Worst cars to drive?

[cms206]

Three way tie: MkIV Golf 1.4, Vauxhall Insignia and Hyundai Accent.

 

I actually liked the FSO Polonez...

[dollywobbler]

I've driven a Reliant Regal, which felt about as stable as Paul Gascoine. I found the original Robin truly joyous to drive though. I was well impressed. That day I also drove a Fiat 500. I was absolutely appalled! Bearing in mind I'd driven about 80 miles in the 2CV to get to the little Fiat, I was staggered at how slow it was, and the lack of any synchromesh was frustrating to say the least. Then it conked out and refused to start. It possibly wasn't the best example, but even so...

 

I've driven a couple of Beetles - a torsion-era 1300 and a Mexican one. The former was quite charming and I enjoyed it more than I expected. The latter was just completely uninteresting.

 

Probably the worst car I've EVER driven though remains my Bond Equipe. It sounded nice (1.6 six pot) but barely accelerated, barely stopped and constantly felt like the doors were about to fall off.

[Cavcraft]

Actually an Escort Mk5/6/7, especially a diesel. I can still smell that hateful interior and recall that they had absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever. They really are the last resort of motoring, the kind of thing that would have to be not only free but with a few hundred quid in cash in the glovebox to tempt you to own/drive one for a few weeks.

[Peter Patina]

The Reichsvvagen Beeetle is a car whose appeal was easy to understand in the late 70s;

 

1/ Considered shit by the general market, being highly prone to breakdowns and bunker-moments, they were cheap secondhand.

 

2/ The students, hippies and general "activists" who bought the dream had fathers who had fought and seen their mates die fighting the fucking bastards who commissioned and designed the pipplz kar and many quite understandably wouldn't have the stupid pieces of dogshit on their drives. Thus they were cool/edgy etc. etc.

[gordonbennet]

Works van where i worked at the time in 1976 was a petrol Bedford CF pick up, absolute shite of the worst order.

 

It oversteered constantly, felt like the outside front wheel turned in twice as much as the inside wheel on a bend, horrible sensation.

 

Gearing shitier than the shitiest thing, 4 speed box, 1st second and third were great 10 20 and 30mph max in each respectively...then someone missed out 4 5 and 6 and put a 7th overdrive in for a sick joke, valve bounce in 3rd at all of 30mph drop her into 4th and durrrr, down to just over tickover, first sign of a slight uphill and back down to screaming 3rd again...who the fuck designed that.

 

 

One lorry stands out, Seddon Atki 300 6 wheeler i used to drive on Rolonoff skip work many years ago, had a 6 pot International Harvester (IH owned Seddon at the time) that engine normally used in a crawler with hydraulic drive, loads of torque at high revs but bloody died when the turbo stopped spooling.

Too high geared in first too, hence on rough tips the thing would simply grind to a halt in axle deep muck.

 

You'd end up going flat out across the heaviest going simply to keep the turbo on song, ended up ripping the suspension completely off the double drive R Send.

 

Our fleet mechanic Alan was a bloody genius (he used to make sit up and beg wedding cars completely from scratch on his own chassis design based on Marina running gear in his spare time), he rebuilt the suspension completely (double thickness solid bar) with rear axle mounts like the proverbial brick shite house, and it would have faced down a Chieftan tank and won without breaking sweat.

 

He called everyone, including the boss, shit head...bloody miss him.

 

Northampton Diesels breathed on the pump, and hey presto (apart from a bit of black smoke, which all good lorries used to pump) it went like a bloody rocket after that, would pull from stall revs like a train.

[Peter Patina]

God, yeah. You could have a good thread on ill-chosen gear-ratios. Bedford coaches were like that, especially once the original Bedford lump had choked its last and a Cummins was put in. Exactly like the van. But for the manufacturers to have thought, yep, that's a good idea, let's give em plenty of zip around town then economy on the open road. Can we have enough torque at those revs? Oh, well, it's not as much as we'd have liked but you can't have everything.

 

How many curses must have been piled on these tortuous things.

 

Something that bugged me in most French cars I've driven is their gearing 70MPH to coincide with the main region of resonance from the drivetrain.

[Junkman]

The Reichsvvagen Beeetle is a car whose appeal was easy to understand in the late 70s;

 

1/ Considered shit by the general market, being highly prone to breakdowns etc., they were cheap secondhand.

 

2/ The students, hippies and general "activists" who bought the dream had fathers who had fought and seen their mates die fighting the fucking bastards who commissioned and designed the pipplz kar and many quite understandably wouldn't have the stupid pieces of dogshit on their drives. Thus they were cool/edgy etc. etc.

 

Not sure. They had a market share of 50% in the Fatherland most of their production span and my theory is people hire purchased them in droves because they always were and ever will be as stupid as seaman's shit.

[Peter Patina]

Suppose someone must've bought the spunkbubbles new for there to have existed the secondhand market. Sure - the right finance "package".

 

Ugh. I feel sullied. I need to go to a dark corner and think of Leyland Nationals for a bit.

[HMC]

Scariest drive for me was a very tired xj40 that gradually overheated in traffic and had worn or damaged front suspension that was only partly connected to the steering wheel. Terrifying both stood still and on the move basically.

 

edit- a 425cc (18bhp IIRC) AZAM 2cv in the wrong circumstances was scary too (busy traffic on the a303) but was also terrific fun (trying to conserve momentum through corners)

[Station]

Love the words 'wheezing' and 'asthmatic' to describe engines!

 

Lada Riva -  even compared to my Value Range basic Nippa it is unrefined.

I'd have one any day but not to drive as a daily car, engines are slow and terrible on fuel, interior is uncomfortable, interior trim quality is crap, steering is heavy even for a muscle bound adonis like myself. They are totally solid though, and they do look great. With a bit of work, they could be made to drive a bit better no doubt, but tuning original engines is an exercise in masochism.

 

I'm not sure I should say this, but Astra mk3 - compared to nearly every other car I've driven (apart from Fords), it's pretty average. It is well built, but a bit boring in standard form, I don't know what it is, just everything on it is 'average' (apart from the engines). Not stopped me owning a few though, and I do love them.

[bigstraight6]

I'm glad to see the 'Smart' has already been rubbished! I had the misfortune to drive one for only a couple of miles last year and it was a truly awful experience, from the wank transmission and feeling like it was going to tip over on every turn of the steering wheel, and the thought of being in any sort of accident in the hateful excuse for a car was overbearing.

[Asimo]

Oh yes, Golf Mk4 1400.

I bought one new, with my own cash in Y2K. Kept it for 7 years / 98000 miles.

Won't be doing that again.

Beautifully made, fairly refined but shit to drive. (And had an engine management fault that never got fixed).

Not a patch on the Mk2 Golf 1300. Last VW worth a look, the Golf Mk2, I reckon.

There was a Mk3 TD at some point but that was too awful to want to recall.

[chaseracer]

A nearly-new Lada Riva remains the worst thing I've ever driven...

One memorable day many moons ago, I helped out a mate who ran a garage (still does) by ferrying some motors around for him. Among these were a Lada Riva and a FSO 125P.

 

The jury is still out on which was the more unremittingly shit...

[wuvvum]

Reliant Regal.  I can think of almost nothing nice to say about the driving experience of the 3/25 I once owned.

 

Lada Samara.  Just generally unpleasant and a vastly inferior product to the Skoda Favorit.

 

Volvo S40.  Nothing wrong with it as such, but so impossibly dull that I was in constant danger of dying of boredom at the wheel.

 

Escort Mk7 1.8 Si.  I'd had a 1.4 Encore and it had a certain basic charm to it, and was reliable enough and handled adequately well, so I foolishly thought the same car with more gear and a bigger engine would be quite fun.  How wrong can you be.

[wuvvum]

One memorable day many moons ago, I helped out a mate who ran a garage (still does) by ferrying some motors around for him. Among these were a Lada Riva and a FSO 125P.

 

The jury is still out on which was the more unremittingly shit...

 

I actually quite liked the 125P I drove.  Not nearly as horrific as I was expecting.

[drum]

'94 corsa 1.5 diesel

 

'00 polo 1.1

 

Mk1 golf 1.6 diesel

 

Also hated an x reg Subaru impreza non turbo. Noisy, harsh ride that gave me a headache and no preformance to compensate.

[explosive-cabbage]

[quote name="gordonbennet"

 

 

One lorry stands out, Seddon Atki 300 6 wheeler i used to drive on Rolonoff skip work many years ago, had a 6 pot International Harvester (IH owned Seddon at the time) that engine normally used in a crawler with hydraulic drive, loads of torque at high revs but bloody died when the turbo stopped spooling.

Too high geared in first too, hence on rough tips the thing would simply grind to a halt in axle deep muck.

 

 

One of these is still in working order at the local aggregate quarry near me.

Its in good nick too, nice and clean with tidy paint work.

Allways has a full load on when I see it, has such a massive camber on going round roundabouts I think its going to tip over.

[dangerousdave]

citroen saxo and eary shape corsas hated them because I had to twist my foot sideways so I could actually use the accelerator

 

Leyland daf 300 series we used to have an ex royal mail one where I used to work and I was the one that got dumped with it because no one else would drive it so when the oil cap came off and seized the engine was a great moment

 

due to condition was an e plate transit at same work place in about 96 old pudding stirrer gearbox and steering so worn you could turn it quarter of a turn before it did anything

[brickwall]

Original Hi-Lux at speed was simply dangerous. I once changed lanes on a motorway without wishing to...

 

Freight Rover Sherpa...nuff said.

 

Ford Fiesta MK2...maybe I just didn't suit its style.

 

Allegro

 

Fiat Strada

 

Tigra

 

Metro in the wind

 

Cadillac Escalade, Eldorad, Cimarron, Deville and so on.... Every Caddy I drove  was just terrible.

[twosmoke300]

Forgot about our ex fire brigade vectra c 2.2 dti. We had a vectra b 2.0 dti estate for 5 years with no problems so thought a c would be a good step up. How wrong could I be.

Noisy , and I like a good diesel sound . The hardest most jarring ride I have ever felt in a road car with an appetite for springs . Seemed to have a different warning light on every day.

And worst of all THOSE FUCKING INDICATORS !

Sold it at a loss and bought a Sierra saph 2.3 d . Thats more like it.

[chaseracer]

1993 Ford Sierra Azura.  The runout model with the lean-burn 1.6 CVH.  Wouldn't start.  Wouldn't run properly.  Wouldn't stop.

 

Hateful bastard of a thing.

[Guest Breadvan72]

It has taken years of therapy to enable me to confess this, but in 2002 I owned a Hyundai Coupe.  The words fucking shit are simply too mild to describe the fucking shitty fucking shitness of the thing.  Did I mention that it was fucking shit?   

[dangerousdave]

going back to what someone said about land rovers I love all series models and defenders but will never own one because the series ones are far too uncomfortable and defenders are too cramped hence why I bought a range rover which was said at the time " a land rover but with suspension "

[solid61]

Had a 1970 reliant scimitar back in 1984,wot a piece of crap,slow,poor gear ratios,crap brakes and the build quality was terrible,bits fell off it and it was a low mileage example.It looked the bollox with wolfrace wheels and sounded good with a straight thru exhaust but I can honestly say it was the most rubbish car ive ever owned/driven.The stag that I ran alongside it would have left it for dead,10x better in every way.

[KruJoe]

Marina

Vectra

Astra

Corsa

Strada

Ambassador

Allegro.

Shuma

BMW 318d (2008 shape job)

Mercedes 190E.

 

That's my Top Ten Crap Cars To Drive.

What, no Rover 800 ?!?!?!?!?!

[phil_lihp]

A 2011 diesel Focus being used as a pool car by my employer.  No idea what size engine is under the bonnet but the total lack of power when pulling away followed by a sudden and abrubt surge when the turbo kicks in at about 2000RPM leads me to assume it's some sort of cement mixer engine wrapped in 1000 cubic feet of soundproofing with a lorry turbo attached.  The dreadful visibility and gopping face top it off nicely.

 

I'd also submit the V-plate Clio I had use of in about 2002 for a week, hideously slow, in fact just plain hideous and without a single endearing feature.

[AnthonyG]

Nissan Serena diesel, so f**king slow.

J plate Ford Orion - think it was a 1300 cvh, it was horrible.

Another vote for the series land rover, but then it was a late 1940s copy of a Jeep, so what can you expect?

The Ford Fiesta mk3s I drove when working for a Ford dealer in 1996 seemed pretty grim after the mk4 with the revvy little 1.25 came out.

[Cavcraft]

Jeep Cherokee, the old boxy shit things: interior designed by a pensioner who had recurring dreams about spewing up Werthers Originals, and the complete inability to actually turn corners or take roundabouts.

[RoadworkUK]

Rover 800.

 

I enjoy shit music, too.

[scooters]

I had an 820 Vitty Turbo and it was a cracking car to drive