Stupid design / difficult repairs caused by "packaging"

[Nicks90]

Bloody battery in a Volvo XC90!
It's hidden under the boot floor in front of the spare wheel under a big metal brace and plastic cover.
Not that much of an issue to change, but proper pissed me off when I had a flat battery and my phone died and I couldn't find the frikkin thing! Literally took my 30 minutes to find it!!!

But genuine difficult repair - alternator on a MK1 Punto 1.7tdi
It's between the bulkhead and engine block, with the intermediary shaft below it and the intake and steering pump gubbins above it. It has to squeeze down past the intermediary shaft with literally mm to spare. And doing the bolts up is done by feel only as your hand double joints around the shaft and alternator body. Complete pita....

[plenty]

35 hours of labour to remove and refit the clam and engine on a Lotus Evora to get to the clutch or transmission. Plus the labour on the transmission itself.

[Limpet]

S2r said:

Volvo C30 head light removal consists of pulling out a small bar then pushing / pulling it off the rubber grommet / sleeve things. It took longer to get the bulb out of the packet.

Similar on the V50 as well, and they provide a decent amount of slack on the wiring to be able to pull the headlight clear. Lovely bit of design.

[A Winner Is You]

Clutch in a Mk.1 Mondeo where you had to drop the subframe and hope it went back on properly afterwards. Undoubtedly sent many to the knackers yard as it was cheaper to buy a different car.

[Pat H]

On the subject of cabin/pollen filters.

Does anyone think that replacing them makes a difference?

It's a bit of a skanky job on a Mk2 Focus. To the point where I just didn't bother for about 12 years.

Last summer I finally removed the glove box, dropped the fuse board and crawled in behind the heater and replaced the pollen filter.

The one that came out was certainly grubby. But I have to confess that the difference the new one made was marginal.

Perhaps the blower put out a bit more air? If I'm honest, I'm not sure I could tell.

[Speed addicted]

Pat H said:

On the subject of cabin/pollen filters.

Does anyone think that replacing them makes a difference?

It's a bit of a skanky job on a Mk2 Focus. To the point where I just didn't bother for about 12 years.

Last summer I finally removed the glove box, dropped the fuse board and crawled in behind the heater and replaced the pollen filter.

The one that came out was certainly grubby. But I have to confess that the difference the new one made was marginal.

Perhaps the blower put out a bit more air? If I'm honest, I'm not sure I could tell.

When I changed the one in my BMW 323 (E36) it was properly manky, it stopped the slight damp smell and made the blower about twice as effective.
Think it had been in there for quite a while though, on other cars that have been serviced according to schedule I've never really noticed a difference.

[mat205125]

Nicks90 said:

But genuine difficult repair - alternator on a MK1 Punto 1.7tdi
It's between the bulkhead and engine block, with the intermediary shaft below it and the intake and steering pump gubbins above it. It has to squeeze down past the intermediary shaft with literally mm to spare. And doing the bolts up is done by feel only as your hand double joints around the shaft and alternator body. Complete pita....

Starter motor in a scenic diesel was the same. All done my feel rather than sight, with a labyrinth of obstacles with fag paper clearance to get it out and back in ...... I ended up cutting the start motor solenoid wire, and refitting to the new motor, and then splicing back together ones in place, as there was literally no way to get to it whilst still in the car.

Manual advised it was a 6 or 8 hour job, and involved dropping the sub-frame ..... did it in half that time, however ended up with arms like a self harmer.

[Pat H]

Speed addicted said:

When I changed the one in my BMW 323 (E36) it was properly manky, it stopped the slight damp smell and made the blower about twice as effective.
Think it had been in there for quite a while though, on other cars that have been serviced according to schedule I've never really noticed a difference.

Fair enough.

I expect there will be a lot of variation between different makes of car.

I was tempted just to remove the filter and not bother replacing it, but as I was already in there it made sense just to stuff a new one in.

I don't know when they became a "thing", but none of the cars of my youth had such devices.

[mat205125]

Pat H said:

On the subject of cabin/pollen filters.

Does anyone think that replacing them makes a difference?

It's a bit of a skanky job on a Mk2 Focus. To the point where I just didn't bother for about 12 years.

Last summer I finally removed the glove box, dropped the fuse board and crawled in behind the heater and replaced the pollen filter.

The one that came out was certainly grubby. But I have to confess that the difference the new one made was marginal.

Perhaps the blower put out a bit more air? If I'm honest, I'm not sure I could tell.

I've always worked on the principle that I'm not a hay fever sufferer, so I'm not bothered about a pollen filter.

[DannyB95]

Peugeot 308 Mk2 AdBlue tank, the filler cap is under the boot floor - granted it doesn’t need refilling very often, but you have to take everything out the boot, including spare wheel and tool kit.

Most cars and vans that I’ve used with AdBlue have the filler cap in this revolutionary place..next to the diesel filler cap.

[Fastdruid]

Mazda 6 MPS.

A number of jobs.
Turbo replacement takes twice as long as on the 3 MPS as the transfer box is in the way.
Rear damper replacement means dropping the subframe.

Changing the PCV valve is a ridiculous affair involving removing the inlet manifold, which itself apart from the normal removal of the intercooler, throttle body (water cooled) and a multitude of half obscured bolts as well as involving either removing the serpentine belt and the power steering pump or you can just about manage to pivot it. Except there because it sits on dowels you have to half undo it, pull it forwards and then pivot it.

What is just a ~£10 part is a massive ~3h or so job to replace...and worse when I got it out I found it was fine and didn't need replacing but by the time you've got in to check it you may as well replace it!

[njw1]

A Winner Is You said:

Clutch in a Mk.1 Mondeo where you had to drop the subframe and hope it went back on properly afterwards. Undoubtedly sent many to the knackers yard as it was cheaper to buy a different car.

The later Mondeos are the same, it's not actually that bad a job, just a bit awkward if you're lying on your back trying lift the subframe back in with a jack under one side and your foot under the other....

[jamesson]

Pat H said:

On the subject of cabin/pollen filters.

Does anyone think that replacing them makes a difference?

It's a bit of a skanky job on a Mk2 Focus. To the point where I just didn't bother for about 12 years.

Last summer I finally removed the glove box, dropped the fuse board and crawled in behind the heater and replaced the pollen filter.

The one that came out was certainly grubby. But I have to confess that the difference the new one made was marginal.

Perhaps the blower put out a bit more air? If I'm honest, I'm not sure I could tell.

Perhaps it's an E36 thing, but when I changed mine, like Speed addicted, it made a huge difference. I'd be struggling to clear the windscreen of condensation and after I put the new one in the difference was like night and day.

It was clear that the pollen filter had never been changed, despite having a full service history.

[Digby]

jamesson said:

Pat H said:

On the subject of cabin/pollen filters.

Does anyone think that replacing them makes a difference?

It's a bit of a skanky job on a Mk2 Focus. To the point where I just didn't bother for about 12 years.

Last summer I finally removed the glove box, dropped the fuse board and crawled in behind the heater and replaced the pollen filter.

The one that came out was certainly grubby. But I have to confess that the difference the new one made was marginal.

Perhaps the blower put out a bit more air? If I'm honest, I'm not sure I could tell.

Perhaps it's an E36 thing, but when I changed mine, like Speed addicted, it made a huge difference. I'd be struggling to clear the windscreen of condensation and after I put the new one in the difference was like night and day.

It was clear that the pollen filter had never been changed, despite having a full service history.

In my Honda, there was almost no air coming from the vents even on max settings. Changed the filter and it turned into storm Dennis.

[csd19]

donkmeister said:

untakenname said:

donkmeister said:

Changing the rear bank of spark plugs on the Vectra C with the turbo V6 required removal of the intake manifold, disconnection of the ECU and finessing fuel lines out of the way. Considering that family of engines was designed for transverse applications, it seemed a pretty big oversight to put the spark plugs (a consumable item) there.

tbh it's fiddly but doesn't take that long, less than half an hour job to change the coilpacks and spark plugs if that on that V6 once you've done it a couple of times.

That's kind of the point of the thread though... Yes, a Vauxhall mechanic who does three a day will develop the knack and the knowhow and if he doesn't finish the third then so what... but for a home-gamer holding a set of plugs, looking at his engine on a Sunday afternoon, knowing he needs to drive it to work on Monday morning, he's not going to be happy at the prospect of removing big chunks of engine until he can get his socket into the hole.

On the one occasion I got Vauxhall to do it they neglected to tighten up the clip on the boost pipe... This made it especially exciting when it came on boost as I was joining a busy A-road; the pipe popped off, engine went into limp mode, which meant having to pull onto the next (busy) roundabout in 6th (great design!) with reduced power... So even the thrice daily chap can't be expected to do it right

I didn't have to remove the inlet manifold to do the rear bank of sparkplugs, I did disconnect the ECU though and had the rats nest of vacuum and breather hoses down the back to deal with. Which inevitably are a bit brittle with the heat and sometimes fracture, requiring a replacement hose to be sent over from Germany as there were none in the UK! Luckily I had some silicon hose in the garage to make up a temporary hose in the interim.

MK1 Seat Leon front bumpers were a bit of a pain to reinstall, mostly due to the mounting brackets being close to the headlights and requiring the bumper to be pushed in tight as it was slid back on. This resulted in scratches to the headlights so the longer-but-non-scratchy method was to remove the bumper mounts from the car, slid them on to the bumper then reattach to the car. This worked fine as you could pull the ends of the bumper out around the headlight and get the mount back into place without touching the headlight. The downside was you needed access to the back of the mount, which involved removing the front passenger wheel and arch liner to slide a ratchet into a rather neat space to then undo the retaining nut. The driver's side you could reach with a long extension and a universal joint from inside the bay but the passenger side had the airbox and iirc part of the loom in the way.

The oil filter on the 1.8T 20v VAG engine was also a pain in the arse, purely due to the mess when doing an oil change. Located on the front of the block and at about a 45 degree downward angle meant it was okay for access, but as soon as you undid it you'd get oil down the front of the block which then dripped down all over the aircon hoses which had a fabric-type covering. So they soaked up the old oil as well. The cleanup from that was just a pest.

[matrignano]

jamesson said:

Perhaps it's an E36 thing, but when I changed mine, like Speed addicted, it made a huge difference. I'd be struggling to clear the windscreen of condensation and after I put the new one in the difference was like night and day.

It was clear that the pollen filter had never been changed, despite having a full service history.

Sometimes I wonder, why don’t you ask the dealer to return the old parts like air/oil filters, oil plugs, spark plugs etc?
Would they just give you any old crap lying around and still maybe not actually swap the items for new ones?

[Speed addicted]

matrignano said:

jamesson said:

Perhaps it's an E36 thing, but when I changed mine, like Speed addicted, it made a huge difference. I'd be struggling to clear the windscreen of condensation and after I put the new one in the difference was like night and day.

It was clear that the pollen filter had never been changed, despite having a full service history.

Sometimes I wonder, why don’t you ask the dealer to return the old parts like air/oil filters, oil plugs, spark plugs etc?
Would they just give you any old crap lying around and still maybe not actually swap the items for new ones?

You shouldn't need to!
Hence my use of a small independent specialist that I trust, rather than bigger garages where I'd need to check the work I'd paid for had actually been done.
I bought my current BMW 420d from a dealer in Aberdeen, it's not the main dealer but is part of their group.

Absolute cluster from start to finish, it's put me off them and the main dealer altogether. I'll need to travel for the next car as it'll probably still be a BMW but I'm not prepared to deal with these fkers again.
If they can't torque wheels correctly (too tight so I couldn't shift them, and they took two days to sort), and don't do minor repairs that have been picked up by me in the buying process how can I trust them to find or fix things I haven't pointed out two or three times?

[MParallel]

Been working on my E36’s since 2006.
Reading all these stories, makes the E36 an even easier to car to work on.

I’m surprised it isn’t mandatory to be able to change a headlight bulb in max 10 minutes so you can emergency/roadside change it.

Removing a bumper to change a bulb. What progress.

[Pat H]

Speed addicted said:

matrignano said:

jamesson said:

It was clear that the pollen filter had never been changed, despite having a full service history.

Sometimes I wonder, why don’t you ask the dealer to return the old parts like air/oil filters, oil plugs, spark plugs etc?

You shouldn't need to!

Quite right.

But sometimes it's nice to see the old stuff on the floor.

When I had my Alfas, I often used Alfatune for doing the awkward jobs. Gus always left the old timing belt, water pump, tensioners, air filter etc etc for inspection, like some kind of hunting trophies.

It's easy if you are having someone change a noisy wheel bearing or a clonky suspension arm. But with routine servicing it's not always possible to tell. My old Mum's BMW doesn't even have a dipstick FFS.

[jamesson]

matrignano said:

Sometimes I wonder, why don’t you ask the dealer to return the old parts like air/oil filters, oil plugs, spark plugs etc? Would they just give you any old crap lying around and still maybe not actually swap the items for new ones?

The only way you'd guarantee that the parts shown were the ones which actually came off your car would be to mark them in some way beforehand, and if you're going to all the trouble of finding the pollen filter on a non-air conditioning E36 - and others - you might as well just change them yourself!

Since I learned to do stuff myself, I've saved a ton of money and gained the peace of mind knowing that the job has been done and done properly.