worst car youve owned

[beko1987]

My Puma.

 

Needed the normal work that a 100k ford needs, but with the body dissolving I thought fuck this and didn't really do much.

 

Que driving around with a collapsed cat, lumpy engine, shit brakes, sticky calipers etc

 

Having to stop every 5 miles on the way home from work and get out in my suit, grab my breaker bar and smack the caliper until I heard the piston go schlup back in and I could drive again until I had to use the brakes.

 

Wish I had the money to pour into the poor little thing, as hateful as it was at the end!

[cms206]

ALL OF THEM EXCEPT THE J-REG PROTON. IT SAVED ME.

[Richard]

N955RAV, a TD Escort estate. The newest car I've ever owned and to date the only one that's ever been towed home by the AA. Because I paid quite a bit for it I had to keep fixing it when it broke. The final shape Escort shared virtually no parts with the one before so a lot of parts were dealer only. Things I needed to replace in the couple of years I had it include the following...

 

Rear brake adjusters (Dealer)

Starter motor

Wishbone/ ball joint (several)

Alternator (broken casing)

Brake drum and shoes

Handbrake cable (Dealer, and didn't fit properly)

Front brake flexis (Dealer, and far too short)

Timing belt (16000 miles old, by some miracle the engine survived the experience and actually went better afterwards. Chose to buy from dealer)

Driver's seat

Driver's seat pad (Dealer and £££)

Rear springs

Clutch pawl (even though it was a manual adjusting clutch)

Clutch kit

Battery tray

Sills

 

Nearly every one of these things was an absolute bastard to fix- much harder than anything on a French car, the clutch was a particular highlight as I recall. This was the model of Escort that the motoring journalists raved about when it was new, almost as if Ford had paid them to be nice. It was the last Ford I bought and the last time I believed a word I read in a magazine. It's one of two cars I've paid over £1000 for and the other one (Xantia HDi) was a disaster too, so that's another thing that won't be happening again.

[mercrocker]

I am also going to have to say all of my cars....Looking through the posts they have all exhibited at least one of the symptoms above, some of them simultaneously.    Weally weally worst though was the Microbe I so nearly inherited from my missus' previous life.   God he must have hated her to buy that dash-immolating understeering ugly rust-bucket.  It was also, coincidentally, about the newest vehicle I have ever had anything to do with.   And I still shudder when I hear the name Nelson Mandela cos it sounds far too much like Nissan Main Dealer.  Bastards.

[barefoot]

This piece of shit.

 

[Rt Hon.Tony Coleman Milne]

A 1985 Fiat Uno 60. The 60 denoted the cars net worth as scrap. This was 20 years ago when it wasn't very old, but was comprehensively wanked.

[Rt Hon.Tony Coleman Milne]

All my cars are toss, but my worst monetry loss was on this:

 

 

Sold a perfectly good car to buy it and the fucking thing span a big end bearing before I could even get home (70 miles)

TBH I didn't notice because the car was so noisy I drove all the way back with earplugs in, and only took them out when it stalled at the top of the motorway slipraod because the battery was flat (because the previous owner hadn't wired the charge light up and the alternator wasn't doing anything)

 

I managed to bump start it and it was then I realised it was knocking it's sack off. It cut out again at the next set of traffic lights, and in pushing it off the road I managed to run over my own foot and break my toe, which to this day hasn't healed properly.

 

I spent £2500 on the car, then £500 and many many hours rebuilding the engine, which went completely to bollocks so I bought another engine for £300, put that in and sold the lot for £2000. In total I drove it 85 miles, so in total it's probably an equivalent cost per mile than buying a 3 year old megane from carcraft on deadbeat finance, but at least I looked cool as I pushed the thing over my own foot.

 

I have a very similar story regarding a 1971 1275GT. I sold a perfectly okay Cortina to buy it, rebuilt the engine and box and the whole thing was a fucking disaster. I don't like Minis.

[CortinaDave]

Three spring to mind..

 

L reg cavalier SRi 8 valve. Bought at auction for £550, seemed fine -  three days later the piston came straight through the block and I rang the scrappy

 

Got I think £75 back. That was a sore one.

 

The Saab 9-3 I sold recently - Paid £1900

 

Engine sludged and seized on the way home from buying it - took the garage FIVE MONTHS to give me it back. Bought in July, I got my car back "fixed" in December, which is of course exactly when everyone wants a convertible.

 

the engine mounts then went, the suspension arms (both sides) went... the petrol tank started leaking

 

Got all of the above fixed - then the clutch slave cylinder went requiring a whole new clutch - which on these is a bastard and a fortune.

 

Then the catalytic converter blocked up and i got stranded

 

One whole new clutch and cat later the manifold started blowing.

 

Took it to get it tightened up. Turns out instead of ten bolts holding to to the head, there were three, and the rest were sheared INSIDE the head.

 

Bodged it back up with the three remaining bolts and a shitload of exhaust paste until it was quiet and sold it. Got £1100 back. In the year I owned it the thing probably worked for maybe 5 weeks.

 

I've never been so happy to see a car leave my driveway.

 

A P reg corsa 1.2LS when i was 19 back in 1999. Only car I've ever bought thats been newish and on HP. Was about £4k i recall.

 

Engine management light came on within a week, it went on the computer in the vauxhall dealer and EVERY fault was diagnosed. It lit the machine up like a christmas tree.

 

A myriad of sensors and hundreds of pounds later it was fixed and a fortnight later it snapped its fanbelt. No biggie, I put another on. 100 miles later it snapped again. and again. and again. Every hundred miles.

 

New alternator and new bracket. 100 miles, snapped belt again.

 

Parked it up in the drive, used it as a garden shed and bought a £150 Y reg sierra which I ran until I'd paid enough of the finance just to hand the thing back. a while later I passed it in a lay by at the side of the road, with hazard lights on, teary female by its side and RAC man clutching a snapped fan belt in his hands.

[Novanick1]

^^^^^ALL VOXALLS ARE SHIT LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Wrong answer, call a friend or ask the audience? 

[DVee8]

An 86 Ford Sierra 2.0is made from tin foil and lolly sticks.The paint was like a large Aero choc bar full of bubbles.Starter fucked alternator fucked rear crankshaft oil seal fucked,it pissed all its oil all over my mothers drive who stormed down to the dealer after a few choice words she was brought home and the drive was cleaned by the nice man (cough) who sold me this pile of shit.Oh and it was only coming up to 4 years old when i got it.Drive cleaned,money returned,shit ford returned and a nice Nissan Bluebird turbo on the drive from a different garage.I haven't had a ford since. 

[Micrashed]

Vauxhall Zafira B 1.9CDTi

 

What a crock of shit. 22 breakdowns in 18 months and only just 3 years old when we got rid.

[Vince70]

Three spring to mind..

 

L reg cavalier SRi 8 valve. Bought at auction for £550, seemed fine -  three days later the piston came straight through the block and I rang the scrappy

 

Got I think £75 back. That was a sore one.

 

The Saab 9-3 I sold recently - Paid £1900

 

Engine sludged and seized on the way home from buying it - took the garage FIVE MONTHS to give me it back. Bought in July, I got my car back "fixed" in December, which is of course exactly when everyone wants a convertible.

 

the engine mounts then went, the suspension arms (both sides) went... the petrol tank started leaking

 

Got all of the above fixed - then the clutch slave cylinder went requiring a whole new clutch - which on these is a bastard and a fortune.

 

Then the catalytic converter blocked up and i got stranded

 

One whole new clutch and cat later the manifold started blowing.

 

Took it to get it tightened up. Turns out instead of ten bolts holding to to the head, there were three, and the rest were sheared INSIDE the head.

 

Bodged it back up with the three remaining bolts and a shitload of exhaust paste until it was quiet and sold it. Got £1100 back. In the year I owned it the thing probably worked for maybe 5 weeks.

 

I've never been so happy to see a car leave my driveway.

 

A P reg corsa 1.2LS when i was 19 back in 1999. Only car I've ever bought thats been newish and on HP. Was about £4k i recall.

 

Engine management light came on within a week, it went on the computer in the vauxhall dealer and EVERY fault was diagnosed. It lit the machine up like a christmas tree.

 

A myriad of sensors and hundreds of pounds later it was fixed and a fortnight later it snapped its fanbelt. No biggie, I put another on. 100 miles later it snapped again. and again. and again. Every hundred miles.

 

New alternator and new bracket. 100 miles, snapped belt again.

 

Parked it up in the drive, used it as a garden shed and bought a £150 Y reg sierra which I ran until I'd paid enough of the finance just to hand the thing back. a while later I passed it in a lay by at the side of the road, with hazard lights on, teary female by its side and RAC man clutching a snapped fan belt in his hands.

 

My father had an Austin Ambassador VP which had a habit of snapping fan belts, normally a belt would last a week.

We took the motor to main dealers to independents and replaced the pulleys and the alternator and it still did the same and it was impossible to find the problem and no one ever did.

 

It got to the stage that we had bought every fanbelt in the local area so if we found the place that sold them we would fill the boot up with spare belts.

 

We could get a belt change in under 5 minutes in the end, so if there's ever a job for an Austin Ambassdor fanbelt changer then I'm the man for the job

 

It also had a habit of misfiring and flooding due to some computerised black box which was linked to the carb ( I guess it was like an early ECU) we had 5 of them at over £100 a pop.

 

The bloody car went wrong on my driving test and broke down on the way home but I still passed as the examiner said he had previously had one and his advice was scrap the bloody car, so I think it was the only reason I passed.

 

By the time we PXed the car it had still done less than 25000 and it was bought with extremely low mileage, I guess the reason being that the car had used up all the black boxes and and fan belts in the previous owners area.

[CortinaDave]

ha ha.Sounds all too familiar. I have to admit i let out a belly laugh when i saw my corsa after id sold it and the RAC man, fanbelt in hand.

 

Funny thing is that car was still on the DVLA computer until a year or so ago, a decent life for a mid 90's corsa. I expect it stayed in good condition due to constantly being in garages broken down awaiting a new delivery of fan belts to the local dealer, and not actually going anywhere

[RichardMoss]

A toss up between a 10 year old Alfa 166 that had a glorious engine note, beautiful leather seats and shite everything else and....

.

............an 11 year old Rover 825 diesel fastback that appeared to have been used as a kennel for the biggest, most slobbery, most hair-shedding, most dog smelling dog in the world.

 

The Rover just wins because it had a diesel pump problem that kept putting it into limp mode causing it to almost stop (necessitating a quick key off- key on bump start whilst you still had some momentum). On the plus side I scrapped it and made a profit so maybe not so bad.

 

As for the Alfa, I lent it to a South African "friend" who sold it and left the country when I was away on holiday and I never got a penny back from it.

[Bren]

I bought an SD1 Vitesse back in 1997 for £750 - as prices for them were buoyant at the time not surprisingly it was an utter pile of turd.

 

I did'nt check the engine numbers when buying - it turned out the 9.75:1 motor was long gone and replaced with what turned out to be a low - comp 3.9 motor.

 

Wheel arches full of filler, both replaced along with a couple of doors and a new rear panel. A full respray followed which started suffering straight away.

 

Both inner wings were rotten, fuel pump packed up, starter packed up when on a garages ramps while in for something else. Numerous elecrical problems occurred, my local auto spark did not charge me for the work on the last occasion, he just told me never to bring it back.

 

The car took me down to my last £100. Eventually it went for spares.

 

The experience did not put me off, in true autoshite fashion I had two more after this.

[twosmoke300]

Didn't spitting image have something to say about south Africans?

[dollywobbler]

 

This Bond probably wins the greatest expenditure for least amount of fun. It was utterly dreadful.

 

Mind you, this BX probably looks like the worst car I've ever owned. It wasn't though! That's the thing. I've had some truly shite cars, but I don't regret any of them. Even the Bond had its moments.

 

I don't think I've ever owned anything that has repeatedly left me stranded, or point blank refused to work. Some cars cost me an awful lot of money - the Bond and both Rover P6s ate funds in a terrifying manner - but all gave at least some joy.

[oman5]

I don't think I ever had a car that repeatedly left me stranded. I've killed a few by my own stupidity but not the fault of the car.

i.e, running a transit di on veg without checking to see if it had a lucas pump. it did.

Blowing the autobox on a 2.0 dohc granada by pulling a seriously heavy trailer with it.

The lada riva, the most hateful car I have ever owned, was naturally 100% reliable.

[Faker]

Many many years ago I bought a 5 door 306 Dturbo when they were reasonably fresh. I had it a week until the wife borrowed it for work and took a shine to it, and that was that, I never got it back! So I went and bought a 3dr 306 Dturbo S. In the year I owned it I would say that there wasn't a month went past that something packed in. In fact it felt more like every week. The car was truly in mint condition. 'Tastefully modified' by myself along the way with a slight suspension tweak, 16 inch advanti racing rims, an induction kit ( yes on a diesel) and a decent sound system. I spent a few quid on it. It looked the business and went like stink, I loved the thing but eventually it had to go. The wife drove hers for three or four years. In that time only routine maintenance and a new rad were the only repairs needed. Exceptional car. I replaced mine with a 5dr ZX td volcane, ultimately the same car, and it was fantastic, as was the 3dr td volcane that followed.

[Station]

Had loads of decent, reliable cars.

Worst one was Ford Orion, purely because I paid the garage to weld the boot floor, and rear n/s door shut, and change the headgasket. They did half the welding, and didn't change the headgasket (but put it through the MOT).

It broke down three times in the Mersey tunnel, with me getting it out on the starter motor (it always came to life when I got out). I lascerated my hand on the choke handle as I was that frustrated.

Otherwise, it was a good, comfy car.

[Spiny Norman]

I've been fairly lucky over the years but I came unstuck (as many have) when I bought an OMGHGF Rover.

Despite a bill for over £600 in the recent service history for the new spec super-duper Land Rover gaskets & dowels and all the other shit that's supposed to cure these things it still blew its load on Xmas eve.

Afterwards I got so pissed off with the usual mongs when I was trying to sell it as spares or repairs (it was one of the allegedly desirable turbo models and was in decent condition and could no doubt have been fixed, or at least yielded some good parts) that I drove the heap to a scrap metal yard and watched them crush it.

[Grundig]

A MK2 Vaxhull Cavliar CD - On a quiet night you could actually hear the shaggin fing rust!! after four months of ownership, it had disintegrated & unfit to use

[Sigmund Fraud]

Allegro. I bought it because I did not believe it was as bad as people were saying. It was.

[petr]

Properly the worst car I have had was a left hand drive Renault 14. I bought it after selling my Rover SD 1 2000 to help towards buying my first house.The Renault was sprayed in a strange green primer. It had a slipping clutch, and one odd wheel. The car was rather amusing, it had central locking all electric windows faded orange seats! But was so comfy. The head light dipped the wrong way and the speedo was in kph only! The car also looked newer than it was as its reg was the year it was imported rather the year it was made. So it was a P reg but was a 79 car! It was a very cheep car though.

It never let me down always got places but in the end the rear suspension started to come adrift as the floor had rusted away so welded it up and sold it to some one who was going to Germany.

[John F]

The worst car I've ever owned - by far - was the one & only French car I've ever owned, a 1993 (K). Renault Clio 1.4 RT.

 

I was given it for nothing, and I reckon I got the worst end of the deal... It was a nasty, hateful little shitbox that did nothing well, Nothing at all. It barely even managed the same mpg as the 1995 (M)  Vauxhall Cavalier 2.0 SRi I owned at the same time, but I have NO IDEA what it did with the fuel it burnt because it certainly didn't use it for going faster.

 

I detested both driving it and working on it. And even looking at it, for that matter. I sincerely hope it's baked bean tins by now, but I can't even find out because I didn't bother remembering its registration number.

[forddeliveryboy]

Without a millisecond of hesitation - Citroen CX.

Actually a succession of two of them, the second one bought brand new.

Lethally dangerous pieces of shit, the lot of them. I can't understand to this day how they ever managed to get a type approval for use on public roads.

 

Edit: they were the ONLY two bad cars I ever owned.

What didn't you like? Strangely, whenever I've driven one any distance I wonder how so much chod from the 70s and 80s ever managed TA. Admittedly you needed more than two CSEs to dare go near one with a spanner, many were wrecked by clueless mechanics. Yet they're simple compared with anything around today.

[Junkman]

Each and every Granada MKII I ever had, and I had 14 (fourteen) of them, was utterly brilliant.

[greengartside]

Worst car I've owned? Probably the one I have now - 206 1.1. Y-reg (it just happens to be that year)

 

It was okay when I bought it, seemed like a good investment. I thought 1.1 = 1,000,000 MPG and although I'd heard they were slow I didn't mind that much as I'd need something like this to calm my driving style down.

 

What I didn't realise is that you have to punch the fuck out of it to actually go anywhere, it's dog-slow. Pulling the Costa Concordia out of the water was probably quicker than me doing 0-60.

Plus now it's decided that the clutch wants out and is getting to the top of it's travel, which along with the revvy engine isn't doing it any favours. It's not slipping yet but I'm sure it's not far off. I did have a problem with it losing power and misfiring in the rain but I think that's down to the missing splash guard on the passenger side letting in water to sit on the engine. It's got a bonnet that has some glorious lacquer-peel and a GTi front bumper which gives everyone the impression it's faster than what it is* And the usual squeaking/rattling/grinding you get from the froggies efforts and a gearstick which is like stirring porridge or a knackered Winchester Rifle (to quote 'Old Ahhht Yaaa Haaand Brewer...)

 

I really regret buying it and I need something bigger (engine and size) as I've got a mini greengartside on the way and I don't fancy sitting on the side of the road with a screaming expansion tank and a screaming child....FRENCH R SHIT INNIT.

[Sigmund Fraud]

Plus now it's decided that the clutch wants out and is getting to the top of it's travel, which along with the revvy engine isn't doing it any favours. It's not slipping yet but I'm sure it's not far off.

 

Off topic, but do those have a manually adjustable clutch cable, like older TU engined stuff ? If so, five minutes with a spanner may be all that it needs.

[greengartside]

Sadly not my friend, I've already had a look and she's a self-adjusting jobbie. I've pretty much had enough of the steaming pile. May just run it until it dies.