Poor car design

Richard53

You would think Land Rovers would escape this, and Series vehicles are fairly easy to maintain and repair. Plenty of room for access, and things generally are what they seem.


I did look into the procedure to replace a leaking heater matrix and/or blender motor on the 4.6 Rangie, just in case I ever had to do it. Thankfully, I didn't, as it seems that they started with the heater matrix on the production line, and then built the car around it.


Psychologically, I have never fully recovered from changing the bypass hose on an early Mini.

Strider590

Cornucopia wrote: »

Modern cars are not designed for end user maintenance. It's just not a priority for the manufacturers.

Making things just about difficult enough to keep people coming into dealerships, IS a priority.

IIRC, it's EU law that forces manufacturers to make their specialist tools available to the motor trade, otherwise we'd have no independents left at all.
I mean for example, Peugeot in the mid to late 90's, making their alloy wheels centreless meant most tyre/exhaust retailers couldn't balance them.... Not until someone made the adaptor available.

forgotmyname

Richard53 wrote: »

Psychologically, I have never fully recovered from changing the bypass hose on an early Mini.

Ahh the wonderful bypass hose.. They sell you a useless thin rubber tube that lasts 3 weeks if your lucky. You complain and the man says do you want a genuine one. Yes please.. He giggles when he sells it to you, knowing full well that your going be have pain, blood, sweat and tears trying to fit it.

Richard53

forgotmyname wrote: »

your going be have pain, blood, sweat and tears trying to fit it.

On the positive side, it is possible, with a lot of patience, lube and brute force, and when you have done it you have another stamp on your Man Card.


And you tell that to kids today, with their poncy sealed-for-life this and OBD-II that ...

Nodding_Donkey

Richard53 wrote: »

You would think Land Rovers would escape this, and Series vehicles are fairly easy to maintain and repair.

Like the Discovery 3 you mean? Body off to replace the turbo lol

facade

forgotmyname wrote: »

Ahh the wonderful bypass hose.. They sell you a useless thin rubber tube that lasts 3 weeks if your lucky. You complain and the man says do you want a genuine one. Yes please.. He giggles when he sells it to you, knowing full well that your going be have pain, blood, sweat and tears trying to fit it.

It is easy.
You take the water pump off. The hose joins the water pump to the head, so you fit it to one and attach the other end when the waterpump goes back on. If you use a solid hose it outlasts the water pump anyway.


My least favourite bit of modern "design" is the wipers.

In The Olden Days they stopped on the windscreen, right above where the hot air comes out, and the arms were exposed.

Nowadays they are recessed in some hole below the bonnet, where all the melting snow goes, so not only do the rubbers freeze solid to the screen, and never unfreeze, but the whole mechanism ends up in a ball of permafrost.

All that trouble to get another 0.0002 mpg from better airflow.:o

marlot

I was doing some work on my Toyota Landcruiser yesterday, and there are some lovely touches under the bonnet. Including a sticker showing the route for the aux belt, and on the top edge of the headlight unit it tells you what bulbs are needed. You can tell this is a vehicle designed to be maintained in the bush miles from anywhere.

N9eav

Anyone got a new Astra? Our work bought a fleet of them.... Just a few annoying things;
When you release the handbrake you almost always squash your fingers against the centre consol.
When lowering the drivers seat with the lever you pinch you fingers against the side of the seat.
Maybe common to other cars, but the handbrake design is such that if you drive the car hard (police car for example) then stop at your destination and apply the handbrake. The brake disks cool and the handbrake no longer holds the car. Unless you leave it in gear, naturally. (Or HQ say, apply the foot brake before applying the handbrake)
These are aggravating things encountered everyday by driver.


You would think that the designer when releasing the handbrake or seat would go 'ouch', we ought to re-design that.... Nah it's only a Vauxhall.

InsideInsurance

facade wrote: »

Nowadays they are recessed in some hole below the bonnet, where all the melting snow goes, so not only do the rubbers freeze solid to the screen, and never unfreeze, but the whole mechanism ends up in a ball of permafrost.

Imagine its as much for the aesthetics as it is the tiny improvement in aerodynamics/ reduction in air noise. Whilst mine do also drop below the bonnet that area of the screen is electrically heated and so the rubbers at least defrost fairly quickly. The downside is the slightly worrying "smoke" you get coming up from under the bonnet due to the warm wet area of the screen on a freezing cold day.

Afraid that I dont do much self maintenance on my cars and so am blissfully unaware of the challenges that most my cars have had. I did have the RAC out once when the alternator belt had gone resulting in the battery dying on my way home in my late 90s Saxo. Certainly he complained about the restricted access and the fact that all the bolts he had to remove were virtually all different sizes with a mixture of metric and imperial sizes

Gloomendoom

N9eav wrote: »

Maybe common to other cars, but the handbrake design is such that if you drive the car hard (police car for example) then stop at your destination and apply the handbrake. The brake disks cool and the handbrake no longer holds the car. Unless you leave it in gear, naturally. (Or HQ say, apply the foot brake before applying the handbrake).

Which is why many cars use drums for the hand/parking brake.