One reason why I will never own....

TSX's are cake, slide a piece of cardboard on the subframe and slowly unscrew the filter. When I was referring to bad Honda's I meant: New Civic Si, Prelude SH, Isuzu passport (wait waht?), and I'll throw RSX's in there as well because I burnt the E36 M3 out of my forum once. Everything else from Honda I can do an oil change in under 5 minutes.

92 civic? are you kidding me?

John Brown: Yea your explanation is similar to the communist theory, sounds easy and great, but doesn't actually work that great. Unless you have some skeletor forearms. I could go on all day about how badly VWs/Audis (modern) suck to do oil changes on. I love the ones you have to bend A/C lines to get the oil filter off....

Saturn filter is the same way. You're almost all the way under the car, break your arm in two places, burn the other arm on the exhaust because you're concentrating on the filter, loosen the filter, spill oil all over halfshaft, subframe, and wheel well liners, and then drop oil on your face pulling the filter down through all of that. Yay.

92 civic? Yes, unless there is something I am missing it was by far the worst one of my cars to get the filter off hands down.

Honestly after doing the Sugary Legacy, I hate doing the Miata, always oil on the subframe, and since I still have the plastic undertray on, I have to reach down with one hand, unscrew, and pass it to my other hand to get the filter out from under the intake manifold.

My BMW was always pretty easy to work on. Sure, some things were a bit stupid (I had to do research to figure out how to undo the stupid little fasteners that held my radiator in), but once I got to know the car, everything was stupid-easy.

Oil filter is on top in the little German canister, drain plug is on the bottom. Out comes 7 quarts of oil, off comes the filter lid, switch the filters, on goes the lid, in goes the oil plug, in goes a E36 M3-ton of oil. Repeat this every 15,000 to 17,000 miles.

Man, I could change the radiator, water pump, cooling fan, fan shroud, and thermostat all in 30 minutes now that I know how to do it (assuming I remember how to undo the little fasteners--and that I still had the car). Ask me WHY I know how to do all that stuff though.

Another easy task on that car: brakes!

InigoMontoya wrote: Honestly after doing the Sugary Legacy, I hate doing the Miata, always oil on the subframe, and since I still have the plastic undertray on, I have to reach down with one hand, unscrew, and pass it to my other hand to get the filter out from under the intake manifold.

Yeah, I'm with you on that one. I don't have the plastic undertray anymore (thanks Dad), but I still hate getting to that stupid filter. It's not a hard job, but it's probably harder than the Z was.

I agree... BMW does seem to make an easy to work on car.. especially maintance wise. Shame they nolonger really mandate maintance on their cars.

Worst for filters was a 1988 Hyundai Excel I had. filter was between the block and the radiator, and below the exhaust..

Schmidlap wrote: Many new cars have transmissions that are "sealed for life" and don't include a means to fill the fluid or even check it. The 5-speed Mercedes transmission used in the supercharged Jaguars is that way. "This transmission was designed by German engineers and will never fail, so you have no need to check the fluid."

I'm FAR too much of a fatalist to have any faith in that technology. Does that mean they're "warrantied for life" if something fluid-related happens to it??? Oh right...

VW began to lose it with the 16v in our A2 Jetta. Getting the filter out between the engine and the radiator without spilling oil everywhere was nigh impossible.

I hate all modern VW/Audi products. I don't care how fast they are, how sexy they look or how nice the interiors are. They a pieces of crap. Every time I get a claim with one wrecked in the front it's a bleeding nightmare. All the repair shops hate them, including the dealer. Hey, at least they're tremendously unreliable too!

Subaru FTW for oil changes, though the totally useless undertray on our Forester is going to be fully removed at the next service as it does nothing but cause havoc during oil changes. It offers no protection whatsoever.

93celicaGT2 wrote: My oil filter is right on the front of the motor.... winking up at you as soon as you lift the hood. Changing oil is a 10 minutes, tops affair.

All 4 of my cars are like that too. Both hyundai's are super easy, the Swift is on the lower front of the block and the Truck is 6 inches from the drain plug. I love GM truck oil changes.

The WORST oil change vehicle I've ever owned was the 99-05 Suzuki Grand Vitara 4x4. There's all these little things like the cat, front diff, crossmember the size of the Swift, lower control arms and oh yeah, the frame. It takes 6.5 qts of oil, filter and 2 cans of brake cleaner to do the oil change. Even after all that, it still drips oil for the next 2 weeks.

I wrote to VW and asked them about this issue, and this is the reply that I got:

"Jah? You tink 'iz easy to design good motor during Octoberfest? Svinehund! Oil filter vas Dieter's job anyway, not mine."

Jurgen

Hope that clears it up.

Why would you ever do a PITA oil change more than twice? The second time around you spin on a remote filter adapter and mount the thing somewhere easy to get to. Add a Fumoto to the pan and oil changes turn into 5 minute chores you do while you top off the bug squiter juice.