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The worst car you ever owned?

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by ny_rob, Nov 12, 2012.

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  1. ny_rob

    ny_rob Senior Member

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    I feel your pain!
    Pretty much any product from leyland from the mid 70's on was kaka and brought many of their unfortunate owners to tears. It's amazing how poor those cars were, it's like something broke every time you used the car. Besides the gas crisis of the 70's, probably the biggest boone to the Japanese auto manufactures was the wretched quality of the British Leyland products. When I finally unloaded... unm I mean got rid of- the TR7 I remember actually burning the Haynes manual- it went up in a spectacular blaze because the pages were so well worn/grease soaked from use... I mean like every section was literally worn out from use.
     
    #21 ny_rob, Nov 12, 2012
  2. edthefox5

    edthefox5 Senior Member

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    Thanks your post brought back a flood of memory's. My brother bought a new 1972 TR6 Baby Blue that was alot of fun to drive. Sexy chick magnet car. Beautiful fawn leather. Lots of stupid electronic issues from the god awful Lucas electronics. Man that stuff was crap.
    He finally sold it when it became such a hassle and bought a behemoth T Bird.
    Buy nothing compared to the wedge in sheer crapola. Not many survived around me. Total pos that ruined the Triumph name.

    I grew up next town over from Englewood Cliffs NJ home of the biggest British Leyland US HQ. There were MG's & Triumph's everywhere. Very popular cars in my hometown. Maserati had there HQ there to.
    When I was a kid I owned a Triumph Spitfire beater. I never got the carbs working right and couldn't keep it running.

    Thanks again. Forgot about those cars. Good times.

    Oh and worst for me was a 1978 Trans Am. That car sucked.
     
    #22 edthefox5, Nov 12, 2012
  3. ny_rob

    ny_rob Senior Member

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    Really? I owned two X19's and my brother owned one too. The only really pesty thing about them was that damn timing belt- God forbid you went one mile past the factory recommended swapout interval.. Bam! Bent valves....
    We use to drive them euro road rally style in the woods- and they took everything we could give them... I do remember a broken axle though...

    Compared to it's rivals in the mid 70's (the 240Z and TR7) the mid-engine X19 was a joy to drive.
     
    #23 ny_rob, Nov 12, 2012
  4. ny_rob

    ny_rob Senior Member

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    Lucas... wow- that's a name I've purged from my memory (like my first root canal)- any time you saw Lucas stamped on something you knew it was (expensive) trouble :cry:
    IIRC- wasn't the wire harness all white wires with some intermittent color (that was so light you couldn't make them out) dashes? I remember trying to trace the wires from the distributor back to the electronic ignition module and being super frustrated that all the wires were white! Another brilliant idea from Leyland!
     
    #24 ny_rob, Nov 12, 2012
  5. SageBrush

    SageBrush Senior Member

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    These stories show just how much cars have improved overall, and from Japan in particular. They also explain why an entire generation are sure that a car should be replaced every three years. OTOH, mechanical literacy was so much higher a generation ago than it is today.
     
    #25 SageBrush, Nov 12, 2012
  6. icarus

    icarus Senior Member

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    The most dangerous was the Fiat 850 Spyder!
     
    #26 icarus, Nov 12, 2012
  7. edthefox5

    edthefox5 Senior Member

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    Oh the japs really landed hard with some great cars in the early 70's. I had a 1971 Datsun B210 that you could not kill.
    Datsun of course went on to Nissan which made a really great car in there Z's. The 240Z was a beautiful car but had carb problems also. Webbers I think. But a joy to drive and own and fast as hell. Great car. I've owned many Nissan's but my 1992 240SX was truly one of the best cars ever made. I owned that car for 14 years and still ran great when I sold it. Was most proud that car never once in its life saw a dealer rack. Not once.
    And the first early 70's Corrola's and Celica's were a really nice car. Tinny doors and body parts but the mechanical's were pretty good.
    GM back then as usual had there head up there nice person and refused to pay attention to them for years till they started kicking there nice person. And they never really stopped. Its beyond me why a US car company cannot emulate another and build just as nice a car as the japs make but apparently its really hard.
     
    #27 edthefox5, Nov 12, 2012
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  8. icarus

    icarus Senior Member

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    Datsun 510 wagon, one of the best ever! Put a Weber on it and it will run forever, and then some. Toyota Hilux pickups of the 70s are indestructible.
     
    #28 icarus, Nov 12, 2012
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  9. edthefox5

    edthefox5 Senior Member

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    I know we all had to learn some wrenching skills to survive as a kid. You learned how things worked while fixing your own car. Skills to last a lifetime. Today's kids are just not interested. They'd rather play a video game.
    My next door neighbors kid just got his first car I think he's 17. Never once have seen him wash or wax it or with the hood open. My first car I couldn't stop touching and improving it. It was the very epicenter of your life.
     
    #29 edthefox5, Nov 12, 2012
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  10. edthefox5

    edthefox5 Senior Member

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    Oh the 510 was the shit. Another indestructible car. I wish I still owned one.
     
    #30 edthefox5, Nov 12, 2012
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  11. edthefox5

    edthefox5 Senior Member

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    Hilux and the 70's Toyota FJ were ridiculous how well they were made.
     
    #31 edthefox5, Nov 12, 2012
  12. xs650

    xs650 Senior Member

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    +1
    The first new car I bought was a 1969 510.
     
    #32 xs650, Nov 13, 2012
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  13. xs650

    xs650 Senior Member

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    Lucas, the Prince of Darkness.
     
    #33 xs650, Nov 13, 2012
  14. icarus

    icarus Senior Member

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    I had to laugh at e episode of Mad Men, when they got he Jag account. The guy tried to commit suicide by putting the exhaust hose in the car window. I knew long before that when he went to start the car, it wasn't going to,, and didn't! I started to howl with laughter, my wife looking askance until I explained, Lucas electric,, doesn't run in the rain, or nearly anywhere else!

    Icarus
     
    #34 icarus, Nov 13, 2012
  15. xs650

    xs650 Senior Member

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    Back in the 70's, Lucas decided to diversify its product line and began manufacturing vacuum cleaners. It was the only product they offered which did not suck.
     
    #35 xs650, Nov 13, 2012
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  16. Air_Boss

    Air_Boss Senior Member

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    Still have the '68 2000 Roadster!
     
    #36 Air_Boss, Nov 13, 2012
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  17. ny_rob

    ny_rob Senior Member

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    In the early 70's my (rich) uncle bought a new Jag, that gorgeous green they had back then, all leather interior- he drove us around his summer home on Shelter Island with it. I saw it only one time.... We usually went to visit him a few times during the summer before he went back to Fort Lauderdale for the winter. So, about a month after the first summer visit- he invited us out to Shelter Island again for a big shindig... I saw his white Caddy convertible in the driveway- the Jag was nowhere in site. We visited him two more times that summer- I never saw the jag again. The next summer he had that year's new model Caddy, no Jag.... so my dad finally asked him about the missing Jag- to this day I can still see the look of anger on his face when he told my dad that there wasn't one full week that first summer he owned that car that it wasn't in the shop. It seems the extreme salt air environment and high summer humidity of Shelter Island just wreaked havoc on the already delicate electronics on the Jag and things were already corroding and shorting out after just one month's use. He finally got rid of it that fall when it stranded him one last time on the ferry from Shelter Island back to LI. We thought he might of had the ferry crew push if off the deck into the Atlantic for an insurance claim- that's how much he hated that car! For the remainder of his life he stuck with Caddy's and never bought another foreign car.
    Nice job Jaguar... :mad:
     
    #37 ny_rob, Nov 13, 2012
  18. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    I could never figure it out but my wife hated it. Just I couldn't tell if she was 'resting' her foot on the clutch.

    Oh, yours had brakes? Ours would eventually stop . . . faster if you wanted some 'excitement' like seeing your life flash before your eyes.

    Bob Wilson
     
    #38 bwilson4web, Nov 13, 2012
  19. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    I understand the British learned to love room temperature beer because the refrigerators were made by Lucas.

    Bob Wilson
     
    #39 bwilson4web, Nov 13, 2012
  20. jsfabb

    jsfabb Active Member

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    This reminds me of an old joke when comparing something to a two-way vacuum ... it blows, it sucks and it's full of crap!!!
     
    #40 jsfabb, Nov 13, 2012
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