Long trip tow vehicle maintenance

bpounds wrote:
Nobody changes the oil on my truck but me. I have changed it a little early when I was going to be traveling, and I have also changed it a little late when I got home. Not late enough to be a worry. All it takes is a bucket and a box of oil, so I would do it in a campground if necessary. There are usually rules against that, but it would be drained so fast, cleanly, and discreetly, no one would ever know what happened.

I perform all of my maintenance on my vehicles, but I would never even think of performing an oil change in a campground. Even if the rules didn't strictly prohibiting it. In my driveway with fairly large catch pan sitting on top of an even larger drip pan, I've still have had some pretty bad unexpected disasters. It only takes one gust of wind and your oil is spraying everywhere. I once had a car that immediately sprayed out 2.5 qts of oil because of a bad seal on a new filter (no more STP filters after that day!). At the first rain in a campground, that stuff's running into some water table or some nearby lake or stream. If it's really necessary to change your oil, do it in the parking lot of the store where you buy the oil from. They're probably more adequately equipped to contain a accidental spill than you would be in a campground.