...is always the hardest. That's what they say. When it comes to oil changes, its the truth. I did the oil change on the mini for the first time today. Those of you who have ever done an oil change know, once you do it yourself, never, ever, take it back to the shop if you plan on doing it yourself again.

So here's the deal.. for those that don't know, with an oil change there's really only 3 steps. 1) Drain the oil pan. This involves removing the drain plug, which is essentially a glorified bolt with something to help seal it. Yes, there's usually a rubber piece of some form to help seal the drain hole. Auto Shops take note: This means the drain plug does not have to be "so tight that putting it in any tighter would have ripped the head off the bolt". Yes, thats how tight my plug was in. Literally, using the proper sized boxed-end wrench, with another wrench to extend the handle, which was still barely enough for me to budge it (took at least 5-10 minutes of grunting), all that I accomplished was stripping the head of the bolt. And no, the wrench did not slip off the bolt. Ok, so thats a problem. The solution was a pair of vice grips, which I had to get as tight as humanly possible to keep them from further stripping the bolt, and me in a very awkward position under the car so that I could push as hard as possible on the vice grips. Kids, don't try this without jack stands... seriously.

2) Remove the oil filter. On any normal car, you can do whatever it takes to get the filter off... including driving a long screwdriver through it to get some leverage in getting it off. On a mini, the oil filter is in a metal casing, which is not replaced during a oil change. It requires a special socket to remove it, I think it's 38mm or something really odd like that. So, I bought one a while back in anticipation of tonight's event. I got out my brand new 3/8" ratchet, and quickly realized... this isn't going to work. Once again, for those that don't know, there's a rubber seal on oil filters. A rubber seal, again, means that the filter only needs to be on tight enough that it won't come off in the 3-5k miles before the next oil change. Back to the story, I quickly decided that no matter what I do next I don't want to bang up the new ratchet, so I pull out my old one and get it hooked up. I try putting a wrench on the end of it to lengthen the lever arm, but my attempts to put pressure on this not only don't solve the problem, but I see the ratchet's arm bending quite a bit more than I'm comfortable with. Oh, and pushing on the wrench wasn't too comfortable... so i picked up some gardening gloves, and a 12" long 2x4 too, thinking... hey, i can push on the long 2x4 on the wrench on the ratchet. Um, yeah, that worked for about 1/2 a seconds. I needed a new strategy. I needed either a really long lever arm that was really sturdy, or a sudden impact that would budge it. The really long lever arm wasn't immediately available, but a hammer was. It went something like this: Setup the socket & ratchet, hold 2x4 length wise on the ratchet, hammer the other end of the 2x4. I swung. I swung harder. I swung harder still. I tried using the side of the hammer. I was started to get upset that my 4 lb. hammer was at Al's house. I swung again. It finally budged! I swapped ratchets out, and viola!.

3) Add fresh oil. This step of course happens after putting the drain plug back (or in my case, replacing it) and the filter back on. The oil fill cap is one thing the shop can't screw up. On most newer cars, it can't be overtightened.

4) Start the car and check for leaks. Wait, I said there was only 3 steps... well, this isn't really so much a step as a very strong suggestion. Its kinda fun to start the car when it's up in the air on jack stands anyway.