"Modern" vehicle options: The Loved & the Hated

Because I put in a skid plate on my 2000 VW Beetle TDI, I suctioned the oil out through the dipstick. The oil filter was a cartridge type on top of the engine-easy.

My MINI doesn't have a dipstick! Sensors, lol. I always went to the dealer to get the oil changed. Not a cheap proposition but not $250 either, even though it is made by BMW.

 

That's because Toyota design engineers listen to lowly mechanics and technicians. They don't think they're better than them...

 

FYI; sucking the oil out of the dipstick doesn't get rid of the junk on the bottom of the oil pan. When you remove the drain plug, most of the junk down there gets flushed out as oil rushes out that hole.

 

Was thinking about this thread today: driving in the rain: our last car, an '06 Civic Hybrid, had a trick: if you set the variable speed intermittent wipers to the fastest setting, it was fast-intermittent when you were stopped, then changed to regular low-speed when you started rolling again. Stop, and it went back to fast-intermittent. could have used that today: I was switching between the two at every light.