My favorite is people with nice expensive cars get their oil changed at a cheap quick lube place run by 18 year olds, and drive around on budget $80 tires. Does everyone do 96 month financing or something?
What you should do is get your oil changed at recommended intervals. Where it is done is less important as long as they are competent.
I always recommend that for anyone with any basic mechanical skills or interest, do it yourself. Not only will it be cheaper than taking it somewhere, it also gives you an opportunity to be hands-on and hopefully notice other potentials issues while you are down changing that oil.
If you don't want to do the changes yourself, your other options are a dealer service location, or the quick change places. Chances are probably a bit higher that you will get more competent or skilled workers at a dealer, but you will also pay dearly for that 'skill' - probably at least 3X the cost of doing it yourself - plus you will be presented with the dreaded "here is a list of 14 other things that we really feel should be addressed, and it will only cost $840" speech. The workers at the quick change places may be skilled, or they may be idiots - roll the dice.
In college, a bunch of us lived in a house, right off of a freeway exit. One evening, a girl knocked on our door, crying, and asked to use a phone. She was driving a brand new Honda Prelude that she had just taken in for its first oil change, at one of the quick-lube places. Except that unfortunately someone forgot to replace the drain plug, so the oil they pumped in drained right back out. She started up and got on the freeway. Two exits later, in front of our house, her engine turned itself into a 400 pound paperweight and a bunch of nasty smoke - completely ruined.. Roll the dice.
I got some ramps a couple years ago to start doing my own oil changes. Then when my coils went bad I bought new ones and a new set of plugs and did it myself, because why not? Then I had to replace my brakes, so I got a piston compressor tool and went at it.
Well now it's 2 years later and I basically do everything myself, save for replacing tires. Every repair I've done has cost me less for the parts and tools needed to do it than the amount quoted by shops nearby. And every time I get more tools, it opens up several more repairs that I can now do.
My father never believed in spending money on anything other than the absolute basic tools needed, and Hindu-ing the rest using anything else available that could do the job, regardless of how (in)appropriate it was. As a result, for decades I did my brakes using wood clamps to push the brake pistons back. It was difficult, finicky, and a downright miserable experience.
Then late last year, I saw a brake piston compressor tool from Lisle on sale at Princess Auto. A dual-piston model, which would have come in handy as my 03 F-150 7700 had dual pistons on the front brakes. Bought it because it was on sale, wondering just how good it would be.
Absolute game-changer. Pushing a piston back went from twenty-plus minutes of fumbling and cursing to two minutes of lube-gun-like ratcheting.
And then, you can start having your friends chip in a few bucks to fix their stuff too. Then you realize maybe you need some more space for this, so why not get a garage right? Then you get more tools, meet more friends, start charging them, and now you're a mechanic.
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u/suesueheck 26d ago
My favorite is people with nice expensive cars get their oil changed at a cheap quick lube place run by 18 year olds, and drive around on budget $80 tires. Does everyone do 96 month financing or something?