If you don't like reading whingeing and whining ( or I type too fast for you) heres your chance to run away now.
I have been pestering my daughter to do an oil change on her car for weeks. The effing thing is never here for me to do it and several domestic upheavals have ensued in the last couple of weeks over it. She is going interstate tomorrow for 3 months for work so I wanted it done. Of course I have to run round and get the Filter and oil etc and she couldn't even look up where the local stealership was for me to get the filter.
Today -I-get harped at the the car needs top be done. Of course I feel like death warmed up after having to shoot a wedding yesterday in our toasty 40oC weather. Although the new gear I bought is a fraction of the weight of what I used 20 years ago, I'm that much older and out of match ( or Gym) practice. My arm is strained, my back was killing me, the 100 or so squats you do through the day without realising had kicked in and my head was still pounding from the heat. Perfect time to go work on a damn car.
I knew it would be a shit fight because whenever you are forced to do something you didn't want to do at the time but someone screwed you round into doing it, you know it's going to bite you on the arse every step of the way. And it sure did.
First thing is to get the thing up so I can drain the oil.
Useless POS is so damn low to the ground, I can't get my jack under the thing. Hasn't really got an accessible, clear area of the cross member I can get the jack on anyway.
OK, plan B, Ramps. Nope, thing is going to rip the front apron off on the stop at the end before it comes up enough to clear it.
Plan C. Drive it up on some flat and progressively higher bits of wood. I might just be able to reach under there at the 5 In. elevation.
Yep Just made it. Almost too tight to get leverage but just. OK, oil is running out, now to get the filter.
Look under the front, can't see ship. There is a plastic cover in the way. I spot 2 removeable panels. Yes, filter will be under here. . Nope, that's for .... For..... Nothing I can see.
OK, have to undo these bolts to drop it down. More frigging around taking them out. No, there are another 2 plastic shit clips that always are a pain in the back side. Undo them after much consternation and sweating in the heat, Nup, more further back.... Which I have no effing hope of getting to with the clearance I have. Try flexing the plastic bit of crap down, nup can't even see the frigging filter even though it's right there. Plastic is designed to limit as much access to every part of the under engine as possible while affording zero protection to any and every component. Pure pain in the arse factor to allow the service department to Bill more hours.
Try to jack the thing up to get the ramps under, half way up the apron is still going to hit the end stop. I'll put a bit of wood under there. No, now run out of height on the jack with the wheels sagging and no way to lift on the arm being AWD with wide tyres.
Right, fed up with this BS now, can't get this POS up any higher without a hoist, Filter can stay on, I'll refill with oil and call it good. Put sump plug back in, do up carefully, fine.
Grab oil container that has about 1L out of 5 used, should be enough for this pissant 2l engine. My truck takes 3 of these for a change but I'll go careful not to over fill. Put in about 3.5L dip it, has about double the oil needed. WTF?? Dip again, 10 times...... Hmm, maybe the filter has drained or the thing needs firing. Start it up, instant oil pressure, bit of a blip and an idel, shut down, re dip. Same!
Stuff me! I have over filled it. How much do these things take? A cup full? Look in oil pan, not a lot especially compared to mine..... Hmm.
Dip another 10 times. Not just oil in the dip tube. Didn't think it would make much difference the little elevation it is on, roll it off. Now it's fractionally higher!!!!
Moron, have to drop some oil out again. Get under, drop about half Litre, no change. dip a few more times, hasn't moved. Drop some more. Still way high, drop some more, no change. WTF???
Come in to have a think and a rest. Pretty livid now . Wife asks what's wrong. I don't want another argument when I fire up about why I wanted to do this weeks ago, so I say nothing, don't worry about it, nothing you can do, leave it alone. Stupid me. She just keeps going about what's wrong, why won't I talk to her, is it because of something completely irrelevant and.... till I get the shits and let go giving her both barells about " I told you so! Right, now you satisfied? Seriously, they FORCE you into loosing your temper sometimes and just WILL NOT leave well enough alone till they have you going off your nut. Then YOU are the bastard!
I think she rings my father. He rings at an unusual time for him and asks whats going on and unusual concerned and fatherly questions till finally he asks about the Daughters car.
I tell him I over filled it and can't get the oil level down. He tells me they take 4.5L so as I started with 4L or less, how can it be so damn full.
I tell him I couldn't get the useless moronic cover off and he says well how did you drain the oil? The sump is under the cover. I say no, on this one it's behind. He says OK, haven't done many of them and can't remember. He says you didn't drain the gearbox did you? I say no, they have an Allen key head and are recessed. He says yeah, that's right. I said besides, this oil was black not red. Yep.
So he says take the thing round the block, maybe there is some sort of air lock or something weird.
Go to do that, get out on the road, thing barely moves. FK, I HAVE drained the gearbox. Go up a few houses, turn round and limp back. Sure enough, not a thing on the dipstick for the gearbox.
*&@#*##**!!!"
Ring father back and say you were right. He says an airlock? I said no, I drained the effing transmission. He said I thought you said it had a regular bolt? The tranny drain would be on the aluminum casing not a black oil pan like on an engine. I say it was a black oil pan and a conventional bolt and was the only Effing thing I could see with that POS garbage cover on there!! He said well didn't you see the oil was red? I said that's another thing, I kicked the freaking oil pan all over the driveway and at no time did it even go near looking like tranny fluid. It was black as I expected Engine oil to be. Hmm, another problem. He says Ah well, that's very odd but not like there isn't a load of trannys up here if that one is no good. I said can I rip that cover off and throw it to the shit house where it belongs? He said NO! Don't do that, without it the air tries to go the wrong way back through the radiator and it will boil whether the fan is on or not, HAS to be there!
I kinda figured that by the way he always goes to so much trouble to put them back or replace them if they are torn and how many he sells.
So, now, before we drive 900KM tomorrow, I have to go get a Container of tranny fluid AND, I still have to change the freaking oil on this low arse POS garbage!
It's just incredible! On my truck I can comfortably change the oil without putting a jack near it and get to everything under there including taking the sump off. I don't expect a passenger car to be like that but WTF is it with having them so low to the ground you can't get a jack or anything else under bar the legs of a hoist. And from memory, I recally having to lift a few on the suspention to get the legs under then. This is a stock sedan BTW, It's not some boy toy lowered thing, it's as came from the factory.
This thing wouldn't clear a milk bottle top on the road and if you haven't got a hoist, You're Fked! No frigging Idea how I'm going to get the thing up tomorrow. My father said just take it somewhere, get them to do it, it's a 10 Min job.
I said yeah, and booking it in will take till Thursday. ( No, we don't have those drive in 5 min dodgy oil change places here) .
Besides that, It just pisses me right off that they now make these things in such a way that changing your own oil is either a major Drama or an impossibility! I was thinking of a hoist at the new place, looks like it just became a requirement along with an appropriately sized garage!
So damn pissed off with this. I may be able to jack it side by side and put stands under there although the POS has side skirts so that may not work either. I have some real heavy timber up the back I was going to mount the lister on, maybe I can slide that right under and put a jack under each side and do it like that.... Or get an excavator and rip the center out the driveway to make a pit...... one big enough to push the whole damn thing in and buy her something decent like my 23 YO truck that you can actually perform basic maintenance on!
So much frigging around to do a simple thing. What's more, If I had have looked at it weeks ago when I was feeling better and not under the gun, I -may- have spotted my error ( but probably not) and at least had the time to book it in some place after putting a bit of tube down the dipstick and pulling the excess oil out.
Actually, I have the tube and a pump to do that, maybe I should do it boat style and let her put it in some place when she gets down there. No, it would never get done. I'd get a phone call in 2 months, "Daddy, the car has stopped."
Of course all this is for a tiny pissant oil filter that' is literally 1/4 the size of ONE of my truck filters. The engine is half the size of mine but 1/8th the oil filtration. No wonder the old trucks last forever.
" Darling, you know how much you like Driving Daddys truck and Impressing all your friends you can drive a manual thing the size of a tank, Well I think you should get rid of that POS you got and get one Just like Daddy's.
I'll even spray the thing pink or your favorite Colour lime green and get the interior done in nice soft leather."
Would cost me $20K all up and be worth 10 times the price in saved frustration with this damn thing.
My father keeps giving me grief about my " Tank" and telling me I should update and stay with the times.
Sorry Dad, I love you and all but you can shove your new and up to date fair up your nether regions.
Yes, Money is not an object to having it serviced, I'm not poor any more BUT, while I am physically able, I would not be able to get my head round having to send my vehicle to someone to change my goddam oil!
If that means I can't have a new car, Fine, I'm not complaining about what I have, I just grow to love it more and more and find even greater numbers of reasons why I should keep the thing till I'm dead... however soon working on these other POS may bring that on.
/rant.
