DIY Oil Change Guide for 2013 Toyota Corolla

Hello DIYers. Today we're changing the oil on a 2013 Toyota Corolla. This is the base model with the 4-cylinder 1.8 L 2ZR FE. If you know what you're doing and are just looking for specifications or part numbers, those will be up on screen now. If that's all you needed and you found that helpful, please consider liking and subscribing. Thank you. We have an exceptional example today. This 12-year-old Corolla only has 27,000 m on it. It's quite literally barely broken in. As I get the car in the garage, let me show you where the hood release is located underneath the driver's footwell. And at the front of the car, the hood latch is located here. You lift up and to the left, and that will allow you to lift the hood. And you can use the hood prop like I'm doing here to hold up the hood. Now, we can do a quick check of the oil using the dipstick. The oil looks full and normal. Not at all surprising for a car that's been barely driven over the years. The oil cap is located here and tells you that the Corolla uses ZW20 weight oil. We'll leave both the oil cap and dipstick loose to help the oil drain faster. In my garage, I have a lift to help film these DIY guides, but here is the location of the jack points if you're using a jack. The notches are where you want to aim, and a jack uses the same principle as these lift blocks. You'll want the weight of the car to be on these reinforced jack points. And now, with the car in the air, here's the location of the oil pan, drain bolt, and oil filter housing. We'll begin by removing the drain bolt with a 14 mm socket. I'm using my favorite Gear Wrench 38 flex head ratchet, but any wrench or ratchet will work. Also, make sure you have some kind of catch pan underneath to catch the oil. While we wait for the oil to drain, I'll take a moment here to ask you to like and subscribe. Or if you're looking for recommendations on what tools to buy, I have links to what I used in the video in the description below. Thanks again for watching, and let's continue. Once the oil finishes draining, we can put the drain bolt back in. I'm also going to replace the drain plug gasket with a new one since Toyota does recommend replacing these every time. The gaskets are about a dollar each at the dealership and the same price online if you want to buy in bulk. Again, links for everything are in the description below. We'll torque the drain bolt to 27 foot-pounds and then we can move on to the oil filter housing. This Corolla uses a cartridge style filter housing, which is different from those who are familiar with spin-on canisters. The housing is made out of plastic, so I like to use this Motivix 64 mm oil cap wrench that I have featured on almost all of my Toyota oil change guides. I like this particular one because a lot of the generic cap wrenches are made to grab the little tabs on the housing and end up breaking them off or cracking the housing. Now, with the housing removed, let's prep the oil filter. This Corolla uses the YZZ A6 cartridge filter, and there's almost no reason to buy aftermarket considering that these OEM filters cost between $5 and $10 depending on where you buy it. The filter also comes with a new O-ring, so we'll replace that as well. And as you can see, the O-ring goes in this little groove over here. Make sure you put a little bit of oil on the O-ring to help it seat properly. Any oil will do. And I'm just using the leftover oil inside of the housing here. The filter itself goes on in either direction, and you'll feel it click into place. With that done, we can put the filter housing back on. As you'll notice, the housing goes sideways, so we can't prefill the filter even if we wanted to. The housing is torqued to 18 ft-lb, which is effectively just handtight. It makes you wonder why it always feels like it's a little overtightened by the shop after that last oil change you did. And now we can lower the car. Back up top in the engine bay, we can begin filling the oil. Today we're using Mobile 1's advanced fuel economy blend, but anything that is APIP or better will work, including Toyota OEM or even just Costco Kirkland branded ZW2 weight oil. It's a Corolla. Do whatever you want. For a lot of Toyotas, if you don't have a funnel handy, you can use an old oil container as one. It's nice because it screws right on and you don't have to hold the funnel. The 1.8 L here needs 4.4 quarts of oil. If you want, you can stop at four quarts, start the car, and then check the oil level. But I'm aiming for 4.4 quarts on my first attempt. Now, we can start the car and let the oil cycle. After stopping the engine, and letting the oil settle for a bit, let's check the oil level. And it looks pretty good. We're slightly below the max line, where I like to be when I haven't fully warmed up the engine. Make sure to keep that extra half cord in your trunk or in your garage so that you can top off the oil. And we're done in the engine bay. So, let's close the hood. The last step is to reset the service reminder inside the vehicle. We do that by turning the car to key on engine off position. After that, we toggle the odometer to trip A using the button on the right side of the dash. Once there, we turn the engine off, hold the button down, and return the car to key on engine off. If successful, you'll see dashes appear and countdown. When it finishes, the service reminder interval is reset, and it doesn't even reset the trip counter. Nice. And that's it. I hope you like this oil change guide for a 2013 Toyota Corolla. If you did find this video helpful, please do consider liking, subscribing, sharing, or commenting. Every action from you tells YouTube that my videos are worth recommending to others. I also have plenty of other DIY guides, so if you want to check those out, they should be popping up now. I'm Allan and this is Metaloop. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.