Why, Honda? WHY?!?!?!?!

[Dave1982]

How hard is it to change a freaking air filter?

Ugh.....for reasons that I shall not get into here (LONG story) I found that I needed to change the air filter on my car today. This is the first time since I bought the car that I needed to do this. So I headed on over to autozone and went to pull out the old filter so I could make sure I was getting the right one.

Now, I have a 2002 Civic. On my previous 2 cars (a 1990 Camry and a 1997 Civic) and indeed on EVERY car I've ever had the need to check the air filter on, the filter cover is held on by metal clips or a wingnut. In other words, no tools required. You just pop off the clips (or unscrew the wingnut), lift the cover off, pull out the old filter, put the new one in, put the cover back on, and snap the clips back in place. It can be done in under a minute easily.

So imagine my surprise when I go to remove the old filter and find that the upper housing is held in place by SCREWS. Six of them! They were those combination bolt/screw head things. In this case, 8mm with a philips screw head.

Luckily i had both screw drivers and wrenches in the toolbox in my trunk, so I got went to work on the screws. That's when I discovered the were a freaking inch long, with half an inch of thread.

After dropping one screw, and finding another was stripped (), I finally got them out.....and the cover would not come off.

Turns out there's a SEVENTH screw in the center of the housing cover.

Ok, seriously, is this really necessary??? What's wrong with clips???? Why should it take 10 minutes just to get a stupid air filter out???? Jeeze!!!

For God's sake even a DeLorean has clips on the air filter housing, and that's a car where you need to undo the fuel lines just to replace the spark plugs!

<END RANT>

[mikoyan29]

I can think of a couple of reasons:
1. They want you to go to a dealer
2. Fewer people work on their cars, so you have fewer engineers that actually work on the car.

[protege]

For God's sake even a DeLorean has clips on the air filter housing, and that's a car where you need to undo the fuel lines just to replace the spark plugs!

Ugh. That sucks! But, my MG has a few quirks of its own. For example, the batteries (yep, the car originally had two 6-volt items...but I've since converted it to a single 12v type) live under the rear seat. To get to them, the seat cushion has to come out, followed by a metal panel. That panel, is held down by 7 Dzus (spring loaded bolts) fasteners. Oh, and if you're wondering, the factory put the batteries back there...for better weight distribution

Then there's the oil filter. While many cars use a spin-on type...the MG doesn't. My car has a 'canister' type filter, which contains a replaceable paper element. Undo one bolt, and the canister comes apart. But, beware of the mess! Even if you remove the drain plug first, you'll end up with a mess on the floor--a fair bit stays in the oil cooler ahead of the engine. Don't ask me how I know this...

Also fun, is getting to the transmission oil filler. There's a large rubber plug behind the radio console. But, to reach it...you have to *remove* said radio. At least the dipstick is easy to reach--I welded a loop of wire to it

But, at least the air filters are easy. Four bolts, and they both come off