aussiesmg wrote: BMW E46 V6 starter motor, 17 steps to get it out, yes 17...damned thing is in the valley under the intake, and you have to dismantle the plastic cowl cover to get to it, the xi is impossible to get at from below.
Where did you get the BMW with a V6?
Alternator belt on a GM 3.1 or 3.4 V6. Honestly, who puts a belt AROUND a motor mount so you have to remove the mount to change the belt?
Battery on early 90's Chevy Luminas. Have to remove the windshield washer fluid tank from above the battery to remove it. Who thought putting a leak prone water tank on top of the battery terminals was a brilliant plan?
Oil filter on 90's Ford Windstars. Right next to the catalytic converter for the front 3 cyls? Really?
WilberM3 wrote: i always thought e30 heater cores were one of the easiest to r&r out there. what heater cores are significantly easier?
My Dodge Dart's core is about a half hour job to R&R.
My own pet peeve is using the timing belt to drive the water pump. Not only is it easier to replace a water pump driven off the serpentine or fan belt (usually the procedure is just "Drain coolant, remove belt, unbolt pump, bolt in new one, put belt back on, and refill with coolant), but if the water pump seizes (on some cars, even wobbles), it can trash the timing belt.
That's not just bad design-for-maintenance; it's bad failure mode and effects analysis.
admitedly the belt was stupid but still could be changed in 10 minutes.... the oilfilter ya no excuse. ive got so many burns from those things.
Driver's side axle has to come out on a DA integra in order to drop the alternator...which wouldn't be a big deal except for the fact that an air-chisel has always been required to remove said driver's side axle.
I've never had a honda heater core that I didn't eventually end up removing with a sledgehammer or axe.
Recently replaced a rear tail-light on a Nissan Murano for a friend, which involved ramming a screwdriver behind a plastic piece that was pretty much designed to break. Apparently 2 bolts would've cost too much.
Technically the same setup as what KatyB mentioned, but the starter on the Toyota 1UZFE v8 is in the "valley" between the heads, under the intake manifold. You have to remove the fuel injector rails, intake manifold, coolant bypass, EGR pipes, etc, etc, in order to replace the starter. And the 1995-1996 LS400 had a bad batch of starters or something so they have a tendency to fail (after "only" 150k miles or so). The dealer charges something like $1000+ for this repair. 6 book hours of labor plus various gaskets and o-rings. Plus the EGR pipe tends to tear, thankfully I noticed mine had a crack in it when it was out or I would have had to repeat it all.
I can't help but think back to my Samurai, which needed me to remove the battery first, then the starter was about a 15 minute job. Sigh.
Any 90s-00s FWD Cadillac Northstar. Die cast block with finely threaded head bolts into porous aluminum = stripped head bolts almost guaranteed inside of 100k miles. Repair puts in steel sleeved heavier thread inserts, but you must pull engine as all bolt holes need to be drilled and tapped. pre 2000 Northstar had half case for the lower side of the engine, seal would fall apart and pour out all your oil, inside 100k miles. Engine must be removed and disassembled, and all case bolts have to have inserts installed. Otherwise the motor is awesome 
Cadillac FWD Northstar Alternators, placed up front on bottom side of engine next to exhaust manifold and right behind radiator, can't breathe, overheats and dies inside of a couple years, guaranteed, GM tried water-cooling some of them and the seals leak and burns them out faster. Only way to remove is small access door underneath, unless you have very small hands, impossible to get out.
Cadillac 90s-00s electrics, sensors on everything, throws light if sensor burns out, sometimes sensors are inside your hub assembly, or other impossible to access location. That's ok, a $250 hub is worth fixing a $6 sensor that disables your traction control and automatically electronically locks out 1st gear because the sensor can't monitor wheel slippage.
JUST STAY AWAY FROM N* powered Caddys...
Something that should be very easy but is not. The battery in my wifes Merc R350 is under the front passanger seat. You have to move the seat all the way back, pull up the carpet take out some bolts. Move the seat all the way to the front and all the way up, pull up the carpet and take out some bolts. Then take out a hard plasric cover over the battery that is just a little too big to fit between the seat rails. After all of that then you have to finesse the battery out. Not fun.
Pretty sure that if I ever have to replace the starter on my 1st gen 4wd MPV, it requires unbolting one of the motor mounts and jacking up the motor to provide enough room get it out. Even then its a PITA and very little space to work with. Alternator replacement required removal of the PS pump pulley. Not hard, but impossible if you dont have the right tool to hold the pulley from turning when trying to unbolt it.
Heater core on my 94 chevy would have required taking out the whole dashboard. Yep, never did fix that before i got rid of it.
Slyp_Dawg wrote: oil filter on a 1st generation Fiesta, if I recall the horror stories from my mom correctly. you had to disassemble the engine partially in order to get to the bloody thing. oh, and not particularly difficult but still time consuming without the proper torched/hacksawed tools, oil filter on a '02-'06 Mini Cooper S. deceivingly easy looking to do, until you start to realize that hey, an un-cut, standard size 36mm socket, attached to a 1/2" drive ratchet wrench, is simply too tall to use without knocking out the corner of the cowl box that is right opposite the center of the oil filter housing. on top of that, you have the exhaust manifold mere inches to the right of the filter housing, and you have to reach down past an obnoxiously hot valve cover in order to reach it. the angle it sits at guarantees that most ratchet wrenches will have a bit of a tough time getting more than a few degrees of rotation at a time, and the proximity to annoyingly and painfully hot engine/exhaust components guarantees you will teach any impressionable children every swear word known to the universe, and then some
I've never found the oil filter on my mcs that bad to get to, and I use the above described tools. I make sure the car sits for a day before changing the oil tho... and getting that cartridge housing back ON is sketchy, at best.
I vote for the plugs on an LT1 Camaro. Those... I won't even do those. Or for that matter, the plugs on a Miller cycle Millenia.
dinger wrote: Alternator belt on a GM 3.1 or 3.4 V6. Honestly, who puts a belt AROUND a motor mount so you have to remove the mount to change the belt?
I think Eagle did this as well with the 4g63 as well. All I remember on the last one I owned was looking at the other belt behind the water pump belt and going "Oh HELL NO!"
Yep, and you gotta pull the fender well to get to the water pump too.... and take half the damn car apart.... might as well do the water pump every time you do the t-belt in one of those.
Eh... modern water pumps seem to be a pain in general. In an R53 MINI, it's attached to/driven by the tail end of the supercharger... and to get to it requires pulling the bumper off, sliding the radiator panel out, and then taking half the engine apart... I'm still not sure I wouldn't rather do this than replace the shifter in an E30 again...
In a TDI, the water pump is driven by the TB. Good TB kits come with a new WP. The TDI is another one where the motor mount attaches in the middle of the TB routing and thus has to be removed to replace the TB.
Subaru Legacy - DOHC 2.5L Boxer 4. Three (yes 3) hours to change 4 spark plugs. Cursing the whole time.
There is a special place in hell reserved for the person that designed those. I tried everything short and long extensions, u-joints, etc. BTW I have huge hands.
93 Pontiac Grand Am - 3.3L V6 - yup to change the serpentine belt, pull the upper motor mount - make sure you have something under the motor to hold it! 
My 98 Explorer SOHC - spark plugs through the wheel wells!
How about a $10,000 coolant leak?
http://www.bimmerfest.com/news/411578/all-german-auto-custom-cooling-pipe-saves-745-%28n62%29-owner-thousands-in-repairs
Clever part.
You could also cut the new pipe in half, install the two halves, and then use a silicon coupler between them.
Dodge Dakota Heater core . . .
The truck was build around the heater core 
Slyp_Dawg wrote: oil filter on a
OH MY GOD....... thank you for reminding me about my Peugeot 405 Mi16.... The oil filter was in such a position... that once off, it had to be drained... because the route the filter took to get it into the proper location was
circuitous at best....
most cars the heater core involved removing the dash..... just how they are..... however most are easier than you think they will be once you get over the fact your gonna take out zomg screws.
92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: Starter on a 1.9 DOHC Saturn. Alternator on a 1.9 DOHC Saturn. Power steering pump on a 1.9 DOHC Saturn.
Word. Never had the pleasure of doing a power steering pump, but the other two I have...terrible. Getting the wiper motor out is really fun too.
And thermostat on VG Maximas. Fairly sure you need to drop the engine out of it's mounts to get to it.
Twin_Cam wrote:92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: Starter on a 1.9 DOHC Saturn. Alternator on a 1.9 DOHC Saturn. Power steering pump on a 1.9 DOHC Saturn.Word. Never had the pleasure of doing a power steering pump, but the other two I have...terrible. Getting the wiper motor out is really fun too. And thermostat on VG Maximas. Fairly sure you need to drop the engine out of it's mounts to get to it.
Oh yeah... forgot about: Clutch on an SC2. Step 1: Remove ENTIRE drivetrain, and you'd better make damn sure you've got a load leveler, because the damn thing has to come out end over end.
DILYSI Dave wrote: Clever part. You could also cut the new pipe in half, install the two halves, and then use a silicon coupler between them.
Would the silicone couple provide the proper alignment? If so, would it do it over time? Would a silicone coupler seat the the seals and keep them there? If so, would it do it over time? Is there room for a coupler? I'm glad you thought this all through.
Looks like a cool product to me.
92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: Oh yeah... forgot about: Clutch on an SC2. Step 1: Remove ENTIRE drivetrain, and you'd better make damn sure you've got a load leveler, because the damn thing has to come out end over end.
Ha! I have done a Saturn clutch in-car before. Single hardest job I've ever done on a car. Took me six days, although now that I've done it, I could probably do it in two. I definitely invented curse words.
General procedure is as follows: unbolt axles, jack up engine under oil pan, unbolt trans, push leftwards into wheel well. Once I undid the axles, I unbolted the top of the driver's side strut assembly and moved that whole hub/knuckle outwards, to have more wiggle room for the trans. You kind of balance it above your head on the subframe rail. Then, I had the joy of unbolting the flywheel, losing my grip, and having it fall directly onto my chest, leaving starter motor teeth marks on me! I had to shorten the clutch alignment tool with a hacksaw, because I didn't have enough clearance between the flywheel and the bellhousing. Ridiculous.
Yeah... i looked at the clearances in there, said berkeley that!!!!!!! and promptly stared yanking the whole motor. That still sucked, but it only took a day and a half combined with swapping in an OBDII longblock and swapping all the sensors over.
It was still awful. Pulling the motor on that car was an exercise in precision i never wanted to do.
Water pump on an MR2 is no fun.
I took the starter off my wife's '98 4Runner in about 20 minutes. Several hours later I had it towed to a mechanic because I couldn't figure out any way to get it out of the engine bay.
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