I agree. On some small cars changing a headlamp bulb is ridiculously hard! I think you’re supposed to keep a small child in the toolbox just to get hands in through the gaps. You know how cars have mpg ratings and crash test ratings? I think they should have a “bugger to work on” rating too. Everything is so tightly packed to keep the car small - It’s like one of those sliding wooden puzzles trying to work out how to get at things.
On my daughters Fiesta you have to take the inner wing out to change the bulb, an hour work for a 30 second job.
Same as you Facs....In fact panel beaters and sprayers must have made a pact with Beelzebub to do that stuff. Old school. pull sump plug.(with consequent risk of damaging sump, being squished, pulling back etc) "it gets all the sludge out"...no it doesen't.(anyone ever seen sludge out of a sump drain hole ?) That's why if you have ever dropped a sump there is sludge in bottom and it has to be scraped with a scraper to get it to move. New School. I have been using extracter for some time. It seems to pull everything out easily...Measured it.(some sumps are not ideal for this) Even if there is 2% residue, on 4.7 litres that's nowt. I usually halve the oil change intervals any way(plus new filer)...as the magic 10k-12k intervals are for specific conditions. Short runs etc will shorten them (particularly on diesels) Some new cars like Mercs and BMW have no sump plugs !!!!!.....(extraction used...on 80 grand cars !) That's my take on Tribilogy (word for the day). Always open to suggestions. Rs
Sorry was typing fast..it should be Tribology. Using the correct words for things on the forum seems to attract derision and ridicule and accusations of "you are making it up". So sad, nay melancholic ! cool No amount of oils or unguents (second word of the day ) can cure personality disorders or mental illness. I am unaware of this "friction". Suffice it to say I try to avoid reading any contibution for certain avatars. Copy and pasted .....(before some scrote suffering from coprolalia come along whining) 'Avatar derives from a Sanskrit word meaning "descent," and when it first appeared in English in the late 18th century, it referred to the descent of a deity to the earth - typically, the incarnation in earthly form of Vishnu or another Hindu deity.' Rs
Yes, do look back with nostalgia at some of the 'routine' jobs you could do on a car Tipped a mini on its side on cushions once to fit a new subframe, had ground valves in on an in-situ engine and was replacing valve springs when one pinged off and landed in the coal heap in the barn, friend of mine sauntered over, hands behind back, whistling, bent down and picked it up1 Unbelievable.
Hand ground valves, polishing ports, fettling twin choke webbers and setting the float with a drill bit. What a waste of my time....lol RS
On my car, I had to replace a brake/tail lamp last year. Job required a 12mm spanner and a large torx bit to take the whole tail light unit off the car to allow access to change the sodding bulb. Dunno how hard it would be to change the headlight lamps? Had a quick look at the spark plugs too, and it seems half the things on top of the engine have to come off to allow access to them. Looks like the jobs we used to think nothing of undertaking on a vehicle have become a thing of the past.
well even though it looks difficult, vehicle maintenance is still down to someone with the right tools. Manufacturers do a good job at putting Mr DIY off but it's still not that difficult to do virtually everything yourself
What you must remember is that cars are designed to be ..built...not repaired. And dealerships can quote serious money to do the simplest of jobs. Even if you have to buy a few specialist tools/bits..to do each job......its still cheaper than letting some monkey loose on a decent vehicle. Some years ago a monkey tried to tell me that the wear indicator on a brake pad was in fact an anti squeal device ! " I bin on a brake course mate". Also most vehicles are reasonably reliable and we tend to work on them less so we are less familair with the layouts etc. Rs
Good points, but brakes and oil aren’t about reliability - that’s just stuff that needs replacing because we live in a world where things degrade. Brakes, lights and oil should be within every able bodied man’s (maybe modern woman’s too[1]) skill set. [1] not sure about this. It seems like a hell of a trump card for our sex to throw away. If the missus learnt how to use a socket set then I’d have to learn how to use an iron.
Luckily, my missus wouldn’t know a socket set if she tripped over one. ( although I do know how to use a 3 - SW set of irons.
Is that a golf thing? I’ve played it a couple of times. It gave me a new metric unit of measurement - the milligolf. One milligolf is a thousandth of the level of frustration of playing golf. If a nut is in awkward, knuckle scraping position and you can get only an eighth of a turn on it and you have a lot of threads to tighten, that’s about 5 milligolfs. Soldering a component that’s nestled between heat sensitive components when you have the DTs? That’s about 8 milligolfs. The problem is the golf unit is too big, it’s like Teslas for magnetic flux density. You rarely find something frustrating enough to use a full “golf”. Hence most things are measured in micro or nano golfs.
What's an iron ? just got a rollocking from the mrs who is in granada...about bread in fridge. "apparently" she told me about it and i dont listen (to be fair i dont...) I will not even make a sandwich if she is not home...i will go hungry all day..rather than tackle cooking. She says surely you can do beans on toast....i say...dont have the recipe darling.... seriously. Rs
Yep, my missus can’t do boiled eggs. She lost the recipe. Seriously though, I’m on night shift at the moment. Today the missus had her gym ball class to go to at 4pm. Left me some bacon and eggs out to cook for myself. RS, what you gonna do if your wife has to go into hospital for a few weeks ? Takeaways or what ?
Hi JJ...people just wont believe I do not 'cook'. By 'cooking' I mean using dangerous appliances involving heat, light, ice, microwaves or sharp implements. Have you seen the accident stats on those things ? Also I dont like to modify natural foods. So if bacon is raw...that's how God intended it to be... and I am in no position to argue with him ! Tapas bars serve me well here. At home friends usually help out in times of real famine. I think you have made a spelling error in the post........so when your Mrs comes home all happy, exhaused and sweaty......it's from Jim Ball RS