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What's the worst car you ever owned?

#81
fdeck said:
'95 Saturn wagon. Oil burner practically from day one. Engine disintegrated at 70k miles.
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I hear ya! I had a '95 Saturn SC2 (two door). It leaked from the door frame like a siv when I first got it(it wasn't convertible), stalled every time I accelerated from a stop... The list of problems was epic!

At 100,000 miles (I was averaging 3k/ month) it started burning oil. It had 33k when I bought it. Managed to squeeze 188k miles out of it. It fought me every step of the way.
 
#83
2000 Ford Focus. The only new car I ever bought, very much in a fit of optimistic stupidity, and an utter POS.

Very well designed car, but it would have been better assembled by trained beagles. Started coming apart in my hands pretty much the minute I left the dealership.

The greatest eye-opener was Ford's nonchalance in the face of the car's disintegration. Snapped throttle cable; exploded ignition lock; loose steering wheel; loose steering column; weeping master cylinder...you get the idea. Ford couldn't be bothered with warranty claims.

The last straw was when I contacted a VP at Ford's Dearborn headquarters, and spoke to him about the steering column. He told me "Sir, you've already told me that you'll never buy another Ford vehicle again. So there's not really a good business case for us fixing the car."

I politely responded "If that car said Toyota on the front, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

I finally unloaded that albatross on Craigslist last year. Good riddance.
 
#85
Mike N said:
Iirc Motor Trend magazine named that heap "car of the year" in 1984, and it's sibling (The Renault Encore) was dubbed "the one to watch."

Both of them turned out to be steaming piles of poo, and now when you see a Motor Trend coty poster chronicling past winners they conveniently leave 1984 out.
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We use to call them the "one to tow" because it was rare to see one proceeding under it's own power. :rollno:

Motor Trend also named the Chevy Vega as a car of the year back in the 70's. :D

For me it was a 75 VW Rabbit, Not only was it constantly in the shop, but I've never seen a car in my life rust as fast as that car rusted. It had a bit of rust when it bought it (used in 78) Within a year it had more holes than swiss cheese. Literally when I'd hit bumps different areas of the car would vibrate at different tempos. I didn't have to worry about anyone seeing me though. The billows of black smoke prevented that. I junked the car in early 80, and the junk yard owner told me that when he pulled the windshield out of the car it had a partial body collapse!:D
 
#86
'73 VW Super Beetle. Never hated a car more or felt more unsafe behind the wheel of it. Painfully slow getting up to ANY speed. Lousy interior heating. Way expensive to fix. I was positively giddy there was anyone in the world who wanted to pay me money for it. I still get angry just thinking about that poor excuse of an automobile.
 
#88
Mike N said:
Iirc Motor Trend magazine named that heap "car of the year" in 1984, and it's sibling (The Renault Encore) was dubbed "the one to watch."

Both of them turned out to be steaming piles of poo, and now when you see a Motor Trend coty poster chronicling past winners they conveniently leave 1984 out.
Click to expand...

Mike N said:
Motor Trend has named some real junk as car of the year. No wonder I tend not to believe anything that magazine ever prints.
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1983 for the Renault and 1971 for the vega. I'd personally add their 1996 "car of the year", the dodge caravan - worst transmissions.
 
#89
ProgRocker said:
I hear ya! I had a '95 Saturn SC2 (two door). It leaked from the door frame like a siv when I first got it(it wasn't convertible), stalled every time I accelerated from a stop... The list of problems was epic!

At 100,000 miles (I was averaging 3k/ month) it started burning oil. It had 33k when I bought it. Managed to squeeze 188k miles out of it. It fought me every step of the way.
Click to expand...

I had a first-year SL1.
I remember at the time Saturns were so incredibly popular, had unreal brand loyalty, and were the "amazing upstart that could"...My SL1 was such a piece of sluggish scat, even with the 5 speed stick...you'd think being made of lightweight body panels the thing would screw...not even close. Cylinder 3 used to constantly foul plugs to the point the engine would shake so violently out of the blue (yes, after warranty) , I swear to God I had spare plugs and a socket wrench in my glove box at the ready. It was almost paid for at the time and I hadn't the money for a top-end rebuild, so....plugs were cheap. It was obviously a bad gasket or whatever as there was oil on the plugs. OF COURSE IT SMOKED.

The process no matter what:
Engine run>engine suddenly run crap>pull over> wait 30 minutes for engine to cool enough to pull plug> engine run good again.

Thing almost overheated, the day I bought it, while idling at the dealer while I was being shown the "features" by the salesman. That shoulda been a frickin sign.
 
#92
I owned a lot of crappy cars. My grandpa would use his dealer connections to go to dealer auctions and get me something for a few hundred once a year. The worst of the worst was a early 90's grand marquis. It was at one point a cab, and while it was comfortable to drive it was a hunk of crap from day one. Had tons of electrical problems. It would have been a great car with that Mustang 5.0 under the hood, but every week it had something wrong with it. I think that I owned the car for about 3 months total before I got frustrated and drove it to a car crusher.
 
#94
The only competitor to the grand marquis was a 93 gmc safari. This was a "fleet vehicle" which had some special parts that didn't exist on the standard consumer version...at least that is what my x mechanic told me. While it carted around my rig whenever I needed it to, and the gutted interior made it easy to throw an air mattress and sleeping bag in there for other use, the van was a total pos. It would go in to the shop with one problem, be fixed, two days later have another completely unrelated problem. When it ran it was great, but when it didn't, oh boy. I do miss that van...A LOT of great memories.
 
#98
hover said:
A previous poster indeed mentioned a Lada.
I never had a gremlin, but my first car was an AMC Hornet, very close cousin. God awful car, burnt to the ground, while parked, at the mall while I was on a date.
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No complaints from me.
I had a gremlin X with a 304 V8 in it.
After a few "upgrades", that thing was a peeling out machine.
I believe that it even got me laid a few times back in the day.

Oh, to be young again!
 
#99
The single most serious problem I've had with any car is the engine timing belt breaking at only 30,000 miles. Pretty much destroyed the upper half of the engine. Valves etc. ruined. Because the belt had a claimed service life of 60,000 miles I got all the replacement parts for free but I had to pay the labor which was like $1400. That's 23 years ago too.
 

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