The worst car you ever owned?

Two vehicles come to mind - A 1977 Dodge Aspen when I was first learning to drive. It spent more time in the shop trying to figure out why it would stall all the time... the happiest day was when I got rid of it!

The other was a 1999 Ford Ranger truck that was a POS in plain English... it did not feel right to me when I test drove it and why I let my ex talk me into it in the first place still baffles me. It had tranny problems among other things - I finally got it right when I told the dealer we were working with what I needed a truck to do and he found my big blue diesel and shipped that nasty Ranger down the road.

 

1958 Edsel Ranger with push button transmission. The relays would stick, and you couldn't get it into park, or reverse, and if you d you couldn't get it back in drive. Never met a gas station it didn't like,,8 mpg but. It like to cruise at 85!

Icarua

 

52. 1980 Chevrolet Citation: Chevrolet's first front-drive machine proves to be legendarily unreliable and one of the most recalled cars of all time. Yes, the Pontiac, Buick and Oldsmobile X-Cars were just as awful.

I rented a Chevy Citation for 11 months that I abandoned and told the rental company where I left it.
It refused to start the first five fridays in a row.

 

My worst? Well how about a "bottom" five with #5 being the biggest turd on wheels.

#1 1971 Dodge Dart
#2 1976 Chevy Vega
#3 2000 Chrysler Voyager
#4 1985 Renault Alliance

And.........

#5 1999 Buick LeSabre

 

1982 Volks Jetta diesel, 52 hp I believe.
Weak battery with a massive starter motor equal trouble.
No fuel line heater, ended up with a tank of wax.
Only good for downshifting on tailgaters and giving them a Bond like cloud.

 

I can only comment on the car's I owned. The Fiat x19 was the most unreliable. The most expensive was a 2006 BMW 325I. Fun to drive but man the car was expensive to keep on the road and fix and it was always something wrong with it. I have to say the most reliable and least expensive to own have been Toyota's and Honda's. I had 2 Honda's that were on the road for a decade and over 200,000 miles on both and still working when I sold them. One I gave to my daugheter when it was 4 years old and she drove it another 6 years all through HS and College. She was so impressed with the car she purchased a new Honda Civic 2 years ago. The Prius is a charm, economical, nice ride, low cost of ownership. Can't be beat. I had a Toyota camry before and that was a good reliable family car.

 

Audi 100L -- rusted faster than it ran.

 

Excellent idea for a thread.

I haven't had a truly awful car, although my 1979 Peugeot 305 was unspectacular.

My Dad, on the other hand....

1972 Morris Marina. ​

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From British Leyland, the same fine stable as ny-rob's TR7, this was my Dad's first ever brand-new car. The roof rusted through and fell off when the car was two weeks old. ​

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Still, it made up for its poor build quality by being ugly, boring and terrible to drive. ​

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1976 Lancia Beta​

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We bought this when I was about five, so it would have been about one year old. ​

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The front wings rusted through within six months, and you could actually see the front wheels from the driving seat.​

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It was a shame, because it was a very cool car.​

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1989 Citroen BX​

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I could drive by the time he got this. He bought it new. It was fast, and it handled brilliantly. ​

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One day, as I was driving, the whole of the inside of the roof fell off. I had to slow the car down while my head was sticking out of the hole for the sunroof. ​

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The engine died dozens of times. Both bumpers fell off. The boot floor came loose. The driver's seat fell off its mountings. The rear armrest fell off. The suspension lost interest and refused to raise the car to a driveable height. ​

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In the end, we took it to Moss Side, which at the time was the roughest suburb of Manchester, with serious guns-and-drugs problems. We left it unlocked with the keys in the ignition, under a bridge, for a weekend. ​

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No-one stole it. ​

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You included some very good articles there.

But were you aware of this?
Classic Triumph TR7 buying guide - Telegraph

 

I believe it was my 1975 volkswagon Rabbit. Aluminum head wasn't worth the metal it was stamped out of, rusted, transaxle problems, you name it.

 

1981 Chevette . . . 30k mile clutch . . . noisy . . . uncomfortable . . . handled like a wet noodle.

Bob Wilson

 

2002 Ford Taurus - very difficult to service and had lots of problems. First the check engine light started coming on, fixed that after replacing the spark plugs and flyback transformer assembly, which required removing the intake manifold just to get to it. Shortly after (at just over 100k), the transmission failed and cost over 2 grand to fix. Worst part of all, there was an intermittent connection in the HVAC controller that over time, damages the A/C compressor and disables the car at any moment. (It was obviously designed to make the mechanics happy!) It was estimated at $1500 to fix (on a car with over 130k), so I ended up bypassing the A/C and decided to drive that car only when the weather was cool.

 

Hey Bob,

What were you doing with your 81 'vette, dropping the clutch? The clutch in my 79 Chevette lasted for over 120K miles. You must mean the brakes. My Chevette needed a brake job every 30K miles.

 

I had a 1981 Olds Omega. I put around 250,000 miles on it, then gave it to my brother. He put around another 50,000 miles on it before it finally gave up. I really liked that car.

 

The biggest POS I owned was a 2009 VW Jetta TDI. If it didn't break, it was ready to fall off of that car. Even the interior rearview mirror broke. After 3 valve bodies, the trans problem popped up again. I finally traded it in on a Prius.

 

I owned a couple of cars on this list - the Geo Metro and the Toyota Echo. Both were damn good cars (got me from Point A to Point B using very little gas). Both lasted over six years, with little or no time at the mechanic's, too.

As for the worst car I owned? Probably an original VW Bug. Eventually it literally blew up.

 

Honorable mention: 1975 Datsun B210 . It was my first car, bought it used. Somehow it 'knew' when I got paid because every 2 weeks it would need something... A belt, a water pump, an adjustment of the ignition points... BUT it made me learn light mechanics. I even disassembled its engine to fix a bad piston ring... That was fun.

Top Honor: 1985 Chevy Blazer S10 4x4 with the Pontiac 4 cylinder TBI engine. It needed special tools to do basic stuff like changing brake pads and light bulbs. The engine used metric nuts and bolts while the rest of the body used imperial. Sometimes it would shut off while trying to accelerate. Its single, huge injector could be heard inside the passenger cabin if we had to open the windows (rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr) Once engaged, the 4x4 would not disengage and taking a very sharp turn could break a front axle (happened twice). Last thing it did, the engine block head developed a crack so I gave up and traded it for a Mazda Protege just when the SUV craze was starting.

 

Perhaps my most reliable was my 73 BMW 2002. I owned it better than 20 years, drove it 200k and it NEVER saw the inside of a pro shop.

Icaurs