[Koach]

Purchased car in May and was going to change the oil right away, but decided to hold off until I decided which oil to use. That's another subject and will refrain from explanation in this post.
Thanks to this forum/thread my experience was relatively easy. So here are a few notes of my experience:
- Sunday afternoon: purchased low profile jack at Harbor Freight because my old school Craftsman is too tall, backed-up on ramps, but jack wasn't long enough to reach front center jack pad and still be able to pump
- pulled car up on ramps, jacked rear control arms (using pads on both jacks), and placed jack stands (with puck adapters) under each rear jack pad
- rear drain bolt broke loose no problem
- front drain bolt started to strip using 6mm allen wrench, stopped, went to Advance Auto and purchased a 6mm 3/8" drive allen bit, it was a much tighter fit, used short breaker bar while lightly tapping with small hammer and applying pressure both directions, loosening, tightening, then loosening again and the bolt broke loose (I did NOT want to drill-out due to impatience)
- removed residual oil from filter housing
- decided not to reuse these bolts and ordered new from dealer on Monday morning
- picked up new drain bolts Tuesday, installed, and while 'exercising' the torque wrench on my workbench it seemed that 25nm was going to be too much, but after trying 12nm and realizing that it wasn't nearly enough I went to 18nm, still not enough and then went to 24nm without issue. note- former aircraft tech with 30yrs of auto maintenance have 'dialed-in' my calibrated elbow lol
- here's where this thread was most helpful. I had read somewhere along the way to just put 8.5qts and go from there
- poured 8.5qts, drove until it came up to temp, received an 'at min level' warning
- after driving one more time that day and two different drives the next day it was consistent
- added .5qt, drove, and received the same min level warning
- drove two more times with the same warning, so now I'm getting concerned
- add another .5qt, bring up to temp, and reached exactly at the MAX level
- have driven two days with the same result
- checked Google for quart to liter conversion: 9.5 quarts equals 8.99 liters so I'll call that 'good'

Takeaways from this: I wasn't sure how much would be needed after letting her sit draining for two days which is why I was very cautious when filling. This very imprecise method of checking oil level is enough to cause unnecessarily high stress levels. In the end, caution and patience, combined with access to multiple cars while awaiting parts, led to a very successful 'first' oil change.

Thanks to all that have contributed to this thread. Without which, my experience would've yielded very different results.