Because this is the kind of shit he seems to deal with on a semi daily basis.
Even though he’s not a Chrysler/Jeep kinda guy.
Because they are ALL like this now and HAVE BEEN for the last thirty years, at least.
You can also be assured that I agree with every word this guy says.
Warning, there is real pissed off mechanic language here.
In which I am extremely fluent as you well know.
Because of shit like this.
BTW, he’s so mad that he keeps saying he can’t take the valve cover off when he means cylinder head.
The valve cover is up on top and easy to get off.
For some strange reason, even though I had the volume turned off, I distinctly heard “Oh you Mother (Copulator)!” and several other curses.
Just Kia & Chrysler? I believe they are all the same. Except of the Electric POS,
Yup. Kia Sorento POS I had. Nothing but problems with engine overheating. It was a 2009, so older but still POS 6 cyl engine.
Sold it a few months ago for 1000 bucks just so I wouldn’t have to look at it anymore.
Sentence Detroit executives to a lengthy period as mechanic’s off-siders for their crimes against humanity. Just execute the design engineers, or send them to clean up in Ohio.
I haven’t done as much wrenching on new stuff as I did when I was a kid working on 1960’s crap. But the new stuff? Loktite on everything. Dissimilar metals. Nuts practically welded onto studs. Aluminum engine blocks so you know that you’ll rip the threads out if you put enough torque on it. I learned to take a torch and heat the studs to red-fucking hot, let it cool a little, then take the nut off. I was either burning the loktite off or just expanding the metal enough to loosen it. Not sure which, but it seemed to work.
You can bet everything is engineered to a gnat’s ass for line assembly, in a certain order, by robots, to crank these out as fast as possible. Trying to work on them is not part of the design priority at all. When you have to pull a fender off to replace an alternator, you know those asshats must actively hate us.
Yeah I was laughing like a loon…until he showed the problem… how would ya deal with that? I can’t see an easy-out working there…
and adding to across-the-board ruination of producers, sellers, buyers and maintainers…
February 14, 2023
Report: Regular People Cannot Afford New Cars Anymore
The average monthly payment for a new car sold within the United States has reached a record $777, according to KBB’s parent Cox Automotive. That represents roughly one-sixth of the median household income and is about twice the price of what would have been considered average in 2019. How the hell has it managed to come to this?
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/cars/news-blog/report-regular-people-cannot-afford-new-cars-anymore-44499337
I have to say, I never used an impact on exhaust manifold bolts. Heat is your friend.
That was my first thought too, if he’s so GD experienced and has the same trouble with the manifold bolts/studs/nuts over and over it may be a means and methods problem. Heat ’em up first, come back after lunch.
As much as I feel his pain, he should work on heavy trucks and equipment. His Tourette’s episode here will look mild.
Me?
It happens
every
fukkin
day
Before I retired, I worked at a heavy equipment rental joint and the customer’s “It’s a rental, don’t be gentle” attitude could really f*ck stuff up, I had a soft spot for most of our mechanics especially the field service guys who were known to perform miracles from time to time on equipment that was down at a customer’s site. Hat’s off to ya!
I’m going to bet here that they screwed in those steel bolts in that aluminum head without any sort of treatment on them, let alone lock-tite, and now they are stuck forever.
I had a ’90 chevy caprice with the same issue where they bolted the thermostat housing onto the aluminum intake with steel, or worse – chinesium – bolts. Both snapped when I tried to take them off. Had to drill them out and tap in new threads.
I’ve had to struggle with sparkplugs where they did the same damn thing.
Gotta coat the threads – all of them.
Far as the rant goes – He’s mild compared to me. They don’t make these cars to be repaired. This is why I buy Toyota, almost exclusively now.
Love my Toyota truck. Damn just realized its 15 years old.
My Toyota truck is 37 years old. 1st gen. 1 ton, with a raging 97 horse power, RE22 engine. FULLY capable of exceeding 90 mph on a down hill, straight away with a tail wind. Has some patina. The one time I got pulled over for speeding (2 years ago), the Podunk, Tennessee cop let me go with a warning. Apparently, he didn’t want to be responsible for me being fined into starvation.
TM I went to Toyota from cheby because I kept seeing the old T100’s around. Still see one on occasion.
It’s all about speed and ease of assembly.
Maintenance, notsomuch.
Me, it’s an ’03 Suburban and an ’08 Silverado, both of which will outlast me and I’m not buying anything newer.
Chrysler/dodge. Worked at major auto finance corporation arm of a major auto corporation. I have a first hand experience about 6 Dodge trucks from the early nineties. Short of it, all brand new, all had same problem. At night going down the road all lights would go out but still running. A year later no recall had been issued just a technical bulletin to rip out the wiring harness behind the dash.
All were abandoned at dealer within first six months of ownership. Never have and never will own either of those two products.
The other two are as bad. They will all let you die before they pony up on lawsuits because it’s cheaper. Caveat Emptor
O. M. G.
1994 Dodge 3/4 ton with turbo diesel. Bought it brand new. Randomly I’d loss all dash instrumentation, headlights, etc. but the damned thing still ran like a tractor. Took it to the dealership multiple times, had a few screaming fits with local honchos there. They called in a factory rep. I threatened to sue if they didn’t either fix it or replace it. I even helpfully went into the shop and showed the mechanic how to troubleshoot electrical issues. I pointed to the exact spot in the god-awful wiring harness and told him “there’s a short right there in that section. Replace it and that’ll fix it”. Factory rep finally said replace it to make him happy. Fixed it right up, no more problems. Got married later that year, sold the truck to pay for the honeymoon. Such is life.
you were a lucky one Don the dumbass dealers and factory rep I dealt with were sorry sons a bitches. Long ago but I think my models years were 92 but maybe not.
It’s like trying to wrench on a model after the glue dries. Mine are a 95 F150 and a 99 Sub. On the deck for resto is a 65 F250. Soon…..
STxAR, ’65, first year twin I beam. Best design ever for bullet proof ruggedness. Same design all the way to 1979. The twin I Fords mostly ruled class 8 off road racing for decades, well passed ’79. They are I have a 1974, 460 cu. in F-350 and a 1979, 302 cu. in. F-100 step side, short bed, opposite ends of the spectrum.
’95, one of the last “good” years for Ford trucks.
The solution is simple, he said that the head has to come off. So break off the other bolts send the head to the machine shop have them drill out the bolts and charge the customer. Or as the service manager at the Volkswagen dealer said, “You buy ze shit, you eat ze shit.”
Haha, guess he hasn’t worked on a saltwater used marine engine. Steel head bolts into aluminum block, stainless steel bolts into aluminum & 10yrs in saltwater you may as well give up. All the heat & PB blaster ain’t gonna help.
Boy oh boy, Leigh, I feel for ya – I’ve been working on my Jeep (’03) Grand Cherokee with the 4.7 L V8. They have a nasty habit of dropping the Valve Seat after 100K miles, mine lasted 230K before it died.
I got LUCKY, I didn’t run the engine for very long (5 minutes…) so the piston wasn’t too terribly dinged. Less than .015 gouged into it. I gots pictures if’n y’all want to see it, but there’s plenty of horror shows on YouBoob about the problem.
TWO THOUSAND dollars in parts and machine shop work later, I’ll have it together. DANG, parts ain’t cheep anymore!! Good thing my labor is cheap!
Still and all, cheaper’n a NEW one, that’s probably built on a Wednesday!
But the stupid-assed places they put bolts and parts and wiring! It was a MAJOR headache to un-wire the top of the engine, then get the bloody valve covers off, much less the intake plenum and then the heads! Yeesh.
Got all the parts, now cleaning and reassembling everything. Finding parts for the year ’03 is a real fun job, as well. Had to go to Amazon, Ebay, Rock Auto, and PartsGeek to get almost everything I needed…
So, yeah, Leigh – I really DO feel your pain.
And being 70 years old, the wrenching is getting difficult. My back hurts and I have a bum tendon in my right shoulder. I’m slowing down, dangnabit.
“I have this horrible pain in all the diodes down my left side!” – Marvin the Paranoid Android, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Oh, I definitely get where he is coming from. I hate working on new shit. Replacing the right exhaust manifold on my father’s 2013 F150 was a four day ordeal.
Like Mobius and Matt, I was wondering if he even owns a cutting torch? Steel fasteners in aluminum anything is a recipe for disaster. Just as bad for exhaust fasteners on the y-pipe flanges.
I had to fix a F350, last weekend, that had one of the cats stolen out of it. I managed to get everything apart without breaking anything. I credit that with heating everything with the torch, BEFORE hitting it with the impact.
The same truck had a seized caliper pin, which came free with a generous application of oxy-acetylene as well. The frozen calipers? Well, they had to get replaced. Somethings, even a torch can’t fix.
Leigh
Whitehall, NY
A torch can fix ANYthing – because if heating it doesn’t work, you simply use the torch to cut it off.
“Blue-tipped wrench”
At least he has room to work on it after he bustes the rest off and gets the exhaust manifold out of the way. And it isn’t like he’s not getting paid for the extra time. But cussing about engineers stupid shit isn’t just confined to machanics.
Worst I ever worked on back in the day was a ’57 Willys Jeep. Just like this one, I had to get the manifold off to replace a blown exhaust gasket. Took me days with penetration oil, impact wrench in low, heating the nuts with a torch. Lather, rinse, repeat.
And then I had to custom make a new gasket because there WERE NO replacement parts available.
God times, good.times…
Bean, I think you should be commenting “birthing person”, I wish I’d thought of “copulator” as opposed to Fornucator
Three of the most hated words in an aircraft maintenance manual- “Gain access to…”