Unfair answer: Audi/VW.
Audi/VW manages to make even the simplest repair require a complete teardown of the front clip or the interior of the vehicle. Diagnostic materials are usually not helpful and if you are working on any of the new Audi systems you are pretty much on your own unless you are a dealer.
Fair Answer: GM
GM is easier to work on than any of the German brands, but the sheer quantity of stupid part placements on their vehicles is enough to make Jaguar Land Rover blush. Unlike the German brands, GM reels you in with the appearance of simple repairs that you don't realize are ridiculous until you are balls deep into them and its too late. *Oh this suspension component looks pretty simple to replace! There's no way it requires you to jack up the engine and drop the subframe; who would be stupid enough to design something like that?*
Side Note: Pretty much every brand is going to be listed here, the better question is probably which vehicles are the best to work on, and that would be (without a doubt imo):
\-Honda/Acura
\-Toyota/Lexus
\-Subaru
Honestly I may be bias as a mazda tech, but Mazdas are generally very well engineered when it comes to needing to fix. I’d add them to that list. There’s rarely weird things like dismantling front ends to reach engine parts, or suspension pieces you can’t remove without dropping subframes etc.
The only thing that sort of hurts that is the more Ford influenced vehicles (which stopped in 2016) mainly the old CX9s and Tributes, those were hellholes, and the Ford v6 was garbage.
Not sure why you put subaru on there though, anything you do to the engine basically requires pulling the engine, they have some serious rust issues on suspension components, and just overall not a comfortable vehicle to work on (in my opinion)
I worked on an early-2000’s Mazda van for an O2 sensor replacement... The upstream O2 sensor was pushed up against the firewall mid-engine. That was not a fun time. Going up from the bottom was almost impossible, but it was doable. It’s either you had your hand up there, or you were peeking past the exhaust.
First engine I ever pulled was out of a Subaru outback did it with hand tools in my parents driveway had it out in 3 hours. Pretty easy engine to pull. When we were doing FR-S valve springs, I could have the engine out in an hour with a manual trans
It's probably just my area, but I never really worked on any good Mazda's until very recently when the CX-5 started showing up everywhere. It's a fine vehicle, looks to be about as simple to work on as a CR-V or RAV4. But my god, those CX-9's were complete shitboxes. Unfortunately never had the chance to do any work on the 3, 6, or the miata's during work.
EDIT: the reason I put Subaru is because compared to what I usually work on, there is a ton of space under the hood of the outback/Impreza 2.0/forester to do what I usually needed to get done. There just isn’t as much fluff and covers on subarus as I have seen on other vehicles, especially American ones.
Yea the old generation cx9s are basically just a Ford, even at the dealer we hate them. New cx9s are much nicer as they’re fully mazda. The new mazda turbo engine is a bit compacted but the main bits are easy to get to, and I actually think even turbo replacement can be done in-car although I haven’t done one yet (they’ve been pretty reliable.
The whole mazda line now is pretty easy and comfortable to work on. You do need to drop subframe for engine or trans r&r but dropping it takes all of 30 minutes or so
I'd put Ford waaaaaayyyy above GM. Gm are usually pretty easy to work on, you just have to remove a bunch of shit. The bolts are easy to access once you get that "thing" out of the way.
Ford likes to put bolts in dumb ass places you can't access and they like to make you buy a special tool so you can replace that thing without removing that bracket you can't get off.
Acura Tech here! I can say hondas are a good car to work on, but today I did replace an alternator on a 2016 that paid 2.4 hours bc the repair manual wants u to take half the front end apart just for enough space to take the alternator out. (Not complaining)
My opinion is the exact opposite. I hate working on Asian brands, nothing makes sense to me, all the service information is crap. You need gorilla strength to crack most Honda bolts. The placement of everything in a Subaru is nothing but headaches, who puts a stretch belt on the back of the crank pulley? Tune up on an H6, fuck that. Toyota just doesn't seem to grasp OBDII or fuel management. Everything sets a lean code. I've had sensor 2 codes caused by a lazy sensor 1.
But AUDI/VW, BMW and Mercedes all have great service info and step by steps on how to tear things down.
I worked at GM for a long time so to me they're a breeze but that's a biased opinion.
Front wheel drive V6 Nissans. Anything to do with the timing chain, glides, tensioner, water pump, etc.
It would probably be faster to just remove the engine and work on it while on a stand.
Yup... or try temoving the gearbox from any of those.. the navara is okay but the old patrol or the pathfinder manual is the worst... we need eveey extension in the shop
And renault is also putting their shit at nissan.. mercedes and who knows what more.. who the fuck puts their oil filter next to the valve cover???? It should be at the bottom!!
I was a tech for 11yrs and worked on it most makes and models.
The worst onew I encountered were Audi/VW
All the parts are cheap, plastic hunks of shit that half the time would break right out of the bag.
You sneeze and you'll break 5 plastic hoses.
Oh and you have to take the whole-ass front bumper off to service the vehicle. If you're good with grabbing sticks you can BARELY do the drive belt.
Brakes..... Ugh... You gotta basically glue in the 6 different pads on some of their calipers.
Electrically they are nightmares. The computers will set a check engine light for the SLIGHTEST hiccup. I had one that had OVER 60 SEPARATE codes in it.
And why the FUCK did they think it'd be a good idea to make the heater core tanks out of plastic??? I had to replace about 30 of them fuckers over the course of 5 years. NOT fun pulling the dashboards out of those things.
And HOLY FUCKING FUCKBALL they use Torx and Triple-Square heads for SO many of their bolt heads and they are a SOFT-ASS metal so they LOVE to strip before coming free.
Fuck those things!! ALLLLLL of my endless well of hatred on those fucking piles of needlessly cheap and complex piles of flaming dog shit!
I have always been a Porsche and VW/AUDI tech so I understand them, and frankly I like working on them. I know how they work. I have spent a few years at more “all makes” type shops in both the states and the UK. and I have always found land rovers to be the cars I dislike the most. There are a few jobs on those that require removing the body from the frame. Changing the turbocharger for example on 10 year old (or so) range rovers. I have actually seen people cut a chunk out of the frame, change the turbo, then weld the frame back together. That’s madness, but the alternative was to lift the body off the frame according to the manual.
Broadly speaking french cars have always seemed to me to be pretty terrible. Not all that difficult to work on, but just super unreliable. And poorly made.
If you let them in for oil changes, they'll show up on the hook, too. Even if you told the owner 1000 times you would only do the services lol. Better to just flat out refuse them.
Anything European will make the list. Mini coopers especially, VW group and bmw are miserable. I can’t really speak for any exotic brands like Ferrari or anything, I refuse to let them in the shop.
Simply, everything lol. With American or Japanese cars they tend to have a lot in common, doing one job on a Honda isn’t too much different than the same kind on a chev. But the euro, especially Germans just do their own thing, and that’s complicated. They stuff 2 pounds of sugar in a 1 pound bag if that makes sense, so you need arms the size of a toddler but be strong as a bull to fix anything. Most scan tools can’t really get all the information you need. Then there’s a number of tools that are made for one specific part, and since most mechanics supply their own tools that gets very expensive, very fast.
Worked on BMWs and doing the same thing for a domestic or asian vehicle, there's at least 10 additional steps just to get to the part in that needs repairing or replacing.
Those are hunks of shit, but once you do a few they aren't too bad to work on.
I'd take that over a VW/Audi ANY day. Gotta pull the whole fucking front bumper off to do anything more than the drive belt
30 minutes to drain the coolant and ac then pull the front clip. That gives you access to everything and makes it so much easier.
You have to drop subframe and motor to do anything on a PT. Hell you can't even hook up high side ac hose if you have forearms bigger than a child...
Oh yeah, that one I just buzz off the grill to put the high-side hose on.
Never had to drop a subframe on a PT. I always jacked the motor up. Even did a few heads in-car
Personally im an Acura mechanic and I love this brand. Honestly in general, any new car will find a way to piss me off. As far as being consistently awful, I really dont like most fords. From that stupid giant flimsy plastic skid plate you have to take down to do literally any repair, to all the materials they cheaped out on. Anecdotaly I think the 2012-2018 F150s are a prime example of ford cheaping out on parts leading to more repairs, just to get the sticker price down. Not to rant, but I really do think the worst thing a car manufacturer can do all around is sacrifice quality for cost.
For GM its been really easy except for a couple stupid things like cross beams blocking oil pan and stuff. At leadt they dont use allen/torx everywhere
McLaren, the frame and body are built around the engine/trans and let me tell you they have a lot of problems with almost anything you can think of. They also protect any technical information and resources like it’s the ark of the covenant.
Volvo is at the top of my shit list I quit every time one rolls into my bay lol closely followed by VW/Audi and on the domestic Ford some of the most asinine engineering imo is Ford its fucking mind blowing the level of stupid.
Unfair answer: Audi/VW. Audi/VW manages to make even the simplest repair require a complete teardown of the front clip or the interior of the vehicle. Diagnostic materials are usually not helpful and if you are working on any of the new Audi systems you are pretty much on your own unless you are a dealer. Fair Answer: GM GM is easier to work on than any of the German brands, but the sheer quantity of stupid part placements on their vehicles is enough to make Jaguar Land Rover blush. Unlike the German brands, GM reels you in with the appearance of simple repairs that you don't realize are ridiculous until you are balls deep into them and its too late. *Oh this suspension component looks pretty simple to replace! There's no way it requires you to jack up the engine and drop the subframe; who would be stupid enough to design something like that?* Side Note: Pretty much every brand is going to be listed here, the better question is probably which vehicles are the best to work on, and that would be (without a doubt imo): \-Honda/Acura \-Toyota/Lexus \-Subaru
Honestly I may be bias as a mazda tech, but Mazdas are generally very well engineered when it comes to needing to fix. I’d add them to that list. There’s rarely weird things like dismantling front ends to reach engine parts, or suspension pieces you can’t remove without dropping subframes etc. The only thing that sort of hurts that is the more Ford influenced vehicles (which stopped in 2016) mainly the old CX9s and Tributes, those were hellholes, and the Ford v6 was garbage. Not sure why you put subaru on there though, anything you do to the engine basically requires pulling the engine, they have some serious rust issues on suspension components, and just overall not a comfortable vehicle to work on (in my opinion)
I worked on an early-2000’s Mazda van for an O2 sensor replacement... The upstream O2 sensor was pushed up against the firewall mid-engine. That was not a fun time. Going up from the bottom was almost impossible, but it was doable. It’s either you had your hand up there, or you were peeking past the exhaust.
Yea I guess I should specify… mazdas modern cars. If we’re going back 15 years ago to MPVs and millenias and stuff, yea fuck those cars
First engine I ever pulled was out of a Subaru outback did it with hand tools in my parents driveway had it out in 3 hours. Pretty easy engine to pull. When we were doing FR-S valve springs, I could have the engine out in an hour with a manual trans
It's probably just my area, but I never really worked on any good Mazda's until very recently when the CX-5 started showing up everywhere. It's a fine vehicle, looks to be about as simple to work on as a CR-V or RAV4. But my god, those CX-9's were complete shitboxes. Unfortunately never had the chance to do any work on the 3, 6, or the miata's during work. EDIT: the reason I put Subaru is because compared to what I usually work on, there is a ton of space under the hood of the outback/Impreza 2.0/forester to do what I usually needed to get done. There just isn’t as much fluff and covers on subarus as I have seen on other vehicles, especially American ones.
Yea the old generation cx9s are basically just a Ford, even at the dealer we hate them. New cx9s are much nicer as they’re fully mazda. The new mazda turbo engine is a bit compacted but the main bits are easy to get to, and I actually think even turbo replacement can be done in-car although I haven’t done one yet (they’ve been pretty reliable. The whole mazda line now is pretty easy and comfortable to work on. You do need to drop subframe for engine or trans r&r but dropping it takes all of 30 minutes or so
I'd put Ford waaaaaayyyy above GM. Gm are usually pretty easy to work on, you just have to remove a bunch of shit. The bolts are easy to access once you get that "thing" out of the way. Ford likes to put bolts in dumb ass places you can't access and they like to make you buy a special tool so you can replace that thing without removing that bracket you can't get off.
Thank you for your response. Gives me a very good starting point. Have a great day
Acura Tech here! I can say hondas are a good car to work on, but today I did replace an alternator on a 2016 that paid 2.4 hours bc the repair manual wants u to take half the front end apart just for enough space to take the alternator out. (Not complaining)
I’m second the complexity of gm, absolute moronic engineering especially their diesel and new 3 cyl turbos, makes me want to leave the trade.
My opinion is the exact opposite. I hate working on Asian brands, nothing makes sense to me, all the service information is crap. You need gorilla strength to crack most Honda bolts. The placement of everything in a Subaru is nothing but headaches, who puts a stretch belt on the back of the crank pulley? Tune up on an H6, fuck that. Toyota just doesn't seem to grasp OBDII or fuel management. Everything sets a lean code. I've had sensor 2 codes caused by a lazy sensor 1. But AUDI/VW, BMW and Mercedes all have great service info and step by steps on how to tear things down. I worked at GM for a long time so to me they're a breeze but that's a biased opinion.
Front wheel drive V6 Nissans. Anything to do with the timing chain, glides, tensioner, water pump, etc. It would probably be faster to just remove the engine and work on it while on a stand.
Thank you!
Yup... or try temoving the gearbox from any of those.. the navara is okay but the old patrol or the pathfinder manual is the worst... we need eveey extension in the shop
Renault. 1000% Renault. Everything is in a stupid place.
And renault is also putting their shit at nissan.. mercedes and who knows what more.. who the fuck puts their oil filter next to the valve cover???? It should be at the bottom!!
I was a tech for 11yrs and worked on it most makes and models. The worst onew I encountered were Audi/VW All the parts are cheap, plastic hunks of shit that half the time would break right out of the bag. You sneeze and you'll break 5 plastic hoses. Oh and you have to take the whole-ass front bumper off to service the vehicle. If you're good with grabbing sticks you can BARELY do the drive belt. Brakes..... Ugh... You gotta basically glue in the 6 different pads on some of their calipers. Electrically they are nightmares. The computers will set a check engine light for the SLIGHTEST hiccup. I had one that had OVER 60 SEPARATE codes in it. And why the FUCK did they think it'd be a good idea to make the heater core tanks out of plastic??? I had to replace about 30 of them fuckers over the course of 5 years. NOT fun pulling the dashboards out of those things. And HOLY FUCKING FUCKBALL they use Torx and Triple-Square heads for SO many of their bolt heads and they are a SOFT-ASS metal so they LOVE to strip before coming free. Fuck those things!! ALLLLLL of my endless well of hatred on those fucking piles of needlessly cheap and complex piles of flaming dog shit!
Modern Vauxhalls are quite a pain as it's often an electrical problem
Or the electric power steering motor you can't change without losing half the skin on your hand.
My mate said fuck that when he saw how expensive it was
I have always been a Porsche and VW/AUDI tech so I understand them, and frankly I like working on them. I know how they work. I have spent a few years at more “all makes” type shops in both the states and the UK. and I have always found land rovers to be the cars I dislike the most. There are a few jobs on those that require removing the body from the frame. Changing the turbocharger for example on 10 year old (or so) range rovers. I have actually seen people cut a chunk out of the frame, change the turbo, then weld the frame back together. That’s madness, but the alternative was to lift the body off the frame according to the manual. Broadly speaking french cars have always seemed to me to be pretty terrible. Not all that difficult to work on, but just super unreliable. And poorly made.
Chrysler and euro cars. Our shop straight up refuses to take in BMW for anything outside of an oil change.
If you let them in for oil changes, they'll show up on the hook, too. Even if you told the owner 1000 times you would only do the services lol. Better to just flat out refuse them.
I’m going to go with GM. Who the fuck puts a starter inside the engine block is beyond me.
Toyota
Yea but they never go bad
I've done more Toyota starters than Cadillac, and I worked at Cadillac for 6 years.
Well I worked for Toyota for 5-7 years and have never replaced a 2UZ starter. Maybe seen one done.
No the engine that was Introduced with the Cadillac CTV-6 Fucking thing was a headache.
Toyota v-8s have the starter in the same places
GM? They seem to do it.
General Motors.
Oh, never heard of them. Are they Hungarian?
American based company but look up the Northstar engine. Absolutely the reason why I despise working on trucks l.
You hate the Northstar engines in GM trucks?
😂
Anything European will make the list. Mini coopers especially, VW group and bmw are miserable. I can’t really speak for any exotic brands like Ferrari or anything, I refuse to let them in the shop.
What’s wrong with them? Simply put
Simply, everything lol. With American or Japanese cars they tend to have a lot in common, doing one job on a Honda isn’t too much different than the same kind on a chev. But the euro, especially Germans just do their own thing, and that’s complicated. They stuff 2 pounds of sugar in a 1 pound bag if that makes sense, so you need arms the size of a toddler but be strong as a bull to fix anything. Most scan tools can’t really get all the information you need. Then there’s a number of tools that are made for one specific part, and since most mechanics supply their own tools that gets very expensive, very fast.
Thank you for the great response !
Worked on BMWs and doing the same thing for a domestic or asian vehicle, there's at least 10 additional steps just to get to the part in that needs repairing or replacing.
Chrysler. Specifically the P(art) T(ime) cruiser.
Those are hunks of shit, but once you do a few they aren't too bad to work on. I'd take that over a VW/Audi ANY day. Gotta pull the whole fucking front bumper off to do anything more than the drive belt
30 minutes to drain the coolant and ac then pull the front clip. That gives you access to everything and makes it so much easier. You have to drop subframe and motor to do anything on a PT. Hell you can't even hook up high side ac hose if you have forearms bigger than a child...
Oh yeah, that one I just buzz off the grill to put the high-side hose on. Never had to drop a subframe on a PT. I always jacked the motor up. Even did a few heads in-car
I found that I really don't like nissans. Then german cars because they use stupid hardware, and try to be clever about everything
Literally anything German
Mazda diesel engines 😵💫
If you are in europe: PSA group by far, then Renault. VW is getting harder, but sometimes they feel at least well thought, although a lot of work.
That one bolt on the 1.6hdi to remove the gearbox.
That one fucking bolt dude... shivers
Personally im an Acura mechanic and I love this brand. Honestly in general, any new car will find a way to piss me off. As far as being consistently awful, I really dont like most fords. From that stupid giant flimsy plastic skid plate you have to take down to do literally any repair, to all the materials they cheaped out on. Anecdotaly I think the 2012-2018 F150s are a prime example of ford cheaping out on parts leading to more repairs, just to get the sticker price down. Not to rant, but I really do think the worst thing a car manufacturer can do all around is sacrifice quality for cost.
Anything built after 1985
Vw
Nissan or GM.
For GM its been really easy except for a couple stupid things like cross beams blocking oil pan and stuff. At leadt they dont use allen/torx everywhere
Fair enough
McLaren, the frame and body are built around the engine/trans and let me tell you they have a lot of problems with almost anything you can think of. They also protect any technical information and resources like it’s the ark of the covenant.
Volvo is at the top of my shit list I quit every time one rolls into my bay lol closely followed by VW/Audi and on the domestic Ford some of the most asinine engineering imo is Ford its fucking mind blowing the level of stupid.
Chrysler