Wheeler Dealers Citroen

[dennis thompson]

I like to watch Wheeler Dealers. Two Englishmen buy a used car, fix it up and sell it for a profit. I was watching a show where they bought a Citroen that was about 30 years old. They had to change the headlights.......to change a headlight you had to take off the fender! Wonder what the automotive engineer who designed this is doing now?

[Rich Engelhardt]

.to change a headlight you had to take off the fender!
Wasn't there an American muscle car that you had to pull the V8 engine to change the spark plugs?

[John Coloccia]

I like to watch Wheeler Dealers. Two Englishmen buy a used car, fix it up and sell it for a profit. I was watching a show where they bought a Citroen that was about 30 years old. They had to change the headlights.......to change a headlight you had to take off the fender! Wonder what the automotive engineer who designed this is doing now?

I'm guessing he's designing for Volvo. To change the right front blinker on my S60, you have disassemble and remove part of the washer reservoir.

So he's improving, at least.

[paul cottingham]

Wasn't there an American muscle car that you had to pull the V8 engine to change the spark plugs?
I don't know, but I had a Ford Aerostar where you practically had to remove the engine to change the plugs on the passenger side.

[Frederick Skelly]

Rich - Bet youre remembering the late 70s Chevy Monza with the V8. Buddy of mine bought one a while back. You had to loosen the motor mount and lift the engine. That was a ton of fun.
Fred

[Rich Engelhardt]

Fred,
I believe your right.

[jared herbert]

Rich - Bet youre remembering the late 70s Chevy Monza with the V8. Buddy of mine bought one a while back. You had to loosen the motor mount and lift the engine. That was a ton of fun.
Fred

I bought a 2005 f150 pickup. the dealer, a used car dealer that I trust a lot, said and I have heard this from other people, is that the spark plug bases are steel and the heads are aluminum. Very often when trying to replace a spark plug, the plug will twist off and about the only way to get the rest of the plug out is to pull the engine. He said it was not uncommon for plug changes to run up to $1000 because of this. His advice was to run it until it started missing really bad and then just replace the engine with a lower mile one from a junk yard. So far that has not happened to me, I have about 120k on the pickup and it is going fine. Jared

[Michael Dedon]

Changing the battery on a C4 Corvette (88-96) requires removing the left front quarter panel, or very careful flexing of the plastic they call the quarter panel. Either way, it's a minimum of seven screws to get it loose enough to move.

[Frank Drew]

...the spark plug bases are steel and the heads are aluminum. Very often when trying to replace a spark plug, the plug will twist off and about the only way to get the rest of the plug out is to pull the engine.

That happened to me when changing the plugs on a 4 cyl. Honda Accord; in that case, the head needed to come off. Very expensive fix.

[Chuck Wintle]

I like to watch Wheeler Dealers. Two Englishmen buy a used car, fix it up and sell it for a profit. I was watching a show where they bought a Citroen that was about 30 years old. They had to change the headlights.......to change a headlight you had to take off the fender! Wonder what the automotive engineer who designed this is doing now?

Citroen were always a mechanics nightmare..from the hydro-pneumatic suspension to the motor with the timing chain in the rear.

[Bill Huber]

My dad has a 1956 Imperial with a gas heater, it was great, warm air out the vents in 15 seconds, it was a factory install.

The problem was when you changed the oil and filter you had to remove the exhaust from the heater and to get it out you had to loosen a motor mount and jack the engine up.

[Jim Koepke]

Lot of poor car designs out there.

My experience with aluminum heads was that you do not let someone work on it if they do not know about over tightening things. Some people think they need to get things as tight as is humanly possible. This doesn't work well with aluminum threads or compression fittings.

A car dealer once told me that Ferdinand Porche was interned by the French and forced to help design a car for them. The person went on to explain this is why the Renault Dauphine was such a piece of junk.

jtk

[dennis thompson]

Changing the battery on a C4 Corvette (88-96) requires removing the left front quarter panel, or very careful flexing of the plastic they call the quarter panel. Either way, it's a minimum of seven screws to get it loose enough to move.
Given that I have a 1992 Corvette , I checked the service manual ,which I own , and this very disappointing information is correct! Anybody want to buy a very nice ,low mileage, 92 vette?

[Brian Elfert]

If you want hard to service items you should try owning a diesel pusher motorhome. I had to replace the radiator and it took two of us eight hours to get the radiator out. We had to remove all kinds of parts in the way of the radiator including the bumper. I'm pretty sure the factory must install the radiator before they install the engine.

I have had to replace the water pump and it is just as bad as the radiator. The water pump can't come out without removing the transmission cooler directly in front of the water pump. The transmission cooler is heavy and I have had to use a jack to remove and reinstall it. One also has to remove the intercooler to get at the water pump.