Thank you to you all for your comments and help. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I finally succeeded in changing oil after three tries. (I know, it's a basic oil change, but everybody's gotta start somewhere. Apparently, M.S. in Computer Engineering did not equal to ability to change engine oil easily. )

Since the post, I tried to do oil change but I failed because during the first try, I could not loosen the drain plug. It was too tight, they must have used an air gun or something.

Second try failed because Torin 2-ton jack I bought on sale failed to lift the car. (They were terrible. Do not buy them. I returned them.) I tried to lift the car to give myself more room to use a hammer on the drain plug.

I finally got Craftsman 2 1/4 jack and jack stands on Black Friday sale from Sears, lifted the car up, then with the driver, I hammered on the drain plug lightly multiple times and it finally came loose. Got little bit of oil on the road because of the wind and only took me like 1.5 hours to do it for the first time, but at least my car is running with new synthetic oil now. Next time should be much quicker.

Anyways, thank you for all your help. Next stop is brakes and maybe rotor replacement in Spring or early Summer.

BTW. What do you guys do with trash afterwards? I took the oil to Advanced Auto for recycling, but what about filter, paper towels used to clean oil, etc? Do I just chuck them to trash?

 

OMG, an engineer who will admit this! I'm impressed. Practical hands on is often much different that working on a PC. Good to see you're learning new skills. They will come in handy.

That's a fine line with the oil drain plug. You don't want it on so tight it's hard to get off. But you don't want it on too loose either. Especially with synthetic oil. Darn stuff seems to find the easiest way out of the car everytime. And it's not cheap either. I have every confidence your next change should take less than 1/2 hour. The first time is always the toughest as you 'learn the ropes' and build confidence.

Front / rear brakes are not that hard. Also check your brake hoses. There are lots of 'how to' videos on the web you can use to learn about disc brake replacement.

Re: Used oil filters? Garbage after they are drained. Used oil? You're doing the right thing by recycling. You can also send old antifreeze and trans fluid for re-cycling. Just label it.

 

Good job . For the oil plug just get it hand tight and then snug it up.
When you start to think "Maybe just a little more", stop. As one
of my foremen used to tell me when I was in the electrical trade "Too
tight is broke!!"

John