Tired of Poor Engineering

225K miles you have said enough sir you actually just made my day knowing that I wont be dealing with some of this stuff any time soon. Thanks for all the heads up and welcome from Indiana

 

I'm not a mechanic so I'm not experienced in working on vehicles, that said, I imagine that the reason some of these parts are so difficult to access is because in modern vehicles, they cram so much stuff into a small area, that is, it's not like the old days when I remember popping the hood on a vehicle with a V8 and it was pretty amazing to see what appeared to be a small engine in a very large engine bay, I mean, lots of room. Same with 4 cylinder engines, for example, my grandfather had an original 1961 International Scout with a 4cyl engine and that thing had lots of space under the hood to get to everything.

Not so much today with car manufacturers trying to make all vehicles more fuel efficient (which means lighter vehicles) and yet they have to cram so much extra stuff under the hood that has to do with safety and emissions. So, smaller engine bays crammed with more stuff and on top of all that--modularity! That is, to save money, car manufacturers use the same parts in many different vehicles. I'm guessing this is another reason why something that should seem simple, like changing a battery or an oil filter or a starter is a big pain in the rear.

Finally, yes, I think Toyota did the stupid oil filter element, along with the must-remove skid plate, on these Tundras to pretty much force your average shade-tree mechanic like me to say, "I'm just going to take it to the dealer".

Here's the good news! My Toyota dealer use Mobile One full synthetic as their bulk oil for my Tundra and an oil change costs about $65, with filter. That's really pretty darn reasonable, IMHO.

 

Awesome 1st post!