Be Like Glypto (and Phil)

And learn to turn a wrench. You save a ton of money and keep your sanity.

Up on ramps for the oil change and lube. It is much easier to change the oil filter by removing the engine lower splash guard (next to the right front wheel). The mounting bolts are coated with anti-seize so they always go in and out easily.

 

I spent the afternoon yesterday doing the 5,000 mile oil & filter change, lube job, and tire rotation on my `07 Tundra with 159,264 miles on it. I have always done my own regular maintenance, refusing to pay to have incompetent monkeys do it and fuck something up. While I have had this garage for the past 16 years, at my prior house it was outside in the driveway weather permitting, and when I lived in apartments before that it was at my parent's house in their garage. Once upon a time, I had a home based company vehicle that required servicing be done at a not to be named but large chain quick lube place, so I got to see the quality of employees and workmanship first hand. No thanks.

I got those Michelin LTX AT2 tires (LT275/65/R18) this past August at Town Fair Tire exactly like the last set I got almost 80,000 miles out of. Unfortunately, I have to depend on others to dismount, remount, and balance tires. I also get their 4 wheel alignment, which I am obviously not able to perform at home. However, the first thing I do when I get home is jack up each wheel one at a time, crack the lugnuts (which are either too fucking tight, or not tight enough), and then hand torque each one properly to 97 ft/lbs. Alloy wheels improperly installed on a Toyota truck will warp the rotors. The monkeys will not hand torque lugnuts (do they even know how?), they hammer on them with an impact wrench and a color coded torque extension. Uh yeah... NO! So the tires get rotated front to back and back to front. Because I have "eliminated" the stupid TPMS nanny, I pay attention and regularly check my tire pressure which I keep at 55 PSI. The tire pressure monitors are sitting in a box of spare stuff on the shelf and simple rubber valve stems are on the wheels. The TPMS main system had a problem which I was not about to spend several hundred dollars to fix.

I do the same preventative and simple maintenance on my wife's RAV-4 and on "The Beast" (2008 Honda Goldwing). As my vehicles age, the maintenance and repairs I am willing to perform becomes more advanced because shit seems to get more expensive. I have done engine swaps in the past, and I tore out and rebuilt the whole front end of a 1966 Ford Galaxie 500 classic car I had for 19 years.