The whole thread, and no one mentioned the NA oil filter under the intake manifold? the few times I can bend my wrist to actually grip it, I usually burn the E36 M3 out of myself.
The heater core in early 90's tauruss comes to mind. Dash, passenger seat, half the interior just to get to it.
I guess I just haven't wrenched enough to come up with more problems. Although judging from the threads here, the whole Delorean body on frame setup is flawed and failure prone.
In reply to TGMF:
That must be a toyota v8 calling card. On the og 1uzfe, you have to remove the intake manifold to remove the starter.
My only contribution i can recall is early 90s toyotas and phillips head screws for valve covers and weak ass torque specs for head bolts on 7ms
keethrax wrote: I've bitched about it before, but will do so again, because it pisses me off every time. The hole in the panel under my mazdaspeed3 that has no relationship to the location of the oil filter. Presumably it lines up with the location for a different version of the 3. Having the remove said panel is annoying enough. Having that hole taunting me during the process is infuriating.
As a past owner of a 09 3 touring 5 speed with the 2.0 I can assure you that hole doesn't line up with the filter on that car at all
The GM 3.6L V6 in transverse applications, the oil filter is horizontally hanging off the front right next to the Bank 2 catalytic converter (Yes, on a 3.6L, Bank 2 is towards the front of the car) so you scorch your hand every time. Plus it spills oil every-freaking-where no matter how careful you are, so even after a thorough degreasing there's always oil left trapped somewhere and then the customer comes back the next day complaining about an oil leak.
Actually everything about that engine is poorly designed and the new Gen 2 3.6L coming out this year is even worse.
A couple from my Defender, which I sometimes miss.
Not putting a key hole for the lock mechanism on the rear door in the hard tops. You can only lock/unlock from the inside, while the door is closed, and it wasn't power locks. Which means you have to crawl all the way through the truck to get to it. Not easy if your carrying anything.
The 'voltage smoother' in the temp sensors that basically trick the gauge into reading normal temp whenever it's running hot.
An oil cooler line that puts a hard turn of a rubber line only 3/4" from the exhaust manifold. Lots of engine fires in these trucks, most of them total losses.
as an engineer that has done automotive stuff I will tell you the biggest reasons most of theses problems exist are costs, time, manufacturing packaging, and team designs.
Costs and time are obvious but vehicles are built sub-system style now and then assembled into various other subsystems then go to final assembly. Most of this stuff is people trying to take off of assembly A when it has already gone through A, B, C assembly steps, through 2 different vendors.
Finally team designs. Each teams designs component packages and then submits them to the final unit. The maintenance access points are not communicated to the team that is design the pieces that interfere.
We design for servicing, but this isn't a locost. All your points are valid except that one. No one bats a 1000 when when you are up 50% of the time.
Who decided to make the windows in wagons rear hatch fixed? The fact that I can open the rear window instead of the whole hatch is one of my favorite thing about my E46 wagon. When we were shopping for my wife's new one... no one has that anymore. It's a vanished feature.
Seems like this should be added to the thread in case BMW's engineering team haven't gotten enough nut kicks
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/smoky-bmws/117870/page1/
After this morning, the designers of my air compressor. Needed a new regulator...ok I'll unscrew this one, screw a new one on and be done. NOPE. Apparently the air moving parts are put on before the frame and tanks, so you have to dismantle the whole thing to unscrew and replace the regulator. Should have just bought a new one
Toyota engineers who didn't put a fill port or dipstick on my 2005 sequoia (earlier models had it, but they decided to make it "lifetime")
The people who design plastic clips for underbody stuff that always break after the first time you remove them.
Subaru engineers responsible for the front clip attachment 08+ cars. I mean, it's a rally-bred car whose front clip pops off if you give it a mean look.
Subaru spark plugs
All engineers who designed British cars in the 1960s and 1970s (I mean I doubt they were even real engineers lol.)
Just about anything in the PT cruisers engine bay.
Lately I have been cursing the plastic clutch pedal, on the RL Ion, with a plastic ball as the part that receives the movement from the clutch master cylinder. The plastic ball wears out and the metal shaft it's molded to punches a hole in the plastic brake pedal. At this point the to replace the two cost saving parts requires something like $300 for the pedal (if you can even find one) and another $100 something for the clutch master cylinder. And of course neither part was designed to be serviced so pull the drivers seat, the dash the other pedals...Then the clutch and brake fluid systems share the same tank. all to save 5 cents in metal hardware at the friction points.
The coolant expansion tank has it's fluid level sensor integrated with the tank. So one must replace the tank to get the dummy light off or short the circuit
All the fluid systems ( other brands too) that "only" need 100,000 miles or are "lifetime" fluid changes 
You want to talk about some nasty looking glittery gear/trans oil...
Oh and anything behind the engine bay fuse box is a mess. Still haven't looked at how to get it all the wires and crap out.
Is there a character limit per post? I can keep going
irish44j wrote: Subaru engineers responsible for the front clip attachment 08+ cars. I mean, it's a rally-bred car whose front clip pops off if you give it a mean look.
No kidding. I hit a raccoon with my WRX and it nearly took off the entire front end of the car. I stillhave the bumper cover, part of the undertray and an inner wheel well liner attached with zip ties 4 years later. I found all 6 or 7 parts that separated from the car, but later lost the tow hook cover and one of the faux brake cooling ducts having fun on an unplowed road with lots of snow.
Trans_Maro wrote:Will wrote: Automatic transmission pans that don't have a drain plug deserve a mention, but that's really an accounting fail, not an engineering fail.Not really, there's no service that can be performed on an automatic that doesn't require dropping the pan. That's why there's no drain plug.
Yes really 
just because the pan needs to come off to change the filter shouldn't mean I need to dump fluid from the entire perimeter of the oil pan. If all the fluid was contained within the pan that would be another story, but it's not...
Then if you have a chrysler minivan/ pt trans you have to pull that same stupid oil pan 10x because of the never-ending drip across the gasket seal surface from the torque converter (I know 3 weeks+ wasn't enough for sure). This surface needing to be clean on a sub atomic level for the RTV to maybe dry ( depending on the day of the week, the humidity, temperature, the gravitational fields of other planets in our galaxy...)
Center dashboard vents on a Chevy Volt. To replace it the whole dashpad has to come off because it screws in from the back side (instead of using plastic clips). To remove the dashpad involves removing the entire floor console and even the rear seats.
The only 2 I can think of right now beside everything on a GM product is:
Honda, uses bolts on the bottom of cooling fans that you can't get to the back of to spray. The bolts were already rounded off so I had to melt the old radiator to get it off the fans. I found out most mechanics cut off the upper radiator support and weld it back on when done. I believe everyone else uses pins on the bottom.
Ford surprised me, I thought they stayed pretty stupid free on their cars. The Focus has the fuse for the power locks on the back side of the fuse box. You have to drop the box to change the fuse. I will be extending it when I get around to changing the fuse.
Honda K series starter placement. I have yet to see the damn thing, but the internet tells me it is accessed by removing the intake manifold. Never been happier to have it towed to the dealer for replacement while on vacation.
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