After seeing tommy g's post over in the 04-08 section about how badly located his oil filter is made me think about my wifes pontiac montana and whats needed to get the altenator out, you have to

1, remove windshield wiper drive assembly
2, remove power steering pump assembly
3, loosen motor lower mounts (on some earlier years the passenger side lower motor mount has to be removed to drop that side of the motor)
4, remove top motor mounts
5, attatch a ratchet strap between the rear of the motor and the upper rad support and ratchet the top of the motor forward 3 inches

All this is on top of removing the air intake hose and removing the serpentine belt, the nightmare takes about 3 hours and will cost about $650 at a shop.

Any other horror stories about badly engineered vehicles?

 

on the mercury cougars the exhaust literally wraps around the oil filter.

 

You have to pull the passenger side CV axle out of the older Integras and Civics to get the alternator out.

 

Ford Contours.

Great handling cars, nightmares to work on.

The lower radiator hose looks like an octopus, and there's no way to get to the clamps on it.

There are a myriad of issues with the cars, most of which involve pulling the engine to fix the problem.

 

how about the pontiac fieros, you had to pull the motor to change the plugs.

 

2 piece spark plugs in my err...nevermind.

 

Try doing a tune up on an older 2.5L 4 cyl fwd gm compact. You find out how braille is read by a blind person.

 

winner.

 

x2

 

You gotta LOVE engineers for they haven't got a
clue what they are doing PLUS they never have
to work on their own fuc*ups.

Am I wrong with that statement?