I recently had the dubious pleasure of having to replace the heater core in my 2000 Dodge Dakota. if you’re not technically savvy, the heater core is a radiator through which hot engine coolant circulates, delivering toasty air to your toes. If the core springs a leak, it delivers stinking fog throughout your vehicle’s interior. This miasma just loves to settle on the windows, making driving an act of blind faith. (Ahem, pun!)
The thing is: to get at the heater core, you have to drain the cooling system and then have someone discharge the air conditioning system. Then you go home and rip out the entire dashboard, disconnecting what seems to be hundreds of wires and vacuum lines in the process. If you don’t reconnect everything properly, you’re toast, and you have to go in all over again. If you have it done in a shop, you’re out a cool thou to replace a forty-dollar part.
On hearing that I was going to attempt this feat, Joe the friendly neighborhood mechanic smiled a little and wished me luck. He said, somewhat ominously, that Chrysler seems to design the heating system first, then builds the car around it. I think he was expecting me to make a mess of it and then slink in his direction, suitably humbled.
But I had the last laugh (after a bunch of tears). It took very slow work, lots of Post-its and Scotch tape to label everything and, above all, an intimate knowledge of expletives and the courage to use them. When I returned to the garage to have the air conditioning system recharged, Joe the mechanic acted as though nothing had been at stake. But I know that, deep down inside, he was suitably impressed.
Which brings me back to my original claim. Had Chrysler designed their cars first and heating systems afterward, things would have turned out much differently. But I suspect it’s too late now, and more time-honored American automobile brands will bite the dust soon. I, for one, will mourn them, flawed design process or no.
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