[craigss50]

Originally Posted by UnknownJinX

Just be glad it's not a German car, where you probably need to remove the heads of the engine to get to something, you need specialized tools and you have to reprogram the sensor with a special computer dealers have.

And no manufacturer will make their car that friendly to work on. There is the apparent "dealers gotta make money" thing but usually when you make these things more accessible, they also tend to be less space efficient. I have seen a friend's V6 engine bay. Not as crammed as the V8, you actually get quite a bit of room in front of the engine.

Sent from toaster or something

I'll never own another German car. They are ridiculous to work on. Needed to reprogram our BMW Z4 even when you changed a battery. I had the seats taken out to recover them and booth seat belt igniters had to be replaced to get rid of seal belt light. Then of course the BCM had to be reprogrammed. Loved the car, hated the engineering.

[Altered Carbon]

It's a nice and sunny 72°F day with the humidity in my area plummeting to only 10497%, so I took her out for a quick drive. Lit up the tires a time or 2. Wiped it of it sonax when I got back home. It was a pretty good morning

[UnknownJinX]

Originally Posted by craigss50

I'll never own another German car. They are ridiculous to work on. Needed to reprogram our BMW Z4 even when you changed a battery. I had the seats taken out to recover them and booth seat belt igniters had to be replaced to get rid of seal belt light. Then of course the BCM had to be reprogrammed. Loved the car, hated the engineering.

Then I am sure something Japanese will be good, like the Supra.

Oh wait...

Sent from toaster or something

[gtfoxy]

Weather was nice enough last couple days the wife & I went for a 1.5hr cruise yesterday & a 3hr tour today. Then it got a bath.

[garyboothe]

The changes were not today, but this past week-end, too many changes to do in one day:
- Changed the plastic knee bolsters to the black leather (doors and console)
- Changed the tail lights from the standard red to the clear/dark
- Changed the third brake from standard red to dark
- Changed the side markers to dark/smoked led
- Changed the rear diffuser red reflectors to dark/smoked
- Changed the reverse bulbs to led
- Changed the license plate bulbs to led
- Changed the head lights bulbs to led (including high beams)
- Changed the truck bulb to led
- Changed the engine air filter
- Changed the cabin air filter

The tail light change went smooth thanks to so many folks on this blog, all of the write ups and videos were a great help. Same for the third brake light and side marks. The biggest pain in the ass was replacing the diffuser reflectors, but with a little determination I got it. I love the garnet red, I get so many compliments on it. I love my car, sure hope the Camaro has a future with GM.

[3Putt]

Very nice!

[Altered Carbon]

Originally Posted by garyboothe

The changes were not today, but this past week-end, too many changes to do in one day:
- Changed the plastic knee bolsters to the black leather (doors and console)
- Changed the tail lights from the standard red to the clear/dark
- Changed the third brake from standard red to dark
- Changed the side markers to dark/smoked led
- Changed the rear diffuser red reflectors to dark/smoked
- Changed the reverse bulbs to led
- Changed the license plate bulbs to led
- Changed the head lights bulbs to led (including high beams)
- Changed the truck bulb to led
- Changed the engine air filter
- Changed the cabin air filter

The tail light change went smooth thanks to so many folks on this blog, all of the write ups and videos were a great help. Same for the third brake light and side marks. The biggest pain in the ass was replacing the diffuser reflectors, but with a little determination I got it. I love the garnet red, I get so many compliments on it. I love my car, sure hope the Camaro has a future with GM.

Looks awesome, man. Adding the smoked/black accents was a really nice touch. Some tinted headlights would make it look even more bad ass in my opinion. I know I love them on mine.

[cellsafemode]

Originally Posted by UnknownJinX

Just be glad it's not a German car, where you probably need to remove the heads of the engine to get to something, you need specialized tools and you have to reprogram the sensor with a special computer dealers have.

And no manufacturer will make their car that friendly to work on. There is the apparent "dealers gotta make money" thing but usually when you make these things more accessible, they also tend to be less space efficient. I have seen a friend's V6 engine bay. Not as crammed as the V8, you actually get quite a bit of room in front of the engine.

Sent from toaster or something

What's the point of space in front of the engine if you have to lean further over to reach anything at a height that is effectively above your waist? It's not like the outsides of the car can contract in to make any use of the more compact usage of space provided by wedging every damn thing on the V6 in places that make it impossible to get to without dismantling the entire thing.

i'm 6ft and I have to basically sit inside the engine bay to reach the engine bolts needed to remove things like the intake manifold. Empty space is only helpful if it's needed, otherwise it's space between you and where you need to reach ...which is not helpful. And when you take the design choices together, you have to wonder how intentional those choices were to just make it harder for you to access and service things.

Like the thermostat for instance, could easily have been mounted 5 inches away from the engine block at the exit of the housing instead of the intake of it ...making it easily servicable without having oil return lines and the engine heads making you bend your tools and cut your knuckles and almost no real change to how the hardware fits or what is required.

It might not require john deere "you only license the use of everything you buy, you dont own it" type of repair behavior ...which german cars tend to love... but that's been one of the reasons why people buy domestic vs import. Because you can actually work on a domestic car without jumping thru hoops. Or at least you could. It's just a bunch of anti-customer crap slowly seeping into cars over time so it's acceptable when they finally do go full john deere on us.


anyways. rant rant rant. I'm lucky i'm even able to sneak work on my car because i have a garage with this aparment. It's technically not allowed. The estimates for the labor for replacing a t-stat on a v6 camaro is over 500 bucks. 500+ for a thermostat. wtf. If that doesn't wreak of anti-customer design, i dont know what is.

I'm sure once we all go electric, they'll find some way to make servicing the much less complex electrical systems just as if not more expensive. Gotta keep increasing profits.

[UnknownJinX]

Originally Posted by cellsafemode

What's the point of space in front of the engine if you have to lean further over to reach anything at a height that is effectively above your waist? It's not like the outsides of the car can contract in to make any use of the more compact usage of space provided by wedging every damn thing on the V6 in places that make it impossible to get to without dismantling the entire thing.

i'm 6ft and I have to basically sit inside the engine bay to reach the engine bolts needed to remove things like the intake manifold. Empty space is only helpful if it's needed, otherwise it's space between you and where you need to reach ...which is not helpful. And when you take the design choices together, you have to wonder how intentional those choices were to just make it harder for you to access and service things.

Like the thermostat for instance, could easily have been mounted 5 inches away from the engine block at the exit of the housing instead of the intake of it ...making it easily servicable without having oil return lines and the engine heads making you bend your tools and cut your knuckles and almost no real change to how the hardware fits or what is required.

It might not require john deere "you only license the use of everything you buy, you dont own it" type of repair behavior ...which german cars tend to love... but that's been one of the reasons why people buy domestic vs import. Because you can actually work on a domestic car without jumping thru hoops. Or at least you could. It's just a bunch of anti-customer crap slowly seeping into cars over time so it's acceptable when they finally do go full john deere on us.


anyways. rant rant rant. I'm lucky i'm even able to sneak work on my car because i have a garage with this aparment. It's technically not allowed. The estimates for the labor for replacing a t-stat on a v6 camaro is over 500 bucks. 500+ for a thermostat. wtf. If that doesn't wreak of anti-customer design, i dont know what is.

I'm sure once we all go electric, they'll find some way to make servicing the much less complex electrical systems just as if not more expensive. Gotta keep increasing profits.

You gotta realize that the LGX also goes in Cadillac products, not just Chevy. Lots of profit to be had in the luxury segment, not to mention that people who own newer Cadillacs are less likely to service their own cars.

Also, putting the engine further back is good for weight distribution, so there are legitimate reasons for that. A lot of cars aim to put the engine as far back as possible so they can be an FMR car(with the whole engine behind the front axle). Then there is the fact that the engine bay is designed to accommodate the V8 engines. At least accessory belt change will be easier for you down the line.

For EVs, they can simply lock everything with a computer. Tesla is already doing it.

[Camaro_QC]

You have never seen the I4 engine bay. I could hide 2 bodies in there and not even the mechanics working on the engine would notice them...

[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by cellsafemode

What's the point of space in front of the engine if you have to lean further over to reach anything at a height that is effectively above your waist? ......

Originally Posted by UnknownJinX

......putting the engine further back is good for weight distribution, so there are legitimate reasons for that. A lot of cars aim to put the engine as far back as possible so they can be an FMR car(with the whole engine behind the front axle). Then there is the fact that the engine bay is designed to accommodate the V8 engines. At least accessory belt change will be easier for you down the line.

For EVs, they can simply lock everything with a computer. Tesla is already doing it.

And then there’s ped-pro. Pedestrian protection. Already a thing in Europe, so most German cars have this or some other design elements in place to meet per-pro regulations. If a car hits a pedestrian, the pedestrian’s head is less likely to slam onto the hood at the point where there is a solid cylinder block directly below the hood surface. Others have hoods that lift away from the engine area if the front bumper senses a collision.

[cellsafemode]

The engine has nothing to do with pedestrian protection. Only the frontend height and shape does. If you hit a pedestrian hard enough to crush in the front end of a car to the point where engine placement is a factor, you've killed the pedestrian anyway.

ped pro's point is to divert the ped when hit such that they're A. not run over. and B. their legs aren't immediately broken.... but all of that only really matters for low speed bumps.

[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by cellsafemode

The engine has nothing to do with pedestrian protection. Only the frontend height and shape does. If you hit a pedestrian hard enough to crush in the front end of a car to the point where engine placement is a factor, you've killed the pedestrian anyway.

ped pro's point is to divert the ped when hit such that they're A. not run over. and B. their legs aren't immediately broken.... but all of that only really matters for low speed bumps.

Sorry, totally disagree there. There is an element of ped pro that regulates the force at which the pedestrian’s head strikes the hood. Bumpers might break legs, but heads slamming into hoods with a solid engine block underneath crushes skulls.

During my time in Powertrain Planning at GM there were specific engines that we could not put in specific vehicles because the top of block clearance was insufficient to pass ped pro. I have absolute first-party hands-on experience with that. It’s also part of the reason some engine designs with Hot Vee were tossed. Putting the turbos up top got into the ped pro no-fly zone for the vehicles that were gonna get the engine. In retrospect, I suspect this is at least part of the reason Blackwing doesn’t go into CT5.

EDIT: Ironically, after I posted this comment, I had this meme pop up in another of my internet haunts.

[Orange ss]

Originally Posted by Martinjlm

Sorry, totally disagree there. There is an element of ped pro that regulates the force at which the pedestrian’s head strikes the hood. Bumpers might break legs, but heads slamming into hoods with a solid engine block underneath crushes skulls.

During my time in Powertrain Planning at GM there were specific engines that we could not put in specific vehicles because the top of block clearance was insufficient to pass ped pro. I have absolute first-party hands-on experience with that. It’s also part of the reason some engine designs with Hot Vee were tossed. Putting the turbos up top got into the ped pro no-fly zone for the vehicles that were gonna get the engine. In retrospect, I suspect this is at least part of the reason Blackwing doesn’t go into CT5.

EDIT: Ironically, after I posted this comment, I had this meme pop up in another of my internet haunts.

That image reminds me of Stephen Kings MR Mercedes