I routinely lift my car on a jack to change out the wheels. I also have stands.
From my view of the undercarriage, there are only 4 points that support the frame. They are black square plates, and the car has arrows to mark where they are.
I have already torn my plates to shreads because the normal jack lift connection point is larger than the plates.

I was going to do my own oil change, but I got nervous about going under the car with only a single jack keeping me safe.
If you use a stand, where do you put it? If you put it in a place that is not connected to the frame, the stand will not do any good, and the stand may go right through the floor of the car.
Am I missing something here?

I think that I may buy some drive up ramp blocks. This seems like the safer way to go.

 

I believe there is a jack point kind of in the area underneath the engine in the center, jack up there adn place jack stands at the two front side locations.

However I use ramps myself feels the safest.

 

I use rhino ramps! Easy does it.

 

Here is a the center jack point. Picture posted by mrfa.

 

Excellent. That makes sense. If I can put stands on both sides, we would probably have some good safety.

I guess the way to do it would be to lift the car with the jack, then put the stands on the side, and lower the car to the stands. Then, re-lift the jack so there is a snug fit.

My concern would be if the jack gave way, I would not want the car to fall on the stands, even if there was just a millimeter drop (the stands will adjust, but I am not sure that it is possible to get an exact fit). There would be too much weight to trust just the metal stands.

That being said, the safest route is probably ramps and the jack.

I may be paranoid, but anything that could lead to an life threatening accident should be treated with utmost care.

Best regards,
Richard

 

I use the side jack point with a BIG floor jack and only raise one corner of the car. Then I lay a block next to it, in case the jack hydraulics would fail (if I remember). It raises the car up on an angle, but allows me to get underneath and remove the drain plug and oil filter.

Then I drop it back down to let the oil drain.

Since only one corner is up, it is much more solid than having the whole front of the car up in the air. Feels pretty safe.

 

Note where he jacked the car in the pic, near the wheel, allowing you to set the jack-stand on the standard jack-point(s).

 

For routine oil changes (the ones in between the "free" dealer changes), I use a TopSider and suck the oil out the dipstick (oops, I just remembered some of you don't have a dipstick...yikes) and never have to jack up the car. In the Mercedes forums, there are as many opinions about this method as there are opinions on type / weight / brand of oil. Some say this method can leave gunk in the oil pan. I've done it many, many times on other cars without a problem. One downside is you don't get to wander around underneath the car and check for other issues and/or admire it.

 

tons of people use this method on the e46fanatics forum it seems to be the method of choice over there. I personally still prefer the old drain plug removal method. If safety its that much of a concern I suggest buying ramps they aren't very expensive and you won't have any issues.

 

Thanks for all of the great comments.

I feel a bit safer now thinking about both ramps and stands.

Yesterday, I was sitting with the car jacked up to one side and thinking that it would a terrible thing to be crushed if my $29.00 jack failed me.

Now, I can have fun with the oil change.