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Old 11-17-2016, 11:33 AM
 
Location: Grosse Ile Michigan
30,707 posts, read 79,562,447 times
Reputation: 39445

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In another thread, someone pointed out
Quote:
Originally Posted by robr2 View Post
Engineers designing cars work together with the manufacturing engineers to design cars for ease of assembly and cost savings, not repair. Fixing cars is of no concern to them.
This made me think of some really ridiculous examples of this fact and wonder what other ones people have encountered. I can think of three:

1. Dodge Ram - you must remove the bed of the pickup in order to replace the rear shocks (or cheat by cutting a wrench in half (actually 2/3 - 1/3) and then spending half an hour getting it in place).

2. Pontiac Sunbird 4 cyl where you had to lift the motor off the mounts to replace the spark plugs (or cheat by sneaking them in on an angle which worked except you would break as many as a dozen plugs trying the get them in and you could never fully tighten them).

3. Jensen Healey. Where the steering column goes through the header pipes. So if you need to remove the header, you have to disassemble the steering assembly and remove it (or cheat by taking a sawzall to the header and then replacing it with an aftermarket two piece header.) You also have one nut on the header that you remove by making 1/8 turn from the top, then going below the car for 1/8 turn, then back up, below, . . . . Horrid to do without a lift.

4. Volvo V70. Oil cooler lines have a weird and really stupid connector that no one can get in place without nicking the O-rings and creating an oil leak so you have to start over. We finally took it to a volvo mechanic and they went through 10 O rings (meaning 10 tries) before they got it connected without leaking. This along with other unnecessarily complicated design makes changing the radiator a three day job (where on many cars it is half an hour or so).

5. 1995 Camaro Z28. To change the fuel pump, you have to remove the welded exhaust and drop the gas tank to get at it (or cheat by cutting a hole through the body from inside the car and creating an access door.).

6. Saturn Ion (and probably Chevy Cobalt). The steering gear is nylon. Worse yet, you have to take half the car apart to replace it. Since it is a cheapo car, when your Nylon steering gear strips out, the car is scrap.

What have you encountered that makes no sense at all?
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Old 11-17-2016, 11:37 AM
 
15,749 posts, read 20,332,935 times
Reputation: 20895
You pretty much run into this anytime you work on a vehicle that has multiple engine options, FWD/RWD with AWD options, different transmissions and a shared platform with other different vehicles of different shapes.


I'd have to agree with the sentiment that the cars are designed for ease of manufacture. Repairs are of no concern and come after the fact.
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Old 11-17-2016, 11:56 AM
 
Location: Nebraska
2,234 posts, read 3,307,853 times
Reputation: 6681
I'm not a professional mechanic, but I have been repairing my own cars all my life.

I'm also a manufacturing engineer and design products.

When I design or change a design the service of my equipment is always a concern.

What some don't understand is that management and the product management will spell out if they want a product easy to work on. If you make it difficult and expensive to work on then there's a formula for at what point the customer will just buy new instead of repair a product. Another factor is to make your product easier then the competition to work on but not to add unnecessary cost into the product.
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Old 11-17-2016, 12:01 PM
 
1,650 posts, read 1,110,728 times
Reputation: 1666
Newer ford diesel Trucks. - remove entire cab to change defective cam sensor

Oldsmobile bonnieville - remove motor mount to replace serpentine belt

Third gen camaro - remove rear axle to change fuel pump
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Old 11-17-2016, 12:05 PM
 
Location: God's Gift to Mankind for flying anything
5,921 posts, read 13,816,605 times
Reputation: 5229
Toyota van 1987 (I think)
I had to replace the resistor assembly which makes the fan run at different speeds.
I front of the resistor assy, is a beam.
On the right side (looking forward) it is bolted onto the firewall/
On the left it is welded !

Oh well ...
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Old 11-17-2016, 12:27 PM
 
Location: Podunk, IA
6,143 posts, read 5,210,095 times
Reputation: 7022
On early Merkur XR4Tis, there is a heater blower control module that controls fan speed.
It was just a little failure prone. OK, a lot failure prone. It was located in the blower housing in front of the blower motor.
The housing was behind the engine. There were a few clips that attached the top of the housing to the bottom.
They were no problem to get undone.

Sounds easy, right?
Top of the housing is now freed only to find out that there wasn't enough space between the cowl and the engine to get it out.
Nor was there enough room to get your hand in there.
To get the top of the housing out you had to remove a bunch of stuff from the top of the engine!
Well, you gotta be kidding. Going by the book, the dealer quoted like 7 hours labor, almost a grand to replace this part:

Blower Control Module XR (used)

Problem solved by taking a Dremel to the upper housing and cutting it in half so I could get it out.
When done, put a bunch of duct tape on the seam to seal it up. Why those dopes couldn't make it a 2-piece housing is beyond me.
I had to do this several times, but after the first one it took maybe a half hour tops to swap one out.

Last edited by eaton53; 11-17-2016 at 12:56 PM..
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Old 11-17-2016, 07:08 PM
 
Location: Sarasota FL
6,864 posts, read 12,038,513 times
Reputation: 6743
To remove/replace alternator on a Honda CRX 1600. Remove alternator from engine bracket. Drop on top of half shaft. Jack car, remove tire, remove inner mud flap, reach between firewall and drive shaft, turn alternator sideways, remove between fender well and wheel hub.
To remove/replace fuel pump. Drop fuel tank.
To replace co2 sensor. Borrow special tool from Auto Zone.
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Old 11-17-2016, 07:18 PM
 
Location: Outskirts of Gray Court, and love it!
5,643 posts, read 5,811,705 times
Reputation: 5778
Quote:
Originally Posted by ShiverMeTimber View Post
Newer ford diesel Trucks. - remove entire cab to change defective cam sensor

Oldsmobile bonnieville - remove motor mount to replace serpentine belt

Third gen camaro - remove rear axle to change fuel pump
1 - Which truck?

2 - A what??

3 - Um, OK.
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Old 11-17-2016, 07:38 PM
 
Location: Lake Grove
2,752 posts, read 2,750,367 times
Reputation: 4494
Vans used to have a removable cover inside the cab to access the back of the engine. At work we had a 2000 GMC Safari, and removing that cover inside revealed a solid firewall. There was NO ACCESS to the back of the engine. You have to drop the whole drivetrain out just to replace some vacuum lines?!? I was appalled, it's the most asinine thing I ever saw.

84 Olds Cutlass Ciera Wagon, with V6 engine. There was barely enough space for light to get through between the water pump pulley and the fender well, and the water pump bolts were a mile long. Had to cut out the sheet metal to replace the water pump.

78 Chrysler Cordoba with 400 engine. Steering column was right in front of spark plugs. Had to buy a socket with a hex head on the end and use a wrench because a ratchet wouldn't fit.

95 Cadillac Eldorado had steel pipes along the back of the engine instead of rubber hoses. They rotted, and would leak (usually where mounting brackets were welded to it) when you disturbed them when replacing the rubber hoses that connect to them. Cadillac wanted almost $1000 to replace them, probably because the whole drivetrain had to be lifted or dropped out to get to them. I bypassed the whole thing with high temp silicone hoses.
Same car had a small separate belt for the water pump, on the back of the engine. Never knew it was there until it let go.

Needing increasingly sophisticated scanner tools to reset computers after repairs, or even putting air in a tire! Having to pay for tire pressure monitors, because everything has to be as idiot proof as possible. Do we really need tire pressure monitors? Next will be talking gas gauges that send reminders to an app on the iPhone.
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Old 11-17-2016, 08:03 PM
 
1,667 posts, read 1,476,221 times
Reputation: 3151
According to some information I read on some forums, a certain crossover SUV I was considering, has had some early timing chain failures, the engine must be removed to service the timing chain, the A/C refrigerant must be recovered as part of the engine removal. I won't be buying that one.
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