What Is The Worst Car You've Ever Owned?

[karlos_uk]

a 306 turbo diesel

the biggest pile of crap ive ever owned in my life

it was pretty much raped by all its previous owners by the looks of things. i bought a speedo cable for it which was a living nightmare to fit. the brakes were totally s**t from day 1 so replaced the front discs and pads, bled the whole system and replaced a burst rear cylinder and a load of copper pipe at great expense. i needed to change the glow plugs since it refused to start in the snow (despite being shown that it did). i needed to scrub about an inch of s**t and mud out of the carpets for it to still stink.

i bought it just to rag to work and back in place of the 940 while its being built but ended up scrapping it. it turned out the brakes were so shockingly bad because the servo was gone (somehow) and to replace it you need to remove or just move the engine out of the way. too much for me to bother with.

piece of effing crap. i shall never buy a peugeot again as long as i live

[MTerry]

A 1986 U.S. model Ford Escort, bought in 1990 with 26,000 miles on the clock. I had a '73 Super Beetle that my mother hated with such a passion she bought the Escort for me. "What do you think of it?," she asked. "Well," I said, "It's been wrecked and when, not if, it breaks, you can pay for it." Cost her a bunch too. It needed a new emissions air pump less than two weeks after I started driving it. Then the idle started surging and eventually it wouldn't start. It was towed to the dealer repeatedly with this problem. Always a broken vacuum hose somewhere. Then on a sharp downshift, the entire exhaust system broke loose. It also blew a headgasket. It had so many vacuum lines that it had to be towed to the dealer to run again because my father's friend who did the job couldn't figure out where they all went during reassembly, and he rebuilds aircraft engines for a living! It leaked every fluid imaginable constantly. Finally I let a friend of my grandfather's look at it and he diagnosed all the vacuum hose problems. Turns out the massively leaking automatic transmission fluid ate all the rubber out of all the engine mounts but one and the engine was pitching fore and aft a good foot or so every time I accelerated or braked. Also the front end geometry was messed up from being hit and it went through a set of front tyres every 10,000 miles. These cars also handled horribly to begin with and the front end problems only made it worse. It would understeer then snap into oversteer without warning. Finally one of the valve lifters stopped doing what its name implies at 75,000 miles. The dealership said it would be $1500 just to confirm the problem. They would only give me $500 for the whole car. So I drove it on 3 cylinders to their sister dealership and they gave me $300 towards a new Toyota which I kept 18 years and 335,000 miles.

[Moosejaw]

Without doubt a Rover 600 turbo, hateful thing.
Bought it thinking it was a viable 3 series/Alfa156/Audi A4 rival, checked the service history to make sure the notorious Rover head gasket problem had been dealt with by a new gasket, bought it and almost straight away realised what a nasty heap of crap it was.

It may have been powerful but you needed two lanes to put the power down, even on a straight road. It taught me what torque steer was that's for sure. I only had it a few weeks before I realised I hated it so put it up for sale again. Then the replacement, new-style-"honest, we've fixed the problem now" head gasket failed on Xmas eve as I was needing it for last minute shopping duties!

It became only the third car I'd scrapped in 30 years of driving.

[sabresoft]

Well its a toss up between a brand new Mazda 323 which was the most boring gutless car I've ever owned. I had to turn off the a/c to stand a chance of overtaking anything OR my current V70 which appears to be a bottomless moneypit.

[DWM]

Originally Posted by MTerry

... my father's friend who did the job couldn't figure out where they all went during reassembly, and he rebuilds aircraft engines for a living!

!!!! Any particular airlines/aircraft we should make a note to avoid?

1.3 Metro for me. It actually wasn't all that bad, for what it was. It didn't ever actually let me down, and I had a friend who did the clutch for free because he found it interesting. It just pulled to the left terrifyingly and you could stand and watch the rust grow on the front wings. Oh and the seats were peculiarly horrible to look at and and touch, and uncomfortable to sit in.

[Jondb]

i have had citroens with the noisier yet much better xud engines and yeah id agree with the older variant of engine they are ok but i think my 7 series is more comfortable to be honest

[pdrvolvo]

A 1982 austin metro.It ran very well but was a total rotbox like most of british leylands motors.




peter.

[capt jack]

In third place.... a 1975 Triumph Spitfire. That taught me in 1981 never to buy 2nd-hand sports cars


In second place.... a 2000 Honda Accord - nice engine shame about the rest of the car. Only two years old and 20,000 miles old when purchased. Front end and interior trim fell to bits by 100,000 miles.

And the winner is.......a 1995 Mercedes Benz W124 E220. Looked good (which is why I bought it) then spent the next 50,000 miles and a lot of money wishing I hadn't! Bought at 5 years old and 55,000 miles.

Actually, thinking about it I bought the Honda because the Merc was such a disaster, and botht he Merc and the Spitfire caught fire at different times.

Pre the Merc had had numerous Volvos - no problems at all, and since the Honda have owned 3 Volvos, an S70, a V70 and an 1800ES. The 1800ES was great fun and sold on for a profit, the S70 and V70 are still on the drive, in daily use and at 150,000 and 240,000 miles up respectively, still both going just fine!

Cheers

Jack

[MTerry]

Originally Posted by DWM

!!!! Any particular airlines/aircraft we should make a note to avoid?

No, just any he worked on before he had enough of what was going on and left. He worked for his father, a former WWII RAF Lanc pilot BTW, at a little shop at a tiny airport, who cut some corners on engine rebuilds and, last I heard, was somewhere in South America, trying to hide from the US Government. Most piston aircraft engines are the best 1930's technology money can buy, so the bugs are pretty much ironed out by now. The jets are shockingly reliable considering all the thousands of delicate, rotating parts. My dad's into homebuilts now and his plane's powered by a VW Transporter engine. His worst car was a 1971 Ford Capri that smoked from the moment it left the dealership and went downhill from there. He followed that with a 1973 Chevrolet Vega, one of the most notoriously bad cars GM ever built.

[dysopath]

With only a short driving history (2 and a half years) and a fairly bad car history with some good ones thrown in. 1995 Fiat 1.2 Auto, 1995 1.4 Nissan Sunny Twin Cam, 1995 Peugeot 205 1.1 Junior, 2001 Nissan Almera 1.5 twin cam, 1995 Vauxhall Combo Van 1.4, 1987 Audi 100cc 2.0, 1995 Volvo 850GLT Estate, 1995 Nissan Sunny 1.4 Twin Cam (2nd one with only 1 digit different on number plate)

The worst out of that lot is the 205, admittadly there was no clutch or brake... But the worst I've ever driven is a reanult scenic 1997 1.6... The pedals are in the most awkward place ever!