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Being an engineer who designes machines, sometimes you don't have a choice. It's not like we sit there and say "Well, you might need to replace this pump at some point, lets redesign the entire chassis around that". Sometimes we do, sometimes it's not cost-effective and sometimes we simply can't. Sometimes the way these machines are assembled makes it pointless.
I've banged my knuckles plenty of times in tight engine bays, but at the same time i've always been on the design team trying to jam 10 pounds of crap in a 5 pound bag. No matter what I came up with, someone was unhappy.
One of my most hated repairs was a Mustang 5.0 oil pan, because to replace the pan required disconnecting the engine mounts and jacking the engine up 8" or so. If you didn't have a hoist, it was impossible and you had to go rent one. To solve this, required redesigning the K-member, and considering he fox-chassis was widespread and had the tooling long-since paid off, I doubt Ford would do this since every dealership who would repair one could easily hoist the engine up the required height. It just didn't make sense, but I've heard plenty of home garage mechanics curse out Ford for this when they take the car to the mechanic to do a (what should be) easy pan gasket job.
One of my most hated repairs was a Mustang 5.0 oil pan, because to replace the pan required disconnecting the engine mounts and jacking the engine up 8" or so. If you didn't have a hoist, it was impossible and you had to go rent one. To solve this, required redesigning the K-member, and considering he fox-chassis was widespread and had the tooling long-since paid off, I doubt Ford would do this since every dealership who would repair one could easily hoist the engine up the required height. It just didn't make sense, but I've heard plenty of home garage mechanics curse out Ford for this when they take the car to the mechanic to do a (what should be) easy pan gasket job.
Well it didn't help that the steel pan on the 50 was prone to rotting in salty climates. I had one that ended up with a rot hole in a 91 t-bird.
Yeah, I agree that it seems designers seem to win out and therefore cars become very difficult to service at times.
You could start a thread dedicated to service "horror" stories.
I really do think you could aggressively market a car that is easy to service....imagine if Toyota was advertising it's Corolla as reliable....and easy to service.
I think that's appealing and there would be market for that.
I think it would be more of a niche market, and one they're unwilling to go out of their way to cater to. It seems to me like they decided to take a gamble on a vast majority of people not doing their own maintenance and repairs, and, thus far, they seem to have won out.
Then, for those that do, they introduce the unholiest of unholies - multiplexing, making electrical diagnosis and repair a nightmare. Computerize the lights, computerize power windows, make everything run through chassis nodes with enough wire to wire up the Golden Gate, to where what would normally be a simple wire splice to repair becomes a matter of replacing an entire harness.
Making it more difficult increases warranty repair costs. I doubt there's a simple answer to the question, there's a constant battle between designers/engineers and the bean counters. There are always compromises to be made. i.e. There may be a design item that decreases manufacturing cost but increases potential warranty costs, you can bet it's studied before a decision is made. For the average man on the street a half cent or penny savings per vehicle seems laughable, when making a large volume of vehicles, it's not.
I agree with this. It isn't a simple question to answer.
The more fundamental question to me is how does today's great reliability and low maintenance impact manufacturers? Even the crappiest vehicle made today is vastly more reliable than those of 20 years ago. They hardly need any maintenance at all other than oil/fiter changes, tires, brake shoes, and wiper blades.
Every carmaker would love to have you buy a new car every few years instead of every decade. But they have to compete with every other car, some of which sell on reliability and low maintenance.
I agree with this. It isn't a simple question to answer.
The more fundamental question to me is how does today's great reliability and low maintenance impact manufacturers? Even the crappiest vehicle made today is vastly more reliable than those of 20 years ago. They hardly need any maintenance at all other than oil/fiter changes, tires, brake shoes, and wiper blades.
Every carmaker would love to have you buy a new car every few years instead of every decade. But they have to compete with every other car, some of which sell on reliability and low maintenance.
How? They charge more for labor to make up for the money lost through efficiency. I was just quoted a cost of almost $400 to replace upper and lower radiator hoses! $400!!!
But honestly, how many do their own car repairs? Most women I know barely know how to pop their hood. The GM3800 was easy to work on from what i heard, but its still a smaller percentage who would work on them compared to taking it to a shop.
Kinda like PC repairs, the easiest things to replace, most people were scared to touch in fear of breaking things.
Funny you mention the PC part. I work in IT, and build my own PC's. Crazy easy to replace a part. Snap out, snap in. Laptops are harder, depends on who made it.
My 2001 Cherokee, I had no problems wrenching on it. My 2014 Grand Cherokee? Pffft. Forget about it. I know what goes where, but there's no way in hell I'm going to try and fix anything on that myself. I won't even change the oil on it. I pop the hood once or twice a month or so to make sure nothing's leaking, loose hoses/wires, but that's about it. All the computer equipment in there? Nope. Won't touch it.
I do think the manufacturers consider maintenance (routine at least), but as noted, that may come after styling, costs, safety regulations, fuel economy, etc.
One thing I commend the industry for doing is making maintenance and repairs less needed. Spark plugs now go for 100k miles in many applications, so while changing them may be harder and take longer, "hours per mile" is less. Long life coolant, oil life monitors (and better oil) make for less fluid changes. Electrical components replacing mechanical makes things more reliable (but more expensive to fix if needed).
Long term reliability (to a point) is important to manufacturers. I think they are incented to make life easy as can be for the fist 100-150k miles. Probably not much interested in going another 150k miles as the first, because that decreased the new car market.
Every new car I've bought in the last 10 years was easy to work on. My newest, a 2014 Accord Sport has a huge engine bay and a small 4 cyl engine. I can reach everything in there without a problem
The 3800 was only okay to work on. You still needed to disconnect the 2 upper wishbone motor mounts so you can rock it forward and get to the rear plugs. Then they were still quite difficult to get to.
The 2014 Accord 4 cyl looks much easier to work on than my 2005, mainly because the intake and exhaust manifolds are reversed (exhaust in front, intake in back). My Accord has the intake manifold in the front, so when I replaced my starter the manifold had to be removed to access it. Things are much tighter in that engine bay compared to my wife's 4 cylinder Camry. Still, things like spark plugs, belts, and filters are fairly straightforward replacements.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hoffdano
I agree with this. It isn't a simple question to answer.
It never is. Working on my own stuff at home, $20-30 for a part isn't a big deal, when you're talking about hundreds of thousands of that part, a penny difference in price is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hoffdano
The more fundamental question to me is how does today's great reliability and low maintenance impact manufacturers? Even the crappiest vehicle made today is vastly more reliable than those of 20 years ago. They hardly need any maintenance at all other than oil/fiter changes, tires, brake shoes, and wiper blades.
Every carmaker would love to have you buy a new car every few years instead of every decade. But they have to compete with every other car, some of which sell on reliability and low maintenance.
Today's reliability has been great for me because I keep cars a long time, 10+ years. It not only affects the vehicle manufacturers but parts suppliers as well. Take something relatively simple and inexpensive like a spark plug, 35 years ago a spark plug maker could depend on selling 8 to most car owners every 12,000 miles, now they sell 4 to many car owners every 60,000 miles. Not exactly a business trend to be sought after. Service the same way, I've known a number of long term business owners who closed in the past few years, not only due to aging but lack of business. Who does a valve job any more? Or a ring job? Certainly not remotely close to being as common as they used to be.
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