lithium14;2073353 said:
^ I don't think you understand how painful it was to read your post. Three misuses of 'there' and a bonus misuse of 'then'. God help us all. LOL
But yeah, most people who understand the cars etc, are also the ones who know that taking a car to the dealership for work is a very very bad idea. As a result there is a massive increase in home garage mechanics now. I read an article about it on the internet, it must be true! At least it's massive enough that major manufacturers are supposedly taking action to build the cars in such a way that a home mechanic is unable to do squat. By major manufacturers I mean the Germans. Again, shit that I read online, no idea if it holds any weight. Though TBH I never hear good things about BMW from fellow car folks.
I've never, ever seen any actual evidence of a manufacturer giving a crap about home mechanics, save obvious safety mechanisms (airbags, etc...). I've heard rumors for a decade now, but I don't believe any of it. "Honda installs their engines backwards just to make them harder to work on so you take it to the dealer more often!" When I worked at that Toyota dealership an M3 came in for some basic service. It belonged to a friend of a service writer or something. The techs refused to work on it because they didn't have the tools to remove any of the plastics in the engine bay. The "special" tools? Torx bit screws. Torx bit. That was it. The Toyota dealership techs refused service because of Torx bits. Oh god, something different! That's some stupid German, magic screw/bolt that only Germans can work on! /sarcasm. It shocked me to my core and made me realize the professional automotive world was not what I thought.
Another anecdote, a friend of mine in college worked at a lube shop. He's not a car guy, perse, but not completely ignorant. He had a Mercedes come in for an oil change. He did his normal thing and then went to check the oil level to confirm it was ok. Couldn't find the dipstick. Had another tech come over. Couldn't find it. They checked the owner's manual to find out there is no dipstick in that engine. The oil level was read through an electronic sensor within the on board computer. To me, this is an awesome, super owner friendly, feature. To him, though, this was evidence that Mercedes was the stupidest car company on the planet and how they were just trying to make it harder for regular people to work on their cars. To each his own, I guess.
As an engineer now, I design stuff all the time. With very few exceptions, I don't care if what I make can be easily serviced by someone with regular house hold tools. I'm going to design the best [thing] I can. If it requires a swiveling torx bit on a U-joint socket with an extension to repair a part, so be it. That fucker's going into the design if that's what's best for the function or aesthetics of the product. I think that happens with many non-American cars - more-so today than ever before. I'd be honestly amazed if Mercedes Benz or BMW made considerations for their EFI system based on how hard it would be for a home mechanic to fix it. They're going to choose the best part. If that means special tools are needed to change a normally "basic" sensor, then so be it.
Conversely, American manufacturers, for years, were making cars that were intentionally easy to work on. Tons of space, simple tools, etc... That's fine, but I want a better product more than I want a product I can easily repair. I want one that doesn't need repair as often or that is more capable.
