The Dude

I think the reason for putting microprocessors in car engines is to keep shade tree mechanics from working on them. 

I've had to change said headlight & a battery recently & both proved far more difficult than they should've been. 

My old '99 Saturn, you pop off a headlight & pop in a new one, as it should be. My current '07 Saturn, you have to rip & twist & damn near break the plastic headlight chamber to get it out of its position in order to replace bulbs. Just ridiculous.

Hi guys, automotive design engineer here, I just wanted to say it's not completely our fault. There is so much technology and safety stuff crammed into cars these days that it's pretty tight packaging, and overall styling also drives the lack of accessibility. Believe it or not we do engineer for serviceability, but sometimes that's the thing that has to be sacrificed to meet form and primary function. It will definitely get sacrificed when it's something that is only service once in awhile such as lights, but as an interior guy one of my primary is always ease of customer use.