Those #+%^ engineers!

[WinterDeere]

I had an uncle who bought a small Ford car years ago, Fiesta I think, and it needed a water pump. The dealer quoted a high labor price because of one very hard to access bolt.
So he drove it home and drilled a 1" hole in inner fender where bolt was. That reduced the water pump bill a lot.
Back home he put a 1" rubber plug in the hole.

... and you wonder why the manufacturer couldn't have just done this in the first place. Perhaps the unibody had already been thru crash test ratings, and a hole in that location would have required re-testing? Just a guess.

Depending on the engineers involved, most of the OP's items could be chalked up to accountants and managers. My career has been filled with a desire to fix inherited problems with designs, or problems created by unexpected changes that were out of my hands, only to be told there's no time or budget allowed for the fix. I suspect most engineers could tell many such stories.

Maybe the engineers at Subaru spec'd an A/C compressor with a serviceable clutch, only to be overruled by marketing and accounting, or the guys designing the engine compartment at Toyota were never told a 3.5L V6 might go in there someday down the road. Very few wouldn't want to fix these problems, once known, but we are rarely left to chase these things in a modern company with tightly-controlled resource management.

 

[kenmbz]

What model is this? My 2020 Wrangler has the batteries under the hood and there’s no need to remove the bumper to replace headlights. And it doesn’t have a plastic oil pan.

2011 Jeep GC 5.7l