Working On A Modern(ish) Car For The First Time Was An Utterly Infuriating Experience

My MkV VW Golf GTI may not be that new, but it’s the most modern car I’ve ever worked on. And my, does it make DIY mechanics tricky…
Working On A Modern(ish) Car For The First Time Was An Utterly Infuriating Experience

I’ve never been much of a home mechanic, but I’ve always tried to do simple jobs like oil changes and general servicing myself. It’s always been on older cars, though, like a 1986 Mercedes 190E 2.3-16, a 1992 VW Corrado and a 1990 BMW E30 318iS; 80s and 90s legends that are all easy peasy to spanner yourself. So, although my current car - a 2005 MkV VW Golf GTI - isn’t exactly a new motor, it’s by far the most modern I’ve worked on. And my god, was it a ridiculous faff to service.

Let’s start with the oil change. When shopping for all the necessary bits online, I was overjoyed to see the oil filter was an internal one. “Ah,” I thought; “it’ll take just a couple of minutes to change that, like the internal filter on my old Merc”. But no. The filter lives in a housing right underneath the engine, and you have to take off the sump guard just to get to it.

Then, you have to remove a drain plug cover - which was as good as seized after being overtightened, by the way - find that the drain plug is hopeless without the special VW tool you’re supposed to use, at which point you’ll probably just accept there’s going to be a slight mess as the remaining undrained oil in the filter housing splashes out. Drain plug cover out of the way, and you have to whip out a 36mm socket to remove the filter housing. Who has a 36mm socket? I certainly don’t, and had to buy one especially for the job.

Everything you have to take off to get to the air filter. And yes, I know my front offside wheel is in dire need of a refurb...
Everything you have to take off to get to the air filter. And yes, I know…

Traumatised by what was one of the most needlessly tricky oil changes I’ve ever had to do, I put off changing the air filter for another few weeks. The last time I changed an air filter it took about two minutes and involved popping open a little box, swapping the filter to a nice fresh one, and sticking the lid back on. Not so here. The filter is sealed within the engine cover, so you have to take the whole damn thing off, removing various plugs and pipes and carefully lift the assembly off a quartet of rubber grommets.

Then, you have to undo something like 12 screws and remove a heat shield thing to take the engine cover apart. When I reached this stage, I realised two things: one, the new air filter I’d been sent was the wrong shape, and two, the half-wit who’d last taken the engine cover off had broken it in several places, stripped several screw threads and tried to glue it all back together. The only way there would have been more swearing at that point is if Gordon Ramsey was walking past on a carpet made entirely of Lego bricks, while eating a disappointing soufflé.

Working On A Modern(ish) Car For The First Time Was An Utterly Infuriating Experience

Removing the engine cover is not easy, so I can see why it had been broken, but bodging it together and sticking it back in the engine bay rather than replacing it makes he or she a cretin of the highest order. Wherever you are, I hate you. Very much.

The engine cover being removed at least meant I could do something productive and change the spark plugs, but I’m now faced with doing the whole job again with a replacement airbox and the right filter.

I (mostly) enjoyed working on my older cars, but there was nothing fun about the work I had to do on my Golf. I’m sure not all modern-ish cars are as painful for the home mechanic, but with the amount of plastic tat you see under the bonnets of cars these days, they just aren’t going to be as easy to spanner as older motors.

What hellishly tricky modern-ish cars have you had the displeasure of working on?

Comments

Archive Aston (Aston Martin squad)
04/22/2017 - 09:19 |
378 | 0
Jakob

The car marques (with VW and Mercedes leading the way) are on purpose trying hard to make the engine gradually look as much like a blackbox as possible. For some things, it’s comprehensible - they quite understandably don’t want any idiot to mess with their ECU, or the electrics in general on that matter. But most importantly, they just want everybody to send their car to a certified dealership just so they can charge ludicrous amounts of money for simple jobs, which is just ridiculous. I’m just waiting for the moment when you need a special tool to change the wheels or fill up the windscreen washer fluid.
We have a 2010 Volvo V60 in our family - a great car, no question, but some day the CD player stopped working. And because the Volvo engineers are… well… special, I guess, the whole head unit is a part that only Volvo uses. To make it even better, you can’t buy that head unit anywhere, only Volvo dealers have access to them and you also need special tools to change it. Long story short, when the next service was due, we asked the Volvo dealer how much it would be to repair the CD player. The answer? They need to replace the whole head unit, for a modest price of 1000 €. A thousand bucks FOR A FREAKING CD PLAYER.

04/22/2017 - 09:23 |
90 | 2
Anton 3

In reply to by Jakob

That’s what I’ve experienced: OEM Volvo parts are extremly expensive. You can get, f.e. aftermarket brakes and save some money, but when you need a part that isn’t available on the aftermarket you better prepare yourself to rob a bank.

04/22/2017 - 09:36 |
12 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Jakob

They do it because people f*ck about with cars not really knowing what they are doing then complain about reliability really loudly, or the next person buys it and they suffer.

Now, more and more, the companies have their in house tuning company or contracts with people like Ford do with Mountune where they have mods that Ford approve and warranty.

They want to keep you spending money with them…

04/22/2017 - 10:20 |
24 | 4
Tomislav Celić

In reply to by Jakob

I understand the mechanic part. Sure they want you to pay expensive price. However I don’t understand why they hate tuning.

  1. If I want to ruin my car, it’s my car ffs I can do whatever I want
  2. It’s a good comertical
04/22/2017 - 12:23 |
16 | 0
TM95

In reply to by Jakob

vw already has it like that. You need a special, i think its socket it English, to change the wheels. Luckily not on every vw, but on the expensive ones

04/22/2017 - 13:03 |
6 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Jakob

That’s not bad… I was a parts driver for a Lexus dealer. I had to deliver a $15k nav/touch screen unit once. The screen was broken and the whole thing needed to be replaced.

04/22/2017 - 15:41 |
14 | 0
Ali Mahfooz

ChrisFix would be disappointed a lot if all his videos go to waste :/

04/22/2017 - 09:23 |
24 | 0
Roadster / Tail Red

Every petrolhead after reading this

04/22/2017 - 09:25 |
156 | 0
Anonymous

The plastic guards underneath do my head in. I tried leaving them off, but first bit of water and a belt starts slipping…

04/22/2017 - 10:20 |
2 | 0
P5 Ford

And i’m here laughing with my 50 year old ford where pretty much everything can be done with basic tools.

04/22/2017 - 10:26 |
34 | 2
Matt Robinson
Matt Robinson

In reply to by P5 Ford

DAMN YOU

04/22/2017 - 12:09 |
18 | 0

i got a 2004 Ford… it is still simple. they have some stupidities, like needing a key to open the bonnet (not anymore, i replaced that with a screwdriver, much more practical.) and also to open the fillercap.
I also have a 40year old Benz, and even though i love the machine, and it’s engineering is very clever, it is not as simple as my 30year younger Ford.

For example, i order a new wheelbearing for my Ford, i open the box, and inside is a wheelbearing.
Now you think, that is what you expect, and you would be right, however, when i order a wheelbearing for my 40 year old benz, i open the box, and lo and behold, there is not 1 part inside, no,no,no,no.no, there are like 5/6 parts inside, not, 1 but 2 bearings, abs-niggly-thingies, cover-plates, bwoaaah,..

So it very much depends on the car, this Benz was a marvel of technology at its time, and that comes wiht its own difficulties. (like having a startermotor tht is placed under the exitmanifold, in front of the firewall.. last time i actually took out half the exhaust to get there.. pftpfptfpt)

04/23/2017 - 11:56 |
2 | 0
Anonymous

Don’t buy cars. Ride an Uber. Save the environment.

04/22/2017 - 10:52 |
2 | 28
Evoist

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

04/22/2017 - 11:19 |
42 | 2
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

So what the hell are you doing here exactly?

04/22/2017 - 13:39 |
6 | 2
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

M8 here there’s only car guys. If you’re gonna talk about that “uber saves the environment s**t”, I think you’re at the wrong place.

04/22/2017 - 16:33 |
6 | 2
Anonymous

The only thing you can do engine wise from the top on a new 911 without taking off the rear clip, tail lights, fans, and spoiler is fill the oil and coolant

04/22/2017 - 11:05 |
4 | 0
imamutomo21

capitalisme…..

04/22/2017 - 11:28 |
0 | 0
prizrak

Its not modern cars it’s modern German cars, I used to have a B6 A4 and it was similarly horrendous to deal with. People I know who have to deal with BMWs have similar experiences. Yet my 05 350z, and 2011 mustang don’t have these issues at all, pretty straight forward. I mean you always run into packaging issue (like on my Subaru where spark plugs were a night mare) but outside of that Ze Germans seem to make the most bizarre choices

04/22/2017 - 12:27 |
10 | 4

Knew this comment would be here..

04/22/2017 - 15:33 |
0 | 0

German cars are engineered to try and stop backyard mechanics from messing with them. For a reason. Theres nothing worse then a car coming in for a repair that the customer has already attempted to fix.
Any respectable workshop will service a german just as easily and just as fast as any other vehicle.

As for subaru plugs, they are easy if you know what you’re doing. Took me 15 mins last time I did my gc8

04/25/2017 - 03:43 |
2 | 2

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