"jim beam" <nospam@example.net> wrote:
> no kidding. my intro to safe working practices was coming home one
> day to find my father crushed under a car. he'd been working under it
> supported only by a jack, wheels off, no stands and the jack failed.
> he got away with broken ribs, but he was lucky i came home when i did.
> that's one of the reasons i like ramps - the wheels /have/ to stay on
> the car and in the worst of all possible worlds, that limits the
> extent to which the vehicle can drop.

Oh man, that story sounds like a nightmare! I wish home garages were
built the way I've seen them in Europe: with a kind of trench you see in
these quick lube shops that are normally covered but come real handy to
work under the car without all the extra hardware and extra time one
needs here in a typical garage to create the necessary clearance under
the car. Now that you guys confirmed my suspicion about the difficulty
of changing oil myself, I think I'll stick to having it done at my
dealer as before. But my next car will have to have an easier way to do
the oil change.

Rudy