That shield under the bottom of the engine has several functions, including potentially directing airflow for engine cooling purposes, so it would indeed be unwise to modify it. Neither of my vehicles requires removing under-engine shields for an oil & filter job, but I wouldnt mind it as long as the shields are held on by 6 easily accessed bolts. Push pins imo here simply would not be acceptable. Every time I’ve purchased a vehicle, which is not that many times I admit, but each time one of the tasks is to verify an oil/filter job is easily driveway doable. If it isn’t, that vehicle won’t be in my stable.
That’s because both of your antiques pre-date plastic splash pans 
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They should be getting close to drawing social security age by now don’t you think 
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I would wait for the warranty to expire, and then cut a hole and fashion a door for it.
My 2007 Mazda3 has a hole in the shield…except the hole has no function and is in the wrong place. It also has a cartridge filter (no metal case) so that oil changes are made as messy as possible and the filters cost more. Add to that… the fiberglass in front of the wheels won’t let me easily drive up my ramps. You can imagine how much I enjoy those oil changes!
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This is common sense. And I go further than just making sure that oil changes are DIY friendly. Before buying a particular vehicle, I look up the instructions online to change the spark plugs, change the transmission fluid and filter, replace the radiator and coolant hoses, replace the water pump, change the accessory belt(s), and change the timing belt (if equipped). If any of this is too difficult to do at home with a floor jack and jack stands, I pass on that vehicle.
If more people exercised this level of common sense, a lot of these stupid designs would not exist…because they wouldn’t sell. Even though most people do not actually work on their cars, even to change the oil, unreasonably difficult design decisions still drive up the cost of ownership. A professional shop is going to charge by the hour (perhaps book time, rather than clock time), which accounts for the difficulty of working on a particular model. And of course, there’s the cost to replace parts which break during removal, which shouldn’t have even needed to be removed with a reasonable design.
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The vast majority of the folks buying cars don’t care about access for all of these services. Including me.
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I’ve been a mechanic all my life. I got my first car when I was 16 and remember changing the oil in the driveway. I also remember, as a teen, my dad giving me money and telling me to take Mom’s car to the Texaco station for an oil change and lube. And I remember thinking that that was so much easier and faster and cleaner.
Since I was 17 I have worked somewhere that I had access to a hoist, oil disposal, etc. I can honestly say that if I didn’t work at a shop there’s no way I would ever change my own oil at home. It just doesn’t pan out. The shop I work at now charges $89.95 for a full synthetic oil service. Dinner at Red Robin for my family of four costs that much. Jacking up the car, changing the oil, cleaning up and disposing of the oil takes longer than eating dinner. What would I be saving by doing it myself?
You know what else is that way? Painting. My daughter wanted her room painted. I called one of my regular customers and had them paint it. The bill was $800. A couple of years later we moved and my daughter wanted her new room painted. I said I’m not paying $800 for painting one room, we’ll do it this Saturday. After spending the whole weekend masking, patching holes, texturing, brushing, rolling, I said I’m not wasting a whole weekend painting a room again. Next time we call the painters.
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@asemaster I feel the same way you do about projects with both the home and auto. I used to do my own oil changes and minor repairs such as replacing water pumps and fuel pumps. This was in the days of rear wheel drive cars with mechanical pumps driven by the camshaft.
As my job as a university faculty member became more demanding, i.e. publish or perish, I didn’t have time to do my own automobile maintenance, work around the house such as painting and plumbing, etc. I now drop my vehicle off at the dealer for any maintenance or repair work. I pay painters, plumbers, etc for house maintenance. I do still mow the yard, and check the fluids and tire pressure on our vehicles, but I pay someone else to do everything else. Even though I have been retired for 10 years, I find myself too involved in my music activities to want to spend time changing oil.
Our son is on the faculty at a state university. He sold his three bedroom house that was 35 minutes from campus and bought a condo where he has a 5 minute walk to his office. He doesn’t have to worry about mowing yard.
I have decided my next car will have fins, minimum of six inches.
If every car buyer insisted on that, we could bring style back to cars.
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I am a big believer in the idea that if you want something done right, you do it yourself. I am also a big believer in keeping costs down.
While some people might find it acceptable to spend $90 for a dinner of burgers, fries, and sodas for four people, I would scoff at the idea. I can buy better meat than the restaurant uses for $20 at Costco, a pack of restaurant-style rolls for $2.50 at Costco, and a bag of Signature Select frozen fries for $3 at Albertson’s, which rival those served at any restaurant. I know that I will season the meat the way that we like, and that it will be cooked to perfection on my charcoal grill. Figure another $3 for the charcoal, spices, and fruit juice served with the meal (I don’t buy soda). That’s less than $29 to enjoy a comparable $90 restaurant meal, no tax and tip required.
Similarly, I could change my own oil for a lot less than what a reputable shop charges (about $80-90), and I wouldn’t want a cheap shop or “quick lube” place touching my car anyways. I can buy two 5 qt. bottles of Dexos-compliant synthetic motor oil at Costco for $26 plus tax. Even at a place like AutoZone or O’Reilly, a genuine OEM oil filter is about $12. Disposing of the used oil is free–most auto parts stores will accept personal-use quantities for recycling.
Of course, other repair and maintenance procedures yield far bigger cost savings than DIY oil changes. For example, if I need to replace the spark plugs and ignition wires, a shop might charge $400 to do that, whereas the parts on RockAuto cost less than $60. If I need to change the radiator, radiator hoses, heater hoses, etc, a shop might charge $850 or more. DIY might cost less than $200. If I need to change the timing belt, tensioner, idler, water pump, etc. a shop might charge $1000 or more. The parts themselves, purchased online cost less than $200. My time doesn’t cost $800.
Not only does DIY save money, but you are assured a high-quality result, without regard for time and profit. Put differently, a professional mechanic will often cut corners due to time constraints. They are only paid for a limited amount of time to do a particular job, which might be insufficient, and they have a manager breathing down their neck to work faster. A DIYer can spend as much time as required to do the job correctly.
For example, I purchased a used Daewoo Lanos in August of 2019 with approximately 80,000 miles on it. I originally intended to do the timing belt myself, however I became super-busy at work and ended up paying a shop $1100 to do it. The car subsequently developed engine problems (not the fault of the shop) which ended up being a head gasket leak between two cylinders. I did the repairs myself, and ended up discovering that the professional mechanic had installed the timing belt at maximum tension, rather than setting to maximum tension, then rotating the engine several revolutions, and then relaxing tension on the timing belt so that the pointers on the tensioner are lined up.
The tensioner was ruined as a result, so the spring no longer functioned as intended. As a DIYer, I was able to pause the repairs for another week to order a new tensioner online, whereas a professional mechanic would have been sorely tempted to overtighten the belt and send the car out the door, especially on a low-value car such as this. The odds are that the engine would have run for at least another year, before the belt fails, and then it wouldn’t be his/the shop’s problem.
Also, as a DIYer, you can do things which a professional mechanic would not due to liability concerns. For example, I notched the power steering pulley on the Daewoo to facilitate easier removal in order to access the timing belt. Another example would be replacing trouble-prone pre-cat exhaust manifolds on certain Nissan engines with aftermarket versions that do not contain pre-cats.
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I’ll have to say that I have never crawled under a car to look at servicing before I bought one. Never looked up the procedure either but probably a good idea. The only thing you can see on a car is the sheet metal and mechanicals from above. Too bad they don’t have one up on a lift to look at, but then they don’t want you doing anything on them anyway.
Looking at lawn mowers I’ve noticed it is also impossible to look at the transmission and other important mechanicals. You can try looking underneath but without a mirror and a flashlight good luck. And none of the normal owners manuals even have that information. You have to go on-line with the model number and look for parts diagrams for any clue. I suppose most people are clueless. You don’t look at a washing machine motor either but at least the dealer/owner/repairman can tell you, unlike the sales people selling cars.
Did I ever tell you folks the story about my speeding ticket? Happened quite a few years ago.
Got clocked at 37 in a 30. It’s the only 30 mph cross-street in town, all the rest are 35. Suspiciously, that street is right in front of the police station … lol … There were 5 people in my Corolla, all of us coworkers. I’d invited them to a restaurant dinner, my treat, b/c they had been doing such good work at the office. So after the ticket was written, the officer drives away, and I mention “no worries, probably just a $75 fine” … one of the co-workers says “think again, I got a similar ticket a couple months ago, $475 fine.” I have since learned that Calif courts tack on a lot of misc fees to the basic fine for a traffic ticket, enough that the extra fees can hike the price of the ticket by five times.
“$475? Oh, oh”, I say, “that’s going to present some budget problems” … I’m thinking what with the restaurant bill I’m expecting, around $500. The other folks in the car say “hey, instead of going to the restaurant let’s just go to the grocery store, buy some spaghetti & salad ingredients, some beer & wine, and we’ll make dinner at your house. It’ll be more fun to watch the football on tv while we eat anyway.” Everyone agrees it is a good idea, & that’s exactly what we did. The ingredients cost me about $75, so that savings eliminated the budget problem. Plus we had so much fun eating dinner while watching football on tv (and betting) we did the same thing several more times.
The ironic part to this story? The judge dismissed the ticket …
Tester
I’m simply not that talented. I gave up on doing my own taxes long ago. I had to replace the siding on the south side of my house and I could always tell it wasn’t as good as if I had a pro do it. The laceleaf maples next to the front porch just never looked as good after I told the landscaper I would maintain them myself. Sure, I’m a top-notch auto technician, but there are many things that are better done by the experts in their fields. After all, the landscape service doesn’t maintain their own trucks, they pay me to do it. So does the accountant.
It does to someone. Whatever you do for a living, your wages come from the people who find value in what you do and are willing to pay you to do what they can’t do themselves. I fix cars for a living, and am paid to do so by people who can’t or don’t want to the work themselves. Believe me, I often find myself saying “I can’t believe someone is paying $800 for this brake job” or “Why didn’t they just open the hood and see this leaky water pump instead of paying me to check it out?”.
I work 45-50 hours a week fixing things. My wife works 50-55 hours a week running an HR department. We do this so that we can enjoy ordering our dinner and having it brought to us without having to cook or clean up. That has value to us.
A professional mechanic (at least one working under me) would not do that, not because of liability but because it’s the wrong thing to do. The pulley came out whole, it goes in whole. I know there are many parts of my trade that don’t live up to my standards. All I can do is exercise the control I have over my little piece of it and hope it catches on elsewhere.
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Yeah sure why not hijack a little further. I guess you just have to know your limitations and whether some repairs should be hired out but oil changes are fairly straight forward.
At a gathering last night I was talking to the guy who was plant manager at the truck plant I worked at in the summers. He’s 91 now but I told him I couldn’t take any shop classes in school but because of my experience in the plant, I gained a whole lot of useful mechanical experience I still use today. Wood shop, assembly, foundry, steel shop, painting, and on and on. First time I used a nail gun in 1967. Work experience plus what we did as kids qualified me for oil changes and a whole host of other DIY projects. Plus books and sometimes you do things twice the first time, but oil changes?
Tester
On the other hand, I believe I probably actually save time by changing the oil myself. Get the oil and filter when you’re at the store getting something else. Change the oil in 30 minutes. Drop off the used oil when you’re in town.
Or…you can call a shop and schedule an appointment (generally during my work hours), or wait in line at a quick change place, and then wait for the shop to change it. All in all, I don’t see where I’d save any time having a shop change my oil.
I do hate painting, though!
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I do my own oil changes because I don’t like replacing oil pans, and I never have! It forces me to give the underside a good look-see while I am there.
A little simplistic but I find DIY projects rewarding personally and financially. When my wife and I both worked we made enough that half our earnings went to taxes. If you ever honestly calculate that, it will make you angry, I advise against it.
Anything I paid to have done cost me 4x… 2x from my pay and another 2x to the taxes the worker and his company paid. So that 1600 brake job that the workman got 800 for, cost me 3200. As long as I could do it and not hate the work, I did it. Even better if the satisfaction made me feel good.
Got a look inside my first house 30 years later to see my kitchen remodel still looks great. I do good work that lasts. We are not scared of homes that need work.
I pay a guy to cut my grass. I hate cutting grass. I don’t do auto AC, sand hardwood floors or shingle roofs but I’ll give most anything else a try.
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Agreed. It costs more to pay someone else to do it. Then, theoretically, you have to work longer yourself to earn that extra money back. My opinion, anyway.
I do cut my own grass. I don’t really enjoy it, but with the size of my yard, paying someone else would equate to a pretty decent used car payment each month.
I do a lot of other DIY things to save money. Replace home AC capacitors, electric motors, etc. I’ve never called a plumber, other than when we originally built the house. If a tree needs cut, I’ll do it myself.
One reason I started doing more repairs on my own vehicles is because I always found something I didn’t like when someone else worked on it. Missing trans cooler line brace, coolant level sensor left unplugged, access panel to oil filter left off, etc.
I guess I could be called a jack of all trades, master of none. I generally won’t attempt “aesthetic” repairs, though. If it has to look pretty, I’m out. If it’s mechanical repairs or structural repairs, I can usually handle that myself.
As far as changing oil, filters, belts, plugs and basic maintenance…I don’t think I’ve ever paid for that.