I’ve changed the oil in most of my own vehicles for most of my life. That’s a fair number of vehicles, most of the Fords, with some Honda’s, a Chrysler, and a Nissan thrown in there.
Sometime around the early 90’s the Ford engineers got stupid. This was first witnessed making oil changes on our 1993 Ford Econo-line van with a 302. This is down right stupid. You need to be double jointed at the elbow and wrist to get up in there to get that usually HOT oil filter out. It’s the only vehicle that I’ve routinely let someone else do it because it’s just such a pain. I mean it really sucked.
The Kawasaki ZX-11 that I had wasn’t a bundle of fun with it’s cartridge filter. But at least it was doable.
Tonight I helped teach Michael how to change the oil in "his" car. That 1998 Ford Escort ZX-2.
You have got to be kidding me. If there’s a reason these motors don’t last, it’s simple because nobody change the filters. It’s ludicrous. It’s up high, in the back, under the alternator. You can’t get to it easily from underneath, and you can’t get to it from the top either, at least not and see what you’re trying to do.
Yep, this car is destined for Jiffy Lube… What a pain in the @$%@#. The Excursion is a piece of cake. But this, this is so dumb, that I’ll make darn sure what ever new vehicle we buy is serviceable without any special tools or double jointed anything.
Ford if you haven’t fixed this on new vehicles, you can count us out as potential customers.