Just finished changing the oil in the Saturn that my mom and dad gave to the boys and it only cost me $2 more to change the oil myself than it would have if I had taken it to an oil change business. Yeah.
This is no something that would usually happen to me. I’ve been changing the oil in most of my cars since I was 16. I say most because I have NEVER changed the oil in the minivan. Everything in the minivan’s engine compartment is too tight so I usually pay some company to change the oil in it. I guess that spoiled me because I have been taking the Saturn to the same place for its oil changes. Unfortunately that oil change place just went out of business and therefore I thought I would change the oil in the Saturn.
Turns out the Saturn has a cartridge filter rather than the canister filter that ever other car I have ever owned has had. I’ve never changed a canister filter before. This means that after I finally found the stupid thing I still didn’t know that it is important to use a socket rather than a wrench to unscrew the filter cap (pictured above). So I used a wrench and cracked the cap. Cha ching. $10. Then I needed to buy the correct size socket. Cha ching again. $6. So instead of the $16 I thought it would cost me to change the oil, it cost $32.
Stupid Saturn.
Actually I should probably blame myself. If I hadn’t just assumed that I knew what I was doing because I had changed the oil in many other cars before this one then it wouldn’t have happened. If I had stopped and read how to do this before I started instead of just assuming I knew exactly what to do then I would have changed the oil for only $22 ($16 for oil and filter plus $6 for the socket). I should probably remember this for other things in life. Of course, it is just so much easier for me to blame the folks that designed the Saturn.
Stupid Saturn.