"Oil change is essential in maintaining your car’s engine"

Oil change is essential in maintaining your car’s engine condition. Engine wear is most notable due to lack of sufficient oil changes performed throughout its life. Warming engine to its operational temperature is recommended for an oil change but I would differ on this. As long as oil is changed periodically there is no need to run the engine before you change the oil. It becomes more cumbersome to change oil when you heat up the engine. The oil that settled down at the bottom of the oil pan get splashed up to valve housings and they don’t come back down soon enough and that old oil would be a part of new oil you will put into the engine. It is just like looking at your shampoo bottle. When you use it shampoo will coat inside of the bottle but overnight, the filmy shampoo would come down and leave the inside of the bottle clean. That is what you would want when you change the oil in your engine. With oil settled down at the bottom of oil pan, the engine is relatively clean of old oil. You just drain the old oil and wait a little to let as much old oil as you can to drip out. Changing oil filter at the same time is essential since the oil filter contain significant amount of old oil and its filter has captured any debris. After you place an oil pan underneath the engine then you take out the oil plug and then the oil filter. You should use a dedicated oil filter removal tool for this. The oil filter tends to get very slippery. You do not want to spend too much time just to loosen the oil filter struggling with it. You let oil drip out for a while. 5 minutes or so would be enough to get majority of old oil. You put the oil plug back in. Do not tighten the plug too much. You don’t want to strip its thread. But You do not want the plug coming off when you are driving your car so you should check the owner’s manual for how much torque to use. Put the oil plug in then the new oil filter. Use a drop or two of oil to lubricate its seal for a better seat. You do not want an oil leak after changing the oil filter. Again you should find out how much torque is right for installing the new oil filter. You should not over fill your engine with excess oil. It may lead to valve problems later on. Using the dip stick to see how much oil you have put in is useful. I would like oil to be somewhere between middle to top, but not too close to the top. If you will put additives that help the engine reduce its friction, some really work, you should put these in after you put maybe half a quart of oil to mix with the additives you are going to put in. After putting additives in pour more oil to appropriate amount. You should be careful not spill old oil on the ground. Old oil is an environmental contaminant and it should be mopped clean whenever you change.