i got the pan dropped by the mechanic doing it for 80. he charged me an hour of labor but it took him longer to do
they bent that back, is that called a body molding or rocker panel? they bent it back and some paint scraped off leaving bare metal, but they bent it back and i went home and applied 2 layers of touch up paint to the area where it came off and now it's good as new! that shop got good reviews and they did it while dropping the pan with the broken bolt, the pan didn't need to be dropped, i won't do it again. i now know where the drain plug is so i'll just drain and fill every 30k with mercon v (brand recommendations? is castrol or valvoline mercon v any good?). turns out the filter is inside the trans on the 09 taurus so there's no point in a pan drop because the only benefit to a pan drop if there is a drain plug, is to chanage out the filter, but they said the filter is changeable, but it should last the life of the unit, but it's way inside, and i don't want to do that and he woulnd't do it and said only a trans shop or maybe the dealer could, but it's not worth the effort, so i take this car and ones with a similar design have a very good filter, then? so i don't need to change it at 100k, it woulnd't be worth taking apart the transmission for, right?
i got sidetracked, anyways, you only drop the pan to change the filter or if there isn't a drain plug, but now that there is, i'll stick with that, and that'll be simple like changing the oil, so i won't make the same costly mistake i made with the broken bolt/leaking fluid.
they fixed the part which was bent and bent it back into shape, so it's like new now and i painted the door area where the paint scraped off and it's good as new now, so that was good, but i learned my lesson and will use the proper jacking points from now on