worst car youve owned

[John F]

You need to learn that the word Vauxhall is a collective noun for any shit GM Europe product. Any decent GM car is refered to as an Opel or occasionally Holden.

 

Nope, I just can't bring myself to call the Cav Mk 3 a 'Vectra A"...

[warren t claim]

Nope, I just can't bring myself to call the Cav Mk 3 a 'Vectra A"...

And a  Carlton an OMEGA A?

[chaseracer]

 

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

HA!

 

I remember that day! In fact, I think I may have taken that picture...

[chaseracer]

I wasn't specifically having a pop at you there, Wat - just voxall disparajurs in general 

But 'French car' disparajurs are OK...?

 

[John F]

But 'French car' disparajurs are OK...?

 

 

No... IMO it's also not OK to say "all citrones / purgoes / rennolts r shit" either. Some people like 'em.

 

And I quite like Matras, SImcas, Alpines, Venturis, etc...

[chaseracer]

No... IMO it's also not OK to say "all citrones / purgoes / rennolts r shit" either. Some people like 'em.

I must have misinterpreted your earlier inference based on the ownership of a single Renault. Apologies.

 

And I quite like Matras, SImcas, Alpines, Venturis, etc...

Me too.

 

 

 

[Lacquer Peel]

Fact: Vauxhall apologists are DULLARDS.

[Cavcraft]

FUK OV U DRIV A SHITRON WOT DO U NO LOL U NO IM RITE TROLALOLOLALOL

[Junkman]

ALL CARZ R SHIT

[Negative Creep]

VAUXHALL KILLED PRINCESS DI AND KIDDNAPPED MADDIE RIP U LITLE ANGLES XXXXX

[HillmanImp]

I have not looked in on this thread until now and am surprised at what I see. 

 

No I'm not VAUXHALLS R SHIT!

 

SRSLY, do we need this discussion again? Instead  enjoy some Burt Baccarach (or however he spells is - Stupid name like Vauxhall if you ask me)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2t1BRw3bwU

[Pete-M]

Did I miss anything, or did indeed none of you ever own a Beetle?

Guilty as charged.

 

 

I owned this around 1989ish. LHD, 1972ish (I think, never did bother checking). I swapped a 1970s TEAC tape deck for it, which I still think was a foolish thing to do, the tape deck brought pleasure - something the Beetle was incapable of. 

 

The lad I bought it from had fitted an Ansaâ„¢ exhaust to it, welded most of the floor back together, half fitted new running boards and rebuilt the engine with bits he's scavenged working as a YTS for a VW specialist. It had 1600 barrels and pistons, funky camshaft, see through dizzy cap, new heat exchangers, slightly worked heads, a daft camshaft and a massive oil leak where the main crank oil seal had been fitted badly. As it still had the standard 1300 Beetle carb is wasn't in any way quick - even for a Beetle.

 

I really couldn't be bothered spending a couple of hours sorting the crank seal, and at the time I couldn't afford to buy the bits to put the engine right anyway.

 

It was horrible. No mats or carpets on the floor, just a mass of pigeon shit welding, badly applied "MOT" underseal and a smell of burning oil. Even though it had front disc brakes the floor hinged pedal felt like it was gonna snap before the thing slowed down. The door mirrors would vibrate out of adjustment every few minutes, the stuffing in the seats was shot and the gearchange was abysmal with it's weird wonky offset gate. Steering wasn't bad, but the handling was dire, it just didn't. 10 year old Teflon Ditchfinder remoulds didn't help, nor did the fact the whole thing was utterly knackered. It says something when a Beetle is a bugger to start, but that was partly down to the battery feed cables being held together with underseal and gaffa tape.

 

It would, just, get to 60 mph on the level. 

 

The Rat Look brigade would probably spaff their undercrackers at the sight of it now.

[Cavcraft]

My mate and his brother/s built the fastest (road) going Beetle in Britain at the time. I remarked that it looked fucking stupid (whale-tail, big wheels etc) and he told me to try and race it one day. I did and the bastarding thing made my Cavalier SRi look like it was going backwards

[AndyW201]

As with most of us, my shittest car was my first car. Despite being a second year trainee mechanic, I didnt have a sodding clue, and ended up buying the only car for sale in the motoring section of the Teesside Times that was under £600 on the day I tore up the L plates.....

 

TRM 894X was a Vermillion orange Austin Minimetro 1.0 pov spec. It looked tidy for a 9 year old 96,000 mile Metty, Wings, arches, front panel and doors were all good, the A series was quiet, nippy and non smoky. AND! it had been done up as an MG lookalike. By a cyclops. In a dark garage... So it had had MG stripes put on, the wrong way round, so they stopped at the doors, and the rear quarters were left bare. And the MG seats and carpets were also fitted, along with a great* Harry Moss 2 knob radio cassette. With 6 months tax and ticket I was stoked.

 

Next day, things started going wrong..... and kept going wrong.

The brake pedal suddenly sunk to the floor, so new rear cylinders along with new front pads were fitted. The alternator went. The 135X12 Stomils on the front tracked away to nothing because the hydragas needed pumping up.(luckily a mate was breaking a later Metty with a mint set of TD rims and tyres so they were thrown on after pumping the 'gas up). The half tin of putty holding the back box on gave up the ghost, so the box fell off, (While pulling into a road at a rapid* rate of knots to impress some girlz! They weren't impressed...). Best of all was a bit of gravel in a car park going through the drivers side sill. While replacing the sill, it was noted that the drivers front floorpan had been repaired* in the past with flattened coke cans, sections of biscuit tin, etc and industrial quantities of underseal. So that had to be cut out and replaced as well.

It would regularly overheat because the fan didnt cut in and the points had to be cleaned and re-gapped practically every time it was thrashed.

 

I endured it for about 7 months before cutting my losses and trading it in for a Mk3 Escort. And what a hateful little shitbox that turned out to be as well....

[Pillock]

I liked my beetle. It was a 1303S so strut suspension, 1600 twinport and disc brakes along with the slightly less claustrophobic cabin.

 

It went fast enough for a first car, didn't cost the earth to run, and was a lot of laughs. How much of that was down to the scene, and the friends it made me is a matter for me and my rose tinted glasses. It certainly wasn't a bad car though and did 18000 miles in a year commuting without drama.

[srad34]

My friend bought a H plate UK Karmann Ghia from a bastard, chap in Norwich to make something his own against my advice.

Typically, the Dynamo failed on the A1 on the way back to Doncaster and when stripping it back to the chassis to restore, I have NEVER seen so much fibreglass. The chassis was bonded to the body and some of the chassis bolts never actually found. The wiring was awful and everything was falling to bits or knackered! After cutting most of the fibreglass out of it, the body quite literally fell to bits....

Pretty much nothing was salvageable and it had been mot'd two weeks earlier......what a pile of 3k VW shite....   

[Pete-M]

Another absolute stinker I owned was a Mk4 Cortina. BDJ286T. 

I'd just sold my 1275 GT Mini and was mooching through the classifieds when I spotted an advert for a Cortina 1.6L fitted with the full Ghia interior, 12 months MOT, four months tax, recent tyres and a full service history. It wasn't cheap at £650 (1989 prices), but it appeared tidy enough. When I arrived there was this sparking example of a tidy looking Cortina with probably the nicest Mk4 Ghia interior I've ever seen. Full job as well, all the proper Ghia bits, and it had a replacement engine which he'd not mentioned in the advert. Probably because it was a 2.0.. anyway, I took it for a spin and other than feeling a bit floaty it seemed ok. Chap didn't need to be haggled with, he dropped the price to £500 pretty much as soon as I returned. Which was nice, so I gave him the cash and drove home rather happy with my shiny Cortina.

When I say I drove home, it didn't actually make it home. The diff exploded about two miles from collecting it. So, with the help of a couple of friends I found a secondhand axle for £20 and fitted that. Unfortunately, the lads who were helping me to fit it (where it had broken, at the side of the road, by the way) didn't fit the little serrated locating plates that locate the axle properly, so it had a bit of rear wheel steering after that. Still, it went sideways well.

So, I'd got it home. Slightly ill-handling, but it was a Mk4 Cortina.. Once the void bushes had gone they all felt a bit wobbly anyway. I wasn't too worried. Until a day or two later when the camshaft started knocking massively. Death rattle from the camshaft. So, I bought a secondhand RS2000 head and fitted that, the head has to come off to do a Pinto cam so it was easier and cheaper to fit a secondhand head. Gasket set was about £10, head was £15 if I remember rightly. Cam kit was something daft like £60. It went quite well with the cam sorted, but I was having trouble finding an air filter housing for it, so it was just snorting through the Weber with no air filter.. When you're 18 a snorty Weber carb sounds great. BWAAAAARP!

 Then I caught the front crossmember on a stump. You know those little metal things sticking a couple of inches out of the ground you sometimes get for securing gates? Well, the front subframe on this old heap was sitting low enough to catch one.. That stopped the car very suddenly from around 15-20 mph. Didn't ruin the handling too badly so I kept on driving... it felt a bit vague, but it'd still go sideways and that was enough for me.

Week or so later I spun it off the road into a tree. Not quickly, but I had to replace the bonnet, headlight and grille. Couldn't afford a decent front bumper so left that off. Total repair cost this time was around £25.

Then the n/s/f wheel bearing went. Another £7.

Then one of the rear wheel cylinders popped in my trusty secondhand axle. As this happened in mid-Wales the only way to get it home was to open the brake fluid reservoir, shove a plastic bag over the top of the reservoir and screw the cap back on. Ok, the brakes weren't ideal, but provided I didn't have to stop too often it'd get me home before all the fluid left the system. It was another £14 for two rear wheel cylinders, £3 for fluid and a tenner for a new cross-axle brake pipe as it needed one.. I also refitted the axle location things while I was at it.

On the initial run after the brake repairs it seemed okish. Ok, the front subframe was still unhappy and the front bumper was missing but it was finally running as it should. Picked up a couple of mates and we went for a celebratory drive. After stopping at a pub for a quick pint, we returned to the car and went to start it. Cranking it over there was a quite loud "Boof!" noise from under the bonnet and it wouldn't start. Kept on cranking, still wouldn't go.. then I noticed the paint on the bonnet was bubbling. Yup, it'd spat back through the carb and set fire to the (Ghia spec) underbonnet insulation. As the car park was being illuminated by flames coming from under the closed bonnet of the Cortina it was decided that we should walk away from the car and ring the Fire Brigade.

 

Insurance coughed up £800 for it, which was nice as it meant I just about broke even on the bloody thing. Premium went up a tad the next year though.

[ProgRocker]

My worst car was my first, the 1979 BL Mini 1000. But inbetween Red Robbo's wildcat strikes...and it showed!

[Negative Creep]

Pete M's Cortina story has me

 

Cortina story

 

 

Now that is a proper AS tale

[DVee8]

Back in 2000 i px my l for lovely Nissan Primera GT for a Renault clio 172 one of the first in the country and what a horrible nasty little piece of shit it was,now very fast like driving a roller skate,but the quality was appalling every thing squeaked and rattled the cd player would randomly fire cd's out . I didn't bother getting it serviced,or washing it tyres bald.

Our lass left a 2ltr milk carton behind the drivers seat forgot about it i got in moved the seat back burst the carton open but as i didn't know it was there i only found out when the smell got so bad. I ran it for 2.5 years,half the fucking vast finance deal,rang and wrote the the finance company who told me to take the car,paperwork and keys to the nearest action and walk away which i gladly did.hateful horrid little car.