I took mine off when I did mine. Only takes 2 - 3 minutes. You'll be glad you did when it comes time to get in there to the fuel filter to drain it. I don't think the oil change itself was a big deal. Now the fuel filter was a PITA. The other thing I forgot to do (you don't have to worry about) was to take the mmm off so that I could get to the hydro filters. Good luck, including lots of looking around at things and doing other stuff (parent/ kid stuff) it took me about 2 hours to do the 50 hours maintenance.