What vehicle did you absolutely loathe driving?

 2015 Chevy Cruze.

 My daughter leased one and hated it. Complained constantly about it. Since she wasn't a car person, I decided to drive it for a bit to see if she was just being picky. She wasn't. It was slow, noisy, rattled everywhere (it would make you constantly check and see if the door was closed), didn't turn well, didn't do ANYTHING well, including mileage. It only had about 8,000 miles on it when she turned it in and she couldn't wait to get rid of it. She had driven my '13 Focus and my wife's '12 Mazda 3 so maybe she was spoiled a bit. 

Rented a Chevy Aveo when visiting LA back in 2004. A 4 door sedan, with an auto transmission, and the worst seats imaginable. We drove it to the ocean from Pomona, a 40 mile freeway journey that took a little under 3 hours. Between the Aveo and the traffic, it was enough to make us hate LA.

I rented a new 4cyl Tacoma in 2023 when I was visiting Texas. Absolutely the slowest and most loathsome vehicle I've ever had to drive. No guts, not comfortable, handled like trash, and didn't get nearly good enough MPG to make up for any of it. 

LukeGT said:

I rented a new 4cyl Tacoma in 2023 when I was visiting Texas. Absolutely the slowest and most loathsome vehicle I've ever had to drive. No guts, not comfortable, handled like trash, and didn't get nearly good enough MPG to make up for any of it. 

I recently had the opposite experience with a 2024 tacoma rental. Comfortable, handled well, plenty of power with fun turbo noises. I will agree that the gas mileage wasn't much better than my full size v8 truck.

2000 Toyota Corolla VE.  Had to be one of the last cars with a three speed automatic, and was one of the most boring vehicles ever.  It wasn't objectively a bad car, but I owned it during a rough time during my career, and it just annoyed me every time I got behind the wheel.

Mid 90s F150 with an auto and straight 6. 
 

It was a fleet truck to be fair but I hated driving it. Slow, clunky, steering that... worked kinda. Meh. 
 

Also the Chevy Volt. On electric it was good. But once the battery was empty I hated it. The lag... my goodness. Full throttle freeway passes took forever. The interior is tiny as well. 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

I suspect that to limp the engine over emissions standards, the injection pump quantity and timing was very, very conservative to limit soot and NOx.

The ALDA is responsible for limiting fuel off boost to limit soot. It's a pretty easy adjustment, I had mine adjusted up to just puff a little smoke on upshift. People crank them up further, but there's not enough air to make a difference. Maybe a few hundred RPM earlier spool? 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

theruleslawyer said:

Snooker said:

Does anyone know a legit custom tire manufacturer? I'm looking for an old set of 15.5 inch tires for an older BMW, I know they don't make that size any longer except for a tractor/Forklift tire but I'm hoping someone might know of an actual street tire.

You need to look for 390mm metric tires. google "metric tires 390" and you'll see results.

There would be a difference between those weird metric Michelins (that I can't think of the name for the standard) and a x.5" tire.  Half-inch sized tires don't have a safety bead and have a significant angle to the bead shape, as they were made to work easily with inner tubes.

 

 

I guess it depends on if the BMW in question was made in the early 80s or the early 50s.

 When I looked into it, its what some people with presumably the same weird BMW were using them.

https://forums.mye28.com/viewtopic.php?t=80018

I don't have any experience with them. Just googlefu.

Snooker said:

Does anyone know a legit custom tire manufacturer? I'm looking for an old set of 15.5 inch tires for an older BMW, I know they don't make that size any longer except for a tractor/Forklift tire but I'm hoping someone might know of an actual street tire.

Coker Tire and The Tire Rack both sell metric size Michelin TRX tires for your BMW, but they're not cheap.  Depending on the exact size, they go for $350 to $450 each, and they're 40 year old technology so unless it's a period correct restoration most people opt for getting another set of wheels in 15" or 16", there are many options for cheap replacements from other model BMWs as well as from the aftermarket.  

My M535i originally had 390mm TRX wheels (390mm = 15.35in) but luckily I was able to sell them years ago.

TRX are significantly different from a 15.5" tire, is what I was getting at.

Something tells me that TRX had different diameter rims inside and outside, too, for some Michelin reason.  Probably the same thinking as those BFG R-compound tires that had differential sidewall stiffness to counteract having insufficient negative camber for cornering.

Stuffed into the current copy of Classic Motorsports is a card for Michelin's Classic tire range.  Maybe they have something expensive that'll work.  https://www.michelinman.com/classic

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Since he was talking about an old BMW, I assumed he meant TRX wheels.  As far as I know, that era in the late 1980s was the only time they used them, otherwise (even going back to vintage cars) they used normal sizes in whole inches like every other manufacturer.

r56 cooper non-s with an automatic. Easily the best car with the most neutered driveline ever. I liked the rental focus we had after that better. 

Loath driving?   None.  Sorry.

Every once in a while I drive a new Acura from work and I do wonder what is going on with all the bells and whistles.  But I don't  loath them.

The first rental car I ever drove?  4 door 4 cylinder automatic Fairmont.  Loath, no.  I found the lack of anything like sporting potential amusing.  But I was glad it wasn't mine.

B11 Sentras, nope.  Most of the time those went from point a to point b.

First car, 1972 type 1 Beetle.  Loath?  No, it was my first car.

This makes me realize that most of my cars have been underwhelming appliances.  But l never really loathed any of them.

Maybe I need a nice car so I can loath past cars.  Yeah, that's the ticket.  

I drive at least 100 vintage and classic cars a year. from Pre-War Rolls Royce and Bentley to 80's Ferraris and everything in between. Aside from the previously mentioned FJ40s some other cars that elicited the "What the hell? Why would someone invest in this?" response are T series MGs. A TD with the XPAG motor is about as uninspiring to drive as they get to me. 

I absolutely HATED the Jaguar 3.8s the first handful of times I drove them but driving one back to back with a 60's GM product really put it in perspective, it was superior in every way. I try to go into each car with a conscious thought of comparing it to its contemporaries. The first time I drove a 105 Alfa Giulietta sprint I was massively underwhelmed. The next time I drove one I had been daily driving a 63 Ford Falcon for 3 months and the Alfa was an absolute revelation!

But words cannot convey how much I hated my '03 Chevy Avalanche. 

Chevy Cobalt. My wife had a base one when we were dating many years ago. Most miserable penalty box of of a vehicle. It also tried to kill us on the interstate. Truly terrible car, and it was nearly new at the time 

In reply to 02Pilot :

I remember my father owned one of those Suzuki's when I was an early teenager. It was the cheapest newer vehicle he could buy. I remember it truly feeling and sounding like a tin can on wheel. I've heard that expression many times, nothing has been more accurate then that car. 

I hate, hate, hate it at work when I have to go somewhere and draw the short straw of pool cars, a.k.a. the Ford Ecosport.  It is neither economical or sporty, just a crappy a** excuse for something with four wheels, that has the most horrible seats of anything that I've driven in the last 20 years.  I pray that it's crappy 3 cylinder engine eats its timing belt soon, so it goes away forever.  On the opposite end of the pool car spectrum, we also have a new'ish CX-5.  I LOVE getting assigned to that car! 

Mattk said:

Chevy Cobalt. My wife had a base one when we were dating many years ago. Most miserable penalty box of of a vehicle. It also tried to kill us on the interstate. Truly terrible car, and it was nearly new at the time 

I rented a car in Hawaii once - in 2003 - and all they had left was a new Cavalier. It had 25 miles on it, and it managed to have rattles and the buzzing from the engine - which was wound out on the freeway - would make the rattles go crazy. It was slow, noisy, uncomfortable, and handled badly. I couldn't believe it was a brand new car, it felt like a worn out 20 year old 200k mile crap box. The Neon we got next was like 100 times better.

One Lemons race, I was driving the 1956 Ford Victoria in its debut race. We had to thrash to get it through tech. It had 4 wheel drum brakes, very little power, 3 on the tree transmission, and a balky carb. I was the only one that could keep it on track.

I drove for an hour and a half or so, discovering that the drum brakes were completely useless. You had to engine brake and 100% stay off the brakes through whole laps at a time. I got out, told the next driver that, then sat down for some water and a rest. He came back one lap later saying the brakes were fading. I said, did you use them? You can't. He got out, saying he didn't want to drive any more. I got back in, drove another hour, came back in hoping for some relief. Nobody was in the pits. I went back out, came back in later, found another team mate to drive, and he came back in a very short while later saying he couldn't handle it. I drove another hour, and just about drove home in the thing when I couldn't get a relief driver. I think we scrounged some people from other teams to give me a break. I wouldn't say I *loathed* it, but I was more than ready to never drive it again after that race.

And then the next race it won IoE. (Index of Effluency, considered "top prize" in Lemons.) Figures.

2 cars immediately came to mind- 

- Fiat 500 (non-Abarth)-  I got it as a rental to save miles and mileage off the truck for an 8hr drive to NY.  Little did I know that either something was broken on it, or the car was junky enough that the snap-oversteer on anything more than moderate braking was a lesson in car control.  I hated the interior and that dumb center console thing, I hated the color (beige on beige), I hated it's profound lack of any power of any kind.  It was just a miserable 16 hours in that godforsaken thing. 

- 2012ish  Dodge Dart-  Dealer Loaner for my truck that would go into the shop every 2-3 months for a series of unending Infotainment module failures.  this one was a slow burn that I learned to hate.  Brand new, it actually wasn't too terrible, but as it aged, holy cow did it rattle, creak, and shudder like nothing I've ever driven.  It only had 10k miles on it by the end, but it felt and sounded like it should have gone straight to the junkyard. 

buzzboy said:

I'm the kind of weirdo who keeps a LIST  of every car I've ever driven. I really enjoyed my friend's Diesel Chevette. I have spent countless hours offroading Geo Trackers.

My father sold his 93 Toyota PU to one of his employees and replaced it with a barely used 2nd gen Tacoma, RCSB, 2.7, Manual, 4x4. It is by far the worst car I've ever driven and on paper it should have been as great as the PU before it.

Uncomfortable seating position
Smaller cab than the 93
Gutless
Poor gearing for 4x4 (3.55!)
Every control felt like it was connected to jello
No power whatsoever
1/2 ton handling in a 1/4 ton package
With factory sized tires the speedo was 10mph fast at 60

He replaced it with a 2nd gen Colorado that was much better in every single way.
 

For what it's worth, the 2nd gen Tacoma with the V6 isn't much better. It fixes the "gutless" issue somewhat, but mine pinged so so bad when it was warm out that I ended up running premium gas in it. That really stung at 14mpg.  

20-teens Jeep compass. Was an "upgrade" when renting a car for vacation. It was a penalty box in every conceivable way. I'm not sure if was a CVT or a conventional transmission, but the thing refused to make up its mind about which gear was required to maintain freeway speed. Accelerator inputs at anything above 55 werr useless unless you pushed your foot thru the floor board. At that point, you engaged the flux capacitor and the buzzbox would scream past the redline with wild abandon. Driver position would make a chiropractor blush, and road noise was insane. The best part of this car was giving it back. It was offensive to all the senses.

dculberson said:

My bone stock W116 also debuted at that race(and got IOE!). That Ford was our closest rival on track. On the straights you just barely had us and we'd easily catch back up and just maybe pass through the turns right before you slowly walked by us on the next straight.

In reply to buzzboy :

YOU STOLE MY IOE. It's OK I have a couple others. (Wartburg, boat)

It's hard to believe that I was able to pass anything in that car but I guess a diesel Merc would do it.

I owned a Datsun 1600 Roadster that I DD'd for a year and a half despite the fact that it never started without a push. Yet the car that I most loathed was a Chevy Chevette. Most 1970s cars seemed to be the product of a confusion about how to meet federal regs coupled with a strong sense of not giving a E36 M3. But somehow the Chevette managed to stand out in a sea of mediocrity. I remember how hard it was to get out of the back seat without gouging my calf, and wondered at how the designers at Chevy must have just shrugged their shoulders and thought how they wouldn't be caught dead in the thing,