I'd like to have 1 minute with..............

[Chris142]

The guy that designed the Nissan Quest van.

I had to replace a thermostat in one today. For starters you must work through a 3in by 5in hole. Theres no room to get the housing out.



It doesn't use a gasket just Silicon. Ya gotta scrape the old Silicon off while working through the hole. The stat sits verticle so that it won't stay in place while you put the housing on.

Gotta glue the stat in(It still falls out anyway) while you try to work through the tiny hole and line up the housing w/o knocking too much of the uncured Silicon off (which would mean a leak).

The stat goes in backwards! The bypass hose directs hot water onto it to make it open.

3.5 hrs of my time to replace a stinking thermostat! Add this car to the list of cars I will never own.


RARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

 

[moribundman]

Sounds like an adventure.

 

[Drew99GT]

Have a cold one Chris.

I may #@$%! about auto repair shops, but you guys have a darn hard job.

 

[Kunery]

The naked, utter contempt many manufacturers (not only of autos) have for their customers is truly awesome.

And yet -- just look at the mentality level of the advertising pitches used to sell those products to those consumers. The ads (using formulas which have been proved to work, obviously) are surely targeted to the mentality range from dull-normal to retarded. Not just for dimestore stuff -- for $25,000 products, in the case of cars!

How can manufacturers NOT have utter contempt for their customers? Look at what sells, and how it's sold, and who buys it.

A plague on all their houses.

 

[TooManyWheels]

Maybe the 'stat is part of a horrendously expensive assembly that they just expect you to replace whole

!

 

[Drew99GT]

And can be only purchased at a dealer.

 

[Chris142]

Quote:

---

Maybe the 'stat is part of a horrendously expensive assembly that they just expect you to replace whole

!

---

Ya it's connected to the engine!

 

[Shannow]

Chris142,
sounds like the guy who designed the Renault 16 (TL version).

Starter motor was located beneath the inlet/exhaust manifold. It was exposed to heat, and the solenoids used to fail regularly.

We (Dad and I) were doing the job one day, and decided that the pros migh have a better way than we could find (no manual).

Rang the local guys who had worked on the "production line" when the cars were brought to Oz CKD.

"We can get it disconnetec, but can only see two ways to get it out. Either we have to remove the steering rack, or we have to take the inlet and exhaust manifolds off."

Answer was "Yes"

Wheel alignment was a little interesting on them also.

 

[andyd]

My take on this is that most cars are built with ease of manufacturing being the prime directive. That a sub-system can be R+Red out of sequence with the assembly process is purely accidental.

 

[shortyb]

What year Quest? Mine is an 04 (new spaceship design) with the VQ35DE and the t-stat looks really easy to get at. Just looked at the ESM and it shows a gasket too. Now the coolant drain/flush/fill is alittle more involved since it has cooling lines running to the back for the rear heater core. Have to use a special flush/fill adapter that allows compresed air to evacuate the system while at the same time running the fill. Its weird looking and costs about $200. Just about twice what it would cost me to run it up to the dealer and have it done. Oh well, gotta love DIY PM.

 

[Kestas]

Yup... they probably save a couple bucks on the production line by designing an assembly that is easy to put together. After all, the guys on the line cost $50 an hour.

Your (or the mechanic's) time to repair it?.... they could care less. As long as warranty costs don't eat up the profits.

 

[CivicFan]

The vast majority of consumers do not consider ease of changing a thermostat when buying a new car. They care about the price, design, options, and brand name mostly. The moment the ease of thermostat change becomes a factor in decision making, it will be the easiest thing to do.

 

[Chris142]

Quote:

---

What year Quest?

---

2002

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

:OT:

Quote:

---

The naked, utter contempt many manufacturers (not only of autos) have for their customers is truly awesome.

---

Software makers are the same way. I decided not to renew a fax server license this year for my company. The yearly fee comes with support and upgrades. However, they're at the same version as last year! So that means I paid for "support" I never use and there are next to no new features in the most recent version that wasn't upgraded since the last yearly renewal.

It's easy to walk away from a fax server license, not so easy to walk away from a car that cost well over $15K.

 

[CivicFan]

Quote:

---

Software makers are the same way. I decided not to renew a fax server license this year for my company. The yearly fee comes with support and upgrades. However, they're at the same version as last year! So that means I paid for "support" I never use and there are next to no new features in the most recent version that wasn't upgraded since the last yearly renewal.

---

So you would have continued using the fax server software if they did even minor upgrades even though the software worked fine?

 

[carter]

If it were easy to get to there'd be some other eff'ing problem to contend with, e.g. the fill plug on my wife's explorer rear diff torqued to about 80000 ft-lbs. At least I tried to remove it before the drain plug...

 

[97f150]

I changed the plugs and wires on my 4.6 liter F150 yesterday. That was a fairly interesting undertaking, halfway through I was cussing myself for not taking it in to have that done. Well, the OEM plugs and wires lasted 208,000 miles, so maybe I wont have to do it again. After new plugs and wires with over 200k on the old ones, it was worth every bit of frustration.

 

[benjamming]

200,000 miles on the same set of spark plugs?!? That's pretty good for wires much less the plugs. What year is the PU?