I should’ve read your how to earlier!! This was great.
Hi everyone. I had my baby now for one year!!! Time sure flies!!!
I was so worried some oil change places would drop my baby so I changed the oil myself twice now with the help of some lotus talk buddies here with their encouragement and suggestions. Namely El, Fred, Alan, and Mike. One thing to mention you should always change the oil when the engine is hot. That’s from an automotive engineer. Just run the car until it’s at normal temp never change it when cold. Once you add the new oil remember to run it for a few mins then check dipstick. Also the manual says 4.4L equates to 4.67 quarts so the one 5 quart jug will be plenty. I like to add a thin layer of new oil to the new oil filter gasket for a nice tight seal. Oh and make sure when the drain plug is taken off that the plug gasket didn’t fall off or lost when you drop it to drain. I was told by automotive engineer to never buy high mileage oil because it’s the worst oil they had and the oil companies just added tons of additives.
I’m very leery of ramps. Unless you’re perfectly lined up too many chances of scuffing the car. I used the nifty jiffy lift bar combined with a super low profile hydraulic jack. The lift bar has two donut rubbers that exactly matches up with bolts in the back end of the car underneath that perfectly sits and holds the bar in place while you lift it. El introduced it to me.This lift bar is made for the Elise/exige. I believe El told me it was designed by an Elise owner and a company bought the rights. I love it. Makes it so much easier. It lifts the whole back end so you can slide jacks under.
niftyLIFTY — InoKinetic
I also used a 3 jaw universal adjustable oil filter wrench. $12 from Amazon. Just hand tighten the new filter until snug and one torque turn. Do not over tighten. You’ll strip it and will leak.
I’m going to buy a separate tool box to put all of my tools for the lotus separately so it doesn’t take me forever to find the tools I need.
Look if a girl can do this I’m sure it’s not that hard. Lol.
Cheers!
Mai