Your 'worst car' stories.........

Let's here it - Tell us about the worst vehicle you every had, and why it earned that distinction......

I'll start:

Vehicle: '88 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera
Year: 1992 (?)
It looked fairly similar to this one, w/o the wire wheel covers:


I think I mostly hated this vehicle because it represented a depressing time in our family life. Bills were piling up, little kids were driving us crazy, that sort of thing. We were making payments on some ugly Ford van we had bought, and needed to get out from under it. After selling the van, we needed to make a quick purchase, as all we had was my company car, and I was using it for work obviously. We saw this one advertised in the local paper. Wife liked it because it had fairly low miles (around 50k, IIRC), but it didn't have anything that made it nice to drive - 2.5 iron duke, automatic, P/S, AM/FM, A/C - that's about it. It rode OK - pretty 'floaty', though. Didn't drive anywhere near to the Pontiac 6000 company car I had a few years prior.

It was ugly, it was slow, it was stripped. Not my idea of a nice car.

 

I was always smart enough to know good from bad.
All the cars I owned were pretty nice and dependable.

 

I was always smart enough to know good from bad.
Well I used to think that too until I bought that durned VW square back wagon.
I don't want to talk about it!

 

Me too, until I bought that durned VW Passatt wagon.
I don't want to talk about it either!

 

I thought I got a cool deal on a 4-cylinder Ranger 4X4, but as soon as I began digging into it, I found it had cracked frame rails, bolts holding the axle attachment brackets on (they're supposed to be cold-riveted from the factory), and hidden wiring nightmares behind the dash. The engine shattered #1 piston on my birthday, stranding me 60 miles from home, and I didn't notice until I went to R&R the engine that both front shocks were detached from the coil buckets and totally bashed down, making the shocks useless (they were Rancho 9000's).

 

It's a deal. We won't talk about it!
Actually somewhere in the seach section I have talked about it.

I guess I could talk about the Mary Kay pink 1949 Ford coupe I traded for. Now that was a real lemon. The radiator cross member was a piece of wood 2X4 and the radiator from an early Mustang six supposedly to cool a Ford 302. . When the previous owner uses home electrical extension cord and phone cord to patch wiring things get ugly fast. And I've never seen so much bondo not in the can!

A cute car is like a cute woman. You don't know what's below the surface!

​

 

My 78 2 door diplomat was a not bad car but could not get it to handle well because of the cross ways torsion bars.

Guess in lucky and know a good car before i buy!

 

Odd your 78 didn't handle well, my 80 Caravelle (same car, different skin) handled very well. What took some getting used to was the no feel/feedback in the steering. But I have to say that car is in my top 3 best cars I ever had.


My worst was our very first brand new off the lot 1999 Got Mechanic Coming Safari mini van.... 1999-2014, I was a sucker for punishment with this one



Warranty covered.......
1500 kilometers the rear end blew.........
5100 kilometers the trans blew, while driving home from it's first service at the dealer..........
2 rear door handles......
sliding door failure.......
power locks failure......

During warranty.........
Constantly b*tched that the battery was junk, if I left the radio on/headlights on etc for not even 20 minutes van needed a jump start. All ways tested fine so they never replaced, I bout a new battery myself and that problem was gone.....

Then after warranty..........
Trans blew again.........
Rear end blew again.........
2 water pumps
2 clutch fans
Several front brake calipers.......
Can't remember how many alternators.........
Every exterior door handle, rear door so many I said screw it, drilled a hole and used a screw driver to open rear door.........
A/C ended up only working on low setting and only through dash to windshield....??
Complete heater system failure, witch is why in 2011 I bout Deb a Escape.
Then the many electrical gremlins started..........
Then the beast filed the oil and all cylinders with gas.........
And then all the other stuff on top of that............

From buying Deb the Escape till 2 years later I had maybe put 5000 kilometers on it, just used it as a work mule for dump/lumber runs. Left on the hook with not even 150.000 kilometers! Now I am back working till X-Mas at least, boss gave me a 2001 Astro van ( same crap) to drive from home to work and back, and this van has over 300.000 kilometers, worked and used hard all it's life and it's still going strong!..... Kinda od, the pic I show is 3-4 years old, behind my POS is my personal cargo van witch I bout many years ago from my old now currant again employer for a screaming deal, now that was a good van I should have driven until it died but sold it instead after myself beating the crap out of it for years.

That old van of mine made me decide SCREW U GM for any new vehicle car/truck/van purchase!

 

You got a bad one.....
We bought a used '93 Astro LT around '96. I LOVED that little van.......
Full power, front and rear A/C, very nice seats. Handled real nice after I put the 60-series radials on it. Really good for schlepping the kids and their friends around.......Only sold it because we were buying a travel trailer and I wasn't going to pull it with a V6.

 

Really didn't have one, but although they are great trucks, I had some rough luck with my '66 GMC 1/2 Ton Step Side with the 305 V-6.

Bill

 

Sorry saga of owning a 1968 Datsun 2000 sports car. 2000cc, 5-speed, seats 2, convertible + removable fiberglass top. Bought in Fall 1971. After about 10 months sold at any price in Summer 1972.
Can't recall what order these things happened.

> On freeway when stainless trim around radiator falls off. Bangs under car. Last seen in mirror mangled tumbling on road behind car.
> On freeway with ragtop up. Suddenly two of three holding clamps on top of windshield break. Don't come loose but break. Hitting brakes, pull over and release last good one. Put top down.
> Driving on warm day. Reach over to roll down passenger window and crank is missing. Had fallen off and went under passenger seat.
> Pull inside hood release. Handle & cable come out of dash. Hood now latched down with no other way to release. Raise on service station rack and after much effort manage to release latch using large super long screw drivers they happened to have.
> Clutch is fine. Drive 1/2 mile to grocery store. On return drive clutch fails to point just crawl along in first gear. Otherwise slips. Tow to shop for new clutch.
> On freeway suddenly loose bunch of power. Can do only 35mph or so. Make it home. Chain driven overhead cam had snapped between front two and rear two cylinders. Replace cam.
> Engine knocks and bunch of smoke goes out exhaust. Keeps doing this at random times. Change oil with half-n-half oil & STP. Keeps doing this with less smoke released. Remove head for reconditioning. Go to pick up head and shop says don't ever bring another one of those SOB #@&$% heads in here again. It broke the grinder equipment. With refreshed head, it still knocked and blew out smoke. What pain to work on that engine. Prefer an American 6 or V8 any day.
> Driving to Naval Reserve meeting in heavy drenching rain one Seattle morning. On floating bridge with tire spray from other cars adding to the drenching. Suddenly windshield fogs up. Then mist of water-antifreeze fills interior and covers both windshield and my glasses. In panic turn off defroster and roll down windows. Tire spray splashing in is better than fogged up interior in traffic on bridge and no shoulder to stop on. Lord musta been with me and somehow got off other end of bridge without a crash. Interior and me are drenched in coolant and rain water. At least replacing heater core isn't too big a deal - WRONG.... To remove heater - vertical center console with radio and other controls must be removed - to remove vertical console the floor console must be removed - to remove floor console the panel between interior and trunk must be removed. When all that is done the heater must be disassembled (the hard way) to reach core.

Was driving 65 Mustang before the Datsun and bought a 66 Mustang afterward. Life was better again.

 

OMG, Finsrin, I totally understand driving in blinding road spray (just happened the other day), but doing so on one of the floating bridges (those not familiar with Greater Seattle should take note there are two floating bridges on Lake Washington on the East side of Seattle, and one is two narrow lanes in each direction and very poor rain drainage--SR 520) would make my tighty whities gross.

 

I feel so much better now !

 

I think all worst car stories can be boiled down to two factors.
1. Poor maintenance or ignorance.
2. Poor manufacturing/engineering.

The second factor can always be overcome by fixing the problem... and that goes back to the first factor. Even the worst car on the planet can be maintained from new to continue to be useful and dependable.
Otherwise, how do you explain the plethora of VW beetles still on the road?

 

I guess I've been blessed...........the worst I had was a 72 Roadrunner that spent most of it's life while in mhy ownership at the dealer. Lots of minor stuff constantly, then the trans started leaking, cracked case......at the dealer for a month awaiting parts, then, the front light harness went bad (of course, at night). Traded that car with 26,000 miles on it the next day.