[BombNullIsland]

Perhaps. But it was a deliberate design decision to place certain sensors and actuators that may need repair in inaccessible locations. Pumps, spark plugs and chains need to be removable without major disassembly of the engine.

Shift solenoids are a nasty problem that I've run into. They don't need to be hidden inside the transmission. And the transmission doesn't require the entire engine to be dropped to remove it. This was done to be consumer hostile and to maximize dealer shop hours. Batteries in most german cars are also deliberately placed under major engine components, whereas my Mazda 3 requires two minutes and one socket to replace. Shop hours.

This all needs to be stopped. Major components need to be able to be replaced, for all appliances and machines. Laws need to be changed to force this.

[clarkb286]

> "Batteries in most german cars are also deliberately placed under major engine components"

Source? I used to own a 2000 Audi S4 (bought in 2005), and the battery was easy to access and didn't take much labor to to replace. I now own and drive a 2006 Mercedes-Benz C55 AMG that I bought in 2009. One of the very few issues that the car has had was a parasitic battery drain, which went unnoticed for a long time, until I started a new job in which I was able to work from home, and, therefore, I didn't drive the car very often during that time span of around 4 years. Before I eventually determined what the problem was (the passenger power seat control module continued to draw current when the car was turned off), I had to replace the battery ~7 times (which usually didn't cost me anything since the since the batteries were still under warranty when they finally went dead). The battery in my car is very easy to access (it's not located under any major engine components) and is also very easy to remove, requiring little more than a socket wrench and no more than 15 minutes of labor.

[gambiting]

For what it's worth - I've had a 2016 GLA45 AMG, and that car was a piece of cake to work on. Did majority of maintenance by myself and everything was nicely laid out and accessible, haven't ran into any issues where something felt like it was intentionally placed in an awkward place. I'd bet a person who has never worked on cars could change the turbo on that engine.

[userbinator]

Shift solenoids do need to be inside the transmission, although I'm not sure what you mean by "hidden" -- does dropping the pan and possibly removing the valve body count as "hidden"? I don't think so.

[lttlrck]

Which German cars hide the battery under major engine components?

[jack_h]

I have a car whose spark plugs are a pain in the ass to change. You have to disconnect a number of things^[1], unbolt the engine, and lift it to get to them^[2][3]. The thing is this is a modding friendly car, most everything is easily accessible and user serviceable.

So why are the spark plugs so hard to get to? I doubt it had anything to do with hostility towards repairability because this car is easily repairable. This came down to the design requirements for the car and particularly the engine they wanted to use to satisfy those design requirements.

Long gone are the days when you could sit in an engine bay to work on it because there was that much free room. Modern vehicles have to comply with many regulations, e.g. emissions and safety, whilst simultaneously meeting consumer demands at a price point people will accept. Without knowing the exact model of car you have, I'd say your shift solenoid problem almost certainly comes down to component sourcing - the manufacturer either uses this transmission in a number of vehicles or it's procured from someone else - and manufacturability/supply chain optimization - it's easier to integrate an already integrated solution^[4]. There might also be other considerations such as space availability, weight distribution (since you said you had to pull the engine to get to it), environmental, and efficiency. Again I don't know your exact vehicle, but engineering is a ton of trade-offs and sometimes the trade-offs suck in a particular case while overall satisfying the design constraints.

By the way I agree that German cars suck to work on, but that has largely been the case for every German car I've personally worked on going back to the 80s.

I am 100% certain there are decisions made during the design of various products which are solely or partially predicated on the inability for the end user to repair the product. I also know from first hand experience that many products never have some Machiavellian product manager who dictates designs expressly to be unrepairable; rather due to consumer demands, economics, regulatory and safety compliance, etc the end result is a product that is hostile towards repairability.

I feel this differentiator is rarely brought up in these right to repair comments and yet should be a critical talking point. Rather, everyone frustrated by a lack of repairability immediately assumes corporate shenanigans. This seems related to Hanlon's razor but for product design.

^[1] Under trays, battery, strut bars, fuel lines, air intake, etc.

^[2] The engine doesn't need to be fully pulled, it just needs to be lifted to where there's room to access the spark plugs.

^[3] People have managed to do this without hoisting the engine, hoisting actually seems easier if you have the tools.

^[4] This is the same reason why SiPs, SoMs, and microcontrollers with an ever expanding repertoire of peripherals exist. It's easier - from a hardware perspective - to integrate a single component that 'does it all' rather than pulling in multiple components and doing the integration yourself.

[rainbowzootsuit]

To echo your point: Going back decades it's been a real PITA to repair dash components on many vehicles, and this is primarily a manufacturing artifact that in the factory the whole assembly of the dash is brought into the car on a specialty arm made for that task.

It's made to go in as a whole component at some point in the assembly and streamline that step for first cost reasons vs for serviceability of sub components after the warranty has expired.

The right to repair complaint would be that if your evaporator core fails you have to replace your car because that sub component wouldn't be allowed to be sold by sake of making the pipe connectors a drm copywriting mess, not that it's a pain to get to it.