I'm afraid the days of doing minor stuff yourself with two screwdrivers and a 10 & 13 mm spannerhave gone. It's a half day job now to change a fucking battery and most of that is removing and replacing the plastic covers and locating the clips.Many, many things under this heading but at the moment its lights. The Mrs has a Hyundai - recently had a brake light out - no probs says I - change the bulb. Did it but only by dismantling a ton of plastic boot lining.
I had a Scenic for a while - headlight out - change the bulb by taking the the wheel arch liner out to access the back of the unit to fit a bulb. Bastard of a job.
Have another Scenic now and side light is out....I can guess the procedure.
Are modern cars just too awkward and to clever for their own good?
Edited for hillbilly accuracy mate; )Ah, the old MOT...no such thing here, if it runs you can fuck it
Car companies are sinister beings. I believe they do everything possible to make simple changes difficult, in order to encourage their clientele to bring cars into their own garages for repairs and/or services.
VW are a bugger for that.
And...years ago I had a car rental firm at the airport, part of the fleet were Corsas, the 3 cylinder ones. One went pop at just over 15,000 miles, then another one at the same mileage. When the guys came to collect the cars I got talking to one, who used to work at Vauxhall, he told me the faults were engineered into the car to go at just over 15,000 miles. IIFC the service interval was, guess what....
Interestingly enough last year I had a Fiesta hire car - some fancy Dan sports model, rode fucking awful and was always fidgety, laughably the list was just over £17k !! For a Fiesta !! When I took it back the lad on the desk at Enterprise told me they shy away from all these 1 litre 3 cyl turbo jobs that are in Corsa's, Astra's, Fiesta's and Focus' coz they all tend to blow their turbo's early doors and are a liability. He reckoned it was a way for the manufacturers to meet economy targets across their ranges, sell cars to people who want low road tax or low tax liabilities and people who think they are helping the environment.