Oil changes are one of those things that everyone realizes they need to get on a regular basis but have a tendency to forget about. Whether you take your vehicle to a shop to have it professionally done or take care of everything yourself, the fact of the matter is that you need to change your oil on a regular basis. Like so many other aspects of our lives, computer software has fundamentally altered the way that people handle this vital chore. Check out these three ways to integrate digital workflows into your garage. These tricks should work just as well for someone taking care of their family car as they will for experienced hot rod enthusiasts using the highest quality synthetic oil products.

1. Track Maintenance With a Program

You probably think of spreadsheet software as something that you use when you’re working on accounting chores or balancing your books. While there’s nothing wrong with these applications, there’s also no reason why you can’t use them to track how long it’s been since the last time you changed your oil. They offer a dedicated grid structure that you can map out however you’d like. If you’d prefer to develop your own ways of calculating time or distance traveled, then you could easily come up with your own formulas to do this.

Over time, you might end up learning some interesting habits about your driving habits in the process. Some serious motorists have actually hosted a spreadsheet in the cloud and connected a mobile device to it so they can collect plenty of information about how long they’ve been able to drive on one load of oil. Interested parties might eventually start looking into more complicated sets of data.

2. Investigate Viscosity Levels

Not all oils are created equally or have the same viscosity levels. Drivers of high-end vehicles need to invest in quality synthetic oil products that are suitable for the types of cars they drive. Anybody who wants to be certain that they’re getting their money’s worth can start aggregating all of the information they’ve been collecting and checking it against records they have from times when they drove on other types of oil. This should help them figure out whether natural or synthetic treatments are better for them as well as how much they’re impacted by issues like thermal breakdown.

3. Learn From the Masters Online

Those who’ve never changed their oil themselves before can also use online software as a way to learn the right way to do it. Drivers are often reluctant to learn. In some cases, people will travel miles out of the way just to avoid changing their own oil. Now you can simply head to any of the popular social video-sharing sites and learn all about the right way to do so. This makes the learning process relatively quick while simultaneously helping you to save money by becoming more self-sufficient.

Whether you drive a sports roadster or a more reasonable family car, there’s certainly some kind of software resource that should work for you. Making the time to change your car’s oil on a regular basis will help it last longer and be well worth the effort.