It made it to the middle sixties today. wOOt! It had clouded up by quitting time, but it was still warm enough for a trip home with the top down – no coat required. On the way home I stopped in to Autozone and picked up 4 quarts of Penzoil 10-30. Rotated the tires and changed the oil at 18,813 miles. Grandpa Mazda recommends changing the oil every 7500 miles, but I like to do it halfway between as well. This way the Emperor gets some nice clean blood every three thousand seven hundred fifty miles. I lifted the car up and put it on 4 jack stands, this way after removing the front right tire I can get to the drain plug easy enough. While the oil drains I go ahead and get 3 of the 4 tires rotated. Before putting the right front back on I swap oil filters. Takes about an hour and a half from start to finish.
I think my friends at Rader, they changed the oil last, used the impact wrench on the drain plug, as it was a bear to get off. Because the car was full hot I expected a little resistance in removing the plug, but my usual ice cube trick didn’t seem to help much. Even after melting 2 cubes on the head of the drain plug it still wouldn’t come loose. I had to resort to gently tapping on the end of the wrench with a hammer to get it off. I wonder what the torque spec for the oil drain plug is?