When has a car's design turned a simple job into a torture test for you?

Mazdaspeed Miata.  Turbo water cooling hose.   This little hose thing is buried way back and the only way to remove the little hose clamp is with really long needle nose pliers.   I don't think Dobby the house elf could have gotten his little hands in there.   

  Plus they don't make the hose anymore so, after much research, I found out that a trimmed hose for the CX-7 turbo Mazda would work.   

Alternator on a Honda Odyssey.  You have to loosen the engine mount and jack up the engine to get it out, that's if you have the right tool to reach one of the bolts (I didn't since it was a special Honda tool).   I  usually never give up but this was a case of going to the stealership to get it done.  And they punctured the power steering hose while doing it.  I tried to get them to replace it but since it had left the shop they said it was my problem.  I'll never buy a Honda again - this same vehicle used oil like crazy - Honda said it was normal (I guess for their engine in 2010) but my 2004 Odyssey engine went 250,000 miles without using a drop of oil between oil changes. 

Passenger rear spark plug on a GM G-body is damn near impossible to pull due to the HVAC box. I never did change that plug in my 81 Malibu wagon. 

Alternator and rear plugs on a Chevy Venture require dropping the subframe for clearance to the cowl and firewall. Don't ask me about the lower intake gaskets. 

The clutch in my 89 Supercoupe requires dropping the gas tank because the driveshaft runs over the top of it and you can't pull the shaft without pulling the tank first. 

Drivers side spark plugs in a F53 Ford chassis. You can't reach them from the top because of the floor. You can't reach them from the bottom because of the hydroboost and master cylinder. Don't ask about the belts and hoses. I'm going to pay someone to change them.

AC compressor on a 4WD 2000 Suburban. I paid my son to change that one. 

I'm sure there are others but they were probably bad enough I blanked the memories. 

Wont work on an aluminum pan, but one of these has been holding without a leak for years on my truck. 
 

Toyman! said:

Passenger rear spark plug on a GM G-body is damn near impossible to pull due to the HVAC box. I never did change that plug in my 81 Malibu wagon.

Oh, I think it was the same plug position on a V6-powered '84 Mercury Marquis, and same result; I never did change that one.

rothwem said:

iammclovin804 said:

In reply to Harvey :

I would have covered the bolt in RTV every oil change before dropping a subframe and spending $1000 on a new pan jeez. 

I used to own a 328i xDrive and I thought that the axles through the oil pan was completely insane.  Its also incredibly common though, just about every RWD-based AWD system does it (Well if everybody was jumping off a bridge would you do it too?) .  Hell, even the older BOF Chevy Trailblazer has it setup this way.  

Also to note, I'm pretty sure you've got to drop the subframe to get the oil pan off of a RWD E90 too.  Its just not a billion pounds because there's no diff bolted onto it.  

Anyways, the insanity I'll mention for the OP is on an AWD BMW too.  The fill plug for the transmission has juuust enough room to get it in and out, there's a bracket that holds the transfer case up and a sharp little sheet metal bracket for holding up the exhaust, and the cats are right there too.  Its no biggie to remove when its cold, but the oil change procedure is one of those where you have to have the engine running and at temperature, so the exhaust and cats are really berkeleying hot and there's fluid trickling out so the fill plug is super slippery.  It took me over an hour to get the stupid fill plug back in, and by then the transmission was too hot so the fill level was wrong and I had to do it again.  berkeley AWD BMWs, never again.  

Not "just about", every one that isn't an AMC does it that way.  Because BMW and Nissan and Toyota and GM do not want to sell luxury cars that are jacked up high like an Eagle.

...

You know, I meant all that, but then I read what I wrote and realized that things have changed since the E46...

The first time I changed front struts on a MkIV New Beetle I was ready tho throw tools at the engineers behind the whole design. 

The closest I have to get to laying on the ground to change the oil in both of my vehicles is taking a knee to poke stuff under them.  Rest of it is done from the hood, cause I can.

You guys are suckers.

Plug wires on an LT1 Caprice.  It shouldn't take 2 afternoons to figure out how the factory routes them from the Opti. So many cuts.

In reply to Harvey :

Yeah, a torque tube sounds great until you find out "it's just a Chevy" then translates into German prices.

Replacing the cabin filters (yes 2 filters) in a 09 Mazda 3. Remove glove box, remove main ecu, remove housing access parts. Crammed under dash with both arms extended it is a struggle to slide on filter in opening, lift it with a finger and attempt of install the other under it with a finger of your other hand. I have been working on cars/trucks since 65 and this was the worst job in memory. At least it was clean and dry.

Mr_Asa said:

The closest I have to get to laying on the ground to change the oil in both of my vehicles is taking a knee to poke stuff under them.  Rest of it is done from the hood, cause I can.

You guys are suckers.

I have a Samurai, I don't have to take a knee. 

09ish Tiguan had a valve cover leak that caused the secondary water pump to die because it was made of plastic, and now covered in oil.

The valve cover holds the cams down, so the engine needed to be removed to gain access to the front of the engine so you can remove the timing chain cover. And then retime the engine. 

Im done with VWs.

Spark plug wires on a late 90s/early 2000s Range Rover and Land Rover Discos.

The coil pack is bolted to the back of the head, and the official way (and pretty much only way) to get at it to replace the wires is to take the upper intake off. Which has to come off anyway so I can take out the valve covers and replace the valve cover gaskets.

Extra bonus annoyances if you have the CA emissions version with all the extra air injector cr*p.

Folgers said:

09ish Tiguan had a valve cover leak that caused the secondary water pump to die because it was made of plastic, and now covered in oil.

The valve cover holds the cams down, so the engine needed to be removed to gain access to the front of the engine so you can remove the timing chain cover. And then retime the engine. 

Im done with VWs.

Que?  I've done timing chains on those without removing the engine.

You do remind me of replacing a cam seal on a whiteblock in a P2 chassis Volvo.  Remove engine mount, airbox, turbo inlet duct, and engine mount bracket, so you can remove the cam sensors, and then the tone wheels on the backs of the camshafts, so you can install the cam locking tool.  Then you remove the intercooler to throttle body duct so you can unbolt the starter and shove it forward so you can access the crankshaft lock access plug.  After all that, you can work on the front of the engine to remove the timing belt and cam sprocket, which itself takes about fifteen minutes with a coffee break because the front is so easy to get to.

Actually retiming the engine is interesting because the variable cam hubs are not keyed to the cams and do not have a locked-home position.  AND... they are manually adjustable.  You get them close, and then you loosen the five adjuster bolts ("Three, sir!") and move the outer sprocket to the correct position.  If you run out of adjustment, you loosen the hubs again and shift them a bit and start it over again.

Long 1/2" ratchet holds tension on the crank in one direction, 3/8 ratchet on the cam hub holds the VVT hub against its stop in the other direction, manually adjustable automatic belt tensioner is preloaded to the correct indicator angle for the ambient temperature (and it moves a LOT with engine temp!), torque wrench tightens the little tiny bolts to "that's all the spec is?" Newton-meters.

When I do a P2 timing belt, I don't do the seals unless they are leaking.

On the other hand, the system is idiotproof if the deck height is different from spec, and I'll take a manually adjusted spring loaded tensioner over a fixed tension or a failure-prone hydraulic tensioner.  And I'll take a timing belt long before a heavy, noisy, hard to service, oil pressure dependent timing chain any day of the week and twice on Sunday.  Volvo were also kind enough to make the timing lock position at roughly 15 degrees from TDC on cylinder 1, so none of the pistons are near the deck, so the valves have no chance of hitting pistons if the cams turn in a way they shouldn't...

Oh comeon people... Nobody besides me has done a PT cruiser timing belt and water pump in car???? I did a focus water pump that required a flip within the housing to remove it.

In reply to Ranger50 :

Yes.  Used to service a fleet of them.

The interesting part is that the easiest way to remove the horseshoe cover/bracket is to first remove the cylinder head.

The annoying part is that this engine, in the Wrangler, still uses that big horseshoe cover/bracket, and everything on the engine seems to bolt to it, so you have to do far more work than should be necessary on a longitudinal four cylinder in an engine bay designed for an inline six.  You can practically climb down into the engine bay and work in front of the engine, but everything you need to do is on the sides.

In reply to dean1484 :

Starter on a 2000 expedition?     
 

I did mine in a parking lot in February in 3" of slush.   Weather sucked, but easy job.   It's literally 3+1 bolts.  1 for the cable and 3 to the block.   How could it be that hard?

Replacing the heater core on an early 2000s Malibu requires removing the dash,  airbags, steering column, gages, and anything else that could be unbolted from the firewall in order to remover the heater box and then get the bolts out of the bottom panel and access the heater core.  

It's a Malibu specific issue and the other models that share the Platform had enough clearance between the heater box and floor to do the job without removing everything.

Streetwiseguy said:

Go find yourself one of the Dual Twin Cam Monte Carlos and change the alternator.

I dare you.

Does that have the 3.4l V6 the one they also put in the Lumina Z34? I had a 3.1L Lumina and that thing was a tank, but I would always see people with the 3.4 car broken down on the side of the road.

Shadeux said:

In reply to Harvey :

Yeah, a torque tube sounds great until you find out "it's just a Chevy" then translates into German prices.

The guys that are good at it, bang it out quick, but it's still a big job.

Oh, I forgot one, the HUD broke on the Z06 and so I looked into fixing it. Just take off the whole dashboard and you're good to get it out. No thanks.

I guess someone figured out that you can cut part of the internals of the dashboard out and shortcut things that way, but I'm not enthused about that idea.

outasite said:

Replacing the cabin filters (yes 2 filters) in a 09 Mazda 3. Remove glove box, remove main ecu, remove housing access parts. Crammed under dash with both arms extended it is a struggle to slide on filter in opening, lift it with a finger and attempt of install the other under it with a finger of your other hand. I have been working on cars/trucks since 65 and this was the worst job in memory. At least it was clean and dry.

 

Wait until you have to do a blower motor.

It sits horizontally in the center of the dash. There's a large lock ring you remove from the driver side, then you remove the HVAC recirc housing from the pass side and the blower comes out from that side. 

Without the special tool, it requires two people to finagle the new one into place.

https://www.mazda3tech.com/blower_motor_removal_manual_air_conditioner_-1445.html

It's equally stupid but in a different way than the Chevy Cobalts that you had to CUT the blower motor out since they were molded as part of the case. New ones get secured with screws like normal.

'06-12 Toyota RAV4 has a rear subframe that likes to rust into nothing when they're in a climate that sees snow/salt/whatever else they're throwing down on the road these days.  Every piece of the back half of the car is hung off of that subframe - exhaust, rear differential, shocks, all the various control arms, swaybar, swaybar links, and a bunch of sensors that used 10mm nuts and bolts that disintegrate when you look at them.

Before:

After poking around with my bare hands for a few minutes:

Harvey said:

Shadeux said:

In reply to Harvey :

Yeah, a torque tube sounds great until you find out "it's just a Chevy" then translates into German prices.

The guys that are good at it, bang it out quick, but it's still a big job.

Oh, I forgot one, the HUD broke on the Z06 and so I looked into fixing it. Just take off the whole dashboard and you're good to get it out. No thanks.

I guess someone figured out that you can cut part of the internals of the dashboard out and shortcut things that way, but I'm not enthused about that idea.

I seem to recall that C5s had some sort of sensor for the ABS, a multi-axis acceleration sensor maybe, that was tucked up inside the dashboard as well and requires dismantling the dashboard. A customer came in with one with ABS, Traction Control and Stabilitrack lights on and it needed that sensor. Customer traded it on one a base C7 instead. If it hadn't been a base-model automatic convertible I would have considered buying it.

I've seen that BMW's have gotten a few mentions already. I'd like to add that my parents' 2011 X6 with the N55 is atrocious to work on. I can't believe they needed to package everything so tight when its not a small vehicle!

I just did the oil pan gasket, valve cover gasket, thrust rods, front diff, transfer case and rear diff fluids. Here are my WTF moments with BMW's design.

1. There's a power steering line that goes between the front subframe mount and sway bar. There is just enough space to slide the subframe and sway bar (I kept together as one unit for this job) by the hose, but not in actuality. It requires you to loosen the sway bar mounts to safely get the subframe dropped.

2. Motor mount bolts are tough to get to. Either transmission lines (driver side) get in the way or the cats (passenger side) get in the way of certain bolts.

3. The valve cover cannot go in without touching and squeezing past the AC hard lines. I did many test runs and could not find the right angle to drop the valve cover in without any contact.

4. The front diff fill port has a transmission hose that blocks it. You have to remove the hose bracket and pull it out of the way to get access. I think they took "lifetime fluid" to heart and made it that much more annoying to access.

5. The transfer case fill port requires the to cross brace to be dropped. The cross brace needs a plastic underpanel to be removed as one corner is tucked up under it. Lastly, the transfer case bushing bolt is so far inset that I don't have the correct offset wrench to access it; I just held a regular 18mm wrench at an angle which it worked for removal, didn't bother with proper torque for reinstall. Again, they must have took "lifetime fluid" to heart and said they don't need to easily service it.

6. Thrust rods from Lemforder were slightly thicker at the ball joint end than the OE ones. Wow was I sweating having to squeeze it past the CV boot trying not to pinch it. You also need to turn the wheels to the side you're working on to get that few millimeters more space to complete the job.

I read the title of the thread befor clicking g and thought.....this will be filled with German car owners. I have not been disappointed.