There may be dumber engineering, but you’ll have to convince me

NickD said:

914Driver said:

Dumb, as dumb as putting a Caddy starter under the intake manifold?

Not really. The Northstar starter location keeps it clean and dry and out of the rain, snow, salt, sand and dirt. I've seen Northstars with 200k on the clock and the original starter still functioning fine.

And it takes like a half hour to replace the starter, anyway.  The design engineers were kind enough to put all of the fluid connections at one end, so you just have to remove the intake boot, unbolt the manifold, peel it up and bungee/carabiner (I love my carabiner) to the hood, and bam, done.  No disconnecting anything required.  I mean, you CAN, if you're the kind of person to strips naked to pee, but some of us got work to do.

If you want to bitch about Northstar access, try getting to the rear plugs, especially on something with air injection.  Getting the rear ignition module out is easy, getting it back in is the fun part.  I found that unbolting the subframe to drop the engine down a helpful inch or so makes a world of difference.  But, again:  The chassis was designed around a pushrod V8, the Northstar was designed around wastespark and not coil on plug.  Evolving a design makes for unintended awkwardness, and a love for 3' long 1/4" drive extensions so you can unbolt the diverter valve from underneath the car...

RevRico said:

dropstep said:

einy said:

Yea, op, that designer’s father was the guy who placed the oil filter on the 2003 vintage S10 2.2 liter.  

If you think that engine sucked in an s10 you should try it in the cavalier. The s10 looks like fantastic engineering next too that mess.

It's no fun in a Vue either. According to Haynes and Chilton, there should be room to get a serp belt tool in between the frame rail and the motor. According to this weekends experience, you need to remove a wheel, loosen the motor mounts, lift up the engine, shorten your serp belt tool, and make a custom extension for the HF kit to get the damn belt tensioner out when it stops actually holding tension. 

The 2.2 never came in a VUE.  You are thinking of the Ecotec.

A lot of the "why did the engineers put X HERE" bitching is because of inertia.  The oil filter location on the 2.2 made sense when the engine was originally designed for Cavaliers and Berettas with high mounted steering racks and and airy subframe.  After 20 years and chassis evolved, the filter location sucked.

Kind of like the Ecotec's oil filter.  Made a ton of sense in the original application.  Then some bonehead decided to stick a direct injection fuel pump over it.  I've also got no idea how "fun" it is to get to it on a Solstice/Sky, especially with the DI turbo engine.  At least the hood opens the correct way so you have a fighting chance of getting to it.

Im an engineer.  I can assure all of you that these situations are not created because an engineer was dumb and made it that way.

Lots of engineers made it that way.  With cost/weight/partcount/design time constraints.  Compromises need to be made and you are looking at them.

A true engineering failure takes a whole team of people.

ProDarwin said:

Im an engineer.  I can assure all of you that these situations are not created because an engineer was dumb and made it that way.

Lots of engineers made it that way.  With cost/weight/partcount/design time constraints.  Compromises need to be made and you are looking at them.

A true engineering failure takes a whole team of people.

I am sure that if everything was re-engineered for ease of access, people would bitch about why it costs so much money for an Escalade transmission pan when it's the same dang transmission as every other rear driver, or how come Miatas have to have a special rare engine block when it's the same engine that came in a 323, etc.

Can't win.  Just keep on keepin' on.

Mazda DID go to the trouble of re-engineering certain things due to access issues.  That is the only difference between an '81-82 RX-7 and '83-85 RX-7 slave cylinder: the '83-85 part has an extension on it with the bleeder in a different spot for ease of access around the top-mounted oil cooler.  And when the GSL-SE arrived in 1984, with its traditional front mounted cooler, it reverted to the '81-82 style, but with another part number.  So there are four different part numbers including the '78-80 slave cylinder (which has 10x1.25 threads instead of 10x1.0 on the hydraulic fitting), but they are all perfectly interchangable...  Be much easier/cheaper if they had stuck with one design, but on the other hand we don't have whiners on the Internet bitching about bleeding the clutch on their '83.

Dusterbd13-michael said:

And people wonder why i like mazda. Oil change took me 15 minutes, and i didn't even have to move the pan. They even put in holes in the splash shield for service of all fluids.

My 95 Silverado is a pain in the ass in most service regards. Same with the mopars.

Same for me with the Koreans.

Delco replacement trans pan......

I’m not a GM engineer, but the pan is probably common with 5 other vehicles.  The exhaust routing is probably not common with all 5 vehicles. Some have drains, some don’t....the stamping might be common however...

Did the ORIGINAL part have a Drain plug in that location?  Likely not.

You installed a SERVICE part with a drain plug..... maybe it worked fine on Camaro.... also sounds like you had a choice to get the right one WITHOUT a plug..  

Often they will stock very similar replacement parts that will function to reduce the cost to the customer....

Some engineers and designs are dumb, but if the car didn’t come with the plug, then you can’t call these GM engineers dumb.  You've modified the vehicle that was engineered.

Many don’t appreciate how expensive it is to purchase tooling for high volume  stampings,  plastic molding, castings or the equipment to assemble it.... Or the cost to inventory service affordable parts in warehouses for 10 years.

In reply to Knurled. :

I was. Saw 2003 S10, and just assumed since Cavaliers were ecotec by then it was the same. I had the 2200 in my cavalier, but I never actually had to work on it. 

I suspect that the OP's issue is a marketing fail rather than an engineering one.  I'm sure that pan was created for marketing reasons and probably for a different application at that.  Once it was designed it was listed for every application that uses that transmission. 

The original pan was designed without a drain plug because in the majority of applications an automatic transmission drain plug is a liability rather than an asset. It's more likely to get hit on something and leak than it is to benefit the consumer.  Those of us who work (or in my case worked) on cars for a living don't change transmission fluid without dropping the pan to clean or replace the filter and we have the tools to drop the pan without making a mess.  If we do make a mess than a couple of seconds with a can of brake clean, some shop rags and an air hose cleans it up.

Heater core in an S-blazer.

Dash has to come out.

Now that I think of it, I’ll add Suzuki Samurais to my ACVW comment.

I remember taking the alternator from one Samurai to another in maybe 5 minutes at dusk in my front yard with just a 13mm wrench. Drop out center-sections in the differentials, flanged driveshafts. Heck, I remember doing a Thorley header in about a 1/2 hour as a kid and every bolt came out and went back. Did a shackle reversal and swapped all 4 leaf springs and shocks (before the SPOA) on my back with a handful of tools.

Samurai’s were the Japanese Bug

ShawnG said:

Heater core in an S-blazer.

Dash has to come out.

So do 99% of the cars out there.  At least you don't have to remove the rear seat so you can remove the center console so you can remove the dash.

I don't think the engineers can be blamed for that one... seems like people actually want to drive a huge car that is divided into cramped little pods.

In reply to Knurled. :

Most of what I work on is over 40 years old, all of those have the core come out through the firewall or through the glove box. I guess new stuff has gotten really stupid.

I'll add my old Jeep Comanche.

The clutch master cylinder is directly above the fuse panel. When the m/c pukes, guess where all the fluid goes.

Optispark distributors had pretty goofy placement too.

As a former automotive engineer, I can assure the prime mistake is ASSuming the exhaust engineer and transmission engineer ever talked.  The assembly guy just checked if it would physically fit....  it does.  Service was a complete afterthought as in never a concern; it’s someone else’s problem.

I used to re-design mess ups like this. I used to always figure out which managers signed off on this crap too.  Those managers got promoted, bonuses and stock options.  I left.

Knurled. said:

Spoolpigeon said:

Whiny oil change monkey can't figure out how to make a splash panel out of an oil filter box.

Arrogant engineer though it is reasonable to make a splash shield out of the oil filter box?  Arrogant engineer doesn’t understand that the tech now has to hold the filter box while the sump drains, instead of starting line two on the work order, trying to earn a living because bean-counters cut flat rate as soon as a tech can do the job in 140% of the time paid out for said job?

I don’t remember the model, but General Mistake made a FWD 4-banger that required the front motor mount be removed to replace the serpentine belt. What!?!?  

DrBoost said:

I don’t remember the model, but General Mistake made a FWD 4-banger that required the front motor mount be removed to replace the serpentine belt. What!?!?  

A lot of cars with K24s?

Or maybe it was that GM Focus with the Zetec engine...

Seriously, yanking the mount makes it so easy to work on the front end of most transverse engines that I'll do it just to get it out of the way.  It's usually only three or four bolts.

Knurled. said:

DrBoost said:

I don’t remember the model, but General Mistake made a FWD 4-banger that required the front motor mount be removed to replace the serpentine belt. What!?!?  

A lot of cars with K24s?

 

Or maybe it was that GM Focus with the Zetec engine...

 

Seriously, yanking the mount makes it so easy to work on the front end of most transverse engines that I'll do it just to get it out of the way.  It's usually only three or four bolts.

FEAD belts should require one tool, no fastener removal, and about 5 minutes. To remove the mount and support the engine is way more work that is reasonable. At least when we’re talking about serp belts, V belts should take no more than 10. 

As a mechanic for years, then a technical writer, I’ve dealt with too many engineers (not all of them, but the vast majority) that don’t realize cars actually are a thing outside CAD and CATIA. 

I’ve also dealt with plenty of techs that should not be allowed to hold a wrench.  

DrBoost said:

FEAD belts should require one tool, no fastener removal, and about 5 minutes. To remove the mount and support the engine is way more work that is reasonable. At least when we’re talking about serp belts, V belts should take no more than 10. 

I can think of only one or two engines where that is the reality.  Ironically enough, both are GMs.  (A-body 2.8/3.1s, and certain vintage 3800s, immediately come to mind)  Practically anything that has a proper chassis rail hung drivetrain is going to be easier to yank the engine mount, if you don't feel like pulling a wheel and removing the side panels/undertray.  Sometimes you have to do both, anyway, because of how tight a new belt is to install even with the tensioner maxed out (maxed in?).

In the real world, with modern belt technology where the belts last 60-90k, often more, with ease, the belt tensioner fails first.

In reply to Knurled. :

Plenty of RWD belts are that easy.  V8 ZJ needs a 15mm wrench to pull the tensioner over and you slip the belt off.  Clutch fan is slightly in the way on most, but if you can get the belt around it or have an electric fan, it's 30 seconds to get a belt on or off. 

rslifkin said:

In reply to Knurled. :

Plenty of RWD belts are that easy.  V8 ZJ needs a 15mm wrench to pull the tensioner over and you slip the belt off.  Clutch fan is slightly in the way on most, but if you can get the belt around it or have an electric fan, it's 30 seconds to get a belt on or off. 

I currently have two vehicles. One RWD, one FWD. Neither requires any parts to be removed. 

Edit: my mother-in-law’s car is here too. It doesn’t require any parts to be removed either. FWD

Oh, on most cars it isn't "required"... but it's a heck of a lot faster.  If I can save time and get a better angle with the belt tool instead of fighting things by spending 30 seconds with a block of wood and an impact... that mount's coming out.

That was one of the things that got me at Saturn.  People would do the belts from under the car because that was where the tensioner access was.  I could have the mount off, belt changed, and mount back on before they had the car racked and the wheel and splash panel off.

The mount had to come off to do the belt on my 3.1 Malibu.  It still took me, a very slow amateur, all of 40 minutes to change every 100,000 miles or so. In the grand scheme of things it wasn’t that big a worry.  

Wally said:

The mount had to come off to do the belt on my 3.1 Malibu.  It still took me, a very slow amateur, all of 40 minutes to change every 100,000 miles or so. In the grand scheme of things it wasn’t that big a worry.  

Doing one every 8 years is very different from the life if a tech. Trust me, when you wrench for a living, the manufacturer keeps cutting book time down, things are very different. 

The belts on the motorhome require one tool. 

It does need two people, but only one of them needs a tool. 

DrBoost said:

Wally said:

The mount had to come off to do the belt on my 3.1 Malibu.  It still took me, a very slow amateur, all of 40 minutes to change every 100,000 miles or so. In the grand scheme of things it wasn’t that big a worry.  

Doing one every 8 years is very different from the life if a tech. Trust me, when you wrench for a living, the manufacturer keeps cutting book time down, things are very different. 

Meh, its just a floor jack with a block of wood under the oil pan, and four bolts that you can use an impact on. It makes a belt job ten minutes instead of five if youve done it a couple times. It still beats having to manually tension three or four v belts.