Here at Soobie Surgeons, our heavy work balances out with day to day services that all of our customers need to keep their Subaru on the road. The most essential service we offer is an oil change, which your Subaru needs every 5000-7500 miles. We’ve written the following article to detail our process for changing your oil.

Step 1: Open the hood of your Subaru, and locate the yellow oil cap. The cap is usually marked with the type of oil you’ll need.

Inside of a Subaru Forester engine bay here at Soobie Surgeons.

Subaru Forester Oil Cap – oil type is 5W-30

Step 2: Once we’ve unscrewed the oil cap, we raise the Subaru on our lift. We then locate the oil drain plug before loosening it with a 17mm wrench and draining the oil.

17mm Subaru Forester drain plug

Step 3: After removing the oil plug and letting the oil drain, we always replace the crush washer before tightening the drain plug again.

Subaru Drain Plug Washer

Step 4: As the oil drains from the oil pan, we locate the oil filter and remove it.

Location of the oil filter next to the oil pan.

Removing the Subaru’s oil filter using a pair of oil filter pliers

Housing with the oil filter removed

Step 5: After all the oil has drained, we replace the oil filter with a Subaru OEM oil filter. Before replacing the filter, we oil the gasket and filter to prepare it for a proper seal on the housing.

Subaru OEM Oil Filter for a 2003 Forester

Subaru OEM Oil Filter before lubrication