Brake Pads and Oil Changes

What could be more fun than a Sunday working on your car?  Driving it, eating pizza,  or maybe landing on the moon of course, but  it was time for some auto maintenance, and I can't find a Saturn 5 rocket to fit my budget anyway.

Oil change wise, not a big deal, but an important part of keeping your engine happy. In this case, it was new oil time for the Fiat 500 Abarth and the family Camry, so I ordered up a bunch of synthetic oil from Amazon (free shipping makes it cheaper than just about anywhere else), some filters, lined up some tools, and headed for the garage.  Both of these cars use synthetic oil and  go 10,000 miles or so before needing new oil, and being all modern they even have little lights to remind you when it's time to do so. Also, they both share the oil filter cartridge thing, and require special tools like the 27mm socket on the Fiat and a special  socket for the Toyota. Since I've already bought those, no good reason to buy more tools this time. For the Fiat I went with some Pennzoil that even has a Ferrari logo on the bottle, so it must be good for Italians!

Speaking of modern conveniences like having the dash board light up to remind you to change oil, figuring out how to turn OFF the light after you change the oil is something that Fiat just might want to put in the manual!  The Toyota folks have it in their manual, but while I'm thinking about it, why don't they just put one more sensor on the car that can tell when you've drained and replaced the oil, or at least removed the oil filter?   My other good idea of the day would for someone to invent an oil filter re-location kit for the Fiat, just so it would be easier to remove.  Right now you have to remove some hoses above it, and then use a long ratchet with extensions and a swivel to get down to the filter cartridge.  Maybe someone smart could relocate the battery and put the filter there, or just replace the regular battery with a smaller one, and then put the oil filter in the empty space.

Brian also changed all four brake pads on the Miata, so that was pretty fun to do for the first time, and discover the secret location of the 4mm allen bolts on the rear brakes.   Here's a few shots from the garage. Hope you had a fun weekend too!

                                              

Get ready to jack up your car, have some jack stands handy to be safe. 

OK, now we're jacked up, and ready to go after those brake pads. 

                                          

Just might have to take the wheels off first!

  

Brian doing all the dirty work!

        

   Putting some brake grease lubricant on the slider pins. 

                                                     And getting the new pads put in place.