The TRUTH About Quick Lube Oil Changes (Don't Do It!)

Today I'm going to tell you why it's not really a good idea to take your car to an oil change joint to get your car's oil changed. All those quick lube places, hey, they are there to make a profit. And often to make that profit, they sell you stuff you don't need, and you'll often get inferior products on top of it.

And often they won't even do the job correctly. I'll give you a perfect example. When you change your oil and filter, you want to make sure you change this little gasket. The drain plug has a gasket in it.

Many of these oil change joints, hey, >> [laughter] >> they just take the plug off, drain the oil, put the old plug on using the old gasket, and it will often leak. These are not reusable. It doesn't cost a heck of a lot of anything, but they're not going to have them for all the cars, so they'll often leak when you get out. And the training at these quick oil change places, a lot of times the guys have little or no training.

I've had customers in the past that brought me a car that they wanted to get an oil change later after they had it done at a quick oil change place, and they went to a regular mechanic or a mechanic said, "I can't get the drain plug off because they probably cross-threaded it. If I take it off now, we might have to replace your oil pan or try to drill and re-tap it because they put the oil drain plug on crooked and then it ruined the whole thing."

At some of these vehicles, I had a customer with an all-wheel drive Jeep. In order to take that oil pan off, because it was all-wheel drive, front drive, rear drive, everything was in the way. You had to take half the car apart. It was a 5-hour labor job at $200 an hour. And speaking of correctly, you want the correct oil filter. Right here, this one. This is a Toyota original equipment one. You know it's going to work. It's going to last.

Now, most of the oil change places are selling you a generic oil filter that they get for practically nothing. I know a guy in Texas who runs one of these quick oil change places, right? They were paying 99 cents for each oil filter. They bought them in bulk. They were the cheapest ones they could get their hands on, and of course, they're not going to filter out a normal oil filter, the cheap ones. One, they're only good for 3,000 miles if that.

You get a high-quality one like this, they tell you they're good for 10,000 miles. I still say change your oil every five, but at least you have a filter that will continue filtering through 10,000 miles. The cheap ones will not. Now, you don't have to go to Toyota or Lexus and buy their filters. They don't make them anyways, they get them from some other company, right? For instance, I often use these Purolator oil filters.

Now, you can see this one says it's synthetic and good up to 20,000 miles, where there's no way I'm driving a car 20,000 miles with an oil change. And if you do, like I do because I'm a cheapskate, I buy them on Amazon. I buy them and I change them myself because I know I'm getting a quality filter, that I'm using a gasket that fits the car so it doesn't leak, and then I'm using the correct oil. And speaking of oil, you want to use the right type of oil. I'm using this Mobil 1 0W-8 oil for my '26 Camry. Now, Toyota doesn't make oil for this, right? They have it says Toyota 0W-8, but it's actually made by Mobil 1. I did all the research, right? And Toyota wants so much money for their 0W-8, I got this for a lot less on Amazon getting the Mobil 1.

Now, when you go to many oil change joints, they sell what is called bulk oil. It will either come in a 55-gallon drum or they'll bring a big truck and they'll fill their stuff up from the giant truck. Now, that's bulk oil.

You're rarely going to find anything like this 0W-8 in bulk oil. They're going to say, "Oh, it's okay to use this other oil, right?" No, it's not always okay. You don't want to use the wrong oil in your car. And some oil change places are following like Audi did. They say, "Oh, you don't have to drain the bottom. You can just pull out the dipstick and you can get a pump and you can suck the oil out." And of course, that's a quicker way, right?

But, there's still crud on the bottom you're not getting rid of. Now, the reason Audi and companies like that did that is because they have the bottom of their vehicles so sealed for better gas mileage rating, it's more aerodynamic, that you got to take these gigantic pieces off to change the oil. And they don't want to bother doing that. It can take hours on some of those cars. So, they just say, "Ah, it's okay to just suck it out of the top." No, it isn't. It is not okay to just suck it out of the top. The reason they have oil drain plugs on the bottom of the pan is so any sludge or anything on the bottom gets sucked through. So, if you're going to one of these oil change places and you see they're not even taking the bolts off, they're just sucking it out with a pump, turn around and go someplace else. Or, like me, learn how to do it yourself. And of course,

another reason you don't want to go to an oil change quickie joint is they're going to try to sell you everything including the kitchen sink, right?

They're going to say, "Oh, your air filter's dirty. Oh, your struts are worn out. Oh, your brakes are going to wear out." They're going to try to sell you all the stuff that they can. That's one of the reasons that many dealerships now give what they call free oil changes. You buy a new car, even a used car, they'll say, "Oh, you have free oil changes for a year or two." Or some will say, "You have free lifetime oil changes." But every time you come in to them, they're going to change your oil and they're going to try to sell you everything they possibly can. And of course, the price at most of these oil change places is one of those loss leader deals. It might say, "Oil filter change $29.95 or something." And there'll be a little tiny asterisk that says, "Most cars." But of course, you come in, your car is never one of the most cars, right? Even if they have the oil that you need in stock, they're going to charge you so much extra money for that that it will make your head spin. Now, you might say, "Hey, I don't want to get my hands dirty and change the oil." Yeah, that Well, I've been using these safety gloves for years. It's a very simple job. You don't need that much. Basic need is a jack, a jack stand, basic hand tools. On Amazon, you can get all this stuff there cheap and they work perfectly fine. An oil drain pan that I have hidden in my shed here. If you ever wonder what's in my shed, huh, now's your chance to find out. There's even more bicycles in here.

And my lawn mower, right? And there in the back is the oil drain pan. And next to it is the big water jug that I put used oil in. I bought the 5-gallon jugs, one of those water jugs, from Amazon, right?

And when it's full, I take it to the O'Reilly's down the street and they kindly take the old oil away. Doesn't make a mess. They get rid of it all.

You're not polluting anything. I know the job was done right. >> [sighs] >> I know that I used the correct oil, put a new drain plug on it, put a new quality oil filter on.

Hey, how do you think this 25-year-old Lexus is still running as good as it does? Of course, oil changes are the most important thing to keep your car going.

Engines cost a small fortune. You don't want to wear them out. You want to change it every 5,000 miles with synthetic oil, with a synthetic oil filter, and a new drain plug each time so it doesn't leak. So, your car will last a long time, and you won't get taken advan

You're rarely going to find anything like this 0W-8 in bulk oil. They're going to say, "Oh, it's okay to use this other oil, right?" No, it's not always okay. You don't want to use the wrong oil in your car. And some oil

change places are following like Audi did. They say, "Oh, you don't have to drain the bottom. You can just pull out the dipstick and you can get a pump and you can suck the oil out." And of course, that's a quicker way, right?

But, there's still crud on the bottom you're not getting rid of. Now, the reason Audi and companies like that did that is because they have the bottom of their vehicles so sealed for better gas mileage rating is more

aerodynamic, that you got to take these gigantic pieces off to change the oil. And they don't want to bother doing that. It can take hours on some of those cars. So, they just say, "Ah, it's okay to just suck it out of the top." No, it

isn't. It is not okay to just suck it out of the top. The reason they have oil drain plugs on the bottom of the pan is so any sludge or anything on the bottom gets sucked through. So, if you're going

to one of these oil change places and you see they're not even taking the bolts off, they're just sucking it out with a pump, turn around and go someplace else. Or, like me, learn how to do it yourself. And of course,

another reason you don't want to go to an oil change quickie joint is they're going to try to sell you everything including the kitchen sink, right?

They're going to say, "Oh, your air filter's dirty. Oh, your struts are worn out. Oh, your brakes are going to wear out." They're going to try to sell you all the stuff that they can. That's one of the reasons that many dealerships now

give what they call free oil changes. You buy a new car, even a used car, they'll say, "Oh, you have free oil changes for a year or two." Or some will say, "You have free lifetime oil changes." But every time you come in to

them, they're going to change your oil and they're going to try to sell you everything they possibly can. And of course, the price at most of these oil change places is one of those lost leader deals. It might say, "Oil filter

change $29.95 or something." And there'll be a little tiny asterisk that says, "Most cars." But of course, you come in, your car is never one of the most cars, right? Even if they have the oil that you need in stock, they're going to

charge you so much extra money for that that it will make your head spin. Now, you might say, "Hey, I don't want to get my hands dirty and change the oil." Yeah, that Well, I've been using these safety gloves for years. It's a very

simple job. You don't need that much. Basic need is a jack, a jack stand, basic hand tools. On Amazon, you can get all this stuff there cheap and they work perfectly fine. An oil drain pan that I have hidden in my

shed here. If you ever wonder what's in my shed, huh, now's your chance to find out. There's even more bicycles in here.

And my lawn mower, right? And there in the back is the oil drain pan. And next to it is the big water jug that I put used oil in. I bought the 5-gallon jugs, one of those water jugs, from Amazon, right?

And when it's full, I take it to the O'Reilly's down the street and they kindly take the old oil away. Doesn't make a mess. They get rid of it all.

You're not polluting anything. I know the job was done right. >> [sighs] >> I know that I used the correct oil, put a new drain plug on it, put a new quality oil filter on.

Hey, how do you think this 25-year-old Lexus still running as good as it does? Of course, oil changes are the most important thing to keep your car going.

Engines cost a small fortune. You don't want to wear them out. You want to change it every 5,000 mi with synthetic oil, with a synthetic oil filter, and a new drain plug each time so it doesn't leak. So, your car will last a long

time, and you won't get taken advantage of by people who are just there to try to sell you all kinds of stuff because their profit isn't changing oil or inspecting cars. Their profit is trying to sell you just about

everything else, and most of it you probably don't even need. And in that respect, if you've got a problem nobody can figure out, or you want me to check your car out, maybe you're buying a used car, maybe you want to show off a car

you love, maybe you want to show off a car you hate cuz you're so mad at the manufacturer that you want me to make a video showing all the problems this car has so nobody else will be stuck with

it. Hey, you can visit Scotty's Garage. If you're anywhere near Portsmouth, Rhode Island, you just email Scotty Kilmer at gmail.com.