Hideous design flaw thread........

[Rocket88]

After reading Mr Duke's "door mirror on BX" tale of woe, I thought a "most ridiculous design flaw" thread might be of some interest.

I'll kick off with " coolant temperature sender on a T4 VW Transporter". This involves removing the front bumper, radiator, and all associated bits thereof, and, in some cases, the inlet manifold. This SHOULD NOT BE NECESSARY! Part costs about £20, labour about £400!

[gallondrunk]

How about EGR valves, period?

 

On a Bravo (and no doubt plenty of other cars) the exhaust gas slowly gums up the idle control valve and gets to the point that when you start it in hot weather the idle speed flails around helplessly. A couple of times a year I spend half an hour trying to clean it out.

 

Is it reasonable to disconnect it and bung up the pipe and inlet?

 

What's worse is on the 1600 182B engine the ICV is permanently mated to the throttle body, so you can't just go and buy a £10 replacement. Gagh.

[panhard65]

The Smart car !! That pretty much says it all what a nightmare to work on

[Lacquer Peel]

After reading Mr Duke's "door mirror on BX" tale of woe, I thought a "most ridiculous design flaw" thread might be of some interest.

I'll kick off with " coolant temperature sender on a T4 VW Transporter". This involves removing the front bumper, radiator, and all associated bits thereof, and, in some cases, the inlet manifold. This SHOULD NOT BE NECESSARY! Part costs about £20, labour about £400!

 

I'm pretty sure my friend told me replacing the clutch on his Transporter T4 2.5 TDI was close to a grand, timing belt wasn't far off that.

[John F]

The thermostat in the GM 54-degree V6 engines lives deep inside the V, and is a RIGHT BASTARD to get at with the engine in the vehicle. The last one I changed was an engine-out job, as the thermostat would not budge even with its (almost inaccessible) star bolts removed.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Crankshaft sensor, 2001 onwards BMW Wanktronic 1.8/2.0.

 

Previous engine: Disconnect from the engine loom just under inlet manifold. Remove single 5mm allen. Wriggle sensor free with Moles once you've spent 2 minutes removing fan shroud. Start to finish, 40 mins, ish.

 

Wanktronic: Remove entire fucking inlet manifold because there is NO WAY you can even see it in it's new home at the back of the block under the starter. 3 hours.

[wackywacerwill]

EVERYTHING with a sharp edge on the top of the door ready to jab the unaware! This is mostly on modern shite where the metal is a single folded over skin coming to a point only a knats cock wide.

[DVee8]

Jag S-Type V6.Inlet manifold needs to be removed to get to the plugs.

[Des]

EVERYTHING with a sharp edge on the top of the door ready to jab the unaware! This is mostly on modern shite where the metal is a single folded over skin coming to a point only a knats cock wide.

That's what always gets me on the rare times I enter a modern, and while I nurse my gouged temple, the hard lower dash edge ploughs a strip of flesh from my left shin. I'm scared to open the bonnet on the fuckers in case there's a spring loaded boxing glove about to hoof me in the spuds.

[John F]

Jag S-Type V6.Inlet manifold needs to be removed to get to the plugs.

 

That's pretty much par for the course with all transverse V6s that I've seen, at least as far as the rear bank of cylinders is concerned... the Cav, Calibra and Vectra are the same.

 

Which reminds me of another Vaux design flaw. The electric windows switch in the Cav and Calibra is down near the handbrake, and even after about 11 years' ownership of Cavs and Calibras I still have to glance down to locate the bloody thing when I want to use it.

[Stanky]

Couple of example from the shallow end of automotive fettling I've had the misfortune to come across.

 

Heater matrices on pretty much anything. My experience was with a Mk3 golf where the part was £12 but it would involve about 3 weeks of labour to dismantle the entire dashboard to get at the damn thing, then 3 more weeks to put it all back together with inevitable half dozen assorted parts left over at the end of it. After reading on up the procedure in the HBOL I decided to bypass the whole effing thing on the engine side of the bulkhead using bits of bike handlebars and a 90 degree plastic elbow. Cue the worst winter in years and defrosting the inside of the screen on a daily basis.

 

Mk3 ford mondeo dizzler starter motor. these can be extracted without removing the entire front end of the car, but you will lost at least 3 pints of blood doing so. This is compounded by the necessity to change the starter once the DMF inevitably begins breakign down and fills the damn starter with magnetic fluff, redering it useless.

 

Mk2 mondeo 2.0 zetec, clutch change. If you are exceptionally lucky you can drop one side of the front subframe and get just enough clearance to extract the old one and replace it. if you're unlucky its an engine-out job. good work Ford.

 

probably small beer compared to experience of others, but incredibly frustrating nonetheless.

[Partridge]

The overreactive alarms on 90’s Rovers. Hideous if you live near one and goes off at 2 am...

[Rod/b]

The VAG oil cooler that they fitted to just about everything for about 30 years. It rots out internally and blows oil into the coolant.

[Rusty Pelican]

Not sure of the actual Mark but 01 plated Astra,s .

the tops of the front doors are further back than the bottom part , almost every time i opened the fucking thing the top corner tried to disembowel my chest

[Spiny Norman]

The way the rear hatch on the fat-ass Meganes curve round at the sides, they do a similar thing at temple height if you make the mistake of trying to move out the way for someone else to get into the boot.

[cobblers]

My experience was with a Mk3 golf where the part was £12 but it would involve about 3 weeks of labour to dismantle the entire dashboard to get at the damn thing, then 3 more weeks to put it all back together with inevitable half dozen assorted parts left over at the end of it. A

 

 

I dunno if mk3 is same as mk2 in this respect, but while the haynes reckons you have to have the dash out to do the job, you really actually only have to take the center console out. At worst, you can;t get a couple of the clipsthat hold the heater air pipe together back in, but I did the matrix on my mk2 in about an hour?

[Lacquer Peel]

The VAG oil cooler that they fitted to just about everything for about 30 years. It rots out internally and blows oil into the coolant.

 

 

The first type? I bought one to use as a veg oil fuel heater, there's an adapter to fit them to M16 fuel filter heads. Water and fuel mixing in a diesel not for the best.

[SambaS]

Talbot Sambas: captive nuts. No fun whatsoever. Square nut in a flimsy metal case that mangles up when undone resulting in BALL ACHE.

[MrDuke]

Mk4 Astra non-illuminated heater controls. Because no-one would want to adjust the temperature/vents at night, would they?

[Split_Pin]

^^A firm whack with the heel of your hand gets them working again.

[Stanky]

My experience was with a Mk3 golf where the part was £12 but it would involve about 3 weeks of labour to dismantle the entire dashboard to get at the damn thing, then 3 more weeks to put it all back together with inevitable half dozen assorted parts left over at the end of it. A

 

 

I dunno if mk3 is same as mk2 in this respect, but while the haynes reckons you have to have the dash out to do the job, you really actually only have to take the center console out. At worst, you can;t get a couple of the clipsthat hold the heater air pipe together back in, but I did the matrix on my mk2 in about an hour?

 

hmmm, I'm not too sure if they are the same or not, Cobblers (having never owned a Mk2), but if they are and that is the case then I'm even more annoyed now! I'd have thought that a part like the HM which is like to fail and need replacing sometime before the surrounding dashboard will would a be designed in a way that makes replacement somewhat easier. The HBOL and a local mechanic both suggest that the HM is the first thing to go inside the cabin on the assembly line and pretty much the whole dash is built around it. I spent 4 hours removing bits of dashboard and breaking clips without ever actually seeing the HM before I gave up and badly re-assembled the dash and bypassed the HM entirely.

 

I ended up buying a blower heater which plugged into the cigar lighter socket which was the most feeble device I've ever paid money for. I was a bit like having an athsmatic octogenarian breating through a drinking straw at you, and produced much the same smell.

[Station]

Those oil coolers are if fact oil warmers! They bring the oil up to temp in line with the coolant. Mine also went in the V6 just before I sold it. I had to fix it in -0 temperatures due to mongs wanting the car for 3 pence because it had a globule of mayonnaise in the coolant.

[dollywobbler]

Those oil coolers are if fact oil warmers! They bring the oil up to temp in line with the coolant. Mine also went in the V6 just before I sold it. I had to fix it in -0 temperatures due to mongs wanting the car for 3 pence because it had a globule of mayonnaise in the coolant.

 

Not sure about that. I've always been told they were coolers. You'll never bring oil temperature up as quickly as coolant temperature, which is why you shouldn't really rag an engine from cold even when the coolant is 'normal' temp. I haven't owned many cars with both oil and water temp gauges, but the one I did I'm pretty sure had one of these oil coolers. Would always take several more miles to bring the oil up to temperature compared to coolant.

[Ben_L]

The Oil Filter location on the Ford Endura-E engine... Right between the starter motor, inlet manifold and behind the Catalytic Convertor... Even better, when they halved the size of the oil filter to 3" to make it even more inaccessible!

 

And the back-rest winder on the Honda Civic (Rover 45 sort!) where the wheel is in between the door sill and the chair... Making it impossible to wind the seat from reclined to upright in under 45 minutes... That was a smashing idea that one...

 

Finally, I can't forgive Vauxhall on the 1.6 (16SV) 8 valve Carb engine, for putting the thermostat in a place where the timing belt AND inlet manifold have to come off to change it... The single most ridiculous place to put a stat ever, I thought the Maestro was bad for having the Stat under an engine mount!

[dieselnutjob]

Dual Mass Flywheels

[retrogeezer]

any engine sensor....surely causing more problems than they solve.

[Pete-M]

Rover P6 seat backrest adjusters. Great idea, never works properly. Can be scary when the backrest slowwwwly reclines at 70 mph.. when that's the last thing you want it to do.

 

Rover P6 rear brake calipers. Inboard, but also properly awkward to get at. Same for Early XJs.

 

Jaguar X300 glove boxes. Mine didn't have one. Later ones have a glovebox lid with just enough space for a single latex glove behind it.

 

Range Rover P38 heater "o" rings. 50p part, likely to fail, ten hour job to replace if you don't want to drill holes in the dash. Nice one Land Rover...

 

Rover P5B tool trays. Right in front of the auto transmission selector. If the gearbox is in Park you can't get to any tools.

 

Jensen Interceptors.

[jonny69]

All of these from the Mk1 Scenic.

 

I think they hung certain components on strings in the middle of the factory and built the car around them. Headlight unit: the top two bolts are under the grill trim and can only be accessed by taking it off. On both ends it's clipped under the wings, so both wings have to come off. The bottom bolts can only be accessed by taking the bumper and its mounting brackets off, as they are clearly put in from underneath using something very long before the bumper brackets are put in place. The unit will also not slide out with the bumper in place, because it's slightly bigger than the apertures in the bumper. I did not take the wings or the bumper off, through fear of what else would have to come off to get them off the car, opting instead to cut through the ends of the grill trim, break the (thankfully) plastic mountings off the old light unit, force it out and jam the new one in minus the lower mountings and a few plastic ribs shaved off. Over two and a half hours and a LOT of swearing and head scratching.

 

Horizontally mounted oil filter. So when you undo it, it pours its stinking black contents down the side of the block onto the top of the engine bay pan. And this was a good idea why?

 

Sealed auto gearbox. The fluid in an autobox is a bit like blood - it's critical, it doesn't last forever, and without it the box soon consumes itself. Now, if you knew this, and if you also knew that with regular fluid changes an auto box rarely fails, why would you not put a filler and a dipstick on one?

 

Battery under driver's seat. So, Renault, you decided that putting a box of concentrated sulphuric acid under the driver's seat was a good idea. And when I went to change the battery I noticed there was a little box next to it, almost touching, that had DANGER EXPLOSIVES written on it. Probably not an issue having explosives next to a plastic container of strong acid in real life and I'm sure it would never empty all over you if you were unfortunate enough to roll the car, but it sounds good when typed out

[Rod/b]

The VAG oil cooler that they fitted to just about everything for about 30 years. It rots out internally and blows oil into the coolant.

 

 

The first type? I bought one to use as a veg oil fuel heater, there's an adapter to fit them to M16 fuel filter heads. Water and fuel mixing in a diesel not for the best.

 

 

The one on the left.