Cars you can’t forgive

2004 Ford E150 van.

POS, bought it with 30K miles on it and had to replace the brakes and took out the ABS. $2500 later and it was fixed after the dealership replaced the aftermarket pads & rotors with OE parts since that had to be the issue.

Nope, the ABS module died. Would work fine for 5 minutes or so and then when you applied the brakes, hard right turn.

When I met my wife, she drove a Mercury Topaz. It didn't do us wrong–I don't think it ever left her stranded–but, wow, was it boring. And it was narrow, too.  (We replaced it in 2000 with a new Civic Si.)

I have two:

Early 00's VW products:

I had a 2002 Jetta. That car was the worst. 

THE. WORST. 

I hated it so much, and it hated me even more. I've expounded my hatred here for that car a number of times, so I'll let you do a search. 

Most Subarus:
I am a reformed Subaru Fanboi. Right after that Jetta, I got a 2002 WRX wagon. The VW was so bad that it made the Subaru look reliable! That said, pretty much everything that ever went wrong was my own doing, since I caught the tuning bug early. I do have major nostalgia for that car, and at the time, it was a lot of fun.

Fast forward a few years and I traded it on a 2009 WRX. That was a big mistake. For that generation, they cheaped out on a lot of stuff, and mine had major quality issues. I got out of that real quick. Couple that with friends' experiences around the same time with spun bearings, blown turbos, and head gaskets, and I'm never buying another one. But man, they are fun to drive in the snow and bad weather when they are running well! 

Circa 1986 I remember my best friend's dad often bragging about his Cadillac.  I was pretty young at the time, but i was still astonished at what a turd the thing was inside.

Everything I have driven made by GM (I have never driven a Corvette).

1988RedT2 said:

Duke said:

But Subaru is the most reliable brand in public opinion.

I never have understood that.  I guess it goes to show that you can put anything in print, and some significant percentage of idiots will believe it.

We've owned three Subarus without issue. A 96 Outback we  sold to my brother in law when I got my 11 Outback  and a 2005 Imprezza 2.5RS. We'd still have the Imprezza but a pick up truck did it in.

I find GM early 2000s sedans unforgivable. The just have an image mediocrity to them. 

My mother has a 06 Impala.......I have much hate for that car.

For me it was the RSX Type S I replaced my old MX-6 V-6 with. It was a much better car than the Mazda in every respect except looks, but I never could find a comfortable seating position. It was causing me so much back pain that I ended up hating the car. I was so happy the day I sold it.

I genuinely don't come in contact with many modern cars so the car that raises my ire the most is.......

Jaguar E-Types. 

I honestly never gave them a second thought for most of my life. I just didn't care about them. Then I got into the restoration game and we always have 2-3 in progress at any time.
 

I hate them. There is no nice way to put it. Doing anything to them is a fight. The bonnet doesn't open far enough to access anything so you are constantly wedging yourself between the tire and the wheel opening. Just removing the carbs takes custom bent and ground wrenches and an hour of your life. Bleeding the rear inboard calipers? Boy I hope you have extra long, incredibly thin alien arms. Adjusting the timing? well, get a buddy to lay on the ground pointing the light up at the crank pulley to shout at you which direction you need to go with the distributor, it is a two person job.

And then you drive them...... The coupes are damn near impossible to get in and out of, The convertibles are better when the top is down but as soon as you are seated you realize you are looking directly at the chrome on the top of the windshield and what else you can see is distorted by the bends in the glass. At least there is no place for your left foot while driving though. I mean, they really leaned into the whole unpleasant from every angle thing. The driving position sitting so far back from the front end that slopes off out of your sight is like driving a boat with an outboard motor.

I don't even see them as attractive anymore. The person who coined the phrase "a car is a penis extension" was clearly thinking about this rolling phallus shaped object. 

Whew......Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

Corrado VR6.  Cool car, but objectively it was a turd.  

Tom1200 said:

I find GM early 2000s sedans unforgivable. The just have an image mediocrity to them. 

My mother has a 06 Impala.......I have much hate for that car.

We bought my daughter a 2006 Impala because she prefers big, easygoing cars.

I have a quiet affection for that thing. Cheap to buy, reliable, cheap to maintain, holds a ton of people and stuff, and gives mid-20s fuel economy while not feeling scary to drive on the highway.

Is it exciting?  No. Is it cost-effective?  Extremely. And that was the extent of its design brief.

Duke said:

 Is it cost-effective?  Extremely. And that was the extent of its design brief.

And precisely the reason I default to GM cars.

I am thoroughly enjoying this thread, and PS2 still talks about his 05 Impala like it was the best thing he's ever owned.

I don't remember the year, but a Chevy Celebrity. The only car I've ever fully given up on repairing and sent to the junk yard. It was a mistake to have ever bought it, from a shady small car lot that "just sold" the Prelude I had driven two hours to go look at. (And had called about prior to heading out!) It had the 2.8 v6 which was smooth and reasonably powerful, really, but always felt like it was just on this side of running. It started giving me hot-restart troubles, and I just could not figure it out. Then it tossed a rod through the side of the block, so I think it told me pretty well what was wrong at that point. I almost cheered when it went away. I traded the radio for the tow home and the rest of the car off to a "we haul junk cars" type place.

Years later I bought a v6 S10 .. that turned out to have the 2.8 v6 as well. I ended up rebuilding that engine, which was fun, but unplanned. Maybe it's the 2.8 v6 I can't forgive?

2008-2014 Subaru WRXs. A fun car but for what they charged the dumpster fire of the interior could have been much better. A cheaper Honda Civic Si of the same vintage had a interior that was light years better in terms of quality. 

I gripe because from mile 1 to 10000 that I owned the car the interior squeaked and rattled worse than a 200k mile GM F-body. Then there was the bearing failure. berkeley that car. 

1986 Ford Taurus purchased for winter beater duty.  Four cylinder/automatic, ideal for snow/icy condition with winter tires. No need for traction control with that engine and trans combination. Problems with electronic engine management sensors were an ongoing problem.

Late 80s VW Fox also purchased for winter use. Quit running 2 blocks after I bought it (had to push it out of the intersection). Love/hate relationship and I worked on it more than any car that I have owned. Replaced it with a Mazda 323 and never looked back.

DirtyBird222 said:

2008-2014 Subaru WRXs. A fun car but for what they charged the dumpster fire of the interior could have been much better. A cheaper Honda Civic Si of the same vintage had a interior that was light years better in terms of quality. 

I gripe because from mile 1 to 10000 that I owned the car the interior squeaked and rattled worse than a 200k mile GM F-body. Then there was the bearing failure. berkeley that car. 

Preach! 

Dealing with that interior was one of the driving factors of me ditching mine. Spending time in there was dreadful. The dash, no, EVERYTHING rattled and creaked, the dash vents all broke, the glove box door broke, the pedal assembly (especially the clutch pedal) creaked and eventually cracked and broke, and so much more. All before 50k miles. And that was just the stuff inside the car! Absolute turd of a car. 

In comparison, the econobox interior in my 2002 WRX was light years better, and despite me taking things apart over and over, nothing broke or rattled, ever.

dculberson said:

I don't remember the year, but a Chevy Celebrity. The only car I've ever fully given up on repairing and sent to the junk yard. It was a mistake to have ever bought it, from a shady small car lot that "just sold" the Prelude I had driven two hours to go look at. (And had called about prior to heading out!) It had the 2.8 v6 which was smooth and reasonably powerful, really, but always felt like it was just on this side of running. It started giving me hot-restart troubles, and I just could not figure it out. Then it tossed a rod through the side of the block, so I think it told me pretty well what was wrong at that point. I almost cheered when it went away. I traded the radio for the tow home and the rest of the car off to a "we haul junk cars" type place.

Years later I bought a v6 S10 .. that turned out to have the 2.8 v6 as well. I ended up rebuilding that engine, which was fun, but unplanned. Maybe it's the 2.8 v6 I can't forgive?

A 1987 Celebrity with the iron duke was the family car I got to drive in high school.  It wasn't a good car.  I joked it would never break because the engine didn't have enough power to hurt itself.  Despite this I cannot fault it.  We had that car for 13 years and it needed very little beyond scheduled maintenance.  

"Buy a 7.3 they're super reliable"

No. A million times no. I don't want a 7.3 ever again. I don't want an econoline ever again. I don't want a coach built bus ever again. First shakedown trip the alternator went out and started overcharging. I noticed the second battery was smoking and charging at 16v. Second trip it was starting to run rough and we found a faulty cam angle sensor. Third trip it went into limp mode on I-95 hundreds of miles from home with a bad injector. After the 4th trip it started idling at 11.5v and needed to be trickle charged. The last time I drove it smoke came out of the dash. It did tow like a dream at 8mpg(9mpg with a tuner) and was super convenient with the wheelchair lift.

1995 Ram 3500. The Cummins motor was incredible, everything around the motor was a giant pile of garbage. I bought a low mileage one from a farmer and had a never ending stream of issues from a truck that I actually drove maybe once a month. Dash collapsed, heater core blew, trans had a persistent leak that I could never track down, going over a speed bump with the bed unloaded was an act of pure violence...on and on and on. I'll never again own a CDJR product.

I'll second the laughable Subaru reliability. Had a bunch of friends at COBB that were intimately familiar with the WRX. They would consistently ridicule the stock tune, the relatively fragile motors, etc. But they were never at a loss for customers.

nderwater said:

Circa 1986 I remember my best friend's dad often bragging about his Cadillac.  I was pretty young at the time, but i was still astonished at what a turd the thing was inside.

IDK about you but that's a pretty baller interior and screams "I've made it in life." I mean no trans or exhaust tunnel, plush seating, wood trim, door handles and seatbelt inserts that will give you 2nd degree burns on a hot summer day, what else could you want? 

An older British car with a non synchro first gear "Moss" gear box.  My MGA Coupe is a dormant project because of the thought of all that pending effort knowing that gear box is waiting to suck the fun out of the driving experience.

I know, Miata is an answer.  But I have a BMW M10 and five speed... 

jr02518 said:

An older British car with a non synchro first gear "Moss" gear box.  My MGA Coupe is a dormant project because of the thought of all that pending effort knowing that gear box is waiting to suck the fun out of the driving experience.

 

Well first, a Moss box is a particular type of gearbox used in, among other cars, some Morgans and early Jags, but they are nothing like the MGA box.  FWIW they are not my favourite gearbox either.

And I'm not sure how a non-synchro first gear sucks the fun out of anything.  In an MGA it is just a starting gear and you never need to get back into it until you are stopped again.  The regular MGA trans doesn't have the best ratios but the close ratio version does and has better feel than the later all synchro boxes used during MGB production.

The ONLY issue with the non-synchro first gear is that once in awhile when you go to take off at a light, it won't slide smoothly into first, but all you have to do is push it into second without letting the clutch out and the right back into first where it will then engage 99% of the time.

Same story with other British boxes like the Triumph 3 synchro boxes.

Having to accommodate the use of the gearbox, that is no fun.  On the flip side, drive an early Elan.  That is a marvelous benchmark!

11GTCS said:

OHSCrifle said:

1981 Gutless Supreme. 260V8 White. Chrome fake wire wheel hubcaps. Light blue vinyl landau roof. Malaise era special. Was my Grandma's car until I bought it from her. Car couldn't break traction on wet leaves. Gutless.

Perhaps I actually should forgive it because the gutless-ness probably saved teenage me from fiery joyriding death.

I had an 81 and also christened it the “gutless supreme”.  Silver with Rallye wheels and the 3.8 V6.  Getting on to the highway was timed by a calendar.   I swore I’d never own an underpowered car again.

My wife just had to buy a 77 Supreme that had the 350 Rocket V8 with 4 barrel.  It actually was a great car for the fairly short time we owned it.  Didn't do too bad for gas mileage on the interstate.  

I'm glad this thread was started, because you folks have convinced me not to buy several cars I had considered.