Looking for a good place in Fairfax or Woodbridge for an oil change that doesn't charge an arm and a leg. Thanks.

uh go to Walmart, buy some 10w30 and a filter, Then get the jack from your trunk. Jack up the car Place pan under car, unscrew valve let oil drain into pain, replace valve. Then pop hood taking filter out. replace with new filter. Find oil intake. Take off top of bottle being careful NOT to leave on small plastic ring as well as this can fall into intake. Pour contents into engine. replace cap on oil intake. Jack down vehicle. Run engine and let it idle for a minute. WAsh hands and drive as needed. ANYWHERE there is driveway or parking lot parking in FX or Woodbridge.

If you value you're head, don't follow WestOx's advice about crawling under a car supported by the POS jack that comes with the car to change a flat. I'm all for the DIY oil change, but if you don't have the resources (or common sense) to get under a properly supported car, leave it to the pros. Of course some "pros" will cross thread your oil drain plug, strip your filter threads by putting it on too tight, under/over fill you crankcase with the wrong weight oil (if they remember to fill it at all) and your engine will leak oil or seize. However, all that is fixable/replaceable. Last I heard, head transplants haven't worked out too well yet.

or go to any auto place by some jackstands and use those. Sheesh. oh and they are doing some amazing things with transplants and cloning technology these days

Anyone know whatever happened to Meinke that was alongside 29 and near the bent tree apartments in Centreville? I think they reopened it to some Crown station or some stupid shit like that.

I occasionally get my car's oil changed at the dealer, but typically I take my car to Centreville Automotive (the Gemini/Goodyear place on 29). I find their markup for synthetic rather ridiculous, so I buy the oil at walmart and then just pay $15 for the oil change.

It is a simple oil change, I would never do it myself since the price can be less than twenty bucks with a coupon. At that price they will try to sell you extras. Just say no to everything esp the dreaded air filter which can run twenty bucks if they do it. About five if you do it.
Or you could do like the mexicans just let the oil drain on the street and then fill it back up.

Well if you do do it yourself, get a pan with a cover, or tape some plastic wrap over it, then take it to the West Ox transfer station where you can get rid of it.


And yes, if you jack up your car, use ramps or jackstands. The air filter costs liek 10 bucks and you can DIY. The cabin air filter is even easier, its behind hte glove box.

I can change the oil/filter on my two vehicles without jacking them up..and they aren't trucks/SUVs with a lot of ground clearance. Just normal cars.

In fact, the only vehicle I've run into where I could not change the oil/filter without jacking it up is a 4-cylinder Honda--they put the filter on the backside of the engine and you cannot get to it from the top. So you have to jack it up and crawl under the car and unscrew the filter and then it dribbles all over the half-shaft. What a shit design.

Now, I am not a huge car person, but the half shaft is the flexible part of the axle, right? Doesn't it need lubrication? I recall when i took a auto repair class that to take apart the half shaft required 2 things: a sledge hammer and lubrication.

You're thinking of the cv joint(constant velocity joint, as opposed to a u-joint, which is not constant velocity). The cv joint is filled with grease and protected with a rubber boot.

The half-shaft is the actual axle. The cv joint is attached to the half shaft.

Oil spilling onto the half-shaft from an oil filter won't hurt it, but it won't help it either and it's just more mess to wipe up.

Whatever you do, DO NOT go to Jiffy Lube. One of my old coworkers had a friend who worked at one in the area and he said that very often they "would NOT change the oil filter because they were in such a hurry".

I took that with a grain of salt until I saw this expose on Jiffy Lube scams:

"NBC4 in LA put hidden cameras under their car hoods and took them to nine different Jiffy Lubes, They found six out of the nine didn't do any of the promised work yet charged for services in full."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiCAJ8ULnaI

Confirms exactly what my coworkers friend said and shows that the ripoffs go well beyond just not changing the filters. If they're doing that crap in LA then they're probably doing it everywhere. Too bad they didn't get busted by a national media outlet.

I'd think twice before going to any of those "quick lube" oil change joints, especially Jiffy Lube.

I also had a jiffy lube not change my filter, back in 1999 or 2000. I won't go back.

RESton Peace Wrote:
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> I also had a jiffy lube not change my filter, back
> in 1999 or 2000. I won't go back.

Might not be a bad idea to mark the filter with red marker or something regardless of where you take it just to make sure they actually do change it. I'm sure there are a lot of shady ripoff mechanics around besides Jiffy Lube.

If I'm feeling lazy and take it to a place instead of doing it myself, I take it to Merchant's Tire for an oil & filter change; they have cheap coupons to print from their website.

Dont take your car to the typical car chains for an oil change or service (NTB, Costco, Walmart... etc) I have a shop in herndon, and we do a lot of work where we have to fix other shops mistakes (striped oil pans, broken studs). Recent one we fixed which i was suprised about, A costco tech some how put on the wrong lug nuts and stipped the studs on a van. (second time with in 6 months, same customer)

jiffy lube there the best haha

Jiffy Lube rules!

Ohhh, to be a teenager again ~ ~
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DiY is best, but was not OP's question.

JC WHITNEY sells mostly chinese parts and has a thin selection compared to Amazon. Definitely not a first pick to advise.

It had been one of america's top "go to" lists before the internet - as was sear's catalog. They spent their money on anything but modernizing and lost the market.

I needed a change had some time and was driving through Fairfax City yesterday. There was a dude on the corner spinning a sign for a deal on oil change. I grabbed a coupon and after lunch went back. The dude spinning the sign really took care of me. After changing the oil he asked me into the bay to check out the work then offered me 'bayz in bayz' service and I have to admit it really hit the spot. I feel bad cause he was limping when I was done but he seemed happy and said something about having 'Michelobs' tonight.

Care care is very important.

car care Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I needed a change had some time and was driving
> through Fairfax City yesterday. There was a dude
> on the corner spinning a sign for a deal on oil
> change. I grabbed a coupon and after lunch went
> back. The dude spinning the sign really took care
> of me. After changing the oil he asked me into
> the bay to check out the work then offered me
> 'bayz in bayz' service and I have to admit it
> really hit the spot. I feel bad cause he was
> limping when I was done but he seemed happy and
> said something about having 'Michelobs' tonight.
>
>
> Care care is very important.


What the hell is 'bayz in bayz?'