Tell us about your worst car

Worst car by a long shot was my wife's '91 Dodge Shadow.  We should have gotten rid of that POS when we were married, but I was certain I could keep it running.

3-speed auto, terrible seats, terrible road manners in anything but sunshine weather and the worst seats I've ever sat in (mentioning the seats twice on purpuse).  Total economy car that should only be driven by teenagers going to college and then scrapped when they land their first job.  Wish we would have done that.

I'm seeing lots of Subaru's here... 

The amount of Subarus is both unsurprising and amusing. My whole family went through a phase where everyone was about them. Then, between keeping my '03 Baja, my parent's '99 Legacy Outback, and my sister's '99 Forester, everyone swore off Subarus.

WRX.
 

Next question?

My Legacy wagon was by far the most disappointing car I've owned. I swore off the brand after it and haven't been back. Slow, inefficient, poorly built, and exceedingly needy.

1998 BMW 540i with the six speed manual.

Owned it 13 months. it only ran for eight of them. Gasket replacements, the timing chain guides fell apart, the fan clutch failed, then the new one faileda couple weeks later. The radiator exploded the day the hopefully-proactive replacement unit showed up on the porch. I used up all of my AAA tows that year, for the only time ever.

The computer controlled thermostat leaked, the water wicked up the sensor lead wire, flooded the ECM compartment with coolant and burned out the air pump control output that's next to the thermostat pin in the ECM.

It was a complete disaster.

All 6 of the various British cars I bought used (in USA spec) from one 57 Healy thru the end of the 60's. 

They were such fun to drive cars (compared to same era USA iron) but suffered from Lucas electric, RUST,  hard to get parts, few dealerships in OH and innumerable reliability issues.  

They were also cheap used and made a great garage hobby.  Just don't ever have one as your main ride.  Like a motorcycle owner.  Most of them would be worth a small fortune today in pristine condition.  Wonder what storage would have been for 60 years?

The worst car I have ever owned is still better than the one lemon American wife I had for 27 years. Oddly the current British/ Greek imported replacement wife is superb in every way.

My dad bought into the whole "Subarus are great, safe, reliable cars that can climb Everest" hype and basically forced everyone in the family to buy one. He's like "I know Subarus are reliable and very well built cars, so why do we have so many issues with them all the time?" I guess marketing really works on some folks.

Isuzu.

Impulse.

Turbo.

The best part of the car was the Chevette underpinnings.

I have had several Subarus and they were all anvils, oddly enough.  But the Impulse swore me off of turbos in particular and piston engines in general.

(he says, with a turbo Volvo parked outside, a turbo VW with a 2.3 five and K24-7400 on jackstands inside, and an EJ205 on the engine stand waiting to be reassembled complete with a low mile VF43)

95 or 6 Geo Metro 3 door hatch, 5 speed.

I thought I was getting a fun little practical DD.

What I got was an engine that burned valves like a fat kid eats candy.

I paid $900 for it and sold it for the same after replacing a head, a valve job in that head, and fixing a wiring issue with the headlights.

That car still owes me.

I bought an '86 Pontiac 6000 in 1995 for pizza delivery that was world class terrible.  The first day I owned it I was out running 'za's and I used the parking brake on a hill - dumb.  I was unable to release the brakes because the cable seized (MN rust) and had to find someone nearby with a hacksaw so I could leave.  No amount of junkyard fans or relays could make the cooling fan work.  So it overheated a lot.  The iron duke blew it's head gasket twice.  I sold it to a coworker for $200 and she called me for jump starts for months when it wouldn't start...    

1980 VW Rabbit I bought new for some reason I never figured out. I think it had the only note I could afford at the time. 

The dealer was a criminal who would not fix any problems (He was beaten up by several disgruntled customers over the years - not by me though I understood ).

Top speed was about 85mph.  No one could ever get the alignment right so it "crabbed" down the road a small amount.   The A/C was dealer installed (another lie it turned out - I was told "Factory Air") and mounted on some very poor rubber washers that rotted once a year.  The alternator went out several times because the rubber mounts of the A/C caused the drive belt to overstress the bearings. replacement alternators were close to $200 of 1980's dollars.     I can say that it was not bad off-road with all that weight over the front end.  Plus the rear sea folded up to a large space under the hatchback.  I ran a small house raising business out of the back of that car for a while.

In reply to jharry3 :

If it is any consolation, I am pretty sure that Volvo rubber bush mounted the A/C compressors on all redblocks, meaning well into the 1990s.

Most imports had port or dealer installed A/C.  It avoided a hazmat tariff or something.  I was slightly annoyed that my '81 RX-7 has the very rare factory installed A/C - if it was dealer installed, Prepared rallycross rules allow it to be removed.  And since "comfort and convenience items that do not pose a competitive advantage" are allowed, I could install a modern A/C compressor and condensor...  But no, it is factory air, so I gots to keep it all in its lukewarm glory.

Now, the first boatload or two of watercooled VWs in the middle 70s were shipped without ethylene glycol coolant, to avoid tariffs/fees/whatever it was. Gotta find those pennies to save everywhere you can.  But they needed to put something in there, and the North Atlantic is very cold, so to prevent freezing they were shipped with saltwater.  In bare aluminum and bare iron castings.  They stopped doing that VERY quickly 

This is also the same company that affixed the carpeting by driving little nails right through the floor, too.  It is kind of impressive that by the mid-late 90s they were building cars that are more or less impervious to rust, considering where they were just 15-20 years earlier.

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

You bought a car that was poorly looked after with sticky oil rings and was burning just enough oil to elevate cylinder temps and burn exhaust valves. And you were probably running stock ignition timing, which never helped. Those engines are practically indestructible when looked after.

Mine was an 84 Rabbit diesel. I've told the story many times of how I commuted for 21 years and the only car that ever stranded me was that Rabbit. Six times, and on one particular camping trip up north it broke down on me five times in one day.

The photo of the Chevy Citation made me laugh. It may be on the list of worst ever but for me, oh the memories!! My parents had a four door and with the rear seat folded down it created the best car ever to be with my girlfriend now wife. Worst car ever Dodge Colt

The photo of the Chevy Citation made me laugh. It may be on the list of worst ever but for me, oh the memories!! My parents had a four door and with the rear seat folded down it created the best car ever to be with my girlfriend now wife. Worst car ever Dodge Colt

Time for my moms worst car which, because I had to maintain it is also one of my worst cars.

1984 Volvo 760GLE

Most of the car was fine except for that godawful PRV V6 under the hood.

Ate camshafts reliably on the RH bank because of an oil gallery problem that Volvo refused to take responsibility for.

The engine itself is a terrible design which is no surprise because it's French.

Supposed to be a V8, they lopped two cylinders off but left it a 90 degree V6.

The cam can't be removed with the head on the engine because it slides out the back. You either remove the head or drill a hole in the firewall.

When you remove the head, you learn that it's a wet liner engine and you've disturbed the bottom o-ring so it leaks coolant into the oil now.

When you put the head back on, you discover that, since the head has been machined, there isn't enough travel in the cam chain tensioner to take up the slack.

You also have to have the A/C refilled if you take the RH valve cover off because they plumbed it all with hard lines on that side.

Once you add an external oil line to fix the cam oiling issue, then the car is reliable enough that it lasts until the garbage insulation on the wiring harness starts falling apart.

Let's start with inboard front disc brakes...

A 1967 Ford Cortina GT.  When it ran it was a fun ride, then the shift linkage would decide to go astray. . First is somewhere in here, then try to find second.  This happened multiple times, the problem was the dealer was sixty miles away.  When I took it to the local Ford/Mercury/Lincoln dealer in a small Wisconsin town they asked me what it was!!! The emergency break never worked, but it's finale was the stainless steel band around the starter wore it's self through (You could have shaved with the ends) and shorted out to the hot lead from the ignition and started a fire.  I got what I paid for it on a left-over 67 Mustang.

Peabody said:

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

You bought a car that was poorly looked after with sticky oil rings and was burning just enough oil to elevate cylinder temps and burn exhaust valves. And you were probably running stock ignition timing, which never helped. Those engines are practically indestructible when looked after.

Mine was an 84 Rabbit diesel. I've told the story many times of how I commuted for 21 years and the only car that ever stranded me was that Rabbit. Six times, and on one particular camping trip up north it broke down on me five times in one day.

So where were you in 2004 when I could have used that info?

In my shop building those cylinder heads. Really 

1986 VW Jetta GLI that I bought new.  It had Bosch CIS “E” fuel injection where they attempted to modulate the fuel pressure to try to make mechanical FI run with fewer emissions with an oxygen sensor.  If I’m remembering correctly VW used separate controllers for the spark and FI system. Both failed nearly simultaneously and ended up dumping enough fuel into the engine to take out the catalytic converter from running so rich.  This happened at under 50k and VW repaired it all under warranty.  It ate struts and exhaust systems and generally nickeled and dimed me with annoying repairs. All that said it was an absolute hoot on a twisty road.

One of the VWs..

'91 Fox - bought new, wouldn't start at the dealer when I took delivery (broken wire in the seatbelt interlock). Rear wheel bearings that kept coming loose. Rust that started to form in a year. Fortunately, somebody hit it and it got totaled so I got out of it essentially free.

'10 Jetta TDI Sportwagen - also bought new. I wanted so much for this to be a forever car. Coil springs broke (when the front one snapped, it took out the strut), sunroof drains leaked, and the sunroof itself would get stuck open, or closed, depending on its mood. Rear hatch started to rust. DPF failed just before the buyback was announced. Happy to have had VW buy it back from me at 125k miles.

2001 Buick Century. I got the car from a school friend and it was supposed to be an inexpensive dependable daily driver through college, which would allow me to park my RX7 indoors during the winters. The Century only had 70k on it when I got it, but I remember the day after purchasing the car it had a cold start rattle, likely from the top end. In the first year of ownership it was ok, it got decent mpg, was comfortable on highway trips and drove well in the snow.

By year two though, the rocker panels snd brake lines seemed to rust out over night, the window motors or regulators started failing, and the 3100 intake gasket issue reared its head well before hitting 100k.
Also for some reason the trunk leaked somewhere and the carpet was always damp, which I remember also being an issue on a Park Avenue I detailed for a neighbor.

I kept adding coolant and limping the car along for several months before my dad traded it along with his old Grand Cherokee in on a new Sorento. I daily drove my RX7 for a few months before buying a 16k mi base model Colorado, which was far less comfortable but was generally durable for the 6 years I drove it.

1960 Rambler

Not this one, but this model in these colors.

196 ci, 122 or so HP (gross), push-button automatic, power steering, manual drum brakes, AM radio, tires from the 70's. It was a straight and genuinely rust-free Florida car, but read on.

To be fair, most of its issues were due to 28 years of degradation and deferred maintenance, and my lack of mechanical knowledge and budget at the time.  Battleship-quality smokescreen under full throttle, which was much of the time given the lack of power.  Overheated at highway speeds. The vacuum wipers stopped working at full throttle. The big rubber bushing at the front of the torque tube had failed, so massive rattles from under the car, and a slight change of direction, whenever throttle position changed.  The single-reservoir master cylinder failed, and when I pulled off the road to try to slow the car in some high grass, I hit a hidden rock ,which stopped the car, but also bent the front cross member, which screwed the alignment.  No oil filter and no provision for one.  Disintegrated driver's seat foam.

There were a few good things though. Vent windows on every door, which when combined with the cowl vents, gave good ventilation in wet weather. The rear window design kept the rear glass dry when moving in the rain. Carburetor had a clear glass float bowl. Easy to find in a parking lot. Easy to work on.

I think I kept if for about 18 months. The fold-flat seats that a couple of you are thinking of were of no use to me :(

Traded 3/4 of a pack of Marlboros for a "running and driving " 82 Cadillac Eldorado.  Most expensive and painful pack of cigarettes i ever opened. 

Drove it the 30 miles home. That was the last successful drive it made. Rear calipers siezed when i used the parking brake, finially got the brakes sorted many hundreds later and it kicked a rod on the victory lap. 

I later saw the car on an episode of cops where the guy i got it from had it in Vegas when he got drunk and shot his son in the leg.explained tbe body damage and questionable repairs. 

And, you know, trading it for a pack of opened smokes.