Bad design bloopers

[Morgan84]

What are the worst design flaws of cars you have had the misfortune of coming unstuck with ? Vauxhall Cresta PA knee cracker is a known one !

[Pete-M]

Peugeot 106 / Citroen AX sunroof handles.

 

Reverse the car, pull the handbrake, nut sunroof handle. Swear loudly then laugh as the little Pug does a bunny hop.

[Morgan84]

I usually manage to catch the handbrake on the Daimler,and release the brake !

[Albert Ross]

Most cars, but predominantly Vauxhall recently.... Open the bonnet, prop it with the strut. Go to do cambelt. THE FUCKING STRUT IS IN THE BASTARD WAY!!!!! WANKERS!!!! Either bang your head or crick your neck. It would have taken zero thought to have mirror imaged it! Tossers. They changed it for the later Vectra C and Corsa D, most of which have/had chain drive engines....... I bloody ask you! Knobbers.

 

Focus Mark 2.0. (2004.5 onwards.) Open the tailgate on the hatch, receive half a gallon or rainwater on your boot contents. Yeah, cheers for that. Cunts.

 

Corsa B and C low spec models. When manual windows are fitted, anyone over about 5'6" bangs their knee on the winder handle.... Great. Cheers for that.

 

There's bound to be more. I'm off to dream about them. Top thread. I get to slag GM's "finest" off and I'm allowed to!

[DSdriver]

Old Daimlers... if you put your foot on the break when reversing the engine torque would open the throttle more so that you would arrive at your destination even quicker.

[Pete-M]

Pug 604.

 

There's a cool little light to illuminate the ignition key hole. It's ace, really cool touch. But it goes out when you shut the front doors. So it's useless when you've not got a passenger. The key is on the left side of the column and every time I switch the car off I have to remember which way to turn it. Very strange. Other cars have keys there and it's not a problem - in the Pug it feels somehow weird. There's also the infamous 'curry hook', a retractable hook that would be useful in the passengers foot well, but is about as much use as an air freshener on a Vespa.

 

Jeep Grand Cherokee.

 

Electric memory everything, but the mirrors have Alzheimers. Set everything to one place and the seat will remember, but the mirrors will guess - and they never guess the same place twice. Oh, and the boot space is crap - especially with a 120l LPG tank in there.

 

Jag XJR

 

No glovebox. Early X300s didn't get gloveboxes. Oh no. In the bloody handbook it tells you to keep the handbooks - for there are two, one in the back of the passengers seat, the other in a little velcro strap in the boot. That is utterly shit for a luxury car that cost over £56,000 eighteen years ago. Even a crap glovebox is better than none.

[autofive]

these:

 

 

i had them on my se6 Scimitar, but BL parts bin, allegro and marina used them, and im sure lots more BL stuff

 

they snap, because they made of crap cast alloy, and then you cant open the door

[CreepingJesus]

The oddments tray at the bottom of the dashboard on the driver's side on some old povo Novas. My size 11 steelies used to get trapped in there regularly; so much so, that I left a pair of trainers in my locker for those occasions when I actually had to go a distance in one. Was never a problem on the SR's/GTE's as (iirc) they didn't have one.

Also, the unnecessarily complicated door handle mechanism on older Passats.

[trigger]

The Ford Puma - It has a low A post which at 5ft 11 means i hit my head when getting in and out and it causes a blind spot at roundabout, also same car when you open the boot in the wet it pisses water all inside the boot and over your shopping, a well known design fault.

[e287yba]

Fuel spillage from the fuel filler pipe onto the road just in front of the o/s/r tyre - usually on steering the car to left when the tank was full or nearly full, leading to risk of loss of traction of the o/s/r tyre - on Metros sold to early 1986.

 

Seems like a significant bollock to drop, having seen an early Metro being emergency-braked with a jink to the left then the back end spinning round clockwise leading to the now-out-of-control car making a dent in the front of a shop.

 

Recall for dealers to supply and fit upgraded (better-sealing) filler cap along with a sticker to affix to fuel filler flap indicating Recall Been Carried Out sorted that one... I have the Dealer paperwork for this one, can dig it out of the loft sometime.

[Negative Creep]

The Bluebird has wiper arms that lift about 2cm off the windscreen, making it a right pain in the arse to change the blades. Quite why they've done this is unfathomable, and the only other car I know of with a similar design is the Peugeot 406.

 

Also, headlight bulbs in most modern cars

[Morgan84]

Peugeot 406 wiper blade change - lift and bend/snap the blades till they will release from the clip - new ones just slip on as the angle is just right - what a pain though

 

Ford Puma - try seeing in the dark with them useless headlamps,and in winter getting frostbite off the gearshift !

 

Ford Focus/Mondeo mk3 and others - Key opening bonnet - great till you lean on the key and snap it,or place it under the bonnet for safety,then drop the lid !

[vulgalour]

Austin Princess

Air vents in the footwells, blowing air cold enough to freeze your toes in the balmiest weather, even worse when it's cold.

Distributor is in such a place that one spark plug needs you to have a special tool to remove it or for you to remove the distributor itself, they should've stuck the distributor on the end of the block, not in the middle, silly BL.

 

Peugeot Aygo (you know the one)

Headlights in fog, drizzle or similar weather are designed in such a way that your visibility is reduced. Don't put main beam on when you're travelling down unlit Lincolnshire farm tracks.. roads I mean... because you'll actually see less again thanks to that upward glare of light.

 

Toyota Carina

Got to drive Dad's today and while it's quite a nice car overall, the steering wheel is too small and too high. This could just be me though, I like the steering wheel to be at least as big as the wheels on the car. The driving experience is not unpleasant, but I do feel like a square peg hammered into a round hole, much like my Dad feels when driving Fords which are a car I drop straight into with no problems.

 

Vauxhall Coarser

There is no redeeming feature, I'm suggesting this thing whole.

[Morgan84]

The wonderfully designed handbrake cables on the Corsa which snap in the nylon guides,same design the Nova had - over 20 years of knowing the design was crap,but still they continued until only very recently. You would think they would learn,and have fully protected cables like most cars do ie Clio and Fiesta - never known of one snap !

[MrDuke]

Mk3 Cavalier - if you want to change the wiper blades, you have to open the bonnet, then wrangle the arms up underneath it. Really weird.

 

Pug 106 - pedal box seems designed for size 5 feet. My size 10s kept toe-&-heeling every time I braked.

 

Mini - dizzy & plugs right up behind the grille. Excellent idea considering British weather.

[Morgan84]

Ford Focus/Mondeo mk3 and others - Key opening bonnet - great till you lean on the key and snap it,or place it under the bonnet for safety,then drop the lid !

 

I don't think you can blame the car designers for your key woes...

 

Never done it myself,but heard of a couple of garages who had the misfortune to come unstuck ! The design idea was so great,that the newer Mondeo went back to a internal release !

[Father Ted]

C8

Handbrake between drivers door and drivers seat - GR9 for getting stuck on stuff in door pocket sticking out at an angle.

 

Boot lid that pours water into boot or down neck when opened

 

Bonnet that pours rain water over cam belt causing premature failure

 

Bonnet that pours rain water over block causing injectors to rust into head meaning when cam belt fails head is FUBAR'ed as injectors snap when you try to remove to get head odd to replace bent valves.

[STUNO]

I like the steering wheel to be at least as big as the wheels on the car. The driving experience is not unpleasant

 

I just had to do this

 

big wheels by stuno602, on Flickr

[Cavcraft]

Pug 106 pedal arrangement as mentioned above. Absolute nightmare when you have size 11/12 feet, even worse if driving in work boots.

 

Focus Mk1 hatchback boot space: wtf are you supposed to fit in there?

 

CLK/XM handbrakes: incredibly annoying and fiddly. Just put a normal handbrake lever in.

 

Any car with a wide centre console: uncomfortable to drive for bigger people.

 

Corsa window winders as Albert said.

 

Merc 190 steering wheels: couldn't have been designed worse for bigger people if they tried. There's about 0.001mm of space 'twixt wheel and legs.

 

Audi 80: no roof channels so when you open the windows in the rain you get soaking wet.

 

Any car that doesn't have a temp gauge.

[willswitchengage]

Focus Mk1 hatchback boot space: wtf are you supposed to fit in there?

 

Try the new hatch - my housemate got one as a courtesy car and the boot was abut 1/2 the size of her usual mkV Fiesta.

 

Peugeot 207 - You can't engage third gear without your knuckles hitting the "lock/unlock doors" button.

 

Citroen BX - that sleek appearance may look nice, but it's not so great if you're over 5'5" and want to sit in the back.

 

Any electronic handbrake.

[dieselnutjob]

Also, the unnecessarily complicated door handle mechanism on older Passats.

 

On B4 Passats there was a roll pin that would fall out of the handle mechanism every couple of years which meant that you couldn't open the door. The pin could then be found in the bottom of the door. Also they had no glove box at all if they had a passenger airbag. Then there was the VW "open all the windows with the key" feature that thieves figured out how to operate with a screwdriver.

 

In general all emissions control systems on diesels are rubbish. They all turn a highly reliable technology into a liability that uses more fuel.

 

604 seat adjusters are stupid.

[messerschmitt owner]

the Nobel 200 - points cover is hidden by the chassis rail so you cannot adjust the timing when the engine is in the car! You can however, easily remove the dynastart which is something that is an engine out job with the same engine in a Messerschmitt.

[Cavcraft]

Ah yes, Passats:

 

Blinding idea to have some sort of half arsed wtaer channel that blocks up on a regular basis, then drains down into the o/s/r footwell and into the ECU 'thing' under the floor knackering up various electrical equipment.

[RobT]

I find the headrests on many modern cars are angled too far forward and cannot be adjusted to go further back. Commendable for preventing whiplash, but when the back of my head keeps brushing against it I end up leaning forward, thus getting back ache. Maybe the back of my head is unusually large, or I'm just a fussy sod!

[boobydoo]

Vinyl roofs on Talbot Alpines. If you ordered a top of the range GLS or SX where this was a standard feature, the vinyl was placed over an unpainted roof. Therefore, as soon as water got under the vinyl the roof would rust like buggery.

 

However, if you ordered it as an option on a GL model , the roof had already been painted so the vinyl was placed over this resulting in much better protection.

[ashmicro]

Nova hatchback rear axle mountings. They rot, axle can fall out.

 

Jaguar S Type (90s/200s one) wiper change. Pain in the arse, wiper arms won't clear the bonnet, open or shut.

 

Astra mark 3 fan belt change requires removal of an engine mount.

 

BMW E46 window regulators. Cheap shit, but at least easy to change.

 

Rover R3/HHR heater blower resistor packs. Made from chocolate. I made my own, superior ceramic resistor one for less than a quid.

 

[Spiny Norman]

There are quite a few that have annoyed me over the years, from the brittle plastic door trims on a Volvo 200 series that always break, to the Alfa 156 (and most other 'aerodynamic' cars too, for all I know) that have no rain channels on the roof, and clamshell-fit doors which combine to cause a steady stream of rainwater to squirrel its way round the driver's door pillar if like me, you drive with the window down half an inch even when it's raining.

 

These grumps pale into insignificance against two cars which have caused me actual injury.

The first was a trip I'd been looking forward to in a little Fiat Barchetta. Unfortunately I discovered that my preferred method of holding the short, stubby gear lever (right hand wrapped round the shaft in a slightly phallic way) caused my little finger to get trapped between the gear lever and the rigid surround at its base every time I went for 1st, 3rd or 5th. This caused numerous curses.

 

And then there was the 'fat-ass' shaped Megane hatchback whose curved hatch/bootlid caught me right in the temple as I attempted to load the boot.

[Jack_Harpers_Teeth]

The Dolomite cars the wipers are on the "wrong" side and leave a massive unswept (dirty) area of windscreen, right where you need to be looking through too.

 

Our old 306 drips water onto your right knee if you drive with the window open in the rain.

[CYANIDE STEVE]

The early FSO Polonez, a hatchback car but the rear seat didn't fold down

or the FSO Caro pick up which had a rear view mirror, excellent for checking the body was still on the back because all you could see was the front of the pick up body.

Changing the starter motor on an Iveco Daily is a living nightmare, so much so that some owners have been known to cut a big hole in the floor near the pedals to get easier access. I managed to do it without going to such drastic measures but everything is done by feel and multi jointed socket extensions! It also took a few weeks for the skin to grow back on my hands and arms

[maxpower]

MK3 escort door handles that used to snap in your hand when you tried to open them after some freezing weather

 

and on most cars.... sunvisors that still let the sun blind you even after they have been flipped down