Difficult repairs; we are not alone

[Mech Addict]

Perhaps some of you enjoy Jalopnik, as I sometimes do. They posted an article [ https://jalopnik.com/best-of-2021-here-are-the-weirdest-unserviceable-car-p-1847293164 ]that went over several ridiculous but real maintenance and repair issues with cars, not including any dsm cars. Made me feel better about some of the long series of steps that I've had to do for seemingly simple operations. I could change the water pump in my dodge truck in about 1/2 hour, including the beer. My DSM took days, and that doesn't count the whiskey drinking I needed afterward. My favorite one in this article was for the small coolant hose for the Toyota MR2 Turbo. Definitely watch the youtube video of the process. Not sure how you might get that engine out without an actually vehicle lift like they used. I haven't been able to watch the one about the Porsche oil pan gasket. Sounds worse than a dsm by far.

Who has a least-favorite fix on their dsm, or other rides for that matter. I was completely entertained a few days back by the multitude of techniques to disassemble the front strut on a 2G.

 

[EZ91Talon]

My wife bought a 2004 Ford Escape with the 3.0L transverse-mounted V6 years ago. It had been a fun and rugged little SUV and a good loaner vehicle for the kids. But the alternator! It's wedged under the exhaust manifold between the block and the firewall, surrounded by steering and suspension infrastructure. I heard there was a heat shield added to protect it from the exhaust heat in later models, but not on the 2004 and the part was unavailable when last I checked. Replacing the alternator requires removing the front passenger driveaxle (and all steering and suspension disassembly that requires) and then serious twisting and turning to get old one out and replacement unit in. I've replaced it myself twice, paid a shop to do it once more, and this time it's just been sitting for the past few months while I try to work up the will to do it again.

 

[TheDude236]

I don't even want to get started on my 2007(?) Volvo C70. Swedish engineers are freaking crazy man, maintenance on that car is never simple...

 

[Mech Addict]

I don't even want to get started on my 2007(?) Volvo C70. Swedish engineers are freaking crazy man, maintenance on that car is never simple...

I think you should give an example of the most maddening procedure or flaw.

 

[TheDude236]

The turbo control valve and PCV system on the Volvo are a nightmare. 3-5 ish days of combined work.
The control valve required the hot side of the turbo to be taken off, and once me and my dad replaced the valve we unfortunately put a part on backwards, and didn't realize until we had put everything back together

The PCV system was also awful. The install itself wasn't super bad, it was just really in an awkward spot. Ended up hooking up the hoses wrong and figuring out a couple days later. Then once we had the system hooked up correctly, you have to use the system's break in feature to calibrate the pcv system properly, which consists of doing stuff like accelerating from 0-40 like 4 times, then doing the tango with the shift knob, then back on the road again and doing sharp acceleration and deceleration.

Also, not related to the Volvo, but learning how to wrench on DSM doors and the inside mechanisms was a pain at first, that was a solid 2-3 days worth of work when I attempted it the first time...

 

[19Eclipse90]

Heater core. Hate that job.

 

[EZ91Talon]

Heater core. Hate that job.

Agreed. Done it once, hopefully never again.

 

[97egl]

Newer ford cars use sucky bolts. I've had a 2003 focus back-up DD and my wifes 06 mustang and every freaking time I have to do suspension work I am snapping off bolts left and right and having to cut stuff. I don't understand how my 30 year old dsm I've never snapped a bolt except gas tank strap studs and on these newer fords its every other bolt or every bolt. Going back even older I have an 83 F-250 and have never snapped a single bolt on that. The cab floor was rotted out and I did a cab swap and all the rusted cab mount bolts came out without snapping.

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

Try splitting a Subaru EJ block. Once you've done it once or twice it doesn't seem so bad anymore. But the first time it's pretty intimidating.

Also try repairing a 94-99 Mustang engine with it still in the car. The V6 models aren't too bad, but the GT with 4.6 is tightly packed, and the Cobra with dual cam 4.6 is a nightmare.

Don't even get me started on the KA24DE from Nissan It's a good engine for 200k miles if treated kindly and serviced, but once it's time for a full teardown you'll get pretty pissed. There are design flaws that aren't technician friendly.

 

[waltah]

I think the hardest job was replacing the timing belts and oil pump on a 2.4L (4g64) Expo LRV. The job's probably about like the 4g63 but I remember I had to get the pan and all the front end covers off at the same time which required making a cradle to support the engine while the front mount was off. Took me 4 days or so --- I was a lot newer at the game in those days. We've still got that car -- it's our doggy 'ambulance' for emergency vet visits if you read my post on 'No fuel pressure when it's below freezing.' The rear seat is out and one of us sits in the back with the dog, the other drives.

The maddest a car ever made me was a 60's VW back when it was about 10 years old. There was some repair needed that somehow infuriated me -- the car was made of tin, for goshsakes, and everything you had to work on was rusted out. It was as if the whole car was like the license lamp brackets on the Eclipse ...

Anyway I ended by refusing ever to check the oil again. In a few weeks a red light came on. I learned to ignore it. When eventually it threw a rod I got out, kicked the door as hard as I could and walked the rest of the way to work. Cherish your immaturity I say ... yes, still a motto I live by although I now know which cars are going to make me feel that way and never even let them start.

Also there are places where I don't do 'cherish' because the price is higher than a trashed engine.

The 'abandoned for maintenance I could never finish' prize goes to an '88 Fiero, bought maybe 10 years ago as a first attempt at owning a sports car. Great little car in many ways, overall design is innovative, but the implementation (supervised by bean counters rather than car guys) sucked. I rebuilt and bled various parts of the hydraulic clutch setup a few times each and when finally it stopped (would crank but never start) I lost interest, pushed it off to the side of the driveway and sold it. I won't own a Detroit car again.

The Eclipse is where I should have started: Designed and built by fanatics for fanatics. Yeah, that would be me. For some reason sloppy design is insulting.

What a pity that Mitsubishi is clueless about marketing. The Expo LRV and Eclipse (and the various rebrandings) were the best cars in their respective market niches yet the sales numbers are unremarkable.

 

[Widgmaster]

I bought a 2001 Chrysler Sebring LXi at a auction... It needed a new alternator… You have to pull the passenger wheel ...undo the ball joint to pull the axle to get the darn thing out... If there was an easier way I screwed up...

 

[Dhan]

Just about anything on my old 1991 300ZX. It was really cramped in that thing. Awesome car but a pain to work on.

Just about everything on the DSM has been pretty straightforward and easy in comparison. Except maybe pulling out the clutch pedal assembly. That sucked the first time around.

 

[motomattx]

You guys are babies, try owning some VW/Audi cars for a few years, Audi A4/Passat control arm replacement anyone? 8 separate arms made of aluminum with a long pinch bolt up top that goes through both upper ball joint studs and into a steel knuckle that has to be separated to get the pinch bolt out that usually breaks off due to seizure, Jetta 5 cylinder alternator where its a 10 hour job on your back laying under the car, they usually fail in the winter when its single digits outside, requires the wheel to be pulled, the inner fender to be pulled the air conditioner compressor to be pulled all pulleys and brackets to be pulled and then you still have to turn the alternator sideways and literally wedge it out. They led me to buy Toyota ftw.

 

[dsmmario]

I did the main rear seal on my 2010 Jetta cbfa. After swapping many dsm trannies I figure it should be no big deal. It almost killed crushed me tumbling out of the car. The tranny was much heavier than I expected. The timing chains where no piece of cake either. I hate torque to yield bolts after doing that job.

 

[Mech Addict]

I did own an Audi A6 2.7tt. Same suspension as the jettas, by the sound of it. You have to replace many beautiful aluminum arms instead of just bushings when they start clunking. Also the valve cover gasket required removing some emission controls from hell. German cars seem to need very specific and expensive special tools for things that make no sense at all, like some odd ball non-standard fastener when it just as easily could have been made to fit a regular wrench. Browsing the tool catalogs for vw/audi it seemed like there were even more tools for Porsche and Mercedes.
I will say that German cars often come with a cool set of basic tools with the car, tucked into some neat cubby of their own. But there’s essentially nothing you can do with them, and they make it seem more and more that you shouldn’t even try, with so many engine covers and whatnot.

 

[waltah]

This is a truly great thread. I had a girlfriend many years ago with an Audi. I got the shop manual -- always the starting point. Fortunately the relationship didn't last long after I studied that book for a while.

One thing I noticed when I started working on Mitsubishis about 1990 or so was that maintenance clearly was part of the design right from the beginning. You can do darn near anything in a driveway. Fix the most common wear-out failures on either an automatic or manual transmission? Maybe three hours, starting with removing the right front wheel to get at the end clutch or 5th gear assembly.

There's no place I've found where a wrench and hand won't fit, though a couple of times I've wished for Japanese-size hands. (Sliding door rear mounting on the Expo LRV ...) There's a lot of jobs you can do with just two wrenches -- a 10mm and a 12, a 12 and a 14, etc. And Mitsubishi designed to keep the number of tools at a minimum: M8 fasteners on the engine have M12 heads, not the 13mm heads that you find buying M8 bolts at an auto store.

The Eclipse GS-T is definitely harder than the Expos but the philosophy is the same; it's just more stuff and more complicated stuff in a smaller space. But the hand and wrench will still go in there and there are no jobs I've found that require complex disassembly to make a common repair like change an alternator or ball joint. Tough jobs have either been personal screw-ups or like today's repositioning of the plumbing for the automatic trans oil cooler (bolts to the back of the lower radiator tank) -- last guy who worked there put it back wrong, bent a few things to make it fit, and left it rubbing on the lower radiator hose. Or getting the car up to correct standing height where the too big aftermarket coilovers had been bashed into the forks requiring removal and machine work.

On the other hand, the 2G Eclipse includes a number of fixes for errors in the (basically 1G) Expos. And some repairs are just gone -- the shift to distributorless ignition eliminates spark timing and moves the most common failures out where you can deal with them one at a time.