There is a particular kind of Saturday morning around here. The ramps are out, a drain pan is under the truck, and the job looks like forty-five minutes of work. For drivers in Brandon, Flowood, Pearl, Richland and Byram, it often is.
When it does not go fine, it is almost never because the job is hard. It is because one small step got skipped, and small steps in an oil change have outsized consequences.
We are not going to talk you out of doing your own oil. Plenty of our customers off Old Fannin Road in Brandon and down Terry Road in Byram do their own work. Across the Jackson metro, the DIY oil change mistakes we see come down to these five:
- Buying oil by the price tag instead of by the specification in the manual
- Leaving the old filter gasket stuck to the engine
- Guessing at oil filter and drain plug torque
- Reading the dipstick before the engine has settled
- Having nowhere planned for the used oil and filter to go
Mistake 1: buying oil by what is on sale instead of by what the manual specifies
Nearly everybody knows their engine takes “5W-30” or “0W-20.” Fewer people know the viscosity grade is only half of it. Your manual specifies two things about the oil and one thing about how much goes in:
- The SAE viscosity grade, the 0W-20 or 5W-30 style number
- The performance specification, an API service category or ILSAC grade, and on many vehicles a manufacturer’s own specification on top of that
- The capacity, in quarts, for your specific engine
Miss any of the three and the engine still runs, which is exactly why this one is easy to get wrong.
The American Petroleum Institute’s current service category for gasoline engines is API SP, introduced in May 2020 to protect against low-speed pre-ignition in turbocharged engines, timing chain wear, high-temperature deposits, and sludge and varnish. API notes that its latest category carries the performance properties of the categories before it, so a newer category oil can serve an older engine.
API’s guidance on where to start is blunt: read your owner’s manual before you consult any chart. The Federal Trade Commission calls that manual the best source of information about routine scheduled maintenance, because schedules vary by make, model and year. Running the grade the manufacturer specified is also part of getting the fuel economy the vehicle was designed for, which is one of the fuel saving tips we covered in an earlier post.
Capacity is the quiet part. A four-cylinder commuter car and a half-ton truck are not the same jug, and “I bought a five-quart jug so I put in five quarts” is how an engine ends up overfilled before the dipstick is ever pulled.
Mistake 2: not checking that the old gasket came off with the old filter
If there is one mistake on this list that ends engines, it is this one.
A spin-on filter seals with a rubber gasket around its base. Usually that gasket comes off with the old filter. Sometimes it stays behind, stuck flat to the mounting surface, dark and oily and close to invisible under a truck.
Spin the new filter on over it and you have two gaskets stacked where the design calls for one. Technicians call that a double gasket. FRAM puts it plainly: remove the old gasket before installing the new filter, because a double gasket can cause oil leaks and make the filter difficult to remove. Their advice for the surface underneath is a rag and a wipe first.
WIX Filters’ installation instructions say the same thing in procedural language. Clean the filter mounting base and make sure any remnants of the gasket or other foreign materials are removed. Then apply a thin film of clean engine oil to the new filter’s gasket and internal seal, and do not use grease.
The failure does not show up as a slow drip next week. Oil pressure builds within seconds of starting, and a stacked seal is not flat enough to hold it. It pushes out, and fresh oil leaves the engine faster than most people can process what they are seeing. A driveway in Byram is a better place to find that out than the I-55 on-ramp.
Two habits prevent it. Look at the old filter in your hand and confirm the rubber ring is on it. Then run a clean finger around the mounting surface, because your finger will find a stuck gasket that your eyes will not.
Mistake 3: guessing at oil filter and drain plug torque instead of using the number
Ask ten people how tight an oil filter goes and you get ten arm-wrestling stories. The manufacturers are not vague. WIX’s instruction is to spin the filter on and, when the gasket contacts the mounting base, rotate it three-quarters of a turn. Not a heave, not a wrench, not “until it stops.” Heavy Duty Trucking’s filter guidance makes the reasoning explicit: if the instructions call for three-quarters of a turn after gasket contact, you give it three-quarters of a turn, no more and no less, because those turn values are the optimum gasket compression for that filter.
The number that applies to you is printed on the can. WIX’s own bulletin says to always observe the markings for tightening and lubricating on the outside of the filter. Read your filter, not the internet’s filter.
The drain plug is the same idea in a different unit. Oil filter and drain plug torque are published values, specific to your vehicle, its plug, and whether the pan is steel or aluminum. That last part is where driveway jobs get expensive: an aluminum pan pulled up with a breaker bar strips its threads, and repairing threads in an oil pan is a far bigger job than the oil change that caused it. A torque wrench set to the figure in your service information is the fix, and the sealing washer is a consumable, not a permanent part.
Overtightening damages threads and crushes seals. Undertightening leaks. The published number is the only value that avoids both.
Mistake 4: reading the level on an engine that has not settled
The temptation is to start the engine, shut it off, pull the dipstick and call it done. A reading taken that quickly is not a reading, because most of the oil you poured in is still working its way back to the pan.
Consumer Reports covers the parts people skip. Park on level ground, because a sloped driveway tips the pan and gives you a number that is not true. Give the engine time to cool on most vehicles, though some manufacturers specify checking it warm. Your manual decides that one.
Know what you are reading, too. Dipstick markings vary: two pinholes, L and H, MIN and MAX, or a crosshatched area. The level should sit in that upper zone, not above it. Consumer Reports is direct that overfilling an engine is harmful, so add oil a little at a time. Overfilled is not a safer version of full.
The last check is the one WIX builds into its own procedure: refill with the recommended fluid, start the engine, and check for leakage. Let it run briefly, shut it down, look under the vehicle and at the filter, then let it settle and read the level again. That look is what catches a double gasket before it catches you. While you are down there with a gauge in your hand, check the tire pressures too, since the same driveway session is the easiest time to head off a TPMS light.
Mistake 5: not knowing where the used oil and filter legally go in Rankin and Hinds County
Now you are standing over a pan of hot black oil and a filter still full of it. This is where a good driveway oil change most often falls apart.
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality is unambiguous. Used motor oil should never be disposed of on the ground, in a ditch, creek, river or lake, in a storm drain, or in the garbage, because it may contain toxic metals or solvents. That matters in a metro that drains toward the Pearl River and the Ross Barnett Reservoir. MDEQ notes that one gallon of used motor oil can contaminate a million gallons of fresh water, a year’s supply for fifty people, and the EPA says the same of the oil from a single oil change.
The path is easy once you know it.
- Small quantities go to retail. MDEQ states that Advance Auto Parts, AutoZone and Wal-Mart Tire and Lube centers will take up to three gallons of used motor oil from the public. For one vehicle, that covers you, and there is a location within a few minutes of you in Brandon, Pearl, Clinton or south Jackson.
- Drain the filter first. MDEQ’s instruction is to puncture the dome end and drain it while it is still hot, for a minimum of twelve hours. The EPA adds that filters should be recycled too, usually at the same collection centers that take the oil, because a filter is mostly scrap steel that steel producers can reuse.
- For larger amounts, use the county directory. MDEQ’s Recycling and Solid Waste Reduction Program publishes a listing of residential used oil collectors by county, and its statewide directory lists collection points across Hinds and Rankin counties, including the City of Jackson’s Environmental Service Center on Terry Road and sites around Brandon, Richland and Clinton. The listings carry per-site limits, in quantities like ten gallons or less and twelve filters, so call ahead before you load up the bed.
The EPA estimates about four million people reuse motor oil or take it to a recycling facility. No jug of used oil needs to spend a year in a Rankin County garage.
The step nobody counts as a step: write it down
Doing your own maintenance does not cost you your factory warranty. The Federal Trade Commission is clear that it is illegal for a dealer to deny coverage simply because someone else performed routine maintenance, and that an independent mechanic, a retail chain shop, or even you yourself can do that work under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act.
What can cost you a claim is not being able to prove the work happened. The FTC’s advice is to keep all service records and receipts regardless of who performs the service, and its warning is worth repeating: if you ever have a warranty claim and it appears that you did not maintain your vehicle, the claim could be denied. The FTC also notes that a dealer may deny a specific repair if improper work caused the damage, but it must be able to demonstrate that the improper work, rather than some other defect, was the cause.
So keep a folder, on paper or on your phone. For every oil change write down the date, the mileage, the oil grade and specification, and the filter part number, and photograph the receipt. It takes two minutes, and it is the only part of a driveway oil change a warranty adjuster will ever look at.
When it makes sense to hand the job to a shop near you
Some of these jobs have gotten harder in the driveway. Cartridge filters behave differently from spin-on filters. Underbody panels and skid plates have to come off and go back on with all their fasteners. Aluminum pans are less forgiving of a guessed torque, and disposal is one more trip you did not plan on. If you would rather hand it off, that is what our oil change service is for, and the used oil leaves with us.
What drives the cost of a professional oil change is straightforward: which oil your engine specifies and how many quarts it takes, whether the filter is a spin-on or a cartridge, how much has to come off the underside of the vehicle to reach the plug and filter, and the labor that goes with it. Because that varies so much between a commuter sedan and a lifted truck, we would rather quote your vehicle than talk in generalities. Contact our Brandon or Byram store for a current quote on your specific vehicle.
The goal is the same either way. Do the work yourself in the driveway, or book an oil change in Brandon MS or an oil change in Byram MS with our team. The oil in your engine should be the oil the manufacturer specified, at the level it specified, sealed by parts torqued to the numbers they were designed around, with a dated record to prove it.
Have questions about your vehicle, or want us to handle the next one? Our team on Old Fannin Road in Brandon and Terry Road in Byram is glad to take a look. Request a quote today and we will take care of the rest.
