Late last night a good friend called and said his wife was stranded at work and her car wouldn't start. He wasn't in the area so I headed over. I arrived and found it had a little power but not enough so I used my Noco jump pack and jumped it.
I gave her my family's spare car (2012 Rav4) and brought her Journey back to my house, charged it up, ran a battery test and as expected it was toast.

He's not mechanically inclined so this morning I jacked it up, pulled the wheel/tire, removed the wheel well liner and finally removed the battery. Some on youtube said you have to remove the front bumper for this job but I did it with the bumper on, just more of a pain in the rear. Of course, thanks to the location, everything was rusted up. Took some time but got the job done and put some new terminal connections on, then put a grease coating over things to prevent future rust. Now I'm sitting here thinking how I'd like to pummel the engineer that decided to put it there.

On a positive note I did stand at attention and give the old battery a salute. Why? Thing was made in October 2016 and finally gave up. 7 years and 4 months is unheard of in a battery these days (well at least in my area of the country it is).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sigarms229,

You should really edit you thread title.
You’ve been here way too long to not know better.

Neighbor had one of these, hilarious seeing his reaction to the battery location when it went south.

If you want more fun find a friend with a 05 Cadillac CTS or STS and go to change a headlight bulb.

quote:

7 years and 4 months is unheard of in a battery these days (well at least in my area of the country it is).

I'm probably going to jinx myself for mentioning this but my 2013 Tundra is still running on the OEM battery.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Neighbor had one of these, hilarious seeing his reaction to the battery location when it went south.

If you want more fun find a friend with a 05 Cadillac CTS or STS and go to change a headlight bulb.

Any CTS……

quote:

Originally posted by shovelhead:

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Neighbor had one of these, hilarious seeing his reaction to the battery location when it went south.

If you want more fun find a friend with a 05 Cadillac CTS or STS and go to change a headlight bulb.

Any CTS……

Yeah, but any gripes about replacing the water pump on a Northstar V8?

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:

quote:

7 years and 4 months is unheard of in a battery these days (well at least in my area of the country it is).

I'm probably going to jinx myself for mentioning this but my 2013 Tundra is still running on the OEM battery.

Good so far, The battery in my Dodge was installed in November of 2011. I don't think it is still under warranty...

^^^^^^^

Yeah the water pump design was brilliant, like the starter location on the Deathstar, I mean Northstar. And let’s not forget the attachment of said water pump.

I saw a lot of brilliant designs out of GM, like the late 60’s Buick Electra 225 that to replace a tail light bulb you had to drop the rear bumper.

Working in dealerships I used to say GM Engineering was an oxymoron.

Water pump on a 2009 Ford Flex at 85,000 miles... $1,500. Takes two days of labor, well the Ford manual says 15 hours.

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:

quote:

7 years and 4 months is unheard of in a battery these days (well at least in my area of the country it is).

I'm probably going to jinx myself for mentioning this but my 2013 Tundra is still running on the OEM battery.

You probably have a made in japan battery. Unavailable to purchase in US. My 2008 Highlander's oem battery went 9 years so when it went, i figured id buy the same one. No luck.

quote:

You should really edit you thread title.
You’ve been here way too long to not know better.

As Sgt Hulka said in Stripes "Lighten up Francis".

Alas I don't want to hurt any feelings so I will remove the funny characters.

I believe they are ok in the thread so &*@#$%()! to Chrysler Engineers.

quote:

Originally posted by sigarms229:

quote:

You should really edit you thread title.
You’ve been here way too long to not know better.

As Sgt Hulka said in Stripes "Lighten up Francis". I've never seen characters being an issue here. I didn't use profanity in the thread title. I used funny characters.

"Funny characters" are specifically prohibited by Parabellum's directive. How about you read up on the rules before getting snarky with someone trying to help you.

https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...0601935/m/8191014801

quote:

Originally posted by sigarms229:

quote:

You should really edit you thread title.
You’ve been here way too long to not know better.

As Sgt Hulka said in Stripes "Lighten up Francis".

Alas I don't want to hurt any feelings so I will remove the funny characters.

I believe they are ok in the thread so &*@#$%()! to Chrysler Engineers.

Sorry, I was just trying to help you not do what Para has specifically said not to do.

I'll lighten up and leave to your business.

quote:

"Funny characters" are specifically prohibited by Parabellum's directive.

Ok, that's a change from what I recall. I recall it being you couldn't post an obvious word with a few omitted characters. For example you couldn't post "A$$" but you could post "$%^". I admit that I should have brushed up on the rules before posting but at the same time I could have done without the "you've been here way to long to not know better". So when someone gets snarky with me, I tend to give it back.

Now can we get back to hating Chrysler engineers, or even other auto engineers that design things in a stupid way?

quote:

I was just trying to help you not do what Para has specifically said not to do

I'll apologize to you to. Honestly it was your comment about being here too long that struck a nerve. Even though I've been here awhile I don't claim to know it all. Had you said "Hey, Para doesn't allow....." and I wouldn't have been snarky about it.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Yeah, a battery should be accessible, change out, jump, whatever. If looking at a vehicle & I knew it was hard to get at, I’d pass.

There should be some consideration, especially lighter, routine maintenance.

Somewhat related, years ago I bought a GMC pickup, at the time the only way to turn the auto headlights off was to set the parking brake. With the 1st survey I told them there are times when you want the engine going, maybe moving, with the headlights off. I was referring to hunting and similar activities.

With newer trucks(17), one can turn the lights off if desired.

quote:

Water pump on a 2009 Ford Flex at 85,000 miles... $1,500. Takes two days of labor, well the Ford manual says 15 hours.

3.5L V6? Water pump driven by the timing chain? Total screw up by Ford. My daughter's Explorer has the same motor, can't wait for that bill when it needs done.

quote:

Originally posted by sigarms229:

quote:

Water pump on a 2009 Ford Flex at 85,000 miles... $1,500. Takes two days of labor, well the Ford manual says 15 hours.

3.5L V6? Water pump driven by the timing chain? Total screw up by Ford. My daughter's Explorer has the same motor, can't wait for that bill when it needs done.

I had an Edge with the 3.5L V6. When I took it to the independent shop for oil change at 145,000 miles, I was advised to give serious consideration to selling it while it was still problem-free. The shop owner told me that the cost to replace a water pump would be in the neighborhood of two large, most of that being labor cost, and although there was absolutely no indication of a problem, I was living on borrowed time. He said that average life expectancy for water pump is somewhere around 100,000 miles and I was almost 50% past that.

Just like with most central air furnaces I think cars are close to being made to be disposable after a certain milage... you just don't fix them you send them to the crusher to be recycled.

Harley Davidson introduced the Twin Cam engine for the 1999 model year. Two camshafts driven by two timing chains off the crankshaft. Chain tension was maintained by two spring loaded tensioners with a Delrin shoe. Original expected tensioner life was 50k, they were considered a maintenance item.

Most never made it close to 50k, some during the warranty period, most past. Mid 2000’s they started with a hydraulic design. And of course Harley came out with a Screamin Eagle kit to address this issue, about $1500 worth of parts and labor.

I trashed my ‘02’s motor in ‘07, opted to rebuild that instead of the Harley reman program, no change to the tensioner system and a change to the next explained engine bearing, mine still had the tapered bearing in it.

To compound this disaster in 2003 the left crankshaft main bearing was changed from a tapered roller bearing in use since the 1950’s and replaced it with a caged roller bearing. The guys doing the stroker cranks and high h.p. builds were seeing bottom end failures pretty soon on, within the first production year, at the time I said “What’s going to happen with stock motors around 50k?” Well you can guess the rest.
And within a couple years Harley addressed that of course with a retrofit kit.

Very little Milwaukee Eight experience now, got out in 2022 of Harley dealerships and my 2002 Electra Glide will just have to do.

quote:

Originally posted by sigarms229:

quote:

Water pump on a 2009 Ford Flex at 85,000 miles... $1,500. Takes two days of labor, well the Ford manual says 15 hours.

3.5L V6? Water pump driven by the timing chain? Total screw up by Ford. My daughter's Explorer has the same motor, can't wait for that bill when it needs done.

My wife’s 2014 Explorer had about 140,000 miles on it last spring, and lost the water pump. I had them replace all the cam timing parts, for no extra labor cost, and it ended up just under $3000.00.

I might have made a couple comments about hiring engineers right out of elementary school. I can’t imagine someone thinking putting the water pump inside the engine is a good idea.