The worst car I ever owned...

1978 Ford Mustang... It was also my FIRST car. Someone had painted the engine parts all different colors, so I would call up my friends and say "the orange thing is steaming" or "the blue thing is leaking gunk".

I used to have to drive around with a box full of all the various fluids in the trunk. Any time I parked more than an hour or so, I'd have to check the puddle underneath the car before I left. I'd stick my finger in it, determine which fluid it was, and then add some more before driving it again.

What a PILE!

 

1976 CJ-5 Jeep, made by American Motors. It was a POS from top to bottom and from start to finish. Name a car part, and it went bad at least once during the 13 years I drove it. It left me stranded on the road more times than I can remember, and once I waited 6 weeks for the dealership to get a replacement distributor. I learned my lesson about American-made vehicles with that stinking car.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(2Hybrids @ Oct 8 2005, 05:44 AM) [snapback]138198[/snapback]</div>

IMHO, Ford never, ever, ever had a better idea!

 

Mid-eighties Volvo - it blew up after 84 miles. Fuel leak, totaled for scrap.

 

2006 Toyota Prius

However, to be fair, it's also the BEST car I've ever owned, since it's the ONLY car I've ever owned.

I made a promise to myself when I was in high school that I'd only ever buy an electric car. I had to break that promise because it's hard to find electric cars at dealers these days. I felt that the Prius was an acceptable compromise though.

 

What was that little hatchback called that FORD made in the 70's that used to explode if you drove into the back of it?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Albertus @ May 10 2007, 05:01 PM) [snapback]439461[/snapback]</div>

Ah, the Pinto! You could get bumper stickers for it that read:

Don't hit me
I have a full tank of gas

 

Worst of all: 1980 GM X-car - the Pontiac Phoenix. We actually ordered the thing & waited 6 months to get it. My husband wanted a yellow car. When you saw that yellow hatchback, it looked just like a certain fruit and deservedly so. We had the piece of junk 4 years - shortest time we ever kept a car that we purchased new. What a disappointment!

Second place goes to the 1961 Ford Falcon we bought as a used car in 1964 ( our first car). We had it about a year - one very scary experience with the brakes (pedal suddenly sinks to the floor & the car starts moving - what fun!)

Third prize: the 1972 Volvo with an automatic transmission which probably composed of rubber bands. The thing had 2 mufflers and every 6 months one or the other would blow out. Midas would not guarantee a Volvo muffler, so we had to keep buying one or the other.

Best car (before Fiona); 1965 Dodge Dart. That slant-6 engine probably would have run forever, but when that poor California car met the midwest winters it just couldn't cope

 

A 1979 Mercury Bobcat--it was the cousin to the Ford Pinto. I don't know how, but that car lasted me through college, graduate school and beyond.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Prius Maximus @ Oct 8 2005, 11:14 AM) [snapback]138252[/snapback]</div>

I also owned 1978 Aspen with the slant 6. I put 217,000 miles on it before I gave it to a preacher friend of mine. he drove it another 5 years and traded it in on a van. That car had 4 trainsmissions through the years, but the 2 barrel slant 6 just keap on running !!! Take Care.

 

1981 Sky Blue Mercury Zephyr. The engine was held together with metal coat hangers, had no A/C(FL in summer), had a huge gaping hole in the driver side floorboard, no radio, and 2 of the windows could not be rolled down.

If I could go 70mph downhill on the highway I was lucky.

 

I was the youngest, and got all the worn-out cars as a teenager and through college. My worst might have been:
*the Cadillac with a radiator I had to put water in before every drive to school and back (and carry water with me)
*the Imperial with the broken driver's door handle so I had to climb in through the back seat and slide over the back of that monster bench-seatback
*the three different family cars that broke down on me on the same day, including a different Imperial

But I was better off than one brother. My father bought him two broken down Fiats and told him to make one functioning Fiat out of them.... (Fortunately, it was downhill to school. That is, until it was time to come home.)

Bad cars that weren't worn out before I got them were:
*an ugly orange Rabbit that ate an alternator every time I ran the A/C; EVERY TIME. (The A/C was installed by the dealer's brother -- they never offered factory air. A real racket.) It was fine if I didn't run the A/C. I live in S.C., so this really isn't an option.
* My beautiful '99 Passat (RIP) that fell apart at 120,000 miles. When the flashing panel lights couldn't be fixed, I learned to ignore them. When the ventilation system went squirrelly and outside air got mixed in so that I was always cold in winter and hot in summer, I dressed for it. The dealer couldn't fix it. I dutifully paid to have things replaced that shouldn't have broken. I brought entertainment and good walking shoes with me whenever I drove so I'd be prepared for a break down. And then, it blew a cylinder.

Bye bye, VW. Hello, Prius. (By the way, my best car ever was a 1987 gas Jetta. It is probably still running and still hasn't burned a drop of oil.)

 

I'm only 21 so I've only owned a total of 5 cars now. The worst one I had was an '86 lebaron that I bought for a winter car so I wouldnt have to change out the street tires on my '01 Galant. I bought it for $320. It had a 50/50 chance to stall on acceleration, which means in the MIDDLE OF THE INTERSECTION!. haha, fun fun. It had a hole in the gas tank and the car smelled like gas so bad that you couldnt drive with the windows up or you would pass out in 10 minutes, I did! Luckly I was parked and the honk from behind me woke me up. So, a winter car that had no heat, stalled, and had to keep the windows down wasnt very useful for the winter . Luckly it only snowed once that year and I had to drive it for a couple days. I sold it for $375. That was the one car I was always like "I wonder what would happen if" like putting the gear shifter in reverse while driving 50 mph. How hard can you really hit a phone pole before the bumber gives out. crazy fun, lol.

The worst buying experience I had was with the prius though. The dealership lets me take it on one of those overnight test drives. On the way home it runs out of gas, seriously, i hybrid car straight from the dealership runs out of gas before I can make it to the nearest gas station. Talk about Ironic. Anyways, I end up buying it of course and on my way home from the dealership a rock hits the windshield, but didnt crack it. It hit right at the bottom left corner in the glue area, so I didnt think anything about it. I take it to get the windows tinted on Sat. and when I get it back, there is a huge crack line from that stupid rock! Tinter said as soon as he touched the windshield it cracked. I got the bumper-to-bumper warrenty from the dealership and oblivious me was like "oh, its ok I have warrenty on it" I take it to them, and they give me a big N O on the warrenty replacement because it wasnt "manufactures defect." crap... So I get quotes from all over the place ranging from $320 - $1100 <--- is the dealership serious on this 1100 for a windshield crap? They claim its because its odd shapped. Wth?! Its about as square as it gets! Everyone that had the lower prices cant ever find any windshields in stock. So right now I'm rollin my brand new prius with a crack down the windshield because I'm waiting for someone to find one in stock so I dont have to take out an insurance claim.

 

My uncle collected Corvairs. He had over 30 when he died.

I cannot explain other than he must have liked them.

 

the only other car i've owned is a 90 buick century, and it sucked from day one. it had bench seats so you couldn't adjust them, stuff would just up and stop working, i forget how many alternators i put in that thing. eventually it needed repairs exceeding the value of the car (in parts alone) and was refusing to start and/or randomly stalling out on me. at this point we were looking to buy another car anyway, and bought the prius to replace it.

i'd venture to say that DH's worst experience was with a saturn that made it to something like 120k and then the timing belt guide snapped, throwing the engine out of time and bashing up the head. he replaced it all, carefully got everything ready, and the car made it almost around the block before the oil pump died and the engine seized up. we took a major loss on that car. his stepdad gave him his old 88 camry and thus began the obsession with toyotas.

since the saturn incident, we have owned a series of second-gen camrys (87-91) and they have all been great. his first one died of a rusted out body at 250k, and the engine was still ready to go another 250. the second one was a 4-cyl that he fixed up to great condition and sold with 250k on the odo and about 350k actual mileage (odo was replaced years ago). he saw a great deal on the current (now dead, hit and run last weekend) le v6 model- finding a v6 in such good shape is a rarity so we snatched that one up and sold the 4cyl he was driving. now we're looking for camry #4, that is, a new body for the now-totalled one!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(formerVWdriver @ May 15 2007, 10:54 AM) [snapback]442554[/snapback]</div>

Maybe he collected them, because he knew better than to drive them. I hadn't thought about a worst car until you mentioned the Corvair. It wasn't that bad actually, until I burned a valve in it.

It was a Corvair van, and I don't remember the year. I spend a full day trying to get the head off, and finally gave up. The bolts threaded into steel sleeves in the aluminum block. At least one of the sleeves started slipping, and there was no way I could get the bolt out. I ended up trading it in (Actually my father did that, as I was still a student in grad school, had a family, and very little money) for a '64 Ford station wagon that I used for years. IIRC, the Ford had a 289 engine, which was a standard with Ford for a great number of years. Up until the mid-90s, I'd been driving almost entirely Fords (of the 289 or smaller version 260) engines. I could work on those.

Dave M.

 

I heard, hard as it is to believe, that some folks didn't like Yugo's.

 

1994 Jeep Cherokee. The AC went out on the way home from picking it up at the dealership. It was in the shop for the first 3 weeks we owned it. What a POS. The next person that owned had to have the engine rebuilt and the brake system completely replaced within the first 3 months of ownership.

 

It was a Mercedes Benz 280. I don't remember the year and I bought it pre-owned. Must have been late 70s. It was a whole lot of trouble -- but -- it was a BEAUTIFUL dark chocolate brown and when I sold it a year or so later I got back the money I paid for it originally. The other thing I really loved about it was there was its roominess. Inside the front driver side door there was a slot that was roomy enough for a regular ladies handbag -- something I haven't seen in any other car.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sean05Opt6 @ Oct 7 2005, 11:14 PM) [snapback]138141[/snapback]</div>

I wonder how many other Prius owners had Fiats? I had the same car. It stopped running if you got more than 10 miles from a repair place:

Died leaving Chicago Ohare (90 miles from destination) when I picked up my girlfriend (now wife) on our way to "meet the parents" for the first time.

Died when it rained (small crack in distributor cap that took forever to diagnose and fix).

Died in Toronto going across country, fuel line leak. Slept in the worst motel I have ever seen.

Each time it would die you had to find a Fiat dealer, everyone else just laughed.

But fun to drive when it ran.