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56 Posts
Mission accomplished. That shouldn't be big news in and of itself. But it was more of an adventure than I planned on. At 7511 miles on my 2022 EX, I was going to just let the dealership do the oil change and tire rotation, but even with their coupon, it was way more $ than it should have been. Plus, I had a new unopened jug of 0W-20 Mobil 1 from my previous vehicle...plus I like doing them, and I trust myself to do it right. So I went to the dealer, bought an oem KIA oil filter from the parts department, got my correctly labeled "campaign" oil cap replaced and got an inspection sticker while I was at it. To their credit, they were very accommodating and made no effort to convince me that they should do the service.
So last Saturday morning, I got out my cardboard, my drain pan, my 17mm ratchet, and got to it. I decided to change the filter first this time because I thought it had potential to get a little messy. Well, as happens every time I do a first oil change on any car I've owned, I needed a filter wrench. Not sure why service people don't understand 'hand-tighten plus a little extra' when they put these things on. The wrench made it pretty easy and the large size cardboard coffee cup I used over the filter after it was loosened made the mess more manageable. Let it drain a while, swapped in the new filter, hand tightened it and moved onto the main drain bolt.
That's when the fun began. If I thought the gorilla who put on the filter overdid it, whoever put on the drain bolt was not to be outdone. To make a long story short(er), I butchered that bolt head, even using the correct 17mm socket. It took a soaking with Kroil, PB Blaster, some vice-grips and a lot of cursing to finally get that thing off. I even did a little research to make sure it wasn't a reverse-threaded bolt before I finally won the battle. Next stop: back to the dealer to buy a new oil drain plug and crush washer since I mangled the original. Thankfully, they had one in stock.
Funny thing is, I debated ordering a Fumoto valve (or something similar) before I started, just to make future oil changes even easier. It made sense when I was commuting to work and putting nearly 100 miles a day on a vehicle. But now that I'm semi-retired and working from home, I'll only be doing these oil changes once a year. I can deal with the drain plug.
So consider this a cautionary tale for those of you doing your own oil changes, especially if you're not the first do do it.
So last Saturday morning, I got out my cardboard, my drain pan, my 17mm ratchet, and got to it. I decided to change the filter first this time because I thought it had potential to get a little messy. Well, as happens every time I do a first oil change on any car I've owned, I needed a filter wrench. Not sure why service people don't understand 'hand-tighten plus a little extra' when they put these things on. The wrench made it pretty easy and the large size cardboard coffee cup I used over the filter after it was loosened made the mess more manageable. Let it drain a while, swapped in the new filter, hand tightened it and moved onto the main drain bolt.
That's when the fun began. If I thought the gorilla who put on the filter overdid it, whoever put on the drain bolt was not to be outdone. To make a long story short(er), I butchered that bolt head, even using the correct 17mm socket. It took a soaking with Kroil, PB Blaster, some vice-grips and a lot of cursing to finally get that thing off. I even did a little research to make sure it wasn't a reverse-threaded bolt before I finally won the battle. Next stop: back to the dealer to buy a new oil drain plug and crush washer since I mangled the original. Thankfully, they had one in stock.
Funny thing is, I debated ordering a Fumoto valve (or something similar) before I started, just to make future oil changes even easier. It made sense when I was commuting to work and putting nearly 100 miles a day on a vehicle. But now that I'm semi-retired and working from home, I'll only be doing these oil changes once a year. I can deal with the drain plug.
So consider this a cautionary tale for those of you doing your own oil changes, especially if you're not the first do do it.
