How Much Oil Does My Car Take?

     In this, my first blog post, I want to do a little foreshadowing. I want to let you know some of what I've got planned for this blog. Hopefully it will be a large blog with lots and lots of posts. I want it to be a regularly updated source for information related to basic maintenance that can be performed by vehicle owners.

     My first few blog posts will be about how much oil to put in your car's engine. I am going to use tables to show how much engine oil is needed for each size of engine. I am going to break the tables up by vehicle make (General Motors, Chrysler, Ford). I might even post them all together in one document.  I am not going to post any information about foreign cars and their engine oil capacities, I will only have domestics (at this time).

     I think this information will be found useful by anyone attempting to perform their own oil changes. I have done oil changes professionally for 5 years, and I have completed THOUSANDS of oil changes. I have made these charts, adding small bits at a time. Every time I would change the oil in a vehicle and have to look up the oil capacity, I would record those numbers. Over time I have accumulated these very helpful charts.

     It is a serious pain-in-the-butt to have to look up the engine oil quantity or capacity every time you do an oil change because it can be quite difficult to find this stuff. With the Internet being so big, and so many experts in the world uploading stuff to it, you would think there is all the information known to man on it, but that's not always true. Some of the information is available online for free, but not all of it. You can get this information about every year, make, and model of vehicle, and get access all online, but you have to purchase a subscription to services like ALLDATA or Mitchell 1's OnDemand5 or ProDemand. These services are GREAT and give you all the repair instructions and specifications for all repairs and replacements on the vehicles they cover, but it is overkill if you aren't a career mechanic. Another option is to purchase a repair manual. It is the same information as was covered in the online services, but is more in depth. The repair manuals are real life books that are made for one specific make and model, and may cover a range of years or only one specific year. They are perfect for someone who owns a car and plans to do tons of work to it, but again it is really too much for a person wanting to do basic maintenance on their vehicle. You can also check the glove box for the owner's manual, which would have the engine oil capacity, along with other fluid capacities. If you are the second or third or later owner of the vehicle this manual may be missing, and they are no help unless they are there.

     One of the big reasons for doing your own oil changes at home is to save money. If you spend money on any of this information, then you'll have to do that many more oil changes before you actually START SAVING MONEY. By posting these charts I hope to save you that money!

     There will be a lot more coming in the way of topics and blog posts, but for now this is what I've got flowing. Be sure to comment about any questions or topics you'd like to hear more about. I'll try my best to get back to everyone!

     Thanks SO much for READING MY FIRST BLOG POST!!!