TIL how much smaller engine bays have gotten over 20 years

I was helping a buddy swap a water pump on his '03 F-150 last weekend, and I couldn't believe how much room he had to work with... you could practically stand inside that engine bay. Then I popped the hood on my '22 Silverado later that day, and man, it's like they packed everything in there with a shoehorn. I think it's cause of all the emissions stuff and turbos they cram in now, plus the bigger cabs pushing the firewall back. Has anyone else noticed older trucks just being way easier to wrench on?

3 comments

3 Comments

christopherh791mo ago

The whole world is like that now, not just trucks. Pop open a modern fridge or a washing machine and it's the same story, everything is packed in tight with circuit boards and sensors that didn't exist twenty years ago. You used to be able to fix a dryer with a screwdriver and some patience, now you need a diagnostic computer just to figure out why it won't start. It feels like nothing is built for the person who actually has to maintain it anymore, it's all designed for the assembly line and the dealership service bay.

brianm661mo ago

Yeah my buddy Mike bought a brand new Samsung fridge last year, top of the line right? Six months in the ice maker just stops working. He watches a YouTube video, thinks he can swap out a little part himself. Opens it up and there's this circuit board the size of his hand covered in epoxy, one little sensor fried right on it. Can't buy just the sensor, gotta buy the whole board for like 300 bucks. And you need their specific diagnostic tool to even tell the fridge what part you put in. He ended up selling the damn thing on Facebook and bought a 1998 model off a guy down the street, thing still runs like a tank lol.

thomas_sanchez1mo ago

Most of the time it's just a bad capacitor or relay on those boards, and a cheap multimeter and a soldering iron can fix it in ten minutes. You can look up the board number and find a repair kit online for under twenty bucks instead of buying the whole thing. It's still not right that they make it so hard, but a little basic electronics knowledge can save you a fortune.