“It’s never easy.”
This was a common refrain from my Dad almost every time he spun his Craftsmans in the garage, usually uttered with far more knowing expectation than frustration, especially if he was working on his MG Midget. For every instance of something going as expected or even surprisingly easily (like the time he made a piston-ring compressor out of a coffee can and then used it to slide the MG’s pistons in like butter, there were ten patience-testing trials that sprang from shoulda-been-simple jobs
Our indefatigable Stephen Walter Gossin can surely relate, as lately he’s been wrestling with a fifth-gen Mercedes SL. Even a fuse change can be an ordeal in this thing, as Stephen explained this morning in the Autopian Slack channel:
Another fun example of why the R230 can suck it: if you try to jump-start the battery, or hook up either battery in the wrong sequence, you blow a fuse under the passenger floorboard and under the subwoofer. Look at how ridiculous the process is just to change that fuse:
The fuse is under the floorboard, and under the subwoofer. A fuse that commonly blows per the ridiculous 2-battery setup in that car. I’m telling you, from an engineering perspective, this is the worst car out of the 148 cars I’ve wrenched on.
Indeed, what a hassle! Now it’s your turn, let’s talk about the cars (and trucks, and motorcycles, or anything really) that do not make it easy when a job coulda-woulda-shoulda been simple. And-or cheap, hoo boy …
To the comments!
I don’t actually have one of these, but apparently the 3.0 Duramax in the GM half-tons has a wet belt…on the back of the engine. Replacement (which admittedly is only supposed to be required every 150 or 200k miles, depending on generation) is an absurdly expensive affair for something they know is going to fail eventually.
The Chrysler “let’s make them jack the car up and remove a wheel to change the battery” cars come to mind.
Also, damn near anything on an MR2. The mid-engine is awesome until you have to work on it. Nothing’s easy to reach. A simple radiator change involves what seems like 6 miles of coolant pipes running under the car from the radiator to the engine, which also makes bleeding fun because there are two high points.
God help you if you want to do an engine swap because a normal crane can’t reach so you need a gantry crane. And have fun replacing the slave cylinder because it mounts upside down so you either vacuum bleed it or wire it right side up, bleed it, then mount it.
And the one I’m currently trying to muster the energy to deal with, the electric speedometer has electronics in the gauge cluster that fail and make it inaccurate, and you have to disassemble the whole dash to get at it before getting out the soldering iron.
My dad bought a mint ’94 MR2 turbo back in ’03 or ’04. 21k miles. Red/tan. It had an oil leak at (improbably) the head gasket. Removing the head was basically “1. Remove everything in the engine compartment that’s not the cylinder head. 2. Remove the cylinder head.” Book labor was FOURTEEN hours. The guys at my local shop, who confirmed my diagnosis, told me they were relieved when I decided to do it myself.
Just as he went to sell it years later, one of those coolant pipes started leaking.
And since the pipes are sandwiched inside the floor pan, replacing those is just so much fun!
It was a total fiasco at the local Toyota dealer. The technicians all crowded around, excited to see it, but they (apparently) gave the job to the worst tech they had. Came back missing a heat shield, the unobtanium TRD engine bay brace scratched to hell, coolant sloshing around in the front trunk, loose hoses. They got it right eventually but what an ordeal.
Yeah, no one knows how to work on these things anymore. I had mine at the Toyota dealership for a free loyalty oil change and the guy goes to the front and tells me to pop the hood. Like, you’re not going to find what you’re looking for in there…
92 Ford Tempo with the 3.0LV6, replacing the water pump. The water pump was tucked underneath the rear head up against the firewall. To replace dictated having to remove the entire intake manifold and the rear head to just get to a couple of botls and get the thing out. At least while I was there I went ahead and removed the front head and replaced both head gaskets.
Northstar V8s.. ALL OF THEM.
Ford 6.0 Powerstroke/6.4 horrible engine
The nightmare positions of the alternators and starters in the 2UZ and the 3UR-FE…
Let’s say your ‘01 Volvo XC70 needs a new rear-view mirror, as the old one is cracked and discolored from twenty-something years and 300,000 miles. Just grab one from from a junkyard, right? Not so simple! There’s some kind of security module inside that will keep your key fob and interior lights from working, and not just that – it has to be programmed to the car. The usual fix is to swap the entire circuit board from the old mirror. Whose brilliant idea was that?
How in the heck did you get an 01 xc70 to 300k miles? How many transmissions did you go through?
Replacing the ignition switch my 70 Olds 442. It was a tilt column and required about 18 solid hours of disassembly and reassembly to do. Probably the most overcomplicated design I’ve experienced. Of course it failed in January in Saskatchewan when it has to be 9000 below zero. Nothing compared to that experience, I’ve rebuilt automatic transmissions, set the valves on many DOHC bikes, rebuilt IRS suspensions. That job was a nightmare.
All I would like to know is how to put the parking brake into service mode on a 2021 NX300. I google it and all the videos require jumping OBD ports or pulling the assembly off and jumping the brake winder directly. There has to be a simpler way to do a brake pad swap.
Dodge Journey battery swap. It’s inside the front wheel well behind the headlight. Good luck, and may the odds be with you.
2001 Mazda Tribute/Ford Escape with the V6. The fucking alternator. Ford, in their galactically infinite wisdom mounted a frequently replaced wear item at the rear and bottom of their transversely mounted V6, which was already a tight squeeze for that engine bay. Replacement included total disassembly of the passenger side front suspension. Fishing the goddamn alternator out was hard enough, putting the new one in was even worse. Piece of shit. I’d be pretty reluctant to ever own a transversely mounted V-engined car ever again. Funnily enough, I currently own the second generation of that same car with a 4 cylinder, which is just about the easiest to repair car I own.