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Comment by cityofdelusion | Hacker News Reader

There is pretty much zero risk if the car is either jacked correctly or put on ramps correctly. Dummies that rely on a single 1.5mm o-ring not blowing out on their hydraulic floor jacks are gambling with their life. Always operate on flat terrain, always chock the wheels, always use the parking brake, always use jack stands, always verify no movement in the vehicle by rocking it, never rely on the floor jack.

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It’s amazing and honestly kind of sad how risk averse some people are. The reason I don’t change my oil anymore is it just isn’t worth the time and hassle. The “unsafety” of such a task doesn’t even register on my things to be worried about: at all. Jack it up, remember to put on gloves(!!!!) put the fucker on stands and go.

The actual scary thing is I’m pretty sure way back when I was a kid we’d just dump the oil down the storm drain. I hate to think what that was doing to the environment around us.

I’m baffled too. Changing oil in a car is dead simple and effectively zero risk with a proper pair of jack stands and a modicum of common sense and mechanical aptitude.

Of course it's safe if you jack it correctly

The problem is if you've only used a jack 0-1 times in your life, you won't know you haven't done it correctly until there's a car crushing you

Not everyone is born with common sense. I sure wasn't. I'll find some way to do something that will leave the people with common sense scratching their heads, saying "but why wouldn't you just...".

There's a kind of meta-common sense which allows people to say "I don't have the ability to perform this task reliably".

All right, I respect that. I’m sure there are plenty of things that I might do that would leave you scratching your head too.

Harbor freight famously sold unreliable jackstands for awhile. There’s memes about it in the car community.

There's plenty of unreliable jack stands, especially the folding tripod-type is easily toppled. I still use these but I put a few LECA-blocks and/or stacks of lumber under the edges of the car to catch it in case the jack stands fail. This never happened but I prefer not to end up a statistic of the ´man found dead under car on farm' type.

Ramps are very good. I don't know why anyone would use a jack for an oil change...

A jack is basically suicide tbh. Jackstands are fine, provided they're used correctly.

Ramps are nice, provided you don't need to take a wheel off, then you're using jackstands anyway, so, if you're buying one or the other, jackstands are a good option.

Personally, if you have the space for it, a trench is the best option, I had one previously and I miss it alot. Nothing leaves the ground, car just pulls in and is ready to go. Mine was like 2ft deep, so, maybe a little cramped, but very comfortable once you're in there working. You couldn't make a standable trench at home without engineering it anyway, so, a crawlable trench is really the way to go.

Another option, if you’ve got the ceiling height is a proper 4 post lift. Expensive, but you can justify it by doubling your car storage space.

IMO a trench mitigates the danger effectively.

Until you fall into it when you’re not paying attention!

Make sure it is shored correctly!

They're against the building code around here.

But fumes can collect in a trench, is that right?

Depends on the jack. The people I know that do this use a jack and jack stands rather than just a jack. The jack is just the tool to go up/down.

>The jack is just the tool to go up/down.

This should be drilled into the heads of anyone who touches a jack. It's only a tool for lifting the car onto jackstands.

Lazyness. I've been under a car dozens of times with them, never had an issue, but know it's not the best practice and try to use jackstands... but it's just so much quicker!

I’ll also put tires (on rims) underneath in addition to jack stands/ramps.

Valid, re ramps > jack stands > floor jack. I always used ramps, but still... won't do it again. I'll change plugs + coils etc because you don't need to get under the car.

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