3.6 Pentastar engine. First thing, what mental midget designs an oil filter housing/engine oil cooler from plastic then buries it under the intake manifold? Probably the children of the GM engineers that put the Northstar (aka Deathstar) starter under the intake manifold.

Then to one up GM the Pentastar spawns put both the coolant temperature AND oil pressure sensors on that oil cooler so if one of those ever goes bad you have to take the intake manifolds off to replace it.

My Dad wanted to choke the GM engineers. We had a '57 Chevy BelAir he bought used from a little old lady (true). He could change all but one spark plug - with the eighth (closest to the firewall and to the left, IIRC) one had to drop the engine to get to it.

quote:

Originally posted by Rawny:
All my cars turns on the AC to blow cold air when in defog mode. No way it's melting anything outside of the windshield.

All that does here is cause water to condense on the windshield, inside and out. Fortunately, all my cars and truck allow one to turn the heat up and once the windshield warms up, the condensating stops. Some of my vehicles including my truck have heaters built into the side mirrors that do the same and all of them have heated rear windows. This also works to melt ice and snow, but you still need a snow brush and ice scraper most of the time.

Actually, I take that back. My Ford GPW has no heat and no defrosters of any sort.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:
Yeah pretty stupid.

If they're going to design the wipers to park below where the defroster blows they should incorporate heating elements in the bottom of the windshield.

That would be one way to do it, although more complicated and expensive than necessary. Would really suck to have to pay the markup for a heating element every time you took a rock to the windshield, especially when they could have just mounted them a couple of inches higher.

Yes it adds a little cost but they're already using heated glass on mirrors and rear glass. Windshields that incorporate heat elements in the bottom are effective preventing snow and ice building up from the wipers downward sweep when driving during moderate to heavy snow when it's in the low 20's and under. I would pay extra for that, without it I have to occasionally pull over to scrape off the buildup as it rises up the shield.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig

Also heard that in a bad crash the engine is designed to drop and slide UNDER the passenger compartment and not come crashing in like most cars.

That's old technology actually . A lot of automakers have that feature .

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

rear hatch that can open as you approach it with your arms full of whatever <snip>I just keep it off, since you can't walk behind the car without opening the hatch.

Is that feature easy to arm / disarm without a lot of icon tapping and searching? If so, I would love to have that on my LYRIQ, just arm it after pulling into a parking slot at Publix, and disarm it after unloading the groceries at home.

Seems like it would just be a software upgrade to the LYRIQ, as all of the necessary pieces are already there -- power liftgate, and proximity detection that unlocks the doors when I'm close to the vehicle with the fob in my pocket. Software update would just need to tie the pieces together.

quote:

Originally posted by 229DAK:
My Dad wanted to choke the GM engineers. We had a '57 Chevy BelAir he bought used from a little old lady (true). He could change all but one spark plug - with the eighth (closest to the firewall and to the left, IIRC) one had to drop the engine to get to it.

Say what? I have one of those in the garage. Never had a problem with plugs.

In my '69 Nova SS with headers, I had to make a shop-built plug wrench consisting of a socket with everything but the hex bored out so it'd slip between the header and the plug and a bent up piece of rod stock for a handle.

Also for that #8 plug IIRC.

And let’s not forget the Cadillac and it’s (at the time) hi tech Northstar engine, known in the dealership world as the Deathstar.

As I said earlier, starter was under the intake manifold, “great” for service replacements. Oil leaks from the oil pan area, pretty common. Also common was leaking from the bottom half of the block, yes, crankcase was a two piece design, the bottom half was cast with the main bearing caps integral so if the leak was that seam the engine had to be pulled to reseal it. Add to it the threads pulling out of the upper half of the block for the main bearings, well Timeserts had to be installed then.

While I’m beating up on GM, let’s not forget the 3.6X motor, replacement for the 3800. first ones were a nightmare for cam chain, guides and tensioner wear, usually around 85-90k. Took a few years for that design to be changed, I understand they are better now. GM even cheapened up on the 3800 the last few years of its existence by using plastic coolant elbows that got brittle at time passed.

quote:

And let’s not forget the Cadillac and it’s (at the time) hi tech Northstar engine, known in the dealership world as the Deathstar.

The only engine I ever saw that required cooling system sealant to hold it together. The tabs resemble brown Alka-Seltzer tablets.

After a bad experience with the oil pan gasket (long story; the short is that it's not just a gasket ) and seeing head gasket repair attempts being made on it, as well as the similar Oldsmobile Aurora, I refused to work on this engine, period.

Just recently, a neighbor has a 2004 Trailblazer 4.2 L6 engine. Unusual set up (straight 6cyl gas hog, Atlas series design).

It blew the top of the radiator (split all along the top).

When the electric fan clutch fails it defaults to wide open, max air flow. That's all well and good except the thermostat is in the Lower Hose.

The coolant in the radiator was kept cool enough that the T-Stat couldn't open (because of max air flow), hot water at the top coming out of engine had nowhere to go.


I can't recall very many cars having the thermostat at the lower hose fitting.

Just one of the "why in the hell did they do that" sorta thing in cars these days.

This is - now was - a pet peeve. Idiotic shit.

I wonder if all this touch screen nonsense will die out when people find out how expensive they are when they have to be replaced.
The interior of a vehicle is a brutal place for electronics and plastics.

quote:

Originally posted by shovelhead:
And let’s not forget the Cadillac and it’s (at the time) hi tech Northstar engine, known in the dealership world as the Deathstar.

As I said earlier, starter was under the intake manifold, “great” for service replacements. Oil leaks from the oil pan area, pretty common. Also common was leaking from the bottom half of the block, yes, crankcase was a two piece design, the bottom half was cast with the main bearing caps integral so if the leak was that seam the engine had to be pulled to reseal it. Add to it the threads pulling out of the upper half of the block for the main bearings, well Timeserts had to be installed then.

While I’m beating up on GM, let’s not forget the 3.6X motor, replacement for the 3800. first ones were a nightmare for cam chain, guides and tensioner wear, usually around 85-90k. Took a few years for that design to be changed, I understand they are better now. GM even cheapened up on the 3800 the last few years of its existence by using plastic coolant elbows that got brittle at time passed.

You left out the brilliant LT1 with OptiSpark, a distributor now on the front of the block, below the water pump, as the pump fails it drips water into the distributor and poof, the smoke comes out and it's dead, Jim, it's also known to fail due to heat soak and oil intrusion., and it's expensive to replace.

Have to remove the water pump, belts, harmonic balancer and a host of other things on the front of the engine.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

You left out the brilliant LT1 with OptiSpark, a distributor now on the front of the block, below the water pump, as the pump fails it drips water into the distributor and poof, the smoke comes out and it's dead, Jim, it's also known to fail due to heat soak and oil intrusion., and it's expensive to replace.

Have to remove the water pump, belts, harmonic balancer and a host of other things on the front of the engine.[/QUOTE]

Oh yeah, forgot or mentally blocked that brilliant idea! Fortunately at the time that great feat of engineering I only had to deal with Firebirds and Optispark,Buick guys with the Roadmaster but the Chevy guys had the Camaro, Corvette and the Caprice/Impala SS cars with it. For awhile I think we could only get a distributor cap as a service replacement part but not the distributor rotor. Any internal electronics failures entailed a new assembly for several hundred dollars IIRC.

GM had a crank/cam sensor system since 1984 controlled by the ECM in the V6’s so why did they use this idiotic design? The Optispark design entailed a change to the engine block casting as the Optispark needed an additional driveshaft from the timing gears. There was a redesign due to failures between the 1994 and 1995 model years to improve durability.

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

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
This is - now was - a pet peeve. Idiotic shit.

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Oh yeah. I've never owned a car like that, but my in-laws had a Sebring with the 2.7. What an absolute abomination that thing was!

Went to change the battery on my '22 alfa giulia. there is supposed to be an extended post here to use a 10mm socket on to loosen the clamp.

There's no extension. It's a rounded bolt there at the bottom. The space is tight enough as it is. I did not get it changed today. Will try tomorrow in daylight.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:

quote:

And let’s not forget the Cadillac and it’s (at the time) hi tech Northstar engine, known in the dealership world as the Deathstar.

The only engine I ever saw that required cooling system sealant to hold it together. The tabs resemble brown Alka-Seltzer tablets.

After a bad experience with the oil pan gasket (long story; the short is that it's not just a gasket ) and seeing head gasket repair attempts being made on it, as well as the similar Oldsmobile Aurora, I refused to work on this engine, period.

Those GM coolant tabs, we nicknamed those rabbit turds.They did work well. My wife’s 66k 3400 engine was on its second set of head gaskets when we started smelling coolant AGAIN. Of course out of warranty, GM goodwill policy covered set #2 but #3 was a no go per our factory service rep. So it was rabbit turd time.

Sold it about a year later to a friend’s grandson after telling him what I did to the latest head gasket leak. From what he said it lasted until he totaled it out a couple years later.