There is an old saying that, “Victory has a hundred fathers. But defeat is an orphan.” JFK has been attributed to having said this quote right after the Bay of Pigs with the word ‘thousand’ replacing ‘hundreds’. But the truth is that those words originated from a far worse time. Count Galeazzo Ciano, the Foreign Minister to Benito Musolini, was the one who may have popularized this saying. Or it could have been the peasants of his hometown. Or perhaps his parents. To be frank, I think most philosophical sayings originate from parents while they’re raising their kids.
What does this have to do with our cars? Well, in our modern world we call cars that start 99.5% of the time, “Bad!”. Cars are usually more reliable than the kids and adults who drive them… and why not? Reliability is a given today just as plastic has become an acceptable interior adornment in most cars.
Durability is also a given as well. Yesterday’s 150,000 miles is now trumped by today’s 250,000 miles. Let’s be blunt about it. Most cars, if properly taken care of, can last well beyond our willingness to keep them.
But there are exceptions…
The worst car I ever bought was a silver 1999 VW Beetle with the 1.8 Liter turbocharged engine. That engine in given co-billing with the car for a reason. Within 300 miles of purchasing it, the turbo blew up. This German ‘katastrophe’ was a complete rolling turd of German cost containment, to the point of having Cheech and Chong levels of smoke flowing through the tailpipe and onto oncoming traffic once the trubo went.
The turbo was replaced. A full-tune up given along with the obligatory MAF sensor. Then the automatic transmission started bucking (another major substandard component in early VW Beetles) and the odometer cluster decided to become a virtual Christmas tree of lights. Every time I started it, the dashboard greeted me with some new bright color that would encourage a few more hundred dollars to leave my wallet.
I ended up recycling it through an auction and lost about $2000 on it. By far my worst loss ever.
But I’m one of the lucky guys. When I buy a vehicular Beelzebub, I can broom it to a nearby auction and drive something else. Most other owners are far less able to let go of their daily transportation.They need to get around and make a living. So with that in mind, what was your worst deal ever?
I’m not talking about just a single week or month with a fallen angel that had four wheels. I am talking about the type of car that sucks the very happiness out of you through the grind of months and years of vehicular brutality.
Was it a VW? A Chevy? Did some old Yota turn into an evil jedi? Or was it a Hummer that brought dozens of flipping birds and hundreds of lost c-notes into your life. Today’s best story will receive nothing more than laughter and gratitude. Along with a free drink and conversation if you ever find yourself in the Atlanta area. Share your past sorrows… but enjoy the day!
1981 Ford Fairmont coupe. 5-speed transmission coupled to the venerable 2.3L engine. Woefully underpowered and was definitely a Malaise Era car. Burned up going to work one morning. Could have used a turbocharger.
1973 Chevy V-8 Blazer. Name it, it failed.
By far, the worst car I ever owned was a 1981 Renault LeCar (purchased in 1984). This thing was a rolling turd on wheels. Without fail, every month something else would break on it, the suspension was particularly prone to failure. As were the brakes, and the transmission, and the engine. Let’s face it, the car was a dog. I owned this heap for almost 2 years before I traded it on my very first brand new car, a lovely leftover Chevrolet Spectrum.
I was lucky. The ’81 I was looking at buying, used, in ’85 caught fire on the test drive. I figured that was God telling me I don’t want a Renault, no matter how much I liked those cars.
I guess I’m lucky…from my first car (a nearly-new 1992 Integra) through to my current 9-year-old RX-8 I’ve never bought anything that had a major failure or caused me to regret the purchase or take a big loss. I guess the only time I really realized I had blown it was when I sold my 944S2 because I had a liquidity problem, then shortly after got a great lease deal on a Mazda3. The 3 was a nice sporty car, but it was not a sports car. One year into the lease I saw the RX-8 on the same lot and I negotiated to have most of the negative equity in the 3 taken off the purchase price of the 8.
It was a 1997 chevy k2500 diesel the truck was almost flaless for 16700 km 100000miles and then it dropped a valve seat.Now at the time I was running a fairly large fleet of diesel 3/4ton trucks in the construction business so I approached my dealer about working with me on some warranty coverage and gm canada said no way it is 7000 km over warranty.ok so I bit the bullett and repaired the heads.The very next month the injection pump failed and these electronic pumps were fairly new technology at the time and were very expensive however I decided it was a good truck and if its gonna be good for another 1600000 km it would be a worthwhile expenditure.so once again I fixed it.
2 months later the transmission fails and leaves me stranded out of cell range another 2500$ repair and by this time im questioning whether I made the right decision in keeping the truck I decide that its time to think about trading.(keep in mind this truck is now only 2 years old up to this point I never traded at less than 5 years)
So then next week I make a deal with my local ford dealer on a powerstroke and get a fair deal on my trade while I am waiting for delivery on my new ford the main bearing webs in the engine block crack and there is nothing left of the engine to rebuild. Worst.Purchase.Ever
My worst was the first vehicle I ever purchased on my own. It was 2004 and an 18 year old me had saved up $7k to buy a new truck. I was currently driving a handed down 88 Dodge Dakota. It was abstinence on wheels but it was a strong-runner. I sold it for $1500. I replaced it with a 1998 Dodge Dakota. It was black, shiny, and had tons of torque. It was promptly lowered, 20″ rims added, headers and a flowmaster dual exhaust installed. It was a blast. Until the oil pump went out. Then the oil pump went out again. Then the engine went and had to be rebuilt. Then the transmission had to be replaced. Then the radiator. Then it started constantly overheating in hot weather for no apparent reason. Then I waited until winter and sold it on ebay for $6500 (douchebag move, I know). The 98 Dakota was $8k and cost me $3k in replacement parts and labor. I drove it for just over year and 20k miles.
1995 Saturn SL1, bought new. So utterly wretched I traded it after one year…gladly eating $3K to see it go away. The damn thing struggled to pass bicycles. It may have had a whopping 85 hp, but when you tried to pass, it felt like the torque was somewhere in the vicinity of 10 lb-ft. The dash rattled as if a gross of maracas were stashed inside. It somehow managed to eat a manual transmission inside of 20K miles, and not from abuse – I’ve never even had to replace a clutch in my long driving career, and the engine certainly didn’t put any strain on the mechanicals. The oil filter was specially located to dump its entire contents all over the exhaust manifold and suspension during oil changes. It had some other major malfunction besides the tranny in its first twelve months, but frankly I’ve tried to remove this POS from my memory and am getting close to succeeding, so I can’t tell you what else sucked about it. All I can say is that it was another fine piece of craftsmanship from the General. Good riddance!
If it makes you feel better, Honda puts the oil filter on the back of the block, right above the exhaust manifold on the Prelude, as well. All the oil that comes out soaks right into the flex coupling. Oh well, guess it keeps it from rusting.
Nissan did the same thing with the SR20 motors: oil filter nestled under the intake manifold at the back of the engine. I once had a quick lube place insist the engine had no oil filter.
Mk I Ford Fiesta had the oil filter also on the back of the block, right above the cat converter. Lots of smoke after every oil change. That thing also overheated at the slightest grade or traffic jam. The undersized brakes and tires wore out at an alarming rate. Struts lasted less than 18k. Window cranks broke off in your hand. This was my first new car. What a disappointment, should have bought a Civic. It was replaced with a Toyota.
HarryC, there must be different versions of the Nissan SR20 with the oil filter in different locations. The SR20DE in my ’96 200SX SE-R has the oil filter mounted just behind the valve cover on the right-side of the engine, right up top. It’s the easiest filter to change of any car I’ve ever had.
The filter on my ’88 Accord (back of the block, under the intake manifold, only accessible from underneath) was by far the worst.
Worst car ever: 2008 WRX STI
Hope you’re kidding. I thought those Subbies were supposed to be solid? Details!
Turbo Subbies need love and must follow maintenance pretty much by the book. And then some. Even then there is little guarantee the engine will make it forever. Higher mile examples that went to kids did not do this car any good. Worst part of WRX/STI/Legacy GT? There are very few replacement engines as most accidents are head on collisions. So there are not too many of them of car-part.
Never would’ve figured to see a subie in this list. I’ve seen them take inhuman amounts of abuse. Although I can see how the high-strung STI might be an exception.
I bought my dream car, a 1995 BMW 540 Sport with the 6 speed manual as a beautifully cared for used car from the original owner in 1999. By the time I sold it 2.5 years later, it was still beautifully cared for, but at great financial and emotional cost. I never really thought about how many different liquids a car contains until after this car had leaked EVERY one of them at some point. I could tell at least a dozen stories about this car’s foibles, but suffice it to say that to this day I still cringe and grab my wallet anytime I smell hot antifreeze.
Bimmers might be fun to drive, but they really are nothing more than very expensive, very disposable appliances.
1980 Caddy Sedan Deville that was on the books as a 79. Was purchased from the same person that sold me my first car (77 Pontiac Gran Prix). She wouldnt let me drive it for insurance reasons but I didn’t question it as I trusted her.
Well wouldnt ya know.. Tranny went shortly thereafter (blown reverse). Then alternator after alternator. Someone had replaced the tranny previously and installed thick thread, lag bolt grade bolts into the torque converter making them impossible to get out. Ball joints followed shortly therafter (it was still driveable as the three forward gears were ok). The 368 ran beautifully after a replaced lifter and carb rebuild. I junked it for 20 bucks and the guy drove it on to the truck. It was due for inspection and the inspection items were simply too costly. Of course the auto climate control rarely worked but what a car it was when it was right. Nice seats and good response from the 368. Live and learn.
Late August, 1973. Gas crisis. Fresh out of the air force, attending college, working, and I needed a car, as I sold my 1964 Chevy while still in California, a decision I regret to this day…
Avoiding all the gas hogs of the day, I wanted something small and economical like a Nova or Duster.
I finally found a 1970 Duster at a Chrysler dealer, Lewis & Clark Chrysler-Plymouth in the north St. Louis county area. It was a stripper – white with blue interior, slant six, automatic, cheap aftermarket AM radio with built-in speaker(!) and nothing else. Your basic, modern-day Model T, right down to the foot-pumped windshield washer and latched floor vents that really worked good.
I bought the car. I noticed a few issues, so I took it to a family friend that owned his own shop. Turned out the car was wrecked and the right front torsion arm mounting on the cross member was cracked! Well, the crooked dealership wouldn’t do anything, and being naive, went ahead and had the friend’s shop fix it, which took forever, it seemed, because of hard-to-find front crossmember. The paint was a cheap repaint that already was oxidizing.
In any event, I kept the car because I had to. The “stealership”? They were put out of business a few years later for corruption and various other nasty practices. The site was a U-Haul place for awhile, now something else is being built there. When in the St. Louis area a week or so ago, I smiled as we passed by the site…a fitting end to the crooks who ran that place. Turns out I was just one in a long line of victims…
The car? Well, dad retired that October, and the day I went to pick him up from work for the last time, I stopped at a local Chevy dealer on the way, as I was early, and found a beautiful 1972 Nova that I bought, using dad’s once-gorgeous 1966 Impala sports sedan as a trade-in, as it was shot. The Nova? Nice! non-Educator_Dan-approved 250 cu. in. 6 cyl; 3-on-the-tree, golden brown, off-white interior. A wonderful car…
The Duster? After the issues were straightened out, it was a pretty good car; I gave it to my parents, which served them well until mom traded it for a brand new 1979 AMC Concord in February, 1979, a few months after dad died. By that time, rust was eating the old Duster alive.
2011 Fiesta with the Powershift tranny.
Within 600 miles, the transmission started to leak, make a horrible chattering noise, and shift randomly (or forget to shift). This was accompanied by a terrible burning smell that the dealer called normal. They wanted to replace the transmission, but none were available at the time we bought the car, with a wait list of “months.”
Eventually the transmission arrived, the swap was made, and within 2 hours we discovered the inept Ford dealership had destroyed the right CV boot in the process of the tranny swap. Also, pieces of the HVAC venting decided to fall out from under the dash.
After the CV boot debacle, the new transmission began to act like the old. We were told that the Powershift needs to “learn” how we drive, or that it needs its software upgraded or flashed, or that it needs to be grounded–or something. Then after a while the Ford dealership started to ignore our complaints and say that the car was acting appropriately, even after a few stalls in traffic and near-miss accidents from the non-starts.
A trip to a second dealership proved that there was something wrong with the tranny software, and that it was not in our heads and our inability to realize how awesome the Powershift was.
By that point the Fiesta had 5k miles and 13 dealer visits. We had to arbitrate through the BBB to have Ford to buy it back because the local dealership refused to play ball and take the POS back.
That was probably the last Ford product I’ll buy in a long time… if ever again.
I’m forever sworn off Ford products thanks to a 2011 Mustang with a crap MT-82 gearbox. Very similar story to yours, “That grind is normal!”
I’m not going to make excuses for the cars, because in both cases that’s complete B.S. that a new car should have those kinds of foibles. BUT, it sounds like you both had a dealership problem as much or more than you had a car problem.
Totally agree.
The few people I know who had similar problems the local dealer bought their car back and either gave them a new one or a refund without ever going to BBB arbitration.
I loved the worst car I ever bought. A 1970 Cutlass Supreme convertible. Rocket 350, Hurst 3-sp on the floor.
But it was brown, and had been kept by the owner as it was the only thing that could pull his boat up his very steep driveway. The rear quarters and trunk were rusted from repeatedly backing into the water. Had to spot weld galvanized steel in the tunk and do a quick bondo job on the rear wheelwells. Bald tires. About 6 months in the clutch burned down to nothing. I really wanted to restore it, but was in college and moved away from my friends who could do the work. So it was replaced by a more reliable and practical 83 Accord hatchback.
2003 Pontiac Bonneville. Built in one of GM’s ‘best’ factories. 70 miles on the odomoter when I bought, with 30 of them being my all day test drive.
In order
Fuel injectors replaced
Body seal cracked leaking gallons of rainwater into the floor, necessitating partial disassembly and rebuild
Transmission cable to shifter pinched, causing drive to become reverse (which was a fun disocvery on the top floor of an Atlantic City casino garage).
Fuel Injectors replaced. Again.
Heater core went. In January.
And that got me to Day 45 of ownership. Lost $5K trading it in on a used Mitsubishi. When a used Mitsubishi is the better option versus something built in one of your plants, you got problems
Worst car: 2001 VW Passat 1.8T
Christmas tree dash
Suspension problems
Electrial problems
Fortunately no engine sludge as I was very good about oil changes and quality.
’72 Firebird – transmission, windows, multiple interior parts
’76 Seville – transmission, power windows, A/C/windshield wipers, paint, and more
’78 Grand Am – ‘twould be far shorter to list the things that didn’t fail…the seats and carpets (cheap as they were).
And some folks wonder why I loathe and f*rt in the general direction of GM, the company that tried to get by with one engineer and ten thousand finance idiots.
I finally got smart and went Japanese. Since then…nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero problems.
My first new car was a 1996 Chevrolet Cavalier coupe. Everything was great until the warranty expired. Afterwards the bills piled up. Before the car was five years old and before it reached 100k miles I replaced the AC compressor, the HVAC fan motor and the head gasket. I also had to replace the front brake pads twice. In 2000 I traded this car for a new Camaro. While on the way to pick up my new car the Cavalier’s alternator failed and it had to be towed the rest of the way to the dealership.
Cavaliers from this generation should have come with a spare head gasket from the factory
1980 Audi 5000S diesel (purchased new)In the first 3 years: soemthing cut the boot on the steering rack, causing loss of power steering fluid. Steering rack had to be replaced. Every winter, some sort of master fuse on the AC compressor failed and had to be replaced every spring before the AC would work. Plastic heater core failed, dumping coolant inside the car and making a general mess of carpets and padding. Head gasket failed on engine, despite it never overheating. Clutch slave cylinder failed, requiring a tow out of my garage. Rear tail/brake/backup assembly used aluminum contacts which oxidized and needed to be cleaned off every 6 months. Some sort of transmission failure required gear lever to be held in order to stay engaged in reverse.
Somehow, we kept this car going for 7 years until I sold it and bought a 5 liter Mustang GT. We relieved it from primary family car duty after 4 years and thereafter, I just used it to drive to work.
The car was substantially underpowered, but that was known when I bought it. I believed all of the experts’ predictions about fuel prices . . . which turned out to be wrong.
Could have bought a new Mercedes 240D for a little more money; but the cloth interior of the Audi was nicer that the stiff M-B Tex in the Benz. Obviously, I’d have been better off with the Benz. I’d probably still be driving it back and forth to work today.
2010 jetta tdi sportwagen. I hated that car.
in the first week that I owned it, I think every possible light on the dash came on from the ABS, to the Airbag, to the check engine light; a bevy of connectors weren’t plugged in properly at the plant and it took the dealer weeks to sort them out. the weatherstripping fell off the front doors three weeks in, the monster sunroof jumped its tracks after water seeped past the seals and freeze-jacked the panel up. the driver side mirror stopped working 3 months in. The radio glitched on and off 4 months in. The front subframe came loose and started thunking around at 6 months in and took three attempts to get it right, and last but certainly not least, 9 months in the car just.. died on me driving on the highway. the engine just shut off and I had to coast over the shoulder and restart it. At 10 months in it was listed for sale and gone in two weeks.
was it the mythical manual diesel wagon of car blog lore?
1984 Pontiac Sunbird turbo bought new. An infamous J-car. I called it my “$250 car” for the numerous $250 repairs. The turbo never failed. A crack in the head developed (fortunately fixed under warranty). The exhaust manifold burst – fixed under warranty. Now starts the “chargeable” fixes. Turn signal arm. Windshield wiper control board. Headlight switch nearly burned the car. Joystick for moving the electric rear view mirrors. Rear wiring harness to hatch defogger (could only obtain from salvage yard). Electric window operator. Electric door lock operator. Rear tail lamp cracked. Electric fuel pump left me stranded. Numerous spark plug wires – only seemed to last 20K miles. Turn signal arm broke for second time. I had it fixed and traded off the car.
Sad. The one and only new car I’ve ever bought was a 91 Sunbird LE with a 5-speed. Except for the Fantastic Shrinking Dash, it was bulletproof. I took it to 130,000 miles, with nothing more than a timing belt. The guy that had it after me drove it to nearly 300,000. Maybe I got the only good J-car ever built, I dunno. . .
Wow! I used to have that book! The “Failure of Quality Control” chapter had lots of 70’s “classics”… Pinto, Vega, and yes, the Honda Civic.
During the 70’s there was great quality control. It was chained and locked in the basement. Never allowed near the factory. Completely under control.
Does it count if the most unreliable, expensive, complicated car I have ever owned is also the car I miss the most?
2001 Audi A4 1.8L – in order:
rear window seal failed and had to be replaced three times
rear window defrost failed twice
Cruise control failed at 3k miles
windscreen wipers failed after cruise control was repaired
front windscreen seal failed, resulting in annoying buzz
turbo failed and had to be replaced
I owned this car for 9 months and it spent a third of the time at the dealership undergoing repairs. None of the repairs cost me a dime as Audi was actually really good at honoring their warranty. When the turbo died I mentioned ‘lemon law attorney’ and Audi was quick to buy the vehicle back at a price point I broke even, but jeebus…
X2
Despite nearly insane levels of maintenance, especially concerning the small oil sump and bigger filter “fix”, the odometer hitting 100k triggered some sort of internally programmed Dr. Evil self destruct mode.
CV joints, power steering, hoses, electrical gremlins, switches that stopped switching, rear window defrost, window regulators, transmission, cripes even the plastic on the oil tube/dipstick turned to dust.
I am an Audi factory tech by default, not by choice.
That’s easy. 2003 Honda Accord, bought brand new. From the start – missing frame welds. Then passenger airbag cover disconnecting. New pads and rotors LITERALLY every 5k miles.
The best part – bought the car thinking Honda would FINALLY know how to build an automatic transmission, considering their TL/Accord/Ody scandals. Nope. Brand new five speed auto for 2003 Accords, and Honda STILL couldn’t design or build a reliable auto transmission. Had aftermarket 2nd gear oil get installed on their dime.
Have had many Euro cars before and since, never that many problems. What do I drive now? 2011 Honda TSX with that five speed automatic. I’m slow ;) Seriously, I think the transmission failures were only on V6 cars, so I should be safe. Fingers crossed.
I think you’re right the glass transmission only affected the V6s, have had friends with the 4cyl accord who never reported tranny issues.
1985 Plymouth Reliant and 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Let’s just say that we unloaded the JGC with only 40k miles for a whopping $7,000 and kissed our buyer. We didn’t actually own the car – a close family member did – but if you have my kind of family, that means it becomes your car especially if it is a problematic car. This particular family member was fleeced hard by the F&I guy at the dealer and paid $40,000+ with all the “options” included.
The Reliant started leaking transmission fluid and alternator goes out in the middle of the test drive. We bought it used for $2,000. $5,000 in repairs later (we didn’t want to chance another beater at the time), we sold it for $500.
Bought a used 2008 Suzuki Forenza for $10k. Thought it was a great deal as the car had everything my outgoing ’98 Ford Escort did not. Thought I was buying Japanese quality and did not find out later it was a rebadged Daewoo Lacetti. Just barely 20k on the odometer.
This car had electrical problems from the get go and even had a couple of recalls on it. Nice that those repairs were free but still cost me time and inconvenience. Only time I ever had an employee drive me somewhere but I did buy the group lunch that day and made it an outing.
Overall I ended up spending over $4k in additional repairs, not counting maintenance and got rid of the damn thing even though I was upside down on it. I didn’t want to fall prey to the sunk cost fallacy and realized the beating on financing would be easier to swallow than sinking more money into repairs. Never seen a car less than 3 years old have so many problems.
On the bright side, this was the car that taught me how important to carefully research these purchases. Thought I had done my homework but learned how to dig deeper after this.
IB4TL
Oh wait, this isn’t the VWVortex.
Seems like everyone has an A4 Chassis VW story. Mine was a 2001 Wolfsburg ed with the 1.8T. Never would start or run correctly when it was below 40 degrees. Window regs failed aplenty. As I recall there were 3 (!) versions of the 1.8T at the same time: the AWW, AWT, and AWP, and each had their unique issues. The NB was the worst because that engine was a packaging nightmare under that ridiculous hood.
Basically, I didn’t have the car long enough for it to go south mechanically. The Paint began chipping off it at 30k miles. I was *lucky enough* to have the 2/24 b2b warranty, so VW refused to cover it, even though the car was only 18 mos in service. I traded it in on a 2003 MINI Cooper at lost $10,000 in the process.
Never again.
Second kid showed up and we traded our 1990 Maxima (sob) for a 1994 Mecury Sable station wagon. Highlights included:
-The magically desintagrating Head gaskets eventually replaced by Ford after therats of thousands of lawsuits
-Transmission that refused to shift out of first if not warmed up
-One piece muffle-tail pipe necessitating replacing the entire unit instead of just the muffler
-Electric window failure exactly one week after warranty expiration
-Various pieces randomly falling off
-Motor mount failure
-Laughing in the face of the dealer when they suggested replacing it with another fine Ford product
Well, so far I’ve managed to avoid owning a lemon, but after debating between subaru, grand cherokee, and volvo XC70, I’ve decided to go with volvo. Depending on what I’ve read, this may be a really really bad idea or a great idea. Check back in a year to find out!
Worst car? 98 Volvo V70XC ;). It’s my current ride, starts and drives all the time(minus a few non-essential parts). Had lots of great times with it but when people ask me about it I tell them “buy something Japanese or American”
I’ll bet one of the non-essential parts is the driveshaft. (Highly Rec’d.)
Bingo!
Worst car award goes to the wife’s new ’87 Mustang. Everything that could break, did. Lost count of the number of times the car broke down on the road.
By 20,000 kilometers the car was burning a liter of oil every 1,000 kilometers. Ford said it was normal. No lemon laws in Canada. Took Ford to court. The judge wouldn’t order them to replace the car but made them install a new motor.
The wife finally refused to drive it after it left her stranded several more times. Traded it for a new Toyota Camry. Haven’t been able to look at a Ford product since.
My ’82 5.0 Capri drank 1 quart per 1000KM, as did my ’88 5.0 Mustang. I read somewhere that this motor did use oil so I never did query the dealer or complain.
I always had a quart oil bottle in the car, and checked oil level almost every week. It took me years to get out of that habit. I still can’t believe it when my oil level stays the same after 5000KM.
I can’t complain about those cars, though- they were a blast to drive and held up pretty well. My ’95 explorer however… tranny, bad tires, broken sway bars, cam sensors…
1903 Curved Dash Olds. No cup holder, grip on tiller wore out prematurely, extremely limited towing capacity, and I couldn’t find a dealer anywhere. Side curtains instead of electric windows? Come on, I know this car was built in the 20th century, but it’s not like the Olds was one of Duryea’s Buggyauts. I’m done with the company.
Ha
The company is done with you too.
Now that’s almost as funny as a comment made last week about who did what in “heaven” vs. “hell” on the Citroen review!
On a similar note, the 2013 Scion FR-S. I was so excited to pick mine up at the dealer, and I didn’t even mind paying the $5,000 in dealer markup! But on the way home, I get beat by a Hyundai. A Hyundai! Imagine that.
Then, I meet my friends at the track. They point and laugh at the “Prius” tires, even though I convince them that they are what Mercedes uses. Since all of them have Mustangs with V6s (they keep telling me those have over 300 hp – I just can’t believe them) and those newfangled Hyundai thingamajigs, they want to race me.
I get on the track, and there is no torque to speak of! C’mon, this was supposed to be a sports car! Angrily, I focus on mashing the gas pedal so much that I don’t notice I’m in the corner, so I frustratedly twist the steering wheel and spin right off the track! Shoot, I call 911 because someone in a review told me this could be hazardous to my health. I don’t end up at the hospital, but I do end up with a nice ticket – which my insurance company WILL find out about.
I’m very angry at Scion, and promise never to buy one of their cars again. I have to search for a real car now.
Real car – hmmm. I end up at the Buick dealer, and drive away in a Regal Turbo.
It’s a parody of how the automotive media has hyped and bashed the FR-S all at once. I have never owned a Regal or FR-S – the latter of which isn’t even available to the public yet.
’92 Ford Mustang ($h!tstang?) LX convertible. I filed a lemon-law claim and actually won.
2003 VW Passat 1.8T wagon.
Not because it has needed a lot of work. In 9 years and 80k miles, it has needed a thermostat, a radiator, a CV boot, a hood prop shock, an ashtray, a coolant temp sensor, and two knobs for the radio (not a VW defect, kids pulled them off and they were lost). We drive gently and do all the required maintenance.
The reason it is the absolute worst car is because of how difficult each repair is. You need to disassemble the entire front of the car to replace the radiator and thermostat. There is no dipstick for the transmission. Every moving part has its own cooling system – even the power steering fluid and motor oil. For a street car. The company appears to not know about that software that helps you design things so they can be accessed for maintenance.
I’m going to ignore the beater cars of my youth and go with my first ‘real’ car.
86 Hyundai Excel
Bought my senior year in college and kept if for two years after graduating.
Had an issue where if it didn’t fire the first time you cranked it, it didn’t start afterwards. Luckily I worked close enough to home that I could walk if I had to.
Had it at the Mitsubishi dealer (they used the Mitsubishi 1.5 at the time) many times.
I actually autocrossed it for a year before trading it for a 3 year old Honda CRX Si
I’ve been pretty lucky I guess, but after having to replace the lower intake gasket earlier this year, needing to replace 3 wheel hubs and both outer tie rods and a single random incident of a no-start condition (that seriously just disappeared when I turned the steering wheel so I could try to get a better look at the starter) plus a transmission that is starting to occasionally act funny I’m about to hang a for sale sign in the window of my 04 Impala SS and start looking for something else.
Tied in my household between the 1985 Audi 4000S and the 1995 Mercury Cougar. I can’t recall exactly which one caused more dollars to fly out of my wallet…
Merkur XR4Ti FTW !
I bought an ’86 one used in ’91. What a piece of crap. Not my worst, but damn close.
Shame, I really really was in love with that car and it abused me like a coke addicted whore.
You poor poor Americans. The XR4 (Sierra) in Europe was a wonderfully dependable car. The only thing that ever seemed to break was the alarm. When my alarm finally gave up the ghost and decided to go schizo on me and immobilize the car, I phoned up my Ford mechanic friend for advise.
“Easy, just find the brain and kill it.”
Sure enough I pulled out the alarm control box from under the dash, put it on the pavement and beat the living sh*t out of it with a brick. The alarm stopped and never worked or immobilized my car again.
Now that was funny!
Reminds me of Cleese kicking the crap out of his Austin 1100 in Fawlty Towers. The pure passion of inflicting major and well-deserved punishment on an utterly useless piece of ill-designed and manufactured rubbishy dross is one of the more satisfying experiences one can have.
Speaking of which, I had a new 1980 VW Jetta Mk 1 for 18 months which had so many faults, I got rid of it for a brand new Audi Coupe. I regard those 18 months as a lost period of my life. It had Euro market 1100 Golf front springs and about 1 inch of bump travel, the HVAC vacuum spheres were held to the underside of the hood by rubber bands which regularly failed, and the 5 speed shifter never worked right. Had to drive around with the shift boot removed so that emergency surgery could be performed anytime, anywhere with pliers and a wrench. Absolute crap. I wanted to set the damn thing on fire it annoyed me so much. Argh!
I’ve kept brochures for every new car I’ve had since 1965, except for the Jetta. You see, it didn’t really exist, did it?
I’ve never had a lemon, but I did have two Fords that pooped. Caveat being I bought them both when they were well used and very neglected.
I had a 1993 Escort that had a slow transmission leak, previous owner said it was an oil leak. I checked the oil monthly and added some as needed, but didn’t think to check the transmission fluid (I was dumb and 17 – live and learn). My brother needed it to start a job, I’d been trying to help him get on his feet since I’d started working, and the transmission failed and killed 1st gear and reverse. At this point I had two cars, both bought well south of $1,000, so it was no big deal, well it was annoying but I wasn’t out of a car.
I had my Aerostar for a while until it killed its starter motor. At this time I didn’t have any skills about fixing stuff and couldn’t afford to pay a shop to install a used one and our apartment building was getting uppity for me to get rid of it so I got rid of it.
I bought my Buick shortly before the Aerostar finally died, which ate power window regulators a week before I sold it.
I really liked my worst car. Let go a a really good pickup to keep it. 2002 Saturn Vue (1st yr) with 4 cyl and 5 speed manual. When it didn’t break it was wonderful but: I replaced at least three computers; the clutch slave cyl cost like crazy because they had to drop the bellhousing; followed within a year by the clutch, then the transmission, then the timing chain broke and wiped it out at 185kmi.
I pulled tool trailers and enjoyed the radio/ac/moon roof etc but it was broken way to often. Numerous callbacks early in it’s life that really did not stop. I was told by several mechanics that I bought the vehicle two year too early. I expect that’s true. A very useful car when it ran.
For me, the ’89 Bronco II narrowly edges out the ’05 Volvo S40 T5, but I had to think about it. Where the Volvo was a lemon imbuing all the luck of a black cat crossing your path, it did teach me a valuable lesson about not buying new cars where there are only two dealers remotely close.
The Bronco II was 7 years old, 40k on it, immaculate and owned from new by a relative. It was such a money pit I’ve blanked out the actual numbers, but guesstimating 30% to 40% of my take home pay wouldn’t be too far off the mark. Fortunately the god of awful cars arranged for me to make regular payments by making the four wheeled breakdown mobile do just that at least once every pay cycle. When it started stalling in the middle of busy intersections (repeatedly) I knew that my sanity was in jeopardy. Fortunately I was able to raise enough money to finance a nice new reliable replacement and trade the Bronco II, though it did try one final act of sabotage by stalling out on me after the trade appraisal. I was wise enough to wait for the appraiser to get inside and out of earshot before desperately trying to get the thing running long enough to complete the deal the next day.
1994 S10 4WD Extended Cab 4.3/Automatic
In Order
Seat recliners (Shaft broken in the seat on both sides).
Window cranks (Literally Snapped off in my hand)
Torsion bar mounts ripped off from cross member
Ball Joints every 25,000 miles
Tie Rod Ends
Pitman Arms
Front Wheel Hubs/Bearings
Fuel Injection System
Engine (From failed leaking fuel system) Poured gas into the oil pan, thinned out the oil and the lower end went kaboom)
Fuel injection system again
Transmission, blew it’s brains out and bled out the night before my wedding.
Note: Truck only had 105,00 miles on it and was never of road in the 5 years I owned it. A complete P.O.S.
1993 Golf with the 2.slow engine. Bought it for about $2000 in 2003 I think. Suspension was shot and the interior always smelled of raw/partially burned gas when the car was in motion. Usually had to crack the windows slightly while driving it, or else crank the fan up to high to bring in fresh air.
Tried to get the exhaust leak fixed, but two shops couldn’t figure it out and told me there was no leak. Bad MAF when we bought it and some other sensors were bad as well.
We ended up donating it to a charity around Christmas time in 2004 after we had bought another car to replace it (A 2000 Jetta TDI that’s been pretty problem free in the 8 years we’ve owned it). Unfortunately I had no garage and a lack of tools at the time. Otherwise we might have ended up keeping it if I could have got the exhaust problem sorted out.
1980 VW Rabbit, built in Pennsylvania. Once finished, this car wasn’t released from the plant — it escaped. When it came to their US-built Rabbits, VW seemed to be obsessed with interior color coordination rather than reliability.
I had so many problems with the car that I made a game of tracking them using the driver’s-side floor mat, whose RABBIT characters wore off from right to left. Around the time the mat read RABBI the EFI mixing head failed. At RABB, the IP lights flickered madly for a few weeks and finally died. By the time RA came around the engine would, unexpectedly and entirely of its own volition, rev way past the redline and remain there for a minute or so before calming down.
Near the end, I actually would park the car with the windows down and the key in the ignition; by then, even thieves knew the Rabbit’s reputation and left it untouched. I finally sold it to a VW mechanic (whose kids this car likely put through college)for $800 — and he offered that only because he wanted the factory alloys.
In 1969 I bought my first car a 1959 Ford Failane with about 60,000 miles on it for $100. Spark plugs unscrewed them selves from the head. Compression was so low that the vaccuum powered windshield wipers would stop working when I stepped on the gas. It burned so much oil people next to me rolled up their windows from the smoke. I sold it for $125 less than a year later. With in a week the oil drain plug fell out and she kept driving it. I put a new plug in, filled it up with oil and within a few days the engine finally died. Neighbor took it off her hands, rebuilt the engine and I never so it again. I hated Fords until 1986 when I bought my first new car a Mustang SVO.
I have two candidates; the first is a 1987 Mazda RX-7 Turbo I bought used in 1994 with 52K miles. It had numerous electrical gremlins including a heating/air conditioning unit (ironically called a “Logicon”) that needed replacement three times during my time of ownership. The problems however weren’t limited to the electrical system; I also ended up having the engine rebuilt only to find out that rotaries:
1. Use as much gas as a V8 (I got like 13-16 mpg)
2. Burn a ton of oil (rotaries apparently use oil as a coolant)
3. Have less torque than a 10 year old riding a Huffy.
I’m sure I’ll get some responses to this, but I honestly at that point wondered why anyone would ever own a rotary; they just lost in every comparison to modern 8,6 and even 4 cylinder engines. It’s no surprise Mazda isn’t vehemently pursuing a rotary vehicle at this time. This was my last used car.
The other car was a 1999 Mustang Cobra that I drove off the lot with 7 miles on it. Within the first 6 months of ownership, it was on a flatbed three times.
My worst car: Mercedes Benz 300 sel, realy every thing that could go wrong was gonig wrong. And it was not driving to good also.
2008 GMC Acadia SLT: I’ll just give you the things that I can think of:
Steering Shaft
Steering Pump
Steering Gear
Engine front cover seal leak
Water Pump
Transmission Fluid Leak
Engine Camshafts
Transmission Wave Plates
Steering Gear again
Sunroof Leaks
Passenger seat frame broke
Abnormal leather wear on the seats
Rear hatch opening on its own when parked
All this in 40,000 miles on a 100% dealer maintained vehicle.
1962 Simca sedan (new). Ate head gaskets for snacks.
1964 Rambler (new). Floor pan rusted through in two years.
197? VW Squareback (used). Bought for $300. Fuel line caught on fire. Sold for parts: $100
1998 Pontiac Trans Sport Montana. Ya I know, that’s REALLY bad.
I bought it as a dealer demo with 7K miles on the clock. It had every option but leather (didn’t want it) and came with the captains chairs (versus the 8 passenger option). It stickered for $28K and got it for $22K. It was a bit of an impulse buy. We were moving from the south to the snow belt and I really wanted 4WD but couldn’t find a 4WD Explorer anywhere, the Isuzu dealer wouldn’t deal on a Trooper, and I hated the Blazer. The Tahoe was too big for our needs.
When we picked it up at the dealer, literally the day before driving north I asked for its maintenance records. At 7K miles the oil should have been changed twice and the tires rotated with an inspection of the brakes, hoses, belts etc. No records. NOTHING. It had never been serviced. Life lesson number one. When buying used – ask for these records FIRST not second.
Now, in the Trans Sport defense we beat the bejesus out of it. We took that thing to places that people with lifted 4WD trucks would be afraid of. I drove it literally across the prairie of South Dakota, along the banks of the Big Sioux and up to the top of Pikes Peak (the brakes were never the same after that). It wasn’t a garage queen.
But a piece of crap is still a piece of crap. In four years and 57K miles.
1) Transmission replaced
2) Both front headlights replaced, water intrusion
3) Air suspension rebuilt twice, replaced once, would constantly run until overheated and eventually failed, could not rear end properly pressurized
4) Stereo head unit replaced because display was in Klingon
5) Windshield wiper motor replaced, failed while friend was driving it at night in the pouring rain on the interstate with six homeless women inside
6) Power window module replaced
7) Driver side foam padding and seat cover replaced, padding failed and metal frame cut through fabric (no I’m not fat)
8) Power sliding door module replaced, twice
9) Brake rotors replaced (admittedly the descent from Pikes Peak didn’t help)
I know I’m leaving some other issues off that I tried to blot out from my memory. That van lived in the dealership.
1977 Chevy Camaro, 3504bbl, I thought it was geat at the time but it had the body integrity of an old hooker. A girlfriend was given a new BMW 320i and I had to admit that “little German car” sure did feel solid.
1978 Ford Fiesta. Three clutches. The brakes (rotors, calipers, connectors) completely rusted out and had to be replaced. Water pump. It was kind of fun to drive, similar to a Golf, but every time I turned around, it required more money (that I didn’t have) to keep it on the road. On the last clutch replacement, the mechanic looked at me and said, “If I were you, I would seriously consider trading this car in on something different.”
That’s the car I learned to drive on, but I don’t recall my dad having those kinds of problems. But then again, I totalled it when it in ’82 with only 70k miles on it.
My worst car ever was a 1979 Honda Accord LX identical to that which MM profiled in a Junkyard Find a few weeks ago. Head gasket, cylinder head, and trans synchros. They had recalibrated the carburetion in the 79 models, resulting in terrible drivability. Had enough at 37K miles.
Honorable mention to the 82 Z28 that followed it.
Did GM ever get head gaskets right for the Cavalier/S10 2.2L engine?
I sure can pick the winners!
My dad bought a ’95 Geo Metro just as gas prices were peaking in 2008. He had had a ’90 Metro which he missed incredibly as gas prices rose, so the ’95 was an understandable choice. It was red and appeared to be in mint condition with glossy paint and no noticeable interior wear. I think it had around 100k miles. A few weeks after he bought it, part of the unibody broke due to excessive rust. This is evidently a problem with a lot of Metros in salty Minnesota. He has talked to different body shops, but it’s a difficult repair, and no one wants the job and the liability. The car has now sat in his driveway for about four years.
Without a doubt. Worse car was a 1992 Citroen BX Diesel (in the UK). Up to that point I’d had various Vauxhalls and Rovers which were mechanically strong and required little work.
The BX was made of plastic and recycled coke cans. It was as noisy as a London Black Cab. While sat in traffic as well as the clattering from the engine you would get hissing and clicking noises from the suspension as it would gradually lower and raise by itself.
Finally at a staggering 39,000 miles some crucial rubber band broke and wrote off the engine. The resulting damage cost more than the 18 month old car was now worth, and as a result it was scrapped. Good riddance!
That car was totally outclassed by every other car I’ve driven except a 1997 Vauxhall Vectra, also a diesel, which was another money pit.
1970 Datsun truck-worst dog I ever owned and I had a lot of mangy mongrels over the years.
2004 VW Phaeton. Went through two transmissions and numerous electrical bugs. Once our lease was up, VW tried to get me to buy it but would not give it CPO designation. Hate to think what I’d have paid for a third transmission. Jack Baruth needs to rid himself of these abominations to auto reliability before he gets burned.
1993 Saturn, bought new. But it wasn’t bad enough to have a really good story. It did have the oil use problem, with engine replaced at 65k, and the electronics had a problem at ~140k that took five trips to the dealer to diagnose and fix. My other cars were a ’77 Corolla, a ’99 Accord,and (currently) an ’08 Civic, all used, all with sticks.
Thank you Steven for giving me this opportunity to finally vent my frustration. I have bought a giant lemon and it was my worst and best car at the same time!
2003 RENAULT GRAND ESPACE 2,2 DCI!
Let’s start why this car. I had certain requirements regarding size because of work i do, and in our market this was the only option besides Mercedes Vito (don’t even get me started on that piece of rusting crap), which was out of my price range at the time. Anyway, if I had to by a minivan, why not go for luxury, so I bought top-of-the-line INITIALE model with leather, full length sunroof, automatic everything – the works! And I got it cheap (should have rang some bells, thinking in hindsight). I thought I got a really good deal. Especially since I did all some due intelligence beforehand. There were reports that this engine is crap, but if engine and turbo were replaced i should be fine – and they were, so i thought I was – fine that is.
Boy have I been wrong! Engine started overheating on my first trip to Italy, ca. 1000 km after I bought it. It took six trips to mechanic replacing several expensive components before they found out it’s injectors, an expense of almost $1000 and 3 weeks at different workshops. A couple of weeks later, alternator gave up on the road, again $1000 expense if I went the official route. By the time I go smart and did it at my friends place for $250. A couple of $100 bills later I started thinking I should get rid of it, so I started selling the car, but before it was gone the engine started leaking oil and turbo started singing loud. A couple of weeks later the car was gone, thankfully to a mechanic with prior Espace experience (I couldn’t sell it to a family with three kids that came the day before – I have a soft heart, and so far I hope good enough karma).
The irony is, this car was also absolutely the best car I ever had. The ride was magnificent on long trips, had lots of power by normal (european) standards, and had excellent mileage (40 MPG). And it had space.
But later I discovered there is an engine flaw with 2,2 (and 1,9 and 3,0 models for that matter) from 2003 to 2006, and Renault just wouldn’t admit it. This cars are piling up at junkyards, worth more scrap than used. Lost almost $4000 dollars in a couple of months, but lesson was priceless: If it sounds too good to be true – it probably is!
I bought an Opel after that, but this is already another story.
My least reliable – White 89 4-cyl Mustang, slightly used. On again, off again vibration from a UV joint. The wipers constantly conked in the rain, no compressor relay and hissing rack noise. Early rust on the trunk lid and within first few months burgundy upholstery in back window faded orange. The only thing a smart thief would take was the blue oval on the trunk.
I remember being grateful for the 4-banger when Saddam invaded Kuwait.
The worst car our family ever bought was a 1976 Chevy Nova. We bought it new at the Chevy dealership that was about 1.5 miles from our house. It took 3 – count ’em 3 attempts to get that piece of crap to our house. All three failures to deliver were due to transmission failures. Finally, when we got it home, I shut the passenger door and heard a funny noise from the roof and the door. Looking through the passenger window, the cause of the funny roof noise was obvious, the dome light fell off and was hanging by the wires. When I pushed on the door button to look at the light, I quickly found the cause of the door noise. The door button assembly fell down in the door. My dad REALLY hated that car and never “Bought American” again.
I think ‘Worst Deal’ and ‘Biggest Lemon’ are two different categories. I’ve owned incredibly cheap cars which have had a whole host of niggly problems, but because they were so damn cheap, I put up with them. On the other hand I’ve had more expensive cars which have had only a few gripes, but because they cost more, they’ve annoyed me one hell of a lot more.
Case in point, that 2010 Cobalt I bought early last year. 25,000km on the clock and I’ve already had the door seals replaced, the replacement steering column replaced, the gear shifter replaced, and now I’m due to go back in because the control arm bushes have fallen to pieces. These are all being done under warranty, but I don’t care. This should not be happening to a ‘new’ car. My last new car was a 2008 Ford KA in the UK (which my little sister now owns). Not ONE thing has ever gone wrong with it in 4 years.
1988 Ford Taurus.
Every single fluid leaked, with the exception of gasoline.
Power Steering Fluid
Brake Fluid
Tranny Fluid
Oil
Coolant
Power Steering pump failure
Tranny slipping
A/C failure
Headliner fell down.
Engine control computer would drivethe car to 45 MH with your foot off the gas.
My wife will never allow u to own a Ford.
Buick Skylark X car, just the fact that it would over heat and leave me stranded without warning made it useless except for the short drive to and from work, I became scared that it would leave stranded, specially when I had my baby in the car.
I’ve been pretty lucky with my own vehicles, but the whole “lemon” concept has some basis in fact. As a fleet manager I generally purchase vehicles and equipment in multiples and it is always fascinating to see identically spec’d vehicles that are maintained and operated in the same way as they age. In a batch of 10 for instance, there is almost always 1 shop queen and 1 endurance champ with no rhyme or reason as to why.
I’ve observed this with every type of vehicle from 1/2 tons to tandem trucks to Caterpiller graders and loaders. I’ve even gone so far as to swap units around to see if the trouble follows the user or the unit. 90% of the time it’s the unit. Karma? Monday production? Who knows. But when all the tolerances stack up wrong even the best vehicle will turn into a lemon.
Monday morning or late friday production.
Now seriously, the worst are overtime-produced vehicles. Eveniongs or weekends.
Monday morning or late friday production.
Now seriously, the worst are overtime-produced vehicles. Evenings or weekends.
1981 Chevrolet Citation. Seemed so good on paper, but as the miles wore on everything from the transmission, brakes, a/c system (the whole thing), died in less than 22k miles.
Traded it after 1 year on a Nissan — and never went back to US cars.
My worst was a 84 Jaguar XJ6. Bee-yoot-ti-full, but an absolute &%#^* to work on .
It is a tie, first car I bought new (I was 17) a 1971 Plymouth Cricket. In less than a year on I-95 at 65 MPH the engine throws a rod through the engine block, taking the alternator with it. It took Chrysler almost 3 months to get a crate engine. Anytime I turned on the A/C if not moving at constant speed it became an engine over heat switch. At 10,000 miles the auto tranny died, replaced under warranty. Bought a used Camaro with no problems. #2, 1984 Pontiac Fiero, also a new car, in less than one year I had two engine fires, one new short block, 5 A/C compressors (DA6) four transaxles and three engine control computers. I currently have a 1990 Buick Reatta for daily driver 145,000 miles no problems and a 1971 Buick Skylark convertible for weekend car. No problems.
One of the worst cars I ever owned was a 1982 Dodge Colt hatchback.
Just married in ’83, needed a car for the wife, we bought it used. Only later did I figure out the sales guy literally pulled almost every trick out of the book. The Colt suddenly quit one day as my wife was driving to work. We had to have it towed, and the tow driver causally mentioned the car had been towed before – he could see damage caused by the previous tow!
Transmission burned out about a year later. It was almost a relief when my wife wrecked it (no, she wasn’t hurt).
Another car horror story. My father bought new an early-run 1966 Jeep Wagoneer. An SUV by today’s standards, it was simply known as a station wagon at the time, but it had 4WD, a 327 V8 with a double-barrel carb, A/C (a luxury in 1966), a GM automatic trany, power brakes and steering — all options at the time. At least lap belts were standard by then.
Under normal day-to-day conditions, it ran okay, but put a load on – towing a pop-up camp trailer for example – and it would regularly burn out the front u-joint on the rear drive shaft.
It turns out Kaiser Jeep made a correction about mid-way through the 1966 model to correct that defect, but of course never publicly acknowledged the defect and never had a recall.
We learned to always carry a spare u-joint in that Jeep, just in case we had a breakdown somewhere that didn’t have the part handy.
It had a single-circuit brake system – all that was required at the time. One day it blew a rear wheel cylinder, and suddenly I had no brakes! Fortunately I was able to bring the Jeep to a stop by downshifting to 1st, then to neutral while rubbing the right tires on the curb, then into reverse to kill the last of the forward momentum, then park, just before a seriously long down hill.
Back in 1999 I was living in Florida, working as a TV Producer for a small town station. Life was good and I wanted a somewhat fast car. My local Ford dealer had a 1997 Contour GL Sport sitting on the lot. V6, good suspension, 28k. My best friend’s dad was the used car manager so he gave me a good deal on it. A few weeks after I bought it the starter went out, taking the flywheel with it. Thankfully I bought a good extended service plan!
A couple of months later I had to move to Michigan. Just as I was getting ready to leave, I plugged in my radar detector, and the lighter shorted out and shot into the dash!
All the way up to MI I kept thinking that the transmission was making a slight howling sound. When I got to MI I took it to Sesi LM and had them keep it for a couple of days. They fixed the lighter and determined that the Trans fluid was quite low. From there I left to head on up to northern MI where I was going to live, and the blower fan went out. Every 5000 miles the brake rotors would warp and need turned. Wheel bearings, lots of bad wheel bearings.
The car practically lived at the Ford dealership that first year, but seeing how I worked at the dealership, I never missed the car! When I would clock in I would just leave the keys with the service manager and get them at the end of the day.
How in the world I racked up over 70k on that car over the next three years I will never know. I took it on several long distance trips, MI to FL, MI to Myrtle Beach, MI to NY, MI to TN. And every time the car would drive just fine, no problems. But as soon as I got home something would fall apart!
Finally in 2002 when the AC was going out during August heat, and the wipers didn’t want to work all the time, along with the warping rotors and another bearing starting to go, I traded it for…a 2000 Contour!
Despite all those problems, I loved that car, and still have fond memories of it and the 2000 that I replaced it with. When my grandpa gave me the 1995 Mystique, I was thrilled! Yeah, I couldn’t drive it for six months while parts were trying to be found for it, but I have never driven finer handling front wheel drive cars, and, perhaps sad to say, if another one came along in good condition and at the right price, I might have to feed my addiction again…
Tough call, I’ve had a checkered history with cars, and there have also been issues that were only significant due to circumstance. I’d say it’s a tie:
Exhibit 1 [2007-08]: A 1980 Opel Manta GT/E. Perhaps my favorite car that I’ve ever owned, a rare automatic/AC car in Germany. It leaked transmission fluid. The battery froze up if it were even slightly below freezing, and a new one would take weeks to come in. Also, there were a few small [smaller than a quarter] rusted through patches on the passenger rocker panel. All minor issues on their own, but which all contributed to a perfect storm of suck. The battery froze one day when I was coming due for registration renewal [for American Forces, registration doubled as a gas ration card, and renewing it requires an inspection]. Every day you’re late is 30 days in impound. Ninety days later, I get my car back, immediately take it for inspection, which it fails due to all the tranny fluid that has leaked. I get it steam-cleaned, and it fails again due to the rust holes, and a broken rear spring- both of which they somehow missed before. Get the holes welded, replace the spring, get ANOTHER steam-cleaning, and I FINALLY pass. The next week, I was almost poisoned by a dramatic failure of the heater core, which suddenly filled the interior with antifreeze vapor, and even after left a film over everything. Fortunately, you can sell a car without another inspection if one has been done within 30 days, so I replaced the heater core and did so. Shame, I could have brought it Stateside but you can’t ship a car that leaks.
Exhibit 2 [1998-2001]: A 1995 Camaro, 3.4 V6, automatic. I was a Steak-Out delivery driver and full-time college student. I added 100k to the 60k that were already on the clock in less than two years. En route to that, the 4L60E lost its front pump [necessitating full replacement], and the 3.4 blew a head gasket– the 60 degree V6 was just not up to the task of moving this car. These repairs loomed large, as I was a broke college kid whose job utterly depended on a reliable car. I suppose that made a V6 Camaro a poor choice, but I was also 19 years old and didn’t want to hear it. A hard lesson.
I don’t have to remember back very far. Bought my 2003 Audi Antichrist, er, allroad in November. The cooling fan blew up in March, holing the radiator, draining the coolant and Fukishima’d the engine. The fatal fan was only five months old. The car’s been in the shop for a month, awaiting a $6K used engine replacement. I don’t want the car back, but the loan was too big to walk away from the car. I paid top dollar for the best one in town. Next time, I’d buy the cheapest one.
I have heard from owners and read in forums that the notorious “allroad” had too many issues to count. Is that true on your experience other than the engine failiure? I thought about buying one of those ones. Close call it looks like…
Having a car start only 99.5% of the time would strand the average owner a half dozen times a year.
A car that stranded me (other than for a flat tire or jumpable dead battery) for the third time in its lifetime would be gone quickly.
Though I can only recall three such strandings in 30 years of car ownership, totaling about 600,000 miles.
2005 Renault Clio, purchased slightly used in 2007 through the Renault Employee Car program. Within 1200 miles I needed to have the injector pumps on the diesel engine replaced. Next it was the brake discs that kept warping (thanks authorized Renault center), so I changed those twice. Most of the functions on the dash didn’t work: the radio would change channels automatically, if I wanted to stop the wipers, I would need to shut the car down… The gear box also kept chewing through the higher gears, but I bailed before adressing that issue.
Kept the car 6 months before selling it for a 2KEuro loss.
Seeing tons of VW and Audi love here, let me add mine….
2000 VW Jetta 2.0 GLS: Early Miles: Worst car ever, multiple window regulator issues with NO replacements from manufacturer, sometimes leaving you with the only option of plastic and duct tape soultion.
Later Miles: Constant oil consumption, VW mechanics with no idea why. Strange yellowish waxy thing oozing from door sills. No one knows why.
More later miles: Coolant losses, many check-engine light issues, the so quoted “beautiful interior” bits start to fall down, including stereo buttons one by one. No idea why. Front seat cloth gets ripped (the only driver who drives this POS was me and I was no more than 170lbs by then). All happened before 40K miles.
Sold it; I thought it was due to hecho en mexico production and bought a 2001 Audi A4 2.8 quattro (this time used). I was wrong: Coolant leak at less than 30K killed the engine: repair cost $12K. Audi US did not stand behind warranty as one of the oil changes was done outside the dealer by prior owner, you don’t believe? I did not either when I’ve heard it first. Traded the car with a V6 camry, lost $$$$.
Decided to give it a last go: Bought 2008 Audi A4 3.2 quattro, 6spd. Nothing but problems (albeit minor) from day one. Incompetent service, no customer support from Audi USA. Waiting to be sold with less than 40K miles on odo. I am frigtened to drive it honestly.
Well why did I insist on products from VAG you might ask: My first car was a 1981 VW GTI MkI with 1.8L engine (back in europe). First love never fades.
Note: Reliability is the reason why Audi dropped their comprehensive warranty since 2008 I suppose (unlike BMW who still does cover)
1991 Volvo 940SE
– Persistent transmission fluid leaks.
– Randomly decided to die on I-90 in rare 95 degree heat in the Pacific NW. $50 relay buried in the dash was the culprit.
– A/C that would shut off when the go pedal was more than halfway to the floor. Driving in the mountains in summer sucked.
– Fading paint on the hood (in Seattle, which has one of the lowest UV indexes in the USA. Seriously Volvo? The car was garaged most of its life too)
– Leather began cracking early and often
– Power sunroof never functioned properly
– Wipers had the charming habit of failing in rainstorms. This never even happened with the Saab 900 that was my first car!
2005 Corvette. I hated that car so much I got rid of it within 10 months.
Tried again with a 2008 Corvette. Stupid me! Dumped it within 4 months.
I look at any C6 now and my stomach turns the same way your stomach turns
thinking about whatever alcohol you drank that first time you puked your guts out from drinking.
After a Mercedes-Benz, a Jetta, two Audis, two BMWs, and a Porsche, all made in Germany, it would be hard to even rank them. Suffice it to say that they combined for one engine and four transmission failures, effecting every one of them with an automatic transmission at least once and the longest lasting transmission had 94K miles. The last BMW ate a ‘sealed for life’ GM transmission every 30K miles. Call it an elaborate fluid change. The BMW that had the engine failure due to elastic head bolts was correctly rebuilt by the dealer, incredible when you consider the damage the same dealer did every time they were enacting a recall by apparently disassembling the interiors with sledge hammers. The then-new 2003 Mini Cooper was disastrous too. Then there was the Ford Festiva that failed its one year state inspection at the selling Ford dealer. I tend to blame the dealer for most of it, considering that an oil sending unit coincidentally snapped off the block causing a profound oil leak during an oil change. The car almost made it to 45K miles, but they were a very hard 44K miles and change. Until my fleet transition to Hondas began in 2004, there was no varsity for comparisons. Still, none of these cars really seemed terrible because of what came before them:
A 1985 Dodge Lancer ES Turbo, purchased new. It was assembled as haphazardly as can barely be imagined. Panels didn’t mate up. Paint was pooled where it wasn’t orange peeled. Interior panels around the windows bore no relation to exterior panels around the windows, so whether you looked in or out you saw parts of the car you shouldn’t. The alloy wheels had plastic center caps that were not retained by their feeble retaining clips. They started disappearing almost immediately. For a while we replaced them to try to retain some sort of pride of ownership for the new car. That lasted until 17K miles, when head gasket number 1 announced it was quitting by sending smoke signals through the hood vent. The dealer took advantage of the car’s extended stay to use it as scaffolding and to stack heavy, sharp building materials on it. When it returned, looking as bad as it really was, the next head gasket sent up the surrender smoke signal at 24K miles. I can’t say when the third one quit, because the digital dash went black for good around the same time. It didn’t make it the 7K miles the 2nd one did though. Supposedly, this car had a 5/50 warranty. Nobody said anything about loaners, but there was a deductible for all this badly done work. We keep most of our cars for years and years. Right now I’m trying to sell a car that was taken out of daily use back in 2004. The Dodge was gone in 2.5 years, having replaced a fourteen year old car.
1988 Mercury Grand Marquis. Car was a POS and everything about it failed, including the 5.0 v-8. Decided one day to overheat for no apparent reason. (thermostat worked right, cooling fans all turned on properly etc etc etc. ie NOTHING was wrong and it was only an 85 degree day out)
So Sajeev etc.. I’ve owned and driven a number of the panther platforms NOT A SINGLE ONE has ever been a pleasure to drive.
I’d rather drive my old 1977 New Yorker or a 76 cadillac or a 1988 buick roadmaster or anything else than one of those cars. I’ve had zero luck with them and each one somehow newer than the last turned out to be a worse experience. Including 2 different Lincoln town cars. (all of these vehicles courtesy of my father who firmly believes in driving older huge vehicles)
He has since seen the light and at least drives old Lexus now.
I myself have been lucky, haven’t had anything really terrible happen to me though I must admit I once owned a ’97 Ranger with the 2.3 4 cylinder and an automatic (GASP!) while reliable, it was dead dog slow, even by malaise car standards. Quarter mile was literaly in 20 seconds, no joke. This truck made me learn how to drive stickshift, traded the Ranger for a ’01 Nissan Frontier V6 5 speed… LOVED that truck, dumbest thing I ever did was getting rid of it… swore off automatics for some time, until I bought my ’06 Mustang GT- more then triple the power of the Ranger!
Now my parents though…. they made the misfortune of trading in a flawless ’97 T-Bird (absolutely nothing went wrong with that car) for a ’99 Chrysler Concord LXi, it was a dealer demo, fully loaded with the exception of a moonroof (dad didn’t want one) and the basic gauge package, but loaded otherwise. Let’s see, 3 transmissions, can’t remember how many times the driver side window fell out of the track and this stupid cowl panel that the paint would bubble and peel off every 2 months or so. The dealer service was even worse. That’s the stuff I remember, dad finally got fed up (OK so he was stubborn) and he went to the Chevy dealer to test drive a new ’04 Tahoe, his plan was also to test drive a Infiniti G35, but low and behold, the POS Chrysler blew up yet another transmission leaving the Chevy dealer. They pushed it back in and left in said Tahoe. The Chrysler only had 53k on it, and no, it was properly maintained on the clock and never abused. What a piece of junk that car was- stupid rebodied Intrepid POS, to this day I’m leery of modern Mopars- though I’d love a police package ’69 Polara 440…. but anything modern by Chrysler, hell no!
2005 Honda Odyssey, whose story I’ve shared here before:
1. The power sliding door failed in the driveway the day after I bought it new, with 26 miles on the clock.
2. Drove it to the beach that day, and during the trip the left turn signal failed and the brakes shimmied.
3. Upon arrival at the beach, the 3rd seat release cable pulled clean out of the seat.
4. Driving home, the right turn signal failed and the 2nd seat cupholder broke.
5. The dealer was terrible, and the power door failed at least 4 times – three of them in the first year. In Pennsylvania, this qualified it as a lemon, so we sued Honda, won a small settlement and promptly traded the car.
Honda’s arrogance during the 20 miserable months I owned the car only made things worse. They acted like it was impossible to have such problems in a Honda, especially when I said I wished I had bought another Chrysler.
99 Passat. Where to start. New car smell lasted about four days, replaced by burnt smell of eating the radio. Took close to two months for dealer to get a replacement radio. Installing replacement radio revealed that the original had eaten the left channel speakers too. Replacements for those were another couple weeks. Ate a rear wheel bearing inside of a year. Ate the camshaft position sensor. Cold weather brought on a different set of dashboard lights every time you turned it on. Windows, trunk release, glovebox latch. Lost track of what else. Couldn’t lemon law it with a different problem every time.
Warranty was 2/24. Gave up on it 15 months in when it got cold again and the lit up dash came back. Sold it to Carmax on a warm day. Lost about a dollar a mile. Never again VW, never again.
Worst I ever “had” was probably a Ford F150. The throttle stuck open during the test drive. As I approached a four way stop, I turned into someone’s yard and threw it in park at around 40 MPH. I just handed the keys to the amazingly white salesman next to me and walked away.
Worst I ever owned was an 80 Cutlass with the infamous 350 diesel. My mom gave it to me after driving it about three months. Repairs I can remember during the 2½ years of ownership; 1 radiator, numerous seals and gaskets, upper rebuild, three fuel pumps, at least 20 phantom shutdowns when the engine would just decide to take a nap while driving. And then there’s the transmission. Friends would joke that I hadn’t learned to drive, because of the slow and deliberate way I engaged each gear. One day I stopped and put it in park, quickly like you would with every other automatic in the world. I pointed to the shift lever and it’s position, then pressed down on the accelerator. Instead of just reving, the car drove forward. After a few blocks I put it back in “drive”. I’ve been told by others that they could do the same thing with Caddys of that era.
OK, I’ll bite.
2002 Ford Focus. Not because the car was bad – it was actually a very nice car that held up quite well to my youthful abuse.
The problem? I bought it brand new off the lot at a time when the car payment was a huge chunk of my income, under insistence from my folks, rather then purchase a lightly used car after the worst part of its depreciation curve had passed. They insisted I should have something with a warranty on it.
My commute was 70 miles a day. Warranty went bye-bye in a year, and not long after that my job. Thankfully, I had opted for a 2nd job about a week before getting my pink slip from the 1st job, because that had to pay the car payment while I got back on my feet.
Long story short, I had a car loan for 5 years, and the car for 7, as the clutch ate itself at 202,000 while going through another round of unemployment, and the other issues made it sketchy to spend money I didn’t have to fix it.
I leaned on my fiance’s (now wife’s) Ranger for another round of long-distance commutes (now 90 miles a day), until its clutch slave cylinder died. I gained valuable experience in shifting sans clutch for the next two months while I tried to find a nice lightly-used car in the worst used car market ever – and succeeded!
$7,000 for a Cobalt w/ 25,000 miles sure beats $18,000 for one with the new car smell. It’ll be a long, long time before you see me buying new off the lot again.
Oh, and by the way, my 90 mile commute is about to be a 5 mile commute daily! :D
1996 Toyota Tacoma extended cab or extra cab I think they called it that my other half bough brand new. By 2000 the frame was rusted badly, the bed had holes the size of quarters, the head gasket needed replacement, interior pieces were literally falling off such as seat adjusters, vents etc, the A/C quit working and worst of all with only 60k miles the front end was shot with bad tie rod ends and ball joints, noticed by the severe tire wear on the passenger side tire. The funny thing is when I hang out with my former other half we laugh every time we go in to a Toyota dealer and see all the rotted out Tundra and Tacoma frames that were replaced by the dealer some actually separated in spots. He now drives a 2010 F-150 now with 50K miles that has been flawless.
Easy one…94 Explorer, aka the Exploder. Everything that could have gone wrong did. The back tailgate even fell off in my hands and was replaced by Ford under recall. Those tailgates are heavy!
That was my last Ford. My 89 Jeep Comanche w/ snow plow was a better truck and the snow plow beat the hell out of it.
My sister has had a series of crap cars, her latest adventure is her 53000 mile 2003 Nissan Sentra, in the shop right now with a blown head gasket. Last month, she did the plugs and all 4 coils, and then three weeks later, it’s blown a gasket, a known issue with that engine. Apparently, Nissan isn’t going to cover it, so she’s stuck with a $1300 bill, over $1700, counting the stuff from three weeks ago. If the head is warped, or they find anything else wrong, they might just get rid of it. That’s what I would do. Their credit sucks, they just don’t have any history, so their interest rates will be amazingly high. They are very smart people who seem to have a mental block about credit and how to use it. Now, in their 60’s, they struggle to buy anything, unless it’s with cash. They need a washing machine, but it’s going to have to wait.
Her previous duds have been a ’73 Cutlass, a car built probably the same day as my mom’s car, the VINs were very close. My mom’s car was great, my sister’s was a dog, down on power compared to mom’s, and it got worse mileage. She had nothing but problems with it for the 6 years she had it. She replaced it with a turd brown ’79 Cutlass, another dog. After it literally had the dash and steering wheel falling apart, she traded it in for the worst of all, a Mazda 626. I don’t remember the year for sure, I think it was ’89 or ’90. Electrical, engine, trans, seat broke, stuck at the front position, where my sister, not very tall and a close driver on top of it, put it. Her 6’3″ hubby couldn’t even get into it. It was so bad that it was replaced about 2 years later. No lemon law involved, the dealer handled it all. The replacement was better, but still pretty bad. When it’s tranny failed, it was replaced with the present Nissan.
I’ve made so many bad decisions with respect to cars I just choose not to think about it. I justify it as being my vice in this life.
At any rate, the worst car I owned was one I really wanted to like – a 2007 Infiniti G35 Sport (sedan) 6AT. I don’t think its problems were all of Infiniti’s doings, but nevertheless, after 5 months with it and pushing $3000+ in repairs (some under warranty, others not), I decided to part ways (it didn’t even 50k miles on it).
I’ve forgotten all of the issues, but offhand I remember it needed the following:
– new oil pan (allegedly damaged from something the previous owner did)
– new subframe brace (allegedly damaged by same previous owner incident)
– new rear seal
– new weatherstripping (repeatedly)
– new brakes & rotors (issues w/ excessive squeal and grinding… not just a pad issue)
– new steering wheel & door trim pieces
– other minor things that I just can’t recall now…
It was also plagued by very poor paint quality (again, perhaps attributable to something the owner did), poor fuel economy (I knew that going in), and occassionally poor shift quality.
I’d probably buy another G35/G37, but that particular car was hard to like. I clearly bought it in a moment of weakness, despite a nagging feeling that it wasn’t in as good of shape as it should have been for its age/mileage.
Come on, Has no one else here owned a 1971-73 Plymouth Cricket? I was 17 and the Vega sleeveless aluminum engine made me stay away. I did not like the Pinto’s styling, I bought a car that was worse! Should have bought a Gremlin.
Around 1981, there was an immaculate Cricket sitting unused in a neighbor’s garage. I suppose I now know why it didn’t have much wear and tear. I like that the UK name for the same car was Hillman Avenger, which sort of sums up the relative formidability of US and UK cars at the time.