What's the worst OEM part you've ever replaced on a New(ish) Car?

"POD" (podimus)
10/04/2015 at 01:53 • Filed to: None

I’ve had 4 new cars in the last 7 years (I’m a DINK) and none of them were left unmolested. I’m a bit torn as to what the “worst” OEM part I’ve ever replaced was. First up is the exhaust. It’s the mating call of a car, so it really needs to be on point.

My old Speed3 got the business when it came to exhaust.

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My Current Gen Coupe has as well.

Other than the exhaust, it’s the stereo. I’m a pretty big audiophile (I know that a car will never be the amphitheater I want it to be) and I want my head unit and speakers to be up to the task of faithfully overpowering the engine and exhaust. In the Gen, this was exactly the case.

The new head unit has many EQ and digital crossover options. It controls the horrible stock speakers a bit better and I think I might be able to live with them for a few more months (although there is still too much sibilance and the speakers are fatiguing).

With this being done, I thought I had taken care of the most horrible, most hellacious, most Hyundai, WTF were you thinking this shit has to come out of my car right fracking now!!!! Moment I was going to have....

Hyundai pipes in engine noise via a resonator and sound tube. Like so.

Fortunately there is an easy fix that will cost me only a little horsepower and possibly engine life longevity... A Short Ram Intake!!! (Because SRI’s on a NA engine totes make huge power braw)

Given that the sound tube is gone, I no care about the power loss I’m probably seeing with this SRI. I mean really, if I’m being honest, I’ll still smoke the RAM HEMI guys off the line any day of the week. If I’m lucky they’ll speed to plaid to get past me after the pull and flip me off (RAM guys are so insecure and silly).

But even this wasn’t the silliest, most skull scratching modification that I felt compelled to do. No sir, not by a long shot. The thing that I felt compelled to do was to swap the differential oil.

Yup, diff oil. You read that right.

Apparently guys with the 3.8l have been trashing diffs under factory power (so say the forums and my local Genesis group). The culprate seems to be crappy gear oil. So after 11,500 of not so soft kilometers I decided to drain the diff and swap with a full synthetic. Holy Flying Spaghetti Monster, what a fucking mess....

Dark grey/black. After the swap, the diff whine I had has magically disappeared even though the dealership told me it was “normal”.

So what say you Oppo? What’s the worst thing you found in a new(ish) car that made you stomp and fume and look to an online supplier to fix??

DISCUSSION (15)

Sam > POD
10/04/2015 at 02:02

I didn’t replace it, since it wasn’t my car, but the Range Rover and Jaguar infotainment is not that great. The new one is much better, but the old one (up til’ this model year) is really out dated. Needs more shiny transitions and more Apple-esque user experience.

Shark-Attack > POD
10/04/2015 at 02:06

Plastic timing chain tensioners, plastic thermostat, and plastic water pump I just replaced on the new jag. F**k plastic engine parts, and the bean counters who pushed for them.

POD > Shark-Attack
10/04/2015 at 02:08

Damn it, now I have to look into which part on my engine are plastic.

Shark-Attack > POD
10/04/2015 at 02:12

If you can find aluminum or cast replacements definately go for it.

POD > Shark-Attack
10/04/2015 at 02:14

It’s going to be the tensioner, it’s always the tensioner.

Shark-Attack > POD
10/04/2015 at 02:16

Plastic tensioners make me sad :( look out for my post on the jags, coming soon to an oppo page near you!

MultiplaOrgasms > POD
10/04/2015 at 07:34

Pod filter on a mid 2000s Volvo. My arms are still torn to shreds.

Lomac > Shark-Attack
10/04/2015 at 07:38

Plastic tensioner and plastic impellers on water pumps. My tensioner crapped out on me, causing the belt to jump a bunch of teeth and bend half the valves.

Shark-Attack > Lomac
10/04/2015 at 08:05

Thats rough. It almost happened to me as well as the plastic tensioners had begun falling apart when I dove into it. I got more than lucky.

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > POD
10/04/2015 at 08:32

Definitely sound system. Went from a 2x20W head unit with garbage speakers to a 4 speaker, 2 tweeter system with pioneer head unit. Plenty in a little car.

wkiernan > POD
10/04/2015 at 11:09

Tires. I haven’t bought that many brand-new cars, and the ones I have bought were econoboxes, but the tires that came on them were always of such ridiculously low quality that when they wore out and I replaced them, it was like I was suddenly driving a new and vastly improved car.

I think that when I bought a new Corolla in 1980 the reason the tires were so lousy was simply a matter of cheapness; if the dealer could save $10 by buying an utter crap tire instead of an adequate one, that’s $40 clear profit. But nowadays, I think it’s also driven by EPA and CAFE regulations, so if you buy, for example, a new FR-S, it comes with rock-hard low rolling resistance tires which have the effect of running up the all-important mileage rating, at the cost of reduced handling. Then Toyota tells us (with a straight face! I don’t know how their spokesman does it) that they did this on purpose , to make it so the tires break loose at lower speeds, for more fun drifting! Who the Hell ever heard of a sports car manufacturer deliberately making their car handle worse for “improved” driving pleasure?

By the way, as long as I can drive something like a used Miata for less cost-per-mile than a new Corolla, I don’t think I’ll ever buy another new car again.

CounterTorqueSteer > POD
10/04/2015 at 13:20

Focus ST rear motor mount.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > POD
10/04/2015 at 13:38

On my old 2000 Saab 9-3, this POS OEM part:

Kinja'd!!!

This is the shaft that connects the HVAC knob to the heater box.

As you can see it’s cheap plastic. And on the left side of it, you may notice it’s designed to bend a little.

In the 4 years I had my Saab, it broke 3 times. The only reason why it didn’t break a 4th time was because after the 3rd repair, I left it in defrost and left it alone... which is what many owners of this vintage of Saab do.

And a better-designed part isn’t available. All you can do is replace the original garbage part with the same garbage.

POD > CounterTorqueSteer
10/04/2015 at 15:49

Speed3 had the same issue. They used the same motor mount from the Mazda3. It was not up to the task of keeping the engine in place. Before I swapped it out, I actually bounced the motor off the firewall.

e36Jeff now drives a ZHP > POD
10/04/2015 at 21:02

This little bastard: https://www.ecstuning.com/BMW-E46-330i-M…

Most things on a e46 are pretty logically designed and easy to get to/work on. Not the oil separator. About the only good thing about it is that its at the front of the engine and not the rear. To gain access to it, you have to remove everything except the intake headers themselves on the intake side, the DISA, and unplug about half a billion sensors. Doing this allows you to access the 2 screws holding it in via a rather long extension and growing an extra elbow mid forearm(this is going to come in rather useful in a few moments). Once you get the screws out, you still cant pull out the separator, because it also has 3 hoses attached to it, one of which is inflexible. You need to blindly feel around for the end of the hose, which you cant both see and touch at the same time. To unplug it, you have to squeeze the clips at the end while pulling on it, which I think required me to dislocate my elbow, shoulder, 3 fingers and the second elbow I grew just so I could reach it. In the end, I only managed to unplug one of them, so I hulked out and ripped it in half then ripped the hoses in half(I had new ones). You then need to reattach all the hoses, one of which will never, under any circumstances feel like its attached, then try to put it in place to put the screws back in, which is nearly impossible because again, you cant both see it and grab it at the same time, then re-plug in the half billion wires you unplugged to get to it(thankfully those crafy Germans don’t reuse plug connectors, so they are all different, you just need to match the male and female ends). Put the intake back together, then pray to Odin that you got it right and there are no vacuum leaks, because you will rather remove your eyes with a rusty spoon than do this all over again.

It took me more time to replace the oil separator than it took for me to replace all the shocks, or the front control arms, or the trailing arm bushings, or really anything other than the time I replaced all the bushings in the rear sub frame in one go, but I would do that 10 times over before I want to replace the separator again.