I have been a shade tree mechanic for many years, but always resisted owning "newer" vehicles because I was told, only a shop equipped with $100'sK can work on the new sophisticated systems. All my cars, trucks, and experience (more than forty years, now) has been on more "vintage" vehicles with rear wheel drive and pretty simple access to all systems. In fact the "newest" vehicle I have maintained was a 1981 model!
Now, I was given a 1994 Buick Century Wagon with a Six Cylinder engine, 178K miles, and loads of interesting problems like rough idle, malfunctioning seats, windows, antenna, and ????? For now, it desperately needs a tune-up and will eventually need a complete overhaul. This thing has a front wheel drive with transaxle engine mounted side to side instead of front to back and I have never worked on anything like it. Although I have the original shop manual, like most it presumes some things are too obvious to mention. Unfortunately, they are not always that obvious to me.
So, short of hoisting the engine, , is there is some trick to getting to the spark plugs located on the side of the engine near the firewall? I can't even see them, let alone replace them!
In general, do "modern" vehicles (especially transaxle vehicles) require the removal of lots of other parts and/or sub-assemblies to work on things that would ordinarily be easy and have direct access in standard RWD's? Or are you supposed to work from under the car? Or Both?
I'm sure there will many more questions in the near future, so thanks for any suggestions you can provide.
TIA,
Bob Giel, Los Angeles