The worst car I ever owned...

Hands Down, mine had to be the Yugo! My first clue should've been when I was driving home from the dealership with my spankin new car and the brakes went out 2 miles from the dealership.

No...wait,,maybe the clue was a couple weeks later on a drive to Chicago and the steering wasn't working right. Stopped at a repair shop and they told me if I had gone a couple more miles, I would've lost all steering capabilities.

No...wait....LOL...the list goes on and on!!!

On the plus side, it was my first car that had daytime running lights. I turned the key and lights were on. I still think every car should have that feature. Of course, maybe they weren't supposed to be on, maybe it was another defect. Never thought of that until right now!!!

 

AMC Pacer. No further explaination should be required.

 

The best is of course the Prius, but we all knew that.

The worst was a 1991 Subaru Loyale, which stranded us many times. I bought it for the 4 wheel drive capability, hoping to do some backroads camping. I spent thousands and thousands keeping it running. The brakes warped everytime I used them on a hill. The timing belts were replaced 4 times. The oil didn't stay in the engine long enough to get dirty. What didn't leak burned instead. I redid all the engine seals, and it still leaked. A spark plug blew out one night while the engine still ran. No more Subarus for me. If they're the last car manufacturer on earth, I'll walk.

Other cars include a 1966 Plymouth, a 1984 Hyundai Pony, and a Dodge (mitsubishi) Arrow, I forget what year. I also had a 1981 Suzuki 400GS, but the speeding tickets got pretty expensive, and for some reason my wife wasn't too keen on me taking other cute girls for rides on it.

Prior to the Prius, I had completely lost faith in cars all together. I wanted a new bicycle for each of us, but my wife insisted on a car. So we bought the most reliable, least polluting one we could find that would fit 4 of us and our stuff. The payments are less than the repairs on the Subaru.

 

1985 Oldsmobile Ciera... Nice car... very very bad trany.. rebuilt at 5000, rebuilt/replaced at 15000, went out again at 71,000. the OEM tires lasted longer than that transmission.. traded off for 1988 Cutlass Supreme.. did not like the two door so got the 1990 Cutlass Supreme 4 door.. the two door got 30+ mpg at 70+.. the 4 door would do high 27's.. Sold that for $1000 with 154K (to a friend) to put on a 2002 Prius

I understand a lot of eng'ers types lost their job over that 1985 trany

 

1985 Audi 5000S Turbo.

I cannot even begin to list all the things that went wrong in 32 months and 42,000 miles of ownership.

 

72 Caddy coupe. Bought new in the family and the things that went wrong were unimaginable. Broken flywheel, carb fell off , fuel pump fell off among other things but when it ran it was sweet cruiser-slow as hell with a 472cube motor and 12 mpg tho-the bad old daus of the 70s=at least we had disco!

 

After 20+ vehicles a 62(?) Sunbeam Alpine, which I loved to drive (convertible) but which continually had something go wrong. Sold it for $75 and was really happy.

 

Porsche 911 was a pile of......continually ran out of oil techs never could find the problem...soon engine died...It was not :angry: even fun to drive.....

 

Tie between an '85 turbo Volvo wagon and '98 Audi A4.

They both had a barrage of bizarre problems that required constant visits to the dealer. The Volvo dealer was a crook which made things even worse. The Audi dealer took good care of me but each visit was a 160 mile round trip. Every incident required two trips (320 mi.), the first to diagnose the problem and then the second to install the parts that they had to order.

Audi Corporate gave me a $1,000 credit towards the 2000 A4 I bought which was great until I totalled it. The 2003 A4 I bought as a replacement was also great. Sold the '03 on Ebay last month to a soldier on duty in Iraq.

 

1984 Ford Escort Wagon.

Everything was wrong about it.

 

I suppose that technically, my 2005 Toyota Prius is the worst car I have ever owned.... It's the only car I ever owned! =-)

 

I've had 2 really bad ones. A 1988 Oldsmobile Delta 88 - total POS from day 1. Bad cat, 2 bad MAFs, blew the AC 3 times, and finally the tranny at 110K after limping along for 30K. Just to name a few problems. It was my first car and a hand-me-down from my Mom.

The really frustrating one for me was 97 Chevy Monte Carlo Z34 I bought for my wife. It was a really nice car - nearly completely loaded and my wife really loved it, except for one thing - it wouldn't run for anything. 4x in the first year it wouldn't run on 1st start up of the morning and had to be towed to the dealer. The dealer tried all kinds of stuff and couldn't fix it. Wished I could have lemon lawed it. Finally dumped it after a year and took a soaking. :blink:

 

It's a tossup between my '56 Dodge Lancer and my '80 Pontiac Phoenix X-car. Both were amazing in how shoddy they were.

 

Worst of all time was my 1971 Pymouth Volare Wagon -- both brake and fuel lines came loose on the way home from the dealer, as clamps improperly placed. Because of running very lean to make then-difficult emissions requirements (sans fuel injection and computer control) it would lose power and usually stall whenever accelerating initially from a stop, e.g. moving through an intersection. I learned not to wash it since when clean, rain would leak around the windshield and pour into my lap. Dirt seemed to seal the otherwise invisible leaks in the gasket. Had a great air conditioner, though. :wacko:

 

My worst was a Ford Fiesta. That car was in the shop for repairs at least once a month for the entire year I put up with it. Too bad I owned it before there were lemon laws...

 

My worst was a '97 VW Passat TDI. The engine was OK, though it got louder and louder as it accumulated miles, but just about everything else on the car was very poor. It ate struts, brakes, and engine mounts for breakfast, the turbo collapsed, the power assist on the steering failed, a power window motor gave up, and there was an endless series of inscrutable computer glitches in the fuel-management/emissions control system. What exaggerated the situation was that dealers in Southern California were absolutely clueless about this car. They could not fix anything and stocked almost no parts for it. A glow plug failed, and they had to order it from Germany. They ordered just one, so that when the others in their turn failed, they had to order again.

Have I said that I really hated this car? We put up with it for 100,000 miles then sold it into the enthusiastic circle of diesel-lovers, where it is probably still cranking along, scattering parts behind it as it goes.

 

In my life I've owned 4 cars, a 1967 Mercedes 200D (diesel), a 1967 Mercedes 230S, a 1990 Ford Probe (bought new) and the Prius. None were really bad, although the worst had to be the 230S. If there was even a hint of moisture in the air (or it rained the night before) it took forever to start. And there was a dashpot that kept the engine running when you stopped at a light. If that went out (often) the engine died when you stopped at a light. The Prius doing that bought back bad memories at first.

I sold the Mercedes when the Unification of Germany was taking place. The buyer wanted a So Cal Mercedes (ie no rust) to send to Germany as cars would be needed there.