Reddit reviews FRAM Ultra Synthetic XG7317, 20K Mile Change Interval Spin-On Oil Filter with SureGrip

Just did the oil job on my wife's 140k vehicle yesterday and put a [Fram Ultra](FRAM XG7317 Ultra Synthetic Spin-On Oil Filter with SureGrip https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000C33MI2/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_1ZzACbD3WC1J0) filter on there (put full sythn high mileage oil in too). Should I do any early oil change for a new filter (as in in a few thousand miles vs my typical 5000)

Based off comments here there's a lot of criticism in the video and no real analysis on how the filter media works in the various filters, and I also bought a higher-quality-than-average filter even if it's from Fram.

The Internet is your friend! I can't imagine the magnitudes of higher difficulty generations before us faced. These days, you can Google "oil change DIY <insert year/make/model of your car>" and you will get endless write-ups from forums that specialize in your car, YouTube videos, dedicated personal sites, etc. I definitely know it seems complex, but if you are even the slightest bit technical-minded and can visualize things, you'll very quickly realize that you can probably take apart almost anything you see under the hood and be able to put it back together. Just be careful, take pictures of things before you disassemble, and buy plenty of magnetic trays ($2-3 from Harbor Freight) to keep track of nuts and bolts. Fortunately, there are plenty of maintenance things you can start with that you can't really break, like changing your engine air filter.

Doing an oil change is probably the next simplest thing you can do. In short, safety first, learn how to jack up your car and put it on jack stands, or just buy Rhino Ramps for $40, undo the drain plug, drain the oil into a big pan, put the bolt back in with a new crush washer, find and remove the filter, sometimes it's one metal thing and other times it's a plastic thing with a filter inside of it, then put the new one back on, then pour in x quarts or liters of oil back up top. Your first few times will take an hour or two and will likely be messy, but you'll very quickly be able to shorten that amount of time and eventually be able to do it without spilling a single drop.

A starter set of mechanic tools will cost you $20-40 on Amazon. Oil and filter is usually $20-40 even if you use the good stuff. But then those tools and ramps will also be used basically forever, so they're one-time costs. Once you do this a couple times and get comfortable getting under the car, looking at things, then you can read about doing transmission or differential fluid changes, start removing some of your engine covers just to take a look around and compare it to all the DIY videos and articles/posts that you can find. Once you have a small set of tools, any subsequent jobs will likely just require maybe 1 or 2 additional specialized tools to access some weird things. Even today, after having done most of my own maintenance for years, I would sometimes have to go on Amazon and spend $7 just to buy some weird size socket just to get to this one thing on specific car. You'll familiarize yourself with bolt clamps, start to see how manufacturers like to connect things, where things get dirtier than other places, look at things that you don't normally see when the car is all buttoned up, all with very little risk. It's also definitely easier on a Japanese car. I learned to work on older German cars when I started, where it took 3-4 different bolts and bits and strange wrangling of plastic trim and linings just to remove a bumper, so then I was pleasantly surprised that all I needed was ONE SINGLE 10mm socket on a dozen exposed bolts to take off my Mazda bumper.

It took me a couple years of light wrenching before I was comfortable enough to do my own brakes (mentally, it always seemed like the biggest risk if I messed something up). Now, I can swap all of my brake pads before a track day in about half hour. I recently bought another VW and learned that it has a common coolant system issue, something I had never worked on before... I spent a couple days reading and watching videos, then just ordered the right parts and went in and did everything while following along and pausing the videos. Took me a couple hours, but now I am not nervous about doing anything coolant-related since I gained a deep understanding how the piping works, etc. In fact, I've now added a simple coolant system flush to my to-do list for my other cars.

I looked at your post history and did some light Googling... looks like this site has your full 553-page manual. Here is the link to page 448 that guides you through an oil change, but it looks like all the maintenance stuff starts on page 432. Based on Amazon's built-in car search tool, it looks like the Fram XG7317 is what fits on a '16 TLX V6 AWD. And the service manual says you should be using 0W-20, which is also something you can find on Amazon... I use Castrol Syntec 0W-20 for my track car that definitely sees a ton of hard driving, and it's usually $25 for a 5-qt jug. Based on this resource, looks like you only need about 4.5 qts. This video seems to be pretty informative to walk you through an entire oil change on the V6.

You probably want to create an account on tlxforums.com and start poking around the maintenance subs. Maintenance section and common issues section.

I would tell you to look for a formal service manual, but I may be dating myself here. It doesn't look like there are paper manuals available to buy (at least from Honda; there may eventually be third party ones). In the meantime, it looks like you can pay to access this one... $30/year? Maybe do some of the more simple DIYs, get yourself familiar, start building up a small tool collection, and then go in there and poke around and maybe even download/print some of the stuff you'd want to do.

Feel free to PM me if you want to discuss more or bounce some ideas around, or if you just need a cheerleader before you dive into your first job. Hell, in typing all of this, I'm feeling pretty good about getting down on some Acura V6 maintenance myself, lol.

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*edit* I didn't realize how carried away I got with this response. I'm sorry for thread-jacking with a text wall, u/op. Let me know if you'd like me to remove this post and share it in a PM instead.