What's the worst car you ever owned?

[fhm555]

Never had a total POS vehicle that I didn't know what I was getting in to.

I've bought plenty of old cars with a lot of wear on them that required quite a bit of repair to bring up to snuff, but I never paid dick for those cars and had no expectation of them being dependable until I got them there, so I never felt like I got hosed in the deal.

These days I can no longer climb around or squat much so I gave up working on cars and just stick to buying a new one every few years. The biggest problem I've had with any vehicle in the last 20 odd years was an 00 GMC truck that blew a daytime running light twice while I owned it.

 

[burk48237]

I agree with your take on things. It's easy to buy a car used, start having problems with it, and call it a piece of crap. A lot of people aren't very on top of vehicle maintenance, and even many of those who are neglect things like air filters, spark plugs, transmission fluid and filter service, etc.

When I got my truck, a 2000 Dodge Dakota, it started having a ton of problems and needed lots of money in parts and labor. It would have been so easy to say, "Oh, this truck is such a huge POS, I'll never buy another Dodge again", etc. I've had it a year now and there's very little work left that it needs. It's reliable, starts up every time, rides and drives well, runs well, and doesn't regularly break parts. It's got about 150,000 miles now.

I disagree, I followed my VW with a new GTI in the early 80's, more ridiculous problems (fuel pump at 20,000, doors that never lined up-broken window cranks, etc). It was a blast to drive IF I could get it to run. I was stranded on the highway at least five times with that car.

I bought my first good car (Acura Integra) after. I had two of them and put over 150,000 miles on each with zero issues. I followed that with a 90 Nissan Pathfinder I put 215,000 on, and then a 97 Pathfinder I put 341,414 miles (it died last fall). Their is nothing wrong with my attention to car maintenance. Some cars are built right, and some (those VW's) simply cut corners in places they shouldn't.

My dad had a mid 70's Ford Granada, the engineering in that car was criminal. It was a rust bucket, the hoses and wiring were a maze (you had to put it on a hoist to change the main radiator hose that went thru the suspension). It drank gas and performed like Garbage. There are a few more around like that, and while good maintenance will mitigate the problems putting icing on a cow pie won't turn it in to a birthday cake.

There are Lemons out there, more than you think., especially in the 70-80's big 3 line up. But the Big 3 aren't unique, even BMW's had a few. With VW, a friend of mine who use to work at a VW dealership put it this way. He's never seen a car were so much cost cutting was done in things you can't see (power window motors, wiper motors, electronic connections, etc.).

 

[papilgee4evaeva]

I followed that with a 90 Nissan Pathfinder I put 215,000 on, and then a 97 Pathfinder I put 341,414 miles (it died last fall).

My first vehicle was a '96 Pathfinder. The only thing that died on that car was the odometer at 112,xxx. I estimate that it was near 200K before I sold it (was commuting between Baltimore and DC and needed something more efficient).

I miss my Pathfinder. The last-gens were problematic (as I understand it) and the current-gens aren't even real SUVs anymore.

 

[SJLee]

2003 Audi A4 Avant wagon. It had constant electrical problems, customer service was terrible, Audi does not honor their warranties, and they don't stand behind their products. After owning an Audi, I question whether the Germans are still pissed about WWII.

 

[Trayster2]

 

[Avalon]

and in that same genre of plastic Chrysler products.....

I bought this used in 1985 for my first car purchase. Mine was brown.
Invalid Link Removed

 

[The Owl]

THIS:

 

[bluesblaster]

THIS:

party on Garth ! Party on Wayne !

 

[lokikallas]

Ford tempo, dodge neon, Plymouth sundance.

 

[Eric Perry]

That was my first car. In powder blue, no less!!

 

[bmc]

2005 Mercedes A Class. Leased it new. In two years, it was in the Mercedes garage 19 times.

The dealer gave us a new one in 2007 that was an upgraded model, bought us out of our lease on the old one. The new one was excellent and was driven down to central Italy and all the way to Bergen, Norway without a snag. Great great car.

 

[rtslinger]

1987 Chevy Chevette what a piece of ****

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

1984 Renault Alliance.
It came with my first wife.
Biggest POS ever built. One problem after another. I got so sick of working on that thing. After working on it the last time I took it for a test drive out in the country and for some reason it caught on fire. Luckily a friend happened to be driving by and stopped to help. He had a fresh 12 pack in a cooler and we sat and watched it burn to the ground.
That was one of my happiest days.

I wish it was as easy to get rid of the first wife!!

My wife's first car was an '85 Renault Encore. It was mediocre. Its best redeeming quality was that it was pretty good in snow; I was able to get home from Hartford one evening during a blizzard by driving down a lot of unplowed back streets to avoid huge traffic jams. About three thousand miles after the warranty ran out, the timing belt broke. I spent about two to three nights a week for three weeks hunting down and picking up a used cylinder head, getting a valve job on it, and fixing that damn thing, but I was able to get it done for a couple hundred bucks instead of a grand.

My own worst car was probably a tie between a 73 Pinto and a 74 Mercury (made by Ford in Cologne, Germany) Capri. 1600 in the Pinto and a 2L in the Capri. Those were back in the "oh crap, what broke today" phase of my life.

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

1987 Chevy Chevette what a piece of ****

Just tell everyone that you had a 'Vette.

 

[Mike N]

1987 Chevy Chevette what a piece of ****

The car in that pic is a Pontiac T-1000. Why GM let Pontiac sell a version of the Chevette is still beyond me.

 

[hover]

The car in that pic is a Pontiac T-1000. Why GM let Pontiac sell a version of the Chevette is still beyond me.

GM let Pontiac sell a "G3" version of a Daewoo the last year of Pontiac's existence...you think they cared about that brand past the performance "image"?

 

[dls59]

A buddy of mine had a Chevy Citation, 1980. Oh, man! That was a crappy car.

 

[BassGuyFL]

THIS:

Oh man that's exactly the one we had. :shudders:

 

[David Jayne]

Funny, funny story.
My POS Mitsubishi RAM pickup seized its cam, shredding the timing belt and destroying the cylinder head. So I decided to pull it apart and fix it. Took the head to a local head guy, who is able to save the cam, deck the bearing surfaces and caps, and installed new valves, guides, seals and do a nice 3 angle valve job. He also bead blasted the head before doing all the work so it looked like a brand spanking new head when he was done. Lovely.
Once I got it bolted in I remembered that I had a bit of a valve tap before the disaster, so I decided to pull the rocker assembly and replace all the hydraulic lash adjusters. If you do this, you should make damn sure that you count all the adjusters after you remove them to be sure you got them all. I didn't. Worse, I was careless as I removed them and dropped one underneath one of the cam lobes. Didn't catch this minor, itty-bitty detail.
Installed shiny new lash adjusters after soaking them in motor oil. Reinstalled and oiled rocker assembly. Installed and tensioned new timing belt, valve cover, emissions stuff, intake manifold/carb assembly, fuel lines, radiator, battery, hoses, coolant etc......

Get in and turn key. Got a partial revolution- 'Raar. Click-click.' Hmmmmmm. Remember the runaway lash adjuster? It's now jammed under the cam, between a lobe and the head and is actually preventing the engine from turning. I am blissfully unaware of this. So......
Connect battery charger and set to 12v, 10 amp mode. Yeah! That'll get her going!
Get back in and turn key. The starter now has enough juice to force the engine to turn in spite of the fact that the cam can't move. The new timing belt hangs tough though and forces the cam pulley to turn, shearing the roll pin that times the pulley to the cam. Now since we are turning in the direction that tightens the bolt attaching the pulley to the cam, after a half-turn or so it tightens until finally the lash adjuster holding the cam explodes. This allows the motor and its grossly out-of-time cam to finally spin freely, demolishing the nicely rebuilt head/valves and sending shrapnel from the detonated lash adjuster to Davey Jones' locker. Yes, this actually happened.
I fixed it. Again. Wasn't happy about it.

 

[oerk]

Pontiac's "commuter car" re-issue of the LeMans

That's actually an Opel Kadett E. Don't know if the Pontiac version was made by Daewoo or Opel, but it is originally a german car ('84-'91). Daewoo made their version 'till '97. Reliable, but rusted like nobody's business.

I had quite a different version of it, which was equally the most fun and the worst car I've owned:

Honorary mention to this one, which is the following model (yeah, they didn't have the rust problem under control 'till the model after that):