Stupid Design!

[Bret]

Here’s another one of those annoying design features that make you ask “what the heck where they drinking the day they thought this one up”.

Ok here is what I got: Yesterday on my way home the 5.4L engine on my 2001 F-150 Super Crew started leaking coolant. It all started innocently enough with a slight whiff of anti-freeze then as I was pulling into the drive steam started emitting from under the hood and lots of fluid pouring from under the truck. With my trusty flashlight the fluid seemed to be coming out from the rear of the engine, just above the transmission bell housing. I naturally figured it was more than likely one of the heater hose lines burst open, but because it was dark by this time I gave up looking, figuring I’d have better luck finding the leak in daylight. The only good news is that I kept one eyeball on the temp gauge it didn’t get into the red zone but it got close.

The next morning even with proper light I still couldn’t locate the source of the leak. But I decided to crack open my handy haynes manual to see what was involved with replacing the heater lines. Well I was floored & horrified to find that to get at one of the lines I have to teardown the engine & completely remove the manifold to get at one of the hoses.

Now why would someone put a hose (a consumable component) in such an inaccessible location? As a formally trained engineer, again I have to ask – “What the heck where they drinking the day they thought this one up?”

Boneheads!

Now I was considering traiding in my 01 truck for one of the newer F-150s. But I might have to re-consider that if it has the same thing. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nonod.gif

 

[Eric]

I've run into many items on modern vehicles that were clearly assembled onto the engine, then the engine was inserted into the vehicle. Precisely zero thought goes into servicabilty. The only criterion used I suspect is low assembly cost. The average consumer will be much swayed by low cost and never give any thought to what it will be like to fix. Very few people fix anything anymore, and if the engine has to come out to fix a hose, they'll mutter and gripe, then pay. Besides, typically the person paying for the new vehicle won't be the one paying for the hose repair. That will be the second owner.

In my experience, Ford is particularly bad for this. In some Ford trucks, you need to drop the rear suspension to replace the fuel pump. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif

 

[Deleted member 3577]

For over 100 years ford has been building trucks. I think they peaked with the F-100. Everything after 1973 has been downhill. My Stepfather's second engine is on it's way out on the F-150( 75,ooo miles ) & the windows won't roll up or down without great force. I'm 5'8 and I have to move the seat back otherwise the handle hits (DUMB) The check engine light has been on since he bought it. ( He got tired of taking it back and they pass it every year rather than fix it )

 

[Steve]

And some people bellyache about the design of LBCs! I have seen some pointless setups on certain modern vehicles. It's almost as if it's deliberate. Because modern cars are so (comparatively) reliable, maybe they have to complicate them deliberately so that dealerships will still be able to make money. I'm not really a conspiracy theorist, honest!

 

[Paul Johnson]

The design engineers compete to see who can come up with the least serviceable item. The winner for each new model gets an extra week's vacation. The fellow who did your heater hose was retired with full pay.

 

[Guest]

And they say the modern Ford modular motors are the best yet. I'm a Ford diehard, my veins bleed Ford blue, but I'd still rather have a nice Windsor based 289, 302, or 351 anyday. You could have changed a heater hose on one of those in about 2 minutes. I also find it shocking that there isn't more room to work in there. The engine bays on a pickup should be pretty big, and the mod motors aren't all that dimensionally large, so they must really have the rest of the space in there packed with crap. I pray I never have to do anything extensive on the mill in my new Subie. It took me about an hour to get the last two sparkplugs in on my wifes Jeep Grand Cherokee with the 4.7 liter V8. The two rearmost plugs, and the entire rear of the engine, is buried back up under the cowl.

 

[Bret]

Ok, I’ve always been a Ford guy – heck even got my butt kicked a couple of times in high school (25+ years ago) just because I was a loyal blue oval fan. But not counting the old Fords in my family the best truck I’ve ever owned was my plain-Jane 1995 F-150 XL short bed with it’s extremely torquey 4.9L inline 6cyl. Even being a modern layout with all its emissions & EFI equipment under the hood – it was a simple & easy truck to work on. Duel fuel tanks was cool too. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

But no matter what - you should never have to pull off the intake manifold and all that that involves, just replacing a stupid hose.

 

[Bruce Bowker]

I have a Ford Focus which has now blown the electric door locks fuse twice. Is the fuse in the accessible fuse box? No it is hidden somewhere behind all the other fuses and takes about one hour to remove all the stuff to get to it.

Seriously, any Ford people out there who know exactly where that fuse is? Had the dealer fix it the first time but this time I will attempt it if I can get some information on how to do it.

Bruce

 

[Bret]

[ QUOTE ]
The design engineers compete to see who can come up with the least serviceable item. The winner for each new model gets an extra week's vacation. The fellow who did your heater hose was retired with full pay.

[/ QUOTE ]

Full pay eh? Thats funny. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Anyway, having worked in the design environment myself, you always try to keep serviceability in mind. However I lost count of how many good designs fell victim to bean counter & their projected profitability margins.

While working in engineering development back in the mid-90s one of the jobs I was tasked with, was the layout & packaging of several sub assemblies for some medical x-ray systems. (In case any body wants to know they where high/low speed Anode controllers) Anyway besides performance of the subassemblies and incorporating them into the system – I always tried to lay out the packaging with the service engineer in mind and tried whenever possible to make it so all the components could be removed & replacement (R&R) with minimum effort.

However in almost every case when we thought we had a final product design ready to go into production – it was shot down. In my example above they wanted the packaging to be smaller. In the end I think we gave them about a half inch but – I know for a fact that many service engineers cursed my name because of what was involved to work on that system.

This is probably why I am so much harder on design engineers than most folks.

 

[RomanH]

Ford does not have the market cornered when it comes to stupidity!
I have an '01 Passat and if I ever met any of these German rocket scientists I swear I would hit them!
It takes an hour and a half to change the air filter on this car since you have to remove a bunch of hoses and wiring before you can evan access the air filter box! Also to replace the cabin air filter you have to remove the windshield wipers and the cowl cover!
The best example of ultimate unservicability in this car is all of the light bulbs. The owners manual advises that if you need to replace a burned out lamp that since many interior panels must be removed it is best to take the car to the dealer for them to replace the bulbs!
Yea, right, I'm not going to pay $90.00 an hour labor rates to have a brake light changed!!!
This is all nonscense to have to jump through hoops to get at normal service items!
I would love to force the designers of these advanced vehicles to perform all of the routine maintenance on them. Maybe then we would get some better cars and trucks!!

 

[78Z]

[ QUOTE ]
I also find it shocking that there isn't more room to work in there. The engine bays on a pickup should be pretty big, and the mod motors aren't all that dimensionally large, so they must really have the rest of the space in there packed with crap.

[/ QUOTE ]

actually they are pretty large. The DOHC is way bigger than even the big block of the 60s.

 

[Banjo]

Some of my favorites at the Toyota garage are,
You have to remove the headlight assembly to change the bulb on the most recent body style Celica.. The kicker is you have to remove the entire bumper cover (essentially the whole front end of the car) to get to one bolt on the bottom of the headlight assembly to get it out.
Another is on a 4wd Rav 4. There is a VSV or vacuume switching valve on the back side of the engine just above the CV shaft. You can't see it, and you can only reach it if your left arm has two elbows and 10" long fingers. Now how am I supposed to change that part?! By the time I'm done doing that job I need skin grafts to replace all the skin I left on the sharp edges of the sub-frame and heat shields .
The reason we never meet auto engineers is because they know thier lives would be in danger.
All that said I think Toyotas are, in genreal, one of the better cars I've worked on over the years. A lot of things are pretty well thought out.
P.S. Toyota uses that same Heater line under the intake setup. but ours is a metal tube when it's there (those fail too) And I agree.. That's pretty stupid.

 

[Paul Johnson]

Bruce, not to hijack this thread, but Focus info is at
www.myfordfocus.com and also www.focusfanatics.com
Good luck with your search.

 

[Guest]

[ QUOTE ]
actually they are pretty large. The DOHC is way bigger than even the big block of the 60s.


[/ QUOTE ]

The block itself looks roughly the same size as an FE motor to me, at least from that front view, but those heads are enormous. His truck is running the SOHC heads though, and from what I understand they're somewhat smaller than the dual cam heads. I thought in the 03/04 Cobras they had to hack up quite a bit of the Mustangs engine bay to get those monsters to fit in where the SOHC motor normally sat. But this is in a pickup, not a Mustang, I just would have thought there would have been more room in there. Cool picture though, is there a swap going on there?

 

[Bret]

Ok here is what I have to remove. Looking closly you can barely see the engine and to get at the manifold all of that has to be removed. What a mess!

Another thing you'll notice is how the engine is tucked back into the engine bay almost a foot. According to the service manager at the local Ford dealership this was done to better work with the overall design layout of the truck.

 

[sparkydave]

Let's not forget that the company sometimes known as General Maintenance has some great designs too. The 2.5 liter 4 in our Pontiac 6000 would regularly wear out the idler pulley bushing every 30,000 miles or so, thanks to this cheap plastic bushing they put in. Once it wore out the arm would get crooked and make the belt rub against the engine block. But could they sell you the easily replaceable $0.50 bushing? Heck no. They had to sell you the $140 idler pulley assembly which also had the power steering pump mount, and formed the front cover of the engine cooling passages. What was scary is they knew they failed regularly when they didn't have to look up the part number and just grabbed one out of the stack of a dozen boxes at the dealer. And the replacement lasted just as long.

 

[jessebogan]

Heater hose under the manifold eh? That guy was a rank amature. I was reading some stuff on a Ford Technician web site, and hit the big mama of really poor design. Evidently, on Navigators and Expeditions, to perform some sort of engine repairs, the body has to be removed from the frame. Just imagine the service writer trying to explain that to some poor customer that is still making payments on that pig. It takes two technicians, slings and many,many hours, and then you still need to fix whatever was broken in the first place. The fellow that came up with that is the guy that was retired with full pay.

 

[sammyb]

Bret,
I know you're a Ford fan, but after hanging out at my friends' shop over the last three years, I can honestly say that Ford now builds their cars and trucks to be hard to repair. It keeps their dealers in business!!!

Across the board, almost every part and service for a Ford is more expensive than a Chevy. Try replacing a heater core in a Ford!

 

[AngliaGT]

I remember when I went to Ford's 100th bash in
Dearborn in 2003 (I'm,or was,a diehard Ford fan).
I had an oppertunity to drive at the proving grounds.
Afterwards,I was talking to one of the engineers.I kind
of tuned him out when he told me that there were "no -
- problems with the Taurus".
Having owned a '90 Taurus wagon,I can tell you that
there were LOTS of problems with this car.I was lucky
enough to transfer the extended warranty for $35.When
the defroster tape started to pull away from the rear window,they replaced it.I was told the replacement window
retailed for $1200!
I bought this car from an estate sale ($1000 under low book),& sold it for $200 less 2 years later.
Also,you can tell that it's a Ford coming towards you
by the noise from the power steering pump.My '78 Fairmont
had the same pump as the Taurus.You'd think that theye'd
come up with a replacement, but I guess it was cheaper to
keep putting out the same junk.

- Doug

 

[DrEntropy]

AS a former Porsche-Audi wrench and a life-long LBC owner/enthusiast I add my tuppence-worth:

We're being sold more and more absolute junk; bit/byte controlled vehicles to force money generation throughout the lifetime of the unit for the dealerships. The hoods should have the disclamer: "No User Serviceable Parts Inside" any day now. I've rebelled for years by owning and maintaining used vehicles only (read: simple). The parts availability for the vehicle will be the purchase determinant from here on, but the choices are dwindling. Case in point: a friend has recently bought a '93 Geo Metro (cheap) and the driver's door handle broke within a week. The handle assembly is cheesy-cheap (plastic) but was $70 from a Suzi shop (the local Chevy dealer somehow wasn't able to find one without a week's wait). They're all about the same, but I'll agree with banjo: Toyota seems least offensive/most well put together so far. The younger generation are in for a rough time on many levels, not just vehicle ownership. This paradigm is not limited to cars: Take a peek at the "serviceability" of any new household appliance for confirmation.