Oil change on an old Volkswagen Beetle

Exactly when to do an oil change on Beetle, Bus or any aircooled VW, depends on how obsessional you are and how many miles you do regularly. The best advice I've had is every 3,000 miles if you want to keep your car in tip-top condition, especially if you do lots of short journeys. If you've just bought your car or have had it a while and have no idea when the engine oil was last changed, it's definitely time to do it.

You will need:

• New oil filter
• Oil filter fitting kit
• 19 mm socket
• 10mm socket
• Tray / old oil container / low bucket / cardboard box with bin bag lining it to catch oil
• Newspaper or sheet of something to catch oil that the bucket misses
• Rag of some kind to mop up spilt oil
• Blanket / cardboard to lie on
• Gloves to stop your hands getting dirty
• Big flat-head screwdriver / mole grips / levering equipment
• Engine oil, at least 2.5 litres / 2.6 US quarts, e.g. Halfords 20W/50 Basic Mineral Motor Oil
• Potentially needed: allen key set or improvisational skills and blue air

How to do it:

Have the car on the flat when draining the oil out, which makes the whole process more awkward. If you have a way of doing this with the car raised up, but everything level, go for that as it'll give you more room to move. If your car is lowered you're definitely going to need to raise it up somehow because it's very awkward doing this when the car is stock height, so you'll have no chance.

First, you need the right oil filter and fitting kit for your year/type of car. You'll need both as the bits of cardboard that act as washers in the fitting kit get wrecked when you take the old one out. Here's a picture of the new oil filter and fitting kit:

It helps if the oil is slightly warm when you do this, so a couple of runs around the block wouldn't hurt, but you don't want to burn yourself on the exhaust pipes while you're messing around.

Find the plate that holds the oil filter in place. It's a round plate with six bolts around the outside, and a larger bolt in the middle (can be different on sone old models)  Now spread some old newspaper or cardboard around on the floor beneath the plate, this is for later when we have oil falling out of it.

The middle bolt in the plate is the one we're interested in right now, when that's released it will let all the old oil out of the system. Get your 19 mm and put it on the nut, and loosen it just slightly, you don't want to do it all the way and have oil dripping out yet, but it's easier to get it a bit loose now before the oil tray is in the way. If you don't have a central bolt in the plate, then I'm afraid the only way you're going to get the oil out is to unbolt the other bolts, and you're going to get messy.

Once you've got the centre bolt loose, get something to catch the oil when it comes out. What you need is something low enough to fit under the car and big enough to catch about 2.6 US quarts (two and a half litres) of oil.

OK, so you've got your oil catcher underneath the car. Make sure the rag is handy, and finish to loosen the centre nut all the way out. It might drop in to the oil, don't worry about it, you can fish it out later - that's where gloves come in handy. Use the rag to clean the end of the spanner that's now got oil on it, and the bolt that came out if you managed to catch it.

If there's still oil dripping out after a quarter of an hour, leave it for a while longer. The more of the old, dirty oil that comes out the better.

Once the oil has stopped dripping, carefully pull the tray out from under the car. Don't do it quick enough so the oil slops over the edge, as you'll only get it all over yourself in a minute when you're unbolting everything. Once the oil is safely out of the way, crawl under the car and start unscrewing the six bolts around the filter plate. Make sure there's still some newspaper under the car as there will be drips, and more spilt oil later.

As usual, the filter plate is still stuck to the car. You need to pull it down off the car, best done by sticking things in the hole in the middle and levering it down. you can use a flat-head screwdriver, then some mole grips on the edge of the hole when it came down a little bit. When it eventually comes loose you will get oil over yourself and the ground.

When the plate comes loose, it might bring the old filter with it. If not, you should be able to pull it out of the big hole the plate has revealed.

Use the screwdriver to scrape (gently !) any old seals off of the car once the filter is out, then also scrape any residual seals off the filter plate. Be careful not to scratch the case with the screwdriver when you're cleaning it, as that gives a way for the oil to escape. Give the plate a general clean-up and open up your new seal kit. There should be two cork or cardboard seals (gaskets) which fit either side of the flange around the base of the filter (i.e. the bit that sticks out with holes for the bolts to go through.) Within the seal pack there is also a new washer for each of the bolts, so clean the bolts up and give them all a washer ready for when you put it all together.

Once you finally have a couple of nuts over the bolt heads, it soon becomes a matter of putting them all on loosely, then gradually tightening them up. Don't tighten one all the way, go around them gradually tightening them all up, it helps keep the seals doing their job. For other bits of the car you're advised to do one bolt, then it's opposite, then another bolt and it's opposite until they're all done and start again, so I did that with the plate. It takes a bit of time, but if it keeps the seal good it's all worth it.

With the plate back in place, re-fit the big bolt in the middle, don't forget the new washer for it from the seal kit. This doesn't have to be as tight as the smaller bolts, but you want it tight enough to both stop the oil coming out, and not to get loose over the next year or so while you're driving around.

Centre bolt back in place you can breathe a sigh of relief and get out from underneath the car. Have a stretch, enjoy it!

Now you need to fill the engine back up with nice, fresh oil. When you buy the oil make sure it's OK for older engines.

Pour the oil in to the oil filler pipe next to the engine. Every now and then check the dipstick to make sure you're not putting too much in. It's not worth starting to check the dipstick until at least two litres (about two quarts) of oil has gone down the tube in to the engine, and even then it could be a while before there is enough oil to register on the dipstick.

The picture above shows where you put the oil in, and the dipstick is pulled up a bit to point out where it is.

Checking the dipstick: To check the dipstick, pull it all of the way out of it's holder, wipe it clean on a bit of rag, put it back in, give it a little twist and pull it back out. On the dipstick are two marks, in my case indentations across the flat side of the dipstick. You want the oil to be somewhere between the two marks - the lower mark is the lowest limit the oil should go to, the highest is, you guessed it, the highest limit. Above or below isn't good for the engine, so try to get in-between.

Once you're happy with the level of oil in the engine, put the cap back on the tube that takes the oil, start your engine and wait a while for the oil to get everywhere it's supposed to in the engine and the rest to get to the sump. Then check the dipstick again and if it's OK, check underneath the car. If there are drips on the newspaper you'll have to decide whether they're just spilt oil from filling the engine, or if they're dripping from the oil plate you may need to tighten up the bolts a little more. Wait for a few mns and check again the dipstick, adjust the oil level. Do not overfill !

It's worth putting some newspaper under the car for a few days to make sure nothing's dripping, but other than that, you're done. One oil change, out of the way.