i have an 03 ninja ex500. i was wondering how hard it is to do an oil change myself, and how to do it? or should i just have someone else do it for $50. it has 3000 miles on it now and i just bought it so i want to do an oil change. thanks in advance!

 

Not that you can't do it yourself...but $50 seems like a good price. Most places around here are $100+

 

Believe it or not this is something you can probably do yourself since even I can do it, ham-headed lawyer that I am. You need to be able to get the bike up on its center-stand(actually pretty simple once you find the right leverage and grab the bike in the right spots and push down on the center-stand with your foot facing forwardas you pull back simultaneously on the steering column and back handle on the tail(that's the fun part, grabbing some bike ***)-- somebody kinda' has to show you how to do it but there's probably info on this forum) and then find the right-sized wrench to drain the old oil. The drain=bolt is pretty obvious but you can find a diagram on the web to be sure. It's probably worth investing in an oil-pan or atin-foil turkey baking pan because old milk containers are too tall to fit under the oil drain. Just drain it dry and screw the plug back in tightandpour 3.2 fresh newquarts of the expensive Iranian stuff in its place(don't know it could beBrent Crude or Venezuelan stuff for all I know-they don't put a label of country oforigin on those plastic bottles)through the opening on the top(I put in 4 quartswithout over-filling it). Thenunscrew the old filter and screw a new one in after lightly lubing the threads if they need it with a little oil. Shouldn't take you too long if you'd rather invest some time instead of money and all you really need is a rag, the right-sized wrench and a pair of pliers plus the turkey-basting pan and some old empty plastic milk cartons to take the oil down to the recyclers. No mess, no fuss and really no pain either.

 

hahaha, that was a funny.I would prefer to drain the oil (reinstalling the plug of course), pull the filter and replace the new filter first before adding the expensive stuff (oil).

I also like to warm up the engine prior to draining and torque the drain plug on the install.

 

Thanks for the corrections to my advice on changing the oil and I agree with your suggestions. Have fun out there.

 

what is the best kind of oil to use, and oil filter? where can i get it all? thanks

 

Now that question is contraversial. There has been alot mentioned on who or what thinks the best oil or filter is. You may want to search on the forums for those opinions.