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My driveway is uphill to the garage. I point up hill, use ramps, chock the rear tires, and only slide in from the front.

But I do hate doing oil changes. Oil gets everywhere on the tools, everywhere on my hand when I get the filter, everywhere on the ground when it splashes, and everywhere on the outside of the containers. Then it lightly oils everything between my garage on the disposal site. But, once I stopped getting $45 employee pricing on dealership synth blend changes and started getting $120+ normie pricing, I got fed up. I liked having a professional, trusted mechanic have eyes under a lifted car rather than my casual eyes laying under ramps, but shit, prices are absurd. Hello Kirkland oil.

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ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Get good enough and wear a pair of disposable gloves. After some practice you don’t get oil on anything

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- XeroxCool@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I don’t have any stat points left to git gud :( automotive has fallen from beloved hobby to strictly necessity
  
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Montagge@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Get yourself something like this www.oreillyauto.com/detail/c/…/l90693?pos=9

Nitrile gloves are your friend!

Some oil filters you let drain for a little bit before removing. My frontier even has a little drain channel so I can drain it into the drain pan with the filter loose. Then I take it off. There’s a lot less mess than if I just rip it off fast! Not sure it that applies for you or not!

I’m not sure what the rules of your disposal site are, but I use a 3 gallon (I think) waste oil container that I take into O’reilly Auto when it’s full. I just put it on some old cardboard or something during transport to keep it from getting oil on other stuff.

For tools you can clean them with pretty much any degreaser from brake cleaner to dish soap. I don’t recommend the brake clean lol. For the most part I have dedicated oil change tools since all I need is a 14mm and a 15mm wrench to do all 3 of my vehicles.

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- XeroxCool@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  You make good points. Truthfully, I only got back into doing it myself within the last 2 years. I haven’t done any vehicle more than twice. Somehow I always think I’m too good for the gloves and today will be the day I do it cleanly - only to use the same value in paper towels. Unfortunately, I know at least 3 filters are bottom-mount vertical. They have oil sitting in the galleys above it and spill more as they wobble off. I’ll have to check the drain plug sizes and see. I’m sure there’s repeat sizes, all being metric. I do use brake clean for the final spray since I’m not aware of any other nogrinse degreasers (also haven’t looked)
  
  I do kind of enjoy my 300cc motorcycle. The drain plug is on the kickstand side (good with the lean) and the filter is a cartridge type that lives high on the block and on the not-kickstand side. Basically all the drip is from playing operation with the cartridge on the way out. And it only takes 1.4qt.
  
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psycho_driver@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

I also hate splash shields. They’re mildly infuriating. I got the harbor freight Maddox oil filter socket set and now can generally avoid removing splash shields on my fleet

Probably the worst part about oil changes on modern cars. Engineers don’t put a lot of thought into making them quick and easy to take off and put back on, from my experience.

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- XeroxCool@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Small screws, unsure c-clip nuts, plastic/plastic panels that flex away, mystery grime, and too many screws. I’d have no qualms if the nuts were rigid in the body and used machine threads.
  
  I did at least eventually have an epiphany and realize that it’s not a 5.5mm hex on my strictly-metric Fords, but rather a 7/32in or some bullshit.
  
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