Look, as a person involved with manufacturing, I’m not about to claim that some automotive engineer was trying to make my life difficult. There are so many factors in the development of products that occasionally the ease of serviceability falls down the list, and it isn’t their fault.
That isn’t going to stop me from complaining about the car brands as a whole, however. I’ve seen many design decisions that seem to defy any logic, especially when there are other cars that do the same things much better.
One complaint I have about my ancient Lexus is actually a much broader issue with modern cars: those dumb-ass engine covers. As expected, I rarely ever open the hood of my Toyota-made product, but when I do, I really, really need to access stuff. I do not want to remove half a dozen fiddly fasteners to get to the damn battery when the battery finally dies in the school pickup line. These covers are pointless, strictly for looks, and in this case, it’s on a car that absolutely no owner opens the hood of to look at anything anyway.
I hate these things, and the excuse that some say about how they “reduce noise and protect components” is total crap as well. How do I know? Well, if you had bought the same-year, nearly identical Toyota Land Cruiser version of my Lexus LX570, you can see that it has virtually none of the offending covers. Wow, the battery is right there!
I don’t think the “noise level” is any less in the “luxury” Lexus version; it’s just plastic garbage to let it “compete” with other high-end SUVs. You want to cut noise? Put padding on the bottom of the hood as they did for half a century.
A different but equally maddening part of the 2007 E61 BMW 530Xi wagon that I owned (and is now in the custody of Mercedes Streeter) had to do with the head-up display. I bought it used with this rare option, and I was able see it easily, but the primary driver (my 5-foot-2 wife) could not. As I recall, on most GM products with this feature, you simply adjusted the height with a dashboard switch; it took seconds. On the BMW? To adjust it, you need to remove the center screen, loosen a bolt, and then turn a different bolt to set the height.
That’s bad enough, but the bolts were WAY down in the dash, to the point that you needed pretty much every socket extension in my set. I probably lost a socket as well; Mercedes Streeter received at least half a dozen free, hidden 10-millimeter sockets when she got my car.
What about your nightmare design-induced wrenching experiences? Try to keep your swearing to a minimum, but I fully understand how you feel.
Top graphic image: Lexus
Most of them, honestly. The Mercedes W123 ended production 40 years ago and that was probably the last car made to be repaired rather than built to be built. The degree of that distinction is the biggest factor differentiating an enduring object from a thing you might be able to keep around.
Over my run of like four or five Saab 9000s, I had to replace a few starters and hated the way they were sandwiched in a tiny gap between the engine and the firewall. Ever wonder why there’s at least one really stringy-looking guy in most repair shops… someone with forearms more like Olive Oyl than Popeye? That’s why.
After my dogs outgrew the Saabs I got an E39 540it. I researched the heck out of that decision and one of the things that gave me the warmest fuzzies about BMWs was the claim that their engineers checked the accessibility of every fastener to make sure repairs wouldn’t be too onerous. At first it seemed true… oil changes, brake jobs and seemingly tricky procedures like replacing the rear suspension air bags were surprisingly easy. But one day I had to get to the starter on that car and the idea that anyone had tried to make that easier had me growling.
Setting the rear wheel bearing end play on a 1983 380SL. I wound up taking a bad brake rotor, drilling holes in it, running heavy bolts through it, and using a 4-foot piece of black iron pipe to turn it an eighth of a turn at a time and then using a dial gauge on it. It took something like 600 foot-pounds to turn it against the crush washer.
The squeeze fit shocks on some 2010s Fords (and some BMWs I think.) You either have to beat it off and on, or you buy a special socket that fits into the slot and spreads the knuckle casting just enough to maybe slide it in.
As others have mentioned, the tray under the engine. My 2023 Rogue has like 14-16 plastic plug fittings and a couple screws. I don’t bother with a dipstick suction deal because the tray has to come off to get to the filter anyway. My 2016 Mazda 6 has a nice little removeable panel in the tray to provide access. Two screws, two plugs, done.
On some older cars I’ve removed or cut trays for exactly these reasons.
I still have scars from changing headlight bulbs on our Gen II Prius. Both sides were a completely unecessary PITA, particularly since ours seemed to go through a bulb every year or so, which was just long enough for me to forgot how I finally got that shitty little wire latch to engage.
Were those the HIDs? I had to do the halogens on my gen 2 and I don’t remember them being that bad. I vaguely recall hearing that the HIDs suck and don’t last very long though.
The ones on my truck, on the other hand…there’s a blind connector you have to reach through the wheel well, and a bolt that requires about 18″ of extensions to reach. And you have to remove the whole light assembly, so you get to hold this giant light while you try to remove the stupid plastic clips on the wires one-handed. I broke at least one of them.
Back before time itself, a.k.a. before kids… 2000 Tacoma 4cyl. The oil filter drained right on to a lower control arm making the oil stream in two different directions. My wife’s 98 Civic HF – removing the oil filter meant removing the front wheel and going at it from the wheel well. It was on the back of the engine under the exhaust manifold.
My ’91 Toyota pickup with the 22RE was a breeze to work on. Plenty of room on all sides and high enough to crawl underneath without a jack. I loved that truck. Sadly, it had no air conditioning, and after moving to Phoenix and spending 4 summers with it, it sadly had to go.
My ’02 Mustang has the same setup – oil filter right above the control arm. Apparently, this was caused by Ford’s last minute decision to use a V8 developed for FWD for RWD, necessitating a 90 degree turn of the engine.
I’ve figured out a multiple plastic bag process for removing it that mostly contains the oil/prevents it from covering the arm, but it’s still never perfect.
I just watched a video about the final generation body on frame Toyota Crowns from the 90s (based on a platform dating back to the 60s) and they had the same issue. If you got one with a 1JZ or 2JZ, engines that were designed with newer unibody cars in mind, the oil filter would drain onto a frame brace and make a mess.
Rear spark plugs in most any Subaru. Get ready to invent a new joint in your arm.
Starter in an E46 with the S54 mill.
Basically any repair that starts with “jack up engine/trans”. Not cool.
I had a Hyundai Excel, one of the most egregiously misnamed shitboxes ever made, and its oil filter was very, very close to the radiator. Close enough that I couldn’t get a cap-style filter wrench over the end with a ratchet on it. Close enough I couldn’t get a steel strap-type filter wrench on it – and I didn’t know there was such a thing as nylon strap wrenches.
It was a straight shot down. Open the hood, look down, there it is. You’d think it’d be easy. It was not.
Something about that car was just wrong. I mean – something besides the rampant Hyundacity of it. By the time the next filter change rolled around, that filter had tightened itself to the point that trying to grab it with a bigass pliers would probably not be sufficient to turn it – the pliers would dent the can and slip and if my hands were just a little swollen I couldn’t even get them in the space.
So I took to SHANKING THE BITCH, stabbing my biggest screwdriver all the way through it, and turning that. That always worked, and I felt better because I got to murder the little fucker while I was at it.
Every goddamn oil change. I hated that little car. This was one of the reasons why.
I had to do something similar with my old Camry when I started changing my own oil. The spin on filter sat in a recess under the engine and had of course been badly overtightened by whatever shitty lube place had last done the oil. The depth and lack of space made getting a strong enough grip with a claw-style filter wrench impossible. I wound up driving lag screws into the filter to give the filter wrench something to grip. With the replacement filter tightened by hand I was able to remove it with the filter wrench in the future.
I had considered trying to impale it with a screwdriver to create a sort of handle to twist, but there wasn’t enough clearance to do that.
Having worked at an oil change shop in the mid 00s, I’ve had numerous WT-actual-F?! moments with a car’s engineering. However it was the tale of my 2004 Mercury Sable that takes the cake, and will live in infamy in my small circle.
I was less than 20 miles into a 150 mile drive on a Sunday evening when my battery indicator came on. I turned around and went back to my buddy’s house, which was thankfully well stocked with tools if we needed them. We tested the battery, and came to the conclusion that it was a dead alternator. I called a couple stores, and one had a replacement, so that was the first thing we did to give the car time to cool.
Once back, we saw that the alternator was on the bottom of the engine, closest to the firewall. Out come the jacks and stands, and off comes the passenger wheel. Space was tight, but we were able to get everything disconnected and free the alternator from its perch. But then we couldn’t figure out how the hell to get it out of the engine bay. There were a few guys just watching the show King of the Hill style, but everyone took a shot at getting the dumb thing out.
At some point, someone noticed the alternator in the box didn’t match the one in the car. The kids at the store asked which engine I had, and made me verify. They obviously didn’t believe me because they gave me the other one. I called and told them the situation, and asked if they had the proper part. Then I said as firmly as I could (begged, really) that they stay open since I needed to get it fixed that night. They begrudgingly agreed, and I hopped in a car with someone else and headed down the road while everyone else kept working the problem of freeing the old one.
We were a couple miles away and my friend called to let me know the busted unit was out so I could get the core charge waived.
Once we were back, it was the same damn thing in reverse. Luckily, we figured out how to get it into the bay faster than it came out. With everything back together and checks done, I profusely thanked everyone and started home again.
Epilogue: It was only a couple weeks later, and I was driving to work when I smelled the unmistakable smell of the AC compressor giving up. For reference, the compressor sits directly in front of the alternator at the bottom of the engine.
I called around to a couple shops, and the reply I got back was along the lines of: Well, you have that fancy DOHC engine, so it’s going to be a few hundred dollars extra since we have to drop the engine (emphasis mine) in order to replace the compressor. If you had that plane Jane 6 cylinder, we could get it replaced pretty quickly.
That’s how I came to find out that Ford likely intended one to drop the engine to replace an alternator in the mid-Aughts Taurus/Sable twins with the DOHC engine.
I had a similar experience with my ’85(?) accord. Apparently the intended solution was to remove the drive shaft (fwd) to get out the alternator (maybe it was the starter? It was a long time ago.) Disassembling the entire suspension on that side of the car was deemed too much for my teenage self, and I had it towed to a shop after a wasted weekend of swearing and wrenching.
Just about everything besides oil changes and spark plugs on my old Chrysler 300m.
Battery? Remove the front passenger tire and fender liner.
Headlights? Drop the front fascia and take out two long-ass bolts securing the lamp assembly. THEN you can replace the bulbs. Oh, and be careful putting them back, you don’t want to pinch a wire between the lamp and the bodywork, lest you blow the fuse for your low beam. (Ask me how I know…)
Biggest PITA was replacing the blend door actuator for the HVAC. Didn’t help that it decided to get stuck on full hot and there were record high temperatures the weekend I’d set aside to do it. Remove the radio, climate controls, center console, and a bunch of ductwork. Job is made easier by removing both front seats too, since you’ll be reaching up under the dash from both sides. Much easier if you’re laying more or less flat on your back. One of the three bolts is so close to the floor, and otherwise inaccessible that, unless you have an articulating, ratcheting, box-end wrench, you’ll consider just scrapping the car. And even then, you can only go about a quarter-turn at a time. T’was a nightmare I tells ya’.
And then a year later, the mode door actuator quit. Also in the heat of summer. At least I knew what I was in for…
Yeah, I had one… that car was a maintenance nightmare that ate tires.
When I first bought my 2015 Jeep Renegade turbo, I thought I would remove the plastic engine cover permanently as I had done on my previous daily, a 2005 Sentra SE-R Spec V. Then I saw the substantial heat shielding that was integrated into the underside of the cover over the turbo, and also observed that the hood was made of aluminum.
The cover stayed.
For my gripe I’ll go with the oil filter location on every 4-cylinder Honda product I’ve ever owned, on the back of the block under the intake manifold. Simply evil.
There were a few GM products that had a similar filter location. Bad, bad place in the heat of the Summer..
Front turn signal bulbs on a 2009 Impreza. The manual doesn’t even offer directions, it simply tells you to take it to the dealer. That’s because it involves removing the entire air filter assembly and the puke jug below it before you can get to the backside of the headlight to pop out the bulb. That’s the passenger side. Driver side is the same, but disconnecting the battery and taking the battery tray out. What a mess. 30 minute job for a $5 part.
That reminds me of my old 2006 Accord. To change a headlight bulb you have to go in through the fender liner. You have to crank the wheel all the way to one side to get just enough room to do it, assuming your arm fits.
Replacing the headlights on my 2015 Ram 1500. Having to remove the buckets to get to the bulbs is stupid – there is no reason it should take that long to replace two light bulbs.
The second time I had to replace them, I ended up taking the grille off to more easily access all of the bolts. It wasn’t dramatically faster, but it was a little bit less frustrating
Came here to say “headlights!” and see that many have also said “headlights!”
Most have focused on bulb replacement. I’ll chime in with the ridiculous cost of OEM headlight assemblies that make DIY expensive as well as time consuming from having to remove the entire bumper fascia. And because the assemblies are plastic, they will yellow and craze in the sun, so you will be faced with this.
My old ’96 Tbird with the 4.6V8 – a physically large V8 shoehorned into a space designed for an Essex V6. Changing the oil filter required a precise set of manipulations to clear the crossmember and engine accessories – guaranteed to dump out all contents on your arm.
I think that’s a Ford feature. My 88 F-250 with a 351 had the oil filter in the most inaccessible spot, and you pretty much had to dump it on a crossmember where it was guaranteed to leak all over the place and not mostly into the oil catch pan underneath. I replaced it with a 05 Lincoln Navigator, and pretty much the same thing.
’02 Mustang here, can commiserate.
I thought changing the rear plugs on a Sunbeam Tiger was bad- I see that a Genesis g80 to change the starter you drop the engine
We had a Volvo V70XC for a while and while it had some nice qualities (size, interior, great AWD traction), it was a major pain from a mechanics point of view. All parts were rare and expensive, and everything was horrible to wrench on. And the PCV system was a medieval steampunk nightmare!
There are many jobs I could chose from but I don’t feel like a PTSD deepdive today so the one that comes to mind is the fuel pump. Tank is under the backseat, pump is in tank, hanger and pump come out the top of the tank. Nothing unusual so far, just need to drop the tank to get the pump out, since they neglected to put a little trap door access panel in the floor to get at the pump. Still not too bad, until you realize that they made the AWD V70XC out of a FWD platform, so the whole AWD rear subframe, axles, diff, driveshaft etc needs to come out before you can drop the tank. All this for a fuel pump!
Long story short I cut a trap door access panel in the floor and swapped the pump…
V50 Awd is the same-
Just did a blower motor in a Volvo SUV of some sort. I don’t even know how they installed it at the factory, there is one bolt that is virtually inaccessible, and the procedure it pretty much break the plastic mounting tab and don’t reinstall the bolt in that position.
My new thing is saying “Have to” is so much different than “Want to” I am getting too old to have to work on a broken car. It would be different if I had a hobby car that could sit forever until I had time to pleasure work on it. At this stage in my life I would rather pay to have the annoying things fixed than HAVE to so I can drive to work the next day.
First world problem: the spoiler on the back of my GX 550 Overtrail.
It’s too effing big to wash by hand without a step ladder and a lot of time, so I have a car wash subscription… only every car wash can’t wash the back of the car. It comes out coated in soap dripping from the spoiler.
It also gets inside the liftgate, so I have to wipe it down inside and out.
And then when it’s hot, the residual soap inside the liftgate by the sealing makes it stick, so I have to hit the open button like four times to get it to open. Kind of embarrassing!
I just spent about two days to clean the points on the distributor of a Jensen Healey. Supposedly the easy way to access the distributor is to remove the carburetors and the intake manifold, except that in order to access half the nuts on the intake manifold you have to remove to the distributor first unless you have some sort of Mystery wrench that I do not own. In order to have any sort of access to the distributor you have to remove the oil filter, because the distributor is attached to the engine by the oil pump. God knows how you adjust the distributor with the engine running.
There is a replacement for the Lucas 25d distributor that has a Bluetooth connection. I thought it was insane, now I think it’s brilliant. It also costs over $500 do I think will try some other electronic distributor.
I cannot think of any other gasoline engine with a distributor more difficult than this.
The next time I see someone with a Lotus Elan, I intend to ask them how they set their points. At least on the Jensen it’s not buried in the middle of the car.
BTW, anyone with a Lotus 907 that wants to correct me and embarrass me publicly by telling me the easy way to change the points, I’m all ears. Well not literally, that would be weird.
I would bet that someone from the editorial team at the Grassrootsmotorsports.com forums would have an answer for you. They post regularly and I believe the team is actively restoring/just finished an Elan
Literally anything on my old Audi A4 (B5) 1.8t Quattro Avant. I’ll stop there before my PASD (Post Audi Stress Disorder) kicks in.
My ex had its platform mate, a B5.5 Passat wagon. Every single job on that car was more difficult than it should have been. I mean, even the damn motor mounts could leak, because they were fluid filled. Not to mention a PCV system that rivaled the complexity of a carburated engine with too many vacuum hoses.
Although he did manage to rack up over 200k miles on the thing before replacing it. He offered to just give me that Passat earlier this year but I won’t touch one of those again. Too bad, they drove really well.
Had the same car but B6, what a nighmare. Every single vacuum line had to be replaced with silicone as the plastic they were made from just disintegrated
P2 Volvos.
Just in general.
To replace the top engine mount, you need to drain the radiator and remove the coolant hoses.
To replace the alternator, you need to remove the power steering pump *and* the AC compressor.
Pretty much any work under the hood involves draining *something.* Or multiple somethings. And it’s 50-50 the fasteners are all Torx.
I’m fine with torx fasteners. It’s Phillips head screws that I hate with a passion. The second or third worst thing about Henry Ford was popularizing the Phillips head screw because he was too cheap to license a better screw.
Go Google Henry Ford and the Phillips head screw or just wait for the Eutopian to write an article about it. It turns out all the crappy things about Phillips said screws aren’t defective they are features.
Oh, I’m well aware. I’m a Canadian, I live in the enlightened land of Robertson. The Marathon is full of those, too.
The swaybar links in my 2017 Mazda3 were a monumental pain in the ass to replace. Instead of having an integrated nut on the bolt so you can hold it in place while tightening the free nut on the other side (like god intended) the stock units put a Phillips head opening on the bolt, so you have to use a Phillips head wrench and a standard wrench together. This probably works just fine when installing new units. After 8 years on the road however, rust had made fitting the correct size Phillips head into the opening on the bolt impossible.
I wound up using all kinds of cutting/grinding/oscillating tools to cut those fuckers off my car. Each link took so long that I had to replace them one at a time. No wonder the dealership wanted $500 to do it. Since I went the cheap but painful route I swapped them out with aftermarket links that have an integrated nut so I won’t have to deal with that bullshit again.
I own a triumph where the starter motor is bolted to the engine with bolts with heads that are inside the bell housing.
Oof, that sounds miserable or expensive to fix. Probably both.
Not as bad as the rear axle which has the frame under it, and the body above it. You have to seperate the body and frame to remove the axle. In theory you could take apart the axle, but in practice it takes a 50 ton press to take it apart, and you have to remove the axle to get it into the press.
I’m about to sell it, if anyone wants a TR3 that I was going to put a Devin body on but the deal for the body fell through. Otherwise I’m calling Beverly Hills.
This is pretty common, although I typically see an easily stripped Allen head.
I just now realized I called them a Phillips head above when I meant Allen head. Derp.
I had thought about driving some sacrificial Allen head wrenches in with a hammer, but the clearance left little room for hammer swings and the distortion from forcing the wrenches in probably would have made backing the nut off impossible.
I don’t understand why so many procedures on modern pickup trucks require removal of the cab. I understand that it is a 1-hour procedure for a proficient mechanic, but it is a 4-hour procedure for somebody at home, and you need to have both a lift and an HVAC refrigerant recovery system in your garage.
The thing I loved about my mid 70s Ford F100 was that you could sit inside the engine compartment to work on it.
Spark plugs on the Ford modular V8s. The front ones are relatively easy, the rears not so much, and all of them are confidence-sappingly deep in the head.
At least our 2017 Golf isn’t that bad but still tight. Pretty much any headlights in cars made after the Clinton administration. I’ve helped a friend and her daughter with bulbs for a Versa that was stupid and a Matrix that was also ridiculous. Doesn’t help that modern cars have 20 bulbs. Maybe worst was the Volvo S60 side marker light in the front fender, on the side with the alarm you have to remove the fender to replace the bulb.
Then you have the fun of either the spark plugs ejecting from the cylinder heads or getting stuck in the heads depending on generation.