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Automotive complaints department

Lutherf

DP Veteran
Joined
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Tucson, AZ
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One of the headlamps on my 2005 Maxda RX8 went out. It seems that the ballast went bad due to water leaking in. The simple fix is just putting in a whole new assembly. Unfortunately it looks like OEM parts will be roughly $600 and the lamp itself will be another hundred.

I sure miss the days when I could do a fix like this myself for $20 and 15 minutes.
 

I learned a valuable lesson about 40 years ago when I bought my first car, a nice little red Volkswagen Scirrocco - the dealer service manager told me that car companies design cars so that numerous parts wear out and need replacement on a regular basis, and often they are parts that are in hard to replace places - this is how car companies stay in business. If all cars were as reliable as stoves and fridges, etc., they'd all be out of business. It's why I dread looking for a new car because everything now has so much unnecessary communications and computer crap in them that they're just a never ending repair bill.
 
CanadaJohn said:
It's why I dread looking for a new car because everything now has so much unnecessary communications and computer crap in them that they're just a never ending repair bill.
Click to expand...

So true.
My F-250 is 12 years old and still runs great.
I could afford to buy something new, but the crap that seems to be standard equipment nowadays, just seems unnecessary.
More gadgets=more gadgets to malfunction.
 

I have a 2013 Chevy Tahoe. The battery died today (dead cell).

There were two structural brackets and a damned tank surrounding the battery. A typical "you can't get there from here" situation. It took dang near a whole tool box, four aspirin and three band-aids just to change my battery.

Next time? I'm paying someone to do it.

Oh yeah, my pastor showed up to visit my wife while I was in the driveway doing all this and I didn't hear him pull up (the dog let me down). As I let out a yell and told the engineer that designed this damn thing exactly what I thought about his work, my pastor from right behind me said... "You tell 'em." That was when I took the second two aspirins.
 

Hell, I took the brackets that hold the battery in place off as one of the first items of business. It sits in a tub so it's not going anywhere anyway.

I love driving the car but I pretty much need the manual and 2 free hours to do anything more than change the clock!

Simply changing a headlight bulb requires going in through the wheel well, unclipping something like 4 tiny springs that you can't see because you need both hands and can't get a flashlight in there and then making sure you don't snap anything important off. I think they need to take off the entire front body panel to replace the assembly.
 

:shock:

They sure don't want owners working on their own cars anymore do they lutherf? It sucks.
 

Frustrating isn't it.

And I wasn't taking about the clamps that hold the battery down. Take a look at this picture:

(L shaped flat bracket that goes over the top of the battery from the firewall to the side panel [in the very top of the pic] / Z shaped bracket bar that goes from the firewall down the side of the battery to the wheel well [in the foreground in the pic] / then the damned tank [not pictured in this pic but its there] just to the left in this picture of the positive post)

 

WTH!!??

No wonder you were giving the engineers a piece of your mind! That's ridiculous!
 

Greetings, CJ. :2wave:

Remember the good days when you could get any teenager to work on your car, and know it was going to be done right, or the man of the house knew enough to fix and replace things himself? Nowadays, they have to continually be attending training classes just to keep current, and the wage per hour that they command reflects that - especially in large dealerships. Most of the men I know do change their own oil, and replace headlights, etc, but places like Jiffy Lube manage to do a good business anyway, so either people don't want to take time, or they'd rather pay to have a mechanic do it. Computers in the new cars are a different problem, though, and a lot of people aren't comfortable messing with them, even with an owner's manual in hand, so I guess the new technology is a good thing, since it provides employment for many. :rock:
 

Cars used to use a standard headlight back in the day. They were cheap and could be replace by just about anybody. The only trick was making sure it lined up right so it pointed the light in the right direction

But then they got rid of one of those "pesky" regulations because it was keeping businesses from making money. Now, auto makers can design their own lamps, and charge you hundreds of dollars for a replacement

Good thing we got rid of that govt regulation. It was killing innovation.
 

Why not shop junk yards?
 

There was a regulation for the kind of headlights that could be used? I don't remember anything about that but I guess it could be.

From what I remember there were a few different options in either round or rectangle but I certainly could be wrong. At some point they started coming out with the halogen lamps which were a whole lot brighter and my car is using xenon which was another step up (the first time I turned them on was kind of a shock!).

One thing I have noticed is that there are now a WHOLE lot of options for stuff like this.
 
Lutherf said:
I just talked to the shop and that's what we're doing. Someone in Phoenix has a salvage assembly for $350.
Click to expand...

Yay!! Still expensive, but better than almost twice.
 

Yes, there was. I don't remember all the details of the standard, but they were all the same shape (round) and size, so one could be substituted for the other.

And they were cheap!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlamp#Headlamp_styling_in_the_United_States.2C_1940.E2.80.931983
 

sangha said:
Yes, there was. I don't remember all the details of the standard, but they were all the same shape (round) and size, so one could be substituted for the other.

And they were cheap!

Headlamp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Click to expand...
the sealed headlights had three specs that I know of prior to around 1976 they w
ere either two large diameter headlights or four smaller round headlights. I
around 76 the square ones were allowed
 

Headlights used to be required to be DOT approved sealed beam bulbs with the reflector and the element in one piece. The choices were either 2 or 4 bulbs and either rectangular or round. It did limit styling and they were not as bright as halogens but they were cheap and easy to replace. The good news is that LED headlights will soon be standard and they should last the lifetime of the car.
 
Lutherf said:
I just talked to the shop and that's what we're doing. Someone in Phoenix has a salvage assembly for $350.
Click to expand...

Hopefully they'll find a good one that'll last awhile. I did 3 transmission r&r's a few years back before they sent me a good one.
 
The center display unit of my new car (with <5000 miles) just crapped out. Fortunately it's covered by warranty. I hope this isn't the usual level of reliability of these units.
 

Buy a Corvette!!!!
 
rhinefire said:
Buy a Corvette!!!!
Click to expand...

What a good idea!!!
Around 15 years ago, I had an opportunity to buy a late 50's.... maybe 1960 Corvette.
Beautiful car....all original interior....I had the money but passed on the opportunity.:doh
Nowadays....I don't have the money...or the car....:boohoo:
 
AJiveMan said:
:shock:

They sure don't want owners working on their own cars anymore do they lutherf? It sucks.
Click to expand...
No lie. I quit working on cars long ago for that very reason. You'd damn near need to pull out the motor to access the spark plugs on my six cyl Ford--it's a 2004.

Heh, the last car I had that was easy to work on was a 72 Nova.
 
calamity said:
No lie. I quit working on cars long ago for that very reason. You'd damn near need to pull out the motor to access the spark plugs on my six cyl Ford--it's a 2004.

Heh, the last car I had that was easy to work on was a 72 Nova.
Click to expand...

'72, I liked the body style on the two door model. My friend dropped a 350 in his, and was it a screamer!

Hey, my dad had a Olds with a Chevy engine in it. We went to the auto store and bought spark plugs for it, after installing the new plugs, there was like a banging noise coming from within and then it began to misfire. ooooops! not an Olds engine! wrong spark plugs!

The newest car I worked on was a '91 Crown Vic, extreme headaches with the ecms. Haven't worked on anything new since about 1995, I quit!
 
Every time I look under the hood of a new vehicle I wonder where in the hell the engine is. Whatever is in there is covered by a shroud. What are they hiding and why are they hiding it? After over a century of automotive history, why has no one taken the initiative to label the major components? It would be nice if a fuel filter was labeled "Fuel Filter", for example. It would also be nice if something so fundamental didn't require a SnapOn truck's worth of tools to replace it.
 
I own a 2004 Dodge Ram 1500 and for reasons of all the new gadgets on new cars I plan to never sell it. I bought a 2013 5.0 Mustang last May and again because of all the new gadgets I had trouble getting one at all the Houston dealerships because I wanted one with nothing on it. I then tried the same idea with Camaros and got the same results. Back when you could order precisely what you want but now cars are sold in tiers like 1,2,3. You can get a stripped down version, tier one if you order it but you must order when they are taking orders which is very early on in the year or before the year. So now you are stuck, for instance if you want no frills but would like leather interior you must buy level two which includes many add-ons you do not want. So the days of "building" your own car are gone. After giving up on my idea finally a internet salesperson called me and said they found on Mustang in Mississippi so I had them trailer it to Houston. Final note, the car sales person don't know the first thing about cars now. It appears if you can walk and talk you can sell cars today.
 
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