If you are in the mood to buy a Chevy Colorado

[dieselguy]

Think Twice! GMC Canyon the same. Bear in mind, I don't mind working on machinery ... I do it every day. My son's starter went out of his 06 Colorado pickup's inline 5 cylinder. You have to remove the intake manifold to get access to the starter! Lotsa stuff has to come off prior to removing the intake. The garage wanted 6 hours labor to replace the starter! You could have pushed me over with a feather. Why would any engineer design an engine with the starter hidden under the intake manifold? A starter is a commonly replaced item. Just venting here ...

[DQDick]

In the old days the car manufacturers must have had an engineer on staff to design the engine layout for maximum labor cost to keep the dealers staff busy. I had a 1970 Mustang that you had to put up on stand to change one spark plug on each side thru the wheel well. Guess those guy weren't laid off when the recession hit.

[Parts Ed]

Because they just design them, never have to actually work on them. If they did things might change abit....

At least that is what we say here at the dealership about the engineers that design the new vehicles.

[Bigboomer]

Remember the good old days when you could take the fan shroud off of a '70 Monte Carlo and stand in the engine well to work and when all you had to worry about was the gap on the points and plugs and how many degrees off of TDC you had to be to make that motor purr???

I still have my timing gun and meters!

But then again does anyone think that this generation knows what a open end or box wrench is?

[kab449]

Did you get a look at where they placed the thermostat and the procedure required to change it? I'm sure you will vent again when you have to change it.
Engineers design these things, they don't repair them.

[dieselguy]

Remember when some of us used to carry a spare set of points and a spare condenser to get you out of a pinch while on the road ... you won't even find a distributor to put them in now days. They are all electronic. Most have the coils mounted individually on top of the spark plug boot for each cylinder also. I had a 95 Ford pickup with a 460 in it. Unless you unplugged the SPOUT connector, the computer would fight you when you tried timing the engine.

[patbarton]

I saw this coming when GM replaced the Phillips head screws holding on trim parts with Torx screws...

[TAKPAK]

OK, just to clarify here.....there are two types of engineers! The first is the cynical, hard nosed, devious, insensitive, uncaring DESIGN engineers who figure out how it's all supposed to go together, no matter how. Then there are the poor, underpaid, overworked, understaffed MAINTENANCE engineers (I was one) that have to figure out how to take apart, get into, and repair the same pieces of equipment that the DESIGN engineers put together.

Do I have a strong opinion? Naaahhhhh.........!!!!

[HOOK]

Big boomer x 2

[Bigboomer]

TAKPAK is on the mark. Working in the high rise construction business for the last 33 years in NYC I have seen my share of "world changers". When we used to draft designs with a T square, compass, triangles and pencils things just seemed to fit better and rarely had to be remade. Now with AutoCAD and other computer generated drawings we find more and more issues that never cropped up before. We have draftsman who sit behind a desk all day, never have been in the field nor ever will be design things that look great on paper, fit like a glove and always mathematically work, but when you are sitting 40 to 60 stories in the air on a scaffold and that beautiful piece of glass that was suppsoed to go into its opening in 5 minutes takes all day, there is something wrong. And to top it the "design engineer" says but my calculations said it should go in.....@#!%&^*!

And you wonder why we are in a basket screaming down the highway to place none of us wants to go!

Pat is right....now it takes 2 hours to change a headlamp if you have the right tool and if not it will cost you $100 to take it to the dealer for a $12 bulb to fix....

[TLightning]

The Canyon and Colorado are at the top of the list...of the most unreliable vehicles and those in the shop most often.

[TAKPAK]

Pat is right....now it takes 2 hours to change a headlamp if you have the right tool and if not it will cost you $100 to take it to the dealer for a $12 bulb to fix....


Amen to that. Last year I had to replace the headlight (driver's side) on my 2008 GMC. I had to take the battery out on that side to even begin to get to it, then had to twist my hand/wrist into a most uncomfortable position, practically stand on my head (and hold tongue in proper position) before I finally was able to get the old bulb out and new one in. After all the scrapes and sore hand/back, maybe I should have paid the dealer to do it......!!!