand). Reason why a few years ago I turned in my man-card and now go the Jiffy-Lube route.

  2. Learned some time ago to remove the beer part of the equation when working with my hands.
    As Nuke Road Warrior said, no DUI, but now I have to look at the garden fence and be irritated forever because the BGE (Beer Goggles Effect) made the posts look perfectly straight, and they weren’t perfectly straight.

    Add this part to the oil change. Money for new sneakers for wife.
    This is what I recall.
    John says to his wife, “Watch out for that drain pan full of oil.”
    John’s wife acknowledges the warning, has a brief mental disconnect a few seconds later and then steps into the oil pan. Yes, only one sneaker was ruined, but there isn’t a bunch of use for only one sneaker.

    I still like to change my own oil.
    A couple of factors influence that.
    It gives me a chance to see what’s going on with the car.
    The filter is on the top of the engine.
    I use a vacuum extractor.

    Good post! 🙂

  3. I haven’t thought about the screwdriver through the oil filter trick in years. Uncle Cart had an old Massey Ferguson that you just could not get to the filter on. Flat head for the win.

  4. Recycling is an act forbidden to Christians, because it is a socialist/environmentalist ritual.

    • Well, yeah. But I can drop it off for free and I really don’t want to pour it down the storm drain.

  5. I went to Jiffy Lube ONCE. The next morning there was a pool of oil under the truck. The (insert bad words here) had cross-threaded the drain plug. Take responsibility? Oh no, they lied up and down. I got a helicoil kit from NAPA and fixed it, the guy there called it a Jiffy Lube special. Never again!

    • Yep, good mechanics are too valuable to fool with oil changes. I don’t trust kids to “do right”. Getting old is making it pretty darn hard to do it myself thou. I’ll use the car dealer, I expect.

    • I think he was supposed to chew on it before the test drive. Failure increases odds of DUI. 🙂

  6. The oil wouldn’t be at full temperature after 30 minutes, which is worse, because cold oil is messier to clean up.

  7. All- I see a few of you have also done those things… Minus the DUI… I pay the dealer now… LOL

    Posted from my iPhone.

  8. There are maybe three screw threads for oil drain plugs for 98% of all vehicles, whether inch or metric. Unfortunately the designers unleashed their creativity on hex sizes, so I’d have to slide under a car with both socket racks to find a socket that fit the plug.

    After far longer than it should have taken, I wised up and started writing the wrench size on the underside of the hood with felt tip, along with the filter part number and any other handy bits of information.

  9. Hey Old NFO;

    Sometimes I pay a place to do my oil, but usually I do it myself, I don’t make a mess, and I know that it is done right. There is something satisfying about fixing your own stuff.

  10. Considering my mechanical abilities (I have literally caused old ball-equipped computer mouses to catch fire. Not kidding. Fire. Smoke coming out, the faint crackling of little flames. Very dead mouse. Old mice, new mice, red mice, blue mice, me using them caused 7 mice on 4 computers to catch fire) I try to avoid wrenching on things.

    Example: Blown tail light. Go to store, check chart for vehicle, buy appropriate bulb. Go home, try to open up area that has tail lights, finally get it open, wires break. Go to store for wire fixing stuff because I can’t find wire fixing stuff at home, put wire fixing stuff on work bench, sudden “bampf” sound, other stacks of wire stuffs magically appear. Go to pull old dead light out, dead light breaks, leaving base magically welded in socket. Dig that out, clean socket, get bulb, realize that somehow I have covered my hands in motor oil, lithium grease, the blood of thousands, wipe my hands clean, scrub my hands clean, start wandering around like Lady MacBeth because my hands won’t come clean, insert bulb in socket, insert socket in taillight holder, insert taillight onto vehicle, forget to fix wires, pull everything apart, hmmm…. broken light, which doesn’t fit old socket, now short of bulb, drive to store and show them socket, get told, yeah, that’s a different bulb, book lies, get the appropriate bulb and 2 spares (which, of course, cost manymuchmore than what book bulb said) and go through everything including fixing wires and install bulb and ‘poomf’ new bulb blows up because my hand grease is caustic or something so do it all over again with very clean hands (scrubbed in Dawn) and with t-shirt over bulb to not get grease on bulb and insert new bulb. Works, wait three days and another bulb somewhere else blows.

    Ever change a dashboard bulb, on a Ford Aerostar? Many reasons why I hate Ford all stem from that Aerostar.

    I’ll pay the bucks. And I’ll pay for premium synthetic oils and mucho-gusto oil filters, and I’ll visually inspect the work done so I don’t get Jiffy-Lubed. Because I can turn a simple 15 minute task into a 4 day ordeal including at least 3 trips to appropriate store and buying one unique tool I’ll never use just to fix one simple little thing.

    Why? Because I can set computer mice on fire. My super powers… Yay… me… (and there was much rejoicing…)

    • Beans, you’ve got skills! I’ve never heard of anyone setting computer mice on fire (and I’m pretty old). Thanks for the much needed laugh!

  11. The coffee should have been at the oil change place. Save a dollar.

  12. Sorry Greg,
    The new price for the oil change(now with “free” coffee)$22.50
    Tanstafl always.
    Dennis the librarian shusher

  13. I’ve changed the oil in airplanes, not cars. Similar problem, along with the “Is the bucket big enough?” on a Radial Engine of Unusual Size.

    It wasn’t. I swear, twice the amount we had put in came out.

    • 1965. Barracks roomie was a jet engine guy — worked in shop. Told me one evening about a newbie who grabbed hydraulic fluid while his trainer wasn’t paying attention. I think he said the newbie got three cans into a J-57 before the trainer recognized the cans. Downhill from there, I guess. At least in-shop so easy to get things except for the dolly rails. Not sure if that qualifies as DIY.

  14. Beans/Chip- Yeah, THAT is an art… never heard of that either!

    Gregg- Have you ever HAD their coffee???

    Dennis- LOL

    CP- Feel free!

    TXRed- 3350s took 18 GALLONS… Burned six, threw six out, and you had six left at the end of a mission… And no, the bucket is NEVER big enough!

    Bob- Ouch!!!

    • Yea, I have. Better to bring your own coffee from home or a QT.

  15. I used to do a lot of mechanical jobs myself, and I have *never* experienced an ordeal like the one described by OldNFO above. However, as I have gotten older, I have discovered that I would rather take a beating than have to work on a car. My time has value to me. And with the advent of the Jiffy Lubes and the Valvoline Instant Oil changes, I would rather pay the quite reasonable price while I kick back for the 30 minutes or so that it takes them to get it done. I have yet to have them screw it up, but I *do* pay attention.

  16. my first jobs, other than paper routes and lawn mowing, were at service stations. Did a LOT of oil changes, found out very quickly how hot engine oil gets in Texas summers (or anytime, really)! Also found out you really didn’t want to drop the oil pan plug into the drain pan, since you had to fish it out (see re: hot oil above). I never really minded oil changes when I had a lift to work from. The job I didn’t like was filling gearboxes and differentials with that stinky heavy oil used in them. The other stinky job was cleaning windshields after a car had been through a plague of locusts (BIG grasshoppers that would make it to Dallas from west Texas occasionally) in summer heat – gawdawful smell.

    And yep, I use Jiffy Lube or some such facsimile now, too.

  17. Roy- That’s the best thing you can do… sigh

    SPQR- That was my question too!!!

    Tom- Cars are ‘easy’ try airplanes for a challenge… LOL. And yes, those damn hydrophobic grasshoppers WILL defeat anything made to put in windshield washer fluid… sigh…

  18. I stopped changing my oil when it became necessary to be an anorexic contortionist to remove the oil filter.

    • I remember when Chevy S10s came out. My 2nd job was in a Sinclair station. To remove the filter on the 4 cylinder engine I had to drive a prybar through the filter to get leverage to turn it to get it off.

  19. OMFG, this post is why I love this blog!

    Went to JiffyLunks when I bought a car with an oil filter that was literally out of sight. They stripped the drain plug. Big puddle of oil under car the next day. Grr. JiffyJerks told ME to go get a fix-it plug and they would install it. Bad words ensued.
    Pro Tip: jerk wrench first, then beer(s).

    And a shout-out for NFO’s latest: Dinosaurs, buy the damn book! ONFO needs beer money in order to change his oil.

  20. One time, ONE TIME!, I decided to have one of those quick-lube places do an oil change. My diesel Mazda had two different oil filters. They had BOTH filters! Yeah, right. Turns out their book was wrong. They didn’t bother to check the old to the new filters. Correct thread, wrong diameter gasket. Pumped all the oil around their parking lot, and for miles down the road. Long story short, it threw a rod through the block a few days later, after they had put the correct filters on it. No satisfaction in small claims court. Should have had it towed to the dealer instead. That tow driver told me those oil change places buy lots of motors. Not in my case… Engine cost was $5k+, per the dealer estimate.

  21. We (My Late Father and I) used change oil in all the vehicles at 1000 miles and in the lawn mower and snow throwers annually. Now I take it to the dealer a little more expensive than jiffy lube but at least they have a reputation to maintain.

  22. As far as alcohol goggles go. Never try to paint an apartment after having a few drinks. Trust me it did not end up pretty. A couple of the wives had to repaint it later. I do not think they were amused.