[rainbowzootsuit]

To echo your point: Going back decades it's been a real PITA to repair dash components on many vehicles, and this is primarily a manufacturing artifact that in the factory the whole assembly of the dash is brought into the car on a specialty arm made for that task.

It's made to go in as a whole component at some point in the assembly and streamline that step for first cost reasons vs for serviceability of sub components after the warranty has expired.

The right to repair complaint would be that if your evaporator core fails you have to replace your car because that sub component wouldn't be allowed to be sold by sake of making the pipe connectors a drm copywriting mess, not that it's a pain to get to it.