Anyway it turns out that our whole fleet needs oil changes at the same time. I started last weekend by putting away the snowblower, that gets 5/8 quart of 5w40, I had been using Mobil 1 but since the '98 Jetta is gone I don't need to carry that oil anymore. The Golf gets Lubro Moly which is way overkill, heck the Mobil 1 is probably overkill but its what I've got around and its only 5/8 quart a year.
Next was the lawnmower, my 1965 Snapper Comet 30.
Thats an old picture but it hasn't changed much. I've been using Mobil 1 15w50 in that only because I had a gallon jug of the stuff left over from the '78 240D. When that jug is used up (probably next year) it'll go on a diet of 5w40, again it got 5/8 quart. After changing the oil I challenged my neighbor Bill and his son Jeremy to guess how many pulls it would take to start the old girl. I guessed 3, Bill said 2 and Jeremy said 6(!). It started on the first pull but I couldn't get the choke off fast enough to keep it running, I turned off the choke and it ran good on the second pull.
After I mowed the lawn I turned my attention to the 2010 Dodge Ram. That gets Mobil 1 5w20, the thinnest of the fleet. It got an STP Extended use oil filter because Autozone had a sale for that and the oil together. It takes all of the 5 quarts that come in a jug. I'm continually amazed that the thin oil is enough but I trust the Chrysler engineers, its made it 135,000+ miles so far with no real issues, certainly none related to lubrication.
I didn't have supplies for the Volkswagens and the day was getting long anyhow so I cleaned up for the week.
Today, a week later I started with my Jetta, this is its first change with us and as its at 60,000 miles I bought a 40,000 mile service kit from ID parts. I figured I'd feel silly if the air filters had already been done but I'd rather have them and not need them than the other way around.
One thing I don't like about VWs, the 2015 in particular is that you HAVE to jack it up to change the oil. The 2005 Golf you could potentially do without jacking with a vacuum oil sucker, but on the 2015 the oil filter is underneath so theres no way to change it without jacking it up.
The Jetta gets VW spec 507 oil which is pretty uncommon, I don't think FLAPS (Friendly local auto parts store) carries it although I bet my local Federated Autoparts would get it if I asked. I got Lubro Moly 5w30 (the only weight that meets 507) from IDParts. My research online suggested it'd take 4.5 liters, my car seemed thirsty, it needed the whole 5 liter jug, the IDParts kit included 6 liters so I've got a spare, in the last 10,000 miles the car hasn't needed a drop.
Since I had it I decided to do the air filter and the cabin filter, both are easy, the cabin filter is very easy.
One hitch in this job, after I was done and everything was buttoned up and I was moving the car so I could work on the Golf, the check engine light came on. Rats, its never good to have done a service and have the car worse than you started with. I had an idea what was wrong so I jacked it back up and pulled the underbelly panel back off.
This guy is an auxiliary water pump, notice the little electrical connection, that has to move so you can get the oil filter out and I'd completely forgotten to plug it back in when I was done. Hopefully that'll teach me. To reset the check engine light I had to pull out my wifi OBDII dongle, my VCDS cable won't work with this car, and fire up the Torque app. I needed to remember that for the dongle to work you need to acknowledge that there is no internet access, so frustrating...
After my experience with the Jetta changing the oil in the Golf was really easy and quick, the biggest challenge on that car is the metal skid plate. I noticed its dinged up pretty good, I'm thinking I should probably grab one for the Jetta too, both cars are pretty low...
