Ditto. Half the fun of owning this car, to me, is doing the mods myself when at all possible. It really adds to the driving experience in my opinion too. You really get to know the car better when your own two hands turned the bolts on it and you've dug around inside it yourself. When I hear or feel something funny on the road, it's really easy for me to picture what's going on with the car, because I've seen it all up close.

I really recommend anyone who cares about their car(s) to at least learn to do basic maintenance tasks themselves, even if they don't feel particularly skilled, inclined, or full of enough free time to do the other stuff.

As for the whole shop insurance thing: there are lots of shops around here like that. Mostly it's the franchise chain places that are the worst about trying to ban all customers from the garage area. But if you dig around, you'll find independent shops that are fine with you being in the garage the whole time under the lift with them, pointing out what you know about the car and what you need done. Just don't hover over the dude's shoulder while he's working, people hate that :) Explain the situation, agree on the work to be done, and then hang back and observe from a little more distance.

^ I agree

definitely agree with you SoCal. i used to work at a Honda dealership as a porter and i would just watch the lube tech guys work sometimes. a lot of them just half-a** the work. ever since i quit a year ago, i've been back to visit and some oil changes. the oil, i buy myself and let them do it-i know them so they use what i buy. but one of my friends in parts told me lube tech has been in a lot of crap for messing ppl's cars. worst story he told me, they forgot to put the oil and you can guess what happened.

One thing I hate about "dealer's/ franchises" doing the oil change is the time it takes to do. Personally I do all the maintenance on my TL and JK, oil changes should take at least a 1/2 hour to drain the pan and not put the drain plug back once the stream of oil is still visible.
I let my cars drain for at least an hour ( crazy but I get an extra pint in the pan ) and I don't use a oil filter wrench, just hand tight.
I'm not sure about the Z's engine and the oil required but I use either Mobil 1 or Castrol Syntech which ever is on sale and I buy a few 5 qt. jugs at a time.

Dont you need a jack, or some other machine to lift up your car in order to change your oil? How do you change your oil?

Also, is royal purple better than Synthetic Mobil oil (the best one)?

Do you guys trust franchise stores, such as Jiffy Lube to change your car oil?

Many thanks.

You're supposed to change the oil in a car?????

I know a guy here in orlando that has worked for one of the Nissan dealerships service departments for over 20 years. I hire him on the side sometimes to help me work on my Z32 whenever I have a job that takes two people. He told me that the oil change guys forget to put oil back in customers cars "probably once a month" and then crank the car on up. When they realize what they did, he said they turn the car off real quick and put oil in it. If it appears theres no damage they just go with it, but he said probably once or twice a year they have to replace engines due to oil change techs forgetting to put in oil.

He also told me, a few years back, that if they saw someone drive up in a Z32 they would tell them almost anything to get them to go away, as they did not like working on them any longer. I can't imagine taking mine to a dealership and I won't take my 370 either unless its an absolute necessity or an alignment or something else I can't do.

:icon18: I'm assuming you're kidding. Right?

Yea! You just drive it till the oil lite comes on.

Yes to jack or ramps or something.

I think Royal Purple is overrated. The top-end Mobil-1s are pretty good, not sure if it's better than RP, but my guess is yes.

PS - Dealers usually have interns changing oil. I've had two cars that had problems with dealer oil changes.

1) Toyota dealer - Forgot to put oil cap back on. After 60 miles I got out and oil was EVERYWHERE. It was coming out of the grill, burning (smelly) on radiator, etc. I took it back, they apologized and power washed my car, but I was never able to get rid of this burnt oil smell in the AC system.

2) Lexus dealer - Put the oil filter on wrong (missed the threads). Oil was getting on the exhaust manifold and left some nice memories on my driveway.

If I don't change the oil myself, I generally find a quick-lube place near where I live, bring my own stuff, and seek out their best guys. If you roll up to those places in a nice ride, they do seem to care more. I had this guy once that was so meticulous, but their place shut down. I got a new place doing the Infiniti now, I'm real happy with the guy that does my changes (he drives a Camaro SS that's in great condition so I know he cares).

I gave up on changing my Infiniti's oil. There's some 22 screws holding up that plastic underguard, it's just an annoyance to take off/take on all the time.

Oh yeah, no worries there. However, my wife's mother drove her car dry and told her husband when the engine seized that she didn't realize you had to change the oil...

I've had a bmw dealership do a brake job on my 6 series (just replacing rotors and pads), long story short I get my car back the pedal is so mushy the brakes barely had any grip and brake fluid WAS all over the engine bay. Long story short, the dealership was at the closing hours. I left the car with them while they gave me an m3 with 300 miles, I put on 600 miles in a day, they didn't say anything.

hehe you mean few and far between :p

you got to keep an eye on ur car while at the dealership, anything bizarre can happen.
like a mysterious hole in the muffler.....lol....happened to my dad....wow, did he ever get so pissed off.

It's not just dealerships either. Several years ago when I got my 350, I went and bought a new set of wheels from Discount Tire. The car only had 500 miles on it. They ordered the wrong offsets for the fronts, so I had to return a couple of days later when the correct front wheels came in. Seeing how they only had to lift the front instead of the whole car, two of their guys just slid service jacks under the car (one on each side). They didn't bother to make sure they were on proper jack points and just jacked the car up. Well, they jacked it up alright. When I got the car back, I got in and I was like what the hell??? There were these two big humps right in the middle of the floor mats on each side. Their service jacks had indented the floor of the car! I was SO freakin' pissed!!! Did I mention my car only had 500 miles on it at that point? So now anytime I need something done with tires, guess what I do? I take the wheels off, load them up in the wife's Murano, and drive them over to the tire shop then remount them myself when I get them home. It's sad how some people just lack any sense of professionalism and just 'wing it'.