Yuck. We did knock sensors on my son's Silverado earlier this year and missed one of the plugs...had to tear the whole intake back off. They weren't as bad to get to as that Toyota looks, though, and there's tons of room under the hood of a Silverado.

I will say, never buy a minivan. We had a Chevy Venture for a while, and it was like doing laproscopic surgery every time I had to do any work on that thing. The hood only exposed about 25% of the engine, the rest was back under the cowl, and anything you had to do back there involved groping around in the dark. You had to undo motor mounts or even drop the cradle for even simple stuff, and stuff broke a lot. Minivans are for people who hate themselves and have given up on life.

^^^ Then you don't want a Toyota Previa.

The first thing you'll have to do to swap the spark plugs is to remove the driver's seat and floor...

quote:

Originally posted by .38supersig:
^^^ Then you don't want a Toyota Previa.

The first thing you'll have to do to swap the spark plugs is to remove the driver's seat and floor...

Yeah...I'd be tempted to set that on fire and roll it down a hill, lol.

On the other hand, at least you can do that and don't have to remove the motor instead. My first car was a full-size Chevy conversion van, and you could pull the doghouse between the driver and passenger seats and work on the back of the engine from inside the van. It was really easy...2 bolts and two clamps, iirc. Not really a bad arrangement at all.

I found a pic (not mine).



Can't see the plugs? Nope! There are many things that still need to be removed.

The only time you will see them is once they are out of the engine.

I have no kind words for whomever designed this.

^^^ Previa? 1990s vintage Toyota Previa The ones I remember from the 1990s, however, had visible spark plug wires. You could see them from underneath if it was on a hoist, but the ~8-inch long wire boots couldn't be removed without breaking them in two, which is obviously not an option when putting it back together, so you took out the passenger seat, peeled back the carpet and a floor access panel. Another thing: when you opened the hood, belts and pulleys were visible, but they were attached to the engine by a drive shaft about a foot and a half long. And if you wanted to replace the front struts, the top nuts for the right side were under the glove box, which could be accessed through a little removable panel, or the whole thing taken out. (Memory is a little fuzzy on that one, as is how you got to the left side.) Weird, to be sure. This situation was dictated mostly by the stylists - there was no other place to put things.