My rant for the week

Im not a huge fan of foreign cars, however, 2008 I bought a Kia Spectra, after my son bought one and had great service with it. 130k, brakes tires and oil. there may be a sensor or something I have forgotten about, but basically it cost me very little in maintenance. It lives outside, sees a car wash maybe six times a year. rust free.
at 130k I decided to do preventative maintenance, since it is my wife's primary transport. new timing belt, water pump, hoses, belts, plugs, wires, thermostat. all were working when I replaced them and frankly, after removing them, they didn't look like they really needed replaced.

after 10 years and 130k miles, not one frozen fastener, it was like working on a new vehicle!

Today I had to replace a starter motor on my '99 F250.....freaking nightmare! everything is rusty. and the three bolts that mount the starter were all frozen solid! steel bolts through aluminum alloy starter housing and bell housing. I assume that Ford treats those bolts somehow to avoid corrosion, but if so they failed miserably. Two came out with extreme resistance, and a cheater. Some corrosion evident, but not as bad as the third because they were in blind holes in the bell housing (OK, OK I know they don't call it that anymore, but I am old school). Third, the bottom, bolt was in an open ended hole in bell housing and it would not budge, even with cheater. snake oil (I've never had that stuff work, no matter what brand or flavor), beating on the end of the bolt with air chisel, etc to no avail. finally head snapped off. OK but at least starter should come off now. NOPE! the thru hole in starter casing is still corroded to the remainder of bolt, now just a stud, as well as a boss on the mounting face of the starter that fits into bell housing spacer plate is corroded and stuck to spacer plate (plate is steel, starter casing Al alloy. Starting gently, but eventually becoming more and more violent, tapping starter, prying with prybars, etc, and, finally using air chisel to try to vibrate the corrosion loose, I got too aggressive and broke starter mounting ear, but at least starter should come off now, right? NOPE more tapping, prying......beating and prying, I finally broke the starter case even further and the starter finally DID come off. What should have been a half hour to 45 min job has taken me all morning!


After trying to remove remainder of broken bolt to no avail, I decided it only needed to bolts to hold it on and the remainder of the broken bolt will still act as an inti torque stud.


I think American manufacturers should take a closer look at their competition, Ill stick with Kia until they do.

My buddy has a Tundra, couple years now, he loves it, trouble free. If I were to buy a new truck, I think I would look real hard at the Tundra. Not likely I will be buying a new truck any time soon thought

Lou, you needs one of these:

Steve, $400 would be a little hard for me to justify, but it sure would be helpful at times. I was to far from the fireax to be practical, but I did seriously consider using the MAP gas torch. However, being a Ford, this truck likes to slobber oil and grease, I did not have a second person for fire watch, so I nixed that idea. (there was a day when I wouldn't even have thought about a 'fire watch', but then, there was a day when I worked on vehicles supported only by a floor jack, too). I'm getting older and more cautious with my age
One thing that I have always pondered using heat. Wouldn't heating a bolt/stud stuck in a block/bell housing, whatever only cause the bolt to expand and become even tighter? I would think heating the material around the bolt would be more productive

fixer, you are absolutely right, Kia was considered a throwaway car.....and priced accordingly. funny thing is, they preformed well beyond expectations, to the shock of many in the car world

Lou,if you can get some heat on AL housing it will grow faster than steel bolt and help release grip....sometimes even the corroded ones.

Back in the day one of the things I did was alignment of big trucks. The Pete.s had a cinch bolt on the air spring that could really give you a fit. Answer: heat the head of the bolt until red hot, let it cool until red is barely gone and then smack it hard with a single jack about 3-4 times. Next a good impact would bring then out. Don't worry about spreading the head of the bolt, you can always drive a socket on.

Worked on SIL's 2000 Tundra a time or two for bad coil packs and he did have a new starter installed after 250K miles but little else.  Wife is on her second Camry and the first was gifted to daughter and it is right @ 200K miles now. 

       My biggest thought is, Were the problems preventable while it was designed and manufactured?

GaryL wrote: [QUOTE=fixer1958] Kia used to be considered a throw away car. Newer ones are better as long as you keep the maintenance up. Some are really nice to drive. A Ford is still a Ford. If they can make it difficult they will. I guess to keep the techs busy because of the engineering genius behind it. Nissan is a Jap Ford in my opinion. They do things the same way.

Edited by fixer1958 - 23 Jun 2018 at 9:06am