What to you has been the worst car to work on?

I feel like the 190E 2.6 is a PITA but my mom's 1996 Grand Marquis is far worse. Tried replacing a valve cover gasket today and once again ran into Ford's brilliant engineering, aka somehow making a 4.6L small block V8 engine hard to work on in a massive engine bay. The front of the engine is super easy to work on, unlike the 190E 2.6 but the sides and back are terrible. The catalytic converters also aren't the most fun things in the world. Problem is, most of the problems we've had the with car have been located on sides or rear of the engine bay (like the $230 blower motor resistor that we've had to replace 3 times).

We were finally able to get the valve cover out (took 30 minutes to get the back bolt out) cleaned it up, tried to clean up as much of the mating surface, put RTV where needed, then reinstalled it (also a PITFA) and it leaked like a sieve at the back bolt that is nearly impossible to get to and completely impossible to use a torque wrench on. Might be that you are supposed to pull the engine in order to do it properly.

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Current: 1975 450SEL, 83 300D, 88 Yugo GVX, 90 300D OM603 swap, 91 F150 4.6 4v swap, 93 190E Sportline LE 3.0L M104 swap, 93 190E Sportline LE Megasquirt, 03 Sprinter, 06 E500 4Matic wagon.

1985 Buick.... something or another that my middle son bought from his grandfather. Transverse mounted V6 with absolutely incomprehensible levels of parts bin engineering - brackets with 47 arms and 12 bends and 83 holes to cover 3,639 applications.... used to mount a wiring harness clip, but which had to be removed to get the other 12 overlapping parts off so that you could get at That One Damn Bolt to remove the broken whatever part it was.

Close runner up would be the 72 AMC Matador that The Same Automotive Genius from the rant above (son's grandfather/ex-wife's father) bought for my ex-wife (then girlfriend).

The entire front clip had to be removed to replace a wobbly crankshaft pulley.

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1961 220b: first project car - sold.
2000 CLK 430: first modern Benz - sold.
2001 CLK 55: OMG the torque!!! - sold
1972 280SE 4.5: Baby Gustav
1991 300TE 4Matic: Gretel the Snow Bunny - sold
1978 300SD: Katz the Free Man - given away
1980 Redhead: Darling Wife

Volkswagens - any of the POSes!

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'06 E320 CDI
'17 Corvette Stingray Vert

Name a volkswagen you have personally worked on

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This post brought to you by Carl's Jr.

Honorable mentions for me is ford pickups with the triton V10, the VW taureg(sp?) with the tdi, and bringing up the rear is the diesel liberty.

All these vehicles have advantages, but i have the most trouble working on engineering compromise vehicles with large or unusual motors crammed in and the tradeoffs made to do that making for difficult repair procedures

Way at the top of the list is a military spec H1. Hardest vehicle i have ever tried to work on. Every single repair is a huge complex procedure.

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This post brought to you by Carl's Jr.

Ide bet the van with the v10 is even more fun, perhaps not, the extra cyls might be at the back--more acessable under that cover.

I gotta say the chevy gmc vans are SCREWED to work on, I think ill rip that whole damn cab off...... and junk the last yr vortec v8 in favor of some lsx/computer combo.

You beat me to it. Great when they work right. PITA when they don't, which is a lot of the time. I don't know how ISIS keeps theirs going.

Honorable mention to Porsche 914 and anything else mid-engine.

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Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 401,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 26,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.
99 Mazda Miata 183,xxx miles.

Keeping their H1's going may be why they hate us so much.

I like how you said 'tried to'.

What happened.....

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1982 300GD Carmine Red (DB3535) Cabriolet Parting Out
1990 300SEL Smoke Silver (Parting out)
1991 350SDL Blackberry Metallic (481)

"The thing is Bob, its not that I'm lazy...its that I just don't care."

I got the job done, something related to the fuel tank having to come down, injection pump needing replacement and some other stuff. I think it was a bad fuel problem if i recall

You can appreciate the design once you resign yourself to everything being a chore to do. One thing that struck me is for a big vehicle, the H1 is packed with no extra room anywhere for anything underneath or in the engine bay, plus armor. Its like working on the firewall side of a minivan motor for everything

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This post brought to you by Carl's Jr.

That's why I plan to cut off and hinge the rear of one VW Thing I own so that it can be removed for service on the engine

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Strelnik
Invest in America: Buy a Congressman!

1950 170SD
1951 Citroen 11BN
1953 Citroen 11BNF limo
1953 220a project
1959 180D
1960 190D
1960 Borgward Isabella TS 2dr
1983 240D daily driver
1983 380SL
1990 350SDL daily driver alt
3 x Citroen DS21M, down from 5
3 x Citroen 2CV, down from 6

Maserati.

I'll elaborate more later, but to pull the radiator, you've got to disassemble the front of the car.

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-Justin

91 560 SEC AMG - other dogs dd
01 Honda S2000 - dogs dd
07 MB ML320 CDI - dd
16 Lexus IS250 - wifes dd

it's automatic.

N*

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1985 500SL Euro w/ AMG bits 130k
1984 300SD Turbodiesel 192k
1980 240D Stick China 188k
2001 CLK55 AMG 101k
2007 S600 Biturbo 149k Overheated Project, IT'S ALIVE!!!

I don't like to work on Fords or Chebbies.

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Jim

The Merak and the SM are not b ad, but the real issue is weak fasteners that rust and break

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Strelnik
Invest in America: Buy a Congressman!

1950 170SD
1951 Citroen 11BN
1953 Citroen 11BNF limo
1953 220a project
1959 180D
1960 190D
1960 Borgward Isabella TS 2dr
1983 240D daily driver
1983 380SL
1990 350SDL daily driver alt
3 x Citroen DS21M, down from 5
3 x Citroen 2CV, down from 6