Not really sure but it's pretty dumb. I mean,this was an ongoing problem for years and they continued with the same stupid design.
Complaining about hinges needing greased on a 17 year old vehicle? Pretty sure planned obsolescence wouldn’t come in the form of a creaking hinge. It’d more likely come in the form of multiple transmission repairs or a timing chain breaking and eating your valves for breakfast.
But there’s no convenient way to lubricate it at all!
All 4.0 SOHCs have the weak tensioner/guide setup. They are all interference engines.
I read an interesting article a while back on how using CAD in the engineering process is the main cause for parts failures along with the desire to save cost to manufacture. The modelling software has become so refined and accurate that the engineers can design a part that will last a bit beyond the extended warranty while shaving the cost down to the bare minimum. This way they are covered from a repair standpoint and pocket the money from not having to spec a more expensive and robust part. It is all about balancing these two things as a priority and it is applied to every component of the vehicle. This is why once a newer vehicle hits 100k miles it starts to see parts failures at a more frequent rate. Good maintenance can help some components last longer like engines, transmissions, PTUs, transfer cases etc. but so many parts are not able to be maintained and they will fail before they should. The other issue is that so many smaller components have been made inaccessible to replace. They are part of a module that contains many other components. When one component goes bad you replace several good components too. This makes repair costs very expensive on newer vehicles. The luxury European brands have been doing this for the past 10-15 years which is why we see so many high priced luxury cars/SUVs selling for $5k these days.
The one your driving.
Plenty of new cars are reliable. My Kia has been flawless so far. I’ve got a friend who bought a new Kia that was totaled for hail at 70k, he never had a single repair or warranty. His mom also has one she traded for another just to get AWD.
