Do you change your own oil? I do. There’s something very special about tinkering with your car, getting your hands a little dirty, doing something like this for yourself. It’s especially rewarding when the car that you’re changing the oil on is our S2000.

A long, long time ago, when I was still in college, I wasn’t satisfied with the way the motorcycle shop treated my bike. They probably didn’t treat it any differently than any other, but it was my bike and it deserved better care. A couple of wrenches, a filter, some oil and a warm Saturday afternoon was all it took. A little motor oil under my fingernails and I was addicted. I suppose there’s a little bit of natural born tinkerer in me anyway, but working on my motorcycle brought out the best/worst in me.

After college I bought an MGB. My tinkering went from being a hobby to an avocation. If you want to keep a British car on the road, you’d better figure out how to fix it. Being the glutton for punishment that I am, the MG was followed by a Triumph TR-6, a 1952 TD and worse still, a Fiat X-1/9. After that, changing oil was a piece of cake.

My youngest son Adam was 8 when we bought our S2000. Adam has always been my sidekick, helping me with all the projects around the house. With his help a 2 hour job ended up taking 3 or 4 hours, but we had a lot of fun working together. Now my challenge became one of getting him involved with sports cars and nurturing his love for tinkering with them. It wasn’t hard. As soon as the S hit 7,000 miles I knew exactly what we had to do.

One sunny Sunday afternoon we got out the drain pan, the oil filter wrench, the spanner that fit the drain bolt and 6 quarts of Mobil 1. By myself I probably could have changed the oil in about 30 minutes, with Adam’s help it took about 2 hours, but still, we had a great time doing it. So great, in fact, that about a 2 months later (1,000 miles) we decided to do it again. And we’ve done it every 1,000 miles since then. Not so much because it needed to be changed, but because we just wanted to do it.

Now Adam is 16. He is getting his learner’s permit next week and we still spend more than a few warm Sundays tinkering with the S. As a matter of fact, just last week we had nothing to do, so we changed the oil. We only had about 900 miles on the old oil, but it absolutely needed to be done. At least that’s what we told my wife. We’d just come back from the NJ/NY Season Opening Drive with the NJ/NY group and the oil was traumatized. I’m not sure that Liz believed that, but we really wanted to change the oil and it sounded good. Adam and I believed it.

I guess I’ve told you my answer. I still (with the help of my sidekick) change my own oil. Do you?

 

i try to do most things on my own. 1) when it comes to these types of cars, i can't trust too many others to work on it 2) why pay large amounts of money when you can learn to diy?

 

i do change my oil. but sometimes after doing 40 quart oil changes all day and handling oil filters that hold up to 4 quarts alone (diesel mechanic), i just say F* it and pay someone to do it for me.

it;s fun to do it as a hobby on a nice sunny afternoon with a beer and a buddy. but doing it for a living takes all the fun outta it.

 

Love the story. My daughter is 4, and she is my sidekick. She loves the S, and anytime I goto the garage, she is right behind me. If I am working on the car, and have it up on stands, she wants to get on the crawler, and scoot underneath with me. (I have a picture around here somewhere of her on the crawler under the car) I have worked on cars for years (rebuilt a SB 400 when I was ~10 with help from dad of course). I wanted her to at least have the opportunity to have the same experiences as I did.

I wear latex gloves when I work on the car (got tired of the dirty hands). When I am out in the garage, she always asks if she can have some "globves" to wear. She can say gloves just fine, but she says it like that to get a smile out of me. I had the hood popped checking the oil the other day, and she was right by my side. My wife came out to see what we were doing in the garage, and my daughter proceeded to tell my wife what the engine, radiator, AC compressor, air filter and alternator was. She even surprised me by telling my wife what they did. I had told her a few weeks before what all the components were, and what they did for the car. Kids her age are like sponges.
She loves to take trips in it, throw her booster seat in (ABS on her side is turned off by the sensor) and we cruise around town. When she gets in, she knows the "bump on the floor" is not a step. She loves the wind in her hair, and thinks its so cool daddy's car doesn't have a top.
Though she loves to draw smiley faces in the dirt on the car when its dirty (another reason to wash it, which she washes the wheels for me without asking). I can't bring myself to tell her to stop drawing on the car. I wear those smiley faces with pride! Until the weekend, when I wash the car (with her help of course).
She is only 4, and I am so happy she wants to work on the car with dad.

I almost wish I had an engine to rebuild with her. Almost.

 

hey i just changed my oil for the 1st time two days ago. love it!

 

My wife and I change the oil for the S2k, the only part she does is pour in the new oil!! LOL

 

i try to do whatever i can fo this car on my own. fluid changes, radiator replacement, etc. basically whatever that doesn't seem like would be a 7-8 hour job if i did it at home (i.e., swapping suspension manually in a garage).

something about doin oil changes and taking that first drive is great though... makes me feel like i can drive it as hard as i want.

 

I just changed the oil in my S for the first time since I bought it a bit over a month ago. I hadn't been motivated to do my own oil changes with my cars before the S, and I hadn't done one since doing them with my dad on my first car. I am happy to have a car I care enough about to want to do all the maintenance myself again.

 

Do someone a favour and put your preowned oil on craigslist. At least that way you can shrink your environmental impact. And dont forget to the good habit of wearing gloves while tinkering. Nice write up.

 

We take all of our used oil to our town's recycling center. They collect the oil from residents and from the town vehicles and sell it to oil recyclers. I don't know if the town comes out ahead on the deal, but the oil does get recycled.

We have started, in recent years, to wear gloves when working on the car. The oil under the fingernails days are long gone. Back then none of us realized used oil was dangerous.