So, I'm witing for another publish to finish. I've managed to do a fair amount of catchup. I completed two of the three Honda Civic articles I wanted to complete. They are performing an oil change and changing the spark plugs.
This lead me to do some thinking about modern cars, something that's not normally at the fore of my brain. While I didn't necessarily think much about the work on the various Toyotas recently excepting the ease at which I could work on them, I was very suprised by the differences between the Honda and the Toyotas. Normally I lump all of these into the economy car segment and dismiss them.
But, now, as I'm thinking and comparing the two brands I'm very suprised at how easy the Toyota is to work on, and how much of a pain in the butt the Honda is by comparison. In addition, as I was looking over the work that was done, I realized that the overall Toyota design was more elegant, and that the quality of the parts was higher. Even though it's a silly part, just comparing the engine covers gives a good indication to the rest of the car. The Toyota one was molded with a fair bit of thickness and strength. It was also held down by proper nuts and bolts. The Honda one was thin and flimsy and held in place with plastic fasteners. Based on what I've seen first hand, I'd say that was a fairly good inication of the quality differences between the two cars.
And, whomever thought that having an oil filter installed horizontally halfway up the block on the firewall side of the engine needs to spend eternity in purgatory changing oil filters on his design. No mechanic would have done that, it must have been an "Engineer."
On a much better note, half of the fun this weekend was having SWMBO out there with me. She has been wanting to learn how to change oil (and got a trial by fire on the Honda). She also did a full spark plug job by herself (again, the Honda). While I enjoy just mucking about with cars in general, it's much more fun to share it with someone, especially someone special. Good job honey!
