- Equipment: wrenches, oil collection pan, oil container for transport to disposal, funnel?
- Knowledge: Quality of oils, filters, Oil weights (5W20? 10W30?)
- Willingness: To get dirty, to stain the driveway
- Time: 30min if all goes well, then time to take waste oil to disposal
- Trust: In self
- Funds: $20 for oil and filter, assuming disposal is free
Option 2 requirements:
- Time: 15min, plus a few minutes to drive to the shop
- Trust: In "professionals", misplaced or not
- Funds: $29.95
I change my own oil also, but I have no rational explanation for this choice.
I have the equipment, knowledge, and willingness to take the minor risk of mistake and deal with the consequences. $10 is not a fair wage for those prerequisites!
Of course I use better oil and filters than the shop would. Does this matter? Am I kidding myself? And someday I'll take my plastic milk jugs full of waste oil to a disposal place.
> I change my own oil also, but I have no rational explanation for this choice.
Of course you do. All the items you listed are a small, one time cost. Watch a YouTube video, buy the wrench, pan, and funnel ($50?). The “knowledge” of which oil to use takes 20 seconds to look up in the manual in the glove box of the car. And the disposal is pretty easy, you take the empty oil bottles, fill them back up with old oil, and dump it at Autozone.
And for this initial, let’s say 1 hour of work for procurement, you get to guarantee that the oil change on your car (which represents a significant portion of the average American’s wealth) is done properly, with zero risk of it going wrong.
Now, there is nothing objectively wrong with NOT wanting to do this and just preferring to pay someone else. But for a household with 2 ICE cars that they own for 10+ years, this is very little work for a lot of gain, and watching 1 less Netflix show is probably not going to hurt. The tools for for all of this also take a small space to store.
Which is why I do not consider it a “no brainer” to outsource oil changes.
> Of course I use better oil and filters than the shop would. Does this matter?
Why would it not if you intend on driving the car for 200k miles? My main concern is some minimum wage mechanic not doing the oil change properly. I know they are not getting paid enough to care, and if I have to stop and check to see if it was done properly, I might as well do it myself.
I've probably paid for 5 oil changes in my life. Many dozens done myself.
In those 5 (always while traveling cross country, and purposely done at a Sears or Firestone for national guarantees), I've had the following negative experiences:
- 1 overtightened and stripped plug bolt, requiring three extra days in a hotel while the replacement pan (which they charged me for) was shipped
- 1 case of badly greased up door, floor mats, and steering wheel
- 2 improperly seated crush washers (or inadequately tightened) plug bolts, causing leaks in parking lots
In the latter two cases, I was hundreds of miles away before noticing, but the nearest franchise honored the guarantee.
This can be simplified depending on your car. GM, for example, requires Dexos oil from any manufacturer. Pair that with an OEM filter and you have a 10,000 mile oil change.
The hard part is having the crush washer on hand and remembering to put it on. In my experience, shops have forgotten it too, used the old one, or have over torqued the plug screw. I think this is why many shops aspirate the oil instead.
I have the equipment, knowledge, and willingness to take the minor risk of mistake and deal with the consequences. $10 is not a fair wage for those prerequisites!
Of course I use better oil and filters than the shop would. Does this matter? Am I kidding myself? And someday I'll take my plastic milk jugs full of waste oil to a disposal place.