OIL!!!

OIL!

Yes today's subject is how to save on oil! I am talking about oil for your car, not for cooking! Although most of my latest blogs have been about cooking and will continue, I thought that a lot of people play into a lot of hype when it comes to your oil in your car!

Let me digress! Ok Saving on cooking oil is easy enough! Get a PUMP! I have one of these marvelous little pumps.. you can put a little olive oil or veggie oil in this thing, pump it up and then spray... Saves you from buying cans of overpriced spray from the stores.. and probably save you a ton the cost of it in a few short months! I'm probably not supposed to promote the products that I use in my blog, but I love this thing! My sister got me one and I can't live without it.. My cans of spray just sit there now!! I guess I should use them up and toss them to make room for more spices and things that I have been collecting.. lol

Ok back to motor oil! The problem with oil is that we can't live without it, but we can reduce our consumption of it a lot, especially in our own cars! Ok as everyone knows, cause you are browbeaten by advertisers to think that it's true, you are supposedly supposed to change your oil every 3000 miles or 3 months.. Well I gotta tell ya you are wasting your money if you follow this line of BS!

Take a look at your operators manual for your car, and look at the maintenance schedule! You will find when the manufacturer actually says to change your oil is a lot longer than 3000 miles. Check it for yourself! Now the best thing to do for reference is too actually look at some older model cars, it will say that you can go almost 15000 miles before that change, or with heavy driving, you might only get 7500.. this was the recommendation that my 1987 Nissan Sentra used.. I changed my oil about every 10000 miles and the car went 298000 miles before I messed it up by stripping out the crankshaft bolt.. otherwise I would probably still own the car and it would have many more miles on it today! Just saying check your stats!

Yeah oil turns black.. yeah it "breaks down" but only to a certain point... Now I have a story about a 1973 Mercedes 200 that I used to own.. I was living in Germany at the time, so if you try to find this model it doesn't exist in the USA. Anyhow, my story goes like this! Mercedes in all their greed made the drain plug need some special huge allen wrench to get it out.. well I didn't have this tool... the oil was black when I got the car.. I wanted to change it, but being married, on the economy, and with a kid on a military salary back then, well we needed to eat more than the car needed an oil change.. So basically I have no idea how old that oil was, but I checked it frequently, and drove that car everywhere I could on my days off.. adding oil maybe once when it was low.. but I don't even remember doing that... so I drove that car for almost a year, before it ceased up... why did it cease? Oh cause the radiator sprung a leak in the cap, and the wonderful friend that was driving it didn't know that when the temperature needle on the water temperature gauge goes off the dial... that you don't keep on driving it on the autobahn! So after all the water left.. and this will happen if you are as stupid as this chick was.. the oil can only keep the temperature down for so long.. you need that water.. it's probably more important than the oil! LOL!

Oh, and what's this crap about changing it every 3 months? If my car sits in my driveway for 3 months after an oil change why do I need to go get it done again? Did the oil go someplace? Did it turn a funny color? Did it break down in the California sun? NO NO NO NO NO! It's an advertising gimmick to get you to spend your hard earned bucks every three months! Repeat business for the oil change joint you use! So forget that myth.. I mean how long does the oil sit in bottles in some of these places? Do you really buy any oil from a grocery store? If you do, well you're really spending too much! Sometimes you have to buy it from a gas station and we all know how they like to charge 5 bucks a quart.. that's more than a gallon of the best gas you can buy!!!

So forget that 3 month thing.. just go by the miles on your car to determine when to change it! You're a fool if you don't, and you are wasting a lot of money every year!

Ok now for the people that can actually figure out how to change their own oil instead of paying some business 25 bucks and upwards of 150 to change your oil. Unless you are rich, or well off, then hey give your money away..

I find that changing it myself is the easiest thing to do, hardest part is getting to that filter on some cars... that might be worth the money if it's a huge hassle to get to it to, if so then take it in to an oil changing place, but NEVER to the car dealer! Dealers have got to be the most expensive place to get your oil changed.. unless they run specials, but a lot of those specials are for the dealers specific model of car and everyone else gets the normal bending over that we are all accustomed to when visiting the dealer for service!

Go to your local auto parts store, I am sure you know which ones have the best prices, and get your oil there and do it yourself. Oh by the way, the filter does NOT need to be changed at each oil change! Change it every two times or even three or four.. the oil is not that dirty in your car.. and all the filter is catching is metal shavings usually anyhow.. not dirt.. unless you leave your oil fill cap off your car with your hood up in the blowing desert, where the hell is dirt going to come from in a sealed system? Of course it does get dirty, but it will never clog up even if you leave it in for years and years.. it's just another gimmick. I buy my oil at Walmart for 10 bucks for 5 quarts... it works... and just get the right weight.. most oils are the same, nothing fancy in them that you need to keep your car going. So if you think you need a name brand you're wrong!

I guess I should say that if you try any of this stuff, use your brain... don't come back to me and tell me that your car blew up cause of not changing your oil... I am just relating what you CAN do.. and what I think of OIL! Too many people these days want to be stupid and then blame someone else.. I have done this on ALL my cars, except my 2003 Hyundia Santa Fe just cause I had a good job at the time and didn't want to work on that damn thing... but it had 187000 miles on it by 2006 when I gave it up in my bankruptcy! So as you can see I drive A LOT! And I mean A LOT! And nothing has happened to any car of mine due to a lack of changing the oil. In fact my 1985 Toyota Truck that I drive now has 330000 miles on it, and it burns oil.. so sometimes I forget to add it until it is below the dipstick levels to even read it.. can you say 3 quarts low? and I drive it hundreds of miles... last oil change was last year around 289000... but I figure if it burns it I don't need to change it.. I just add new.. and the thing still runs and goes hundreds of miles sometimes in a day for work..

So in summary,
1) You don't need to change your oil as often as 3000 miles, that's a myth and a retailers dream! Check your owner's manual for their recommendation.. and if they say 3000 miles now I will be surprised! I am not talking about what the dealer says is the maintenance schedule, but what your OWNER'S MANUAL says.. take time to read it! The info is towards the back, after the part about learning how to operate all your gizmos! Use the HIGHEST value.... or go in between the normal driving and the hard driving recommendations... There are usually two tables to look at..

2) No need to change your oil every 3 months if you don't drive your car the amount of miles in the manual! Wait for those miles.. the oil isn't going anywhere!

3) You don't need to buy a name brand oil... the stuff Pep Boys used to sell looked like recycled oil just filtered.. worked great in my cars for years.. then Pep Boys pissed me off...so I buy the Walmart brand.. which looks newer! LOL!

4) Use common sense. Make sure your car is maintained. Check ALL your fluids at least monthly, or have a friend do it for you if you don't know how or you're a hot chick that doesn't like to get dirty! haha!

5) Don't fear letting your oil get "old" it will still lube your engine! But do keep the level up to the proper spot! It doesn't have to be to the top of that line, just somewhere in between the low and full marks! Never overfill your oil either.. more is not better.. you can blow a seal.. then you will have engine problems.. funny how that works!

There are many things that are made of oil and oil byproducts, so many that I can't even start on how you can save on those.. but look around.. keep your plastics consumption down, and recycle what you do use.. only 1% of our plastics are recycled, that's pitiful! I do my part, how about doing yours... besides you get paid to save them.. turn them in with your aluminum cans and bottles.. and get a few extra bucks back!