I'm glad I got rid

[They_all_do_that_sir]

Mk4 Renault espace 1.9 dci

 

Owned for 6 months, must have sunk near a grand into it during that time in parts alone

 

(Expensive) Battery died due to the alternator

 

Alternator died, took 2 hours to remove, it's water cooled and there's no space to get it out. Weighs about 6 tons. Replacement was looking £300, got it reconditioned for £70

 

Radio died. I couldn't fit any of the spare stereos I had lying around because the espace stereo is mounted in the boot, wired through some sort of canbus system to the digital dash.....

 

Which also broke. Took it out to get it reconditioned, to find wiring of many taped up bodges, someone's been here before.

 

Dual mass flywheel failed, another more expensive than any other car part there

 

Exhaust mount failed

 

Panoramic sunroof stuck open, just before rain shower

 

Wheels developed squeeking noise which could not be traced - so loud people would stop and stare as you went past

 

Exhaust clattered against factory fit towbar

 

There were many more things that broke which I have consigned to a distant part of my memory.

 

I LOVE home mechanics. But when you are lying under a stupid car fitting stupid expensive parts every weekend and the wife needs it running BYMONDAYOMG it soon started to grate

 

Sold at a humongous loss. Worth it.

[maximalist]

Alfa Romeo Mito 2009. Mega soft red paint. Had to respray rear wheel arches after 13000 kms, under warranty fortunately. M32 gearbox whine developed at 45000 kms. Got rid of the car last week. I now drive my Renault 4 fourgonette that I bought five years ago, that cost 90 £ a year to insurance, no tax and MOT every two years. I will never buy a new car again.

[oldcars]

A MK4 golf, pile of shite. There was not a week went past that hateful skip did not break down. I so hope it is now landfill 

[stilo_active]

Mk2 VW Golf. Being exquisitely maintained didn't stop the bonnet from being up every other day. Or every cold and/or damp morning the fucker refused to start. Hateful pile of useless junk.

 

Nissan Sunny 1.6 Slxzzzzzzzzzz. Its best redeeming feature was it cured my insomnia

 

Domestic Management's Citroen C3. The dealer nicknamed it Boomerang.

[Richard]

Coming soon- 95 1/2 Escort and HDi Xantia.

[panhard65]

Renault Alpine GTA bought from a club member as there were lots of good things said about how good it was on the forum. What a heap the chassis had been repaired with silicon made to look like really neat welding. One front brake caliper had a broken bleed nipple and air in the system so how it had the mot I don't know. Then to top it all the drivers door dropped, on closer examination due to the fact that there was no metal just rust underneath the fibreglass skin. I sold it to a couple of lads from Belgium as a breaker in the end. I just didn't have the front to try and sell it as a viable car knowing how rotten it was.

[xtriple]

There's been a few....

 

The worst though has to be a Lotus Eclat, I bought it because 'I'd always wanted one' and traded in a nearly new Sierra 2.0 Ghia for the bitch. I worked out, it cost (not including petrol, tax, insurance or any of that sensible stuff) £2 per mile to run, just in repairs. So, what went wrong...

 

Oil seal on rear of crank went, soaked the clutch and needed a full (while I'm in there....) engine rebuild to totally cure. Getting the engine out is a real 'fun' job.

 

Steering u/j went. No biggy you'd think but the car is built around the u/j so you can't get it off without removing... everything! I cut a hole in the bulkhead and glassed it up afterwards!

 

Rear suspension/chassis rot holes on a car only a few years old.

 

Electrics.... windows that didn't, lights that had a mind of their own as to be up or down or both at the same time, if they were both up, would they work? Alternator... general wiring problems, usually rusty earths.

 

There were loads and loads of problems but the final straw was when the drivers door dropped about two inches one day. Apparently, that signifies serious rot inside the 'A' pillar - body off job to fix.

 

When it was going, it was brilliant to drive and you could really chuck it around, but every journey in it ended up with something new wrong with it.

 

Hated that car and swapped it for a Scimitar auto with maggots instead of carpet!

[Lukas]

There is only one car in my line-up of cars I owned which I am really happy to have sold it. It was one of the biggest mistakes I made.

 

In 2006, I thought it would be a good idea to buy a brandnew car. I was 22 back then and knew nothing. So I talked to a friend of mine (Subaru-dealer) and he talked me into buying a new Impreza. I could not afford a proper one, so I bought this piece of shite:

 

 

A Impreza 1.5R. The engine was absolutely horrible, almost as horrible as the "design" of this car. When driving it slowly, the suspension and the steering was way too nervous. When driving it faster, they made sense, but the engine was too sluggish for that. You had to keep the revs between 4500 and 7200 rpm to keep moving, so driving it was stressful and unrelaxing. I soon hated it. And sold it after two years of ownership. In which I lost 12.000 Euro (half the price I paid) in depreciation.  What was I stupid!!!!

 

I´ll never buy a new car again and I´ll never have a car again with such a horrible revvy engine. Must stop thinking about "my" Impreza, it makes me sick!

[danthecapriman]

1991 H reg Ford Orion 1.4glx. Biggest pile of shit ever! It had loads of untraceable electrical problems, causing annoying problems like headlights randomly switching off during night time driving! Radio did what it felt like! The cvh engine ran like shit no matter what you did to try and fix it, and it used to cut out randomly. This became so annoying that one day it did it so I lost my temper and punched the steering wheel so hard it bent the bottom half of the wheel! It also really hurt my hand which made me even more angry!

Sent it for scrap in the end, but to my horror saw it again about a year later on the road. It's definitely gone to car hell now though!

Replaced with a 1991 Volvo 340 and all was well!

[brickwall]

Astra...I still can't talk  about it.

[vulgalour]

 

It was so bad I swapped it for a Princess.

[Lacquer Peel]

Coming soon- 95 1/2 Escort and HDi Xantia.

Wot, no Mazda 626?

[Hertz]

Renault Alpine GTA bought from a club member as there were lots of good things said about how good it was on the forum. What a heap the chassis had been repaired with silicon made to look like really neat welding. One front brake caliper had a broken bleed nipple and air in the system so how it had the mot I don't know. Then to top it all the drivers door dropped, on closer examination due to the fact that there was no metal just rust underneath the fibreglass skin. I sold it to a couple of lads from Belgium as a breaker in the end. I just didn't have the front to try and sell it as a viable car knowing how rotten it was.

 

Yes they can suffer big time from chassis rot, the A610 has even more metal under the plastic body panels so can be even worse. Let me know if you find any more good or bad ones on your travels and want to punt it on.

[Richard]

Wot, no Mazda 626?

 

I'd forgotten about that. It wasn't actually mine but I was indeed well glad to see the back of it.

 

Episode 2- N955RAV

 

Escort L Estate 1.8TD. I paid £2000 for it in 2001, which was fairly cheap at the time but still the most I've paid for a car. Because it cost me so much I felt obliged to fix everything that broke on it, which was lots. Although it looked almost identical to the old model nearly every component was different- even little things like brake cables and hoses were different for no apparent reason. It seemed to be too new for pattern parts so a lot of things had to be bought from Ford- and quite a few of those fitted like pattern parts. In the 2 1/2 years I had it the following things had to be replaced...

 

Starter motor, bottom arms (several of), rear brake self-adjusters, shoes, drum, handbrake cable, rear springs, driver's seat padding, timing belt (16000 miles old but amazingly the engine survived), alternator (casing broke up), brake hoses, clutch (changing that bastard put paid to any delusions I had about Fords being easy to work on), clutch pawl (it had one even though the clutch wasn't self-adjusting), rear wheel bearing, rear hub (threads stripped), battery, ignition key, battery tray and both sills.

 

During the time I had the Escort the aforementioned 626 was replaced with a Renault 19 1.9D, which proved to be a great little car. I decided a Renault 21 was what I needed and I bought one. Despite being a non-turbo 1.9D in a bigger car it was just as quick as and much more economical than the Escort. It was also a lot more reliable, easier to work on and cheaper for parts.

[scruff]

I sold a beautiful Range Rover Classic to buy this, which was a lot (lot) more money, mainly because it had a really good engine in it (a blueprinted injected 3.9 with lots of trick bits)

 

 

It went like stink but it was fucked otherwise. The OLLI chequeerplate was very thick; and the alloy underneath it full of rot holes. In fact every single panel was rotten from electrolytic corrosion - except the roof which was simply badly made and pissed water in.

 

When I got it it was a light beige colour with silver plating so the green and black was my attempt to tone it down. The winch was a work thing - freebie cos I worked on the mag. It was shit in case you're wondering; died on the first pull...

 

The rest of the LR was also rotten with massive holes in the chassis, bulkhead, door frames, side frames (which were also full of filler) and the rear axle which pissed out oil. The gearbox was the Santana LT85 which is a marvellous thing when not worn out - which this one was. The backlash in the rest of the transmission made the thing virtually undriveable on greenlanes, which it had to do a fair bit of when I woz a riter. On the way back from a very wet winter photoshoot in the Lakes I slammed the drivers door in the queue for the Windermere ferry and the glass smashed (the window was wound down). That was a cold drive home.

 

Also the engine had been specced right up but was fed by buggered 1980s EFi components which gradually gave up. Heading home for Christmas on the M25 the fuel pump gave up and I had to get recovered to a garage, where I could then fill the empty LPG tank and run on that. Thankfully it started on gas which was most unusual.

 

It was very fast for a Defender though and on LPG not too crippling to run. I ummed and ahhed about breaking it and putting the engine in my V8 series 2 but then a man came along with a silly offer for the whole thing and away it went, minus wheels, gay winch, roof rack and seats.

[Timewaster]

Mk2 Golf GTi. It looked good but every month something would pack up, so I lost my patience with the bloody thing and replaced it with a battered up Mk4 Escort which never let me down.

This exactly.

 

F reg 16v Golf. Never actually failed to proceed (blow out excepted) but something packed up or fell off or broke almost daily.

 

Replaced it with an MI16 rather than a mk4 Messcort.

[saucedoctor]

This fucker. What a shitbox. Broke down for the first time when it was 3 days old, and continued in that vein until I got shot of it. I got so sick of fixing it that I was really tempted to park it outside Belfast High Court and let the Army blow it to pieces.

 

 

Replaced by a Merc 190E which was 2 years older.

 

 

[Negative Creep]

This exactly.

 

F reg 16v Golf. Never actually failed to proceed (blow out excepted) but something packed up or fell off or broke almost daily.

 

Replaced it with an MI16 rather than a mk4 Messcort.

 

 

And another. My mk.2 GTi was the only car I was genuinely hoping would get nicked. Not that they'd have gotten very far.

[sierraman]

A micra 1.0 Shape. It didn't seem that bad until I took it on the M62 on the raised section that goes over the Ouse. It was frighteningly short of power, my foot being welded to the floor just to keep it at 60. Then the sills that had been carefully welded on caved in on the jack it was time to say goodbye.

[HH-R]

My current Panda, total heap of shit.

 

Been driving nearly 10 years with no breakdowns until I bought this damn thing, it can't get through a month without buggering up. At least I know it's the shite wiring to the camshaft sensor that prevents it from starting after going to loads of different garages, replacing sensors and costing money.

 

It's going to be a barrel of laughs over the winter because the interior fan only works at full tilt /100 decibels, and the heater can't be used otherwise the temp gauge starts dropping. The suspension is forever clonking or needing replacement, though I think that is a combination of lazy garages can't be arsed to look at it properly and the council's aim of having speed humps on every single road in the county.

 

I wish it would just put a rod through the block or something and be done with it. It nearly died when the oil filter burst at 60 MPH, maybe that would have been a blessing in disguise.

[DS20]

A 1996 Vauxhall Corsa 1.4 Hi-Torq. Hateful seats, lumpy handling, woeful performance and fuel economy that never ONCE bettered 35mpg. It went to my sister, who loved it, and I bought a 1994 Rover 820, which was better in every single way, including fuel economy. I loved that Rover.

[CortinaDave]

 

A cool looking little car that went like a rocket, but managed to unleash a spectacular amount of woe in the ten days I owned it.

 

Caused a rammy on here 

 

Alternator was a pig to replace and the mechanic managed to lacerate his hand doing the job, then the headlights died simultaneously on a pitch black country road late at night

 

decided just to pass it on - it was a sound enough car overall but I took a sickener to it after the aggro

 

Then the slight blow from the exhaust manifold turned into exhaust manifold snapped in half ten minutes before someone was coming to view it.

 

windscreen developed a sudden large crack overnight.

 

Bear in mind I had it just over a week - I was quite happy to wave it off to the new owner, who told me he planned to use it daily, yet its never been taxed since. I wonder what it sprung on him.

 

Despite that... Im glad ive owned an alfa. I'd have another,

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Mk4 Renault espace

Mine was a Grand and 2.2DCi, my alternator cost €1300 because I was in Provence,although I did discover big Renault dealerships in France have/had a separate service reception for Vel Satis, Avantime and Espace owners with comfy chairs and free coffee, probably because they were likely to spend a lot of time there.

You don't mention random handbrake fun, I kept the emergency release thing in the door pocket and even my wife could use it to release the handbrake .

Mine ran its ends at about 60,000 miles and 3 1/2 years old.

On the odd occasions it was running ok,it was the best way yet devised to move a family across Europe, with the cruise set at 100mph and a range of 800 miles, it meant I could do Calais to Gibralter in less than 20 hours with only one stop for fuel.

Sometimes my wife will see one and say'Why don't we get another one of those?' Funny how they remember every thing you do wrong for the last 30 years but forget how disastrous a car was

[Pete-M]

Merc 190E auto.

 

The only part of that car that didn't fail regularly was the seats - which weren't that comfy in the first place.

 

In the few months I had it almost everything went wrong. Water pump, handbrake, wiper motor, window switches, heater motor, alternator, exhaust manifold + back box, suspension bushes, diff went noisy and the gearbox was in the early stages of failing (although I've never driven a sweet shifting 190E auto). The steering was almost Vauxhall bad and the whole car was a disappointment. Final straw was when the head gasket popped.

 

I sold the interior on eBay on the condition that whoever bought the trim took the whole car.

[dugong]

Work's MG6. 

Except I can't get rid of it. 

[They_all_do_that_sir]

Mine was a Grand and 2.2DCi, my alternator cost €1300 because I was in Provence,although I did discover big Renault dealerships in France have/had a separate service reception for Vel Satis, Avantime and Espace owners with comfy chairs and free coffee, probably because they were likely to spend a lot of time there.

You don't mention random handbrake fun, I kept the emergency release thing in the door pocket and even my wife could use it to release the handbrake .

Mine ran its ends at about 60,000 miles and 3 1/2 years old.

On the odd occasions it was running ok,it was the best way yet devised to move a family across Europe, with the cruise set at 100mph and a range of 800 miles, it meant I could do Calais to Gibralter in less than 20 hours with only one stop for fuel.

Sometimes my wife will see one and say'Why don't we get another one of those?' Funny how they remember every thing you do wrong for the last 30 years but forget how disastrous a car was

 

The handbrake was one of the few things that worked consistently the whole time we had it.

 

It really hurt me that one because I thought it looked fantastic, the seats were comfy, and like you say it should have been the ultimate family wagon.

 

GREAT idea. Poor execution.

 

What I really want is a Mk4 Espace engineered by Volvo. That would be brilliant.

[phil_lihp]

As always comes up in these threads, only a 2005 Peugeot 307 1.6HDi SW.  Need I say more?

 

What on earth I was thinking when I traded my CR-V for this, I'll never know.  When they invent time travel, I will go back in time and administer a hard slap to the back of my younger self's head when he first spots it on Autotrader and thinks it might be a good idea.

 

In 6 months it suffered from noisy, ineffective brakes, a snapped spring coil, failed brake light switch, failed fuel filler sensor and a leaking aircon radiator plus a badly juddering DMF and flaking paint.  The final straw was a failed DPF system which no-one was quite sure how to fix - all this on a 4 year old, 1 owner from new car.  Lost £2000 trading it in for an Astra Coupe and never looked back.  The garage that took it in spent £1000 fixing the DPF system, sold it and a month later it went wrong again, costing them a further £1000.  Apparently the aircon also failed again and landed another big bill for the lucky new owner.  

[I_am_Diesel]

A 2006 Vauxhall Astra 1.3 cdti. The engine was never right and it couldn't pull the cock off a chocolate mouse. The problems always seemed to centre around the EGR valve but it was always embarrassing having the lift the bonnet and disconnect the MAP sensor to get it to start on hot days. Did I learn? Did I bollocks, now I've got an Astra 1.7 dti van with a dicky crank position sensor.