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Cars or jobs you hate working on


sierraman

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Variation on an earlier thread but what jobs do you hate doing on a car or what cars always seem to piss you off working on?

 

Mines exhausts on driveways. An absolute swine of a job!

 

Car wise I always seem to end up cutting my fingers open in some shape or other on 2000’s Vauxhalls, the damned things always seem to be full of sharp edges on any given job I attempt.

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Stereo installs where everything has already been butchered by some numpty and you spend hours removing crimp terminals and figuring out what each wire does.

 

Also, replacing aerials where you need to course the cable all the way through the car, just put a sodding connector on the aerial end of the cable at the factory!

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Saab 900.

 

Much as I adored driving it, I always found it an awkward sod to work on where everything took at least four times longer than it should. The fact that it was so over engineered often being the cause.

 

Where a 10mm bolt would do, instead they'd use a 17mm one that was apparently tightened by Thor himself...and before half the car was added so you can't get a decent driver on to it to get some leverage on it. That and any electrical issues would immediately vanish as soon as I started trying to trace them.

 

Anything that involves taking bits of steering or suspension apart are thrown at my local garage now. They've got the proper tools, and at least if that critical bolt shears when they take it off, it's already on their ramp to be sorted, not immobilised on my driveway.

 

Oh...and trying to get into Lada heater boxes to get the fan motor out. Sodding awkward horrible job, and the spring clips always manage to ping off into some alternate dimension never to be seen again no matter how careful you are.

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Exhausts are generally a PITA IMO. Although this can vary hugely, ie: 20mins to replace the MX5 exhaust from the cat backwards to six hours to fit a full SS system to my 205. 

Also, Alfa V6 oil filters esp on the 156. 

 

And doing any job where someone has been and totally bodged/arsed it up big time so you not only have to do the job but rectify the fucking mess these losers have made and left.

Time required? Your original estimate for the job x3 (at least).

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Working on cars full stop. I keep it to an absolute minimum now.

 

I paid to have a clutch replaced a few days ago - I'm just not interested in doing that sort of thing anymore. It's easier for me to earn the money and pay someone else!

The days of driveway clutch jobs ended with Sierras and the 8v family 4 engined Cavaliers. I’ve no doubt there’s many that’s swapped Mondeo clutches on the driveway but it’s not for me thanks. Taking the weight of a heavy object pivoting perilously on a trolley jack that could fall on your bollocks at any moment is fucking hell. Better still laying with the sump inches from your face as you bench press 70 odd kilos to hold against the block at the same time as putting some greasy rusty bolts in, wife at the door telling you your tea is going cold... Fuck that for a laugh.

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Anything exhaust or suspension related just fills me with dread and almost always take more time and resources than I first expect.

 

 

A model-specific example would be the oil filter on the B5 Audi A4 I used to have. It was a 1.8T quattro, and for some reason the oil filter wasn't screwed into the engine block. It was on its own little remote mount at a weird angle pointed back towards the bulkhead. What a pig of a job that was. I ended up hammering a screwdriver through it and turning it that way, as I couldn't even get an oil filter wrench to sit on it properly.

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window winders , locks , anything to do with doors ......   

 

Great shout.

 

No matter how careful you are with doors, you always end up cutting either a hand, wrist or arm reaching around inside.

 

I hate doing clutches, but mostly down to not having the right equipment and doing them on my own, so getting gearboxes back in a huge PITA mostly involving several jacks.

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