My son's fiancé inherited a '98 Oldsmobile Aurora from her grandfather. An idiot light came on indicating a problem with the charging system, so I took my multimeter over to see if I could diagnose the problem. Probably a simple alternator swap-out, I figured.
One look under the hood told me nothing about this would be simple. There's a 4.0 liter V8 shoehorned in transversely, and it takes up so much room the brilliant engineers at GM decided to put the battery under the back seat, along with the fuse boxes and relays.
Just to get a somewhat unobstructed peek at the alternator, the front splash guard underneath needed to be removed. Even then I couldn't reach key parts of it to do any kinds of tests. Oh, and there isn't room to remove the alternator via that lower route. It has to come out the top, which requires removal of a body cross member, the radiator fans, and quite possibly the radiator itself (instructions vary).
The car also has an intermittant starting problem, so I looked around underneath for the starter and never did see it. It seems to be hidden behind part of the transmission.
Oh, there's also the problem of the way it wears the shoulders off the front tires.
What a monstrosity -- a disgraceful example of modern American automotive engineering. It's no wonder foreign car makers were eating Detroit's lunch.
One look under the hood told me nothing about this would be simple. There's a 4.0 liter V8 shoehorned in transversely, and it takes up so much room the brilliant engineers at GM decided to put the battery under the back seat, along with the fuse boxes and relays.
Just to get a somewhat unobstructed peek at the alternator, the front splash guard underneath needed to be removed. Even then I couldn't reach key parts of it to do any kinds of tests. Oh, and there isn't room to remove the alternator via that lower route. It has to come out the top, which requires removal of a body cross member, the radiator fans, and quite possibly the radiator itself (instructions vary).
The car also has an intermittant starting problem, so I looked around underneath for the starter and never did see it. It seems to be hidden behind part of the transmission.
Oh, there's also the problem of the way it wears the shoulders off the front tires.
What a monstrosity -- a disgraceful example of modern American automotive engineering. It's no wonder foreign car makers were eating Detroit's lunch.