Is It Worth It to Change Your Oil Yourself?

What Car Owners Need to Know

• It can be cheaper to change your oil yourself versus taking it to an oil-change shop or dealership.
• However, oil changes have become more complicated in modern cars, with some requiring special tools.
• There are also time, mess and safety considerations when changing your oil that you can avoid by taking your car to a shop.

Certainly, you can still save money by changing your oil yourself. The question becomes whether it’s worth the time, trouble and risk.

Related: Which Car Maintenance Can You Do Yourself?

Dollars and Sense

Calling around to an oil-change franchise and a local dealer, along with checking prices at an auto parts store, provided us with some price comparisons.

A local oil-change franchise charges about $47 for an oil change using regular oil, but the price rises to $100 for synthetic oil — which most modern cars call for. (Prices are higher for certain cars with special filters or those requiring more than 5 quarts of oil.) A tire rotation — if done with the oil change — costs $35 for most cars and $50-$70 for large trucks.

Using a 2016 Honda Civic as an example, a local Honda dealer also charges $100 for a synthetic oil change, with tire rotation adding $45.

You may find an independent shop that will do an oil change for less. Keep your eye out for signs while driving down the road, and maybe make some calls to neighborhood garages.

On the do-it-yourself side of the equation, a local auto parts store sells several brands of synthetic oil ranging from about $30 to $42 for a 5-quart jug (depending on brand), but only one brand of regular oil for $25. Filters run from $6 to more than $25 (most around $10), but oil-and-filter “bundles” seem a better deal, at $27 to $39. Note that synthetic oil — which is almost all the store carried — is only a bit more costly than regular oil, unlike the huge price gap at the oil-change franchise.

So, for just an oil change, you’re likely looking at about $100 at a shop or dealer, or $35 or so if you buy the oil and filter yourself. However, there are …

Other Things to Consider

• Although “every 3,000 miles” used to be the oil-change mantra for most cars, many today only call for it every 5,000 to 10,000 miles — perhaps longer if the car has an oil-life monitor. So doing oil changes yourself doesn’t save as much money on an annual basis as it used to.
• Not only do you have to go buy the oil and filter, you should also return the old oil to an auto parts store for recycling. That can be a messy process … not to mention another trip.
• Many newer vehicles have an underbody pan beneath the engine that may need to be removed to access the drain plug and filter. Not only is the pan often held by numerous fasteners that have to be removed and replaced, but the pan itself is large and cumbersome to deal with while laying on your back.
• Some cars have very restricted space around the filter, and you may need a special oil-filter wrench to get the filter off. If you don’t already have ramps, a jack, jack stands, proper drain-plug and underbody-pan wrenches, and an oil drain pan, those are all going to add to your first-time cost.
• In many cases, there are “inspect” items on your car’s maintenance schedule that should be done periodically (such as inspecting brake and fuel lines for leaks), and many are difficult to do without raising the whole car. Dealers often include these inspections when doing an oil change.
• Similarly, a tire rotation is often done while the car is up on a lift. You can do it at home, but it’s more time and trouble.
• In many cases, the vehicle has to be raised off the ground — either by driving it up on ramps or by jacking it up and supporting it on jack stands — in order to remove the belly pan and access the drain plug and oil filter, with “jacking it up” being the only option for a tire rotation. This poses a risk of not only having the car fall, but of having debris fall in your eyes while under it. (Thus eye protection should be a must.)
• Many modern cars have a maintenance reminder light that you’ll probably want to reset after doing an oil change. Shops will likely do that for you. (Note that if your car calls for regular oil but you splurge and give it “long-life” synthetic, the maintenance-reminder light doesn’t recalculate for that.)
• If your car is still within the limits of its powertrain warranty, you’ll want to keep good records if maintenance is done either by yourself or at an independent shop rather than at the dealer … in case you have to take advantage of that warranty. It’s even possible your warranty may specify that maintenance needs to be done at a shop or dealer (rather than by yourself).
• When doing it yourself, there’s always the risk of something going wrong; getting an ill-fitting filter that leaks, stripping the drain plug (would you be able to get a repair plug without driving the car you just immobilized?) or forgetting to put new oil in (it happens). If you take the car to a dealer, you’re fairly certain to get approved parts, and if anything goes wrong, they’re on the hook for it, not you.

More Maintenance and Repair Advice:

• Is Oil for High-Mileage Engines Worth Buying?
• How Much Oil Consumption Is ‘Normal’?
• Tools Every Car Owner Should Have
• What’s Included in a Tuneup?
• Add Cars.com as a Preferred Source on Google

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