Worst Car Ever Owned/Driven

[TerryC]

hi all,

mine was a cr@ppy 2000 (W) Rover 25 1.6is 5dr silver like this one:

for about 9 months of ownership, these problems came up:

1. Constant brake squeals
2. Rear LED brake lights go faulty in no time (changed several times)
3. driving position was akward
4. Pedals were ridiculously high

ok, that's my first car and bought it cheap and couldn't afford anything better despite the old man's car image associated with the marque. what's your story?

[oily oaf]

Luxury! I was the proud owner of a Mini 850 1970 vintage with a moody MOT. After 2 days of blissful motoring the drivers door fell off to be followed shortly after by the rear sub frame parting company with its mountings producing a hail of sparks reminiscent of Guy Fawkes night.
Apart from that it was a cracking motor and £35 well spent

[TimD]

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/marenault/mar30/p1975_03.jpg

A 1982 Renault 30 - effectively a Renault 20 with a V6 engine, or a Renault 20 with ten extra mistakes built in.

Amongst its cleverer moments were:

The doors rusted clean through before the car's sixth birthday
The alloy wheels were so porous that one of the tyres deflated through a gap in the rim.
The car had only 60,000 on the clock but the velour seats were coming unstitched.
The electric windows had a knack of not disengaging so that you could hear the motors trying desparately to force the glass through the top of the door frame.
Finally an injection system leak which managed to squirt a jet of petrol onto the exhaust manifold. If I'd had any sense, I would have let the wretched machine burn to the ground.

Buy another Renault? Not in a million years!

[BertMk2]

The worst car I've owned was my first one (familiar story) - a 1983 Vauxhall Nova 1 litre saloon in a very fetching shade of green (inside and out). It's features were:

Rust holes in the drivers door you could put your arm through.
No door card on the passenger door (it fell off).
No glove box (took it out to sort out the dashboard wiring - never put it back in).
Fuel gauge that always read empty.
Temperature gauge always off the top of the scale.
Stereo that occasionally spewed smoke and randomly changed volume / station / eat cassettes.
No wing mirror passenger side (fell off on the motorway).
Complete brake failure (split brake line)
Timing chain hacked through the engine casing (still got me home though!)
Random number of cylinders firing in the wet.
Heater didn't work.
Windows didn't shut properly (had to drag them up by hand).
Headlights were full beam or off for a while.
Wiper arm regularly disconnected from the motor.

Worst car ever driven - a 2002 Nissan Micra, horrible car. No redeeming features at all. Apart from 'it wasn't mine'.

[davemorganfan]

Peugeot 306 DTurbo. I bought this thing thinking it would be as good to drive as my previous Citroen ZX Volcane 2.0i, but with lower running costs. It was awful. Terminal understeer, rough, noisy and SLOW engine, lousy build quality and an immobiliser that locked me out of the car 3 times. After 2 weeks I could stand it no more and swapped it for.....a Rover 216, not unlike the one in the picture. It's been almost completely reliable and is a treat to drive. Still have it.

[Mattracer]

My father had a Peugeot 505 GR in the mid-eighties and on day 1, it stuck in first gear and had to be driven (slowly) back to the dealer. Then later, the EGR valve got stuck or something and the engine often coughed, wheezed and snuffed itself out while idling at the most inopportune times, the wheel hub centres rattled and clunked which resulted in them being removed permanently for the sanity of all, and a few other things. Apart from all that, it was actually a very comfortable and ergonomically well-designed vehicle.

[garcon]

Still laughing about the Mini 850 and Renault 30.
Used to know someone with a Renault 30 - he didn't have it long. Shame really, it was a cool car when it worked.

Worst car I owned was an '84 Austin Maestro 1.6 HLS in metallic beige (I refuse to call it gold!). The Maestro isn't actually that bad a car in itself - far roomier than it's contemporary competition, and reasonably pokey 1.6 engine. But I landed a real pup. Various electrics played up repeatedly, blowing fuses and bulbs at will. And a fortune spent trying to sort an engine management problem which meant it intermittently refused to idle, cut out at the strangest of times, drank like a fish and generally refused to run properly. Diagnosing the problem was a prolonged and expensive affair, which was never fully solved despite replacing ecu, distributor and God knows what else. Even though I lost 600 notes on depreciation alone in 9 months, I actually felt sorry for the poor sod I sold it to.

Worst car I've driven was a friend's Talbot Horizon. Seem to remember I arranged an MoT for it . Suspension was awful (totally worn shocks), it was dreadfully slow (probably a good thing actually), and the gearbox was a lucky dip. In fact, it was so bad I actually enjoyed it in a challenging kind of way - there's a certain skill involved in fighting such an atrocious car to your destination...

[paul c]

Mk2 Vauxhall Carlton Estate. TimD'll remember this since he came with me to buy this, and its predecessor, a Mk1 Carlton Estate. The Mk 1 was great. Weber Carb and 2 litre engine meant that it didn't hang around considering how big and heavy it was (and no power steering, ouch). So when the body fell apart I bought a Mk 2. Big mistake! It was an 1800, far more underpowered than a short test drive had suggested, and it ate its electrics. In eighteen months I went through 3 distributor caps, 4 rotor arms and 4 sets of HT leads. Absolute dog! I reckoned that in eighteen months of motoring I'd managed about three clear months without some misfire waiting to be traced. Thinking there must be some underlying cause (well you would wouldn't you) I saw a very helpful mechanic who said, "Oh aye. They all do that!"

Bodywork lasted though....

[429CJ]

There was one thread like this before, and I answer like I did back then: Suzuki Carry Van.

[rdjones]

Originally posted by TerryC
hi all,

mine was a cr@ppy 2000 (W) Rover 25 1.6is 5dr silver like this one:
for about 9 months of ownership, these problems came up:

1. Constant brake squeals
2. Rear LED brake lights go faulty in no time (changed several times)
3. driving position was akward
4. Pedals were ridiculously high

ok, that's my first car and bought it cheap and couldn't afford anything better despite the old man's car image associated with the marque. what's your story?

Well as some people know, I also have a Rover 25 and have only had a few minor problems, but nothing to serious. 1 being that the rear wash wip didn't work when I got the car, now sorted out.The other being have problems with the radio, which are sadly not sorted out, but I can live with it.

Personally I do not find the driving position awkard or the pedals.

[bella]

the suzuki we had was a pile of nonsense. those of you who remember my adventures to snetterton with it last year will be pleased to know the gearbox has finally seized up, and it's all my mum and the guys at work can do to stop my dad keeping it and buying a new gearbox...

to its credit thought it handled well and could burn off nearly anything at the traffic lights...

[dretceterini]

The worst car I ever owned was an 1969 Austin America; basically an 1100 with the 1275 Sprite motor. The exhaust system was held up by what were basically rubber bands. They dried out in a couple of weeks, so the exhaust would drop to the ground and fall off. I got 11 free exhaust systems from the dealer in a matter of about a year! (not to mention all the other problems)...but it was cheap...around $2000 new; taxes included

[BertMk2]

Originally posted by davemorganfan
Peugeot 306 DTurbo. I bought this thing thinking it would be as good to drive as my previous Citroen ZX Volcane 2.0i, but with lower running costs. It was awful. Terminal understeer, rough, noisy and SLOW engine, lousy build quality and an immobiliser that locked me out of the car 3 times.

That's a bit freaky - I've got a 306 DTurbo and it handles like a dream, it turns in really well (you can get some understeer if you try hard and lift off oversteer is there if you want it but both are very predictable). I've found it to be a great car to drive - good handling, responsive engine (once the turbo's wound up) and generally all round good fun. Plus it's a lot cheaper to run.

Rovers on the other hand I wouldn't touch with a barge pole. We used to use Rovers as company cars - the record for an engine failure was 200 miles on the clock and you could probably build an entire car from the bits that fell off on a regular basis.

Weird how some people have nothing but trouble with a car but someone else with the same make/model has no problems at all. The same seems to be true with Fords - one Focus I've driven went really well and handled nicely, another had no 3rd gear while yet another Focus suffered from the worst understeer I've ever encountered.

[daz90]

crappy renault 19 tr, 1.4.. 1988 f reg, pathetic little engine in that, i had to thrash the bloody thing to get it going, had it for 8 months then got fed up with it so i got rid. in the time i did have it, the trak rod end broke and ruined the 2 front tyres, i had to put a full exhaust on it, the heater packed up, and the rear demister packed up. the radio that came with the car gave up to, the cassete player stopped working. as it happens it was my 1st car, and turned out to be the worst thing i have ever bought. and because of that car i now hate renaults and would never buy another 1.

[garcon]

Just imagine that same engine in a Volvo.

Definitely the worst car my parents have had (before I was old enough to drive, thankfully) was a 1979 Volvo 343 DL. The 340 series was one of those bizarre efforts that combines the worst qualities of two marques. Like any Volvo it weighed an absolute ton, handled like a semi detached house, cost a bomb to service and had a thirst that would put Ollie Reed to shame. And like any Renault, it had a woeful engine, terrible build quality and completely random electrics. My parents - probably like many others - bought it as a long term prospect because they wanted Volvo reliability and safety in a smaller cheaper package than the 240. They sold it after just over eighteen months and so much unexpected expense that we had to make do with a Metro 1.0 for the next two years.

The only 'joint effort' I can think of that was worse was a Datsun Cherry/Alfa thingy (sold under both badges as I recall). I'm sure someone somewhere got the instructions fatally crossed. It combined all the design style and flair of 1980s Datsun with all the build integrity and reliability of 1980s Alfa.

[paul c]

A friend of mine had one of those Datsun Alfa things, for a very short while. All I remember was that it was uncomfy, but sounded great and went very quickly as long as you didn't want to change direction and were happy to stop every so often to pick up any bits that fell off. Bluebottle, if you read this, that was Martin Van whatsit. Did you ever go in it? He had it just before you sold him the Dutton.

[Crash Test]

I had a Hyundai Accent as a driving school car, and you had to pump the accelerator to get it going...

[KA]

Originally posted by garcon
The only 'joint effort' I can think of that was worse was a Datsun Cherry/Alfa thingy (sold under both badges as I recall). I'm sure someone somewhere got the instructions fatally crossed. It combined all the design style and flair of 1980s Datsun with all the build integrity and reliability of 1980s Alfa.

Datsun Cherry Europe or Alfa Romeo Arna depending on whether you bought a Japanese shed or an Italian one.....

Like paul c, I remember a friend having one and forever having to get the heap repaired after something had fallen off

From memory he'd bought it to replace whatever 70's British Leyland product he'd been running before (either an Allegro or Maxi from memory)- the word masochist springs to mind.....

[Bluebottle]

Originally posted by paul c
A friend of mine had one of those Datsun Alfa things, for a very short while. All I remember was that it was uncomfy, but sounded great and went very quickly as long as you didn't want to change direction and were happy to stop every so often to pick up any bits that fell off. Bluebottle, if you read this, that was Martin Van whatsit. Did you ever go in it? He had it just before you sold him the Dutton.

Don't think I ever went in it,but I've still got the seats and the carbs from it!! (if anyone wants them, let me know )

[paul c]

Wouldn't they fit the Dutton, which you now have back from Mr. Van Whatsit?

[Bluebottle]

I've thought of that- the carbs will go on a treat (just need a manifold) but the seats are way too wide

[R5 Rocket]

1978 Renault Le Car it was slow if you could get it to 80 you couldnt brake in a emergency becouse the brakes would lock and the car would tend to want to flip over, 1998 Honda Civic ex gone trew 3 engines still slow handeling is bad aircondicioning brakes al the time,And off topic my best car has been a 1980 Renault R5 GT and a Porsche 911 87

[Super Tourer]

My worst car a Citroen BX 19 RD...

It was always (and I mean always) leaking something, hydraulic fluid, water, diesel, probably even some liquids I've never heard of.

One day I got back to the car park to see it sat flat on the ground in a pool of green liquid - right, this car has got to go....

I sold it to a BX fan, who came over to view it at 9pm at night, by which time it was dark - he was so keen I pushed for the full asking price and even drove him to a cash point to get more money out !

To be fair, I told him about the leak ( which I had got fixed-ish), but he didn't care - he loved it!

[Heebeegeetee]

Only just come across this thread, but I want to respond just to say that we had 2 306D Turbo's, in succession, that had followed from the 2 Golf Gti Mk2's that we had owned. We thought the Pugs were great. The first car had one or two niggly probs, but nothing worth mentioning here, and handled great. I'd road tested a Volcane dturbo, and that really did steer from the rear - minimal inputs required at the steering wheel - but we couldn't get the dealer to do a sensible trade in on the Golf. (You'd have thought he'd snatch our hands off - but no.) So the Pug it was.
The second car didn't feel as sharp, IMO. I wondered if they had downgraded the suspension settings, without telling anyone, but it definitly wasn't a dreadful understeerer. It was, however, totally reliable. Both Pugs possibly held together as well as, if not better, than the Golfs. In fact, the first Golf was a bit rattly, and the second Golf had those big bumpers, the front bumper being easily removed every time you backed off a kerb, or patch of rough ground, or whatever. My wife had to bring the bumper home inside the car, one time.
A couple of years or so ago, I navigated on a 12 car rally, in a Pug 306 Gti six? The one that was supposed to be just about the best hot hatch ever made, with the 167 brake engine? Can't remember its precise nomenclature. Anyway, I can report that when the going got a bit rough, and we tried to get a real move on down some tiny lanes, the car was found wanting, smacking its sump several times. It was only about six months old, at the time. My mate, in his Marina Coupe 1.3, mildly modified, (I kid you not) was not experiencing any trouble, and the Pugs owner could not believe what was happening. ie, he was struggling to stay with a Marina!
He blamed me for taking him and his car on an unsuitable event, and that was the end of his foray into road rallying.

[krt917]

I haven't had enough cars yet, so I'll put forward the worst car my dad owned: a 1.6 Ford Orion. Tyre squeal when cornering at more than 15mph, no performance, and one of the most boring cars to look at ever! Only redeeming features:
- A boot;
- We were able to sell it.