“Design for serviceability” was the name of the class Chrysler encouraged its engineers to take. A long-haired union technician who has clearly dealt with far, far too much bullshit with engineers like us kindly, but firmly, described how to design cars so they can be easily repaired. This is important not just to customers, who want their vehicles fixed quickly and cheaply, but to Chrysler’s own technicians, who are tired of going through hell just to change a damn spark plug. With this concept in mind, and with me having recently described having gone through wrenching hell to unsuccessfully replace subframe bolts, I’d like to know: What’s the most painfully annoying repair job you’ve attempted?
Last night was just awful. Trying to remove the rear lower control bolts from my HHR has been awful, as I described yesterday. Here’s a diagram describing the problem:
Today my right elbow is absolutely killing me from all the vibrations of that sawzall, which — despite wielding the most expensive saw blade one can buy a Home Depot — was unable to slice through the subframe bolt quickly. It was able to slice off the two aluminum control arms quite nicely:
This exposed the aforementioned subframe bolt:
Unfortunately, this sent aluminum all over my face.
Since the sawzall couldn’t handle that big subframe bolt, I did what any desperate man does: I broke out the Death Wheel — a six-inch cutoff wheel that was able to reach past the control arm brackets in the subframe, and cut the bushing sleeve and the bolt seized inside it. Here’s the big-ass cutoff wheel and the angle grinder that literally stopped working after about seven or eight minutes of cutting:
The sawzall was able to handle the tiny amount of cutting still needed to get through the bolt and sleeve, leaving me with this:
The sleeve is still stuck to the bolt, and though I tried using a dremel to slice the sleeve off (see the diagonal cut in the sleeve above), it started raining last night, and I was uninterested in being electrocuted using power tools in a downpour. So I gave up, and had to cancel my trip to New York. I still have no answer to removing these bolts, but will likely end up buying a pancake-style air compressor and air chisel; hopefully that will solve my issue. I’m tired of screwing around with cutting tools that don’t really fit into the limited space I have.
Anyway, my trip to New York to see Andrew Collins, my friend Bobby’s mom, and Matt Hardigree is officially postponed due to this awful bit of serviceability. [Ed note: Nah, gonna make him come anyway! You’re not getting out of this trip that easily – MH] But this isn’t the only example of an automaker’s poor engineering for serviceability (and to be clear, I consider GM the company with the greatest automotive engineering capability of any company ever, for reasons that I don’t have time to explain. Also, I’ll note that the design here is not specific to GM: Subarus have similar subframe bolt issues. Also worth mentioning is that calling this an engineering flaw is a bit of a stretch, given that it’s only a problem for older cars with over 100,000 miles on them; yes, an engineer should have known that corrosion would cause issues here, but it wasn’t her/his priority when developing the car, and that’s fair enough).
The union tech teaching “Design for Serviceability” at Chrysler mentioned that third-generation (?) Dodge Rams didn’t have crush cans at the front of their frames, meaning a small fender bender would cause catastrophic damage to the frame. Can you imagine that? You bump into a car at a few miles per hour, and your frame is all messed up, requiring a fairly involved (and expensive) repair? I’ve been receiving messages overnight from people who followed my plight on Instagram last night, many consoling me for my struggles, and even more talking about how they had to remove an engine mount to replace an alternator (for example) or how they basically had to bathe in gasoline because their fuel pump removal procedure is such a pain in the arse (and because the pump went out twice within a short span).
Now I’d like to hear from you: What was the worst wrenching experience you ever had to deal with that was a result of poor engineering design for serviceability? Write it up in the comments, and send us diagrams/photos/videos at tips@autopian.com describing the shitshow in detail. We’ll write a follow-up post so the rest of our readers can enjoy learning about your perils.
Not a specific instance – well, I could complain about both my 2006 Saturn Aura and my 2009 Saturn Outlook – but the issues with both cars are issues commonly seen on dozens of models from just about every manufacturer:
– Incandescent bulb replacement
Any incandescent bulb will eventually burn out, and when it comes to safety items such as headlights and taillights the process should be quick, simple, and easy for a car owner to do themselves. Unplug the old bulb, pop the new one in. Maybe have a thumb screw or two to deal with. Instead you have to remove interior panels and trim to get to the taillights of many cars, and when it comes to headlights there are cars where you have to remove bumpers, grills, and sometimes fenders off of the car.
As LED’s become more and more the norm it will be less and less of an issue. But it still will be an issue for some time. And screw any manufacturer that forces you to pay $1,000 plus for an LED “upgrade” – just make that shit standard, LEDs make for safer lighting.
Hey you guys should do a slide show with all the answers that fit your narrative!
Where’s that downvote button?
I had a 1986 Mitsubishi Tredia Turbo. Accessing the starter required removal of the entire intake manifold. That sucked.
The rear engine mount on my kid’s 1998 Nissan Quest required some stupidly long extensions and a big ass breaker bar to get it loose. Plus a week of penetrating oil. Plus lots of swearing. That sucked.
My motorcycle doesn’t have positive indexing for the rear bearings, and the shop that changed the tire misaligned them, which is way too easy, so they had to do it over and replace wheel bearings. That also sucked.
You should enter that death wheel a “Deathiest death wheel” contest. It might win!
My son used to own a 2003 Hyundai Sonata. I can’t remember if it was the 4 cylinder or the V6, but I remember very clearly that it had anti-lock brakes. His alternator crapped out, and I helped him install the replacement. No big deal, right? Should be a couple of bolts and some electrical connections. Maybe even replacing the belt if the old one looks sketchy. “No problem, son, it should take us an hour tops.”
WRONG.
You see, the reason I remember so very clearly that the car had anti-lock brakes is that location of the distribution block for said anti-lock brakes made removal and replacement of the alternator far from straightforward. The alternator was mounted down low and behind the block. It was caged by the engine, firewall, brake distribution block, and the passenger CV axle. I learned that day that on that generation of Sonata with anti-lock brakes, you must remove the passenger side axle to be able to remove the alternator.
If any of the components mentioned above had been relocated by just an inch, it would have been possible to wrangle the alternator out of captivity. As it is, what should have taken less than an hour took more like five thanks to poor packaging design and some rusty-crusty bolts that were uncooperative. Most of those bolts wouldn’t have been an issue with better design.
Admittedly, some of that five hours was taken up by me insisting “no, there has to be a way to get it out of there without pulling the axle.” There wasn’t. 🙂
Any job that requires you to buy a tool unique to that job and nothing else.
Let’s see…
On late F-bodies, you have to drop the engine to change the rear spark plugs. No, I’m not joking. Everyone responsible for that should be fired. Instead I think they went to work on the HHR team.
The front suspension on the 2nd Gen Ram 3500. Anyone who tells you it’s not that bad is full of shit, has never done it, and is completely fucking wrong. One, they absolutely eat front suspension components all day every day. The ISB was orders of magnitude heavier and they didn’t beef up the suspension. Second, because of this, every single fucking bolt and bushing is always seized. If you catch the ball joints early, you MIGHT get them out with an air chisel. If it’s a California car that’s never seen rain.
But it’s not. None of them are. And the front frame section where all this shit attaches? It loves to rot out. Badly. So no matter what you’re going to be fighting rust and rot, there will be MAPP torches and air chisels involved, and you will hate every fucking second of it.
Jeep WK front axle reseal. I will not even describe the procedure to you. It’s that bad. What I will tell you is that accessing the front differential requires a transmission jack, two high lift stands, a six foot prybar, and nerves of fucking steel.
Ford spec’d dropping the engine to do the plugs on the Thunderbird SC. At least they had the common decency to use double platinums. When I bought mine, I made sure they had already been done.
And changing the alternator on the Ford Contour V6 was bad. Book rate was six hours because of one damn bolt, but smart people figured out that it could be done by going in from the other wheel well and using four feet of socket extensions.
Then there is the headlight bulbs on the 09-12 Mazda6 that required you to go in through the wheel well. I bought long-life bulbs for that car and prayed they didn’t blow in the winter.
Lastly, the BMW 4.8 litre V8, used in the 5/6/745i. With the cheap rubber o-rings on the valley coolant pipe. That failed often, and required tearing down the front of the engine and removing the intake manifold to access. Unsurprisingly, the aftermarket stepped up and made it so one would only have to remove the intake manifold.
The BMW E36 Cabin Air Filter. Boy, what fun it is to do that job. https://bimmertips.com/cabin-air-filter-replacement-bmw-e36/
I know that there are going to be lots of horror stories involving genuine wrenching tasks. However, I would like to propose a separate subcategory for basic maintenance tasks that should be performable by the owner with few or no tools in under 5 minutes but have been turned into a nightmare due to poor design for serviceability. I’m looking at you, VW.
I will say that although my VAG cars are very complex, they usually aren’t very difficult to work on. Sometimes there is very difficult access to stuff on American cars, on VAG cars it’s usually not too hard to just remove more parts. Takes a long time but is generally easy.
I’ve had great luck with my VWs. Seems like as long as you have ALL of the Torx tools, you’re fine.
My 2015 Golf had the easiest repair ever. When I went to change my crapped out blower motor I discovered that it literally did not require a tool to do so. Had a couple plastic screws that could be turned by hand to release a panel, then the blower motor itself was removed by holding a clip and twisting it. I don’t think working on a car has ever left me in a better mood.
I am slightly upset with them for moving the oil filter from the MK6 Golf TDI to the MK7. On my MK6, I used an oil extractor and did the whole oil change standing comfortably in front of the car because the oil filter was in front of the engine and accessable from the top. On my MK7, the moved the oil filter underneath with no hope of access from above. That means you have to remove a giant underbody panel with 8 t25s and 3 t40s to get to the filter, then let oil run all over the bottom of the motor when it drains.
2008 Infiniti G35X Sedan. You need to drop the entire subframe to get to the starter motor. Mine failed twice in my ownership from 180,000km – 240,000km.
Also, if you have a faulty window motor such as mine, that continued to try and open or close the window and burnt the motor, you need to replace the entire window switch on the drivers side. As you can imagine, I snipped the connection and that window stayed closed for good.
Good car though, served me well. Mostly.
Currently for me it’s the damn throttle cable on a 73 Beetle.
My worst one is ine I haven’t attempted yet – the rear engine mount on my beater Corolla. The other three mounts are easy, but the fourth, on the back of the gearbox, has studs attached to it and sits atop the front suspension crossmember. There is not room to lift the mount out of its holes because the studs are so long. To change the mount, you have to drop the crossmember and both A-arms. I need to do it eventually, because it’s broken and makes the car all rubber-bandy, but it’s going to suuuuuuuck….
I’m a “light maintenance” guy. No major mechanical work. Change my own tires, wipers, some fluids and bulbs. My only contribution here is from when I went to replace a burnt out headlight bulb in my MK4 GTI.
The manual actually said don’t do it. Take it to a the dealer! This is the kind of thing any slightly handy person should be able to do in the parking lot of the store they bought the bulb in. Hell, I consider it a safety issue to be able to replace and a headlight bulb when needed.
Out of total stubbornness I proceeded to disassemble much of the front end of the car just to do it myself. Another lesson in bad design.
Fun fact, when I was at a later time at the dealer and asked about this, they confirmed that I had done it correctly. I should have asked what the labour rate would have been on that.
So, “light maintenance”. LOL
It’s the regularly serviced parts that are always the worst.
I can forgive things like subframe bolts, because they might be replaced once in the lifespan of a car. Stuff like oil filters that are designed to have no alternative but to spill on hot exhaust pipes when being changed are unforgivable. That might happen 50 times in the life of that car.
““Design for serviceability” was the name of the class Chrysler encouraged its engineers to take.”
-The engineers responsible for putting the cloud car batteries in the wheel well must have skipped this class.
As did the engineers who decided that changing a timing belt on a PT Cruiser would involve removing the entire front clip and then raising the engine, among other things. This is a big reason why they don’t last past that belt change interval at 100,000 miles. By the time it needed to be changed, most were devalued to the point where it wasn’t worth the money to pay a mechanic to do it. So they either skipped the belt change and the engine blew up shortly after, or they sold/scrapped the car and let it become someone else’s problem. Then the engine blew up.
I almost exclusively drive new(ish) cars these days, so I rarely have to do any real wrenching. Mostly easy stuff – oil changes, transmission fluid, aftermarket bolt-on type stuff. I’m no stranger to a tool kit, but I really don’t get much pleasure from wrenching these like I did say, 20 years ago.
With that being said, my worst wrenching experience is incredibly mild compared to most, but I still found it incredibly irritating. I had an ’05 Audi A4 Quattro. Ultra Sport package, 6 speed manual… a really lovely little car. One day the passenger side front turn signal bulb burned out. Not a big deal, I’ve changed plenty of light bulbs. Go to AutoZone, grab a bulb, 10 minutes, in and out… Done, right? Wrong.
I got halfway through disassembling the front end of the car. Removed the airbox and the intake piping up to the throttle body, among other little bits, only to discover that the only way to really access that bulb was to remove the headlight assembly. Ok, really annoying, but not the end of the world. Until I realized that the assembly was held in place by some ridiculous fastener that required like a T27 Torx bit, which I obviously did not have. It was late, I was irritated, and I had to get to the hardware store to find the correct bit to finish this job because I had to drive to work in the morning.
So, living in semi-rural Illinois at the time, the only place I could think of that might have this tool was Farm & Fleet. So, I hopped on my bicycle, rode a couple of miles to Farm & Fleet, forked over like $20 for this stupid Torx bit, then rode back home to finish the job. The rest of the job went relatively smoothly, all things considered. I put the car back together, washed and bandaged my bloody hands, had a beer (or three) and went to bed.
I thought about returning the Torx bit, as I had only used it to remove and replace two bolts. Instead, I kept that goddamn thing, and to this very day, that bit sits in my toolbox. An unused, slightly rusty reminder of why I’ll never buy another Audi.
Once you have the proper tools they aren’t bad to work on at all! Tho I do not have a sufficiently narrow torx bit to fit the fastener you’re talking about and now you have me doubting whether it was a t27 or t30 so I don’t know which one to order. At least on my b7 3 fasteners and the headlights slide right out, you just need to have the skinny torx bit.
Modern Minis.. my wife had one she loved but god any time I’d have to work on it I’d get shivers. I shouldn’t be pulling bumpers, wheels, wheel wells, crash bars and god knows what else to change a leaking thermostat housing. Know what else? That damn housing should have never been approved to be made of plastic, thermostat housings aren’t ‘wear items’.
Off topic for this thread, but did you at least make it to the Raptor event?! If so, don’t pull a Patrick George in it due to your lack of sleep!
The radio module in my 2017 Chevy Bolt stopped working. It lives behind the glovebox right next to the cabin air filter. It’s fairly easy to touch it but because of the way the bracket and wiring harness are designed, it has to be removed upwards. That requires complete removal of the dash, including center console and steering wheel. Fortunately all the screws holding the dash together are the same and when I had it all back together, I only had one left over (out of about 35).
Looks like you needed Diablo Steel Demon blades. They’re expensive but worth it
Anything that goes vroom on the water. Powered floaty vehicles all have this low-volume coach-built quality to them. It’s great until it isn’t. Then tracing wiring and everything else is all kinds of fun. Not to mention parts mostly need to be shipped in. I love my boat, and have had it for many years, but everything on a boat takes more time and patience, and when not done right has the ability to screw you in the worst way in front of family friends, and especially your wife.
It’s just a shitbox. Poor design, smordesign, it’s a GM shitbox.
I actually think the HHR is a great car. A super stout engine and great packaging.
How tall are you though?
If you’re tall, the HHR is approximately 115% blindspot.
To be fair, most of GM’s offerings are made up of blindspot. They got a great deal on blindspot back in the late 90s and have just been shoving it into every vehicle they could.
It shouldn’t be difficult to see out of a two seater roadster with the top down, but somehow GM did it with the Skyy/Solstice.
I agree about both the HHR and the Solstice/Sky. When I traveled for work during that era I had a standing request on my rental car profiles for “Anything NOT an HHR”.
I had a couple of Saturns over the years and took a test drive in a Sky while I was getting an oil change or something done on one of them – found out pretty quickly that the top brace on the windshield was in the perfect spot to prevent me from seeing any and all stoplights from an interesection.
An HHR is the only brand new rental car I’ve ever turned around and gone back to the airport to nope out of. I felt like I was going to die.
I got upgraded to a Caliber.
“I got upgraded to a Caliber.”
You must be the first person in the history of the world to ever utter that statement. A Caliber is a slight upgrade over running shoes, only slight tho
Is it?
I once owned a 1981 Mazda GLC. GLC stands for Great Little Car which certainly described the driving experience but definitely NOT the service experience. I needed to replace the front brake rotors. When I removed the front wheels I found out that unlike pretty much every single other car known to man, the brake rotors on this Mazda are attached to the BACKSIDE of the hub flange. This meant that I had to remove the hub flange from the front bearing to replace the rotor. Of course, it is impossible to remove the hub flange from the bearing without the bearing coming completely apart. Since I only paid $400 for the whole car, I decided to just push the bearing back together once I installed the new rotor. A bit of grease on the bearing races and all was good. I’m sure that fix outlasted the rest of the car.
BMW E46 FLCA/Brackets. Long story short, the bracket it was attached to snapped and I had to have the car towed home. Once I got home, I realized the FLCA was pressed into the bracket bushing and there was no way to correctly remove it. My choices came down to replacing the FLCA and bracket, or painfully removing the bushing through questionable means. So, as a broke college student, I chose the latter. It took me hours of cutting and hammering to break through the bushing, which at this point, had solidified into a hard rock like texture after 13 years of daily driving. At one point, I tried lighting it on fire to loosen it up, too. Finally, after 4 hours, it came loose.
Also, I’d like to nominate the engineer that designed the alternator bracket for the SR20DET. Why on earth is that setup unique to that engine? I had to special order one freaking bolt from Japan that took 3 weeks to ship and cost nearly $100 just to fix it. During that time, I used a combination of metal/plastic zipties to hold my alternator in place. You can imagine how much of a pain that was.
Somebody is going to say “Volvo 240 HVAC blower”, so I’ll jump in first – but by defending the system.
The heater/defrost system in the 240 was actually introduced in the late 140/160 models in MY 1973, and it was great. You could change the blower motor in about 15 minutes. That system continued for a while in the rest of the world.
But then Volvo really needed to integrate A/C into the system and fit it into the predefined space. And that’s where it got ugly. So to replace the blower motor in a system fitted with A/C, you have to remove pretty much everything from the cowl to the shifter. Ugh.
There was a hack that involved judicious cutting and re-screwing of the flat panel next to the blower that could reduce it once again to a 30 minute job, after the creation of the access panel.
I was in fact going to mention the Volvo 240 HVAC blower! Although its no worse than many Mercedes Benz blower motors. The later 740 blower motor was the easiest and most accessible I have ever seen.
Everything in an LT1 F-Body. Engine is up under the dash, getting the #8 plug requires 8 extensions and double jointed hands and moving the engine. An optical distributor is under and behind a cam driven water pump for who knows what reason. Fasteners are whatever size they had laying around and have no consistency. Fuel pump changes involve dropping the axle, exhaust, then the tank, or cutting a hole in the floor.
Or changing the oil pressure transducer in a 3.6L Pentastar.
Ditto for the fuel pump on 2015 Camaro. Integrated fuel level sensor went out on mine at less than 1000 miles. Dealerhip had to drop the entire rear subframe to lower the gas tank enough to access the fuel pump. Why? Just why? Simply install an access door/port under the rear seat like in many other vehicles!
What do you bet that in 20 years, every Camaro you find for sale used will have had such an access door “installed” by a previous owner?