Cars are really hard to work on anymore

[Gale Hawkins]

I wish our s10 trucks had that remote oil filter.

 

[Bird]

I think the worst that I have ever seen was a Buick my brother used to own. It had a transverse mounted engine and the spark plugs were so close to the firewall that the motor mounts had to be unbolted and the motor jacked up so that the plugs could be changed. There are engineering "Magic Moments". When I helped him change the plugs on this car I experienced one of these.

I didn't know Buick ever did that, but I remember the Chevrolet Monza did.

Serpentine belts are great, but can sure be tough. On October 24, 1991, our 40' Bounder motorhome, less than a month old at the time, threw both (yep, 2 of them) serpentine belts on I-94 out of Williamsburg, VA. I changed clothes and crawled under it. I had to try to chin myself with one hand on a box end wrench and put a belt on with the other hand, but I got them both back on. The only good news that day was that neither belt was damaged and I saw what caused the problem. There was one of those red plastic caps that comes on the end of automotive air-conditioner hoses on the frame and it was obvious it had been through a fan belt. I'm not sure where it was left during assembly that it fell into a fan belt that day.

But like many people, I just let the dealer do all my mechanic work now. The only thing I've done in the last 5 years is change a taillight bulb once on my Ford Ranger.:laughing:

 

[dmccarty]

Some of the designs are to make it hard to change the simplest of things so you have to go back to the dealer.

The wifey had a Honda CRV with an air filter in the glove box. How hard SHOULD it be to change a stupid air filter? The only way I could figure out how to get that thing out was to look it up on the Internet. Someone had made a video on how to remove the filter. There was a certain way the filter had to be removed and it was obvious this was done to get the owner to take the car to the dealer.

The wifey's Toyota has an air filter box built like Fort Knox. WHY do they need all of those BOLT for an AIR FILTER box? My Ford F350 and JD tractor allows the air filter to be changed without tools. Why does Toyota make it so difficult? To get you back tot he dealer for the simplest of chores.

Later,
Dan

 

[stuckmotor]

For me, it's good to have repair manuals by two different writers. Sometimes one is easier to understand than the other.

 

[RobertN]

I can say without doubt, a PT Cruiser is the hardest to engine work on. Replaced the timing belt/water pump/idler on ours. Overall engine design seemed fine. The issue was, total lack of room to work. Everything is packed in that engine compartment.

A big part of the issue with working on newer vehicles, is they are made for manufacturing efficiency not maintainability. Look at those Ford trucks that need the cab removed to work on the motor; bet they go down the assembly line smoothly...

My Dad worked Mopar parts at a dealership for years. Every time this type discussion comes up, he is quick to the point, that the design engineers should have to do rotations thru dealerships, working on the vehicles they had a part in designing.

Oh, and as someone previously posted, if you need to work on a vehicle besides having a manual, Google and the various make/model specific websites are worth checking out.

 

[radioman]

oh -- don't get me started... I worked on a quite a few modern cars and :hissyfit: .

 

[buickanddeere]

I have a 2006 Honda Accord. It is my commuter car and has given no trouble in 218,000 miles so far. I noticed the surpentine belt (original) looks cracked and needs replacing. I picked up a Gates replacement at O'Reilly's. Got home and thought I could do this in maybe 30 minutes tops. There is a tensioner that, all I should have to do is put a wrench on it and move it to release tension on the belt. It has a 14mm bolt head to grab ahold of to accomplish this.

Problem is, there is not enough clearance between this bolt head, and a motor mount to get a ratched/socket on it. The only thing I could get on it was a box end offset wrench, but with that I couldn't get enough travel to loosen the belt. So, I gave up.

I also had a head light bulb. I have replaced all the headlights at least once and I remembered this one on the driver's side you can't get to without taking the battery off. So I get the battery off and after an hour I almost gave up. I could neither get the cable disconnected from the bulb, nor get the bulb out of the socket. I just about gave up on that, but then gave the bulb a hard enough twist to break it (hard to get any leverage on it though, in a tight spot) and it finally came loose. I was then able to disconnect the cable. Putting it back was easy. But then I couldn't get the battery cable tight on the battery post. I finally figured out that the post is tapered - bigger at the bottom than at the top. Until I pushed the battery clamp all the was down onto the bigger part of the post it just wouldn't tighten down on it.

Are cars really hard to work on anymore or have I just lost the skills to work on them? In the old days I have pulled engines and transmissions and whatnot, now I have trouble with a headlight.

Wait a minute. 218,000 miles, no problems and you are complaining ???

Up to the days of unleaded fuel and fuel injection. Rare was the engine that sputtered and burned oil to the 100,000 mile mark before an overhaul was required. How many set of plug wires, rotors and distributed caps along the way. How many times was the choke and heat riser valve stuck and had to be freed up? How many v belt replacements?
How many tire replacements if they were bias instead of radial?
You should be thanking the auto engineers and manufactures.

 

[farmgirl19]

Creekbend;

I still get windows that I crank up and down, and avoid the automatic doors loks. Want to guess what is one of the things that will go wrong with a rig? Electric windows. Of course, I have to order them as manual, in the F-250, as most folks seem to like them. And I miss the vent windows, although my 1991 F-150 still has them.

 

[farmgirl19]

I think a lot of the problems are the anti-smog BS parts hung on the rigs, and then the computers that have come along to go along with that.

We always got 200,000 miles, or more, out of our old carburetor engines. Yes, we'd change plugs and such, but before we went to unleaded fuel, the tailpipes were so clean you could have eaten off of them. Look how black the pipes are on today's gas engine vehicles. And their fumes when you are behind them in traffic are worse than a diesel.

 

[mjarrels]

Be great to have an old ford model A in the garage... Easy to work on, no car tax and no freeway driving anymore! Just right for short trips to town.

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